Samus' Detailed Matchup Guide ; #5 Snake

[XZA143]

<.<

I wouldnt do PT just yet.

I mean, if i was to say it... 6.5 3.5 Vs Char, Samus.
6.5 3.5 Squt, PT

5.5 4.5 , Ivy, Samus. (Maybe higher, but i have problems with Ivys for some reason)

ITS XZ

We need to play

Nao.

Its been so long...

Edit - I lied. Gotta lay down, Throwing up again.

Personally I'd like to hear the discussion between Samus and PT. Also curious about Zelda and Fox as well.

Haven't played since before Christmas. I'm a shell of my former self. I'll try to get back into it before I become...preoccupied.

 

[Ravin]

A SHELL

That is not acceptable.

I shouldnt be talking.

Ive only been working... But i have been going to Denver to play Lovo and a few others in melee/brawl games to attune for my sins of not playing very much. x.x

 

[The Milk Monster]

Lets do Zelda.
Then PT somewhere down the road, haha.
I get a whole lot of PT practice.

 

[Royta]

Write up should be up sunday =)

Zelda until then! I'll post my 50 cent somewhere later today

 

[Cherry64]

Hmm Zelda eh, I'd say it's even if not in our favor, mainly for comboing abilities as her air dodgeness is kinda crappy, and her air attackes take longer than samus's to start up and we have z air. Don't fire anything at her unless the trajectory is high enough for it to miss you if she happens to reflect it back at you. I'd go 55:45 Samus

 

[Royta]

I've played a Zelda main once, mainly just charge cannon camp so they have to approach.

Yeah camp with Charge Cannon..
If they try to camp with their ForwardB, your cannon will hit them in their " im shooting " animation while you will take 0 damage from their ForwardB. This will force an approach which you can destroyd with Zair.

Homing missiles are nice to force a reflector which you can again Zair or Dair. Note that you can also spike her upB the first few frames;p

Counterpicks.. i'd go for Pkmn Stadium Melee since the double edge really screws her recovery, so does FD.

Note that this Zelda matchup is pure zelda, note counting in the fact that she can transform into sheik and **** your ***;p

@ ravin, the time diffirence is huge for us I think yeah xD so nvm the match

 

[Ravin]

Its not to bad, I can work something out. I dont sleep much anyway :D

And... Ill pick Zelda to show you how very wrong you are about the Matchup. Its easily 45:55 Zelda. Samus's Lack to land or approch a good Zelda to kill her is a probelm. Her recovery is the only issue which can be fixed because Samus cant kill very well veritically. All her kill moves send Zelda NE, or NW or up. Meaning, Zelda doesnt need the ledge to recover. Zelda also has a very good SDI and DI moreso then other characters. Her UPB can be used as a great mindgame. Her up smash, reflector, and Dins fire and be applied in virtually any situation. As well as Samus's floatiness leaves Samus dangeriously available to her Lightening/Critical kicks. With this known , Your best bet is to camp and hope the Zelda player doesnt know how to fight a Samus.

She has a far great comboing ability on Samus due to her heaviness and float, this poses a problem as a 0% she can get you to 50% without you getting away with DI, Two up smashes to Uair and possibly you might dodge the Uair, but shes going to follow after you. An aggressive Zelda is very hard to fight against.

Edit - Zelda is my sub right below my main Samus... When its not a "Samus" day. I pick up Zelda for the day. I used to main Zelda but dropped her for Samus back about two months after brawl came out. In Melee i subbed Samus, but mained M3W7W0

 

[-Crews-]

ehh, ya im going to agree with 7-3. he can pretty much get past every spam u have including zair *ducks*. given his light weight u can kill him eariler but its still not easy. plus, he can kill u with usmash at like 103%. not to mention that a spike, at least for me, is just about impossible against g&w. i also think that if your used to this matchup then it becomes 6-4. but thats just imo.

 

[The Milk Monster]

Alright now I'm home, so here's my little 2 and a half cents.

Zelda definitely has a good camp game, not quite ours, but still good.

Din's Fire has some godly range, a quick one can hinder our approach.

A well placed retreating zair can avoid this problem.

If we try to be too offensive, she'll give us a retreating fair or bair to the face, that definitely hurts.
Just as Ravin said, it's hard to get an approach in, likewise, it's hard to land a kill, Zelda is a brick wall when it comes to that stuff against Samus.

That being said, knock her at a weird enough angle to where she can't recover, or cp a stage that she can't recover very well on.(Samus is okay on Final D, it really just depends on the character, it's not too bad against Zelda, but it's not too great either, I'd say go BF or, one of my favorites, the Mansion.

Mansion, you can bounce her into your smashes with tilts and aerials so well, it's beautiful.
And it's hard to kill you as long as you have that small ceiling to tech off.

Also I agree CPing PS1 is a good choice, due to the ledge.

Be careful firing your projectiles, definitely rely on missile stun to power shot combo if you want to land a fully charged b, you'd rather not take it back at you.

Try not to stay above her by any means, spiking should be a last resort at high percents.
If she gets you with her up air, you might as well not even DI, you're pretty gone.

Regardless of these downfalls, Samus does have some stuff going for her, Zelda is fairly lightish, so a well timed power shot, zair chasing off the edge, a spike if you're confident, should rid you of this princess. Abuse her sub par recovery, considering how weird it is to aim, they will have a hard time recovering if you send them in the right direction(Or wrong in their case.)
It is a little bit harder to juggle her due to her floatiness but you can still come back and win.

I'd say this match up is 6-4 Zelda at maximum, but my honest opinion is 55:45 Zelda.
I'd do Sheik too but I'll save that for another match up.

 

[ImALemon]

im 90% sure that a well timed sex kick(Nair) outprioritizes a din's fire. im not sure if u take damage or not tho, if not ignore this.(i dont have a wii to test this right now)

 

[Ravin]

Just sidestep dins fire, not like the timing is all that hard.

Why did Noob say he?

CP PS1. Most Def, or get good with your Samus on JJ.

 

[n00b]

Why did Noob say he?

wat


i havent even posted in this thread

 

[The Milk Monster]

Just sidestep dins fire, not like the timing is all that hard.

Why did Noob say he?

CP PS1. Most Def, or get good with your Samus on JJ.

I was gonna say Japes but PS1 is the best choice.

 

[Ravin]

-facepalm-

You just did.

and crews, donno why i said Noob.

Maybe i thought..Zelda is a girl..what a noob.

Something along those lines.

-Shakes fist-

/10failpoints

 

[Royta]

@ Ravin, if you have MSN, add me (mine is on my contact page / next to my avatar or something;p)

I played another Zelda main yesterday and I admit, the match isn't hard but it isn't easy. It's 'meh'.
Really depends on the stage.

I found out that, once you get the timing down, spiking her is fairly easy. You have to learn to predict.
Also I never knew that Dins fire could be so **** annoying, but when I started 'out camping' her it worked nicely.

I also posted a topic on the zelda boards with the link to this topic. So some zelda mains might come over here to give us some more facts.

@ Lemon, Nair killing dins fire? that would be awesome I got to try that!

 

[Cherry64]

@ Ravin, if you have MSN, add me (mine is on my contact page / next to my avatar or something;p)

I played another Zelda main yesterday and I admit, the match isn't hard but it isn't easy. It's 'meh'.
Really depends on the stage.

I found out that, once you get the timing down, spiking her is fairly easy. You have to learn to predict.
Also I never knew that Dins fire could be so **** annoying, but when I started 'out camping' her it worked nicely.

I also posted a topic on the zelda boards with the link to this topic. So some zelda mains might come over here to give us some more facts.

@ Lemon, Nair killing dins fire? that would be awesome I got to try that!

Yeah I see the light, it isn't easy, it's not streniously hard, but it sure as h*ll ain't easy I'd got 60:40 zelda, it really is super annoying to kill her.

 

[tha_carter]

To structure this 'guide' a little more, there are some general points that need to be determined.

1. On average what percentage will it take for samus to kill vs. an average of the % she will take to die? (no gimp)

2. Is the opponent able to limit samus' options and take her out of her comfort zone?

3. What miscellaneous tools does the character or Samus have that can be used? (Jab lock, grab release, infinite)

4. What are the likeliness of the character or Samus getting gimped?

5. What stages are good/bad?

These are the general points that should be looked at in this thread, not telling how YOUR specific Samus did against THAT specific person. Name dropping is unneeded. Matchup experience isnt as needed as general character knowledge.

Other than that a general synopsis of what each ratio MEANS is also needed in the original post. So nobody is thinking 55:45 means neutral while another believes it means slight advantage.

 

[Kataefi]

Ooo! Samus! I used to HATE fighting her! But I think I've slowly realised how to fight Samus the more experience I've had against her and it does appear to be quite a tense fight!

Both can outcamp each other - it's weird. To me, it feels like there's a rhythm to Samus' camp game and Zelda can only outcamp if she times din's carefully to hit both Samus just as she's starting to fire missiles. Din's will almost certainly be angled to hit the ground so that if the worst case scenario arrives, it at least has the opportunity to trade hits with you, doing a potential 16% damage fully charged. =O The only projectiles I would reflect are the larger missiles that travel in a straight line and the charge shot if I see it coming. Sometimes this can catch her offguard xD The larger missiles are reflected at almost twice the speed.

Samus' Zair is an absolute ***** to fight against - Zelda's very tall so is susceptible to it a lot more than other characters.

On the other hand - Zelda has a few tricks. Samus is tall enough to be hit with Bair and Fair OoS which makes for a devastating punishment. You won't be living comfortably if you do something remotely laggy on her shield. Then again it takes a fair bit of precision on Zelda's part to do this right but you can count on a good player to get it down and out in no time.

Samus is floaty - this makes her easier to to catch in Uair or a potential LK. Try to avoid using bombs when coming down as it slows down your momentum even further, and gives her ample time to hit with Uair which will almost definitely kill you as you die vertically a lot easier than horizontally. I've also come to the realisation that because Samus is incredibly floaty, she actually gets popped up from Dtilt at around the 85%+ mark, which is always handy, as Dtilt > Utilt is practically a true combo that can kill Samus moderately early. I would only ever do this on Samus at around 115% onwards because it has awkward DI - it'll either send you very vertically or NW/NE, and the latter would mean you can survive much later, so expect that move to come out as the kill later on.

In proportion to their weights and killpower, if Zelda does it remotely right, she can kill Samus a lot earlier than vice versa. Fair, Bair, Uair, Dair, Ftilt, Utilt, FSmash, USmash are all killing moves, and the majority can be comboed into via her Dtilt when it pops you up.

I'm not too if she can Dair your up b. It's possible, but I havn't tested =( Also Fw is slow so you could gimp us with a spike. But against Samus I almost always DI away and FW immediately to avoid the spike. Samus' air speed is relatively slow, so Zelda should be able to teleport in time to avoid a spike, though of course it's always possible.

I've written a lot :/ Hope this helps... this matchup doesn't often happen! I would most likely put this as Zelda's advantage (possibly 60:40) ^^

 

[The Milk Monster]

To structure this 'guide' a little more, there are some general points that need to be determined.

1. On average what percentage will it take for samus to kill vs. an average of the % she will take to die? (no gimp)

2. Is the opponent able to limit samus' options and take her out of her comfort zone?

3. What miscellaneous tools does the character or Samus have that can be used? (Jab lock, grab release, infinite)

4. What are the likeliness of the character or Samus getting gimped?

5. What stages are good/bad?

These are the general points that should be looked at in this thread, not telling how YOUR specific Samus did against THAT specific person. Name dropping is unneeded. Matchup experience isnt as needed as general character knowledge.

Other than that a general synopsis of what each ratio MEANS is also needed in the original post. So nobody is thinking 55:45 means neutral while another believes it means slight advantage.

We're not really saying how our Samus did against a specific person, we're discussing the strong points and disadvantages Samus has against other characters, and what stages are good to CP against them. Percent killings usually only need to be mentioned if something kills at an obscenely low or high percent.

I've written a lot :/ Hope this helps... this matchup doesn't often happen! I would most likely put this as Zelda's advantage (possibly 60:40) ^^

60:40 Zelda highest. I would say it's fairly close to even, because though Zelda can shut down some of Samus's stuff, Samus can still go toe to toe with her camping and projectile spam.

 

[Ravin]

Zelda isnt going to rely on her camping game. Dins fire is meant for mindgames or chasers to force your opponent to move. Typically at lower percents, Dtilt, Fsmash, running A, running A, dins fire. higher percents anything to dins fire when they are knocked back. Or when attempting to KO them when you knock them back far enough or air chasers.

60:40 sounds about right.

 

[The Milk Monster]

Zelda isnt going to rely on her camping game. Dins fire is meant for mindgames or chasers to force your opponent to move. Typically at lower percents, Dtilt, Fsmash, running A, running A, dins fire. higher percents anything to dins fire when they are knocked back. Or when attempting to KO them when you knock them back far enough or air chasers.

60:40 sounds about right.

Like Ravin said, a Zelda won't rely on her camping game, especially against a character like Samus.
60:40 is good.

 

[GodAtHand]

I have very little Samus experience under my belt... but I just thought I would throw in my opinion just because I feel like it.

As a Zelda main what I fear about Samus is her Zair and her Dair. Zair can be ridiculous and the only really reliable way I found to get out of it at certain percents is to switch to Sheik... It stops the hit and allows you to recover if you aren't too far away. Dair is difficult to get by with Zelda's recovery, but the chances of Zelda recovering in a way that you can hit her is not as high as you think, yes Zelda's recovery is odd, but what are the chances that a Zelda main won't know what they are doing?

I don't think either character can really camp the other... Din's destroys missiles and Zelda can reflect the charge shot, but if Zelda is actually trying to camp instead of protecting herself Samus can overwhelm her.

Zelda will almost certainly kill Samus before Samus will kill her. She has tons of kill moves and I think Samus has like... 4 maybe?

I really don't know anything else... IMO its probably 50-50. But take my advice with a grain of salt because I am really almost without Samus experience.

If any Samus are in MA I would practice the matchup with you, I won't go online though because lag = sad Zelda.

 

[-Crews-]

-facepalm-

You just did.

and crews, donno why i said Noob.

Maybe i thought..Zelda is a girl..what a noob.

Something along those lines.

-Shakes fist-

/10failpoints

what??????

 

[Ravin]

ehh, ya im going to agree with 7-3. he can pretty much get past every spam u have including zair *ducks*. given his light weight u can kill him eariler but its still not easy. plus, he can kill u with usmash at like 103%. not to mention that a spike, at least for me, is just about impossible against g&w. i also think that if your used to this matchup then it becomes 6-4. but thats just imo.

^^^

This confused me. You were like, behind on the discussion. I thought you meant Zelda, at like, 3 in the morning.

/still10failpointsonme

 

[-Crews-]

^^^

This confused me. You were like, behind on the discussion. I thought you meant Zelda, at like, 3 in the morning.

/still10failpointsonme

o ok, i c. Ya i was just a little bit behind

 

[The Milk Monster]

Lets see some more Zelda's come in here and see some input.

 

[Royta]

I am curious, can you escape Zelda's up and forward smash? They have this sucktion effect like Rob's downsmash and pikachu's downsmash, atleast to me;p
Is it possible to get out? Samus IS floaty, this might help us alot.

ALso I agree with God(athand) that we won't be killing her anytime soon, dtilt kills around 120~130 so that's no good.. Our best bet is to go for Nair/Dair/ Zair gimps, and pray for stages that screw her recovery.
What stages are best for this? Pkmn stadium melee? Lylat?

 

[Cherry64]

I am curious, can you escape Zelda's up and forward smash? They have this sucktion effect like Rob's downsmash and pikachu's downsmash, atleast to me;p
Is it possible to get out? Samus IS floaty, this might help us alot.

ALso I agree with God(athand) that we won't be killing her anytime soon, dtilt kills around 120~130 so that's no good.. Our best bet is to go for Nair/Dair/ Zair gimps, and pray for stages that screw her recovery.
What stages are best for this? Pkmn stadium melee? Lylat?

Lylat cruise, Zelda travels in her up b in a line I do believe, so basically look at Fox and falco and wolf trying to recover on that stage, it will most undoubtedly move and ironically they get gimped by the level more than other players.

 

[GodAtHand]

About escaping Zelda's Upsmash, Samus is floaty enough to escape I believe, but the way to escape is downward and not upward so she will just get sucked back in again... If she were short she would be o.k. though.

 

[Kataefi]

Actually... Lylat is like a double-edged sword for her. She'll try and camp on the downwards slant because that connects both SH bair and SH fair very easily.

But recovery wise she'll be force to recover on the stage - but she can land both on the platform or on the legde, so you'll need to predict her landing point. She still might even go for the ledge.

 

[Hive]

lylat i think would be a mediocre counter against zelda- the platforms are good, but the moving ledges hamper samus' ledge game somewhat and she can't do as much stuff coming from underneath the ledges...
also the tilts of the ship allow zelda to be able to dodge samus' zairs and missiles well, while her own projectiles aren't really limited by the curve at all....
it would probably mess with her recovery though...
also avoid anywhere with low ceilings... zelda has good ko options there against samus...
but i still think battlefield would be your best bet... and also pokemon stadium 1, delfino, and halberd might be good as well...

i think zelda actually has the advantage in this match (maybe 60-40/65-35?)... she is reasonably well at hitting samus off stage with din's fire, even the threat of it makes it so samus can't bomb jump bc of the vulnerability.
she really won't be gimped that much bc of her recovery, she has good close range options and grabs,
and her usmash and utilt are both very good at popping samus up and exposing her to din's fire and her uair (which will ko you so early!)... plus her neutral b reflects missiles and charge shots... not that spamming isn't effective... i just think she has an advantage here...

 

[DelxDoom]

Zelda is one of Samus's easier matchups imo.

Like gimpable, and most of Zelda's moves are pretty easily beaten by zair.

You just need to have good Smash DI to get out of usmash and fsmash.

Space with ftilt and dsmashes. In the air, you can zair/homing missile (watch for reflection) to your hearts content. Also watch for nair if too close.


Homing missiles/zairs/broiler work perfectly fine.

don't die.

lulz.

 

[Royta]

@ God, you escape the upsmash by DI'ing down? Now there's something I wouldn't have figured out myself xD thanks for the information I'll try it out to see if it's possible for Samus.

@ Kafaefi, firstoff of Street Fighter ftw! Secondly I agree with you about Lylat, I don't think it's going to be a solid counterpick against her.. ;/
What moves do Zelda users mostly kill with, she has a number of kill moves but which do you prefer?

Also how do you deal with campers, CJ, the Zelda user I faced, decided to eventually just go close combat on me and get *****. Reflector only works nicely on our charge shot, but we probably will save that for when you are using Din's Fire (fully charged shot outspeeds your ->B, pretty much giving us a free hit).

@ Carter, thanks for the feedback, you have some good points about this topic and i'll try to add that information to the writeup's and such ^^

 

[Villi]

Fighting Samus, I don't rely heavily on Din's Fire because I know I won't win the camping game. Occasionally, it's useful to try and explode a missile and hit Samus during her cooldown like Kata said, but that has to do more with reading the Samus than anything. I'll occasionally use it for lazy ledge pressure when I just don't feel like chasing Samus off the stage/getting spiked. xD

By far, the hardest thing to deal with are properly spaced Zairs and ftilt. At close range, zairs are punishable a number of ways; but at sweet spot range, they're extremely difficult to approach through. Her missiles and what not can be shielded, power shielded, air dodged, neutral B'd, but Zelda's quick, close range options are limited to the range of her dsmash, dash attack and up smash. The best Zelda can attempt to do is force Samus into positions where Zair isn't effective.

If Zelda has a stock lead, you're probably looking at a kill close to 200% as I don't see d-tilt or fsmash making it through Zelda's defense. Zelda can be just as difficult for Samus to approach as Samus is for Zelda to approach. Her options for gaining control of a match are much more numerous than when she's forced to approach, like when they're tied stocks and Samus' camp game will surely rack more damage than Zelda can to Samus.

Zelda's lightning kicks will kill under 100% from the center of FD. As Samus likes to hang out near the edges, she'll probably die sooner. Dsmash kills near edges and sets up for comfortable edge guarding situations. Up airs could work nicely if she sees an opportunity to bait Samus' dair. Up smash and fsmash are too reliable as damage racking tools to save against Samus, but dtilt to up tilt set up will kill at reasonable percents. Fresh, however, the difference between no DI and good DI against up smash's trajectory is pretty small -- 130-140 is probably a safe estimate.

While Zelda's approach is below average at best, the rewards for landing a hit usually pay off fairly well either in opportunities to rack up damage or in KO-ability. I'd say the key to winning a match as Zelda is dependant on how quickly Zelda can catch Samus. The first stock will probably decide the match.

 

[Kataefi]

God I can't wait until street fighter 4 comes out! I'm gonna have to put brawl aside for a bit lol =D

But yeah! I find her Zair quite tricky too! But... I think the only reason Zelda could possibly have the advantage is because of the kill difference. The fact that Samus is tall and floaty means she's slightly easier to connect Zelda's aerials on. If you use aerial bombs, that's a free whatever, and it will normally kill. The only amazing tools in this matchup are your zair and camp game, but even then, once Zelda closes in, she has so much stuff that can ruin your flow and give her added momentum. I only need to get Samus in the air to put her at a risk, and USmash being so quick does that exactly for me.

And even then, it's not hard building damage because we've also newly discovered that a Dtilt > anything literally works at later percents because of the hitstun, granted it may not work for longer framed moves, but a dtilt > dsmash as a true combo post 50%+ whether you trip or not builds damage quite fast for a 5 framed attack, and the kill ratio between the two characters isn't even considering Zelda has opportunities to kill far far earlier than Samus does to her.

I also think it's possible for Zelda to do a good comeback if she's a stock down on Samus if she has good DI and hangs in there until very late percents. It would only take one well timed aerial to level things out, whereas if Zelda had the stock lead things would be siginificantly harder as Samus would a) struggle to kill her off b) lose out on keeping Zelda at equal/greater percents on the next stock (because thats what she essentially is going to need to survive in the matchup).

But aside from that... I still say Samus is a tricky fighter! I'm well surprised not many people pick her up!

 

[Royta]

@ Villi, your avatar is just...too much awesome xD
Also I liked your post, good information! Samus indeed has a good killing issue, and if Zelda gets a stock lead then it's pretty much over unless Samus makes a huge comeback. We're not going to kill you that fast unless a dtilt or fsmash pops in around the ~130%.

@Kataefi, SF4 ftw! You getting it for the Ps3 or Xbox? If you're getting it for the Ps3 then add me , Royta15 is my PSN-tag! =)
Now back on topic!

You are right that Samus is a tricky fighter, but she is also tricky to use. Also she has killing issues as Villi stated. Unless you get her out of her sweetspot you are looking at a nice Zair to the face every 5 seconds.
You have to get in close to Samus yeah, once you get there (or get her above you) it's pretty hard for her to get back into the game.

Also what direction should we DI for your forward smash, I've seen players 'sneak' out of it?

 

[Ravin]

Depends on where your caught. Your stuck in close at low percents, but like at 60ish or more, if your close, SDI to the direction of her body, if far away, SDI away.

 

[The Milk Monster]

Depends on where your caught. Your stuck in close at low percents, but like at 60ish or more, if your close, SDI to the direction of her body, if far away, SDI away.

I didn't know you could DI out of her Fsmash.
Good to know if I ever fight any good Zelda's.

 

[Ravin]

Good Zelda will tilt. XD, but most of the time your chances of DIing are slim. :

Dtilt to Utilt @ 100ish percent = Dead Samus

 

[LanceStern]

Since the dtilt->dsmash attack of Zelda has great knockback but sends you so LOW off the stae, is it possible for Samus to tether grab and cancel an horizontal momentum she has that would KO her? Or is she stunned?