Samus' Frame Data [Deleted]

[KuroganeHammer]

Link to Samus' Complete Frame Data: http://kuroganehammer.com/Smash4/Samus​

 

[DungeonMaster]

Very nice! Many thanks for compiling it all, very useful. The FAF is great, that's what I've been looking for some time. Understanding exactly what is punishable by up-tilt vs. other options is really great, looking forward to you filling out the entire cast.
Not sure I agree with your bars and style listing, but that's personal preference.

Really want to see the special moves frame data.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

Not sure I agree with your bars and style listing, but that's personal preference.

What would you have them as then?

 

[DungeonMaster]

I see Samus as middle of the road on everything except weight and difficulty, definitely a very difficult character to master.
Since you're asking my opinion I would reduce her recovery ranking to average, bump the offence and speed to the same level as defence, boost the difficulty to the top. Excels at nothing raw-stats wise. Like the speed variable, running, walking are all about average, startup can be quite quick, fastest f-smash, fast up-air, etc.. and landing lag is not terrible either, but flipside is cooldown can be insane. Works out to about average. I could be readily convinced it's all a bit below average.
She's a heavyweight combo/tech-chase character, it's become increasingly clear over the months that was the design intent, that's her niche. She can't really keep anyone away (maybe only 2 or 3 characters in the game) and she can't turtle against most actual projectile users since her homing missile is so terrible. If you just try and trade single hits you're likely going to die. Mid-range specialist is another term I would use, z-air / f-tilt range is where she works best.

Really great work again, looking at the stats. Is jump-squat really 6 frames? That means SH-AD has a 9 frame lead time to it. That feels a bit too long, from experience. 8 frames landing lag from z-air also feels a bit too short. 17 frames startup and 66 frames of vulnerability out of a pivot grab. NICE Sakurai. NICE.

 

[Afro Smash]

I wouldn't call her recovery average, Invincible Up B, Wall Jump, bomb stalling and tether give her a ton of options for recovery. It's not amazing but pretty good.

I'd say her difficulty should be way up there, she has a ton of mix ups and things to learn, and she is far deeper than Shulk even with all his Monado Arts, and he has a max difficulty rating

And finally her style is mix up heavy, she constantly goes between offense and defense to never let the enemy get comfortable, she has great combos but also one of the strongest projectiles in the game. If you can think of a word to describe 'mix up heavy' then that should be her style imo

But thanks for the info, and your site is very aesthetically pleasing :]

 

[DungeonMaster]

I could agree with that @ Afro Smash in terms of options, but overall if you look at just raw distance from horizontal to vertical it's not as good as you might guess. What we really see in recovery is the weight and floatiness, she can live incredibly long but it's not raw recovery that's giving that edge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3QXNGFyzuQ #37 horizontal
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rW1wFV4WTxE #32 vertical
Weighing it all, good options, below average actual distance, I feel it's average.

Mix up heavy is also appropriate IMO.

 

[Afro Smash]

Also f smash or up angled f smash data is wrong

 

[Shadó Chimera / シャドーキメラ]

Yeah for Samus' style I'd say something like footsies/mix-up seems appropriate.

Also think recovery is fine where it is. You don't need a lot of distance anyway.

 

[-_ellipsis_-]

I agree with dungeonmaster that a better term for Samus would be a combo/tech chaser. She doesn't really have the ability to turtle, nor does she do well with keep away (her run speed is below average, her roll is punishable, and her fall speed is slow). I also bring in the fact that her frame data is so varied across the board. She has a frame 5 upair, a frame 6 dtilt, a frame 2 CS release during charge (along with all her charge canceling options), a fast zair, fsmash, etc. Mid frame speed attacks like ftilt, fair, bair, nair, and slower startup attacks like uptilt and dair (excellent mixups for conditioning spot dodgers, rollers or air dodgers after using all your fast attacks). Generally people who try to turtle or play keep away with Samus end up in the blast zone.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

I think out of all the suggestions here a change to mid-range is probably the best one.

I've seen no thoroughly good arguments why her offense or defense should be higher, she has a bunch of incredibly terrible qualities that just make her AWFUL at doing anything, including:

• Very below average frame data, a couple of fast moves here and there but all of them have a million years of lag
• No approach options
• Below average damage output
• A grand total of 3 KO moves which are all very difficult to land despite their speed because of their unfortunate hitbox placement/being telegraphed
  
• No combobreaker
• Trash tier roll
  
• Floaty, tall and heavy making her combo fodder for every top tier
  
• Easily the worst grab in the game (It's unusable, a shame really because she gets quite a bit from grabs)

This characters only saving grace is that she's kind of heavy and has a pretty good recovery for the most part. I thought Zelda was the worst character in the game until I did Samus' data last night and I was thoroughly convinced that it's actually Samus. They're both really ****ing bad though lol

Also f smash or up angled f smash data is wrong

I fixed this, thanks.

 

[Afro Smash]

Actually sir I think you'll find Windmill of Fury is the best approach in the game, the top tiers only dream of having such a tool. Also I don't mind about offense and defense, but if Shulk is max difficulty Samus is definitely max difficulty too

 

[DungeonMaster]

You will find lots of people who will agree with your assessment @ KuroganeHammer , a handful who won't, and everyone is hoping for a benevolent patch.
The two points I'll argue against is that up-air is definitely a combo-breaker, watch any of my videos for proof, and Samus does not actually get comboed easily because of the floaty mechanic (easy to land strings against, hard to true combo, player actually has control).

I'm looking at your data in more detail and trying to understand a few things.

Right now you have say Fox's up-smash vs. Samus' f-smash.
Frame 11 last hit of fox's up-smash, frame 11 last of Samus' f-smash.
56 for FAF on Fox, 50 for FAF on Samus. This should mean fox-upsmash is more punishable than Samus F-smash, 56 - 11 = 45 vs. 50 - 11 = 39.
Why do I never feel this is the case in game? Or am I missing something in interpretation of FAF = first actionable frame?

I'm really looking forward to dissecting the data to figure out what is in fact shield-grab possible and what isn't. I know some moves have gotten me punished in the past for attempting a shield grab and I curious if it's built into the game or just my reaction time is crap.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

You will find lots of people who will agree with your assessment @ KuroganeHammer , a handful who won't, and everyone is hoping for a benevolent patch.
The two points I'll argue against is that up-air is definitely a combo-breaker, watch any of my videos for proof, and Samus does not actually get comboed easily because of the floaty mechanic (easy to land strings against, hard to true combo, player actually has control).

I'm looking at your data in more detail and trying to understand a few things.

Right now you have say Fox's up-smash vs. Samus' f-smash.
Frame 11 last hit of fox's up-smash, frame 11 last of Samus' f-smash.
56 for FAF on Fox, 50 for FAF on Samus. This should mean fox-upsmash is more punishable than Samus F-smash, 56 - 11 = 45 vs. 50 - 11 = 39.
Why do I never feel this is the case in game? Or am I missing something in interpretation of FAF = first actionable frame?

I'm really looking forward to dissecting the data to figure out what is in fact shield-grab possible and what isn't. I know some moves have gotten me punished in the past for attempting a shield grab and I curious if it's built into the game or just my reaction time is crap.

Uair isn't a combobreaker, or rather, it doesn't have the hitbox placement or speed to be an effective one. (Combo breakers are usually nairs with body hitboxes that come out frame 3).

Fox's usmash has more shieldstun, but Samus' fsmash should be safer when spaced properly.

Also I don't mind about offense and defense, but if Shulk is max difficulty Samus is definitely max difficulty too

I can't do this because otherwise everyone would ask me to make their character max difficulty, because for some reason everyone thinks that their character is the hardest character in the game to play.

 

[Afro Smash]

Uair isn't a combobreaker, or rather, it doesn't have the hitbox placement or speed to be an effective one. (Combo breakers are usually nairs with body hitboxes that come out frame 3).

Fox's usmash has more shieldstun, but Samus' fsmash should be safer when spaced properly.


I can't do this because otherwise everyone would ask me to make their character max difficulty, because for some reason everyone thinks that their character is the hardest character in the game to play.

There's might be baseless, Samus' isn't. You said yourself, her poor frame data makes it inherently difficult to be successful with her as you have to be smart and methodical, condition and mix up constantly because most stuff isn't safe. She also has unique and unorthodox moves like Bombs and and 2 hit zair, whose use is both numerous without being immediately obvious. You have to learn to play in a meta where grabs are incredible without having access to a decent one yourself, or the means to deny grabs easily with a poor jab. Her being 'bad' makes her inherently more difficult to play, but on top of that she has a lot of stuff that makes her unique and difficult to master.

Shulk will always be jumping around and swinging his sword, only Jump and Speed monado change the way he goes about this (and shield I guess but that just gets camped) so I can't see how he would get a max difficulty rating and Samus wouldn't

 

[DungeonMaster]

Can we quantify that shieldstun? It shouldn't be that much more, 11 damage min vs 16 damage max at best.
Some moves I know I can't punish on reaction with shield grab, like little mac's dash. Your numbers seem to indicate it's me that's the problem, my reaction time, not inherently built into the game.

And yes it definitely does break combos, it even breaks jabs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kc4TQd5rGes#t=28
or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kc4TQd5rGes#t=260
or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3KGQEYaUt4#t=348
It can break sheik f-airs too.

Also on the debate of complexity, I mean Shulk's monados have complex interaction with basic game physics but right now there are likely a handful of people on Earth who can pull off that last clip's combo in the middle of a match. I'm not tooting my own horn, anyone can do it with practice, it's just *really complicated*. There's a lot of practice and meta that went into that one burst of true combo 50 damage.

 

[-_ellipsis_-]

LOL I just broke through Captain Falcon's jab and Robin's wind jab with upair, and I've even broken Samus's fair with samus's upair before (hitbox placement must have been wonky). You can't tell me upair isn't a combo breaker when I can rely on that thing as a get-out-of-jail-free card.

 

[Xygonn]

Let me start by saying I'm big into frame data and this is a nice readable format (well done).

I would call her style hit-and-run, mind game/condition and punish, or something. I play her pretty defensively though. It just isn't quite as turtled as DHD for example. Mid range, spacing, or some other descriptor might also be good.

Uair isn't laggy with low end lag and landing lag. Upb is a combo breaker and has invulnerable frames. Samus is generally hard to combo at anything above 40% anyway.

Dair has a particularly low threat to autocancel window.

She has at least 4 kill moves and more with rage: upb, fsmash, bair, charge shot. This doesn't include her fairly strong gimp/offstage/trump game or utilt (which isn't way too laggy). It also doesn't include her strong shield break game which kills at about 35%.

Samus has OK approach options. Dash attack, slow run to dtilt at max range, rar bair at max range, maybe crossed up uair. This is somewhat moot because charge shot forces your opponent to approach and Samus has great intercepting options. Fair, uair, zair, cs, even grab sometimes. Upb oos also makes the opponents spacing game pretty rough. Furthermore because she is heavy, unsafe approaches aren't necessarily bad if they condition for a read later.

I know she doesn't have the best tournament results but her frame data is more middling than terrible especially when you consider her rage benefits and shield damage from range.

Charge shot is also a move that dominates her kit. How much do you value a fast moving, high damage, kill, offstage threat, that is frame 16? This move alone changes how your opponent treats you as a threat opening many other options.

EDIT: Not that I should be telling you how to run your site, but if you just want to base the bars off the frame data alone it would make it less subjective and there would be no arguments. I would just replace offense and defense with things like

Ground: "Attack speed", "End lag", "KO potential", "Damage per attack" , "Range"
Aerial: "Attack speed", "End lag", "KO potential", "Damage per attack" , "Range"
Special: "Attack speed", "End lag", "KO potential", "Damage per attack" , "Range"

I know it's way more bars (or maybe three star plots), but you could autogenerate them from the parsed data and wouldn't have to justify them to biased mains

EDIT2: I think you have the bombs a little off. The bomb explosion only lasts a few frames (I think it's 3) for hitting other people and lasts a bit longer for putting samus into bomb jump. The hit detection box lasts 18 (or 15?) frames starting on frame 52 (I think). That's how I understand the data between playing and looking at the dantarion stuff. The 4% hit might also only hit right as the proximity timer starts (but I'm not sure about that anymore). It's hard to tell with all those synchronous timers that don't seem to do anything. Must be coded somewhere else.

EDIT3: Ftilt probably needs to be updated. It looks like it is a weird hybrid of 1.0.4 and a mediocre version of the patch notes. The hip check box is 7 for up or down angle and 6 for neutral. The BKB/KBG was also updated, we tested it against ROB and is definitely 30/100 instead of 15/90 now for all of the non-sour hits. I don't know the priority order for the boxes, but it seems like 5/7/8/6 (neutral) and 6/8/9/7 (angled). Link to patch notes: http://smashboards.com/threads/samus-1-06-patch-notes.399037/

 

[KuroganeHammer]

EDIT2: I think you have the bombs a little off. The bomb explosion only lasts a few frames (I think it's 3) for hitting other people and lasts a bit longer for putting samus into bomb jump. The hit detection box lasts 18 (or 15?) frames starting on frame 52 (I think). That's how I understand the data between playing and looking at the dantarion stuff. The 4% hit might also only hit right as the proximity timer starts (but I'm not sure about that anymore). It's hard to tell with all those synchronous timers that don't seem to do anything. Must be coded somewhere else.

EDIT3: Ftilt probably needs to be updated. It looks like it is a weird hybrid of 1.0.4 and a mediocre version of the patch notes. The hip check box is 7 for up or down angle and 6 for neutral. The BKB/KBG was also updated, we tested it against ROB and is definitely 30/100 instead of 15/90 now for all of the non-sour hits. I don't know the priority order for the boxes, but it seems like 5/7/8/6 (neutral) and 6/8/9/7 (angled). Link to patch notes: http://smashboards.com/threads/samus-1-06-patch-notes.399037/

I put the bomb frames from frame 52-80 because it explodes on frame 81. 1-18 for the explosion definitely looked wrong to me, but that's what it says in the data so I may have to recheck.

The Ftilt was just my guess. 5% hitbox is definitely on top of the stack now though, I would GUESS it's 5/8/7/6 since when testing it on Bowser I didn't find a 6% hitbox at all so it's probably on the bottom of the stack.

Will update when I cbf.

Also will update the style of the image probably to keep away/mid range

 

[DungeonMaster]

@ KuroganeHammer is there any way you could be bugged into making a column for your website of ( last hit frame - FAF)? That would make the vulnerability/punish windows of opportunity trivial to look up.

Also my earlier comment on the jump-squat 6 frames and 3 frames air-dodge, I did a 1/4 speed mode side by side with a few moves that I know the frames for - like d-smash 9 frames and SH->AD looks like it's 5 frames before intangibility. This is really important since Samus play involves quite a bit of SH-AD. Also, if you don't mind checking, the airdodge can be canceled into z-air. There's an interaction where if you airdodge -> z-air you get more landing lag out of the z-air, we all assume it's the air-dodge 22 frames, but no one knows for sure.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

Also my earlier comment on the jump-squat 6 frames and 3 frames air-dodge, I did a 1/4 speed mode side by side with a few moves that I know the frames for - like d-smash 9 frames and SH->AD looks like it's 5 frames before intangibility. This is really important since Samus play involves quite a bit of SH-AD.

Sorry, what are you asking?

Also, if you don't mind checking, the airdodge can be canceled into z-air. There's an interaction where if you airdodge -> z-air you get more landing lag out of the z-air, we all assume it's the air-dodge 22 frames, but no one knows for sure.

I can check this for you but I'm certain that it will just be 8 frames.

 

[Hark17ball]

Can we quantify that shieldstun? It shouldn't be that much more, 11 damage min vs 16 damage max at best.
Some moves I know I can't punish on reaction with shield grab, like little mac's dash. Your numbers seem to indicate it's me that's the problem, my reaction time, not inherently built into the game.

And yes it definitely does break combos, it even breaks jabs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kc4TQd5rGes#t=28
or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kc4TQd5rGes#t=260
or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3KGQEYaUt4#t=348
It can break sheik f-airs too.

Also on the debate of complexity, I mean Shulk's monados have complex interaction with basic game physics but right now there are likely a handful of people on Earth who can pull off that last clip's combo in the middle of a match. I'm not tooting my own horn, anyone can do it with practice, it's just *really complicated*. There's a lot of practice and meta that went into that one burst of true combo 50 damage.

Toot away man, that was sick. FF Uair has indeed saved me from so many things lately it deserves its credit. Its everything to her.

 

[DungeonMaster]

Sorry for the lingo @ KuroganeHammer , I'm asking if your jump-squat FAF is actually, really, 6 frames. Because if it is then a short-hop into air-dodge is a 9 frame startup, which seems incredibly long from my own fiddling and frankly just playing the game. Basically do a short hop, and try to air-dodge as fast as you can. What frame from beginning the jump to start of air-dodge do we get invincibility? Very important for Samus mains.

 

[Xygonn]

@ KuroganeHammer is there any way you could be bugged into making a column for your website of ( last hit frame - FAF)? That would make the vulnerability/punish windows of opportunity trivial to look up.

Also my earlier comment on the jump-squat 6 frames and 3 frames air-dodge, I did a 1/4 speed mode side by side with a few moves that I know the frames for - like d-smash 9 frames and SH->AD looks like it's 5 frames before intangibility. This is really important since Samus play involves quite a bit of SH-AD. Also, if you don't mind checking, the airdodge can be canceled into z-air. There's an interaction where if you airdodge -> z-air you get more landing lag out of the z-air, we all assume it's the air-dodge 22 frames, but no one knows for sure.

I have an "end lag" column in my guide, I am updating it to reflect this frame data, which disagrees by only a few frames with the Rohins IASA frames.

 

[DungeonMaster]

Great yes, thanks Xygonn. But I'm particularly interested in knowing the end lag on my opponents' moves.

 

[Xygonn]

Great yes, thanks Xygonn. But I'm particularly interested in knowing the end lag on my opponents' moves.

Of course. Sorry. Yeah it would be nice to have all the information easily readable for the whole cast.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

Sorry for the lingo @ KuroganeHammer , I'm asking if your jump-squat FAF is actually, really, 6 frames. Because if it is then a short-hop into air-dodge is a 9 frame startup, which seems incredibly long from my own fiddling and frankly just playing the game. Basically do a short hop, and try to air-dodge as fast as you can. What frame from beginning the jump to start of air-dodge do we get invincibility? Very important for Samus mains.

It should be 5 frames, I think I mistyped 6 when I buffered an input wrong.

So it should be 8 frames, not 9.

@ KuroganeHammer is there any way you could be bugged into making a column for your website of ( last hit frame - FAF)? That would make the vulnerability/punish windows of opportunity trivial to look up.

Absolutely not. By the way, it's FAF - First hit frame - 1. This is basic math iirc..

 

[DungeonMaster]

8 really, still seems slow next time I break out my elgato I'll test it too.

Absolutely not. By the way, it's FAF - First hit frame - 1. This is basic math iirc..

Sorry I don't know the lingo. Also is that sarcasm or are you serious? It would be odd to go to all the trouble of finding the end-lag on moves and making the table and not include the punish window of opportunity explicitly.

On a note related to frame data, I'm still after much testing unsure what gives the best combo follow up window between using d-air high on the opponent and getting only 4 frames autocancel or going very deep with the d-air and eating the full aerial landing-lag. If you autocancel, there are many frames floating down to land. It's a pity we don't have frame data for a full SH, fast fall SH.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

8 really, still seems slow next time I break out my elgato I'll test it too.

You say this like I'm making numbers up.

It's a pity we don't have frame data for a full SH, fast fall SH.

Planning on doing this at some stage, but probably after all the characters have basic data up first.

 

[Xygonn]

8 really, still seems slow next time I break out my elgato I'll test it too.



Sorry I don't know the lingo. Also is that sarcasm or are you serious? It would be odd to go to all the trouble of finding the end-lag on moves and making the table and not include the punish window of opportunity explicitly.

On a note related to frame data, I'm still after much testing unsure what gives the best combo follow up window between using d-air high on the opponent and getting only 4 frames autocancel or going very deep with the d-air and eating the full aerial landing-lag. If you autocancel, there are many frames floating down to land. It's a pity we don't have frame data for a full SH, fast fall SH.

They are pretty close:
High d-air to autocancel is better by a little bit. 20 frames of landing lag vs. 13+4 for the strong hit, or 10+4 for the last frame. I feel like since you get more spacing abilty and threat earlier I prefer the high hit of dair. If you frame cancel it, it is probably about the same.

I believe our SH is 43 to 46 frames. SH->Bair->First hit of Uair is 43 frames. SHAD -> Bair is 41 and it seems like we have an OK window on executing that. We can't autocancel SH fair and that is frame 47. I wouldn't be surprised if we landed on 46 and the fair autocancel was intentionally one frame longer.

I don't have anything quite as nice to get the window on the SHFF.

 

[Afro Smash]

About that difficulty tho... It's fine if you don't wanna change it but I'd like to hear why Shulk is rated as more difficult. I posted reasons she should share his rating if its max above in case you missed it

 

[DungeonMaster]

Agreed Xygonn, they are pretty close and it would be cool to get a real breakdown in terms of frames + shieldstun. Last night I watched a stream randomly of MVG players from florida, I don't have time to watch much so this was truly random. It was MVG_ryo (I think?) who beat the living tar out of the other MVG players using a hell of a lot of SH-FF d-air. I'm still not clear as to what is safer on shield (cross up is obviously) but the FF D-air landing deep sure looked good even against one of the best little mac's in the world.
The possibility of frame cancelling is swaying my opinion to FF go deep..

 

[Xygonn]

Agreed Xygonn, they are pretty close and it would be cool to get a real breakdown in terms of frames + shieldstun. Last night I watched a stream randomly of MVG players from florida, I don't have time to watch much so this was truly random. It was MVG_ryo (I think?) who beat the living tar out of the other MVG players using a hell of a lot of SH-FF d-air. I'm still not clear as to what is safer on shield (cross up is obviously) but the FF D-air landing deep sure looked good even against one of the best little mac's in the world.
The possibility of frame cancelling is swaying my opinion to FF go deep..

Well, both attacks will have the same shield stun. So you would subtract that number from the frames until you can act to find your opponent's frame advantage. For SH dair (frame perfect) you would get 4 frames of shield stun on the late hit (best case for this actually plus on cross up it puts you further behind them and pushes them away) taken from the 14 frames, giving them 10 frames advantage. On the crossup they will have 5 frames of shield stun (strong hit) against the 20 frames of landing lag, which puts them at 15 frames. If you do it with the late hit, 16 frames advantage. With the frame cancel, it's going to be basically 15 frames before you can act to follow up the combo vs 17 to combo on the spike. Defensively, the high hit is gonna be better. Offensively the autocancel hit will give you two extra frames (this is all talking about frame perfect stuff though).

Practically speaking, I can't see any reason not to favor a high hit, maybe because the FF hits shorties.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

About that difficulty tho... It's fine if you don't wanna change it but I'd like to hear why Shulk is rated as more difficult. I posted reasons she should share his rating if its max above in case you missed it

Because imo Shulk is a character with far more depth than Samus.

 

[Afro Smash]

Any reasoning behind that?

There's might be baseless, Samus' isn't. You said yourself, her poor frame data makes it inherently difficult to be successful with her as you have to be smart and methodical, condition and mix up constantly because most stuff isn't safe. She also has unique and unorthodox moves like Bombs and and 2 hit zair, whose use is both numerous without being immediately obvious. You have to learn to play in a meta where grabs are incredible without having access to a decent one yourself, or the means to deny grabs easily with a poor jab. Her being 'bad' makes her inherently more difficult to play, but on top of that she has a lot of stuff that makes her unique and difficult to master.

Shulk will always be jumping around and swinging his sword, only Jump and Speed monado change the way he goes about this (and shield I guess but that just gets camped) so I can't see how he would get a max difficulty rating and Samus wouldn't

Any part of this you disagree with? (excluding the Shulk stuff, obviously)

 

[Xygonn]

Any reasoning behind that?



Any part of this you disagree with? (excluding the Shulk stuff, obviously)

I'll step in and take a whack at this:

1) Samus doesn't have 6 different stat types to keep track of (Base, Jump, Speed, Shield, Buster, Smash).
2) While quite unorthodox, Samus doesn't have many character specific high frequency/stringent inputs. I.e. Knowledge is more important than techskill.
3) Having bad frame data doesn't mean that playing the character to max potential is hard, it just makes max potential lower.

Think of a character that is extremely straightforward, that has no recovery mixups, has no kinda weird character specific tech, and has little combo potential. Having better or worse frame data wouldn't make that character more or less difficult to play, just better or worse. Basically, you only have Bowser in that class. Maybe a Bowser main could come in here and change my mind. But I would argue that's why Bowser was originally thought to be high tier. Everything you can do with him got figured out really fast. Learning to play Bowser isn't going to take anyone much time. Will it be hard to WIN with Bowser, sure. Will it be hard to learn how to play an "optimal" Bowser? No.

 

[DungeonMaster]

Everyone's entitled to their opinion obviously.

I have a different perspective in that I wrote the combo tree for Samus, and have compiled the compendium of all the ATs and nifty stuff you can do, and which many months on I'm still not-so-good at doing.
When I play Samus I see a list which at last count is 300 different true combos from my button inputs. For those moves that don't combo, I see ranges of numbers for tech chases.
I routinely see in my own gameplay my failed application of the advanced techniques, from reverse charge shot, to the more complicated reverse charge shot trump, to the more complicated tether reverse charge shot trump, to the more complicated missile cancelled reverse charge shot tether trump.
Perhaps I'm just bad at this game and there are people for whom this is all just second nature. Maybe Aerodrome really can, right now, go pull off a stage cancelled f-air into dash attack into up-air into charge shot true combo and then follow it up with missile cancelled reverse charge shot tether trump in the next breath.

Maybe I'm completely ignorant of how hard it is to jump off stage and f-air gimp someone with Shulk. Or hit the B button to "shield" when I'm at high % and "smash" when I want to knock someone off.
It must be really hard to have a perfectly normal roll and not worry about short-hop air-dodge. Life is complicated when your jab and shield grab is totally normal and functional too. Let's not forget really specific, small hitboxes often requiring they be angled. Let's not forget that totally dysfunctional Shulk up-smash. The complexity/difficulty/depth is just staggering.

But seriously, this detracts from the frame data discussion which is really all I'm interested in from this thread as subjective opinions can be hard to change and frame data should be cold hard fact which we can all agree upon.

 

[Afro Smash]

I see your points, however you basically described Shulk with your 3 points. It only takes like 5 minutes to learn what the Monado Arts do, the only tech associated with them is landing lag cancel, and he has bad frame data (some say the worst). Out of the Monado Arts only Jump and Speed change what Shulk does really, and they are straightforward changes, though yes practice would be needed to fully understand/utilise them. Buster/Smash/Shield don't really change how Shulk is played (Shield does I guess but like I said before it gets camped super easy, no smart player risks attacking when he's so heavy and has that Counter in his pocket).

Samus has a bunch of stuff that make her learning curve steep. Her Roll is bad, you have to learn to SH AD for safe escapes and approaches. Her Jab doesn't cause enough hit stun to be safe until around 40%, you need space effectively and rack damage quickly. Her Grab is extremely punishable to you need to find ways to condition people or bait people out of Shield. She has a huge combo tree, she has recovery mix ups, she has unique moves like bombs and zair, she has charge cancel aerials and charge shot reversals. You can't just pick up Samus and immediately start doing well with her (unless you're just a super good player, however if you've seen ZeRo play Samus... maybe not even then) All Shulk's moves are very straightforward, all you'd need to know to do decently is Nair approach, he just has some added depth due to Monado Arts

 

[KuroganeHammer]

Maybe Aerodrome really can, right now, go pull off a stage cancelled f-air into dash attack into up-air into charge shot true combo and then follow it up with missile cancelled reverse charge shot tether trump in the next breath.

I went into training mode just then and pulled off the combo you just described on my third try.

Maybe I'm completely ignorant of how hard it is to jump off stage and f-air gimp someone with Shulk. Or hit the B button to "shield" when I'm at high % and "smash" when I want to knock someone off.
It must be really hard to have a perfectly normal roll and not worry about short-hop air-dodge. Life is complicated when your jab and shield grab is totally normal and functional too. Let's not forget really specific, small hitboxes often requiring they be angled. Let's not forget that totally dysfunctional Shulk up-smash. The complexity/difficulty/depth is just staggering.

Being a bad character does not make the character difficult to use. Just look at Lucina.

 

[-_ellipsis_-]

Wow, it took you three tries? How many tries did it take you to figure out ff nairs with shulk?

 

[Afro Smash]

Lucina isn't bad in the same sense though, she has a functional straightforward kit but just lacks potential, if you can do well with her you can probably do better with somone else. With Samus you have to learn to function with out a safe jab, grab or roll, learn how to land etc. She's unique and requires a huge playstyle shift from almost every other character in Smash 4.

The issue isn't with what you think of Samus though, it's just with how you can justify Shulk being more difficult to use