Hi guys, it's been a while. Just wanted to share my impressions with Samus:
She can't play up to her normal mixup strengths as she did in Brawl: her lack of missile cancel makes zair, dash grab, pivot grab, and dash attack followups much less safe. In fact, in Brawl, when recovering from high percents I'd often throw out two homing missiles to cover me. Now, they're just too slow and punishable that most characters can dash up and start immediate pressure. Samus doesn't seem to have much of an answer to rolling and intense ground pressure. In Brawl, I would punish rolls with SH dair, but because of the way dair needs a sweetspot and travels much faster, it isn't as good of a punish.
I've found movement with Samus to be better in this game because she can still walk to space tilts, but her dash is good (dash + shield, dash + backwards jump etc) now that tripping is removed. Dashing, shielding, and pivot f-tilts are really good for her now.
On move changes: Uair was always good, now it's better. Fair is also better, bair is about the same if not better. Dair is worse for the reasons mentioned, but even sourspotted, it causes a knockback angle that allows for strong off-stage pressure/check scenarios. Z-air has similar utility, but is harder to spam now that Samus appears to move/fall faster, and air dodging isn't as free in this game. Its tipper doesn't do insane knockback, but it's still a good spacing tool and gimps well. Many of you seem to be complaining about n-air. I was disappointed at first, but I think it's a good move. It acts like a fair that we wish she had. I found most success with it by SHing backwards (I think this is huge, SH backwards then DI forwards out of a dash makes her smaller, spaces nair better, or can be faded away into z-air, or left empty. It's better for avoiding visually telegraphing your approach) and using n-air as a punish and less as offensive pressure (it's easy to grab on block).
My favorite uses for nair though, are just running off stage and throwing one out. It's sort of like Sheik's fair, marth's fair, etc, but not as good.. The second hit of it can also help gimp if people preemptively airdodge. If you save it for situations like this way off stage, it has enough knockback to score kills. I think I have more kills with run-off nair than I do dair.
Her jab is really bad, at least versus grounded opponents, and those with quicker jab combos. At high percents, the initial jab doesn't combo into the second hit, so I think you're better off using ftilt in almost all scenarios. At best I use it as a poke just to sort of frame trap when in shield. It also can't be crouch canceled into multiple jabs, like you could in Brawl after a dash attack at the ledge to space for the run off dair.
Dtilt is good just for starting combos, but I don't find it to be a reliable kill move anymore. Speaking of which, has anyone put in the work to test what moves KO at what percents/scenarios? Like in Brawl, 140% was the magic number for dtilt for most characters. I notice I end up racking up close to 200% before getting a kill with Samus, if not a gimp or spike.
Anyway, hope you're all doing well with her.
