Data The Complete Samus Combo and String List

[E.Lopez]

So i sat down to get the percents and i discovered a whole lot more O.O
Man i love Samus so much <3

So here is the Breakdown:

1. Weak Bair(12%) to Strong Bair. Percents on ROB: ~44%-59%
So yeah at low percents the weak hit already combos into the strong hit. I mean we allready suspected it but it's nice to have it confirmed i think.

2. Sour Bair to Screw Attack. Percents on ROB: Basicly there are no percents here. As long as i could get the sourspot and ROB was in range i was able to combo into UpB. Tested from 0%-100%ish.

3. Sour Bair to UpAir to Screw Attack
This is just beatiful, LOOK AT IT :D. So yeah here are the percents on ROB: ~55%-65%
The Range to get the Upair is a lot bigger, but why get the Upair when you could get a Bair instead?

4. Sour Bair to Strong Bair
Finally we come to the combo i originally tested. Percents on ROB: ~68%-Range
Basicly as long as you are in Range it is possible from 68% onwards. Depends a lot on their DI as well but it works well into killing ranges.

BONUS: Yeah Samus has not only Dthrow as a combo throw. BEHOLD the CHEESE.

Works on the faster falling half of the cast and its only use is pretty much shown in the video above.

I feel like such a n00b for asking, but could someone clarify the difference between weak bair and sour bair? There must be more hitboxes on her bair than I thought, and if that's the case, is that what differentiates between the different bairs?

If I look at Xygonn 's guide, bair has three areas of damage:

14% (foot) / 12% (leg) / 9% (late)

So the foot is the sweet spot (strong), then would the leg be the sour and the 'late' be the weak?

 

[Xygonn]

I feel like such a n00b for asking, but could someone clarify the difference between weak bair and sour bair? There must be more hitboxes on her bair than I thought, and if that's the case, is that what differentiates between the different bairs?

If I look at Xygonn 's guide, bair has three areas of damage:

14% (foot) / 12% (leg) / 9% (late)

So the foot is the sweet spot (strong), then would the leg be the sour and the 'late' be the weak?

The hitboxes change by frame. The foot is the strong hit, the leg is the weak hit on frames 9-10. The late hit is all parts of bair from frames 11 through 14. The late hit is usually called "sour", but it's hard to guarantee the late hit. With bair it's probably best to use the % damage to differentiate. I.e. 14% hit, 12% hit and 9% hit. I don't think there is uniform agreement on what makes a spot weak or sour with moves that have 3+ hitboxes. Ftilt has 4 for example. 8, 7, 5, and 6 percent foot to hip. Easier to call it tip, shin, thigh, hip than sweet, normal, sour, weak.

 

[Shadó Chimera / シャドーキメラ]

Sour spot is a vague term which basically means not the sweet spot. I think it'd be easier to call the late hit "late" and then it's easier to call the early non-sweet hitboxes sour.

edit: was referring to bair. Ftilt would be silly to call any 1 instead of all 3 of those sour.

 

[Tonetta]

Not sure if this is covered and I hadn't labbed this one out fully but I had back hit nair true combo into no angle ftilt sweetspot around 30% starter on zss. If I had to guess, this will work between 25-32, 25-28 would not get sweetspot.

 

[Scream]

Not sure if this is covered and I hadn't labbed this one out fully but I had back hit nair true combo into no angle ftilt sweetspot around 30% starter on zss. If I had to guess, this will work between 25-32, 25-28 would not get sweetspot.

Already covered that.
It definitely combos into the Sweetspot, but as i already said it is pretty situational and dash attack is almost always better.

 

[JAZZ_]

Ok Ive got a question DungeonMaster
I'm getting ready to print out your full combo and string list for a hardcore combo training regiment and I noticed that Ive been doing something that looks like a combo in my eyes for a little over a few months and I didnt see it in your list. at 0:46 in the below video you'll see it ( this was a while ago when I really pushed my bomb usage and I sucked so take with a grain of salt the quality of play)

is bomb> Fsmash (or down angled Fsmash, Ive done both for kills) a viable combo? Ive killed tons with this and I want to know if its possible it was missed. I know bomb>jab1>smash is listed but I dont use Jab and it seems so easy without jab.
or is this too situational to count?

 

[DungeonMaster]

JAZZ_ Yep! In fact bomb -> anything is a true combo, except bomb itself (at reasonable percents). You can get bomb -> d-air (dirty bomb) and bomb -> super missile (our slowest move, 20 frames startup).
The listed combo is a push-back combo, so you bomb, jab them to push them into the bomb, and crouch cancel the jab into f-smash. It's cute and situational more than anything else.

 

[DungeonMaster]

Labored all weekend... it's getting very close, I need another weekend and it's done. Next level meta hype!

Update: Ok... NEXT week. Sigh... almost...

 

[chris1855]

Has up tilt > down air > aerial/up smash/ up b been mentioned yet. Or jab lock with up tilt?

 

[DungeonMaster]

chris1855 there's a very long list (which is incomplete) in the OP which contains all the up-tilt and d-air variants. If you've found something unique, please say so, the OP and indeed the entire combo system is going to be revamped very soon.
I have been working on a video explaining the complete combo system for several months now and it's almost done.

 

[chris1855]

@ Scream Thanks! Yes f-tilt is in there, I got f-smash to combo last night at higher % but damn that window is very very tight. Will update when I have time.

@Rikkhan yes everyone combos a little different, using R.O.B as a standard was simply because he's heavy and has a huge tumble window. Whatever combination of weight/fall speed exists, after doing thousands of these it's very clear in my mind that tumble window is super-important to the overall combo capability of Samus vs. the character. Rob flops around in the air for many frames, the contrary - villager, basically flips up-side down for 1 frame and then he's back in control and all combo potential is gone. If you hit villager with an up-tilt, your attack has to be timed to rise into him. The f-air, up-smash all work quite poorly against villager, rosalina and the others I've listed with a * in the magic number list. Rosalina is even more special, time basically slows down for *you* as you hit luma giving her free frames to fly away. It's still possible, but the window gets tighter.
And yes it is a lot of work... but I'm quite glad I did it since I'll be playing this character and game for years and years. Anyone interested in customs more than welcome to help, but it's a lot o

chris1855 there's a very long list (which is incomplete) in the OP which contains all the up-tilt and d-air variants. If you've found something unique, please say so, the OP and indeed the entire combo system is going to be revamped very soon.
I have been working on a video explaining the complete combo system for several months now and it's almost done.

Yeah, I dont see up tilt, down air, up air x2, screw attack or such variants. It would be difficult to list all the combos

 

[DungeonMaster]

Sorry, chris1855 you're not making yourself clear. There is a very long list with all the starters which is not perfectly complete, but it's quite close, and the elements it's missing are all in this thread.
Up-tilt -> FJ -> D-air spike is not a true combo. It registers in training mode, but it can be airdodged. They changed the hitstun before game release and the combo counter is not reliable.
Is is those variants you are mentioning?

 

[chris1855]

Sorry, chris1855 you're not making yourself clear. There is a very long list with all the starters which is not perfectly complete, but it's quite close, and the elements it's missing are all in this thread.
Up-tilt -> FJ -> D-air spike is not a true combo. It registers in training mode, but it can be airdodged. They changed the hitstun before game release and the combo counter is not reliable.
Is is those variants you are mentioning?

with short hop it is true (as long as they don't tech). And after this there are many follow-ups

 

[DungeonMaster]

You will have to quote a percent range, and I would be very surprised that it's true since I've done extensive testing with a rapid fire controller and any aerial CS is not true out of Up-tilt, and CS is 2 frames faster than meteor D-air.
The 6 frame jumpsquat and the specific timings of the knockback from heavy hits is what is killing the combos.
More than wiling to be proven wrong, I would love an up-tilt d-air true combo tree. Sakurai is goddamn moron for taking all of those combos out at higher percents.

 

[chris1855]

You will have to quote a percent range, and I would be very surprised that it's true since I've done extensive testing with a rapid fire controller and any aerial CS is not true out of Up-tilt, and CS is 2 frames faster than meteor D-air.
The 6 frame jumpsquat and the specific timings of the knockback from heavy hits is what is killing the combos.
More than wiling to be proven wrong, I would love an up-tilt d-air true combo tree. Sakurai is goddamn moron for taking all of those combos out at higher percents.

I'll test it. Even if it isn't true it is still viable

 

[DungeonMaster]

Strings are great, they land all the time, most characters only have strings and single hits, but true combos are in fact, better, as the opponent has no options.
If you give me a percent range, I'll test it myself as well. I've very close to being done my video, so if you think you have something, do tell.

 

[chris1855]

Strings are great, they land all the time, most characters only have strings and single hits, but true combos are in fact, better, as the opponent has no options.
If you give me a percent range, I'll test it myself as well. I've very close to being done my video, so if you think you have something, do tell.

I just realized you were the person who mentioned Samus's stupid design in the youtube video. Course they didnt really do anything about it but Samus has been a secondary of mine is this game and metroid is ****ing awesome. I'm pretty sure the up tilt down air is confirmed at lower medium percents but still yet to test. I do wanna fight you lol. Do you use zss?

 

[DungeonMaster]

Add me anytime, no, I don't use ZSS, in fact if it isn't obvious from my side bar, I exclusively main Samus. We are all on this board quite passionate about the character.
If you get a confirm, tell me and I'll try to verify.

 

[chris1855]

Add me anytime, no, I don't use ZSS, in fact if it isn't obvious from my side bar, I exclusively main Samus. We are all on this board quite passionate about the character.
If you get a confirm, tell me and I'll try to verify.

Yeah Samus is so fun and I do use her competitively and often. When are you free? Also, I tested it out quickly, and I true comboed once on captain falcon. It seems to be extremely rare and small percent window.

 

[DungeonMaster]

My gift to you guys and the smash4 community - The puzzle character solved:

472 clips, 600 GB of HD video taken, nearly 4 months in the making. Almost lost half the footage twice.
But it had to be done, at least once.
You tube is *slowly* processing the video. It's 14 GB in final form at 1080p.

Now you know what I know.

The 2nd part will be released separately - I only gave a few rather simple long chains, after 47 minutes of watching a reference guide, is it enough? Does it all make sense?

 

[Hark17ball]

My gift to you guys and the smash4 community - The puzzle character solved:

472 clips, 600 GB of HD video taken, nearly 4 months in the making. Almost lost half the footage twice.
But it had to be done, at least once.
You tube is *slowly* processing the video. It's 14 GB in final form at 1080p.

Now you know what I know.

The 2nd part will be released separately - I only gave a few rather simple long chains, after 47 minutes of watching a reference guide, is it enough? Does it all make sense?

I'm gonna watch it when home! Grabbing a snack to enjoy it!
Thank you in advance I cannot wait.

 

[JAZZ_]

Trying to watch it on my tablet but it's choking on the size. I'll have to grab my work laptop and simply download it all. From what I can see at 9 min in I already know imma use this like the smash 4 bible. Thanks a ton! It's so long I feel like I should give you some cash or something.

 

[Afro Smash]

My gift to you guys and the smash4 community - The puzzle character solved:

472 clips, 600 GB of HD video taken, nearly 4 months in the making. Almost lost half the footage twice.
But it had to be done, at least once.
You tube is *slowly* processing the video. It's 14 GB in final form at 1080p.

Now you know what I know.

The 2nd part will be released separately - I only gave a few rather simple long chains, after 47 minutes of watching a reference guide, is it enough? Does it all make sense?

You thought you were done LOL

back to the editing suite you go!

 

[DungeonMaster]

LOL... I can't win...

No seriously, I just had a quick look at it and yes, they changed Dash attack which is the core of the character but it looks like it's mid-way between the 6% light hit and the 10% strong, which doesn't change quite that much.
They basically decided to switch from the strong to the light hitbox for just throwing it out in neutral, it's as though 10% is the sour-spot.
It means you're going to get a LOT more triples, it's a big damage boost.

However it looks like z-air -> dash is still tuned to 10% which is the most important starter.

They normalized jump-ins it seems, Nair and B-air are identical whereas there used to be a small difference.
The Z-air -> F-tilt kill combo is very real now.

 

[DungeonMaster]

So my thinking pre-patch:
"Do an entire section on D-throw and (late) DA .... nah... people find it very hard to get in the first place, I'm the only one really using it a lot, it's not worth the time and effort, I'll just show how it chains out of DA (10%)".

LOL!

 

[Xygonn]

My gift to you guys and the smash4 community - The puzzle character solved:

472 clips, 600 GB of HD video taken, nearly 4 months in the making. Almost lost half the footage twice.
But it had to be done, at least once.
You tube is *slowly* processing the video. It's 14 GB in final form at 1080p.

Now you know what I know.

The 2nd part will be released separately - I only gave a few rather simple long chains, after 47 minutes of watching a reference guide, is it enough? Does it all make sense?

This is amazing. That said. One little request.

Can you put a table of contents in the description with timestamps?

 

[DungeonMaster]

I take back everything I ever said about Sakurai.
The system is identical. To within a hair's fraction it's identical.
He added the 7% hitbox, but the precise scaling and timings of it makes the combo system *unchanged*.
I'm not even entirely sure *how* but it is the non-linear functions he's using.

You can take any of the combo chains I have there, plug in the exact percents seen in the video, and they all work perfectly under the new patch.
If you get an RC string with the 7%, D-air CS still sweetspots, really doesn't matter.
Likewise if the target is below your shoulders with 7% and you fail, follow the same chains, doesn't matter. Same basic visual rules.

The new 7% dash hit only improves the range of singles, and it's not quite identical to d-throw in scaling but very close.

Xygonn definitely will do.

 

[E.Lopez]

My gift to you guys and the smash4 community - The puzzle character solved:

472 clips, 600 GB of HD video taken, nearly 4 months in the making. Almost lost half the footage twice.
But it had to be done, at least once.
You tube is *slowly* processing the video. It's 14 GB in final form at 1080p.

Now you know what I know.

The 2nd part will be released separately - I only gave a few rather simple long chains, after 47 minutes of watching a reference guide, is it enough? Does it all make sense?

I just have to say thank you so much for putting this together, it's an incredible effort to say the least and after watching over an hour and getting to the The Visual Samus Combo Chain Reference Guide, the combo structure is starting to make sense, so much beautiful sense.

One little nitpick: sometimes there is a lot of text and you cut away too fast before I have a chance to take in all the info, but of course I can just pause it at any time. It's probably hard to cater to all audiences since some people probably read a lot faster than me.

I absolutely appreciate how you demonstrate just about everything with video, that is the biggest help in the world to see how the combos are actually pulled off. I was going for the z-air to dash attack stuff last night since I usually don't use that combo, and I was having trouble connecting them. I'll go back and see what you mentioned specifically and try to replicate.

As part of my limited practice, I was also trying out the up-throw -> up-air -> screw attack combo at 0% on fast fallers, which then set up perfectly for the 'next layer' (I think you called it) and yes, the follow-on combo worked nicely just as you demonstrated. This is really good stuff.

 

[DungeonMaster]

E.Lopez The best thanks you can give me is saying that it all makes sense!
That's great, the point of it was specifically to demonstrate all the options, and the links from those options. If you've never seen what a crouch canceled jab combo actually looks like, it'll never happen, or you won't know the difference between hitting the combo window or simply getting lucky with your opponent's lack of defense. And then you go for the z-air knockdown, and it doesn't happen....

Agreed, the up-throw chains are just crazy.

 

[Afro Smash]

Got Dash Attack > Up Air > Reverse Front hit Nair > Back hit Nair > Back Air

It was in tournament, be good if somone could test if it was true

 

[DungeonMaster]

Got Dash Attack > Up Air > Reverse Front hit Nair > Back hit Nair > Back Air

With the new light hit of 7% dash on DK I can trivially get the Nair double hit combo, the B-air just can't be squeezed out fast enough to truly combo.
The very final hitbox of N-air has properties like the very final hitbox of B-air, in that the knockback is so slight at DA percents they just start falling through you and you can string Up-B.
That hitbox also combos into F-tilt and F-smash on the ground at high % it seems.

 

[Afro Smash]

Oh yeah 4 frames off DA mean late hit in to cs works REALLY well now

combos from 0-130 on Falcon

 

[DungeonMaster]

It's 4 frames + 1 frame for CS, so yeah, it's practically a D-tilt worth of additional time you have to land the combo + the new airspeed I wouldn't be surprised it got 8-9 frames easier.

 

[moofpi]

Got Dash Attack > Up Air > Reverse Front hit Nair > Back hit Nair > Back Air

It was in tournament, be good if somone could test if it was true

"Reverse front hit Nair? So you did a RAR nair? Or DK fell behind you after the up air?"

Edit: Nevermind, I noticed you would still be airborne after the up air, so it must just be positioning.

Good combo though. Samus's combo game was already criminally underrated in 1.1.4, now with the DA combo tree being expanded so much along with the air speed and fair buffs.... she's got so much more potential to her game.

 

[NightPaladin520]

SOOOOOOOOO Happy that Nintendo FINALLY buffed Samus, what is she now, Mid-tier?

 

[DungeonMaster]

moofpi yeah you figured it out, it's just a cross up DA into up-air into n-air vs. a large hurtbox, kinda cute.

NightPaladin520 Agreed, although there are tons of threads for tier positions and discussion and this one is focused on combos.
My own opinion is once all the tech is understood this is a very strong character. There's a lot of information out there now, and no one is a master of all of it so there's huge room for growth.
Everyone now knows that there's a point to trying for something seemingly bizarre like D-air -> Up-tilt because it chains into Up-air -> Jab 1 -> F-smash and Jab1 -> D-tilt.
It's up to us to master the puzzle, and I do think once mastered it's incredibly strong.

 

[Afro Smash]

Been getting some Jab 1 > Turnaround Jab 1 stuff recently, not sure if it's a true combo, at least looks like frame trap tho

 

[DungeonMaster]

Those definitely 100% true combos. At those percents the back (and sweet) hitboxes will true combo into f-tilt, which is even slower. Cute stuff, loved the mewtwo kill.
Also in the update to my ill-timed video that I will get around to doing this month (watch another patch....) I'm going to include the sour-spot combos on fat targets. I find I'm actually using them, particularly jab1-> f-tilt since buffs can kill on a fatty. So although hinted to in the main video, I'll detail them better.

 

[samosa]

Jab1->jab1--> fsmash is the victory screen combo. Maybe it works with a reverse jab and turnaround jab. Not really worth it though if you can just jab->fsmash

Edit: : its probably not possibly since you can't get close enough for another sweetspot jab1

 

[Xygonn]

jab jab pp fsmash could possibly work. It would be super hard to do and very tight though.