The Weaknesses of Zero Suit Samus

[iX_Martyr_Xi]

This thread is simple. What are the weaknesses of Zero Suit Samus? What characters does ZSS struggle up against? Where does ZSS have trouble that other characters could do better? What is a bad situation for ZSS?

Meant to add also Top 40%-60%, 60%-80%, and bottom 20% on the toll.

 

[Legit]

60-80%. (Closer to 60%)

Bad OoS game, weak to CC, all combos DI'able.
Bad against spacies/fast fallers and maybe swordies.
Others characters have guaranteed stuff, ZSS doesn't.
Being offstage due to gimpable recovery. CQC.

 

[Myst007_teh_newb]

CONS:
- Struggles to convert combo into kills (Combos typically end in edge guard situations).
- Has no lingering hitboxes.
- Unable to KO vertically.
- Grabs do not confirm into anything except positional advantage.
- Edge guarded easily by characters with lingering hitboxes (Kirby, MK, Luigi, etc).

She has a bunch of excellent character traits that either make up or completely nullify those cons, though.
PROS:
+ Most freedom of movement in the neutral game out of the entire cast.
+ Combos rack up % super easy (nair and uair bread and butter combos into fair).
+ Hit confirms are some of the more generous ones in the game (utilt is godly frame 3. dtilt sends opponent into a surprising amount of hitstun).
+ One of the few characters who can still use burst movement in order to escape combos (down-b), making her unusually good at getting out of combos and juggles.
+ Can go deeper than most characters offstage for edge guards thanks to her recovery's reach.
+ Recovery mixup potential is incredible against characters that do not have the aforementioned lingering hitboxes.
+ Bair can be perfectly spaced on shield such that no character can shield grab her except Marth and Dedede.

Some bad. Some good. Easily around the 20%~40%. ZSS doesn't have any good reps with her yet (I refuse to believe that Oro is the pinnacle of what ZSS is capable of). She has the potential to be top 10 in my mind. Cannot see a character with this many offensive and defensive options as low as people think she is. High execution character, but very high rewards with low risk if done correctly. Excellent neutral game. It's a recipe for a champion.

 

[Foo]

Her weaknesses, without going in depth, are as follows.

- Crouch Canceling. Pretty much everyone loses to cc, but zss' punish game gets wrecked by holding down (even dsmash lol)
- Cannot combo fast fallers
- Marth syndrome. Combos into fair at relatively early %s, but after that cannot combo into fair against most characters. After that, he only kill option is basically back air which is very telegraphed.
- Can't kill off the top, making it hard to kill heavys (which is mostly fine, since she combos heavies well generally)
- TERRIBLE throws. Close to, if not the worst throws in the game.
- Pretty much all of her long ranged and really punishing moves come out super slow, giving your opponent time to dodge them on reaction, making them only good for hard reads. (in other words, he smashes and side-b are pretty bad all things considered)
- Relatively bad approach options, with only bair being truly safe on shield.
- Very light, so she dies early, and she doesn't get out of combos very well, Jason. She gets out of juggles from being above people, but down-b has too much startup to get out of combos.
- Has quite a few TERRIBLE matchups due to having very defined strengths and weaknesses.
- Her damage values are bad across of her moveset. She makes up for it by damage racking with combo strings, but that means her moves have low shield stun, but makes her suffer against fast fallers more.
- Fair is very unreliable as a kill move due to being a multihit. I'd love it if they just remove the first hit and just made the second hit come out 6-8 frames earlier. (I also really wish that her upsmash worked if you weren't standing still, and her side-b couldn't be inexplicably CC'd to like 160%, but whatever)
- Recovery is real bad in some matchups, mostly ones that have an option that covers all of her options, like mk and marth.

Overall, I put her at 40-60%, probably just over middle. Her moveset as a while is certainly below average, but a character that fast should have sub-par moveset.

As for the pros, I agree with @ Myst007_teh_newb for the most part, minus the concluding paragraph, the down-b out of combos and the freedom of movement in neutral thing. She's top 5 easily, but I wouldn't say she's the best.

 

[Player-3]

top 20-40 def

 

[standardtoaster]

This is probably better off in the ZSS discussion thread.