This is for the first video of the two you sent me (Light Match 1). Heh... 34 paragraphs (if you include the really short 2 sentence ones, too)... It's a LONG read. Read a paragraph, then watch the bit of the match it pertains to. You may have to watch the sections more than once in order to see everything. I know I had to watch many of the sections several times while typing this up.
First off, this post is incredibly long. Keep in mind that I'm not really meaning to pick apart EVERYTHING you're doing wrong (well, yes I am because that's what you wanted
), but I'm also letting you know a bunch of things I think are good that you're doing. I realize that no one plays perfectly or anything so while this is long and points out a lot of mistakes you made, I'm just trying to give you alternate ideas of what you could do in place of what you are already doing.
At the very beginning of the first match, you start tossing items as fast as you can. That generally doesn't work against skilled players. As you can see, he just shields the items and they sit at his feet.
What you can do instead is approach him with a single item in hand and instead of throwing it directly at him, throw it at the stage or up into the air, causing a hazard for him to deal with. They're much more useful this way because they are active for much longer and if you're sitting near it, it makes it very risky for him to attack you. Always try to prevent him from getting the items and make barriers with them so he has a hard time approaching. It's a pain in the butt to fight against, and so you don't want him using them in the same manner against you.
At around 0:17, you throw out a random grab. Don't throw out grabs unless you are 99% positive they will land. Most of the time I throw out grabs is when someone is shielding, running toward me, in the middle of a laggy attack, or stunned by my charged gun (not a normal tap shot) or my d-smash. Missing grabs sets you up to be the victim of KO attacks that shouldn't be easy to land (but they are when you're a sitting duck). Be very careful about grabbing, especially since they don't lead to a lot of damage for her.
At 0:22, you are way up in the air and fall towards Light, trying to hit him while he's on the ground. This is not a good idea, as Zamus does not have good aerial approaches against grounded opponents. He up-smashed you right out of your b-air (which is Zamus's best bet at an air to ground approach, so you chose the right move, but he just beat it out).
When you land and shield his dash attack, you did the right thing to roll, but then you dash in with a grab. You shouldn't be trying to close space against Ganondorf like that most of the time. If you are dashing at him, you should either SH and space yourself for a side+B or stun shot, dash attack, or use up-smash (I refuse to call it hyphen smashing, it's nothing new and doesn't deserve a name, imho). Running grabs are very dangerous, especially if you're running toward the opponent. Pivot grabs are useful because you can bait them into dash attacking and then avoid it and get a grab on them, but running towards them is generally not a good idea for grabbing (unless you see they're in serious lag and you can grab them before they can do anything).
Do not roll around when he is not throwing out a move. At 0:29, you roll away from him and then back into him, and he d-smashes you while you're vulnerable. Rolling towards someone/behind someone is very dangerous, even when they are using a move. You also don't want to be that close to people most of the time. When you ARE that close, you should try to get them away via any of your tilts or your jab A so you can space properly for stun shots or side+B, or get them into the air so you can f-air/b-air/up-air them. What you could've done instead there is jumped over him (once you get over him and you see he's d-smashing, you would know it's safe to d-air him and actually land the grounding hit which has the most knockback). If he hadn't thrown out the d-smash, you could've jumped back towards the middle of the stage and air dodged if he tried to use an air move against you. If you somehow managed to get behind him and below him because he full jumped or something, you could've b-aired him, but I would've settled for getting to the middle of the stage and tried to space him properly.
At 0:34, you cancel your dash with a side+B when you see him roll. That was a good call because he's too large to really avoid getting hit by the move. The follow up to dashing up-smash is good as well, but you then chase him into the air and go WAY too high. If you had dashed towards him, you could've gotten another up-smash, or you could've SH to up-air/f-air/b-air. Instead, you got above him and he nailed you with a ground move when you threw out an air move. The death that resulted was unfortunate due to the direction you down+Bed, though at that point, you were probably a goner even if you had down+Bed toward the stage.
At around 0:47, you d-smash 3 times in a row. He doesn't punish you for it, but you could've spent the time moving him over to the ledge by using stun shots or the side+B, or forcing him into the air so you can use your air moves. LOTS of rolling, though both of you guys are doing it, so no one is getting punished. If you weren't and he was, though, you could've punished him for rolling like 3 times in a row. Don't get hasty when an opponent is rolling about, though. Throwing out an attack while they're rolling could result in you missing if you don't try to time it properly, and then you just have given them the advantage. Make sure you wait until you know you'll hit them out of the roll and teach them that it's dangerous to roll around you. You should be reacting to their roll, they shouldn't be rolling to your attacks, if that makes sense.
The run up grab at 0:57 is very risky, especially since it looked like he was going for a dash attack, but it's a good thing you got it off. I would've thrown out a dash attack and tried to follow it up via an up-tilt. You jump to follow up with an up-air, but he hits you out of it because you didn't SH. If you had SHed there, you could've gotten 2 up-airs out, so even if he air dodged the first, he would've gotten nailed by the 2nd one.
When he grabs you and throws you upward at around 1:02, you did a good job air dodging there. If you had seen him jump instead of going for a grounded move, you might have wanted to air dodge earlier, but since he didn't, that was a good call on you part. Then you lure him over to the edge of the stage and get him with a pivot grab while he's in lag. That's one of the perfect uses of a grab right there.
At around 1:10, you dash attack into d-tilt. Not the best option, but it is an option. The biggest problem is that instead of following up with a f-air, you d-tilted again, ruining any options you had. You then throw out a seemingly random d-smash, which is not really a good idea. That up-smash you got him with was honestly incredibly lucky, and you actually baited him there by using your d-smash, though I wouldn't really recommend doing risky stuff like that often. Good follow up to f-air.
When he gets back on the stage, you roll into his d-smash right around 1:18. Don't roll towards him when he's throwing out an attack. You shouldn't really be rolling towards him in most cases anyway. You could've SHed toward him and waited for the first kick (the one towards you) to come out, when he starts the 2nd kick you could land and dash attack, grab, side+B, etc. There were a lot of things you could've done, but you rolled into him instead.
Good use of the stun shot at 1:21-ish. You got him to shield, you fired another one and he rolled right into your f-smash. Notice you just punished him similarly to how he punishes you? He rolled towards you and you smacked him away. I would've gone for a d-smash personally (since you can get 2 and the up+B off), but the f-smash is a safe bet there because it's fast.
You dash up-smash into his side+B. Not really too safe to throw out the up-smash when you're closing that much distance. SHing from a dash allows you to reposition yourself, and since Ganon's air attacks are slow, you could easily avoid taking damage (even from his dash attack). If you had seen him throw out the side+B, you could've jumped in his direction, passing over him and reseting you both to neutral with a nice amount of space between you (you want space against him).
Interesting use of the down+B at 1:28-ish. The stun shot before it was good, but try not to fire them so high up. The down+B got you to safety, but I think an air dodge would've been better as he'd have to land with the lag of his f-air, you could've side+Bed him or grabbed, or tilted, or even d-smashed him.
Dashing at Ganon while he's far away and standing still (basically free to do anything he wants) is pretty dangerous, since he can use the side+B and down+B to intercept you, as he did at 1:32. When he's trying to close the distance on you like that, be very careful. It's not always a good idea to go offensive against an opponent. If you had waiting half a second to see what he was going to do, you could've reacted by jumping, shielding, dodging, etc. But you dashed right after he started the down+B, pretty much guaranteeing you'd be hit by it.
Again, you start rolling about like crazy when he throws out the f-tilt. If he had d-smashed instead, you'd have gotten completely wailed on because of it. If you had shielded his f-tilt, you would've been able to shield grab him right as it connected. You end up rolling about a bit more without getting hit and finally grab him (but use f-throw instead of d-throw!). When you get grabs, the most useful throw you have is d-throw because it pops the opponent up and in front of you (good range to f-air a lot of the time). It generally places them in a spot they don't want to be against Zamus, so using d-throw is usually good. Nice follow up to dash up-smash, though.
When you're floating in the air, you throw out two aerials and then you jump back into the air. You go really high and then as you're coming down, you DI towards him and start to use a move when he is in a very dangerous spot for you. He's too close for you to throw out any move safely, and he uses his high priority dash attack to completely eat through whatever you were trying to do. Nice air dodge when he tries to f-air you.
The down+B at 1:50 is incredibly risky. DO NOT use it like that. If he gets better at edge hogging/guarding, he could pretty much wait for you to finish that move and as you're trying to get back, nail you with an attack like his up-air psuedo spike or drop and grab back on to prevent you from tethering back. You're lucky he did neither and chose to do a normal get up animation from the ledge.
I would've up-tilted instead of up-smashed at around 1:57 and gone for an f-air or b-air afterwards. The up-smash sent him way too far away without any potential to KO, and then you get nailed by his d-air as you try to get close to him for an air move (he's already recovered so he use any move he wants and that move has really high priority even against air moves that hit upward).
Lots of rolling by both of you after you come back. No real point to rolling when you are invincible already. What you should've done is tried to follow his rolls and then attack him when he's vulnerable. Instead you stopped following and he down+Bed you. I hate it when you end up facing the wrong direction for a d-smash/d-tilt. It's something unfortunate that just happens, obviously you meant to use the attack facing the right direction (which would've resulted in a combo).
You predicted he'd attack while he was standing far away and sidestep dodged super early at around 2:10. Before you can do anything, he dash attacks you and then d-smashes while you throw out an air move in the wrong direction right as he is letting out his d-smash. I would've tried to jump away there or air dodge. Either probably would've worked, though jumping away would've been safer and you could've tried to go for a side+B when falling to catch him in the lag of the d-smash. Not sure what happened when you got hit by the other d-smash, but notice how he was dashing at you and then stopped? He was expecting you to sidestep dodge so he waited, and then threw out a d-smash at you.
When you down+B at around 2:23, he sidesteps and nails you with an f-smash because the landing lag on that move is pretty bad. Don't use down+B too much, ESPECIALLY against grounded opponents that aren't doing anything. It's one thing if you try to catch them while they're in lag, but if they're sitting there, using moves that leave you open afterwards like that one is a really, really bad idea. You'll get punished every time if you whiff that close.
Notice at 2:31 he throws an attack and you take a while to respond? He knows you'll try to attack him with your invincibility, so he side steps and then grabs you. Instead of going for the first possible opportunity to attack, sometimes it's better to wait just a split second to screw up their timing. He's not even dodging on reaction anymore, he's just expecting you to attack when given the chance and he's able to use it to his advantage. Instead of throwing out a grab there, you could've jab A'ed and caught him out of his dodge. Jabbing is a good way to catch dodgers because it's a multi hit attack that you can delay and it comes out really fast with little lag. Throwing out more jabs when he's close is a good way to make him less likely to dodge.
When d-throws you at around 2:32, you try to attack him, which lets him hit you with an f-smash, which is a ton of damage at that low % (and if you were higher, he might've KOed you). Instead of going for attacks when he's just put you in a bad position, you should try to run away (or jump away, in this situation) to avoid taking unnecessary damage and try to set yourself up so he has trouble approaching you again. Notice how you hit him with your down+B? Do you know what he was doing that allowed you to land it? You threw the kick out while he was charging a smash, and that's what let you land the attack. If you throw the attack out while they're in lag and can't avoid it, it's powerful, but using it when the opponent can avoid it (a few paragraphs up), you'll get punished. It can be hard to discern when it's safe to use and when it isn't, but I usually try to err on the safe side and not throw it out unless I'm 99% sure it'll hit.
When he comes back at 2:40, you use the stun shot properly to limit his approach, but when he rolls toward you, you don't wait for him to get to the vulnerable part of the roll. The end of each character's roll is usually when they can be hit, and you threw out your f-smash too early. While some people charge attacks because it does more damage and has more knockback, I am a fan of using moves at the last moment possible. You might not KO as quickly or build up damage quite as fast, but it allows you manueverability. It allows you to react to things you wouldn't be able to react to (like how he got nailed by your down+B while charging the f-smash).
Ahhhhh! So much rolling (I can't even give a specific time because there is so much of it)! I would rather run and SH to cancel the roll (since you could pivot jump for a stun shot to cover your retreat, or side+B). Of course, you have a greater chance of tripping by running all over the place, but the chance of you being left vulnerable is actually less that way than if you were rolling around.
Notice he stops rolling and starts trying to hit you? At 2:52 he lands an f-tilt on you because he knows that he can't do anything while rolling. Instead he waits for you to leave an opening and smack you from it. And try to stop grabbing when the opponent is fully mobile since you almost always get punished for it.
At 3:05, you use the down+B properly to intercept his air approach. This doesn't work against faster characters, but since Ganon's air moves are slow, you can get away with it from him. I would've tried to back up and side+B as he lands, personally.
At 3:10, you let go of your shield right as he starts his f-smash. Shielding has lag on it once you release the shield, so you're vulnerable for a short time. Try not to let down your shield carelessly like that. If an opponent is nearby like that, sometimes it's best to sit there shielding until they make a move. Obviously, you don't want to sit there until you shield breaks, but often times people aren't so patient and they'll try to grab you or attack or something. Once you see their action, you can react accordingly (if they're dashing toward you in that close proximity, it is quite safe to roll toward them as they can no longer dash dance to get you, though they might be able to SH and attack you, depends on the character, most will probably go for a dash attack/up-smash or grab, though). Also, using the ledge attack isn't always the best idea. Notice that he was out of reach of your attack, so you were sort of left there and forced to shield. Try not to throw out that attack unless they're in range to get hit and not shielding. Also, at 99% and below you have the fast attack animation, and at 100+%, you struggle to get up, so your attack comes out slower (and you can actually get hit out of it by some people).
When you come back, you try to push the offensive against him, but as you watch the video along with my commentary, you'll notice that he's expecting you to do that, so he avoids you whenever you get in range to attack (since he knows you like to attack whenever you're capable). Basically, if you had baited him into rolling (since he expects you to attack), you could've hit him out of it. But instead, you did exactly what he expected you to do. By making yourself hard to predict (not always going for the attack), it makes it a lot more difficult to roll and dodge without getting punished for it.
When you dash attack right around 3:20, you d-tilt. Most of the time, you'll want to up-tilt after a dash attack when the opponent is at low % because it does the most damage and knocks them into a position where you can use any of your 3 good aerials (up/b/f) depending on how they DI. Also, you d-smash when he's out of range again. That move has okay reach, but it's definitely punishable if you miss, as he does with his side+B in between your d-smashes. Also, his side+B to d-tilt doesn't actually combo until around 70% or so (and even then, you can tech it). If you try to attack while getting up, you'll hit him out of it and avoid taking damage from his d-tilt kick.
Once he gets you in the air, he gets some combos on you because you throw out not one, but TWO down+Bs (with the kick, the laggy part) and whiff both. That completely leaves you open to attacks he shouldn't have been able to land on you. Also notice he predicted you'd down+B when trying to get back onto the stage and had an f-air already coming out so you couldn't kick him. If you had gone for a tether or air dodge, you'd have been able to make it back and continue fighting him. Fast falling to avoid attacks is definitely a valid tactic when going against people who are trying to edge guard you above the stage (like how you lost this last stock). Can't really FF during a down+B though, and I guess this sort of proves my point... Down+B is very punishable, and a lot of his big damage and KOs came from you either rolling or using down+B.
But yeah, as you saw from my match with Light tonight (and I didn't even get to use my items because you were SDing and they disappeared
), he is definitely beatable. Hopefully after reading through this and watching the match closely, you'll begin to see some of the stuff on your own, and you might even catch things that I have missed or come up with effective strategies I don't even know about! I'm definitely not the definitive master of ZSS by any stretch of the imagination, so you don't have to take everything I say like it's the word of god. But hopefully you'll see my reasoning behind a lot of my suggestions to what you can do to play a bit more safely. And remember, no one is perfect, so while it might be easy to see mistakes in a video, it's a lot harder to predict things or read opponents properly in a real match. Still, after watching the video and reading my commentary, I'm sure this will help you begin to see attack patterns and learn how to bait more effectively.
