As a Mega Man player, hear me out.
I have, approximately, 40% projectiles, 20% midrange gap closers, and 40% unbelievably unsafe attacks. I start each fight the same way, metal blade -> crash bomb -> metal blade -> crash bomb, with some steps forward in between. The point of this is to hopefully keep them shielding long enough for me to get into the center stage where I can use my moves that work out for me. If I notice, during that zone control phase, that my opponent has eaten all of my attacks without avoiding them, I will throw another volley to make sure. If they still have trouble dealing, I will continue to use the course of action that leaves me the most safe, which, in this case, is blades and bombs. If my opponent, for example, catches my blade and shields my crash bomb, I'm out of spam mode, and go into my zone defense with dtilts and lemons, with back airs for spacing to keep you out. This is the way Mega Man plays.
I will not be using my smashes, down air, forward air, dash attack, down special, or uptilt on anything other than a pure punish, because those moves would get me killed if I ever tried to use them. This leaves me with jab and ftilt (projectiles), neutral and forward special (projectiles), nair and uair (projectiles), up special (escape), with grabs, dtilt, and bair as my only non-projectile reliable moves. I've had salty SDs and people switching to Palutena or Falco to deal with that, and I've still done fine. The problem is, people don't seem to know the difference between spamming and zoning. I know full well that you could come at me with a dash shield grab, and I am prepared to stop hucking blades and spotdodge as soon as that comes out, then punish with a utilt, probably for the KO.
If you faced me, you'd probably call me a "spammer" and say "no matter what I do I can't get in", to which I say that's the entire freaking point. If I can do a strategy that makes you uncomfortable and restricts options without limiting my own, that's what I do. I am fully capable of doing more than tossing saws all day, but against a lot of people, they never give me the opportunity to stop. I'm not dishonorable. If I see my opponent taunt, I will taunt as well. If a sudden lag spike causes my opponent to fail an easy recovery, I'll toss myself off as well. If I get the chance to save an opponent falling from a badly placed Falcon side-b, I'll toss a lemon at them to give them back their jump. I am playing a zoner, and I will zone goddammit. If you can't deal with that, then that means I'm improving. It's not unbeatable, I've had my robotic ass handed to me way more than I've shut someone out completely. I've been beaten out of my zone defense by Robins, Ganons, and Bowsers, and I have totally shut down all options of Links, Samuses, and Lucarios. It's not about the matchup, it's about the mindgames.
tl;dr: No Johns. My strategy is just as legitimate as yours.
