Zero Suit Samus Questions & Answers

[infiniteV115]

Considering the sweetspot for Up-air, it's located toward the tip of the Upair (the toes if you will) iiirc. I personally don't have troubles killing with Up-air from any spot except the bitter backside of it.

Dunno where you heard this but it's not true. Uair has the exact same damage, knockback, and knockback angle on all parts, solely with the exception of the bitter backside that you mentioned. Every part of uair that does 10% has the same kill power, and the 'bitter backside' does 7%. Hitting with any part that does 10% is your best bet

 

[Demna]

I was quite unsure of Upair having a sweetspot to begin with, but I remembered a few scenarios where the tips of the Upair killed quite early; however, thinking about it now, Upair is a strong killing move and can kill light characters early. Thanks for the clarification.

 

[pichuthedk]

I have 2 questions. I have been having problem killing at low percentages, what are some good combos to kill at low range? My 2nd question is that I'm also having trouble with Uair, It seems I'm not getting the sweet spot that kills, any tips on how to practice this?

I think if you want to kill at "low range" you need to get good at being able to get people off stage at relatively low percents from things like throw's (pivot grab or otherwise) , Dash attack locks , and maybe a side b close to the edge of the stage.
-Then when they are trying to recover be able to guess how they are recovering and either get a downsmash -footstool ledge grab/tether (this changes based on the character that is downsmashed off stage.)
Another thing that works when you get people off stage and they are trying to recover the first hit of fair some times generally pushes certain characters with poor horizontal recovery range like Ike For example far enough to be unable to recover while you just troll them and hang onto the ledge.

It takes practice though as this is generally a high risk high reward move since your not only falling under them, You will need to quickly think about which way you want to recover so you can avoid certain things like
-You just pushed someone away with the first of fair then hung from the edge they were still able to move towards you and footstool you while you were hanging completely avoiding the death you had set up for them
-Same thing but they do a spike or something.

You can Also Check out NickRiddle's video about the downsmash to footstool so you can get a better Idea of how low they need to be downsmashed from the ledge.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KojNS1UuaOo


Also Shout outs to Demna's comments about upsmash I found my self doing some pretty effective things with upsmash when used at certain moments that helped me slowly chip away at stocks when I was in the Danger Zone(140+%)
I still lost to 2 falcos though T.T I need to watch That V115 guy more I heard he was good or something XD.

 

[1PokeMastr]

Why do it when you're close to death ?

If it's good at chipping away, have it when possible.

Not just.. 140% die soon be all end all.

 

[Demna]

Yep, what 1PokeMastr said, you can use it to chip damage at any percentage. Try using it when your opponent is above you on a platform or as a follow up to your D-throw as an unexpected option to surprise your opponent.

 

[#HBC | ZoZo]

I remember when Xonar was always dropping knowledge on us...i miss those days

lmao i honestly forgot these boards existed

my knowledge is outdated as ****. cool to see peeps still alive here tho

 

[pichuthedk]

Why do it when you're close to death ?

If it's good at chipping away, have it when possible.

Not just.. 140% die soon be all end all.

Because Poke when I do it consistently vs players like you even with things like you being on a platform SDI -> face **** is usually my reward. However since I don't use it as often when I'm at lower %s its less predictable and I don't get punished for it as hard.
Plus up smash last longer then up B I get caught up into trying to up B people more trying for super spike which I must say I've gotten a lot better at that . I need to get better at timing up B because sometimes I want to use it to bait air dodges and punish accordingly but poor timing gets me punished.

I actually love up smash as a move its just really risky for me because I need to practice the situations in which i can safely use it.

 

[ViperGold42]

what is the range of percentages for a upair kill?

 

[Demna]

what is the range of percentages for a upair kill?

It depends on the character and position. Taking the average scenario where the opponent is relevantly high in the air, you should expect upair to kill at 110-120%

 

[ViperGold42]

It depends on the character and position. Taking the average scenario where the opponent is relevantly high in the air, you should expect upair to kill at 110-120%

aww this is very useful as I always find myself looking at the percentages and wondering if I kill at 90 or 100

 

[Demna]

aww this is very useful as I always find myself looking at the percentages and wondering if I kill at 90 or 100

If your opponent is quite high, it's possible to kill at 90-100%, Up-air is a pretty strong move

Edit: Can any attack from ZSS be Shieldgrabbed by grabs that come out on frame 7 and less after landing a dash attack (other than jabbing)? I'm fighting against this Ike who is able to powershield>Shield grab my uptilt after I land a dash attack (at low percentages). I'm being forced to run away (sometimes land Jab1 before running) after landing a dash attack and go for other options such as SH back > Wavebounced SideB / Falling B-air / B. Is this the correct option? Or is there a way to land a tilt attack after a dash attack connects?

 

[infiniteV115]

Dash attack is unsafe on hit at low %s against grounded opponents, and some aerial opponents. If you dash attack like any character (that doesn't have a tether grab) below ~20%, they can grab you to punish, or something else quick like a Falco dsmash (I think?)/Marth upB/Snake ftilt, or if they're in the air then something like MK/Pikachu/Ness/Peach nair, probably Falco dair, etc. And up until like 30% they can shield the utilt before it comes out, and then punish. Don't go for dash attack utilt until like 30%.

Also uair isn't very strong, even a fresh one won't kill a grounded MK until like 140-145%, I guess you can reduce those percentages by them being higher up on the screen but even like a fresh uair from the top of your FH won't kill MK til about 120%.

An uair kill at 90 shouldn't happen unless it's really really close to the top of the screen

Keep in mind I'm talking about fresh uair, and if you're playing ZSS properly your uair is probably not completely fresh, making it much worse at killing

 

[Demna]

Thanks, I'll test dash attack to uptilt/dtilt at 30% and beyond to see if the tilts can be shieldgrabbed.

When I said Up-air is a strong move I meant that it's an overall strong move since it's fast and good to juggle with, and not only as a killing blow. I mentioned "quite high" meaning that the opponent is near the top of the screen

 

[1PokeMastr]

Falco dair is frame 5.
Pretty sure they'd just Nair which is frame 3

 

[infiniteV115]

Well I mean most Falcos are going to dair if they're above you and they know they can hit you, and since you can get grabbed (which is frame 6) for DA on hit then Falco dair would work too

But that's even worse; now Falco has the choice between dair and nair

 

[1PokeMastr]

Bair also frame 4 and can hit slightly infront of him too.

 

[pichuthedk]

Tournament Saturday and I'm wishing I didn't procrastinate and put this off till last minute but...
Can I get some Advice on CP's stages Vs certain chars? Also second choices if the first one is banned
(I tend to just F my self by picking things I felt best suited the situation granted most of my first picks are banned)
I wanted some for Falco , Snake ,Marth And Icies.

*edit If you could also give your 2 cents on why you feel it appropriate it would really help me try piece together some logic on how i should be approaching the characters on said stage*

After getting bodied by a salty M2k after he lost a bracket match at apex 2014 I can't help but not really be afraid of MKs anymore lol.
All contributions appreciated much love <3 :D

 

[infiniteV115]

With Falco, it depends on what problems you have against Falco and what you're good at against Falco, though Yoshi's is usually a solid choice.
- Lylat sucks for Falco so if you're bad with the suitpieces against Falco, take him here (ignore the suitpieces and just fight I guess lol)
- Falco's camping with lasers/phantasm is facilitated on FD/PS1 so if you have trouble dealing with his camping, don't take him here.
Otherwise Falco is pretty good on BF/SV. I suppose he's also not that great on CS.

Snake: Ban FD. Take him to BF; if that's banned, take him to Delfino/YI:B/PS1 (unless it's MVD lol)

Marth: Again it depends on how good you are at each aspect of the MU, but you should be banning either BF/SV (or maybe Frigate if it's legal and you have trouble offstage against Marth) and be taking him to FD/PS1/YI:B/Delfino (if it's legal).
Hint hint, Leon loves SV and hates YI and Lylat. So you don't need to ban Lylat against him cause he won't take you there, and you'll probably like YI against him.

ICs: Ban FD. Take them to Delfino/Frigate. Halberd/BF/PS1 are fine too if you're comfortable there, but the former two are much better. Don't take them to SV or YI:B.

 

[pichuthedk]

well are we even playing with Delphino and such this weekend or what? cause i assumed we were still using the apex ruleset (Granted people can just agree).

I might try YI:B if I have to vs a snake kinda interested in seeing how it pans out.

As for Falco I did notice i did significantly better however the one crucial moment I waited for to comeback got messed up [ I landed a down smash after the statue transition but as I was going for the infinite the god damn stage tilted throwing off the timing, and that was the last chance Faloc was going to give me] lol.

Lylat vs falco was just bad lasers would magically be shot from the correct side as the stage would tilt in ways allowing him to snipe me in the face still. In all honesty though I just need to work on not letting those types of characters have that sort of space regardless of if i've been pressured or am winning. But thanks bro.

 

[infiniteV115]

Yeah we're using the Apex 2013 ruleset now, just look in the OP of the thread for DB4

 

[Demna]

I ban PS1 against Snakes, since it's easier to get deceived by his explosives in PS1 than FD, plus I have a solid item game and FD's long distance helps me start juggling the armor pieces. I tend to do better on FD than PS1/YI vs Snake, but that's just my personal preference.

 

[NickRiddle]

FD has Snake camping though.

 

[Demna]

True, but I make very good use (most of the time) with my pieces to get an initial lead, forcing the Snake to approach from 2nd stock and beyond. It might be from the fact that all the Snakes I played against were aggro.

 

[pichuthedk]

Oh gosh them pre tournament jitters zzz I like the inputs thus far and just to comment while I still have a little time. It always feels like certain things are more problematic on certain stages especially for jerks like Snake.

For example the stage gets a hell of a lot smaller when it's snake on FD with all the down bs/d smashes and what not,
Smash Ville he has a floating platform for mines which is a huge pain in the ass ect.

I think i will try Denma's choice this time if I run into that situation although a lot of snakes i've faced have banned FD so I don't really know what to expect (May as well force myself to Man Up and evolve my item game).

If push comes to shove I'll do YI:B because I'll never make the mistake of taking a Snake to Lylat again like i did for Bizkit in pools that was just a whole bunch of ****ing dumb major league throwing =/.

 

[Demna]

Denma

CoughDeMNacough

 

[infiniteV115]

ZSS should never get hit by a mine from Snake. They can all be safely (and realistically in the middle of a tourney match) destroyed with a dsmash/sideB (for grounded dsmashes only) and lasers/usmash/upB/nair as well (better for platform mines)

 

[NickRiddle]

I've been scared into down-bing into a d-smash from Snake.
Not fun, I tell you...

 

[Demna]

Yeah, Snake is the scariest character to fight in my opinion, all these explosives and thundering kicks gets in your head at one point during a tournament match. But, you can land an aerial after a D-smash without proper timing because Snake is huge (helps a lot if you're nervous/staled your B-air [making F-air a viable follow up]), so we've got this going for us which is nice.

 

[pichuthedk]

Can I please get coaching on the Falco Matchup probably best to just tell me about game 1 I was pretty demoralized by g2
I also couldn't go to YI:B for CP as it was banned
6hrs and 53 Min.
I was totally going to post this in video critique but then I realized I was the last poster there D;.
http://www.twitch.tv/acgamesonline/b/513309844

 

[Secret NSA Spy]

Hey all. Had a noob question and was hoping for some answers, if you'd be so kind. Made a topic about this but that was apparently the wrong place to put it so sorry about that.

I've played Brawl for a while, but only recently tried to get moderately good at it (my college hosts tournaments for it, so that was a decent inspiration). I've started playing ZSS, and really enjoyed her playstyle, but I'm running into a fairly large problem in another player who mains Wolf. We played a few matches, and it was pretty entertaining at first, but eventually he realized that he can just spam infinitely and I don't have a clue how to get around it.

His set up is basically this; he'll move to roughly 3/4th of the stage away (just inside the farthest reach of his laser, so it easily outdistances anything ZSS has) and just spams special. If I shield roll towards him, I'll get F-Smashed or D-Smashed, both of which have surprisingly good range. If I try to approach him from the air with something like Side Special, I get met by his Side Special, which goes diagonally and KOs at decent %s if it connects fully.

I'm sure there's something I'm missing; I'm pretty new to any sort of competitive scene, so if any of you have some tips on how to deal with this (preferably in terms a newbie can understand) that'd be much appreciated.

 

[NickRiddle]

Power shield lasers.
Air-dodge side-b.
Generally learn how to play.

 

[pichuthedk]

Power shield lasers.
Air-dodge side-b.
Generally learn how to play.

adding onto what he said you might want to try to get someone to help you practice walking power shielding the lasers ( aka someone spam lasers for you while you approach the wolf and keep power shielding). This will help you get closer to him while taking less damage and not have you just endlessly be pressured by the fact that you are just shielding or getting hit while making no ground on the opponent.
Also try to use this exercise as a way to try and think of what you will do once you get much closer to Wolf.

Other then that learn how to DI some of his moves like the Fsmash while keeping in mind to try and practice spacing better so that you can avoid taking the unnecessary extra hits he can throw out because throughout the course of a match they definitely do add up.

Lastly try watching some matches so you can get an idea of ways to approach that can be acceptable heres a random google example
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVRn_eu23jI

it's salem vs kain from like 2 years ago.

 

[Secret NSA Spy]

Power shield lasers.
Air-dodge side-b.
Generally learn how to play.

Your helpfulness is on par with the advice I could get from a cactus.

adding onto what he said you might want to try to get someone to help you practice walking power shielding the lasers ( aka someone spam lasers for you while you approach the wolf and keep power shielding). This will help you get closer to him while taking less damage and not have you just endlessly be pressured by the fact that you are just shielding or getting hit while making no ground on the opponent.
Also try to use this exercise as a way to try and think of what you will do once you get much closer to Wolf.

Other then that learn how to DI some of his moves like the Fsmash while keeping in mind to try and practice spacing better so that you can avoid taking the unnecessary extra hits he can throw out because throughout the course of a match they definitely do add up.

Lastly try watching some matches so you can get an idea of ways to approach that can be acceptable heres a random google example
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVRn_eu23jI

it's salem vs kain from like 2 years ago.

Thanks. Can you power shield/sprint quickly enough to get through lasers, though?

 

[infiniteV115]

Walking powershield to close the distance. Then, either punish the next laser with a powershield --> run in and dash grab (Wolf's lasers are really laggy) or just bit him to fsmash/dsmash and shield it and punish (utilt/dtilt OoS. Utilt if he's close enough for it to work, dtilt if utilt will not reach but dtilt will. Pretty sure you can also shieldgrab)
You should also never be getting hit by sideB, but at the very least if you know he's gonna sideB when you jump, then jump and airdodge the sideB, then punish with like bair or something (sideB is also really laggy).

 

[NickRiddle]

Your helpfulness is on par with the advice I could get from a cactus.

The solution was so easy a cactus could do it.
And I gave you 2 solutions to two of your problems before I called you bad.
Powershield the lasers so they don't hit you, and when you approach from the air, and you KNOW he's going to side-b, airdodge.
Sorry that was difficult to understand. I should consult with the other cacti before communicating with the baddies.

 

[Demna]

Hey all. Had a noob question and was hoping for some answers, if you'd be so kind. Made a topic about this but that was apparently the wrong place to put it so sorry about that.

I've played Brawl for a while, but only recently tried to get moderately good at it (my college hosts tournaments for it, so that was a decent inspiration). I've started playing ZSS, and really enjoyed her playstyle, but I'm running into a fairly large problem in another player who mains Wolf. We played a few matches, and it was pretty entertaining at first, but eventually he realized that he can just spam infinitely and I don't have a clue how to get around it.

His set up is basically this; he'll move to roughly 3/4th of the stage away (just inside the farthest reach of his laser, so it easily outdistances anything ZSS has) and just spams special. If I shield roll towards him, I'll get F-Smashed or D-Smashed, both of which have surprisingly good range. If I try to approach him from the air with something like Side Special, I get met by his Side Special, which goes diagonally and KOs at decent %s if it connects fully.

I'm sure there's something I'm missing; I'm pretty new to any sort of competitive scene, so if any of you have some tips on how to deal with this (preferably in terms a newbie can understand) that'd be much appreciated.

If you don't know this by now, you really should:
You can D-smash lock Wolf into high percentages (like to 95%-105% and possibly beyond) and then follow up with a SH buffered B-air. Long story short, you can convert one D-smash on Wolf into a kill.
An example would be from the video that pichuthedk provided:

Watch minute 2:25

 

[pichuthedk]

that is very true although we should add in the point that its best to get downsmash as stale as possible.. Crap I can't remember if they say that in the video.

I have a question or 2 about our frame data I'll post up when I get home.

 

[Secret NSA Spy]

The solution was so easy a cactus could do it.
And I gave you 2 solutions to two of your problems before I called you bad.
Powershield the lasers so they don't hit you, and when you approach from the air, and you KNOW he's going to side-b, airdodge.
Sorry that was difficult to understand. I should consult with the other cacti before communicating with the baddies.

Just to check, I asked several cacti beforehand, and none of them had the solution.

 

[infiniteV115]

Bair shouldn't be killing Wolf at 100, I think Kain was trying to shine out and that caused him to DI poorly

 

[BlueXenon]

Can someone please explain the neutral game for both characters in the Rob vs ZSS match up?

And is Rob able to edge guard ZSS in a similar way that metaknight can?