Q&A Zero Suit Samus- Quick Question, Quick Answer Thread

[Muffin!]

So I did some testing in training mode, if only one of the middle hitboxes connects, then it only does two percent and knocks them back at a very horizontal angle. I'm starting to think it might be useful for edgeguarding because the middle hits have good knockback and they send so horizontal. It's not too difficult to get the last hit to miss. They just have to be right next to you and slightly above or below you.

It's not a bad mixup for offstage edgeguards. It's hard to hit with it but if you connect they are pretty much dead unless villager.

 

[pichuthedk]

I wonder if side B hits under the stage at all. Hmm, could be cool. Though the end lag might leave you unable to respond to your foe's getup options. Not that the off stage flip kick lover should be care... ha.

Hmmm now I am kinda curious to see if there is a list of characters we can edgeguard via stage spike or something with side b's explosion hitbox on the ledge.

Like how links down tilt used to straight up murder an X number of characters who were holding on the ledge, Could be interesting for stuff like halbard/lylat where there are tilts or elevated ledges ect...

Last thing because I have not tested it yet [and my game pad is dead )= ] but if we run of and instantly side b can we survive stages with narrow edges like lylat or SV? Zss can always survive running off and zairing immediately but I never thought to try side b -_-0.

 

[Ascen]

Is ledge cancel Neutral-B a tech?

 

[Tobi_Whatever]

@ Shaya I'm a big lazy dumdum, would you mind explaining to me/us how exactly the whole modifier change of the last patch affects us? Did anything we have get more safe?

 

[Trifroze]

Is ledge cancel Neutral-B a tech?

It's a common mechanic in the game for landing with certain specials, however ZSS can also do that with a landing flip kick which I think is a bit more useful.

@ Shaya I'm a big lazy dumdum, would you mind explaining to me/us how exactly the whole modifier change of the last patch affects us? Did anything we have get more safe?

Pretty sure it decreased hitlag from moves that had a modifier bigger than 1.0 except for moves with electric attributes, and since ZSS' nair is her only move with a >1.0 hitlag modifier and it's electric, nothing changed at all. If that move was safer it'd be godlike though.

 

[Shaya]

Her Up Tilt and Forward Smash's second hit sweet spot have hit lag modifiers of 1.2 and 1.6.

So 2 frames safer for both hits of up tilt, and 5 frames off fsmash.
Pretty soso in usefulness but you never know.

So no, things did change~
(but not really)

 

[Trifroze]

For some reason I only thought of aerials since in my mind ground moves = always gets punished and therefore doesn't coexist with safety. Except like, a handful of smashes out of which ZSS' down smash is among the safest if not the most safe one, unpunishable upon perfect shielding and doesn't have a 30 frame startup or tiny hitbox like some others.

Related to that subject it'd be interesting to search for ground moves that are -5 or less on shield. In addition to smashes and projectiles, some tilts might have that sort of frame data and also enough range to effectively never get punished. I tried Diddy's and Mac's dtilt at some point but forgot whether they were safe or not. : ^ ]

 

[Tobi_Whatever]

OOS uSpecial is an easy thing to perform in general, but I screw it up in actual matches 50% of the time because of Shield stun and end up just jumping.
Is there any reliable way to avoid doing it too early/late? I don't know how to practice this properly without another human being.

 

[Shaya]

I always just end up trying to make apple juice out of lemons and use that full hop to some effect (if they panic I down air, otherwise stuff like fast falling up air can be kinda spaced on the way down, as can nair, and you can mid air jump again, or flip jump away).

One idea is this:
You're jumping, jump takes precedence as a buffer choice.
Why bring this up?
Because if you've input jump and up-b in the buffer window you're going to jump anyway,
so what if you just keep pressing up-b?
With tap jump on you ideally don't have to do much but keep pressing the b button.

I've tried to get that into muscle memory (FOR MONTHS and months, but it's easy to forget to do it) but it feels a bit counter intuitive.
If you don't have tap jump there should be little risk of accidentally double jumping with it.
But that would be quite a blunder to buffer double jump up-b even with tap jump on.

An aside to this if you do somehow jump before up-bing, this is actually secretly GOOD.
The closer you are to the centre of an opponent's body with the start [lowest part of her body] of the kick the less likely they are to fall out from most gearing/DI. I practice this a lot actually; doing dash short hop up-b instead of just dash up-b, it's a theory more than something I've proven but anecdotally seems pretty solid [explains why some characters don't fall out due to them being "puff balls" that have a small hurtbox (i.e. everything is close centre) during hit stun], so it may not be a bad thing against a human sized character to mess up your special button repetitions as to not jump cancel.

AND that optimal oos punish for aerials may be jump boost kick over just boost kick.

 

[Tobi_Whatever]

I always just end up trying to make apple juice out of lemons and use that full hop to some effect (if they panic I down air, otherwise stuff like fast falling up air can be kinda spaced on the way down, as can nair, and you can mid air jump again, or flip jump away).

One idea is this:
You're jumping, jump takes precedence as a buffer choice.
Why bring this up?
Because if you've input jump and up-b in the buffer window you're going to jump anyway,
so what if you just keep pressing up-b?
With tap jump on you ideally don't have to do much but keep pressing the b button.

I've tried to get that into muscle memory (FOR MONTHS and months, but it's easy to forget to do it) but it feels a bit counter intuitive.
If you don't have tap jump there should be little risk of accidentally double jumping with it.
But that would be quite a blunder to buffer double jump up-b even with tap jump on.

An aside to this if you do somehow jump before up-bing, this is actually secretly GOOD.
The closer you are to the centre of an opponent's body with the start [lowest part of her body] of the kick the less likely they are to fall out from most gearing/DI. I practice this a lot actually; doing dash short hop up-b instead of just dash up-b, it's a theory more than something I've proven but anecdotally seems pretty solid [explains why some characters don't fall out due to them being "puff balls" that have a small hurtbox (i.e. everything is close centre) during hit stun], so it may not be a bad thing against a human sized character to mess up your special button repetitions as to not jump cancel.

AND that optimal oos punish for aerials may be jump boost kick over just boost kick.

Keep pressing as in holding down or pressing repetitively? I guess the latter right?
Anyway, I'd really like to hug you right now. Pls b in Dresden.
I don't know what I would do in Smash without you.

 

[Dr. Tuen]

Hey all,

I've been moving so my ability to get hands on controller action is low for a short time. I've been trying to theory-assemble some attack-based option selects, and I have a question about the jab combo inputs.

If you press A, A, A with less than 20 frame gaps (I think, I'm not 100% on the transition numbers), you get the jab combo. My question is - can the second inputs be something else? C-stick? Tilt-stick? Special? ... Shield? Which buttons also continue the jab combo? Cause if special also works, I have an idea for an attack-based option select.

 

[Shadó Chimera / シャドーキメラ]

C Stick set to attack or Smash will continue the combo, and grab (which is just shield+attack) will continue the jab combo.

 

[Dr. Tuen]

C Stick set to attack or Smash will continue the combo, and grab (which is just shield+attack) will continue the jab combo.

Ah man, no specials work? Dang. I was gunning for an interesting neutral air to flip kick/jab combo option select. Back to the drawing board.

 

[NeoSeth]

Yeah, you can't really avoid committing to the jab combo once you start. Sucks when you get a jab on shield; if only the first hit could cancel into something. Imagine cancelling jab 1 into d-smash.

 

[Otterz]

Down Throw to Bair is a simple combo I've been getting airdodged on, I just wanna make sure I'm going about this right. Is it cross up Bair if they DI in and RAR Bair if they DI out? If so I just need to work on speed. And what about that middle, no DI range?

 

[David Viran]

It is a cross up Bair if they DI in and rar for away. Actually for DI away, some characters you don't need to rar but just quickly turn around and jump.

 

[Dr. Tuen]

So, a Peach main produced an interesting video:

Essentially, knockback and weight based knockback on her first hit of up B is obnoxious. The purpose is to help force players into the next hit. B-reversing the move forces players to get hit by that hit alone, and boom. Big reward.

I reviewed the numbers for first hit of up B real quick. (BKB = Base Knock Back, WBKB is Weight Based Knock Back, KBG is Knock Back Growth)

Peach - 180 (BKB) / 160 (WBKB)
ZSS - 150 (BKB)

Reminder that Peach's final hit of up B is a decent kill move and its got 90 BKB / 100 KBG. ZSS' last hit is 50 BKB / 220 KBG. So, obviously, boost kick is favored as percent goes up.

Here's what I'm getting at: we might want to check out the potential application of reverse up B as a finisher. I have no idea if it works... I'm at work. I also don't know if we have set ups for it. But, if say... we figured out how to integrate it into the B&B... or something... the kill would depend on one hit, not 8.

Some interesting thoughts for us to look into, potentially.

 

[NickRiddle]

Does reverse BK still have the first hit connect?
Pretty sure it'll whiff, which won't allow this to work.
I'll just turn on my system and try.
Doesn't work at all.

 

[Shadó Chimera / シャドーキメラ]

I'll go over what I know about this:
Fixed knockback has different values than usual knockback and scales with 2 things and how much it scales is indicated by WBKB. it scales with the opponent's weight (lighter gets more knockback) and user rage.

Here's the comparison:
Peach: 3% 100f/180w
ZSS: 5% 100f/150w

idk what those numbers mean exactly but I do know we will need more rage for it to work, and it may only work on really light characters.

edit: maybe we can somehow wiff it without reversing. :/

 

[Dr. Tuen]

Oh, does a 100 KBG mean the move has no growth? Man, there needs to be a basic guide written about these numbers... written by someone not named Tuen. Ha ha.

Anyways, interesting finds everyone. I guess we'll keep looking for cool nuances for our character elsewhere! ... not that it will stop me from seeing for myself later tonight, ha ha.

 

[Shadó Chimera / シャドーキメラ]

I think 100 is like the standard? No growth would be 0KBG, and even that would scale with rage.

 

[Dr. Tuen]

How are you getting that ZSS/Peach's first hit up B has fixed knockback then?

 

[Shadó Chimera / シャドーキメラ]

it's listed as f/w instead of b/g

 

[Dr. Tuen]

it's listed as f/w instead of b/g

Which data source are you using? It looks like @ KuroganeHammer 's site doesn't list the f/w vs b/g difference.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

Whut, weight based knockback is fixed knockback based on weight.

 

[Shadó Chimera / シャドーキメラ]

I was using this for things that weren't changed in the patches.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

Guys you're triggering me, can't you just ask directly what you want to know or what you're confused about

 

[Shadó Chimera / シャドーキメラ]

Guys you're triggering me, can't you just ask directly what you want to know or what you're confused about

Under your BKB/WBKB section when it lists w: that means it's fixed knockback and that number is how much weight affects the knockback, correct? What does KBG represent in those cases?

 

[KuroganeHammer]

It stands for knockback growth...? Fixed knockback still accounts for KBG.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

Ok more in depth, say you have a move that is fixed kb and it does 40 units of knockback.

If the kbg is 50, then it becomes 20 units of knockback

If it's 200 it will do 80

100 = 100% of kb basically

 

[Dr. Tuen]

@ KuroganeHammer Ah! Thanks for the clarification. And now I realize there's a glossary section. The mildly differing lettering/terms across different data sources is frustrating, but this is still definitely a hiccup on my part. Sorry about that!

 

[KuroganeHammer]

Yeah, everyone should just use mine, cuz im the best

 

[Dr. Tuen]

Yeah, everyone should just use mine, cuz im the best

I use your reference for everything save properties and hitstun modifiers. So, effectively, all the data lies between you and sixriver. I mean... mastercore is cool, I just can't read it >.>

 

[KuroganeHammer]

no one can read it and half the time it's written in a way that's wrong

"oh look at this wonderful frame speed modifier"

"nice frame 2 ftilt, megaman!!"

etc

It's honestly only useful for BKB/KBG and angle values LOL

 

[pichuthedk]

Hate to throw a wrench in your plans while you guys are on a roll ,but before I forget this ?

Possible to make nair a tad safer buy hitting with the back hit ?
Obviously still retreating slightly.

 

[Shaya]

Safer in the sense it goes further behind her? Not really safer in any real way (horrendous auto cancel, you only ever want to land afterwards).

 

[V4n1sh]

what moves combo into down b spike?

 

[Otterz]

what moves combo into down b spike?

Nair
Down Smash
Back Throw
Paralyzer (Correct me if I'm wrong on that one)

Thats all I got off the top of my head, percents vary.

 

[HFlash]

Hey guys! Have been playing ZSS for about a week or so and was wondering where is the best place to look up stuff for ZSS knowledge. I know there is a directory, but it seems like a really old post and was curious if there is anywhere else that I should look at beforehand.
Note: Seems like C.F and Marth mains tend to gravitate towards this character. Go figure.

 

[Project Crysis]

Nair
Down Smash
Back Throw
Paralyzer (Correct me if I'm wrong on that one)

Thats all I got off the top of my head, percents vary.

if b-throw does combo into d-special do you know what % it works at?