ZSS Down Smash chaining and 0 to death on fastfallers

[Trifroze]

Found this a few days ago and have never heard of this, so I made a video.

Definitely seems like something that has practical application, will just take some situational awareness and practice to learn the timings (I know I got the latter part down in just 5 days while making this video).

 

[FullMoon]

Doesn't work on Greninja (at least for now) because he can Shadow Sneak out of Down-Smash up to 13%.

Just FYI.

 

[AstroCRiS]

thought of something like this, except if you mess up mine, you still get a solid 45% of damage and it's not guaranteed but it's pretty difficult to get out of. Na-Ds-Na-Ds-Na-Ua-Ua-Ub. Sometimes you can sit it off with Ub after the first Ua. Works on fast fallers at 0%

 

[Trifroze]

thought of something like this, except if you mess up mine, you still get a solid 45% of damage and it's not guaranteed but it's pretty difficult to get out of. Na-Ds-Na-Ds-Na-Ua-Ua-Ub. Sometimes you can sit it off with Ub after the first Ua. Works on fast fallers at 0%

Yeah something like that is easier to pull off and works if the opponent is pressing buttons or trying to jump, but if they just hold shield they avoid the first nair to down smash unless they're at 15% or so.

 

[AstroCRiS]

Yeah but unless you're fighting Sheik, with the Shield mechanics now down smash is a little harder to punish so I like using it to get some good damage if they fall for it. But your 0-death is worth lambing and is probably more optimal with mine. Thanks a bunch!

p.s: big fan of the Falcon montages!

 

[Dr. Tuen]

*Looks up from dissertation*

Oooh, this is cool. I wish I had more time to engage this right now. The big one for me is neutral air to grab. That's... really awesome. I ran the numbers real quick on hitting this at 22%, as seen in the video, and you have 6 frames extra to perform that maneuver if you do it perfectly. You can lose frames by not hitting nair 1 frame before you land and by not buffering the dash grab.

What also interested me is the fact that this is feasible from 2% and onward in some characters' cases! Well, "onward" being until they are forced into tumble.

For nair to dsmash... at 22%, there's a 3 frame window for that to work. This is pretty tough, seeing as it's pretty hard to get nair to hit that close to the ground. If you are a pro and can nair wherever you want, this can work at around 12%, and notably, it will work at 0% if you frame sync it.

As for dsmash to dsmash (especially that weak dsmash to weak dsmash business!!)... I can't say anything about that, since I don't know how to calculate hard numbers for ZSS' stun moves (dsmash & paralyzer).

At some point... after I graduate... I want to assemble a very large spreadsheet that gathers all this and other combo-related information into character profiles.

Whelp. Back to work! I've lived in my office for the last week. Grad school is fun, heh.

 

[Trifroze]

*Looks up from dissertation*

Oooh, this is cool. I wish I had more time to engage this right now. The big one for me is neutral air to grab. That's... really awesome. I ran the numbers real quick on hitting this at 22%, as seen in the video, and you have 6 frames extra to perform that maneuver if you do it perfectly. You can lose frames by not hitting nair 1 frame before you land and by not buffering the dash grab.

What also interested me is the fact that this is feasible from 2% and onward in some characters' cases! Well, "onward" being until they are forced into tumble.

For nair to dsmash... at 22%, there's a 3 frame window for that to work. This is pretty tough, seeing as it's pretty hard to get nair to hit that close to the ground. If you are a pro and can nair wherever you want, this can work at around 12%, and notably, it will work at 0% if you frame sync it.

As for dsmash to dsmash (especially that weak dsmash to weak dsmash business!!)... I can't say anything about that, since I don't know how to calculate hard numbers for ZSS' stun moves (dsmash & paralyzer).

At some point... after I graduate... I want to assemble a very large spreadsheet that gathers all this and other combo-related information into character profiles.

Whelp. Back to work! I've lived in my office for the last week. Grad school is fun, heh.

The 3 frame window on nair to dsmash is honestly easy, for instance if you're hitting characters like Greninja, MK or Pikachu with SHFF nair, you naturally have the timing down from that. Hitting the nair 1 frame before landing is quite difficult, if you try to go for it you'll generally get 2 frame timings as often as you'll get 1 frame ones and probably a 3 here and there. Though, in many clips I wanted to do this with perfect execution, and out of all the attempts, I don't think I ever used nair more than 3 frames before landing when checking the video files.

The toughest part about all of this for me was fox trot into dsmash. The timing is 3 frames there too (sometimes 1 and 2 with the sourspot if your opponent is closer to 80% than 100%), but it's really unintuitive because unlike SHFF nair, it's not something ZSS' do in every matchup over and over.

Nair to dsmash actually works pretty well until like 30-35% even though the opponent gets sent into tumble, since dsmash will stun them if one nair to one dsmash is all you do.

 

[Zelbur]

The 3 frame window on nair to dsmash is honestly easy, for instance if you're hitting characters like Greninja, MK or Pikachu with SHFF nair, you naturally have the timing down from that. Hitting the nair 1 frame before landing is quite difficult, if you try to go for it you'll generally get 2 frame timings as often as you'll get 1 frame ones and probably a 3 here and there. Though, in many clips I wanted to do this with perfect execution, and out of all the attempts, I don't think I ever used nair more than 3 frames before landing when checking the video files.

The toughest part about all of this for me was fox trot into dsmash. The timing is 3 frames there too (sometimes 1 and 2 with the sourspot if your opponent is closer to 80% than 100%), but it's really unintuitive because unlike SHFF nair, it's not something ZSS' do in every matchup over and over.

Nair to dsmash actually works pretty well until like 30-35% even though the opponent gets sent into tumble, since dsmash will stun them if one nair to one dsmash is all you do.

Does this show up on the training screen? I've executed it like 10 times without it registering and it looks just like your video...

Also one other thing, does rage have too much effect on this? It would seem that rage could make them pop up into the air too long, and hitstun could wear off before you could D-smash. I don't really know the whole mechanics on this....

 

[Trifroze]

Training mode counter is unreliable and doesn't work properly. If a combo involves the opponent hitting the ground (footstool/jab lock combos and moves that send the opponent into a slide on the ground) the counter resets despite the combo still being real.

Rage increases hitstun and knockback so the opponent will be sent into tumble earlier, but they can also be killed by flip kick earlier. This translates to the combo working the exact same way as long as you do fewer down smashes according to your rage. At <35% you do 3 + nair -> dsmash -> flip kick, at 35-75% you do 2 + the rest, at 75%-125% you do 1 + the rest, and at 125%+ you only do nair -> dsmash -> flip kick, although in the last case your opponent needs to have 5-10% of damage first, otherwise it's not a true combo.