ZSS Neutral Game?

[AprilShaw]

Anyone have advice for playing ZSS's neutral game? I struggle with characters who are too fast for me to poke with neutral/side Bs, particularly at low %s when everything she does is CCable. Any advice or good matches to watch would be appreciated!

 

[G13_Flux]

definitely recommend watching ORO?! play. against fast characters, uncharged neutral bs serve to be a quick ranged nuisance to them. spacing nairs, bairs, and dsmashes are also all great options. i reccomend using neutral bs and dsmashes heavily in conjunction with pivots to improve their versatility as spacing tools and to give you more control over your position altogether. both take care of CCing extremely well. faster characters can be annoying for ZSS if they can supply a lot of quick pressure (since her OOS options are limited). in that case, spacing is all the more important to you and you really need to be mindful of how close you can be to them without being close enough that they can easily get in on you.

 

[Foo]

Against fast characters, I find shorthop nair to be my best friend. It is really quick, can combo be used out of a dash (a lot like an arial dash attack) and you can space it to either be out of range of punish (standing into short-hop nair) or position it so that you land behind them so that you can get away unpunished if they block it. Although it may just be the players I've played against, I've also found success with pivot grab. If they dash at me, I dash into them, and pivot grab. Usually they attacked where I was just a split second ago and I can land a free grab. However, your opponents may be better than that.

Also, if they are shielding, you can shorthop and spam dair on them until they roll away. Not exceptionally useful, but it can help sometimes.

 

[Axrz]

Also, if they are shielding, you can shorthop and spam dair on them until they roll away. Not exceptionally useful, but it can help sometimes.

No, lots of characters can punish that out of shield. Dair isn't generally a move you can get away with using unless you're doing it mid-combo.

 

[Foo]

With what? Dair pops you up when you hit, so you can get out, or dair again, before they have a chance to punish. Perhaps there are some characters that have a super fast uptilt that can prevent this, but I haven't seen one.

 

[Axrz]

With what? Dair pops you up when you hit, so you can get out, or dair again, before they have a chance to punish. Perhaps there are some characters that have a super fast uptilt that can prevent this, but I haven't seen one.

Short hop aerial, upsmash oos, depends on the character. But it's definitely not safe on a lot of the cast.

 

[Dark Sonic]

Yeah dair on shield is generally bad.

 

[pinkdeaf1]

B-reversals with b and b-side are tricky tools to use, but are tricky to combat. Maybe give it a try?

 

[jeck95]

Spacing is everything in neutral. I tend to use nair, side-b, grabs, uair and up-b as anti-airs, spaced d-smash for people that like to crouch cancel. Dash attack is pretty good but half of these options are not safe. Spaced side-b's and especially stun gun are your go to tools for neutral.

 

[AprilShaw]

Does anyone have videos of ZSS vs Link? That matchup is probably my worst when it comes to the neutral game (and the punish game tbh lol)

 

[ph00tbag]

Fresh metagame. Hot off the stream.

Oro doesn't win this one, and for some reason, his wins against Laz are missing. That's kinda unfortunate.