Ok, so this week I was looking forward to trying out Zero Suit Samus. Frankly I was very disappointed.
I did my normal routine. I researched her bread and butter and kill confirms and her fastest and laggiest moves. I took her into training mode and just practiced each move. I warmed up against some CPUs. Then I played Online Quickplay.
On Night One I played 10 different Quickplay matches and only won 2 out of 10. I thought okay, I just need to get used to her, practice some more and then I’ll be able to win some more. I was so wrong.
Every night I started out in training mode. This week in training mode I concentrated only on combos, teching offstage hits, and edge-guarding. I think I at least got better at teching.
Every night I increased the CPU level I was facing in warm-up. I was losing a surprising amount of times for using what’s generally considered an S tier character. I was also SDing more than with most other characters. I think for two reasons – missing a Down Air spike offstage will kill ZSS and I was overestimating her recovery at points.
Did my winning percentage improve in Online Quickplay? No, it absolutely did not. Most nights I would be lucky to win one game out of the six to eight games I played. Of all the characters I’ve tried out a week or more, I have the lowest winning percentaget withe ZSS by far. Though I must admit, one night I was seeing if I could get my GSP under 100K with her. But she’s will in the bottom percent even for the Winning Percentage (Last 10). And I was trying for all those.
Before I expound on why I think she’s such a bad fit for me, let’s go over her strenghts and weaknesses.
Being universally considered a top-tier she does have many strenghts. She fast both in the air and on the ground. She is one of the fastest all around fastest characters. She has great recovery and because of this and her air speed can pursue opponents both offstage and towards the top of stage. Her disadvantage state isn’t bad, she has a multiple options to protect her return to stage or break out of combos. She has good out-of-shield options. She has a long grab range. She can spike with Down-Air and Down-B. She has two moves that can immobilize her opponents to set-up easy kills. Putting all this together she can take stocks very early.
And now for the bad. She’s both tall and light and that makes her an easy target. She might not get combo’d much, but she can also get up to 20% damage on just one or two hits. She has basically no combo game. Her throws don’t combo into other moves. Her Neutral air is her only combo starter but you have to get so close to your opponent to connect with it, it’s usually not worth it. Use Down Air offstage or even at the edge of stage and miss and she’ll SD. Her Smash attacks don’t kill consistenly. Immobilizing your opponent with her Paralyzer shot or her down-B requires very precise spacing. Even after your opponent is stuck after the paralyzer or Down-B your “reliable” kill options don’t always kill. Forward smash, Side-B, and Up Smash only kill sometimes. Up-B is the best conversion but can be very hard to connect to out of Down-B. And she can never trade with an opponent. She always comes out the worse for it.
So taking the good and the bad together, Zero Suit Samus is just not for me. She’s very much a hit-and-run character. She jumps in to tack on damage and then jumps out. And she’s not just a counter character, at least not online. You can’t just whiff-punish with her that doesn’t seem to work. You have to wait for your opponent to whiff and then punish what they want to do next or wait for them whiff on a move with a longer cool down. I just don’t think she matches my playstyle at all. She’s a rush-down character you can’t rush-down with because you’ll get punished. So you have to rush-down and counter I guess? I like Joker because I can be a aggresive at times and push forward, or I can stay at arm’s lenght with projecticles, or I can wiat for the opponent to come to me and counter their attacks. But I can’t really do any of those thigns with ZSS.
So, crossing Zero Suit Samus off my potential mains list. Honestly I was hoping she would be a potential pocket at least for Sword and Rat characters, but no that’s not going to work either. She’s just not for me.
So, not sure what random selection we’ll choose for me next week. Looking forward to something more rewarding I hope.