3.6 ZSS Discussion

[ted dorosheff]

figure out whether you're the type of ZSS to use whip moves, a lot of blaster and running away, or being full on aggressive with grabs and shffls.

Even better advice: be all of these zss's and just know when is the right time to apply each style.

 

[Supreme Dirt]

so i haven't really touched PM since w/e the first build zss was in (2.0?), probably going to try to start playing seriously again.

what do we do against falco? his pressure mainly laser - followup seems really hard to deal with as zss. our oos doesn't seem the best, but i could just be missing something.

 

[prem]

its just a rough matchup, gotta punish him super hard a la falcon. Tech chase low percents, chain grab mid percents into up air and free kill chains. edge guarding is somewhat obnoxious but very doable with dsmash laser and just good reads. utilt is really good at stuffing their approach if they misspace things (similar to how shiek can purposely take a laser and ftilt fast enough to stuff his approach)

 

[Avro-Arrow]

Crawling under lasers can work as long as they don't shoot them as low as possible. As prem said, ZSS punishes Falco super hard and they basically summed it up nicely. I do think there's something to be said here about platforms. Using them to move around makes it harder for Falco to laser you and can bait him into coming at you. Watch Jason Waterfalls if you want to see how awesome plats are for ZSS.

 

[drakargx]

What are you even supposed to do in the kirby matchup aside from picking another character

For some reason my pm scene has a decent number of people who either main kirby or at the very least secondary him (probably because of my state being the land of Triple R or something idk) so I end up playing this matchup a lot, but I can not for the life of me figure out what to do here. I'm bad and all but I firmly believe this is zss' worst matchup, I'd take a spacie or falcon any day over this stupid pink ball.

No matter what mixup is used Kirby can cover every single option zss has to recover, regardless of it being low or high, and he can switch between the two very quickly. Low recoveries can be stuffed with nair, bair, and in some rare instances inhale. Tether recovery also gets stuffed by both options, if he holds onto ledge and you reel in, he can use nair, bair, uair or position himself for a reverse fair - basically all of his aerials can be used to cover the same thing. Wall jump recoveries is stuffed by the same options. It's basically like no matter what move he uses he can always edgeguard zss and make most of her options awful. The only safe thing I can think of is if he is away from the ledge and you charge up paralyzer/throw out a side b before going under ledge, then it causes him to waste time getting to ledge allowing you to get a fast tether reel. But those situations are sparse and don't happen often.

Kirby's bair comes out on frame 6 and zss' bair comes out on frame 7, and coupled with his multiple jumps and lingering hitboxes on bair the bair spacing fight feels lost. Perfectly spacing bair is significantly harder in this matchup because of his ability to move in and out of range with numerous jumps, I'm not sure if this is right but it feels like there's too many variables to factor when trying to space him out with bair. You can do a pretty good job spacing with nair and uair but neither of them have the kill potential bair does. Very rarely (if at all) I will get a kill with uair or nair against him, it requires either a small stage or a sucessful uair connecting while kirby is near the ceiling, which is kinda hard to land when he can jump numerous times. The worst part is even if he uses all his jumps he still has down b whose armor protects him up until he reaches very high percents, like 125% and above. If you miss the uair or down b armor protects it you end up getting hit by a move with decent knockback and damage.

In neutral things are slightly in zss favor due to him not having a good approach option aside from dash attack. Against kirby players that rely on dash attack too much this is a good way to get well spaced punishes like a bair, but his floatiness (and multiple jumps...) it's very hard to combo him. However from my experience playing against the better kirby players in my region (specfically the times where I've played with a kirby main whos #4 on the current PR in my state and a person who was #3 on the PR before dropping bowser who ended up playing kirby against me once) , the stupid ball does not need to approach. Crouching allows him to avoid even a full charged paralyzer, side b won't pull him up until higher percents allowing him to come in due to its lag, and the aerials and down smash can be shielded against. These kirby players can very easily gain a percent lead, and hang out near the ledge. Approaching them is a dangerous thing and you risk getting edge guarded with ease. I'm probably completely wrong on this though

Overall the matchup just makes me feel like **** trying to even bother with it, I've been playing it out because I feel like I should at least figure out what to do but I just haven't been able to. If I play super conservative and safe games last near the 8 minute mark and I still lose. If I play like I normally do then games end in a couple of minutes. I'm so clueless on what to do

 

[G13_Flux]

ZSS is super fast, while kirby really isnt. ZSS has moves with a lot of disjoint, which kirby really doesnt. ZSS has a goodprojectile, while kirby doesnt have a great way to deal with them. utlimately, you have to beat him in neutral. kirby edge guards the crap out of everyone, but that doesnt mean he beats everyone. Im pretty sure ZSS gets guarenteed combos and kill set ups off grabs on kirby, so play it patient in neutral and force him to approach you and make a mistake.

I cant say I have experience vs really good kirbys, but on paper, and from general experience playing both characters, i cant see how zss loses this one.

 

[Player-3]

but on paper, and from general experience playing both characters, i cant see how zss loses this one.

because kirby crouches

 

[ikon]

numerics has not dropped a set to atemx yet, and atemx is a monster of a kirby. i'll check in with him about specifics with the mu, he gave me some advice at one point but i forgot cause im cool

 

[Player -0]

Identify whether Kirby's doing a ground based game or an aerial one. I think ZSS should win as long as she's not doing the same game as Kirby. You should play like Fox vs. Puff kind of. Except you don't have laser + stuff + kills.

 

[G13_Flux]

because kirby crouches

but what does a crouching kirby actually get against ZSS? sure, you dont get hit by the laser. but her speed is high enough that a kirby who is staying immobile, waiting for the laser to go over him might sacrifice stage control and put him under more pressure than he was to begin with. ZSSs dsmash is very effective at dealing with opponents once their mobility options have been limited, especially if their mobility is anything short of really good to begin with and they dont have a lot of disjoint. spaced bairs help in this area as well.

I can see the crouching making it difficult to get conversions, especially with grabs, but the way im looking at it, it seems that kirby doesnt have a ton of ways to get conversions after crouching under a laser. its another thing if its a low crawling samus that has a crawl tilt that pops you up, or even if kirby had some kind of pop up dtilt or something.

 

[Player -0]

Kirby has grab, Up-Tilt, and can move/shield at anytime during his crouch. Disclaimer: turn around Up Tilt is super easy. Kirby's crouch is actually broken.

You have to space Bairs and be spooky so Kirby either dash dances, shields, or gets hit.

Then you react to these.

If you're in the lead have fun 7 minutes camping him/it/whatev out because mobility isn't Kirby's forte.

 

[❤ Nikodemus05]

what even is the zss zelda mu

how do i deal with her, she seems like a brick wall to advance towards

 

[prem]

just dd aroudn in front of her upthrow her all the time and then never let her hit the ground because uair is godlike and she moves way too slow to deal with it. bair and fair can be punished by wd oos, fsmash you can maybe punish if you are close enough and shield di but its super safe and hoenstly you should just wavedash back to reset the situation because you should be winning neutral. SDI her upsmash up and away and she wont combo you that hard and be wary of utilt because that move is ridiculous.

ZSS wins that matchup pretty notably so you just have to learn what zelda does and bait it out because most of what she has are strong commital moves that can be punished on block and wiff

 

[Avro-Arrow]

Also whip against Zelda should be good since she's slow she can't challenge it.

BTW I played the Kirby MU recently and Kirby can actually do a lot of stuff to ZSS. Definitely not an overly easy MU by any means.

He can crouch under our grabs, which sucks since his shield pressure is made a lot more safe by that fact alone: upBoos doesn't hit IIRC, grab doesn't hit, and aerials won't hit. You kinda have to take a risk by grabbing or reset to neutral. He also can crouch under utilt, which makes it an even riskier move to throw out than usual (notably, its reward is also lower). I like basically uair spamming, tossing in dairs sometimes, and spacing bairs.

He can live forever, lol. I like spacing whips, but if he reads it or decides to approach, his shffl aerials will beat it. He can also crouch under uncharged blasters or jump over them.

This matchup is controlled by his crouch. It's ridiculous, but fun. Like playing whack a mole.

Oh yeah, Player -0 was right about being on a different plane than Kirby. That's the most important thing.

 

[Samn]

Hey does anyone know of a good way to practice ledge canceling tether reel up? I can't think of a good way besides using 2 controllers or forcing someone to help.

 

[Player -0]

if people fall from the forced fall thing do they grab while in that animation?

If so you can plug in a random remote and move them onto the ledge in the jank stamina mode and just do that.

 

[Samn]

if people fall from the forced fall thing do they grab while in that animation?

If so you can plug in a random remote and move them onto the ledge in the jank stamina mode and just do that.

Dude you are a ****ing genius, thank you.

 

[Avro-Arrow]

Last time I did stamina they respawn on the invincibility platform - am I just recalling incorrectly?

 

[Player -0]

There's a stamina mode setting that makes blastzones really jank and you just fly from other part of screen. Kind of like the world map, if you fly from right side of map you'll appear on left.

I don't remember which exact settings it is but it's in Special Smash.