Real talk - Is Samus Even Viable?

[InterimOfZeal]

Now, this is coming from a player who has never once fought a good Samus. Everrrr. So of course there are (hopefully) a lot of things I'm not aware of.

Every time I watch a Samus vs whatever, it seems like the Samus wins because of the other person being bad/not knowing the MU. Most people don't just jab/aerial her missles, respect her cc, and PS/use disjoints to discourage the charge shot.

Her jabs and tilts seem really fast, and her CC game is really bothersome. My biggest problem is that it feels like anything she can do, Doc can do better. Cept CC, but he's still got a decent CC game.

To my knowledge, her "combos" are very limited (and for the most part, don't actually work?), her edgeguarding is okay, and her recovery is pretty decent, though fairly gimpable. It's just that she seems to get zoned pretty damn well, and rushed down pretty handily as long as you make them fearful to use upb.

Honestly, I feel like she's too far up on the tier list (I haven't checked to see if there's a new one since 2010, but I doubt she's moved much.) Am I wrong? What can a Samus do to set themselves apart and dominate their matches?

I ask in part because I've always had a slight interest in her, but thought she was a terrible character.

 

[Pluplue]

This thread is a disgrace.

 

[Shai Hulud]

They did update the tier list and Samus is below Doc.

 

[InterimOfZeal]

This thread is a disgrace.

Mainly because there is no one suggesting otherwise.

I haven't been keeping track, but has a Samus even placed at a national in the past year or two? Link me to good Samuses, or get them in here to explain what she can possible do vs the current meta.

 

[Pluplue]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56wmPXp3Xak

I also placed 32 at apex even though I feel like I could make top 16.

 

[-Philip Coast Philip-]

short answer: unless you're plup or hugs...

long answer: i can say it's my opinion that i think samus is really difficult to play. she's actually pretty technical, her combos are only really activated and accomplished by a few moves, and she can't move as fast as the upper characters because she's floaty.

[COLLAPSE="initial jumble of thoughts that may or may not be true"]that said... i think what makes her game* is a) really knowing the matchup, b) really utilizing all her moves, and c) not giving yourself room for mistakes on either of those last two. every move of hers has a unique advantage (even the debatable upsmash), in either range, knockback, priority, speed, or control. however, since she's not as agile and her moves are slightly slower on the whole, her approach is more limited in the option of speed, and if she misses, her risk for punishment is higher. so, in addition to just playing smart, you really have to know the purpose and ability of her moves to overcome an opponent's capabilities, and then carry that out with precision, or your failure will mostly likely result in disadvantage or punishment (but not always: luckily, her floatiness prevents her from being comboed too much, and so that's an example of a trait with tradeoff).

and this is the part where i'm not entirely sure, because it also acts as a criticism to the above thoughts...

*it seems like you could say that for any character, but melee's trifecta revolves around the block(shield)/attack/escape(dodge) interplay of spacing and approach ("zoning," if you will), and (it seems that) if you have a character that creates a high difference of inter-character capability in these areas, then extra moves become almost unnecessary, because your character can already 'win' the interplay, and as long as they can keep doing that, they'll win eventually. e.g. fox can apply a lot of pressure and bait really well, so when he goes in for an attack all he needs to use is like shine, nair, or upsmash, and he'll win eventually - (like) on characters where they create a high inter-character capability difference, like in extreme cases like against bowser, or against lesser players.[/COLLAPSE]

 

[bubbaking]

Her jabs and tilts seem really fast, and her CC game is really bothersome. My biggest problem is that it feels like anything she can do, Doc can do better. Cept CC, but he's still got a decent CC game.

To my knowledge, her "combos" are very limited (and for the most part, don't actually work?), her edgeguarding is okay, and her recovery is pretty decent, though fairly gimpable. It's just that she seems to get zoned pretty damn well, and rushed down pretty handily as long as you make them fearful to use upb.

Honestly, I feel like she's too far up on the tier list (I haven't checked to see if there's a new one since 2010, but I doubt she's moved much.) Am I wrong? What can a Samus do to set themselves apart and dominate their matches?

I ask in part because I've always had a slight interest in her, but thought she was a terrible character.

Personally, viability stops after C tier, but that's exactly where Samus is. Imho, Ganon should actually move down the list to bottom of C tier and Samus should move up to right below Doc. Doc also is a pretty bad char. Your recovery sucks balls.

Samus's jabs are quite fast and have decent hitboxes. Her tilts are fast, long-ranged, and nigh nonpunishable. Her CC game is second only to Peach's. I'm pretty sure that Samus's tilts are longer and more useful than Doc's and that she would win the zoning game in that aspect. If you're above Samus, she can punish you a lot harder than Doc can. Utilt, uair, and nair are all great moves that Samus has for punishing opponents above her. Samus also has either the second or third best recovery after Jiggs and maybe Peach. If anything, her recovery is not easily gimped. A Bomb jump which can weave in and out, a protective, fast screw attack with good vertical reach, a tether recovery, a situational 'high jump'; she definitely has enough mix-ups to consistently make it back to the ledge, and her position as the third heaviest char after Bowser and DK means she'll get more chances to do it. In addition, Samus can edgeguard fairly consistently. Her combos may be "limited" but she can easily extend them with tech chases and the like. Also, don't forget that her floatiness means it's also tough to combo her.

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=294133
According to the latest MU chart (linked to above) Samus actually has a better MU spread than Doc and the two chars go even on all legal stages.

It's just that she seems to get zoned pretty damn well, and rushed down pretty handily as long as you make them fearful to use upb.

You'll never make us fearful to use upB. If you harass our shields unsafely, you can count on having at least 8% tacked on to your damage.

I haven't been keeping track, but has a Samus even placed at a national in the past year or two? Link me to good Samuses, or get them in here to explain what she can possible do vs the current meta.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56wmPXp3Xak

I also placed 32 at apex even though I feel like I could make top 16.

Yeah, Plup and Hbox got 2nd in Melee Doubles at Apex. Also, Darrel got the same placement as Plup and I think HugS also placed somewhere at that tournament.

 

[Violence]

Plup, Darrell, Hugo(retired), and Duck have all placed very well in their regions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yKHvevIDz8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppNSIFCLWj8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7SM0uAP-IE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f90FmqKF05E

Some of my favorite sets. I learn something new every time I watch you guys.

You also have the second tier of Samuses, the ones people don't commonly know because they don't place in the top of their regions but we Samus mains know how good they are.

Pi, spaceballs, Prime, HugQ, Dark Mike, etc.

Definitely a lot of unsung Samuses.

 

[GunPunch]

my friend says Samus is a "bag of tricks". I think a good Samus MAKES the other person mess up. She has lots of options and a creative Samus will trick the other player. Eventually this will lead to smash missles making contact, even against good players. also, Samus has a lot of recovery options that make her hard to gimp if the recovery is smart and varied.

as for combos, she's more of a punishing character. and i think she's harder combo than many other characters. i think she can actually punish when she escapes combos.

(also, i don't think samus is TOO slow. ihavespaceballs has a pretty fast samus) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roGXwMN-LGg

 

[THE RED SPARROW]

Samus is a one of the characters that thrives more allowing the opponent to make mistakes or putting them in scenarios where they can be easily exploited. The problem is, versus top tier characters this become a harder feat, as Samus has has a very poor ability to directly engage any character with more priority or mobility (not speed), which at high levels are damn near everyone.

Unlike characters like Falco and Falcon can force openings through outright aggression and capitalize, Samus can't safely do so and will be punished for most failed *hard* counter attempts (i.e. Smashes) from most upper level characters. The problem lies with what level of punishment Samus can mete for every opportunity given.

In many cases, dependent on the matchup, it is lower than most characters. Some characters are more brazen due to this fact, because when your best punishing move for an interval of engagement is F-tilt or a Nair, it doesn't bode well over the course of 4 stocks when a character can punish you with a Pillar or a Knee in kind.

It is the reason why for every 9 successful reads Samus makes, a Peach can reach the same outcome in 2 or 3. Samus players do end up being much more intuitive and smarter finding these roundabout ways of dealing with various scenarios, which a big positive in using her long term.

Successful players like Plup and Darrell seem to make Samus a lot more successful than normal simply because they are much smarter players overall. Samus is just the instrument they have chosen and they feel like pushing her to the utmost limit, which I respect as a Samus main myself. However, I'm confident that a player like Plup could pickup another character and still show his skills in the same way- possibly better.

 

[Violence]

I don't agree, Red Sparrow.

Watching any good Samus, all they need is one good punish to send the opponent off stage and that opponent is not coming back. Doc, ganon, Fox, Falco, Falcon, Sheik, Marth, Climbers, once they're off, they're dead.

I dunno about Plup, but Darrell has secondaries, and while they're no joke, his Samus is far and away his best character. I don't think the whole, "If they played some other character" argument really works, you can say that about any mid tier main. What if Kage mained Sheik? What if Shroomed mained Marth? What if Axe mained Falco?

 

[KirbyKaze]

"If they played some other character..."

Taj has a very good Marth. But he is not the best in the world. The argument does not work.

I have mixed feelings about Samus's viability but whenever I make a big sweeping claim about how bad or good a character is, I always seem to get proven wrong a few months down the line (except regarding Bowser and Kirby; those two have held pretty strong thus far). So, all things considered, why not? She has decent enough tools.

Biggest difference I felt in the single game I played Plup was that I felt his missile zoning was really well done and it allowed him to compete with Sheik's priority in a reasonable way (i.e. work around my attacks). I'm fairly sure I handled his style terribly because I've never really fought a Samus like that before, and it was a single game (and I'm really bad so it takes me more than a game to get used to an esoteric character with a wildly different yet effective style). But I think that developments like that show room for growth with the character. She can probably be pushed and she's probably gonna be used by a few in the higher circles.

She seems hard to play though.

 

[Bing]

I played Plup in friendlies at Apex... he used a lot of Fox aswell as Samus.

God his Samus is so good.

 

[THE RED SPARROW]

I don't agree, Red Sparrow.

Watching any good Samus, all they need is one good punish to send the opponent off stage and that opponent is not coming back. Doc, ganon, Fox, Falco, Falcon, Sheik, Marth, Climbers, once they're off, they're dead.

I dunno about Plup, but Darrell has secondaries, and while they're no joke, his Samus is far and away his best character. I don't think the whole, "If they played some other character" argument really works, you can say that about any mid tier main. What if Kage mained Sheik? What if Shroomed mained Marth? What if Axe mained Falco?

I made a lengthy post to this but Smashboards ****ing gltiched out so now I'm too lazy to retype or remember everything I said.

Simply put, you misunderstood what I was saying. Samus' pros can complement certain players' playstyles (such as mine) which is why a Samus main might play better with Samus than another character (also experience). That isn't to say that the character's limitations at a high level is barely mitigated by said pros.

Which is why in the long run over the course of a set or a match Samus is put in more scenarios to fall prey to those innate weaknesses than getting success with her strengths. Falco, for example has clear recovery weaknesses but his prowess on the stage outshines this weakness, to the point where a Falco played well can win tournaments. Samus' offensive weaknesses and inability to outright kill opponents (without the aforementioned edgeguarding) hinders her in many scenarios.

Just because with stealth and cunning a man with a hunting knife can dispatch a gunman, doesn't mean that the matchup isn't widely in favor of the gunman is most scenarios.


Damn I hate when my posts get deleted.... ^#*&$(*@##$%%

 

[bubbaking]

In my mind, what I'm about to say makes perfect sense, but after reading it, you may find complete fault with it (cuz you're probably right). Anyway...I feel that Samus's greatest limitation is that she should rarely ever jump. I'm looking at the entire list of characters right now, and the only char that shares this problem with Samus is probably Mewtwo, maybe Luigi as well. When every char has decent ground moves and can also quickly and easily resort to aerials to try and remedy a problem or take advantage of a situation, it becomes very clear that you're limited if you cannot do the same kind of things at will. Luckily, what Samus is good at, she exceeds in, but her 'jumping problem' has been a major part of what bugs me sometimes about this char.

For example, consider this scenario:
Your opponent is shielding on a lower platform in Dreamland. You want to pressure his shield safely with little risk of being retaliated against. Most tilts probably won't reach from below the platform, so whatever you do will probably involve a jump. Most chars, like Fox, Sheik, Doc, etc., can easily and safely do one of three things.
1. SHFFL an aerial or simply do a SH aerial.
2. FH aerial (rising or falling)
3. WL>jab/tilt/grab/etc.

However, while Samus also has access to all three of those options, they are not nearly as risk-free for her as they are for other chars. Trying to SHFFL an aerial or do any form of SH maneuvers at all are risky because Samus's SH is unnaturally high and her extreme floatiness keeps her in the air for way too long. Performing a FH aerial is often the first thing to cross the minds of most Samuses, and it's probably the choice executed by many of them, but when analyzed closely, the problems with this choice are also easy to see. Samus has to make a critical decision as to when she will execute her aerial during the FH, and her floatiness means this choice has great weight on whether she gets away unpunished or not after her own attempt to pressure. If she performs a rising aerial, the fairly high aerial endlag of her moves means she is now unprotected and vulnerable to attack until she lands. If she delays her aerial and performs it while falling, she will have to hope that her opponent does not decide to attack oos with a move that can't be reacted to (Fox's bair, Sheik's nair, etc). These risks are actually present for the other chars as well, but they are amplified in Samus's case because of how long she has to remain in the air. Thus, Samus's best bet is the third choice: WL>action. Fortunately, as I said before, what Samus does, she does really well. In this case, she has a tool to help make WL's next to an opponent's shield much safer, her bomb. This bomb gives Samus a sorely needed mixup by allowing her the ability to choose between a direct WL, a bomb>WL, or a bomb>aerial.

All in all, the point I wanted to get across is that Samus has great, if not incredible, tools for what she does, but the fact that she has to constrain herself to grounded combat most of the time when her opponents are busy jumping all over the place is, imo, a great disadvantage.

Alright, critique my thoughts.

 

[DarrellD]

Samus is good. Why debate about it. The ***** ain't great like fox or sheik, but she's pretty good. The only time her short hop is balls is FD from my experience, no platforms to speed things up but really whats the point in debating where she's viable? It's not like your going to drop her and start playing fox. Play the character because you have fun and if you have fun with a different character, just play that one.

 

[InterimOfZeal]

Thanks, guys. Watching vids right now. Good discussion in here. It makes me want to play vs a good Samus, lolol.

Plup, Darrell, Hugo(retired), and Duck have all placed very well in their regions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yKHvevIDz8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppNSIFCLWj8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7SM0uAP-IE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f90FmqKF05E

Some of my favorite sets. I learn something new every time I watch you guys.

You also have the second tier of Samuses, the ones people don't commonly know because they don't place in the top of their regions but we Samus mains know how good they are.

Pi, spaceballs, Prime, HugQ, Dark Mike, etc.

Definitely a lot of unsung Samuses.

Holy hey, I remember HugQ. Got my *** whooped during crews at OC3 by his group. Hope I can do better if I get to play people again. CO smash so slow/dead. :,(

 

[bubbaking]

Samus is good. Why debate about it. The ***** ain't great like fox or sheik, but she's pretty good. The only time her short hop is balls is FD from my experience, no platforms to speed things up but really whats the point in debating where she's viable? It's not like your going to drop her and start playing fox. Play the character because you have fun and if you have fun with a different character, just play that one.

Best post on this thread.

 

[GunPunch]

^^^^^ agreed.
me: "I like being aggressive when i play Samus, but it not always the smartest thing."
friend: "Maybe you should change characters."
me: "No."

 

[Van.]

Does anybody know exactly what happened with plup vs. reno? like... was it 2-1 at least? were there suicides involved? I'm just wondering because after reading kks post it just seems like a strange situation could have contributed to that loss, no offense to reno.

 

[bubbaking]

Epic year-old bump' cause new SWF pushed this up in my unread list for no reason.

If Reno played Sheik, it could also just have been a regular case of Sheik bodying Samus.

 

[Grania]

excuse me for interupting, can you help me find a reno gamer named Tantin? Thanks

 

[Deft]

I think this is actually a good question and deserves a bump. Especially after watching Hugs take a game off of Dr. Peepee. Samus has some polarizing matchups, in my personal experience Marth being one of the hardest. For those that didn't see Dr. Peepee chose to counterpick with Marth taking games 2 and 3.

I recently decided to try and get back into the melee scene just for fun, with Samus as my main. The other week I played friendlies with Lanstar (SoCal Marth main) for an hour or so with no close games at all. Certainly I was out played, but at the same time I was out tiered.

So yeah, I know I'm not saying anything revolutionary here but I think Samus mains should have secondaries to deal with Marth. I'll probably try and play Peach. Or just play Project M so I can rock ZSS

 

[Mars-]

Samus is interesting because I think she entirely depends on the matchup knowledge of both players. At my level of play I notice people who are around equal skill level with me me can go even with my other characters but when I pick samus because I have so much knowledge on the character and they probably have very little MU knowledge it turns from even matches to me destroying them. I see it with samus players of all levels, Rat for example seems to have the same thing going on with him, I see him going even with people usually losing when he plays fox but when he goes samus it's a complete turn around. If you watch the apex videos you can see it with plup too. IMO fiction got very lucky with his win, chillindude who is a great player got destroyed by plup, he also lost to ESAM before in a close match. Plup caught all these players off guard I'm sure they have some matchup knowledge but plup is at a different level from any other samus player so it's impossible to prepare. MacD won it was close but he has HugS practice so that probably helped him a lot.

The other thing I find interesting about samus is even if you have samus practice you can never be fully prepared for the match because players all have different styles. HugS certainly has a different style from Plup, he has a different style then IHSB, ect.

So in my opinion yes samus is viable. Most people here, sorry to say, will never get to the full potential she has to offer. I think shroomed said it best about him playing doc until he feels that's the only thing holding him back. I think top 8 is very possible, I can see plup doing it this year consistantly. Top 4 maybe, if you get a good bracket. HugS got 2nd at EVO 2007, which as far as I know is the highest placing samus since probably Wes. So yes samus is viable, don't expect to be the best in the world with her, but hell, Plup is what, 2nd best in florida next to hungrybox. Wes dominated the NYC smash scene if I remember correctly. You can definately do great things with her.

/end random unstructured thoughts

 

[Pluplue]

I play Samus because Super Metroid is my fav game of all time. Honestly if I took melee more seriously I would switch to Fox/Falco but Samus is such a friggin awesome character that prolly wont ever switch. Pretty sure no Samus main picked her with the intention of winning a big tournament like Apex.

 

[bubbaking]

Didn't HugS make some big post saying that he was going to switch to Falco?

 

[343]

I play Samus because Super Metroid is my fav game of all time. Honestly if I took melee more seriously I would switch to Fox/Falco but Samus is such a friggin awesome character that prolly wont ever switch. Pretty sure no Samus main picked her with the intention of winning a big tournament like Apex.

Plup, your Fox was looking good at CEO Prologue (and of course your Samus was excellent too)! Are you going to only play Fox vs HBox and Samus vs everyone else, or are you going to use Fox in more matchups? Why'd you decide to go Fox vs HBox anyway (I guess he's really good vs Samus by now, right?)

 

[Pluplue]

I've been playing against Hbox in tournament for yearrrrs now and I've never done too well with Samus. Samus vs puff isn't actually as bad as people assume it is (I remember watching some stream and a commentator said the match-up was 80-20 puff favor), but when you're down on stocks with Samus it's INCREDIBLY hard to come back and when puff is behind on stocks she can always land a few bairs and immediately be back in the game. Fox is generally less stressful to play even if I don't know the match-up very well. When I'm behind I can land a quick kill with up throw up air and when I'm ahead I can retain the lead with lasers and retreating back airs.

And TY I've been workin' on that fox for a while now, I hope to beat hbox soon