Patch 1.1.3

[KayJay]

How is the Lucas matchup in our favour? Genuinely interested. A lot of the reasons Ness is a bad MU for us are the same reasons Lucas is a bad MU IMO. Between his reflector, psi magnet, being small, PK Fire clanking with our full charge shot, disjoints on his psi moves and now his much better grab game, I don't see the MU being in our favour at all.

The secret is: Don't tryhard our combo game, because the chances of getting punished while trying to followup are too high. Ness & Lucas have big air-mobility while they airdodge unlike other characters.
Instead just punish all of their approaches, they are slow and have small hitboxes. You can Jump out of PK Fire at almost any percent, Perfect framed U-Airs come out so fast and beats out every aerial approach from the motherboys.

Ness has a hard time grabbing Samus if we play safe, and that's his only easy kill 'setup' and we can gimp him on reaction pretty effective with homing missile into FF N-Air and similar methods.
Lucas has the same problems like Ness. His approach game is slow and we outrange him with our Z-Air & other hitboxes. If your spacing with Samus is flawless and you master SH N-Air FF autocancel, Foxtrot turnaround D-Tilt, the Motherboys are at a disadvantage. Just don't try to combo them, Punish their landings with D-Tilt or grab. They are floaty, abuse that, perfect shield their Landing attacks then D-Tilt them (master the turnaround D-Tilt if needed), I do this like 10 times in the row until they escape to the ledge. I will make a video about how good D-Tilt is for catching landings.

I've played a good Cloud or two (only on FG so far though) and yeah this matchup is not looking good for us. He's fast, his disjoints simply beat our moves and he doesn't have much end lag on many moves/has some fast moves so you can't get a punish in even if you shield. His jab 1 comes out on frame 4, his nair comes out on frame 5. Yeesh. Utilt is frame 6 and fast enough to juggle us at low percents and we get pwned by his limit breaks due to Samus' floatiness. I have beaten Clouds, some bad ones, and one which was halfway decent. But yeah...against anyone that knows him well...good luck.

I don't see Cloud as a bad Match-Up. N-Air him into offstage once he has no Limit-Break and he's pretty dead. (perfect spaced down angled F-Tilt to the ledge, U-Tilt to the ledge, and the best option: SH Charge shot right before you land so the CS flys under the bottom of the stage and kills his recovery no matter how hard he trys, or you can jump offstage and shot the CS into the directon where he wants to recover, if he doesn't walltech he's dead.)

 

[Vyrnx]

Cloud is definitely not gonna be a troublesome matchup, and it really is as simple as him just being ridiculously easy to gimp. Even with LB up b his recovery sucks, easy to nair him out of it. Cloud has absolutely nothing he can do about nair. I think the on stage game could be totally oppressive for us (which it isn't) and it wouldn't even matter because getting him off stage = stock. Cloud is probably not gonna be a good character, but it is early.

 

[Hark17ball]

I do this like 10 times in the row until they escape to the ledge. I will make a video about how good D-Tilt is for catching landings.
.)

Yesss please. That would be amazing.

 

[BJN39]

Yeah over at the Zelda boards we're still laughing that got payed complete dusT,

While characters like MewTwo, Kirby, and Lucario get various walk, run, and air speed buffs. To be fair MewTwo is widely considered terrible, but that's aside the point.

They managed to give good handouts to several of the more in-need characters too.

I want to secretly hold out hope that they're waiting to address these characters until some final patch with the release of Bayonetta and Corrin, but...probably nothing then too cri.

 

[White_Pointer]

Cloud has absolutely nothing he can do about nair.

Besides all of the large disjoints on his aerials, of course.

Also, Cloud's nair is frame 5 and ours is frame 8. He should always beat our nair while offstage.

 

[Hapajin]

Yeah I never expected characters to get buffs movement speed. Why couldn't they do that for Samus or Zelda?

 

[Vyrnx]

Besides all of the large disjoints on his aerials, of course.

Also, Cloud's nair is frame 5 and ours is frame 8. He should always beat our nair while offstage.

Cloud has to make it back to the ledge in order to survive. His only option is up b and he has very little room to do anything else. Walk off stage to nair is almost completely uncontestable when he has to up b, and he pretty much always has to up b.

Frame data definitely does not apply in this situation and means nothing here. I don't even know how to argue with this logic honestly.

 

[Hark17ball]

If he delays to much at any point it's a death for him. Just the threat off stage can be crippling to him.

I've just been trying to play super smart against him on stage. Lead to some hilarious offstage play lol

 

[TJTheRager]

Yeah it really sucks that my main chick didn't get a single buff =/
Could have been worse....she could have gotten nerfed like the earlier Greninja lol so I'll take it XD

 

[Vyrnx]

So the Bowser MU, is it possible Samus loses in this one now? I mean, played optimally Samus totally out neutrals and out damages Bowser, but now there's almost no room for error with his uthrow combos (which is more than just uthrow to uair). Or can Samus escape his combos due to her floatiness?

 

[Woebroken]

From what I've been testing in training mode, Uthrow Uair true combos from 101% to 110%... But I'm pretty sure it's way, way wider then that, reaching up to 130%~ before the CPU air dodges. Uair starts KOing at 95%. In comparison to Sheik, Uair has nearly double the window to KO (like 80-140%), so you could say we get off lightly. I don't know how realistic these ranges are against a human opponent though.

Whether or not its a loss depends on how close the matchup was pre-patch. I've delibrated it from both sides for the past hour and can still see it being in Samus' favour if that's how people felt about it, but IMO the work required from both sides and the potential reward from the opponent messing up is making me feel its very close to even, to put it very sparsely.

 

[KayJay]

Yesss please. That would be amazing.

Done

 

[Hark17ball]

Done

You are the man! Thanks! Gonna start getting the habit of using it way more. I used it sparingly until now.

 

[Vyrnx]

Done

Dang. I used this a lot today and it makes a huge difference. I think part of it is that I always tried to catch landing with grab, but if they're in dtilt range, dtilt is so much better.

I've also been using ftilt a ton lately. Like, for everything. I really like her ftilt. It takes some adjusting to the range, though. I had to basically make myself use ftilt even when I thought I was way out of range, and what do you know, the opponent actually is in range. Ftilt kind of stretches Samus' whole range. I don't know how to explain it though... I had a match against a Ness where I harassed him with it all game. Ftilt angled up is really pretty good to stop aerial approaches and not as hard as it sounds. It's a good OOS when other stuff doesn't reach, and it's good for catching characters out of their double jump at the ledge --> gimping them. The tech chase set up from sourspot ftilt at 120+ is nice too.

I think Samus' ftilt is one of the best ftilts in the game (I'm also pretty sure it has the best range of any tilt in the game). I know I'm kind of late to the party on this move, but I had always tried to use this move for months, but it wasn't until today that I really felt how good it is.

 

[Afro Smash]

I'd guess Bowser is close to even with his new up throw, but I don't know percent ranges or di-ability so specualtin on my part, if its good for both I'd say it's even now

 

[DungeonMaster]

I did some quick testing last evening, no he can't kill us with the grab combo, DI up and away. He gets more damage on us than before, so it's significant, but I think the edge is still in Samus' favour by a fair amount.

 

[KayJay]

Bowser is one of my pocket seconds since the patch. The hitstun u-throw gives is high enough that double jump u-air true combos. No one escapes this.
He can be a counterpick to sheik now because you will kill sheik very easily and she has bad killpower giving bowser a very long lifespan in each stock. With rage bowser will kill sheik at like ~60%.
Bowser got scarier than DK but I still think Samus wins that Matchup simply because we won't get grabbed if we don't do stupid mistakes.

 

[Vyrnx]

Bowser's grab stuff is real, I don't think anyone escapes it (but I will try that Dungeonmaster). I played a pretty good Jigglypuff player and was consistently killing her at 50% with rage no matter how hard Jiggs tried to DI out. Uthrow to nair does 30% across a big range and definitely nobody escapes that. But Bowser still struggles hugely with zoning characters he can't get in on, so I don't see anyway we should lose to Bowser. Definitely closer to even than before though.

Also, with Cloud, getting cornered by him is really bad. He's one of the few characters where I really do feel helpless in that situation. His moves space out so up b oos/jab won't hit, they cross up, shad gets beaten by his stupid utilt, he juggles us badly, definitely no room for a grab, etc. Dtilt can be alright but Cloud's options at that range are so fast, I usually end up getting hit before dtilt comes out.

Anyway, Cloud approaches through the air like 90% of the time, and he has a blind spot in the same place Shulk does, in front and below him. It's not as bad as Shulk's since his nair sweeps so much faster, but it's enough room that preemptive nairs in the neutral can really stop his approaches. I think it makes a huge difference in this MU. It gives us stage control/corners him and sets up edge guards. We corner him as badly as he corners us, but we can gimp him so easily... If you are scared to go off stage (which you shouldn't be) just dropping a bomb can end the stock for Cloud.

 

[TurboLink]

Cloud is definitely not gonna be a troublesome matchup, and it really is as simple as him just being ridiculously easy to gimp. Even with LB up b his recovery sucks, easy to nair him out of it. Cloud has absolutely nothing he can do about nair. I think the on stage game could be totally oppressive for us (which it isn't) and it wouldn't even matter because getting him off stage = stock. Cloud is probably not gonna be a good character, but it is early.

LOL. So you're saying Samus beats Captain Falcon and Ness as well? Because they both have pretty bad recoveries as well. Just because Samus can gimp a character easily doesn't mean she automatically wins the matchup. And how does Cloud have nothing against Samus' nair when he has his 5-frame nair with a lot of range to space with to go against Samus' 8 frame nair?

 

[DungeonMaster]

TurboLink Samus struggle most against lingering hitboxest, large disjoints can be dealt with, but lingering hitboxes are the real pain. So despite Mario's stubby little legs his nair sticks out forever and as Samus attacks she starts by extending her hurtbox and the n-air stuffs the attack. Both falcon, ness and indeed cloud can be handled with appropriate timing.
I personally feel he's a bit like mewtwo, a big burst of hype initially, but he's actually kind of weak overall. Time will tell, that's just my opinion.

 

[Afro Smash]

Yeah it'll be a slightly more difficult version of the DK MU, with Bowser's speed letting him punish more easily

 

[Vyrnx]

LOL. So you're saying Samus beats Captain Falcon and Ness as well? Because they both have pretty bad recoveries as well. Just because Samus can gimp a character easily doesn't mean she automatically wins the matchup. And how does Cloud have nothing against Samus' nair when he has his 5-frame nair with a lot of range to space with to go against Samus' 8 frame nair?

Edit: nvm don't like getting into Smashboards arguments

Frame data comes into play when we're talking CQC in particular, a frame 2 move, for instance, beating out grabs/tilts/etc. Or in combo breaking, a frame 3 sex kick or frame 5 nair like Ness' being able to escape all kinds of things. When we're talking off stage, or stuffing approaches, then the frame data's meaning is really reduced to its raw meaning, a fraction of a second difference. Another thing, Samus' nair hits in front of her (therefore hitting Cloud) well before Cloud's nair hits in front of him if you're looking at raw frame data, but it doesn't come down to frame data.

It's hard to talk about off stage on Smashboards because there are lots of scenarios. But I'll try to explain.

This is really similar to saying, " Falcon's dair is frame 16, Cloud's nair is frame 5. Therefore Falcon's dair will always lose and Cloud will never get spiked." Off stage has nothing to do with frame data, it has to do with timing. Falcon is not going to wait for Cloud to get up next to him and then activate his dair at the same time Cloud uses nair. He is going to activate it and fast fall towards Cloud to catch his jump/up b. Same with Samus. if he is recovering and I have the ability to walk off stage and put a lingering hitbox that will almost always at least trade should he try to contest, I will, because if he gets hit by any part of nair, he's dead. Especially if he wastes a jump to use a 39 FAF move. There's also the fact that I don't even have to go off stage. I can drop a bomb on him, or utilt/dtilt him when he doesn't clip the ledge. Cloud's recovery is awful.

So anyway. The rest of what you said is that Samus does not necessarily beat Cloud just because of easy gimps, which is at least respectable. We have to wait and see what Cloud can do before we know for sure. But as far as I am concerned, I think it's awfully audacious to compare Cloud to Ness or Falcon a few days after he is released. Yeah, even Falcon, and I don't think Falcon is that good. For one thing, Cloud's recovery is worse than both of those characters, and I am aware that Falcon and Ness have some of the worst recoveries in the game. I'm not gonna go on a big thing where I try to explain why that's a bad comparison, but you know, we don't know that much about Cloud yet, so I think we should just end that exaggeration there. The fact of the matter is that Samus does do well against characters with exploitable recoveries, and Cloud's is particularly exploitable. And the on stage game I don't foresee being bad for Samus at all. But we have to wait and see.

On my part, I made that post based on my too-early impression that Cloud is low tier. It is too early to tell, and it is too simple of a reason to say it is just because of his recovery. I'd say he may very well fall into the mid tier range eventually. But on the other hand I think people are ruling out low tier way too fast for Cloud. Some people are calling him top tier... *cough* ZeRo, but maybe we should look at ZeRo's track record on other swordfighters he called top tier. .

 

[White_Pointer]

The secret is: Don't tryhard our combo game, because the chances of getting punished while trying to followup are too high. Ness & Lucas have big air-mobility while they airdodge unlike other characters.
Instead just punish all of their approaches, they are slow and have small hitboxes. You can Jump out of PK Fire at almost any percent, Perfect framed U-Airs come out so fast and beats out every aerial approach from the motherboys.

Ness has a hard time grabbing Samus if we play safe, and that's his only easy kill 'setup' and we can gimp him on reaction pretty effective with homing missile into FF N-Air and similar methods.
Lucas has the same problems like Ness. His approach game is slow and we outrange him with our Z-Air & other hitboxes. If your spacing with Samus is flawless and you master SH N-Air FF autocancel, Foxtrot turnaround D-Tilt, the Motherboys are at a disadvantage. Just don't try to combo them, Punish their landings with D-Tilt or grab. They are floaty, abuse that, perfect shield their Landing attacks then D-Tilt them (master the turnaround D-Tilt if needed), I do this like 10 times in the row until they escape to the ledge. I will make a video about how good D-Tilt is for catching landings.

So as is happened I played quite a number of friendlies with a good Lucas the other night, first time I've faced one since his grab buffs. That experience has pretty much solidified my thoughts on the MU and I'm convinced it's not a good matchup at all for us.

Lucas is a different beast to Ness...for a start you can't "jump out" of his PK fire, and Lucas has larger hitboxes on a large number of his attacks due to disjoints, especially his aerials like nair and bair which Ness does not have. These disjoints do not combine well with Samus' habit of extending her hurtboxes with her attacks.

I'd argue his grab game is probably better than Ness' now too. It's much easier for him to land grabs now, and he combos us hard off down throws at low percents - at least 2 or 3 nairs true combo off down throw, possibly followed by fair, uair or bair if he reads your DI. You can go from 0% to 40% in a flash, and if you're unlucky you can get spiked while off stage. If Lucas starts his combo game on us it doesn't seem like there's much we can do about it. He has kill throws off up throw and back throw.

His down-b actually has a hitbox on it so it's much safer for him to throw it out in close quarters than it is for Ness. Many of his attacks in general are safe against us due to his disjoints and incredibly fast frame 2 jab and frame 3 dtilt. Lucas also has a tether recovery - Ness does not, meaning it's a lot harder to gimp him. His PK thunder 2 goes a lot further than Ness' too and does not have its range reduced much (if at all) if it collides with an opponent. He's also a small character and Samus in general has lot of problems against small characters...many attacks just flat out miss unless he's already in the air. And, you know...PK Fire clanking with our fully charged shot which has got to be one of the dumbest things in the game.

I'm not at all convinced the Lucas MU is in our favour. Quite the opposite actually.

 

[Tonetta]

Killing cloud is as easy as tossing him over the side and zair/csing him into an unrecoverable state

 

[PStoken]

Killing cloud is as easy as tossing him over the side and zair/csing him into an unrecoverable state

So you're convinced it's also that easy to toss him over the side to begin with? could you tell me how you manage to do it consistently? not trying to spite or anything, the little cloud experience from the saturated for glory has left me with a different impression, in which his moves come out faster in close range than ours and in which he'll get to charge limit if we stray from mid-range.
so im not that convinced we win the matchup just by the gimp, if that's the case i guess lil mac would be the same, and i saw a bo5 of depth vs sol, both which i consider very(if not the most optimal?, and it didn't look that easy, if i recall well it resulted in sol winning.

 

[Tonetta]

I don't get how a samus player could complain that other characters doing more than 30% in a combo lol

 

[Hark17ball]

I don't know the exact specifics on Cloud just yet, but his moves are faster yes...but if you know the rhythm and timing of moves you can punish.

You Know his slide is quick so if you stay in shield...Block>Dtilt

He does 3hit jab...Shield grab, Jab1>Grab, Dtilt etc.

Don't spot dodge his FSmash you also know that's a 3 hit swing

He gets nothing off his throws.

You simply have to start shaving off time on your punish game PStoken and things become much easier. Not free but easier.

 

[PStoken]

I don't know the exact specifics on Cloud just yet, but his moves are faster yes...but if you know the rhythm and timing of moves you can punish.

Thanks, i'll try these options to optimize my matchup experience.
i'm kinda new at this smashboards thing, but sometimes i get the impression one can make any claim without providing evidence. i'll try to comeback with a video on a match vs a cloud, although online and potato cam is all i can afford, i'd like to get crit and everything to improve and change my opinion that this matchup is not in our favour, thanks.(but on the matchup thread, cuz i think we're not talking about the patch anymore)

 

[Hark17ball]

Thanks, i'll try these options to optimize my matchup experience.
i'm kinda new at this smashboards thing, but sometimes i get the impression one can make any claim without providing evidence. i'll try to comeback with a video on a match vs a cloud, although online and potato cam is all i can afford, i'd like to get crit and everything to improve and change my opinion that this matchup is not in our favour, thanks.(but on the matchup thread, cuz i think we're not talking about the patch anymore)

10-4 see you over there. Also you can always upload the match to YouTube.m from Smash, Or send to a user who is willing to upload.

 

[Tonetta]

If any of you want I can record whatever clouds I run into in the samus vs cloud. I use a lot of zair and play almost exclusively a punish game outside zair.

E: also my cloud is pretty legit if practice is needed

 

[Hark17ball]

If any of you want I can record whatever clouds I run into in the samus vs cloud. I use a lot of zair and play almost exclusively a punish game outside zair.

E: also my cloud is pretty legit if practice is needed

I'd be down for that. Plus could always use advice on Samus from a fellow user.

 

[_gold_]

Just because the DLC is done, shouldn't mean the patches are finished. We at least have a confirmed patch when Bayonetta and Corrin enter the mold. You never know, may be more.

 

[Vyrnx]

I have these matches against Cloud I want to upload, lmao, my first attempt to record and upload a video was utterly miserable. I have the matches on my 3DS (why? I have no clue, there's no reason I couldn't have used my Wii U), the camera I used was awful, there was no audio (except possibly me sighing in exasperation, idk if the microphone was on), and my camera flipped everything so everything, including numbers and words, are backwards. Hark17ball if I sent the replays to you would you know how to do it? Otherwise I can just upload my crap ones, which are stil watchable as far as gameplay.

I feel like such a scrub lol

Edit: actually I'm probably just gonna post it either way since the gameplay is mostly unaffected.

Double edit: nope nvm I am pretty sure I now have epilepsy after watching that. Will figure something out later

 

[Hark17ball]

Vyrnx
For 3DS I have a normal camera and the matches look/sound like this

http://youtu.be/DuDbtpkeo18

I can't show the % sadly lol.

 

[Vyrnx]

Vyrnx
For 3DS I have a normal camera and the matches look/sound like this

http://youtu.be/DuDbtpkeo18

I can't show the % sadly lol.

I'm gonna re record later, visually it isn't as bad as I thought but I need audio (my microphone was on but 3DS sound wasn't)
Thanks though

 

[DungeonMaster]

Bowser is one of my pocket seconds since the patch. The hitstun u-throw gives is high enough that double jump u-air true combos. No one escapes this.

Yeah I'm leaning towards you being correct, I don't have my regular sparring partner to do this checking so on my own (not quite, with my wife, but she's very much a casual ) it's a bit difficult to test.
It's very tight, did you DI up and away from the direction his head swing comes from and then airdodge? I find we can survive by DI down and away from the up-throw -> up-air up to the percents where body slam basically kills.
It's not a massive difference, a buff for sure, and damn I would love for a grab buff on my girl.

 

[KayJay]

Im pretty sure no one can escape certain kill percents from Bowsers Koo-Pah, made sparring matches with a friend and he couldn't even DI with Pikachu even though Pikachu flys very high and has a tiny hurtbox.
Mark my words, Bowser will become huge in the tournament scene, he's the first character now where I feel that he can really counter sheik. (He will get destroyed in the neutral but this really doesn't matter because he survives sheik at ~190% and kills her with rage at ~60 with 1 confirmed grab).

 

[BlackCephie]

Trading in Samus for Bayo.

 

[FlAlex]

Trading in Samus for Bayo.

You sure? I expect Bayo to be just as bad as Samus in tourney settings, high-mid tier at best. Her projectiles don't flinch, and her combos don't lead to good KB. I expect Bayo to have few kill options, like sheik, due to how fast she can rack damage up. You could rely on witch time, but I expect the timing to be strict, and all your opponent needs is a good grab to punish it, and don't suspect you can protect yourself from a fast grab. Sakurai said himself, that her physical moves come out slowly.

THAT being said, its your main, dude. I won't hate on anyone for ditching Samus. She's a frustrating character to main, so I understand why you would want to leave (especially for Bayo, who looks hella fun). Hope you find what your looking for in Bayonetta.

 

[MarioMeteor]

Every time I see Samus whiff a dash attack point-blank, I take a moment of silence for Samus mains everywhere. I thought Jigglypuff had it rough, but at least she has hitboxes.