WOW.
Explain yourself. I'm really curious about this. Really.
I'm glad you asked. Well, here we go.
ZSS, when used in the right hands, is really, really good. For a start, there are her armor pieces. Fortunately, they don't last all that long, but they're a royal pain in the *** when used properly. She can use the armor pieces to make a 'wall' of armor in a sense, greatly increasing her defensive potential because it can make it harder for you to land attacks on her. Once they're gone, you can force an approach on her due to our superior projectile, but ZSS doesn't have much trouble approaching anyway so that doesn't help too much.
Once her armor pieces have disappeared, she's still a tough cookie. For a start, ZSS can get us out of floating VERY easily, whether that be by spaced Plasma Whips or Bairs or possibly even USmash. I'm 99% sure her Bair outranges our Fair, and it's also quicker and has more KO potential.
ZSS is also known to be a great juggler. Meanwhile, Peach is the queen at being juggled, what with her poor air dodge, slow falling speed and large size for her weight. In addition, her Uair cuts through our Dair due to disjoint, assuming they space it right, and once again it's quicker. Not to mention that ZSS has a lot of anti-air moves up her sleeve: USmash, up B and Plasma Whip can all punish incorrectly spaced Dairs, so watch yourself.
And of course there are the infamous DSmash combos. If you make a mistake e.g. rolling at the wrong time, landing from her parasol attack etc., then you get almost 40% hammered straight into you, which is approximately a third of the damage needed for her to kill us. When fresh, Bair, Fair and Plasma Whip all kill at around 120-130%. She also has a number of other combos unrelated to DSmash, usually involving dash attack or Uair or the like.
Contrary to popular belief, ZSS is NOT easy to gimp. Good ZSS players will DI semi-spikes and similar moves upwards, and from there her large second jump (made even larger by Boost Jumping) and Flip Jump can almost always make it back. Her tethers should only be used as a last resort, and even then, if you don't time it right, she can bring you down to her level, and sometimes even have time to re-tether to the edge afterwards! If you try to attack her, you have to be very careful, else you'll receive a Flip Jump kick to the face and be meteor smashed to your doom.
However, Peach isn't completely helpless here. For a start, ZSS is vulnerable to shield pressure due to a lack of reliable ooS options. Her shieldgrab is very slow and easy to avoid, and from there she doesn't have too many options. She can Nair, Fair and possibly do a retreating Plasma Whip, but other than that, she folds to shield pressure a fair bit. Thus, Dair and Fair pressuring her shield is even more effective here.
ZSS is also known for being very light, even more so than Peach, meaning that Peach doesn't have quite so much of a problem killing her. She still kills us earlier than we kill her, but you can usually get the kill in by 140-150%, even though she has a good momentum cancel.
You'll want to be using turnips a lot here. ZSS has numerous very long ranged attacks, and turnips are the only ones that have much chance of competing. And, as said before, her lack of effective ooS game means you can't be punished too much if they get shielded. Oh, and here's a small tip which you probably know already: if you DI down when she jabs, you can powershield the third hit.
In conclusion, ZSS is a tough matchup overall, but if you know what to do it's still winnable for you, which in my opinion is what defines a 40:60 matchup. I just find it incredibly hard to believe that it's even. At best it might be 45:55. If you actually bothered to read all this, thank you for your patience.
P.S. Dark Pch., please don't kill me.
