What are the best options in neutral with Zero Suit Samus?

[Tahu Mata]

Hello there, Zero Suit Samus mains!

She's a character I've had plenty of experience with, and I've been considering picking her back up again as one of my secondaries after having dropped her for a while. I feel like she covers the weaknesses of my mains pretty well, and I've mostly got the hang of her.

However, one consistent problem that I have with ZSS is that I don't really know what to do in neutral. I find myself constantly wondering what the best option to find an opening is.

So I was wondering if you could help on telling me what the best options in neutral are with her.

UPDATE: I unfortunately made the decision to drop her yet again. I eventually realised her style really doesn't click all that well with me, and she's much more inconsistent than my other characters. I hope you understand.

 

[leesinger]

I don't play ZSS, but her gameplan isn't that complicated. I would watch Nairo if I were you and just copy his playstyle and then adapt it to fit your own gameplay. But basically you can space with n-air and its fairly safe on shield. She has a frame 1 jab so you can abuse the hell out of that. Also her neutral b is a good spacing tool and if it hits then you can get a free grab. I think that should be your main goal as a zss, because you can get a kill off the top with a grab at 20%.

 

[Arcana~]

Thing about Zamus in Sm4sh is that her neutral is very lacking and awkward. She can't do much of anything in-between getting hard reads or getting a successful grab. This is why highly defensive/campy play is difficult to deal with as her. Pretty much her only neutral options to get something going on foes outside of throws are SHFF Nair and Zair. SHFF Uair works too and is better than Nair in getting follow ups started but it's slightly laggier upon landing and more punishable on shield. Perfect spacing with her Nair I believe just barely keeps her out of range of non-tether shield grabs and if you can learn to properly make us of Zair's tricky hitbox at various ranges you can always deliver a surprise light poke with it then instantly follow up with a dash grab or dash attack. Neutral B paralyzer shots, while slow and predictable, help in halting up faster foe's dashing/short hop mind games when you're both caught in that void of dancing around each other waiting for and opening. Utilizing B-reversing with the paralyzer to try and trick opponents into dropping their shields can pay off well if done right.

 

[Tahu Mata]

After trying what you guys suggested and practicing with it for a while, I've improved quite a lot in the neutral with her.

Now I see that there's not really much you can do about her neutral since it's pretty lackluster, but I at least improved it to the best of my ability, so I wanna say thanks to you guys for that.

 

[RandomGuySheep]

All dem mains doe