I had it at ratio's at first, but I decided against it because... idk. It didn't feel right.
.5= 45:55
1= 40:60
2= 35:65
3= 30:70
4= 75:15
5= 80:20
However, these numbers really don't feel right to me. Honestly, the ratio is almost as arbitrary. Maybe once this gets much more refined, I'd feel comfortable being more specific, but basically it came down to this. It's a scale where +3 is as easy as +3 is hard.
-5 Switch to secondary
-4 You should really switch to your secondary unless you outplay hard
-3 Really tough
-2 Tough
-1 Fairly tough
-.5 very slight disadvantage
0 Even
+.5 very slight advantage
+1 Fairly easy
+2 Easy
+3 Really easy
I personally don't think swordies are that bad. We have a lot more mobility than them (except maybe ike) and they are easy to combo. It's not terribly difficult to keep them away with lolparalyzer, side b and our superior mobility.
Falcon on the other hand, is a *****. ZSS's main strength is our mobility, but Falcon actually has us beat in this department. Hell, he has us beat in pretty much ALL departments, save the fact we have more range, but it doesn't help much when he can get to us from anywhere on any map with a single shorthop. You're never far enough away from this *******.
I play a local ROB a ton in my region (ViRu5) and I have to say its slightly in ROBs favor. In 3.02 we had the advantage by far, but this patch hurt way more than it should have. We can't really zone him out anymore and he can gimp us much more successfully. He also isn't easy to edgeguard and will live until 140-150% every stock being a heavyweight.
I'd say falcon is -3 or maybe even -4 (I find him almost or as hard as falco) and I'd put swordies at -1, -2 at worst. ROB -1. I generally agree with the rest of the character's placements. I've come around to acknowledging the fact that fox is definitely her hardest MU (Shine offstage = GG).
I'll take roy and ike down a peg if you say so, because I am not as convinced with them, but marth has to stay. He can just completely space you out, and you cannot hit side-b on a good marth. I thought that was the matchup's saving grace, but playing good marth's made me realize I was wrong. As it turns out, side-b is the "please tipper fsmash me" button unless you wavebounce, but it misses when you do. Also, marth has SUPER good edgeguard vs zss. Marth can bair you on reaction to fade back, and can ledgedash fsmash you when you go forward. It's pretty brutal. Worst part is the stages you like are the stages marth will wreck you on. You have to take him to stages that aren't very good for zss. He is the only character in the game where spacing bair is risky (other than maybe roy?) and crossing up his shield is just begging for death. This matchup feels so bad. He's even not easy to gimp since side-b beats out dive-kick, so unless you get a read or he has to side-b for recovery, you just have to predict his up-b timing to ledgeguard.
I'm open to being proven wrong, but marth just feels awful for zss. Nair and DC blaster made her swordies matchups good, but now those are both wrong. I'm keeping marth at -3 unless more ZSS players explain why zss can deal with marth, but I can see roy and ike being moved down.
Falcon is basically the harder, better, faster, stronger version of ZSS.
Zss can't just throw you into fair and expect you to hit the blast zone unless youre already offstage. CF? He will take that upthrow from the middle of PS2 and knee your face so hard that your teeth hit the blast zone before you do.
I mean, I've always just said that shiek is kind of a brainless falcon. Mostly because everything combo's into fair, just like falcon, but at least falcon needs to sweetspot his kill move. So, by that logic, ZSS is just a really really terrible shiek.
In relation to matchups, I think ZSS has terrible matchups vs pretty much all the Melee characters due to having poor tools and all the melee characters having exactly what they need.
Edit: Also, I think that both Fox and Falco are -5, so long as the players are of the same calibur.
From my experience, zss is light enough to escape upthrow knee before kill %s with some good DI, but dthrow is knee. The main thing that you have over falcon is really easy tech chases and really easy gimps. He wrecks you at everything else, but one good read can lead to stock pretty often. Against the worse matchups, it doesn't feel like you have a good comeback mechanic.
As for sheik, thinking about it more I was biased by previous thoughts that sheik wasn't too bad because played some bad sheiks in 3.02. I'll put her at -3
As for falco, it's the same as fox, but you can gimp him and outspeed him. imo, zss deals with lasers much better than most and you can actually survive low % spikes.
Zelda isn't too bad but also isn't too easy--just be patient because if you leave yourself open for punishment you'll be punished and it will hurt. Because it's new, people always forget the recall Din's; watch out for that because even though it does little damage it serves as a combo extender and a way to get a small amount of hitstun on you, which Zelda can use to escape a combo or capitalize for a hit.
I'm interested in what people have to say for the Kirby MU, something I have little experience in
For zelda matchup, pretty much.
As for kirby... omg. This matchup is dumb. It's not spacies, but if there were kirby's near me, I would get a secondary for kirby because this matchup is so ****ing stupid. Kirby has solid grounded options, unlike jiggles, and kirby's crouch BEATS EVERYTHING. When he crouches, you can hit kirby with
Dsmash
Spaced side-b
Falling aerials
Dtilt
Dftilt
Divekick
That's it. Because everything but side-b, dsmash and bair are the only viable answers to crouch cancel, but they are all really telegraphed. Also, kirby's fair will beat out all your aerials. Kirby gimps zss really really easily as well, but zss basically cannot gimp kirby. ZSS's bad oos options also let kirby do basically whatever he wants to your shield. Good luck comboing him. Maybe it's not as bad as I think since I haven't played good kirby's and I am not sure how effective just dash dancing would be, but it feels awful when I play against bad kirby's. People who don't even play kirby will switch to him and do better against me lol.
Could anyone with experience give some insight on squirtle, ike and/or snake? I'd love to have somewhere to put them.