Except Fox, everyone's all like "HE'S ONLY HIGH TIER" or "FOX ISN'T ALL THAT GREAT, HE NEEDS WAVEDASHING, THEN HE'LL BE FANTASTIC."

"without sideb as a tool she would be useless against anyone with a decent projectile."

That's exactly what I'm saying. It's not good balancing. A character being "average to sub-par in most aspects, but has this one really great abusive aspect balances that all out." She only needs to rely on a few options to be played effectively, as do many other higher tier characters this demo. They can strongly rely on 2-3 unnecessarily good options that make them effective without much thought of using their playstyle as a whole. A better balancing style, for Zamus, would be for her to have more moderate damage rate with a slightly better approach, and make Plasma-Whip's tip always knockback backward toward her at high angle. It won't be as useful in ledge-guard as it brings opponents on stage, and it'd be harder for her to consistently link the move into itself, as the opponent be knocked into a position where she would have to use some other option.

Because right now, landing Plasma-Whip hitting them forward. Putting them prime position for another Plasma-Whip. And that's honestly the best follow-up decision it most situational. There's no reason not to go for another one if you can space the attack properly.

ok except a character having a good tool to deal with something that would be a fallacy in a department she is not designed to fail in is not the same as having an awful character with one OP move to make them good. ZSS is the former, not the latter. sonic in v0.9a was the latter, not the former.


ok no? the move's frame data is the same as brawl and hits at the same angle just without KO strength. ZSS isn't centered around the side special in Brawl, why would she be centralized/OP here with the move nerfed? that makes no sense.

ZSS can't be played at a high level without using her entire moveset. she only has like two moves that are ineffective and none of them are hands down the best option all of the time or even the majority of the time. her combos are inventive, extremely DI dependent, and her spacing game is decent at best. fsmash is receiving a nerf next demo and that's the only tweak that i'm seeing is necessary. you can't win a match using sideB like you're saying you can, it's not effective.

TSON, I hear your ZSS is pretty ridiculous. Definitely wanna play some time.

Kinda hard to see ZSS getting hate from side b, if anything, fsmash is worse because it hits behind as well.

I'm not complaining, just aggreeing with TSON.

Just because the move was nerfed in knockback from Brawl doesn't mean it's any less effective. She definitely gets more utility of it in this game because of short-hop/full-jump momentum from dashing. She has ways to keep herself more mobility while using the move and covers more spacing options. Even with the knockback nerf and this game's high dash-jump momentum, it allows her to strongly pressure opponent almost directly after landing whip. You could not do this in Brawl because overall mobility was slow and she had no way to immediately propel herself to continue the pressure. Naturally with her other air-normals and momentum, she can't cover the range in time. But Whip's range covers that. It is this overall style of controlling the the mid-range space between her opponent, or also being able to maintain that distance outside their range so easily. That's where I find if you don't have a good projectile or fast overall mobility, she will dominate those types of character. And it's mostly due to how you can use the move in this matter. Yes, she's really good overall as a character; strong juggles/combo, great mobility, longer than average normal, and high KO potential. But along with that, Whip can completely control the flow of certain match-up because it's so difficult to make way for a punish on her. I don't believe it should be a move that can control that mid-range area such a low-risk and without fail. That or, other characters need better tools to stand on even ground with her where they struggle to face her at mid-range.


And honestly, v0.9a Sonic was really well-rounded without Light-Dash. Fast-pressure and approach. Platform mobility'wavelanding. Sonic Meteor tech was strong and he could RAR better. Nair chains and that lead to other moves. Everything good about him was tragically out-shined. v0.8b Sonic was terrible without Spring-Cancel and Spin-Shine.

I love the ZSS design in this game. Side-B is a useful tool against characters who completely outrange her to prevent a bunch of matchups like Ichigo-Jiggz and the like, so I think she has no really hard counters. Against FF'ers, she has to maximize her punishes by reading DI and getting good juggles, which requires skill and depth. She has a balanced moveset, which many characters lack (say, MK's nair outshining his other aerials by a big margin or other moves that completely dominate a particular area of that char's game), where almost every move has a purpose and no move is too good at any one purpose or good at too many things. She has some strengths and some weaknesses, and she feels like she has unique tools (paralysis, fabulous juggles, combo extenders that can pull people back from above and to the side of ZSS), and some problems that one can overcome with ingenuity (recovery, range). She requires skill to use well, and when played well is good but not OP. I'm really happy with her design, and I feel that it easily outclasses ZSS in Brawl or PM, neither of which I like.

I can't tell if you're saying that you're jumping inward while using sideB (which doesn't work because of the huge dead zone) or if you're hitting with sideB and then jumping inward for a followup (which doesn't work due to endlag/angle)..

I'm just not seeing what you're referring to. If someone outplays ZSS she will lose. She doesn't shut anyone completely down, the side special is just a tool to lessen the burden that campier, projectile oriented characters cause on her just like it was in Brawl and is in SSB4. It's not serving either of the above purposes, so I don't get what the fuss is about. You can literally run in and shield the weak hitbox and punish her if you really want. Or, if you're not going to make it in far enough to get the weak hitbox and only the weak hitbox, you can always hop over it and fair her. The move is laggy-ish.

Fixed for ya
I'm liking ZSS so far but her mobility, especially the recovery is a bit tough fort me to get used to xD

I'm surprised at the accusations os ZSS being OP since I thouggt of her as most balanced character in the game imo. I don't how people consider her Plasma Whip op. Yeah it's an amazing spacing and poking tool but it only deals like 11% not to mention no one ever factors in staling. So say a ZSS is spamming Side spec by the second hit it only deals like 8% and the third 4%.

Honestly I could only see it being op if it had KO potential, which it doesn't. In the end I feel like ZSS is definitely top tier atleast in 3rd and unlike DK and Ichigo(who I consider 1st and 2nd) she doesn't rely on broken tactics or math errors to be good.

I'd say she'd be third if it wasn't for the fact that she can't recover from below if you're holding the ledge and roll at the right time.

What I would want for ZSS to make her a little better (perhaps nerf something else), would be down-B cancelling into up-B earlier: It would give ZSS more recovery options, but still make her work hard to get back on stage.

ZSS loses a huge amount of height there. I would think you would want to save your double jump, use down-spec multiple times to fakeout and gain horizontal distance. Then, just before you go level with the stage, you get to choose to do DJ->up-spec to go high, side-spec to snap to the ledge, or do nothing (fastfall?) and drop to to DJ->up-spec and recover from as low as the bottom magnifying glass. A well timed roll can stop this, but ZSS doesn't have to go that low, so this can have a variable timing... So ZSS might just drop a little bit then DJ->aerial when they expect her to drop lower.

You guys know that you can always DJ>uair>uspecial if you saved your DJ right? It provides alot of protection and can usually get you the ledge.

I think it's a good mixup, but I'm hesitant to use that too much for fear of getting ledgedropped or just regrabbing the ledge.