4.0b Samus Build Yay or Nay?

[Kien]

What do you guys think of my Samus build for 4.0b? I tried to make her a bit more of an all rounder but more focusing on the zoning side of things. She can make openings in nearly any defenses with her projectiles. Seekers detonate twice to keep foes trapped in shield just a moment longer while Charge shot deals decent shield damage. Her super missiles can actually KO at very high percents, but otherwise they send opponents toward Samus so that she can land a killing blow.

She's very Star centric, in that most of her kill combos involve her finishing opponents off the top of the screen. However, she isn't limited to that as she has many other options to KO, even from range. The cancel on zair can be used into any of her specials, making it a setup for charge shot, a combo extender in its own right, and a useful poking or spacing tool. I feel like she's a lot different than the other projectile users who are able to dominate up close or without using projectiles at all. It was my intention for her ranged attacks to pressure opponents into approaching her, which is an area where she doesn't excel. Basically, I envisioned a skilled Samus player as one who isn't afraid to take risks to land early KOs but has the potential to build damage while remaining relatively safe against uncareful opponents.

 

[Thor]

What do you guys think of my Samus build for 4.0b? I tried to make her a bit more of an all rounder but more focusing on the zoning side of things. She can make openings in nearly any defenses with her projectiles. Seekers detonate twice to keep foes trapped in shield just a moment longer while Charge shot deals decent shield damage. Her super missiles can actually KO at very high percents, but otherwise they send opponents toward Samus so that she can land a killing blow.

She's very Star centric, in that most of her kill combos involve her finishing opponents off the top of the screen. However, she isn't limited to that as she has many other options to KO, even from range. The cancel on zair can be used into any of her specials, making it a setup for charge shot, a combo extender in its own right, and a useful poking or spacing tool. I feel like she's a lot different than the other projectile users who are able to dominate up close or without using projectiles at all. It was my intention for her ranged attacks to pressure opponents into approaching her, which is an area where she doesn't excel. Basically, I envisioned a skilled Samus player as one who isn't afraid to take risks to land early KOs but has the potential to build damage while remaining relatively safe against uncareful opponents.

Bland but bizzare character.

Her fallspeed makes sense again, but little else does. Prior, she had some interesting combos that were both vertical and horiztonal, inspired by a powerful down tilt and some well-made angles on her aerials. Now, it's just like "Oh, I landed a hit, and they're above me, so now I do uair -> .. -> uair -> screw attack" [platform dependent]. Furthermore, uair is pitifully easy to DI, to the point where these work alright, but not that well. Missile angles don't make any sense whatsoever.

If I were in charge of Samus for 4.0:
- Dtilt gains its old KB back, and a jump-cancel that's 9 frames before the interruptibilty starts [this gives it the old utility back, as an interesting low-percent combo starter and high percent KO move, without being as safe as it was... the old dtilt felt nice, this one just feels like a bland auto-combo move].
- Super missiles have their old KB angle and a small KB reduction [super missiles should KO around ~130% at or a little bit away from the ledge [I think, though there's some mental guess work there].
- Homing missiles are weird too... I think the second hit shouldn't pop up but pop away slightly, so that they're still rewarding at close range, but not so much when they're far away.
- Zair is awesome, as is fair. Don't change it. [Specifically highlighting these because these are great].
- Uair angle is reverted to 3.3 [that may be the same as 3.5 or 3.Q but I'm not sure] - this makes it able to combo into fair or charge shot or zair or even dash attack depending on where you are at on the stage and their DI. This is probably the biggest point, even though it's last - it currently feels suited to do exactly one thing, and that one is useful but not terribly interesting, and it's only useful as a penultimate combo finisher, which just doesn't seem to fit how she otherwise plays.

I miss the old screw attack, but there's nothing wrong at all with this one, it just looks and feels weird. I also have other ideas about Samus changes [down+b in particular], but those are the big ones.

 

[Kien]

I wouldn't mind adjusting Dtilt and Homing Missiles. I'd have to know what uairs angle was to change that. Currently sounds like you see Samus as I see Falcon. A bunch of potential options but only having reason to do one thing.

 

[Thor]

I wouldn't mind adjusting Dtilt and Homing Missiles. I'd have to know what uairs angle was to change that. Currently sounds like you see Samus as I see Falcon. A bunch of potential options but only having reason to do one thing.

Falcon does different things because they look "cool" [using hitboxes that don't make sense in a variety of ways... I've landed reverse bair -> reverse uair -> Fast Falcon Punch (or some absurdly silly string like that)], and also because most of his aerial hitboxes are meh [he's forced to either go for hard read stomp/knee or else approach with the safer hitboxes of bair/uair/nair (nair primarily) and smart Falcons do almost exclusively the latter]. The other BIG thing about Falcon is that with correct DI, some of his combos don't work [yes, you CAN DI knee to knee, contrary to popular belief], so using other moves is a DI trap/mixup to help him land his finishers. Admittedly, Falcon does want to basically always combo into the knee, but basically the entire cast would want that knee if they had it [and some still have stuff sort of like this... Falco wants dair or fair offstage, for instance, as fsmash kills are not that efficient, and prior to nerfs, Kirby just wanted inhale -> uthrow and Luigi wanted a thunderhand most of the time (due to added safety via armor) or a misfire/shoryuken].

I'll be totally frank - I think 3.3 Samus would be fine with no self-damage on uthrow, adjusted dtilt to be slower and no self-damage [Pin said it was broken and I trust him on that, even replaying 3.3 a little I could tell I hadn't abused it enough], and fair linking correctly. I'm not saying she'd be top-tier, but she would have plenty of well-made MUs and would be an interesting character with varied, rewarding options that work well together [and she could keep the zair because her new zair is amazing and well-made (and potentially too good?), but it's not something she NEEDS, just something that definitely makes her better]. Then her fallspeed changed and everything went whack to account for this, and now she's been made weird but in a more palatable way.

As far as uair's angle, I don't know the exact number, although I might be able to look it up... but if you just boot up regular Brawl [if you have it] and uair someone in training mode on a platform, they get kinda sent to the side... alternatively [best option], if you have 3.3 [I have it and can try to send it via Skype], you could parse the code to find the old angle.

Homing missiles are weird, but frankly I just want super missiles to do horizontal KB. I also don't think they need to kill all that early [she has uthrow tech chase, dthrow stuff, dtilt, uair -> screw attack, all her smashes, bair, dair, and nair for all of that, never mind charge shot and any power bomb setups people have], but as I said above a decent KO percent. If homing missiles were unchanged and super missiles launched sideways, I'd be happy with missiles.

 

[Kien]

I can do that with missiles. Message me on skype. I want to try and make a suitable 4.0 final build with your help.

 

[Thanatoast]

I personally don't have a problem with most of Samus's attacks. I will agree with Thor that she is a bit bland, but other than that, no problems in terms of nerfs and buffs. Maybe if we had some more effects? Maybe with her f-smash, it had a fire or ice effect, like her gun kinda makes a little blast? That and her Superbombs don't really feel satisfying to use. Maybe there's a way to use them other than spam them on the way down from the top of the screen that I'm not seeing?

 

[Sammi-husky]

My opinion of samus is that she's in a good place power wise, but that she feels a bit one dimensional. ( and bland). Sorta also how i feel about marth. He's real good, but something just feels bland about him.

 

[Thor]

My opinion of samus is that she's in a good place power wise, but that she feels a bit one dimensional. ( and bland). Sorta also how i feel about marth. He's real good, but something just feels bland about him.

My only issue with Marth is that I tipper fair Fox at 60% offstage, hoping to ken combo him, and he just... dies...

This isn't a Marth thread, but I'll state in short that he feels well-balanced [Dancing Blade up kills Ganondorf-early, idk if that's intended but it's hilarious if obnoxious], but not very different from his Brawl form [and unlike Falcon and Fox, he has less of the Melee stuff that makes him appealing to people cautiously trying this when they normally play Melee, though appealing to Melee people is obviously a minor goal at best]. Like sure, he can do this cool stuff, but most of it just kinda feels standard in Minus, and a lot of his cool stuff is precise enough [notably the tip on Dolphin slash (understandably so) and dair (rather hard to hit frankly)] to where a lot of people I know who try Melee and dual-main Marth and X just ignore Marth and play X.