Zero Suit Samus secret taunt and dsmash

[Thor]

@Pin Clock [I have no idea who the ZSS dev is.]

Two suggestions for ZSS:
- Add a secret taunt that allows her to convert back into Samus and spawn armor pieces [1 or 3, I don't know which]
- Revert dsmash to vBrawl dsmash specs [size, damage, safety on shields, endlag and startup]

Reasoning:
- Samus can go one way, but not the other. As a result, ZSS is the only "Transform" character that can't switch back [Pokémon can and Sheilda can, but not Samus/ZSS]. Giving her extra armor would be awesome [I think just 1 because armor is good, but 3 does mean the opponent has more pieces to be able to seize.] Armor *could* also just not be spawned. So a secret taunt that sets off her transformation would be amazing [since Samus has had one even in vBrawl, but no way to go the other direction.]
- Dsmash in Brawl is safe on shield, low lag, moderate startup, and does decent damage and loops into itself once or twice. Dsmash in Minus is not safe on shield, high enndlag, higher startup, and can't loop. The hitbox is bigger, but I'm pretty sure most ZSS players would trade safety on shield and frame data buffs for that. I think vBrawl dsmash > current Minus dsmash, so I want this reversion.

Note:
- I want the secret taunt to go back and forth MUCH more than I want the armor. If we could have a secret taunt where she changed to Samus, but it didn't spawn armor if you didn't go through with the transformation, I would be fine with that. I really just want the ability to go back and forth, and I suggested addressing the armor to just 1 because 3 pieces is really good. I'd say 1 > 0 > 3, unless only 3 is workable, at which point 3 is fine by me (others might have complaints - but if no one had complaints, then definitely 3 > 1 > 0 - I just made my 1 > 0 > 3 with the potential reactions of others in mind).
- Reversion would make her more fun and intuitive for Brawl players to play. I knew one guy who played ZSS in Brawl, and when he saw how nerfed her dsmash was, he said he didn't really like Minus. I convinced him to try others and he was fine with it, but he feels like ZSS just isn't fun, because she can fly around and whatnot, but her staple move is a hollow image of its former self. Would also be ok with nerfing bair or some other changes if they are needed to be able to feel comfortable reverting dsmash.

A yes/maybe/no with an explanation why would be appreciated [as was given in the Fox area - still not sure how higher BKB on uthrow would be bad, but I at least understand the rationale of "it allows CGs if we don't alter BKB"].

 

[NEWB]

Dsmash in minus is worse? That's news to me.

Maybe that's just because her other moves are much better now?

 

[Thor]

Dsmash in minus is worse? That's news to me.

Maybe that's just because her other moves are much better now?

I play Brawl, I dsmash a shield, I can jab and I am totally safe from a shieldgrab off the dsmash. I usually can just run away.

I dsmash in 3.Q, and I swear I get punished every time it hits a shield.

If someone has frame data to the contrary, by all means prove me wrong, but the move feels significantly slower than in Brawl, feels laggier on th end, and it definitely doesn't link dsmash -> dsmash -> dsmash (and I swear they didn't alter stun duration on it either).

The hitbox IS bigger, but I still think it's much worse having a bigger hitbox than it is being safer. Currently the move just makes ZSS feel sluggish if she ever uses it, and it feels out of character. ZSS in Brawl feels more mobile onstage to me because of it [and I think that's a problem].

 

[Pin Clock]

We don't have enough devs to say who X character dev is, unless it's someone receiving notable work like Pichu most characters are just made by "the team". That being said tagging me in a thread is still one of the fastest ways to bring it the team's attention, as I link most of these things back there.

Not entirely sure how possible reverting ZSS into Samus is, but if we are allowed to have them change back and fourth like that, we would probably have to remove armor pieces as a whole (or if we can, only have them show up in the beginning) so people don't just switch to Samus and switch back again so they can just spawn more armor pieces to throw all willy nilly. Armor pieces are actually really good, and being able to not just have them after the beginning of the match, but also have them at pretty much any time she wishes, would create a rather annoying monster that spends the entire game spawning and tossing armor pieces. I personally don't mind the idea of her being able to change back and fourth, but the armor pieces are things that will have to be taken into consideration.

I'll have to get back to you on ZSS dSmash when I recall all the specs of it, but I remember it was nerfed because it did loads of damage and because stun it lead to loads of more damage free of charge. But again, I'll have to get back to you on that.

 

[Thor]

We don't have enough devs to say who X character dev is, unless it's someone receiving notable work like Pichu most characters are just made by "the team". That being said tagging me in a thread is still one of the fastest ways to bring it the team's attention, as I link most of these things back there.

Not entirely sure how possible reverting ZSS into Samus is, but if we are allowed to have them change back and fourth like that, we would probably have to remove armor pieces as a whole (or if we can, only have them show up in the beginning) so people don't just switch to Samus and switch back again so they can just spawn more armor pieces to throw all willy nilly. Armor pieces are actually really good, and being able to not just have them after the beginning of the match, but also have them at pretty much any time she wishes, would create a rather annoying monster that spends the entire game spawning and tossing armor pieces. I personally don't mind the idea of her being able to change back and fourth, but the armor pieces are things that will have to be taken into consideration.

I'll have to get back to you on ZSS dSmash when I recall all the specs of it, but I remember it was nerfed because it did loads of damage and because stun it lead to loads of more damage free of charge. But again, I'll have to get back to you on that.

I think it takes a fair bit of time to spawn armor if you actually have to turn into Samus and turn back, but I do see your point if you could do the taunt and generate armor without switching to Samus [me being a Falco main and someone who practices with item pieces definitely has a skewed view of how good they are].

I wouldn't mind if dsmash only did like 5 damage or whatever [I think it did like 11% or 10% in Brawl], I just wish the move didn't feel so slow and lagggy [and consequently hugely unsafe].

 

[Mawootad]

We could do transforming but probably not. There's the armor issue that Pin mentioned plus there are possible balance issues and then we'd have to make the ultra taunt transform actually look pretty and semi-professional (there's the final smash animation, but I think having a hitbox on a transformation isn't a great idea and it might feel weird without one). As for down smash that might be an issue with shield stun in minus, I'll check it out and see what we can do.

 

[NEWB]

One thing I would like to point out though is that not every move is supposed to be safe on shield. It's important for all characters to have weaknesses and some means of counter play. It sounds like the devs aren't too sure why it currently is the way it is so it sounds like this is not the case in this situation. If this moves purpose is to stun and not inflict huge damage on its own then it should be made into more of a combo starter.

 

[Mawootad]

Yeah, I'm not exactly sure about where ZSS ranks in terms of power, so I'd have to find out what dsmash being safe on shield would mean. It would probably be too good with something like dsmash -> grab covering a ridiculous number of options, but I'll look into it.

 

[NEWB]

She can do it In vbrawl even, so....maybe that's actually broken in minus?

 

[Gold_TSG]

I was around in the BR when dsmash was changed. It was nerfed because of the damage, the speed, and how well it worked with the rest of her buffed kit. She is fairly powerful, while still being very quick, and on top of that, she has a throw that leads into kill moves. On top of that, prior to this nerf, she was able to chain 3 dsmashes together and still be able to grab, no question. That was around 30% or so with a guaranteed grab into powerful aerials. No one thought that was good, so it was altered.

 

[Thor]

Yeah, I'm not exactly sure about where ZSS ranks in terms of power, so I'd have to find out what dsmash being safe on shield would mean. It would probably be too good with something like dsmash -> grab covering a ridiculous number of options, but I'll look into it.

Dsmash to grab is a joke. Even if dsmash is something dumb like +10 on shield [and it's not, it's zero on shield in Brawl, or maybe even like -3], grab is frame 16 [unless that was sped up], so everyone could just jump the grab [and anyone could roll behind her] (I suppose if it was really +10, it couldn't be jumped by our slowest jumpers, but roll still works, and again, dsmash was ~0 on shield). Indeed, you can almost react to a grab to avoid it, and if you're expecting it the animation is slow/distinct enough to quickly roll.

How much was Minus shieldstun increased??? I've landed sweetspot knee EXTREMELY close to the ground and gotten shieldgrabbed even though I was mashing jab [Falcon's fastest ground option]... shieldstun honestly feels no different [or almost no different] from Brawl. It certainly feels less long than Melee's shieldstun... or am I just crazy? Is it a byproduct of extra hitlag from knee? [I also seem to have this problem with his nair, and most aerials, including Falco dair, which is safe on shield with frame 1 moves in Melee (his jab is a substitute to shine), but doesn't seem safe in Brawl Minus...]

If shieldstun is inbetween Brawl and Melee I can understand that, but...it currently feels like it's only marginally more than Brawl, at best. I don't take issue with that, but it leads me to think that ZSS dsmash wouldn't be much safer on shield than it was in Brawl [if it's any safer at all].

*stuff*

As for dsmash -> dsmash -> dsmash -> grab, could we just increase the BKB of dsmash by a fairly large amount and reduce KBG somewhat? I think that occurs only because of both grab's lingering hitbox AND dsmash's low BKB meaning they're too low to avoid it... and letting people avoid it would be fine by me.

[Also like I said earlier, if it only did like 5-7%, I'd be fine with that too.]

*shield safety stuff*

I know not everything is supposed to be safe on shields [her other smashes aren't, side+b isn't up close, her jab is a cross-up but you can shieldgrab her if you read it, I think all her tilts can be grabbed, this is true of most characters as well] but a move being safe on shield in Brawl is a rarity, and for that to be removed in Minus just feels plain weird. If this wasn't the case in Brawl [and I think Smash 4 too actually], I would have never brought it up, but it seems completely out of place for a move to be worse than in any official versions when this mod is supposed to make everything better [and it's not like MK where utility was changed, it's just straight-up nerfed here).

Also, to @Pin Clock , I had been lead to believe there were specific people for things when Kien told me at one point "I'm the Zelda guy" and SA Hunter Mech had said he did most Falcon and Samus changes, and someone else implied there was some [unknown] fire emblem guy. I appear to have misunderstood [or perhaps Zelda characters are an exception]. Good to know for the future though.

 

[Gold_TSG]

I'm not sure increasing BKB would work for anything outside of a triple dsmash. The stun alone would still make it useful, since increased BKB would actually put them into easier spots to follow with aerials, or even quickly chain something powerful like her up b or down b kick.

As for %, lowering it wouldn't really change how useful it is. Her dsmash is literally "free grab: the attack." I don't think letting it chain into itself multiple times and still allowing a free grab is fair in any sense, even within minus. Imagine if you could grab people that were impaled. That would be broke as shit on anyone with an impale (Dorf, DK, Bowser).

IMO, it's enough that she can get a guaranteed grab out of one dsmash, and likely an attack out of two, but even if the % is low, that is free % in a game where even a single % affects whether you live or die. I can't even really say that it should be safe on shield either, especially when pretty much everyone else puts themselves at risk when performing the same action. The only char I can think of off the top of my head that can pretty much dsmash for free is Sonic, and I'm still on the fence about that as well.

 

[Greatest_Aether]

someone else implied there was some [unknown] fire emblem guy.

I've been called "the Fire Emblem guy" before. Can't remember who said it, and it wasn't because I worked on the chars; it was because I mained the entire FE crew.

 

[Thor]

I'm not sure increasing BKB would work for anything outside of a triple dsmash. The stun alone would still make it useful, since increased BKB would actually put them into easier spots to follow with aerials, or even quickly chain something powerful like her up b or down b kick.

As for %, lowering it wouldn't really change how useful it is. Her dsmash is literally "free grab: the attack." I don't think letting it chain into itself multiple times and still allowing a free grab is fair in any sense, even within minus. Imagine if you could grab people that were impaled. That would be broke as shit on anyone with an impale (Dorf, DK, Bowser).

IMO, it's enough that she can get a guaranteed grab out of one dsmash, and likely an attack out of two, but even if the % is low, that is free % in a game where even a single % affects whether you live or die. I can't even really say that it should be safe on shield either, especially when pretty much everyone else puts themselves at risk when performing the same action. The only char I can think of off the top of my head that can pretty much dsmash for free is Sonic, and I'm still on the fence about that as well.

Fox can shine for free [if memory serves]. Wolf's nair is safe on shield as far as I can tell [punishing that thing is super hard from what I've seen]. Should we nerf those moves to not be safe on shield because others have down+b's and nairs not safe on shield [you can even shieldgrab Falcon Kick]?

And at that point, should we just make everything unsafe on shield? If so... are we stating we want Minus's best button to be grab and shield?

I think attacks safe on shield are something that is a part of a game that focuses on offense, and Minus is such a game. Dsmash doesn't really feel like it should be an outlier.

Also if we could make the stun time on the dsmash not loop into itself, instead of increasing endlag, that would still fix the issue. And with absurdly low BKB [loops into itself on Fox in Brawl], it still allowed easy aerials in Brawl, so boosted BKB would stop looping and grabs, but it already links into aerials anyway, as far as I've seen [we can't really adjust the BKB to avoid aerial followups unless it's beyond her DJ down+B whip height, BUT we can adjust it to avoid free grabs after more than one dsmash].

Like, I really just want this move to not super suck on shield, since Minus is the only game where that seems to be the case [Even PM dsmash is safe on shield, though its startup is slightly slowed.] No we're not PM, but I shouldn't be able to tell someone "This move is better in PM than it is in Brawl Minus" [at least I hope not], and that's only true of Ganondorf's neutral B [the cape is more useful than the slow projectile or WP, cancel or no, ever was - and I'm not starting any arguments about that, floating is just dumb which is why I think it's better] which we can't rip off, and ZSS dsmash (off the top of my head, I guess there might be one or two more like Fox uthrow). Technically spikes that aren't spikes here are better, but those moves have much less endlag and are more usable here anyway [and we don't do spikes].

But yeah, if someone played PM, Brawl, and Smash 4 ZSS, then tried her here, I think they'd be dumbfounded to find dsmash isn't safe on shield. I think that's a bad thing. It's very possibly just me though, which is probably why people are against buffing it.

 

[Mawootad]

Some fighters have individual br members dedicated to them, but that's due to that one br member just really liking that fighter and/or having a great understanding of that fighter. We don't have enough br members to have mains for every single fighter though (unfortunately), so not every fighter has someone dedicated to them.

Also, dsmash being safe on shield is fine in vbrawl where zss has a lot of other weaknesses and can't juggle for days with kill options out of grabs, but in minus it's probably better for dsmash to lose some speed for the rest of zss's kit to overall be better.

 

[Thor]

Some fighters have individual br members dedicated to them, but that's due to that one br member just really liking that fighter and/or having a great understanding of that fighter. We don't have enough br members to have mains for every single fighter though (unfortunately), so not every fighter has someone dedicated to them.

Also, dsmash being safe on shield is fine in vbrawl where zss has a lot of other weaknesses and can't juggle for days with kill options out of grabs, but in minus it's probably better for dsmash to lose some speed for the rest of zss's kit to overall be better.

Thought she could frame trap people with the whip -> uair in Brawl... w/e.

I'm not sure what lot of other weaknesses she has... it's primarily recovery and landing, which are her problems in Minus too. She is much more of a zoner in Brawl, so I can sort of see why dsmash not being as safe here makes sense... but it still feels really out of place on the character overall.

Would a drastic change to her moveset really be required to make dsmash not be ridiculous risk/high reward/mediocre reliability [it's just slow]? I figure just scaling back her KO power some would sort of be enough [combined with a few other touchups], but I must not understand as much here, since I'm not a ZSS main [and hardly a ZSS player].

 

[Mawootad]

Buffing one part of a fighter to the point that we need to nerf other parts of the fighter isn't generally a great idea, unless it significantly makes a character healthier (eg if one of a fighter's moves is way too good or way too weak) or more fun it's just not worth the trouble. As making dsmash safe on shield would require nerfs to ZSS and probably wont make her feel much better to play as/against and almost certainly wont make her healthier as a fighter, dsmash will probably not become safe on shield.

 

[Thor]

Buffing one part of a fighter to the point that we need to nerf other parts of the fighter isn't generally a great idea, unless it significantly makes a character healthier (eg if one of a fighter's moves is way too good or way too weak) or more fun it's just not worth the trouble. As making dsmash safe on shield would require nerfs to ZSS and probably wont make her feel much better to play as/against and almost certainly wont make her healthier as a fighter, dsmash will probably not become safe on shield.

To be totally honest, I wouldn't mind if her bair didn't even KO until like 160+% on like Snake or whatever [like 180+% on Bowser or something], and other changes [weaker uair for damage and KOing] because even if I have spend forever juggling them, at least all my tools for doing so feel relatively safe. It's like the reverse thing with Falco - I can technically safely build damage by being really lame and occasionally comboing, then looking for laser or reflector -> usmash to kill people at like 150%, but I have the option of closing them off faster with fsmash. Falco's most reliable tools are his safest, and it's still fun to play him even if I have to get people over 200% to do it, and I've had similar fun with playing safe ZSS in Brawl and other games. With Minus ZSS, her generally most fun move in the other games is actually the highest-risk move in her arsenal [I'd say it's almost as risky as grab because of the long cooldown, slow startup, losing to shields, and low duration, whereas grab has high endlag and long startup, but startup is I think shorter and the grabbox is longer (it also wins, not ties or loses, with shield)] - the move that has been most reliable for every other smash game [and many mods] is now her most situational tool of all. And I don't feel like Minus's new tools that she has make up for this.

I'm not going to keep pushing for this since everyone seems deadset on no nerfs to other moves and no buffs for this, but I will go on the record and state I want this changed [we're just stuck agreeing to disagree].

Switching gears, is there anything at all about a way to transform between ZSS to Samus?

EDIT: To perhaps sum up the problem effectively [last thing I swear], I feel I can play Falco, Sheik, Fox, 3.3 Samus, etc., in a way that is either very closely tied to how they function in other games or feels very natural [Fox's jab is dumb but it feels right (if stupid)]. With this change [and also notably my complaints with 3.5/3.Q Samus fallspeed], the character just doesn't feel right to me. It's probably only me, which is why I'm the only one who seems to want this change, but I think that this is a good way of articulating WHY I ask for these changes [and a bunch of others, like the Fox thing and the Falcon thing and, well, that other thing].

Thanks for at least listening though.

 

[Gold_TSG]

Another thing to note is that it isn't particularly healthy for character design when you compare completely unrelated attacks to try and justify something. Wolf is all about combos and has the speed to back that up. His aerials are safe on shield because they are faster, weaker and designed special to allow him to juggle opponents. It would ruin his game if his aerials lagged on landing just so they weren't safe on shield.
Many, many things need to be factored when trying to tailor together a working kit for a character, such as utility, power, and how strong it works on the rest of the cast based on their size, weight and shape. ZSS is already a powerful fighter with lots of speed, combo potential, and two ways of stunning which lead into grabs and follow ups. The fact alone that her grab lingers is a reason to nerf something in her kit so it's not too strong. The idea behind her dsmash isn't that it can chain into itself for free damage. It's that, you landed that close range, long lasting stun attack, and now you have time to decide what you wanna do next. It is a utility attack that's situational, and when you catch someone, you reap high rewards. As such, it needs some level of risk to it so it isn't annoying or unfair to play against.

 

[Thor]

I won't respond only beyond only saying I'm not a fan of the lingering grab, dsmash or not. I said I wouldn't go on about this so I guess I won't, but this raises more things I wish I could discuss.