Samus (SSBU): Difference between revisions

Samus, alongside her [[Echo Fighter]] {{SSBU|Dark Samus}}, is ranked 15th out of 82 on the current [[tier list]], placing her in the A tier. This is a drastic improvement over ''[[Super Smash Bros. 4]]'', where she was tied with {{SSB4|Robin}} at 36th/37th out of 54, and is her best placement in the series to date. This mainly comes as a result of Samus' dynamic moveset, improved from the previous games. Samus' main strength is her powerful far-range neutral game, combined with a decent close-range game as well. For her archetype, Samus possesses a highly sophisticated variety of attacks, ranging from [[Charge Shot]], one of the most powerful neutral specials in the game, to her quick, short and basic hard-hitting combos. She also carries the undisputed best shield pressure in the game for a zoner. Charge Shot is fast and covers wide distance when fully charged. Not only does it deal heavy shield damage, but when slightly charged, can set up for a combo, and when fully charged, can deliver a KO. [[Missile|Missiles]] is a projectile that allows her to easily force approaches, as it covers space wide enough to catch opponents in the air or spot-dodging, and it inflicts good shield damage. She provides an excellent air game as well, possessing among the strongest aerial attacks in the game, all of which are useful for combos or easy KOs. On top of that, Samus, for a zoner, has a fairly admirable close-range neutral. Her forward aerial is one of the best anti-aerial attacks in the game, as it covers a lot of distance and also inflicts heavy damage and KOs at fairly high percents. She also possesses the longest tether grab of any character in the game in the form of [[Grapple Beam]], which allows her to easily punish opponents that are quick to approach her on the ground. Should opponents reach Samus up closer, she can quickly punish and reset neutral with [[Screw Attack]], which has very high hitsun and knockback, allowing for an easy [[out of shield]] KO option at higher percents. Furthermore, Samus has an excellent recovery, with her slow falling speed, Grapple Beam, the great vertical and horizontal distance of Screw Attack, as well as [[Bomb (Samus)|Bombs]] providing minor boosts to her recovery and serving as a tool for recovery mixups as well. Finally, Samus boasts an amazing survivability, with a very heavy weight and amazing recovery allowing her to survive until higher percents, which could sometimes give her [[Rage|rage]] for an extended period of time and allow her to eliminate opponents first.  

However, Samus has weaknesses, the most significant ones being her slow mobility and the high ending lag on her attacks. Samus has merely average ground mobility, largely hindering her defensive options, and giving her a harder time against opponents who can catch up to her quickly. Samus' projectiles being the most useful part of her gameplan especially, are burdened with significant startup and endlag. Aside from Charge Shot, which takes time and calculation to land successfully, all of her special attacks, especially Screw Attack, have a high amount of cooldown lag and often leave Samus vulnerable to a sharp punish. Her rolls, while significantly reducing the size of her hurtboxes due to utilizing her Morph Ball form, are also very slow. This, combined with her low traction relative to the cast, gives her a rather mediocre out of shield game, and with Grapple Beam coming out at frame 15, it gives opponents enough time to spot dodge and punish Samus accordingly. Samus relies on spacing with her special attacks and out of shield options to succeed against her opponents, but with most of her defensive options being risky, she would have a difficult time handling opponents that avoid her projectiles and defensive options. Therefore, Samus is often forced to refrain from using her special attacks carelessly, despite their amazing strength, and it gives her somewhat difficult match-ups against characters that have better frame data and/or mobility and defense options, such as [[Mario]], [[Fox]], and [[Bayonetta]]. Furthermore, the relatively high ending lag on her attacks plagues even her stronger attacks, that being her KO options. Her up-smash, while serving as an effective out of shield punish option, is escapable via [[SDI]], struggles to hit short characters on the ground and has a lot of ending lag, while her forward-smash, while quick, is burdened with a large and weak sourspot at close range that takes precedence over the [[Sweet spot (hitbox)|sweetspot]] hitbox. Furthermore, Samus has a rather poor ground game, with a forward tilt that loses a lot of power at point-blank range, a slow up tilt and a down tilt with dangerously high ending lag. Her [[jab]], while often used for mixups, is notorious for its slow speed and inability to connect consistently. This causes Samus to seriously struggle when the opponent is too close to her. Being tall and surprisingly floaty for her weight is only beneficial to a limited degree, as it also makes her relatively easier to punish when in the air and juggle. Finally, her recovery, while amazing, is rather slow, linear, and predictable, so opponents with an effective offstage game will often give Samus a hard time recovering.

|ftiltdesc=A roundhouse kick. Deals more damage and knockback at her foot, while her leg deals less damage and knockback. It can be [[angle]]d, which causes it to deal more damage, but it may cause it to miss shorter characters on the ground if angled up. The foot sweetspot deals rather potent knockback for a tilt attack, which can KO at the edge at around 125%. At varying percentages, depending on which part of the move is landed, it can lead into a guaranteed [[Charge Shot]], as regardless of [[tech]]ing, Charge Shot can catch the opponent's option in time if they are knocked down.

|utiltdesc=An axe kick. It is almost identical to {{SSBU|Captain Falcon}}'s up tilt in both appearance and functionality. Like Falcon's, it [[meteor smash]]es grounded opponents, but unlike his, it launches aerial opponents at a horizontal angle. This allows it to set up combos against grounded opponents at a wide range of percentages while also being a reliable edgeguard tool, due to its wide coverage and powerful knockback enabling it to KO aerial opponents at around 95% at the edge. At high percentages, the grounded meteor can also set up KO confirms into a fully charged Charge Shot. However, the move has noticeable startup, due to coming out on frame 15, making it Samus' slowest normal attack on the ground. Oddly, the very first frame of the hitbox will send opponent backwards instead of in front of Samus, which could make the move kill even earlier should they DI wrong.