SSBM/Samus

Introduction

Samus is currently ranked 11th in the tier list. Namely, her powerful and effective projectiles can aid her KOing power and her approach on the ground, and she also has a good air game, with a powerful sex kick. Samus' recovery is among the best in the game, due to her bomb jumps, ability to wall jump, and her grappling beam, all of which make her among the toughest characters to KO horizontally. Additionally, techniques exclusive to her, such as the Super Wavedash and Extended Grapple aid her approach, resulting in favorable matchups. However, she is floaty, allowing her to be KO'd vertically easily, and she has a below average combo ability, due to a relatively low air speed. Her primary combo starter, her grab, is also very laggy if it misses, though it can be extended.

"A" Moves Analysis

Ground attacks

Normal

Neutral attack- A jab followed by her bringing her cannon-arm down in an axe-like way. Jab does 2-3% damage, next hit does 7% damage.
Dash attack- Shoulder tackle. 13% damage.
Up tilt- Raises her leg and brings it down. Very similar to Captain Falcon's up tilt. It is a meteor smash according to the game, but it only works on grounded opponents. The meteor can KO grounded opponents at high percentage. 13% damage.
Down tilt- Brings her cannon arm down and fires an explosive weapon. Powerful, excellent option out of a crouch cancel. Can KO under 150%. 14% damage.
Forward tilt- Extremely fast kick forward. Excellent in stopping close-up foes. 10% damage.

Smash attacks

Up smash- Aims arm-cannon up and sets off many explosions. Below average knockback. 21% uncharged, 29% fully charged.
Down smash- A spin kick around her. Fast, good knockback. 16% uncharged, 22% fully charged.
Forward smash- Thrusts arm-cannon in front of herself. Somewhat fast, moderate knockback. 14% damage uncharged, 19% fully charged.

Other attacks

Ledge attack- Gets up and kicks. 10% damage.
100% ledge attack- Gets up and punches with her arm-cannon. 10% damage.
Floor attack- Gets up and kicks on both sides. 6% damage.

Aerial attacks

Neutral aerial- A sex kick. 14% when first comes out, gets weaker afterwards. Good horizontal knockback, and good for edgeguarding.
Back aerial- A very fast kick behind her. 14% damage if sweetspotted, 10% damage if not sweetspotted. The sweetspot is at her foot, notably her toe. A good edgeguard to use.
Forward aerial- Fires several explosions in front of her with her arm-cannon. Up to 23%.
Down aerial- Brings her arm-cannon into a downwards arch swipe, a good meteor smash. The meteor can KO grounded opponents at 115%. 16% damage.
Up aerial- Brings her legs above her body and spins. Several hits, up to 10% damage.

Grabs & throws

Pummel- Slaps her foe with her hand. Somewhat fast. 2-3% damage per pummel.
Forward throw- Brings her foe up with her Grapple Beam and launches them forward. 9% damage.
Up throw- Launches her foe upwards. 7% damage.
Down throw- Violently picks foe up with her Grapple Beam and slams them to the ground. 6% damage. Almost 100% of the time can use Up tilt to punish nearly any opponent. This attack has a set knockback.
Back throw- Launches foe behind. 8% damage.

"B" Moves List

Neutral B

Pressing the special move button will cause Samus to start charging energy in her arm cannon, which can be fired by pressing the button again. When the attack has reached maximum strength, Samus will stop charging and resume her neutral standing position, but her arm cannon will start to flash. Pressing the special move button in this state will let her fire the fully charged shot. Alternatively, the player can press the grab and shield buttons or the control stick left or right to cancel the charge and/or dodge, and pressing the special move button again will resume her charge. This is called charge-canceling. If Samus is hit while she's charging, she will not retain the stored charge.

When used in the air, Samus will instantly fire, whether the beam was previously charged or not. A fully charged shot does 25% damage. The attack inflicts great knockback at higher damage percentages and is a good projectile for edgeguarding. A fully charged shot can also break a Smash Ball in one hit (although the charging time must be taken into account if planning this).

In Super Smash Bros. Melee, Samus' down throw can be used to immobilize an opponent just long enough to allow a quickly fired Charge Shot to connect with the opponent. This down throw + Charge Shot combo is highly effective against almost every character. Young Link is a notable exception, due to his high rebound height after being throwed down.

Stages

Charge Shot has eight different stages of damage and knockback that is determined by the charge of the attack, there are seven stages of charging and the eighth stage which is when the Charge Shot is fully charged. Unlike other charge attacks there is no difference to damage and knockback when in the air and the last stage of charging is weaker than the fully charged stage.

Stage	Damage	Percent that can KO
Stage 1	3%	Cannot KO
Stage 2	5%	802%
Stage 3	8%	486%
Stage 4	11%	348%
Stage 5	14%	254%
Stage 6	18%	176%
Stage 7	21%	137%
Stage 8	25%	124%

Charge cancel

In all three games, Samus is capable of interrupting the charge of the attack by pressing the shield button. Since its possible to go directly into a jump while shielding, charge canceling can be used to bluff an opponent by allowing them to come close to the player while they're charging, only to find themselves attacked by an aerial. Because the shield button was held down to cancel the shot, many players that are just learning the basics of this technique can only perform an aerial Grapple Beam afterwards, since they do not let go of the shield button quickly enough. However, with precision timing, it becomes possible to perform any action that is possible at any other given time that Samus would be airborne.

As an added bonus, the amount of time the Charge Shot had been charged is still retained after canceling via shield, in the same way as if it were canceled via a roll.

Side B

She makes a brief animation of pointing her launcher in front of her, then firing a missile. There are two types of missiles:

   Homing Missiles are fired by tilting (as opposed to tapping). They home on opponents to a degree (they do not move vertically very well), move slowly, and deal 5% of damage. Homing Missiles appear rocket-shaped with a purple nose, as they appear in the 2D Metroid games.
   Super Missiles are fired by tapping. They move in a fast, straight line, as opposed to Homing Missiles, and deal 10% damage with decent knockback.

Up B

Screw Attack: The move shoots Samus into the air, engulfing her in a blueish-tint electrical field (yellowish-tint in Melee), and spins her around and around, inflicting damage on any opponents that touch her. Just as in the first Super Smash Bros., the Screw Attack does cumulative damage and sucks opponents into the center. It's also often used to survive from a fall off the stage. This move can also be used as a Star KO when used from the ground on near-by enemies. One of two moves that Samus can use to send opponents upward.

Down B

Samus shifts into morph ball mode and lays a bomb, which will explode either after a set time period or upon contact with a character, shield, or breakable hitbox. If Samus is on top of a bomb when it explodes, she will shift into morph ball mode and bounce up; thus, if Samus uses Bomb while touching an opponent, she will hit the opponent or their shield with the bomb and be popped up into the air. The mechanics behind the Morph Ball result in the Super Wavedash in Melee. Bombs almost always hit twice, although the two hits are essentially indistinguishable; if a bomb drops onto an opponent from above, it may hit them once and bounce off without exploding. Bombs may do between 2% and 7% damage in SSBM. Bombing while in mid-air causes Samus to go into Morph Ball mode, and slows down her fall. In Melee, bombing twice consecutively in the air will cause Samus to pop upward from the first bomb, giving her near-infinite horizontal recovery.

Bombs are a large part of Samus's approach in SSBM. Simply running, wavedashing, or SWDing towards the opponent and bombing off of them gives several options. If the bomb hits, a fast-fallen aerial will almost certainly hit as well during the stun, and can lead to easy combos or edgeguards. If the bomb is shielded, Samus can either fast-fall an aerial anyway and go into grounded shield pressure with jabs, tilts, and grabs; bomb again while still on top of the opponent and severely wear down the shield, or simply jump away onto a nearby platform. Wavebombing, a technique found by Co_and_me, consists of Bombing off an opponent followed immediately by a downwards airdodge: this functions as a quick wavedash and allows various continuations.