PKAY FIAH! ~ Ness MU Discussion [INDEX PAGE + Various Discussions]

Some thought: does Falco have anything besides CGing, short-hop blaster, and the reflector that would make him top tier? Because they have the same blind area: air attacks. Jump-AD-neutral air shuts down the offensive ability of all three simutaneously and should take advantage of faulty cooldown.

However, Falco is still hard to nail with a clean hit. It's not impossible though.

Falco's bair (sex kick) also has some insane priority. If spaced correctly, it could beat Ness' fair. A Falco that mixes up SH lasers with RAR'ed SH bairs along with empty SH's is scary business.

Falco's shine is also one of the game's "jesus attacks" (ignores obstacles and ignores priority).

Gah! Your Hyper Canadian Ness's are giving me an headache!

Technically, they're not Canadian because their heads aren't completely separated.

Mmac said:

Gah! Your Hyper Canadian Ness's are giving me an headache!

Spoiler

Random comment which has no relevance to the topic....

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It's okay Mmac, we know you're a little bit jealous just follow this link and slap one on your sig! http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=209918

...You know you waaaaaant to

I wish the Claus was in a lighter green...

Still think Falco is 55:45 either way...

_clinton said:

I wish the Claus was in a lighter green...

Still think Falco is 55:45 either way...

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Just to piss of the Falco mains... I will!

I say Bowser is 60:40 Ness.

Ness' PK Fire racks up HUGE damage on Bowser, he is extremely easy to tailwhip, and while Bowser does control the ground, the only thing he has is range. Close-up, Ness has the advantage, almost all of Bowser's move are slower than Ness' on the ground, except his grounded Up-B, which you can shield up close and sometimes do a shield-grab or a Nair OoS to punish it. Bowser's grab game is great, and he can do TONS of stuff on Ness via grab-release. Beware of his grab, it's not fun. ): Bowser doesn't have a good air game. He falls too fast, his air attacks are slow compared to the others in the game, and they don't have as much range as you'd think. Ness has a huge advantage in the air, but thanks to Bowser's great grab game, and his fast Up-B, Ness has a small disadvantage on the ground. Firebreath comes out slow, but has great range, you can probably magnet it, but Bowser can attack after it. Just be careful and space well in the match-up, It's easy once you master the match-up.

Actually grab-release does much less than it appears if you know what to do with each option. The tilts and jabs can only be avoided by air release. Bowser Bomb is avoided by DI towards Bowser IIRC. Can't remember the others right now. Wonder if EIDI does something here.

*Side Note: I don't believe Bowser does a fast enough pummel to force a ground release, so by freeing yourself of the grab, you should always do an air release, provided it was in between jabs.

Without the grab releases... this match just isn't even fair for Bowser. D:

I can't find frame data on Bowser's pummel anywhere on the site. His fastest moves are his Up-B on the ground and his jab, his Up-B is dangerous, but his jab isn't too bad. If you could EIDI out of most of Bowser's more dangerous grab-releases, this match is a largely in Ness's favor.

Yep, PK Fire Bowser to death. He has a rough time getting out of it. If your close enough, use dtilt and he'll be at 70%+ in no time. Don't get predictable with it though. If you hit him with PK Jump, that's -1 stock for Bowser, pretty much.

But Bowser has his own advantages.......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oempP1ZTUs&feature=channel

Really painful to watch. I dunno know to avoid this. Just don't get grabbed, as usual.
Oh, and I know it's Lucas, but yeah, Ness has the same grab release issue. -_-

You'll never stack 2 PK fires not even on a bowser if he can DI. Or get him with too many D tilts.

Bowser's hurtbox is large, doesn't a ground PK Fire->a PK Jump work? A Bowser with good DI can escape PK Fire, it's just harder for him than for other characters.

Dtilt is easily shielded too, I want Ness' Melee Dtilt back. ):

Every time I get hit by PK Fire I just kill myself. I mean, PK Fire is just an instant death move anyways, right? Urgh if there was only some way to dodge or shield PK Fire...

I say 80-20 Ness advantage easily for reasons already stated.

Perfect Shield or Spot-dodge. In no way is the matchup that bad for Bowser.

FireKirby7 said:

Yep, PK Fire Bowser to death. He has a rough time getting out of it. If your close enough, use dtilt and he'll be at 70%+ in no time. Don't get predictable with it though. If you hit him with PK Jump, that's -1 stock for Bowser, pretty much.

But Bowser has his own advantages.......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oempP1ZTUs&feature=channel

Really painful to watch. I dunno know to avoid this. Just don't get grabbed, as usual.
Oh, and I know it's Lucas, but yeah, Ness has the same grab release issue. -_-

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The first things don't work at all. If the Bowser is competent, simple DI will allow Bowser to escape both PK Fire and dtilt.

I already explained the grab-releases.

Bowser isn't a terrible character. Whirling Fortress is possibly Bowser's best trump card in this matchup because of its invincibility. However, spaced fairs works against that. He also isn't slow either.

60-40 ness.

ness is faster, and has pk fire, huge hitbox makes it easier to land bair and grab for backthrow. aswell as an easier time tailwhipping or jus hitting with PKT2.

but also bowser has his grabs, and obvious things shown in the video taht firekirby7 posted. but that lucas wasn't very good either.... so tahts why i put 60-40

Earthbound Zero said:

Perfect Shield or Spot-dodge. In no way is the matchup that bad for Bowser.

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That post was in no way serious...just saying...

Let me just tell you guys I wasn't able to beat this guys Bowser at all last night. I'd get him down to his last stock but never win a match against him. Either I'm the worst Ness main there is, was playing stupid or my experience against Bowser is poor. I'd truly have to say that the last one was the case. I don't fight much Bowser's. Don't think that just because Bowser is heavy, slow and can be easily gimped makes him easy to beat. That dude was pulling grab releases, Bowser Bombs and some other BS that just made me lose hope.

I'll just repeat this again just in case people missed it (Uffe, I don't think you can DI against attacks in wifi, if your match was wifi, too well ).

Actually grab-release does much less than it appears if you know what to do with each option. The tilts and jabs can only be avoided by air release. Bowser Bomb is avoided by DI towards Bowser IIRC. Can't remember the others right now. Wonder if EIDI does something here.

*Side Note: I don't believe Bowser does a fast enough pummel to force a ground release, so by freeing yourself of the grab, you should always do an air release, provided it was in between jabs.

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Uffe said:

Let me just tell you guys I wasn't able to beat this guys Bowser at all last night. I'd get him down to his last stock but never win a match against him. Either I'm the worst Ness main there is, was playing stupid or my experience against Bowser is poor. I'd truly have to say that the last one was the case. I don't fight much Bowser's. Don't think that just because Bowser is heavy, slow and can be easily gimped makes him easy to beat. That dude was pulling grab releases, Bowser Bombs and some other BS that just made me lose hope.

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Don't worry, I played great Bowser's too, It's fine :3

The one I played was the Best bowser at the forum I go to, and a Mod there, and he said I know Bowser sucks but I"ll make him the best

He used this weird Dodge against me, it was strange.

You certainly don't want to let Bowser get the literal drop on you - Bowser bomb hurts. If he's in the air, you're either jumping or running; I don't think there's a good option other than those.

While it's not a total ownfest at Bowser's expense, our Fair is something that annoys him. And it should come into play often.

Ness needs to rein in any habits he has of beat-em-up on the ground, for obvious reasons, but it bears mentioning that in my experience your smashes are just crap against the Koopa king. When you predict perfectly, Dsmash might do something at high percents. Might. Meanwhile, both characters need to watch out for the other in the air.

How is Bowser's edgeguard on Ness? I've seen some sick fire breaths used to wreck Ness' double jump. But it's not consistent, although I imagine it would be worth the time to a Bowser user for playing Ness.

How is PKT on pestering Bowser? I wouldn't trust my own experience on this.

I don't know...the fact that the only thing Bowser has on Ness really is the grab combos and the fact that they can be dealt with pretty well really doesn't let me think 6-4 as ok...but whatever...

PK-ow! said:

How is PKT on pestering Bowser? I wouldn't trust my own experience on this.

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Good read. As for PK Thunder, the Bowser I was fighting told me that PK Thunder was throwing him off, confusing him. I've been using PK Thunder lately and it's been doing great for me, even against the spammiest of spammers. The matches between me and this guy, though. He was playing defensively and he predicted my grabs and my PKT2, which might be part of the reason I lost over and over again. If you can create some sort of wall with PKT, then it can work.

@ Gaussis: I'm kind of having a hard time understanding what you wrote that was directed towards me.

Hi guys, I'm just popping in from the Bowser boards.


One thing you need to worry about is Bowser's grab releases. Bowser is nothing like Marth. He's in a whole 'nother league. Smash DIing or similar tricks will not save you from Bowser's grab releases either. That's because Bowser has twice the amount of time Marth has to react. Marth has 10 frames to attack you, while Bowser has 20. That's 1/3 of a second.

Because of that 1/3 second vulnerability that Ness has, Bowser can chaingrab him as long as you keep getting ground releases. If you jump out of his grab, he can hit you with an inescapable Fair or Klaw. If you're near the ledge, you might get KOed or suicided.

However, Bowser can kill you other ways as well. If you get a ground release, he can hit you with his Dtilt, Ftilt, Klaw, or even the BOWSER BOMB.

I know you all know this. Bowser's effing butt stomp works out of a grab release like all the time.

Watch out. If anything, try some mad DI or something.

Fair and PK thunder are probably the two most annoying things I find from Ness when playing boozer. Dair from ness when boozer's off the edge can be horibly too because if you don't mess around with what you're doing before you upB as bowser then ness can pretty easily guess where you're headed. PK thunder is very annoying though.

Can't believe I forgot to say this eariler...

I say 80-20 Ness advantage easily for reasons already stated.

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You're crazy. Do you realize exactly how much of an advantage 80-20 is?

60-40 = advantage

70-30 = big advantage

80-20 = ****


Last time I checked, Ness does not display that level of dominance on Bowser. Not even close. The only character that ***** Bowser that hard is Dedede.

I'm not sure if you've ever played a good Bowser, but probably not. Just to inform you, Bowser has an extremely defensive playstyle. A lot of Ness's approaches can be stopped by simply throwing up your shield and counterattacking accordingly. Ness suffers from having low range on a lot of his attacks, so most of them can be stopped by using a Fortess OoS.

We all know and love the Ness's Fair right? Bowser can beat it by using an upwards angled Ftilt. Ness's ground game is beat by Bowser's tilts and jabs, which have longer range and good priority to boot.

A lot of people are saying that Bowser gets owned by PK Fire. Sure he does. But Ness gets absolutely torn to pieces by Bowser's grab. Not as much as Lucas though, but still enough for it to become something that really affects the matchup. A single grab can really screw Ness up. Even more then PK Fire screws up Bowser.

And yes, I know that Bowser is gimptastic. It's still hard to spike the Fortress though. Invincibility frames allow the Fortress to go through all sorts of crap.

And we must remember that Ness is gimptastic too. If Ness is ever in a position where he's using PKT2 to grab the ledge, he's going to die. Bowser can edgehog him by using the Bowser Bomb.

Bowser has low range in the air, his most dangerous moves he has in the air are Fair and Uair, but almost almost all of Ness' Aerials beat his. Bowser has Bowser bomb to stop Ness' Aerial juggling, but it has a bit of start up lag in the air, meaning that Ness can juggle Bowser until high percents. What's even worse for Bowser is that he is a HUGE target in the air, and he is fastfalling and heavy, making him even easier to juggle than most characters.

Ness' tilts have low range but have the weird property of canceling higher priority attacks, including Bowser's Ftilt with correct spacing. Ness' Smashes all have decent range, and can put Bowser into the air pretty quickly, the place Bowser least wants to be.

Best moves Bowser has in this match up are Utilt, Uair (can be punished because of it's ending lag though), Jab, Grab, Ftilt, Dtilt, Up-B (Easily punished because of ending lag again), Side-B (Ness should be careful near the edge. xD), Fire Breath (is easy to DI out of and absorb, plus it has a bit of ending lag unless cancelled), and that's it. Most of Bowser's moves that work effectively in certain situations but are too easy to punish. Bowser kills Ness faster, and with grab-releases can deal a lot of damage. After looking at this a while, I say it definitely is in Ness' favor, because Bowser is extremely easy to rack up damage on for Ness, but if the Ness is not careful he will be punished badly. It's about 55-45 or 60-40 Ness.

And yeah, Clinton is probably right. The Bowser who 80-20 is being sarcastic. xD (I hope.)

MrEh said:

Hi guys, I'm just popping in from the Bowser boards.


One thing you need to worry about is Bowser's grab releases. Bowser is nothing like Marth. He's in a whole 'nother league. Smash DIing or similar tricks will not save you from Bowser's grab releases either. That's because Bowser has twice the amount of time Marth has to react. Marth has 10 frames to attack you, while Bowser has 20. That's 1/3 of a second.

Because of that 1/3 second vulnerability that Ness has, Bowser can chaingrab him as long as you keep getting ground releases. If you jump out of his grab, he can hit you with an inescapable Fair or Klaw. If you're near the ledge, you might get KOed or suicided.

However, Bowser can kill you other ways as well. If you get a ground release, he can hit you with his Dtilt, Ftilt, Klaw, or even the BOWSER BOMB.

I know you all know this. Bowser's effing butt stomp works out of a grab release like all the time.

Watch out. If anything, try some mad DI or something.

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That sucks.
EIDI might work on some of Bowser's short ranged attacks.
If you super grab Break (you know the mechanics right?)
you'll escape incredibly fast. Fast enough to consistently air break each time.

I checked the guide and:
Charizard
Grab release regrab
Grab release upb
Grab release overb
Grab release downb
Grab release utilt
Grab release ftilt
Grab release dtilt
Grab release jab

Ness
Grab release regrab
Grab release dash attack
Grab release upb
Grab release overb
Grab release downb
Grab release ftilt
Grab release dtilt
Grab release jab


Are essentially the same thing minus the dash attack. This true?
If so ^_^ Ness doesn't suffer that bad. In fact alot of people are close to equal in terms of grab problems.

Onto the matchup, Bowser is a matchup I play alot and it's evolved alot.

This USED to be a straight forward match but things have gotten complicated.

First things first, the grab. I honestly rarely get grabbed by bowser, his grab's are terrible. Their slow, bad range, and lag badly enough for punishment. Added that to Ness preferred aerial fighting, and decent aerial mobility, grabbing a Ness can be difficult if he knows whats coming. Honestly though, the amount of crap Bowser can do to everyone is ridiculous.

Grabs do massive damage because of the Bowser bomb. Seriously, the Bowser I play rarely CG me's on the account of how fast I escape them. (Bowser has slow jabs, so air escaping is easier than average coupled with the SGB makes things easier) don't underestimate the bowser bomb. It will leave you reeling.
*Bowser can do tilts too.

Now for Ness' ace in the hole. PK Fire. This moves utterly ***** Bowser. It traps him long enough for a bat if 2 conditions are fufilled. PKF traps Bowser right in the middle of him (meaning used close up)
and 2, if the opponent doesn't SDI. Even then, the SDI needs to be impressive to escape the bat at 0%.
Bowser cannot escape 2 PKF attempts, and that deals massive damage+a free grab at the end. (make it forward throw preferably)

Ace in the hole's aside, it's pretty simple. Bowser's aerial game isn't as good as Ness' and vice versa for ground game. Killing Bowser is difficult, since he's heavy. You'll need to be good with PKT2 in this matchup, because don't expect the Bthrow to kill anytime soon.
Comboing Bowser is incredibly easy too.

Honestly, I think this matchup is in Ness' favor at a solid 6-4.

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE FIRE GIMP?!?!?!?! You have to admit, it will get you the first few times before you learn from your mistakes

I could be mistaken, but it is my understanding that, with the exception of specific examples, it should be assumed that both players understand the match ups, such as being able to hold down the shield button when Ness uses PK Thunder 2 or Fsmash. As such, it is grossly underestimating player ability to DI out of Ness' Side B.

Bowser's Ftilt out ranges both Ness' aerial game and ground game, and Ness should either Fair a whiffed Bowser Ftilt or use Side B. It should be noted that Ness' Side B is not a very big threat to Bowser other than being a solid projectile, as Bowser is also fully capable of dealing with projectiles, primarily by shield dashing/walking.

Ness' most practical methods of attack Bowser are Side B and Fair, as mentioned. Ness has a good keep away game with his Side B and is his largest asset in this match if the Ness intends to projectile camp.

Thanks to Ness having the projectile, Bowser must approach. Bowser will do this by shield dashing/walking and infinite jumping. Infinite jumping via Bowser's Side B leaves him open for Ness' Fair and ground approaches are the better option. If Ness can land a grab, he can just throw Bowser to reset the situation, although Bowser should be able to see Ness coming and jab, Ftilt, or Dtilt Ness thanks to Ness' comparatively small and televised grab.

If Ness hits Bowser's shield with any attack that is not Side B (Side B be can be as well, but it's not as guaranteed) is punishable by Bowser's Up B out of shield. Ness will very seldom be punishing Bowser's Up B unless the Up B is moved to Ness after the hit comes out. A whiffed Up B can be chased, but Bowser should only be whiffing Up B if Ness is retreating an aerial or using Side B. Note: Properly performed Up B out of shield leaves no vulnerable frame (all Up B start up frames have invincibility) before the hit box comes out. Up B also out prioritizes all of Ness' non projectile moves once it's out.

Every grab from Bowser should deal ~20%+ damage with a grab release to Side B combo. Bowser can chain grab Ness through ground breaks until he reaches the ledge, Ness jump breaks, or Bowser stops grabbing. Extra Inch DI does not help this, as the only characters who are immune to his ground release chain grabs at current are Yoshi and Donkey Kong, and Extra Inch DI does not prevent their chain grabs either.

Ness should survive to ~100% and Bowser should survive to ~160%, so there is quite a weight difference. Bowser can ground release into a Dtilt with a very gimpy trajectory. Even if Ness survives the outright kill at high percents, it is unlikely that he is making it back to the ledge.

Neither Ness or Bowser should be landing Fsmashes. Ness' Up and Dsmashes can punish rolls and spot dodges and Bowser's Dsmash can likewise (Bowser's full Dsmash kills Ness at ~100%). Bowser's Utilt kills at similar percents to Snake's and out prioritizes all of Ness' aerials.

Bowser's gimp game is much better against Ness than Ness' is against Bowser. Bowser can kill Ness of the ledge at mid to high percents by following Ness in the air and baiting an air dodge or simply landing a Bair or Uair. Bowser has Neutral B and jump down Fair when Ness recovers low. Bowser can recover high using his Down B to quickly reach the ledge and Ness can counter this with a well timed Fair from the side (in my experience Ness either trades hits or simply loses against Bowser's Down B with Uair). Bowser's low recovery is vulnerable to Ness' Side B, but Ness' aerials are, outside of situational times, impractical (outside of Bowser being caught in a Side B) since Bowser's Up B will leave Ness in a worse position than Bowser should he try.

Bowser's similar if not better damage racking ability and much greater stock life lead me to believe the Bowser-Ness match up to be 65-35 on paper and 60-40 in practice.

^60-40 does sound reasonable in my book... however, I don't have much experience with a skilled Bowser

MrEh said:

Smash DIing or similar tricks will not save you from Bowser's grab releases either.

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Sounds like you don't know what Smash DI actually is! Also, how is that two different people have been dense enough to respond to Phiddlestick's joke post seriously?

Anyway, Ness obviously has the advantage in this match up, but it's not because of pk fire (which is not that good). Pk thunder is very good, and so is pk thunder 2. Bowser is simple to grab by the way, considering Ness has a fast dash grab that grabs at an early frame and Bowser is a big target. Ness's throws do more than "reset the situation"... forward throw and up throw are both followed up well by pk thunder. About Bowser Bomb... this is practically begging for pk thunder 2 if you do it a fair distance above Ness, I'm not going to try to use up air.

Anyway, Ness's advantage in this match up comes from pk thunder, not from pk fire, which isn't even that good.

PK Fire is a fine move...I've got nothing really wrong with it...but yeah...again PK Thunder is the main thing that kicks *** with Ness...

Hixxy said:

I could be mistaken, but it is my understanding that, with the exception of specific examples, it should be assumed that both players understand the match ups, such as being able to hold down the shield button when Ness uses PK Thunder 2 or Fsmash. As such, it is grossly underestimating player ability to DI out of Ness' Side B.

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Yes...because Ness is just going to slam himself into you when you have a full shield out with PKT2 huh?

The main reason that I mentioned the putting up shield part was because, when I read what is said for Ness, it sounds like PK Thunder2 is some easy to land fix-all move, when it really shouldn't be hitting Bowser often enough in the match to make a difference (Read: Bowser Fsmash).

Hixxy said:

The main reason that I mentioned the putting up shield part was because, when I read what is said for Ness, it sounds like PK Thunder2 is some easy to land fix-all move, when it really shouldn't be hitting Bowser often enough in the match to make a difference (Read: Bowser Fsmash).

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Except PKT is by far more of an open move for Ness then Bowser's Fsmash is...

You can play defense with it for one thing and run away...or just in general their are about 50 other uses for it...

PKT is pretty much the ultimate swiss army knife...

Yeah pk fire is good.. but it's not like OMG 99% damage. It makes me cringe hearing people say that in all these match up threads.

For what it's worth, you all need to ban Norfair. Bowser somehow gets magnitudes worse to handle in that fiery deathtrap.


Bowser is a lot tougher to handle than you think, it seems. His defense is amazing to the point where Ness cannot go on the offensive at any point in this match. Out of shield Whirling Fortress isn't fun to deal with, and his grab-release on Ness can't be easily dismissed. His shield is accordingly massive, so good luck poking at it.

You do have more range with your projectiles (PK Fire, PK Thunder, and even PK Flash if you're gutsy enough), no doubt about that, but Whirling Fortress will easily break most of the attacks Ness throws his way.

Yes...because Ness is just going to slam himself into you when you have a full shield out with PKT2 huh?

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When Bowser has enough time to throw his shield up, yes. You have two options with PK Thunder, assuming a competent Bowser:

1. Aim at Bowser and hit his shield, a zero-sum operation. Unless his shield is severely depleted, it will not do much of anything to old Gojira.
2. Don't aim at Bowser, which will let him go to town with Ness. When you factor in that Ness isn't very heavy to start with (tied for 20th in weight), one shot from Bowser will hurt badly and may even give him enough time for the forward smash.

Try to grab a shielding Bowser, and the invincibility frames of Whirling Fortress will make you think otherwise.


I would say that the match-up is anywhere from 55-45 to 45-55, and I'm leaning towards the latter. I made it seem grim for Ness, but you do have a lot of options. Bowser is, of course, easy to beat on, but he'll live to obscene percentages even if you land your killing blows. He has more margin for error...you do not.