SBR Weekly Character Discussion: Ness

An aerial monster, Ness is a low-tier that can hold his own with some of the high tiers when played correctly. But sadly, grab releases and sub par KO attacks really hold him back against characters that can deal with his air game. And his lackluster recovery certainly doesn't help at all.

SamuraiPanda said:

An aerial monster, Ness is a low-tier that can hold his own with some of the high tiers when played correctly. But sadly, grab releases and sub par KO attacks really hold him back against characters that can deal with his air game. And his lackluster recovery certainly doesn't help at all.

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Characters that can shield aren't doing him any favors either.

before theres a thousand dumb posts staying the obvious stuff i'll get it out the way. i dont play ness, so hopefully someone good/knowledgable can elaborate on his finer points.

B.throw KOs easily, plus he's got a very good dash-grab.
d.throw can set up into f.airs.
his pk thunder's tail is very long and useful off the stage, although its more of an annoyance/damage racker than reliable KO moves.
UpBing himself is retardedly strong, killing most characters at 65% if they're close, unless i'm mistaken. I think people that get hit by it underestimate it or dont understand the matchup or just suck..or something. I know it looks so easy to punish ness, but if you're not sure if u can make it in time please just wait for it and punish him after.

marth can grab-release-infinite-f/d.smash ness.
DK can cargo-release-infinite-to-d.smash ness, lol
MK can grab-hit-release him across stages into a d.tilt and then virturally guaranteed edgeguard.

even with grab releases taken out the picture these 3 characters still have an advantage, so do almost every other character.

ness's smash attacks suck (yes, its possible to LAND them, but that doesn't mean they dont suck) compare them to anyone else's...they're trash.
great f.air, good uptilt, sex kick, good upair and b.air(easy to DI though), but again nothing amazing. pretty ****ty B moves.

i like his dashgrab the most, and his throws are all pretty useful. PK thunder tail whipping is good against airdodgers, but its nothing epic.

oh yea..and he still has a glitch with his yoyo..but i haven't seen it replicated in competitive play.

I play Ness a lot, and in tournament. I know this character well. Ness has no trouble killing anybody. He's got a spike (arguably the best in the game when you consider speed, range, power and set up potential), a back air that kills, an up air that will kill even the heaviest characters early, PKT2 setups, and the most trusty of them all back throw.

Ness has a huge mental edge on his opponents once they are above 100-135% (depending on the character) If they get grabbed they are dead. This means either he is getting a grab, or they are very predictable staying in the air and avoiding a grab, leaving them open to other KO attacks. Ness has no trouble KOing.

What Ness has trouble with is defensive play and character who can outrange him or characters with better disjointed hitboxes then he does. He relies heavily on this in the air. MK or Marth, who can outspace him in the air, are some really tough matchups because they can abuse this. Ness ground game is poor in general. Yoyo's are ok but can be punished hard, jabs are average, and PK fire can be smashed DI out of relatively easy.

Ness rarely has the advantage over anyone, but other than Marth there aren't many characters who outright beat him besides Marth. Grab releases are good for getting in a smash attack on him but the chain grab will gain an opponent 10% at best, and if they mess up they get less percentage if they just grab released into a smash.

Ness has the arsenal to beat a lot of characters in this game when played with a smart person, he's got a lot of great moves, its just hard to approach and his recovery can be gimped basically only by characters with multiple jumps or characters who have reflectors. He is tough to gimp otherwise but characters with these tools can gimp him well.

Ness is a good on a lot of gay stages as well, making him an EXCELLENT reactionary counterpick character. When people take me to Delfino, Rainbow Cruise, or Jungle Japes, I switch to Ness because the spike is amazing on these stages and he can't be gimped quite so easily on these stages. I He is also good on Brinstar, and Mansion as his PK fire will stick out on those stage hitboxes and down tilt is so fast you can recharge your moves instantly.

Even though he can't swim in Earthbound, water stages are his best stages in the game in Brawl. He can camp in the water and throw out PKT's, and if you come out to punish him you have the risk of being spiked quite easily. You also can't gimp him when there is water.

I often see Ness and Lucas get compared to one another. Though move-for-move, Lucas is better, for some reason I think Ness is the better of the two... it's like the way I see 'dorf and Falcon: Ganondorf has better moves, but Falcon just seems... better.

Anyway, onto Ness...

I think he's a great killer, personally, with the most reliable KOing throw in the game, powerful aireals, and a monster of a spike. Also, it's surprisingly easy to get caught in PKT2 if you don't know what you're doing.

The problem with Ness is that his attacks are either awesome or terrible. All of his smashes are bad (dsmash is an okay surprise move but the damage is poop), his utilt is good but I don't think his others are useful (dtilt seems like it could have some cool setups if it trips, but the range is terrible) and his B moves aren't very good either.

PK Flash is even worse than in Melee, PK fire is super laggy (but with big rewards if you land it) and though his PSI magnet can force some approaches it's not very useful. PK Thunder is useful and Ness' PKT2 is awesome but Lucas' is better, I think.

Great throws all-around, though, and all of his air moves are awesome. Fair beats shields and seems to chain into itself. Double-jumping while doing air moves is a great way to make them land. Speaking of which, I find bair super easy to land (compared to The Knee at least ) and it has a really nice kick (get it?).

Eeee... Ness is not so bad. He could climb to mid tier, maybe, but for now him and Lucas are at the top of low in my book.

Ness and Lucas are so different it's ridiculous. I am good with Ness but I can't use Lucas for crap. Infact, I'm so used to Ness's recovery that I cannot use Lucas' recovery for the life of me.

Percon, back air is easy to land because it's sour spot has good/deceiving range and it drags out for quite a bit after the sweet spot comes out. If you mis space it too far away, the sour spot will hit. It's like Falcon's knee in Melee but with more range.

i would like to add a small bit.

Ness F-air his like a lucario hitbox. It shield pokes and or hit you when you arent even in his range. Nair out of shield if one of the best ive seen in a character.

SAMUS note: sweet spot bair can go through fully charge shot and missles.

I just can't stand his bat. Slow and not nearly as powerful as it should be for how hard it can be to land it. But I love his yoyos. They are quite underused, but the ability to charge the smash with a hitbox out is quite nice in some situations, and can lead to some interesting shield pressure.

Ness just doesn't have a ground game to speak of, though. None of his tilts or smashes are outstanding by any means, and other than his grabs there seems to be little reason to use almost any of his ground attacks.

Come on guys, we need more posts in here. We have plenty of new members and nobody wants to contribute?

I give Ness a doesn't matter/10. Horrible character. Really gimpable, and he's a two-trick pony. Once you learn how to deal with his f-air and avoid getting grabbed at high percents (which is easy since he has no grab range and it's predictable when he wants to kill you with it), he is done for.

I'd like to point out he can be pretty decent in teams.

LOL @ Ness having no grab range. His dash grab is likely the best or 2nd best in the game. He also has short hopped double aerials, a disjointed and overprioritized down air, a solid back air and a very strong up air. His ground game isn't very good though. Saying he's a 2 trick pony makes it sound like the Ness's you've faced didn't know how to utilize his moveset very well.

id like to mention that ness is good at pirate ship(water spikes) and corneria(back throw at far right and far left kill super early)

and yes, in teams his grabs seem to be easir to pull off and since its so strong, hes very valuable in teams.


KO moves:

sweet spot bair
back throw at 110%(or lower on some levels)
u-air
n-air
f-smash
UP+B
D-air

His PK FIRE is GREAT for edge guarding. Even if th foe smash DI is it, ness has time to run off and nair or maybe even spike them out of it.

Fair is the KEY to everything. it shield pokes and its hit box extendes its VISIBLE hitbox. Hes BY FAR THE BEST LOW TIER. I would put him above sonic.




inui: being gimpable shouldnt be brought up. i gimp better chars like olimar/lucario/ike and more with 90% accuracy, so what? it doesnt make them worse. Heck, i think olimar is the EASIEST character to gimp in the entire game and yet hes WAY up there on the tier list.....obviously being gimpable doesnt hold much weight and it shouldnt hold weight against ness.

Xyro77 said:

id like to mention that ness is good at pirate ship(water spikes) and corneria(back throw at far right and far left kill super early)

inui: being gimpable shouldnt be brought up. i gimp better chars like olimar/lucario/ike and more with 90% accuracy, so what? it doesnt make them worse. Heck, i think olimar is the EASIEST character to gimp in the entire game and yet hes WAY up there.....obviously being gimpable doesnt hold much weight and it should hold weight against ness.

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Banned stages... Cool...

Olimar is an unapproachable fortress. Ness doesn't have that status. He's easy to gimp, but Ness is much easier to get off the stage in the first place.

Sadaharu Inui said:

Banned stages... Cool...

Olimar is an unapproachable fortress. Ness doesn't have that status. He's easy to gimp, but Ness is much easier to get off the stage in the first place.

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they aint banned over here and other places dont ban them either.

Maybe i play better ness's than your area does. Cause i cant see how you will get a GOOD ness off the stage ANY easier than a good olimar.

Ness is only gimpable against characters that have a lot of jumps - enough to recovery from any footstool (Meta and ROB) that have a projectile absorber/reflector. Nobody else can gimp a Ness, period, that knows what they are doing.

I'll gimp your Ness with Ganondorf.

Hahaha okay, we'll just have to see at Genesis about that.

Also with Ike. I want to use both.

i wann play your ganon and ike with samus.

Sorry about forgetting to move this. There wasn't much discussion so I wanted to wait until there was something a little better... But what more can I expect from a character that so few people play, anyways?

Everything after this post is general discussion.

Was there any real discussion taking place? lol jk

Edit: Ness is a weird character. His double jump gives him crazy momentum. Potential hazard if the opponent can't read your movements?

Fair has incredible range. Use it.

Sheesh, we're lacking some ness mains in here!

To address pandas statement earlier about how ness' yoyos are underused, I use them a lot. They offer a ton of mindgames, especially if you can alternate between down and up smash (and even reverse hyphen usmash) easily... Actually a big part of ness is his mindgames. You would never be able to land a pkflash/fire/t(1/2) by just throwing them out there. Ness players can be really good at messing with an opponent's mind, which allows them to get those great finishes and combos off.

Okay, ness is one of the very few characters who can easily use every single one of their attacks without being severely punished. Jabs are quick and can be used for a jab lock, dtilt can trip to lead to other attacks and also hit a ton of times in a row, ftilt is quick and can get people away if needed, utilt juggles and leads into other attacks and kills at higher percents, usmash/dsmash get out fairly quickly and rack up some good damage if used right, fsmash reflects and kills from dtilt or pkfire or even from another persons stupidity, dair is a great spike, nair has a ton of priority and is really quick, fair is good for spacing and setting up combos, bair and uair kill, pkt can rack up dmg, pkt2 is death, pkflash is good for edgeguarding and mixing it in with mindgames, pkfire racks up damage and leads into other stuff, and psi magnet absorbs and pushes items and people. Phew. Typed all that on a phone.

Yeah, his ability to get owned by some people's grab releases can be a pain, but if the player knows what they're doing, they can escape and avoid those types of thngs.
Sure, he has a somewhat gimpable recovery, but the ness player should know what point is best to avoid being gimped and making it back to the ledge.

I'll probably add more later, but I can't and typing with my phone.

EDIT: panda, there aren't only a few people who play ness, just a lot of us can't go to tourneys often. Also, we aren't like MK or snake who have millions flocking to them because of their tier status. Plz take no offense. Also, rather than just general discussion, could you bring this thread back to serious discussion later? I was just getting started.

Sadaharu Inui said:

I give Ness a doesn't matter/10. Horrible character. Really gimpable, and he's a two-trick pony. Once you learn how to deal with his f-air and avoid getting grabbed at high percents (which is easy since he has no grab range and it's predictable when he wants to kill you with it), he is done for.

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You're playing the wrong nesses then if they only try to grab or fair you. Read around on the ness boards, cause I hate typng with my phone and can't describe everything right now. I'm trying to get to bed but this is distracting me.

IMO, Ness's flaws are divided by two categories: myths and truths. Edreeses pretty much nailed the truths down (there were others too). Grab releases aren't that bad though unless it's Marth. Dash-grab from release doesn't work, I think. Let me check frame data and get back to that.

hmm, let's not double post, ok?

also, there definitely are some dash grabs that are legit.

Gaussis said:

IMO, Ness's flaws are divided by two categories: myths and truths. Edreeses pretty much nailed the truths down (there were others too). Grab releases aren't that bad though unless it's Marth. Dash-grab from release doesn't work, I think. Let me check frame data and get back to that.

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You forgot about charizard. bowser too, but I don't think it was for the whole time for bowser.

kennypu said:

You forgot about charizard. bowser too, but I don't think it was for the whole time for bowser.

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Yes I did. I think I should go to sleep now lol.

/johns

Wow...there was so much going on in this thread...and plenty of the posts really show how much people truly know about him...

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=169865

That thread right there has more about Ness then I care to talk about at the minute...

Gaussis said:

Yes I did. I think I should go to sleep now lol.

/johns

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Good night.
Ness is a decent character, with a tricky learning curve. The thing for him is that he can fight decently with EVERY character in the game; the problem is ness users needs to learn different play styles for the characters, especially characters that he have troubles with, and high tiers(snake,MK,marth, etc.).
For example Snake. He is not such a hard character to handle with ness in general. But if you give him a chance to hit you, his hard hits will give you a lot of damage in a short amount of time. For snake's you basicly have to bait them, and space correctly.

A lot of people see Ness as a sucky character because there are a lot ness users out there, but only a handful uses him efficiently. Because of ness's tough learning curve, not that many people around the world gets to face good ness players, and assume he is weak.

EdreesePieces basically made this topic obsolete for discussion seeing how he touched down on a lot within one post. Xyro77 knows what he's talking about because he plays good Ness' and Sadaharu Inui, I stopped reading after your first sentence. After seeing this topic here, I thought maybe I jumped into the SBR somehow due to the lack of Ness mains in the first page. Just a quick note. Back throw is good, but it doesn't kill as early as people would think. Especially with good DI. Another thing Ness' don't always rely on "fair" and "back throws", thanks.

Uffe said:

EdreesePieces basically made this topic obsolete for discussion seeing how he touched down on a lot within one post. Xyro77 knows what he's talking about because he plays good Ness' and Sadaharu Inui, I stopped reading after your first sentence. After seeing this topic here, I thought maybe I jumped into the SBR somehow due to the lack of Ness mains in the first page. Just a quick note. Back throw is good, but it doesn't kill as early as people would think. Especially with good DI. Another thing Ness' don't always rely on "fair" and "back throws", thanks.

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Well...I didn't remove Sadaharu Inui from my thoughts...because he at least posted in the treads and also posted in Lucas' thread which counts for something at least...

Still...I should point out that Ness has his own list of advanced PK Fire tricks in case people are too lazy to check the link I posted...I'll just name some of the things you can do with aerial PK Fire right now...

Lagless landings 1st off if you are at a good height and can cancel it during aerial PK Fire's IASA frames note that lagless PK Fire landings won't work with a short hop sadly...

You Launch yourself close/away from the starting area very fast and a different rates of range and speed

Can be used at the most 2x total in the air...with 0 landing time...which allows for mixing in his other parts of his air game as well (Full hop an aerial of some sort...then use PK Jump...or short hop backwards and then use PK Jump...PK Jump...then use the 2nd jump)

Overall Ness' PK Fire tricks aren't as great as Lucas' of course...but they have their merit of course

I've gimped Ness by throwing a nade into his PK thunder and watching him drop. lol

I've gimped sonic by grabbing him out of his up b.

I don't see where you're going with this.

It was funny. I'm not saying it's typical. It was an accident actually. It was just REALLY funny.

Also Sonic shouldn't get grabbed out of that if they know how to use airdodge. lol

Shouldn't don't mean nothin' when it happens.

lol, Inui. Why does you even talk anymore?

Alright Sonic WON'T get grabbed if he knows how to airdodge.

And Ness won't get gimped by a grenade if he knows anything about which direction to start his PK thunder circle. Just start it opposite the direction the grenade is coming from. It's a 100% gaurantee it won't gimp you. Also a smart Ness would just take the grenade hit and use it to recover rather than risking gimp. Just hold down B and if the grenade was thrown above him he'll slow down enough for it to hit him. The whole point of the Sonic remark was that if you play with any brain what so ever, something like that won't happen.

Well no...the situation was...odd. It was a REALLY freak thing. It went UNDER Ness and hit the PK Thunder from underneath and the Ness dropped to death. It wasn't anything the Ness did wrong. It WAS the opposite direction of the nade and it didn't blow up for some reason. He had started it before I even pulled the nade.