Ness's Bair is Better/Safer in Melee

[The_NZA]

Hey guys,

I've been playing Ness for 14 years, and as a result, I'm part of a small minority of players that knows what it means to play tournie level Melee Ness (made it out of pools at NSA2). Occasionally, I 'll get this itch that something feels less good. This happened in 3.02 when I felt like Dash attack was still off, and after bringing it up with Gmaster, he was able to confirm that it infact had lower range than in Melee and that was corrected in this patch.

Well, I want to bring up one more itch I had that I decided to test yesterday. I remember in Melee, DJC bair on a shield to dash away was safe from shield grabs. Now, I know in PM it is also safe on the shield of many characters, but it requires a lot of precision depending on the character's grab range. Some characters feel impossible to DJC bair and dash away from, like Marth, but I had an inkling in my head that I was able to get away with it in Melee.

I decided to run some tests and this is what I found:
Melee:
View My Video

PM:
[URL=http://tinypic.com/r/16jrgit/8]View My Video[/URL]

Excuse the sloppiness in the melee execution--I really don't play that game that much anymore. However, notice that I was able to DJC bair and dash away successfully with consistency at the end there. The only times it failed was with an input error (I forgot to fast fall), or because I went way too close to the Marth. Watch the PM footage, and notice that I'm not really able to successfully bair and run away even once.

I did this test twice on each tv, and only published a small snippet. DJC bair being safe on shield would be a major boon to Ness's neutral game. It was a staple in putting on pressure for Melee Ness, alongside fair, auto cancel dair, and wd grab. Having this option back would help diversify Ness's neutral game away from pure pkfire, fair, grab, and feints, and it would also make getting kills at those percentages where bthrow won't work far more reliable and safer.

So, who wants to see this back?

EDIT:

To clarify -- This isn't about tech specific for Ness v. Marth. It was easier to evade any OOS option with DJC bair in Melee than it is in PM.

EDIT EDIT:

I am including links of more footage. I didn't initially include this footage because there are a lot of executional mistakes but I figure there's no harm in sharing. I tested this whole thing 3 times on each setup over and over on Marth's shield. I am pretty good at spacing, and I noticed a tactile and obvious apparent difference in ease with the Melee bair, even though I have almost exclusively played PM for 2 years now, and haven't seriously played Melee in 7-8 years. Please also excuse my random ramblings of what i'm observing--much of it was baseless hypothesis and guesses on why it felt easier.

PM:
View My Video
View My Video

Melee:
View My Video
View My Video

 

[Ganreizu]

It really didn't take much to know dash attack had less range than melee lol. I knew that so long ago, i just thought it was supposed to be that way because of their goal of having each hit link well.

Of course it would be nice to have it back. Do you have any idea why it doesn't work the same though? Is it shields being different? Jump arcs/mobility being different? It looks like it's a deeper fix compared to "oh just increase dash attack range, done", but rising bair should be pretty safe in the meantime.

 

[The_NZA]

It really didn't take much to know dash attack had less range than melee lol. I knew that so long ago, i just thought it was supposed to be that way because of their goal of having each hit link well.

Of course it would be nice to have it back. Do you have any idea why it doesn't work the same though? Is it shields being different? Jump arcs/mobility being different? It looks like it's a deeper fix compared to "oh just increase dash attack range, done", but rising bair should be pretty safe in the meantime.

Well...I haven't extensively tested it but it felt like in pm, I was getting sucked into the shield, while in PM, I was like...pushing off it or ending up further away...I wasn't swinging into it. I wish I could have tested it extensively...One theory I had was that bair (and potentially all electric moves) interacted differently on shield in Melee than in PM. I wasn't able to really see it extensively, but I tried Zelda's fair across both games and the results were pretty similar as far as shield pushback goes. I can do more testing later potentially...

Honestly, it might be some kind of physics quirk that can't be easily remedied (although I put nothing past the PMDT). However, I care significantly more about the option than I do about the quirk being remade. I just want DJC bair to be safer on shield with more accessibility. It was actually not that hard in melee to do it if you were good with spacing, while in PM I feel like its always a gamble against anyone with respectable grab range.

 

[~tgm_Zeej]

I can't click the links at work, but I think this has to do with the way Ness' DJ works in PM vs. Melee. I'd like to try it in debug mode, though. Seems interesting.

For the record though, I routinely do this to Snake and Marth players. I'm not sure it actually needs a change, even if it's a little harder.

 

[The_NZA]

I can't click the links at work, but I think this has to do with the way Ness' DJ works in PM vs. Melee. I'd like to try it in debug mode, though. Seems interesting.

For the record though, I routinely do this to Snake and Marth players. I'm not sure it actually needs a change, even if it's a little harder.

I'd be curious to see it. I'm quite good at DJC spaced bairs, and I did this test 3 times alternating between the games. It was significantly easier in Melee, which is important because most of hte time, you aren't hitting a standing opponent. Your opponent dash dances, and wd's out of shield, usmashes out of shield. Having a bair that can be safe on their shield, even in a high speed movement game where you aren't going to get that fine perfect spacing is really really beautiful for Ness's neutral game.

 

[SpiderMad]

You could use FA. You got both in PM and 20XX

 

[The_NZA]

You could use FA. You got both in PM and 20XX

I have edited in some footage I took under frame advance for PM.

 

[QUBiX]

It's awesome to see stuff like this happen. Hopefully something comes from your testing on Ness' bair in Melee vs Project M. Thanks for taking the time to do this analysis. I'm sure we can make some great use of this for the neutral game in PM.