My Tough Choice

[Double Helix]

So I have this problem. I enjoy playing Ness, and I enjoy playing Fox. I don't know who to pour my (serious) practice time into. So here are the comparisons I need to make.

Fox:
His pros:
I have potential to do well, rather than do well for a Ness main.
He can do some really cool stuff, he is entertaining to watch, and I feel invincible.
He is fun to play.
Top tier.
His cons:
No matter how I feel, he is not invincible.
People will have usually faced better Fox players, so I will just not do as well.
I never feel as though I play optimally, or as well as I should have.
Nobody wants to see another Fox in pools.

Ness:
His pros:
My movement with him is really smooth already.
Low-tier heroes are awesome.
He can do some really cool combos.
He is fun to watch.
I feel satisfied after a match with him, even when I lose, if I play well for me.
His cons:
Sheik
Low priority.
Recovery.
Sheik.
Recovery.

I feel as though I should play Ness. Overall I can still do some cool stuff, but I want to be able to do cool Fox stuff also. Both are super fun to play, but I really do want to eventually choose one. Fox is so powerful, but Ness does some work sometimes.

 

[Boat Mode]

If you care about doing well play Fox

 

[Ziodyne]

Nobody wants to see another Fox in pools.

I disagree

Beating the **** out of Fox's in pools always keeps me pumped for the next tournament

 

[Engo]

Fox's have a hard life too. Don't forget this. Everyone knows how to death combo you, including other Fox's and it's super hard to stay consistent.

On top of this I think fox is one of the hardest good characters to learn fundamentals with. Just because techskill and the abundance of options makes it unclear to know what the right thing to do in every situation. His combos are also not as intuitive as other characters.

 

[EPsilon933]

Keep playing both. Eventually you'll begin to favor 1 more than the other as time goes on

 

[milligraham]

Another possible pro for Ness: Since he isn't a character most people go against they might not know the matchup, but pretty much everyone knows what they should do against a fox.

Maybe have Ness as a main and Fox as an alt (or vice versa).

I'm sort of going through the same thing, I typically main Falcon, but recently I've been considering switching to Falco or even Doc. I actually have a lot of fun with Doc.

 

[failninja21]

Honestly, if you're first priority is to place as high as you can, then you should choose Fox.

 

[Bones0]

I can't help but disagree with the premise that you have to eventually choose one. You can easily play two characters, especially since one of them doesn't even have a substantial amount of match footage to study. Hell, I've probably seen 95% of all the Ness footage worth watching, and I don't even play Ness anymore. If you try to play only one character forever, you WILL get bored. I also think some matchups are fairly doable with Ness at the low-mid levels, especially if you only use him for your cp stages (i.e. FD). It just doesn't make sense to limit your character options especially when you're so new to the game. How much you play humans, practice on your own, and study vids is going to affect your rate of improvement a million times more than whether you play 2 characters or 1. I'm not even sure you WOULD improve faster playing only Fox. I never chose to play a low tier to any meaningful degree, but I'm sure it gives you a great insight into the game that is hard or impossible to gain playing only top tiers.

 

[Insom]

His cons:
Sheik
Low priority.
Recovery.
Sheik.
Recovery.

top lel

 

[Eternal phoenix Fire]

Pocket Fox.

 

[Zhea]

I understand wanting to stick with 1, it was a weight I had on my shoulders for awhile between falcon and fox. Recently I got over this by conducting a thought experiment.

Some background:

Falcon is and has been my main for 2 years after I started competitive melee(IE when I found out about advanced techniques and began practicing them). Fox had been a character I had only dabbled in for technical practice, and occasionally using him when I needed to not stress about smash. around 8 months ago I moved to texas and began hosting smash fests at my place around 3+ times a week. I improved my falcon, however I had trouble beating people consistently. People who had put less time, less research and less effort into improving themselves then I had. Of course they played characters in the top tier. This infuriated me. In terms of game knowledge I was teaching them far more than they taught me due to my obsessive match watching/board scouring, however they would still beat me about 2/3rds of the time.

As I entered my third tournament in Texas I was plagued by doubts about my character choice. Falcon could be pushed way farther than I had been pushing him, but could playing him from an early time in my smash career to now have actually hurt my development as a smasher? Even if I got to that plateau, would I be happy there? Would I regret having spent all this time on a character who ultimately could only go so far? Keep in mind this was only a month after EVO, and Hax was(is?) dabbling in Fox as well and had, as one of the only Falcon's to ever be that close to Falcon's limits, been suffering from similar issues. It was really getting to me. It was not healthy, I was getting way more frustrated than usual with smash.

Another important note is that I didn't want to main both or secondary one of them at the time. Fox, with an arguable case being made against Marth, does better in all of Falcon's best and worth match-ups. He is just straight up better than Falcon. I didn't see the point in maining both if one was always superior.

So I decided, for 1 month, I would go all Fox. 3+ times a week for 6-8 Hours + tech practice I would play this character and then at the end of the month I would evaluate where I was at the end of the month. At first, I had the expected results, my Fox(thanks to my previous tech training) wasn't horrendous, but was very inconsistent and I lost a bit more for the first week. However as I got more consistent and got more of fox's tactics down, I began to preform better than my falcon(results-wise).

For one, my falcon had issues of being all over the place, sometimes I would 4 stock someone, other times I would get 4 stocked and everything in between, within the span of a few matches. I would gain 3 stock leads and then lose the match, I would come back from 3 stock deficits, etc. Fox on the other had, would rarely fluctuate, and I would usually keep winning if I was or barely lose if I was losing. For the first time I felt my work ethic and knowledge was finally paying off. It looked like I was getting exactly what I wanted and then, something unexpected happened.

Since I have begun my journey into competitive SSBM I had never once wanted to stop playing or take a break. I was ravenous to play this game at every opportunity. Playing Fox for a month, made me want to stop. Don't get me wrong, Fox is a fun character and I had fun playing him, but he did not bring the same passion I had for Falcon, and I only played once during the last week of the experiment. The results were clear, though unexpected. If I stuck with Fox, I would probably quit this game, which is very conducive to improvement.

I suggest the above not as a way to decide, but perhaps to give you insight into what you want as a player. I hope this was helpful.

 

[t3h Icy]

Fox:
His cons:
No matter how I feel, he is not invincible.

Better pick Ness then!

 

[nooga]

http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view/202886/whatever-o.gif

 

[Double Helix]

Better pick Ness then!

Turns out, he isn't invincible either XD

In any case, I guess I will continue to play both. I feel so much more comfortable with Ness, but Fox is still a lot of fun.

 

[DtJ SmithZzz]

as someone who has gotten power ranked with Young Link and been playing him for 3 years, I don't think it's worth it in the long run. It's been a long up & down rollercoaster of good achievements & placings and then very bad placings, rinse & repeat. I've been playing since 2010 and my highest placing is still only 5th.. It's possible to do better sooner if you stay committed (because I didn't stay committed) and maybe even do better but it's hard to get 1st with a low tier.

 

[Double Helix]

Meh. I kinda listed placings as a pro/con, but it really doesn't mean as much to me as it could. I just wanna have a lot of fun. With Ness, that can be difficult in some matchups due to how useless it can feel. I guess I will just play Fox against awful awful matchups, and Ness for the awful ones (the rest).

 

[the_CAM_factor]

but ness is the only char that can heall!!!

 

[Acryte]

His cons: Bair isn't as good as it should be

In all seriousness, play both. Sometimes if someone is really got you figured out that day and you can't seem to figure it out, it helps to have a secondary or two. An example would be me and my friend in P4A would play relatively close sets, but at some point I would get him figured out and then win 18 matches straight or etc. That's when it's best to either figure out different mixups/counterstrats, or just have pocket chars to use too while you develop as a player.