So lately I've been feeling that I actually have no idea what I'm doing with Ness. The advanced tech guide is amazing, so i know the tech, but I don't feel like I actually understand what Ness should be doing, or what kind of things I should be practicing outside of the guide. I don't know, I love this character and just want to be better at doing the things. So all you Ness monsters, how do you play Ness?
well his approach game isn't very good so you definitely need to work on spacing and only committing to an approach when you have an opening
perfect your magnet skills - this is important bc it's pretty hard to do consistently but very rewarding, his magnet is essentially his own version of falco's shine when it comes to comboing (also has its own intimidation factor akin to falco's shield pressure, mainly due to opponents not understanding how to DI in magnet combos or just cause it's really good and being crisp w/ it definitely makes Ness' approach game much more threatening, especially when you've got a good DD game)
use Jump -> Tap Jump -> C-stick for DJC aerials - i made the switch from double tapping jump + A button to this method and if you're looking to optimize your combo game, using tap jump to DJC along w/ solid magnet skills is how to do it
it's hard to get down at first but definitely something you're gonna wanna do if trying to optimize your ness
lastly this one is a bit of an outlier in the meta but perfecting your recovery is a must... as we all know pkt is a really hard to use recovery and if all you're focusing on is getting back onto stage with it, you're gonna get punished hard every time you try to recovery. Pkt is actually really, really,
really good as a recovery. The amount of mix-ups you can incorporate into your recovery with Ness is pretty astounding, including little things like riding the wall at such an angle that you'll either fly right above your opponents edgeguard, ride along the wall a litttle bit longer than expected and actually hit your opponent w/ the last frames of Pkt2 once they whiff their edgeguard attempt, so so so much to this move. Honestly in the current Ness meta, utilization of Pkt is the only thing players are lacking bc I see way too many top Ness players failing to mix up their recoveries and being punished for it every time
currently working on a Pkt guide which is going to be (if I can manage to finish it before Pkt gets changed, if it does) pretty much the most extensive guide on the move rivaling simna's
just my thoughts/theory.