Official 4BR Tier List v2.0 - Competitive Impressions

[NINTENDO Galaxy]

Playlist of ARFI vods feautring MK Leo and Trela.

 

[FeelMeUp]

Karna put up a better fight than Mr. R has as of late.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Watching MKLeo vs Trela.

MKLeo LITERALLY, self destructed on a mental level in the second game.

Just some minor over extensions cost him stocks. Silly places where he did not EVER need to challenge got him mauled and you can see in his gameplay that it caused a steamroll effect. He just kept making more and more poor choices.

His first game in grands with sheik was TEXTBOOK on how Sheik fights Ryu.

Then he kept doing stupid **** like attack off the ledge and bad ftilts and ugh.

 

[NINTENDO Galaxy]

Did you watch their set in winner's too?

 

[Emblem Lord]

Yes and holy crap.

Leo just respecting FA WAY too much.

Marth doesnt give two craps about focus. Just DB him. But he kept hesitating. And again so many over extensions and trying to go for raw reads when it wasn't necessary at all. Did NOT establish a ground game. SOOOOOOOO many delayed fairs. It was his crutch when he felt scared and wanted to establish space. No sh nairs really. No walking dtilt, even tho that crap is a staple.

Ryu doesn't like Marth because Marth is the original footsie god of the smash series and denies him space. MKLeo did not use the tools that Marth has to deny Ryu and instead constantly GAVE UP space.

The ****

 

[Vycoul]

Dabuz on yoshi : "Invalidated by Cloud/ Diddy/ Bayo, otherwise he'd be decent"
https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/5jmnmm/dabuzs_proposed_patchswitch_changes/

I can see Cloud and Diddy being tough for Yoshi, but I wonder what makes Bayonetta a particularly bad match up in his mind? Nothing really pops out at me off the top of my head. However, I don't know Yoshi all that well.

 

[TDK]

Some of us want to enjoy this thread, you know...

 

[Justinian]

Reflex posted his personal opinion of the current tier list in the Georgia Smash 4 discord today.

Someone asked why he didn't feel like Marth was a top tier pick (he rated him somewhere around 12th), and it started a discussion about the state of the current meta. In it, Reflex said that Marth is going to go on a downhill slide as people begin improving, and that the meta is not likely to be kind to "one and done" characters (ones that, like Marth, play neutral, hit you or get a moderate punish, and return to neutral), instead tilting further towards those with absurd punish games, like Bayo, Fox, etc.

What do you guys think about this? A lot of players have recently cited the fact that you have to fight Marth in neutral so many times to win as one of the strongest points of the character, and that's some characters' (e.g, Diddy) main selling point in the current meta.

 

[Rizen]

Reflex posted his personal opinion of the current tier list in the Georgia Smash 4 discord today.

Someone asked why he didn't feel like Marth was a top tier pick (he rated him somewhere around 12th), and it started a discussion about the state of the current meta. In it, Reflex said that Marth is going to go on a downhill slide as people begin improving, and that the meta is not likely to be kind to "one and done" characters (ones that, like Marth, play neutral, hit you or get a moderate punish, and return to neutral), instead tilting further towards those with absurd punish games, like Bayo, Fox, etc.

What do you guys think about this? A lot of players have recently cited the fact that you have to fight Marth in neutral so many times to win as one of the character's strongest perks, and that's some characters' (e.g, Diddy) main selling point in the current meta.

Marth may not be as good as Bayo but he has good conversions and safety. Having a tipper mechanic that gives huge reward for spacing properly is huge. Marth does have some crazy punishes; his Fsmash is stronger than DDD's. IMO he's top tier, maybe the bottom of top tier but he's better than high tiers.

 

[NINTENDO Galaxy]

Another one!

 

[HoSmash4]

I think we should talk about Ness. How do you guys feel about him in the competitive standpoint, what is he lacking?

 

[Emblem Lord]

lacking a free disadvantage state. Heavy commitment to fair. PK Fire leaves him wide open on whiff or PS. Average ground game. No real dominant burst range options. Recovery is average as well. No really good mus with strong characters due to all these flaws.

 

[Justinian]

I think we should talk about Ness. How do you guys feel about him in the competitive standpoint, what is he lacking?

The main things about Ness are his lack of range, middling speed/mobility and one of the worst and most exploitable recoveries in Smash 4, which combined, lead him to get shredded by Rosa, Marth, Cloud, and Sonic, all heavy hitters in the meta atm.

He's got Mario syndrome without the awesome reward Mario gets from getting in and without the great recovery. Not a fun time.

 

[-Tornado-]

http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1spkevo
Updated ruleset.
(omega suzaku yes)

 

[ARGHETH]

TL;DR: Lylat's back, we have a five stage starter list again, and you can't go on the last stage you won on.

 

[Krysco]

TL;DR: Lylat's back, we have a five stage starter list again, and you can't go on the last stage you won on.

Adding on to the tl;dr BF and DL are still tied. Win some and lose some it seems.

 

[YerTheBestAROUND]

I think we should talk about Ness. How do you guys feel about him in the competitive standpoint, what is he lacking?

Good match ups against good characters. Gets destroyed by Sheik, sucks against Corrin, sucks against Marth, sucks off stage vs rosa and villager (he does fine on stage though, a lot of people don't seem to realize that), he sucks at landing, he sucks at approaching, he's incredibly easy to whiff punish with any good character, and pretty much any character can kill him for trying to recovery back to the stage with up b by just airdodging past him and eating a PK thunder 1 hit.
His neutral is not threatening against the majority of relevant characters until you're at high percents and you don't want to die to a back throw.
Like, yeah he hits hard but so do pretty much all other characters that are better than hi, and if they don't hit harder then they hit more often.
His turtle play style just doesn't work in a more passive meta where you have to fight the best characters over and over in neutral when they excel at playing neutral. He's better suited for a more offensive, aggro meta.

 

[Mr. Johan]

Remind me to pinch the cheeks of all who think BF and DL are still the same stage.

I'll consider tucking them into bed with milk and cookies soon after that, because precious souls need all the coddling they can get.

 

[TDK]

It's a step in the right direction, but please treat BF and DL properly again.

One's a better CP vs , for instance. And that's just where the differences start.

 

[FeelMeUp]

Yoshi having no grab and a subpar ground game makes him one of the easiest characters to WT in the entire game.

 

[Yikarur]

Yoshis ground game is good..
he has one of the best jabs in the game and his dtilt is really useful.

and the new ruleset still sucks. I thought they're doing a poll for a purpose but nope, DL/BF are still seperated. rip

 

[Nidtendofreak]

>Vote was heavily in favour of making BF and DL separate stages

>Still don't do that with the stage list

Its almost as if they have a burning need to make sure their stage list was different from the old one. Bah.

I would have loved to hear them try to explain their turn around from "Lylat is an obviously not legal stage" to "starter". Beyond "its what the people asked for". Because its in the right place now but its such a turn around they were forced to do, it would have been amusing to read.

 

[FeelMeUp]

Yoshis ground game is good..
he has one of the best jabs in the game and his dtilt is really useful.

and the new ruleset still sucks. I thought they're doing a poll for a purpose but nope, DL/BF are still seperated. rip

I don't agree. He doesn't have a good enough reward for conditioning you to shield despite having really nice grounded combo tools. Not enough threatening death setups out of said grounded options, either.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Reflex posted his personal opinion of the current tier list in the Georgia Smash 4 discord today.

Someone asked why he didn't feel like Marth was a top tier pick (he rated him somewhere around 12th), and it started a discussion about the state of the current meta. In it, Reflex said that Marth is going to go on a downhill slide as people begin improving, and that the meta is not likely to be kind to "one and done" characters (ones that, like Marth, play neutral, hit you or get a moderate punish, and return to neutral), instead tilting further towards those with absurd punish games, like Bayo, Fox, etc.

What do you guys think about this? A lot of players have recently cited the fact that you have to fight Marth in neutral so many times to win as one of the strongest points of the character, and that's some characters' (e.g, Diddy) main selling point in the current meta.

Except when marth hits you with one move, you can guarantee option coverage upon option coverage to be at your door. His moves cover so much space, are powerful, damaging, fast, and just are great moves to the point of making his punish game heavily extendable.

 

[Yikarur]

I don't agree. He doesn't have a good enough reward for conditioning you to shield despite having really nice grounded combo tools. Not enough threatening death setups out of said grounded options, either.

Dtilt forces a tech; jab combos in upsmash, dsmash and sometimes downB; uptilt combos in upair in kill%. How else are you killing with Yoshi if not from those grounded options? Nowadays Yoshi gets most of his kills of jab and uptilt.

 

[chaos11011]

It's a step in the right direction, but please treat BF and DL properly again.

One's a better CP vs , for instance. And that's just where the differences start.

While I do 100% agree with you, that example isn't realistic in the current meta, unless I'm mistaken. Macs would be banning Smashville every time, so you still get to take them to DL64.

 

[Krysco]

I know Ganon and Ryu can't full hop onto the lower DL platforms. The wind also makes it a pita to cover ledge options with sword characters.

I recall people mentioning that for some characters, DL and T&C are interchangeable while the whole 'BF/DL being tied' thing is a response to some characters finding those 2 stages interchangeable. I'm wondering if anyone can come up with a list of characters who would always or usually want DL or T&C and would pick whichever one didn't get banned in the case of one of them being banned and the same thing for BF and DL. Just to see if the whole tying thing can be justified at all.

 

[TDK]

While I do 100% agree with you, that example isn't realistic in the current meta, unless I'm mistaken. Macs would be banning Smashville every time, so you still get to take them to DL64.

Yeah, but the fact that certain characters ( ) can't make it onto the platform without burning their double jump is enough for the stages to be seperated.

And that's just the beginning.

 

[Krysco]

Random thing but I found from testing with Ryu on DL that he can actually get up to any of the lower platforms by using any of his specials. FH Hadouken works, sh or fh tatsu can get you to one on the other side of the stage, obviously Shoryuken can work (same goes for Ganon and Mac with their up b's as poor of an option as it may be) and the timing is a bit tight but fh FADC can get him up too. Still requires a bigger commitment than just a fh but it's something.

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

I think we should talk about Ness. How do you guys feel about him in the competitive standpoint, what is he lacking?

Ness is good character, not great not very great but good. In my opinion he's the gatekeeper to high tier (Being the last character in high tier if we are still going off the current way the current tier list orders the tiers.) I still fail to see why people keep assuming he's a irrelevant mid tier just because he wasn't Top five like thought when the game first came out.

His weakness is pretty defined. Slow ground movement, average neutral, the recovery, is prone to getting juggled, struggles with disjoints. Sword characters almost always have a better time against him because he has to play really patient in order to get around them. While his neutral isn't bad its just not stellar enough to compensate for this really bad traits like recovery so he often can get overwhelmed in neutral for mistakes worse than other characters.

However having said all that, he has some really good strengths. Obviously his damage output and kill potential. Ness does a ton of damage once he does get started hitting you (And he doesnt need to get a grab to do so) so he doesnt need to win neutral often to put you in kill percentages (Which is good because again his neutral is average). His kill power is not at all to be underestimated. Nair, Upair, Bair, Fsmash, Dsmash, Bthrow all kill. If Ness catches you with a two frame off down smash at the ledge unless you have a great recovery your dead, D-tilt can cause trips which leads into a true Fsmash combo which will kill you really early, off stage Nair is frame five and depending on which side he hits you on will either pop you into the blastzone or force you to stage tech or die, Up air is very safe on shield and will kill Mario around 120 on stage. You dont let Ness go to Smashville because he can kill you on the stretcher platform at 0 with FThrow (Which he can set up off a DThrow). At low percents on BF Ness can Downthrow and force a opponent to land on the platform which he can then cancel his DJ and lock you with Dair, follow up with PKT2 and your dead. All this isnt even discussing his Back Throw.

Ness also has some fantastic ledge and edge guarding tools, like I mentioned above he has his Dsmash at ledge. Off stage PK Fire is not something you want to get hit by because its very hard to SDI out of offstage and you will likely get Dair'd or swatted away and die. PK Thunder is one of the best moves in the game at ledge guarding, Ness can mess up many characters with the tail of PK Thunder trying to get back to the stage, he's one of the few characters that can actually rack up damage on Bayo off stage. Even if you dont manage to gimp a recovering foe with PK Thunder Ness is able to add additional damage almost every time his opponent is tossed off stage.

Honestly if Ness just had a bit more speed, a better recovery and bigger hitboxes on some of his moves to further get around disjoints he'd be Top 15 easily. If your not well versed on this MU Ness will mess you up, though since he used to be such a popular character alot of people have Ness experience.

As far as his MUs look, I have a MU chart but my experience is limited so I wont post it. But as far as relevant MUs go its not the best, Sheik really dominates him, Corrin is probably his second worst (Side B is near impossible to work around) then Rosalina (Which more people are finally realizing isnt so bad on stage) Those three are the worst. Marth, Cloud and Sonic arent fun but they are workable and Diddy is pretty passable. Mario might be losing also I dont really know, Villager is losing but only because he has Pocket.

As far as the even and wining MUs, Fox is even, I think Ness beats Ryu, I think Mewtwo is more and more even rather than losing each day, Bayo is even but many people believe its Ness' favor, Pikachu is wining, Falcon is even but its super volatile, I've never understood why Mega Man was such a bad MU but that may just be my inexperience. Lucario is winning

I dont know about ZSS ,Meta Knight or Greninja

That should cover the top and high tiers, its not a horrible spread its not great but its not horrible like people will lead you to believe. I know its a bunch of random thoughts strewn out I do apolgize I just enjoy discussing Ness. Ness isnt solo viable at all, but not a character you should sleep on.

 

[L9999]

Honestly if Ness just had a bit more speed, a better recovery and bigger hitboxes on some of his moves to further get around disjoints he'd be Top 15 easily. If your not well versed on this MU Ness will mess you up, though since he used to be such a popular character alot of people have Ness experience.

As far as his MUs look, I have a MU chart but my experience is limited so I wont post it. But as far as relevant MUs go its not the best, Sheik really dominates him, Corrin is probably his second worst (Side B is near impossible to work around) then Rosalina (Which more people are finally realizing isnt so bad on stage) Those three are the worst. Marth, Cloud and Sonic arent fun but they are workable and Diddy is pretty passable. Mario might be losing also I dont really know, Villager is losing but only because he has Pocket.

As far as the even and wining MUs, Fox is even, I think Ness beats Ryu, I think Mewtwo is more and more even rather than losing each day, Bayo is even but many people believe its Ness' favor, Pikachu is winning, Falcon is even but its super volatile, I've never understood why Mega Man was such a bad MU but that may just be my inexperience. Lucario is winning

I dont know about ZSS , Meta Knight or Greninja

That should cover the top and high tiers, its not a horrible spread its not great but its not horrible like people will lead you to believe. I know its a bunch of random thoughts strewn out I do apolgize I just enjoy discussing Ness. Ness isnt solo viable at all, but not a character you should sleep on.

I can only imagine Ness having real mobility with his dash grab. On MUs, I dare to say is a bigger bleach drink than and combined. is super fast up close, camps2win, and edgeguards are free, but at least can hope to trade hits and kill her with rage. With , she has better range but she is still huge so you can trade hits and she has some moves that are not hard to whiff punish. Offstage Rosa is tricky but the reward is huge, PKT kills Luma and Down Smash kills her at mid %s. has a gigantic sword with lots of active frames so trading is out the window, average weight means you can't feasably get rage kills on her, Side B goes completely unpunished and sometimes you have to take a hit of it to barely punish, and you can't 2 frame her recovery because the hitboxes are huge. Oh, Counter pressure denies PKT2 reads too, which you can get on Sheik and Rosa and kill them at 30%, although not often it is possible. is annoying because of pellet walking and Metal Blade camping, but I think it is a doable MU. Except on FD, it is bleach.

 

[jet56]

I actually have a theory as to why they made BF/DL tied together as one stage.

Because Omegas/FD are tied together as one stage.
Now hear me out. I already know what the counterarguments are to this.
"DL and BF have enough differences to warrant them being separate stages."
"FD and Omegas have the same layout and only minor differences."
"DL have different properties from each other, such as wispy, the height of the platforms, and more."

Believe me, i get all of this, and agree. He's the thing though.
It's entirely subjective. People would argue back in forth with each other about omegas being separate from FD, DL being separate from BF, how one doesn't have enough differences from the other, so on and so on. And because both sides are subjective, the T.O.s probably made the decisions to make them both count under one strike, so as to be fair to both sides. You could split them both up into separate stages, but that would lead to more bans, more stages, and overall, making it more complicated, which probably wouldn't be a good idea.

Should BF/DL be separate stages? maybe, maybe not. but the same thing can be said for FD/omegas, and if you split one up, you would have to do so to the other to appease the other side. Again, it's just a hunch.

 

[Sinister Slush]

To keep this on topic, I'm pretty sure the notable Yoshis are:

• The Wall (Texas)
• Raptor (Tristate)
• Yoshidora (Wifi Warrior in Japan iirc)
• Seth (Unknown)
• Poltergust (Florida)
• Firefly (Canada)

Did I miss anyone?

Aiba who's an offline Japan Yoshi but hasn't been active lately. Same for DIO another offline japan yoshi, but has a Ryu pocket.
Yellowrello is pretty decent in TX
GSM_Dren in Hawaii
Yika in EU even tho he has diddy/mii brawler in the pocket
Zudenka in Swiss though he doesn't enter much

Every other Yoshi is basically hidden bosses that nobody pays attention too, like Snoop was relatively unknown till he got 49th at G4. Yoshi, among almost every character in this game that isn't a top/high tier, has a decent size playerbase. It's just a matter of how much digging and research do the mains of the character do.

I can see Cloud and Diddy being tough for Yoshi, but I wonder what makes Bayonetta a particularly bad match up in his mind? Nothing really pops out at me off the top of my head. However, I don't know Yoshi all that well.

Bayo's main weakness being lightweight and characters with good grab options (like kill throws or setup into a kill aerial) Yoshi has neither and a generally bad grab with all three lasting almost a full second of lag or is past a full 60 frames dash grab almost being 70 frames of lag.

Most of his kill setups from jab she can bat within or witch time out of if we attempt any smashes out of jab.
She can just witch twist us offstage and laugh at the ugly angle she sends people with her move as she eats our DJ away.

Yoshi already has a problem with shields, so when you mix shielding and bayonetta witch twist OoS, have fun.

Our weight doesn't matter if she can witch time us sub 60% and kill us if we get greedy attempting to get jabs into X move lol

tl;dr witch time sucks for yoshi
Witch TWIST destroys yoshi offstage and possibly onstage, or even just regular edge guarding with nair/bair
Raw smashes or kill setups are telegraphed and can be easily dodged by bayo bat within/witch time
Bad Grabs with no follow ups unless we catch her sleeping and get dthrow Uair on her (which we shouldn't get on her without a bat within/witch time happening)

 

[Yikarur]

I actually have a theory as to why they made BF/DL tied together as one stage.

Because Omegas/FD are tied together as one stage.
Now hear me out. I already know what the counterarguments are to this.
"DL and BF have enough differences to warrant them being separate stages."
"FD and Omegas have the same layout and only minor differences."
"DL have different properties from each other, such as wispy, the height of the platforms, and more."

Believe me, i get all of this, and agree. He's the thing though.
It's entirely subjective. People would argue back in forth with each other about omegas being separate from FD, DL being separate from BF, how one doesn't have enough differences from the other, so on and so on. And because both sides are subjective, the T.O.s probably made the decisions to make them both count under one strike, so as to be fair to both sides. You could split them both up into separate stages, but that would lead to more bans, more stages, and overall, making it more complicated, which probably wouldn't be a good idea.

Should BF/DL be separate stages? maybe, maybe not. but the same thing can be said for FD/omegas, and if you split one up, you would have to do so to the other to appease the other side. Again, it's just a hunch.

nah, Omega's are all basically the very exact stage. Final Destination is an omega itself. That's not comparable.

The mistake overall is too assume that "too many plattform stages" favor certain characters.
The problem with that thought is that there is only 1 possible layout of all layouts you could imagine that doesn't have plattforms.
So it's just natural that characters that excel only with plattforms being absent are at a disadvantage.
Melee has 3 BF layouts alone and again only FD has no plattforms, because there only one possible layout.

For that reason, throughout the whole history of Smash, Final Destination has been an extremely polarizing stage.

 

[PK Bash]

I think we should talk about Ness. How do you guys feel about him in the competitive standpoint, what is he lacking?

Not a massive SF nut so don't slay me but Ness reminds me a little bit of E. Honda. One of those turtle type characters who can **** you up in a split second if you get impatient but if you keep just playing "lame" he doesn't really get anything going.

In the current meta, where he is really standout is with his good matchups vs Fox and Bayonetta. I wouldn't say he beats either but he holds up against both remarkably well. Unfortunately that's kind of it for relevant characters and beyond that, Ness is more effective against playstyles, for example against more aggro players, or repetitive players who don't know how to adapt. This obviously doesn't bode too well for his viability.

Ness' neutral is actually OK. Hear me out. At a very basic level, it's all about trading with nair (you usually are left in a relatively advantageous position) and using his other aerials to work around and condition the shield until the time is right for a grab. A bit predictable perhaps but still very dangerous. Wouldn't call it good but your neutral can't be awful in this game when you are as good at dealing with the shield as Ness is. Another key strength you must not downplay Ness' impressive OOS options, you do not want to be mis-spacing anything on his shield.
The big problem is, he has a very bad footsies game. This would not matter if Ness was capable of rushdown or running away and camping but he's just not. When faced with a character with a superior neutral he just kind of has to "get" into the right range and then punish an overcommitment or misspaced poke with his fair, nair or oos/dash/pivot grab. Obviously this still lends itself well into Ness things but you're not exactly controlling the neutral game. I also find it leads to an over-reliance on shield which often causes problems later down the line. He has no dominance in neutral in these matchups, all he can do is bide his time.

A misconception that seriously needs to be addressed is that Ness has unwinnable matchups. This is wrong. He has a buttload of losing matchups for sure and this does make him hard to play in a tournament setting but there is no evidence that any character beats him 9-1 or worse in this build of the game. (Yeah not going to call anyone out specifically but 7-3 is not unwinnable in any fighting game people come on.) Ness vs Rosalina is frankly not fun to play or even to practice but she's not even his worst matchup, the Ness guys need to get over their mental block. Not going to happen unfortunately as the majority of Ness' players don't think critically but just follow the crowd like sheep. Even worse, they think the bull**** Rosalina can pull justifies this mentality. It doesn't. Fox's haven't given up on the Ryu matchup and I'm pretty sure Peach's are not so pessimistic about the MK matchup. And believe it or not, Rosa's bull**** is harder and riskier to pull of than the bull**** present in those MUs. (I'll admit that I think Ness:Rosa is probably worse than both of these but the point still stands. Ness:Rosa is grossly oversimplified.) The only other explanation is that Ness players are just lazy. Not sure which. Shame really that there is no drive to correct misinformation.

Nearly done now but I feel obliged to mention that although every character can probably have a good crack at gimping Ness, Ness can return the favour against the majority of characters. Including Rosa funnily enough, who should never make it back to the stage. Recovering is a very real problem Ness has, but reverse the situation (which I hope I have illustrated is absolutely possible) and you're looking at one of his strongest assets imo.


OK so to wrap up:
There is a hell of a lot of misinformation surrounding Ness when people start assessing his competitive viability (probably because there isn't much good gameplay of him floating around, which itself might be indicative). But I'm not going to sit here and pretend Ness is better than he is. I know I sing the praises of Lucas in every post but the sooner people realise that Lucas has a far more robust claim to being high tier than Ness has, the better. That said, don't fool yourself into thinking Ness isn't capable - a lot of people on this thread and elsewhere discount or underestimate Ness on the grounds of "his neutral sucks" as if neutral is just one linear thing. You can't just out-neutral him all game. It don't work like that.

TLDR
- Far too much misinformation and oversimplification plaguing Ness.
- Ness generally survives off beating playstyles and players rather than characters.
- That said he has no unwinnable matchups, just a lot of important bad ones that make it a struggle to use him for the length of a tournament.
- His advantage state is amazing and his disadvantage state is actually not bad until he's offstage (yes I know he struggles to land but who doesn't?), but he is held back by his lack of dominance in neutral especially vs the better characters.
- However this does not mean you can or should write him off. Do not oversimplify the neutral game, or anything about Ness really, if you are going to have a legitimate discussion about his viability.
- Ness mains are holding their character back. Let's sort this out.

--
EDIT for clarification:
when I say his disadvantage is "not bad", I mean "not bad relative to everyone else". Not a lot of characters can land well and are similarly vulnerable to sharking. Ness' nair, PSI Magnet momentum stall and airdodge however really help him out, especially against more angsty players. If you're playing someone a bit less trigger-happy, airdodge and drift to the ledge is a cool thing that only Ness, Lucas and Mewtwo can effectively pull off. Not ideal but its something he can do that other characters with bad landing options can't. Being able to stall his momentum with Magnet is pretty helpful as well. Not a lot of characters can switch up timing like that.

 

[my_T]

Not a massive SF nut so don't slay me but Ness reminds me a little bit of E. Honda. One of those turtle type characters who can **** you up in a split second if you get impatient but if you keep just playing "lame" he doesn't really get anything going.

In the current meta, where he is really standout is with his good matchups vs Fox and Bayonetta. I wouldn't say he beats either but he holds up against both remarkably well. Unfortunately that's kind of it for relevant characters and beyond that, Ness is more effective against playstyles, for example against more aggro players, or repetitive players who don't know how to adapt. This obviously doesn't bode too well for his viability.

Ness' neutral is actually OK. Hear me out. At a very basic level, it's all about trading with nair (you usually are left in a relatively advantageous position) and using his other aerials to work around and condition the shield until the time is right for a grab. A bit predictable perhaps but still very dangerous. Wouldn't call it good but your neutral can't be awful in this game when you are as good at dealing with the shield as Ness is. Another key strength you must not downplay Ness' impressive OOS options, you do not want to be mis-spacing anything on his shield.
The big problem is, he has a very bad footsies game. This would not matter if Ness was capable of rushdown or running away and camping but he's just not. When faced with a character with a superior neutral he just kind of has to "get" into the right range and then punish an overcommitment or misspaced poke with his fair, nair or oos/dash/pivot grab. Obviously this still lends itself well into Ness things but you're not exactly controlling the neutral game. I also find it leads to an over-reliance on shield which often causes problems later down the line. He has no dominance in neutral in these matchups, all he can do is bide his time.

A misconception that seriously needs to be addressed is that Ness has unwinnable matchups. This is wrong. He has a buttload of losing matchups for sure and this does make him hard to play in a tournament setting but there is no evidence that any character beats him 9-1 or worse in this build of the game. (Yeah not going to call anyone out specifically but 7-3 is not unwinnable in any fighting game people come on.) Ness vs Rosalina is frankly not fun to play or even to practice but she's not even his worst matchup, the Ness guys need to get over their mental block. Not going to happen unfortunately as the majority of Ness' players don't think critically but just follow the crowd like sheep. Even worse, they think the bull**** Rosalina can pull justifies this mentality. It doesn't. Fox's haven't given up on the Ryu matchup and I'm pretty sure Peach's are not so pessimistic about the MK matchup. And believe it or not, Rosa's bull**** is harder and riskier to pull of than the bull**** present in those MUs. (I'll admit that I think Ness:Rosa is probably worse than both of these but the point still stands. Ness:Rosa is grossly oversimplified.) The only other explanation is that Ness players are just lazy. Not sure which. Shame really that there is no drive to correct misinformation.

Nearly done now but I feel obliged to mention that although every character can probably have a good crack at gimping Ness, Ness can return the favour against the majority of characters. Including Rosa funnily enough, who should never make it back to the stage. Recovering is a very real problem Ness has, but reverse the situation (which I hope I have illustrated is absolutely possible) and you're looking at one of his strongest assets imo.


OK so to wrap up:
There is a hell of a lot of misinformation surrounding Ness when people start assessing his competitive viability (probably because there isn't much good gameplay of him floating around, which itself might be indicative). But I'm not going to sit here and pretend Ness is better than he is. I know I sing the praises of Lucas in every post but the sooner people realise that Lucas has a far more robust claim to being high tier than Ness has, the better. That said, don't fool yourself into thinking Ness isn't capable - a lot of people on this thread and elsewhere discount or underestimate Ness on the grounds of "his neutral sucks" as if neutral is just one linear thing. You can't just out-neutral him all game. It don't work like that.

TLDR
- Far too much misinformation and oversimplification plaguing Ness.
- Ness generally survives off beating playstyles and players rather than characters.
- That said he has no unwinnable matchups, just a lot of important bad ones that make it a struggle to use him for the length of a tournament.
- His advantage state is amazing and his disadvantage state is actually not bad until he's offstage (yes I know he struggles to land but who doesn't?), but he is held back by his lack of dominance in neutral especially vs the better characters.
- However this does not mean you can or should write him off. Do not oversimplify the neutral game, or anything about Ness really, if you are going to have a legitimate discussion about his viability.
- Ness mains are holding their character back. Let's sort this out.

Good post. I agree with everything except your thoughts on his disadvantage (when he gets hit or is in the air).

It actually is bad. The only redeeming qualities of his disadvantage in these situations are his aerials when trying to relieve aerial pressure. A smart player will just shark Ness as he tries to land. There's little reason to chase him around in the air when he has bad landing options. His second jump is VERY precious to him, especially when you couple his bad landing options with his **** recovery. Like YerTheBestAROUND said, when you combine these particular qualities of his disadvantage with his sub-par neutral you will find that you can hit him just as hard or more often than he can hit you.

 

[Skeeter Mania]

Not a massive SF nut so don't slay me but Ness reminds me a little bit of E. Honda. One of those turtle type characters who can **** you up in a split second if you get impatient but if you keep just playing "lame" he doesn't really get anything going.

In the current meta, where he is really standout is with his good matchups vs Fox and Bayonetta. I wouldn't say he beats either but he holds up against both remarkably well. Unfortunately that's kind of it for relevant characters and beyond that, Ness is more effective against playstyles, for example against more aggro players, or repetitive players who don't know how to adapt. This obviously doesn't bode too well for his viability.

Ness' neutral is actually OK. Hear me out. At a very basic level, it's all about trading with nair (you usually are left in a relatively advantageous position) and using his other aerials to work around and condition the shield until the time is right for a grab. A bit predictable perhaps but still very dangerous. Wouldn't call it good but your neutral can't be awful in this game when you are as good at dealing with the shield as Ness is. Another key strength you must not downplay Ness' impressive OOS options, you do not want to be mis-spacing anything on his shield.
The big problem is, he has a very bad footsies game. This would not matter if Ness was capable of rushdown or running away and camping but he's just not. When faced with a character with a superior neutral he just kind of has to "get" into the right range and then punish an overcommitment or misspaced poke with his fair, nair or oos/dash/pivot grab. Obviously this still lends itself well into Ness things but you're not exactly controlling the neutral game. I also find it leads to an over-reliance on shield which often causes problems later down the line. He has no dominance in neutral in these matchups, all he can do is bide his time.

A misconception that seriously needs to be addressed is that Ness has unwinnable matchups. This is wrong. He has a buttload of losing matchups for sure and this does make him hard to play in a tournament setting but there is no evidence that any character beats him 9-1 or worse in this build of the game. (Yeah not going to call anyone out specifically but 7-3 is not unwinnable in any fighting game people come on.) Ness vs Rosalina is frankly not fun to play or even to practice but she's not even his worst matchup, the Ness guys need to get over their mental block. Not going to happen unfortunately as the majority of Ness' players don't think critically but just follow the crowd like sheep. Even worse, they think the bull**** Rosalina can pull justifies this mentality. It doesn't. Fox's haven't given up on the Ryu matchup and I'm pretty sure Peach's are not so pessimistic about the MK matchup. And believe it or not, Rosa's bull**** is harder and riskier to pull of than the bull**** present in those MUs. (I'll admit that I think Ness:Rosa is probably worse than both of these but the point still stands. Ness:Rosa is grossly oversimplified.) The only other explanation is that Ness players are just lazy. Not sure which. Shame really that there is no drive to correct misinformation.

Nearly done now but I feel obliged to mention that although every character can probably have a good crack at gimping Ness, Ness can return the favour against the majority of characters. Including Rosa funnily enough, who should never make it back to the stage. Recovering is a very real problem Ness has, but reverse the situation (which I hope I have illustrated is absolutely possible) and you're looking at one of his strongest assets imo.


OK so to wrap up:
There is a hell of a lot of misinformation surrounding Ness when people start assessing his competitive viability (probably because there isn't much good gameplay of him floating around, which itself might be indicative). But I'm not going to sit here and pretend Ness is better than he is. I know I sing the praises of Lucas in every post but the sooner people realise that Lucas has a far more robust claim to being high tier than Ness has, the better. That said, don't fool yourself into thinking Ness isn't capable - a lot of people on this thread and elsewhere discount or underestimate Ness on the grounds of "his neutral sucks" as if neutral is just one linear thing. You can't just out-neutral him all game. It don't work like that.

TLDR
- Far too much misinformation and oversimplification plaguing Ness.
- Ness generally survives off beating playstyles and players rather than characters.
- That said he has no unwinnable matchups, just a lot of important bad ones that make it a struggle to use him for the length of a tournament.
- His advantage state is amazing and his disadvantage state is actually not bad until he's offstage (yes I know he struggles to land but who doesn't?), but he is held back by his lack of dominance in neutral especially vs the better characters.
- However this does not mean you can or should write him off. Do not oversimplify the neutral game, or anything about Ness really, if you are going to have a legitimate discussion about his viability.
- Ness mains are holding their character back. Let's sort this out.

--
EDIT for clarification:
when I say his disadvantage is "not bad", I mean "not bad relative to everyone else". Not a lot of characters can land well and are similarly vulnerable to sharking. Ness' nair, PSI Magnet momentum stall and airdodge however really help him out, especially against more angsty players. If you're playing someone a bit less trigger-happy, airdodge and drift to the ledge is a cool thing that only Ness, Lucas and Mewtwo can effectively pull off. Not ideal but its something he can do that other characters with bad landing options can't. Being able to stall his momentum with Magnet is pretty helpful as well. Not a lot of characters can switch up timing like that.

Could I ask why Ness does well against Bayo and Fox?

 

[Diamond Octobot]

Just remember that Ness's DAir has a large AC window, which his always nice.

If you ask me, his situation against Bayonetta is all about him being a floaty grappler, which means that not only he doesn't have to face Witch Time all the time, he can also be a bit harder to combo. He can also stop Bayo's recovery without commiting too much thanks to PKT.
If he loses his DJ, he is in a bad spot, tho.

For Fox, I think it's because if you put Fox's Bair & UAir aside, Ness has positive trades on aerials, and again, he has an easy time edgeguarding Fox.
But I feel like the opposite is true too... It's been a while since I played Ness, but I do believe Ness has a hard time against Fox's speed.

If any potent Ness main is here, I'd like to know how you feel about them.

 

[L9999]

Could I ask why Ness does well against Bayo and Fox?

Bayo- Ness' main damage output comes throws, so he can avoid Witch Time more often. Ness' main KO move is Back Throw, which comes from a grab so no WT and it is great because Bayo is light. Offstage Ness can rackup damage on Bayonetta thanks to PKT. Ness' physics let him airdodge and SDI out of Bayo's combos without much difficulty. For evidence, Captain Zack has lost to FOW and SS, Saj lost to FOW as well, and many Bayo players have lost to Ness players before.

Fox- Fox can pressure Ness and ledgeguard him, but he has to respect Ness' Nair because at any second it might break his combo and get a unfavorable trade. Any Uair or Up Tilt landed is a free combo on Fox. Since Fox is very light he is suspectible to getting killed by Uair, Bair, Down Tilt Bat, Back Throw and Down Smash at nonsense percents. It should go without saying Fox gets eaten offstage, but Ness just so happens to have good edgeguarding tools. Side B cannot go unpunished and Up B is Down Smash/Nair food. It is even because Fox has Uair, Up Smash and his running speed to get pressure. For "recent" evidence, NAKAT's sucky Ness defeated Shogun.

 

[PK Bash]

Could I ask why Ness does well against Bayo and Fox?

I will have to keep this brief but I'll give you a few thoughts tonight and edit in a few more tomorrow if I remember
Fox-Ness I would personally put as 6-4 Fox's favour, i.e. Fox will win 6 games out of 10. This isn't a number I've pulled out of my ass since a friend of mine is a Fox player of roughly equal skill who I play regularly offline at his, and 6 out of 10 games is about right. But keep in mind that such numbers are pretty arbitrary. We sure as hell do not play our characters optimally.
-Neither character can really force the other to approach
-At low % Fox would really love an up tilt or a setup into it more than anything but against a shield-happy Ness that is easier said than done.
-Ness usually likes it when people attack his shield and Fox struggles to invalidate it. Fox has no grab combos, does not push him back too far when he hits it and any approach options he tries against your shield can be challenged with nair oos which is a trade Ness will usually win.
-Remember though that he is not Pac-man and does actually have a good grab that can beat shield.
-Fox's footsies are not great. Whilst Fox does out-footsie Ness, they are not dominating. Ness has some disjoints and can trade with Fox pokes to his advantage
-Ness is able to mitigate Fox's punish game more efficiently than a lot of other characters.
-Obvious one. Fox offstage = dead. Another character Ness should not ever let back onto stage. He can be hard to catch but if you get him there make him pay.
Basically, Fox doesn't smother Ness in the same way a character like Sheik smothers Ness in both neutral and advantage, and the weaknesses of Fox are handily exploited by Ness' toolkit. Additionally Fox doesn't have the option to wall out Ness in the same way as Rosalina, Marth or Diddy Kong, meaning that much of the battle is taken on terms favourable to Ness' gameplan rather than the uphill struggle he faces against other top tiers. I mentioned in my big post that Ness does well against "aggro" and Fox doesn't really have much other choice than to be aggro against Ness. Obviously though its Fox, and Fox has a very tight offensive game. Additionally he can sustain advantage very well, but intelligent play will give Ness some room to breathe. CQC isn't exactly detrimental to Fox's gameplan regardless of if his opponent benefits from it.

Bayo is also played with a strong focus on advantage state. I'll be honest, I don't have much experience with Ness vs Bayonetta. Something I've found quite crucial is that Ness can trade favourably with pretty much everything. Bullets are annoying but It's fairly easy to close the gap vs Bayonetta at least, she can't keep you out forever.
Something else pretty important in this MU, and the reason why some knee-jerk say that Ness wins, is the properties of Ness, particularly his floatiness value. Ness (and also Lucas) has a far easier time escaping Bayo combos than (correct me if I'm wrong someone) any other character.
Once again, a character who doesn't dominate Ness in neutral like his really bad MUs do and a character who relies on an advantage state that doesn't trouble Ness in the same way it troubles much of the rest of the cast.
Edit: forgot to mention grabs here but... duh. Still got to be careful of Witch Time anyway - dthrow combos are not free.

This is necessarily brief and oversimplified (I'm a hypocrite I know) as I've got things to do and places to be, but I encourage anyone to pick what I've said apart because I'm not omniscient and there's doubtless points I'm missing.