Balanced Brawl Standard Release

[rPSIvysaur]

Lol... Grab Release is overrated in many senses. People have a large tendency to assume the Grab Release with Marth is easy. It is in fact really, in which, most people mess up after the thrid time. You have to grab within four frames without accidentally buffering in a sheild. With the Marth MU we assumed that he only got a few grabs off Lucas.

Alot of the Grab Release stuff with other characters such as Snake were DI'able and escapable. Lucas also has a better release and is usually sent a bit further than Ness, so it makes it even harder to regrab him with Marth.

With Snake, Lucas is primarily going to be using f-tilt and jab to avoid the tilts, or trying to PKF w/o getting blown up.

Nearly all of Lucas' approaches are shut down by Snake one way or another...

Also DK (who hasn't quite been discussed yet), is still a bad MU for Lucas.

Edit: I didn't post this until after AA posted...

 

[CarVac]

Ness main here, reporting.

I have no trouble with Ness. I didn't seem to have too much trouble with Marths in vbrawl, discounting the grab release stuff, (that's just me). MK is 58-42 in my opinion. Ness hits strongly enough to kill MK without too much trouble, but MK still has the speed and pressuring capabilities, and his sword is tough to get around in the air.

Falco is still a really hard matchup, due to his strong edgeguarding vs. Ness (reflector, meteor smash, lasers, bair). If I try to PKT2 above the stage, I get baired. Level, I get lasered, and below, I get reflected or spiked. At least there's no chaingrab to put me by the edge. It's about 60:40 or 62:38.

I haven't played a good GAW, so I can't offer advice about the Ness vs. GAW matchup.

Other than Falco and possibly GAW I think Ness is extremely solid. His ground game is improved due to the Dsmash mechanic changes, PKF trappping better, the dthrow's insane damage, and the bat's painfully strong tipper. His aerial game has no equal in my mind for both killing and chaining attacks together, with 4 killing aerials that link together at low %'s. His grab game is still very scary for opponents at 110%, and that puts enemies in the air, his home territory.

His recovery is nothing to worry about (unless you're trying to edgeguard him but were too late). I am most often gimped by being ledgehogged or by shortening the PKT2 distance (it's suicide to attempt that unless you can tech well). I've had my thunder eaten twice or so in the past few months, so I don't consider that a problem.

 

[Mr. Escalator]

Ness vs G&W in BBrawl is pretty close though still G&W's advantage. Nothing needs to be changed here. It's easily closer than 6:4.

 

[Fuujin]

Well, considering grab releases are gone, you have some stress off your shoulders playing as Ness, considering you can afford to be grabbed now, instead of playing the entire match halfway across the level.

I find myself using his dthrow a lot more. It puts on percent pretty quick, and at lower percents, it can set up alright for a uair.

Dsmash hits like a truck now if you can mind game it to hit.

Usmash was always pretty good.

Besides that, Ness is pretty legit now. No gay grab release infinites, I'd throw him high up on mid tier, considering he's got a decent camp game, can kill quick, amazing approach and spacing options, Not half bad recovery, LOTS of kill options, lagless aerials, good throws, and a pretty good momentum cancel.

I'd say his cons are his recovery still, can be a tad predictable, PK Fire is HELLA easy to punish on a wiff, light (Though his DI is pretty great, I find myself surviving till like...150%+ on average.), and smashes can be tricky to land. Thank god for bair/bthrow/dair!

Light??
Light characters other than GnW don't surivie that long.
He's middle weight, try using ZSS, Peach, Kirby, etc that's light.

 

[CarVac]

@Milk: I'd place him higher than you would.

Ness is not light. The momentum cancelling you mention isn't actually good. If he had a normal double-jump, then he would have an excellent momentum cancel (because his nair is so quick). Ness's survivability is attributable to weight.

His recovery is only as predictable as you let it be. It's not one-tracked in the way that Ganondorf's is, where it has only one trajectory. I like to aim downwards about 15 degrees from horizontal so that I land just above the ledge on the ground. That way I can't be edgehogged, and people don't expect the thunder so soon so they don't jump out to eat the thunder. Plus, it's more likely to connect as an attack (ever so satisfying) if you don't always sweetspot the ledge from below.

If you're using PKF in situations where you can be punished on a whiff, you're spacing it wrong. I rarely get punished for it (I have time to shield or spotdodge) when I pivot PKF at full range, even against quick characters like MK.

Dsmash, which you mentioned, hasn't changed too much (it now actually links with itself with all chars I believe), but it doesn't hit any harder than it did. It's still not a viable kill move except on very small stages due to the low knockback growth. I don't know why you said "it hits like a truck."

In sum total, I think he's almost perfectly on the border between high and mid tier.

 

[Linkshot]

Ness is Rockin Tier.

 

[The Milk Monster]

Yeah, I personally think Ness's Match ups are a whole **** ton better. Like a whole lot better. I'll do a better comparison in a little bit, when I get home from school, but from what I can think of off the top of my head:

Marth is still pretty hard, just not AS hard.
Lucario is pretty much the same, if not a bit easier. (Not cause the grab releases, you can kill him pretty early now, before he gets his REALLY huge aura boosts.)
Oli is a tad easier too, still REALLY hard though.

I'll do some actual extensive comparisons around 3:30.

At least I conquered my fear of Diddy now!

@Carvac, I was just trying to stay practical, I personally think he's high tier now.

In response to most everyone else who said something, I am in a hurry and gotta' go, so I'll respond when I get home, I've got a loooooot to say.

 

[A2ZOMG]

So, let's talk about how many power moves Link has. Link's forward tilt was one of his best killers in Brawl, and it's even better now. It's actually probably one of the better general purpose killers in the game; it has the speed of a tilt, nice disjointed hitboxes, and a lot of power. Down tilt is mostly just worse than forward tilt, but it can have stage position functional independence (it kills up as opposed to to the side), and it's one of those nice sorts of "extra" kill moves to have.

D-tilt is better than F-tilt in this game imo. D-tilt at any rate hits on frame 13, while F-tilt hits in front of Link on 16 if I recall, and D-tilt ends 9 frames earlier thanks to IASA frames. Link's F-tilt was only BARELY a KO move in vBrawl anyway. Killing from the center of FD at 140% is frankly quite weak.

The move doesn't have any real place in Link's damage racking game (unlike forward tilt which can be good to use in non-fatal situations quite frequently) so it's basically guaranteed to be fresh, and that means because of it Link always has a credible kill move ready to use.

Eh, yeah. I really don't find his tilts all that good for killing anyway though, since the real deal is in Link's Up-B anyway, which can be used like Fox's Up-smash either out of shield or dash for some really early kills.

First of all, if they try to do something OoS and Link uses fsmash 2, they get hit. Fsmash 2, as covered, is a totally ridiculous move on the power scale. This covers 1/4 of this possibility tree, and it's massively in Link's favor.

Depends on how close you are...you can shieldgrab him or Up-B/Up-smash out of shield between hits. And against Luigi, he slides so far away that F-smash 2 isn't viable when he blocks.

I still think Ness is horrible, and that he's only uncommon enough that nobody bothers learning to observe him. Not getting grab released is nice and removes "unwinnable" matchups, but Ness is kinda slow and takes a lot of commitments on attacks. Particularly, he has too much commitment on anything that actually has respectable reward, and he has very little range for the most part, which basically leaves him in a situation where struggles to get into range easily, but unlike a fast character like Mario, he doesn't have the mixup potential to easily force mistakes that create openings. There is in fact a reason why several top players say Ness only has F-air and B-throw. Yeah, he can get a reliable KO at 120% with B-throw, but actually getting people to the KO percent takes quite long for Ness if his opponent knows the matchup. He doesn't have very good combos, and for the large part doesn't just randomly land his moveset easily.

You really should never be getting hit by PK Fire in high level play unless you SERIOUSLY screw up. It's slower than most Smashes, and quite laggy. Run at him if you notice him doing it, powershield, and punish. It sucks.

PK Thunder also telegraphs itself if you know what to look for, and he should basically never legitimately hit you with PKT2 before you can block on reaction. It's a semi-gay juggling tool I guess, except it has little priority, so attacks can beat out the projectile.

His Up-smash and D-smash are good on predicted spotdodges, but pretty mediocre otherwise.

F-smash and PK Flash power buffs are probably the most unnecessary changes in the entire game. You should almost never be seriously landing, or nay, applying these moves competitively.

 

[Gindler]

Thank you, this is like brawl+ but without being stupid.

Way better idea.

 

[Linkshot]

A2ZOMG, I land PKT2 legitimately very often. You use it when they're coming down, shock them with the tail, then they fall into you as you launch.

Also, PLEASE stop assuming X Character is always making the first attack. My playstyle is extremely oriented on bait & punish; I find an opening and abuse it. In Brawl, initiating random aggression isn't a great idea.

Sure, Ness has a few less pressuring tools than the rest of the cast, but if YOU can react to an opponent, you can punish them and get them in some really sweet combos (I recall dealing about 60% to a Samus on BF in a Low Tier tourney out of town).

Ness punishes mistakes extremely well, and unlike Ganondorf, has pressuring tools of his own, transcendant priority, and projectiles.

PK Flash is to be used to control recovery. You pretty much threaten them with a big green ball of death to instill a fear aura that says "Go here and die."

I find PK Fire is a lot safer to use from a full-hop, and I can add extra mindgames by DJC'ng it. As well, you can shield poke like that.

 

[rPSIvysaur]

Somethings I agree on with A2 such as the F-smash, but PK Flash is off-stage pressure. However, it's kind of telegraphed off-stage pressure where it only really goes one predictable path and is extremely slow. Ness also can't go off-stage with it, which makes his options to punish the baited recovery trajectory. To make this move more viable (for both of the Mother kids) is to make it not go into special fall. It's not an auto-gimp move and also bait other moves, but it just can't do that because the character will go into special fall.

Sure, his PKT2 may telegraph it's self, but it still will connect w/ tailwhipping.

I personally think he needs a little help with G&W. He gets gimped hard by him. I think that in order to help him out, changing the wind hitbox at the begining of G&W Up-B to cause flinch. (G&W Up-B is G&W's safest gimp on the Mother boys) This probably won't affect other MU's at all except this specific one. *AA - what do you think about that?*

His aerial game is really good and he doesn't need any help there. Also, baiting is much easier in the air, so if he can get someone to whiff an airdodge... well you know.

PKFire is a punisher, flat out. It punishes bad spacing, whiffs and landings. It also has immense reward. PK Fire into D-throw does a F***ing s***load...

At higher pecents nearly all of his aerials (with the exception of f-air) can kill.

Ness shouldn't be using his F-smash though. That buff was silly, kind of like Lucas' B-air sweetspot buff. Someone has to mess up badly to get hit by those.

 

[The Milk Monster]

1. I still think Ness is horrible, and that he's only uncommon enough that nobody bothers learning to observe him. Not getting grab released is nice and removes "unwinnable" matchups, but Ness is kinda slow and takes a lot of commitments on attacks. Particularly, he has too much commitment on anything that actually has respectable reward, and he has very little range for the most part, which basically leaves him in a situation where struggles to get into range easily, but unlike a fast character like Mario, he doesn't have the mixup potential to easily force mistakes that create openings.

2. There is in fact a reason why several top players say Ness only has F-air and B-throw. Yeah, he can get a reliable KO at 120% with B-throw, but actually getting people to the KO percent takes quite long for Ness if his opponent knows the matchup. He doesn't have very good combos, and for the large part doesn't just randomly land his moveset easily.

3. You really should never be getting hit by PK Fire in high level play unless you SERIOUSLY screw up. It's slower than most Smashes, and quite laggy. Run at him if you notice him doing it, powershield, and punish. It sucks.

4. PK Thunder also telegraphs itself if you know what to look for, and he should basically never legitimately hit you with PKT2 before you can block on reaction. It's a semi-gay juggling tool I guess, except it has little priority, so attacks can beat out the projectile.

5. His Up-smash and D-smash are good on predicted spotdodges, but pretty mediocre otherwise.

6. F-smash and PK Flash power buffs are probably the most unnecessary changes in the entire game. You should almost never be seriously landing, or nay, applying these moves competitively.

1. You are way too pesimistic. The Ness community may not be as big as others, but the mains are pretty persistant, and don't seem to drop him much. (Though they did find secondaries, which isn't uncommon at all.) Ness isn't slow, except in running speed. Considering his aerials are lagless, you can put up a wall of fairs/bairs, and keep the opponent afraid of approaching. His attacks don't take a lot of commitment, his bair is a good move even without sweet spot, nair hits pretty hard, fair is amazing, dair is great, and you can usually move yourself out of punishment range, even if not, no lag means you can move away, and uair is situational. Ness doesn't have a lot of range, I will agree, but his range isn't absolutely terrible. With Ness, I find myself fair walling until the opponent comes to me, and react from there, which I doubt is uncommon in common Ness playstyle.

2. People say that about Ness because thats widely used, and very commonly. He can get a reliable kill around that percent with a lot of things. Bair/uair/bthrow/PKT2/nair at the edge/fsmash/etc. I have a combo that works pretty well, even with correct DI, and it racks on about 50%, give or take. I don't find myself struggling with percent very often, just kills in tight situations.

3. That is an incredibly false and over exagerated statement. PK Fire isn't that hard to hit, especially at a recovering opponent. I pillar spike a lot, it's not that difficult. It does have some lag on wiff, but saying it's slower then most smashes? It's faster then a lot of smashes honestly. It's a great move, argue it all you want.

4. I stated a lot that PK Thunder can be obvious, thats why you have to use it in an incredibly obscene manner, so people DONT know what to look for. Getting hit by PKT2 isn't like getting hit with a Falcon Punch. Could be a misjudge of how far Ness goes, the shield could deteriorate, etc etc. Whatever the reason, it's not too hard to hit with it, especially if you edge camp with it.

5. Usmash and Dsmash aren't that great. They've got their uses outside of predicted spotdodges though.

6. Usually on dtilt trips, I use a fsmash, or a predicted roll, so a buff on a move that is possible to hit, don't see a problem, though that's usually the only case I find myself using it, so saying it shouldn't be ever applied in competitive play is an incredibly broad and silly statement. PK Flash, eh, I haven't hit with it really, so dun care.

Ness isn't terrible.

Any other questions or problems?

/discussion

 

[A2ZOMG]

1. You are way too pesimistic. The Ness community may not be as big as others, but the mains are pretty persistant, and don't seem to drop him much. (Though they did find secondaries, which isn't uncommon at all.) Ness isn't slow, except in running speed. Considering his aerials are lagless, you can put up a wall of fairs/bairs, and keep the opponent afraid of approaching. His attacks don't take a lot of commitment, his bair is a good move even without sweet spot, nair hits pretty hard, fair is amazing, dair is great, and you can usually move yourself out of punishment range, even if not, no lag means you can move away, and uair is situational. Ness doesn't have a lot of range, I will agree, but his range isn't absolutely terrible. With Ness, I find myself fair walling until the opponent comes to me, and react from there, which I doubt is uncommon in common Ness playstyle.

Ness's startup is merely average at best, and considering how horrible his range is, that's a losing combination.

His AERIAL ending lag is quite significant. Do an attack in the air, whiff, you're wide open. Do the same with Mario, you can do other moves. He's pretty floaty too, and his double jump sucks for offensive purposes.

2. People say that about Ness because thats widely used, and very commonly. He can get a reliable kill around that percent with a lot of things. Bair/uair/bthrow/PKT2/nair at the edge/fsmash/etc. I have a combo that works pretty well, even with correct DI, and it racks on about 50%, give or take. I don't find myself struggling with percent very often, just kills in tight situations.

B-air is somewhat fine, except it has no range, so basically it's a worse version of G&W's F-air. U-air is not reliable and easily avoided by airdodging. He can't really followup if he whiffs that move anyway, so there is not really much reason to not airdodge him when he jumps at you. PKT2 is entirely avoidable on reaction, just don't fall for baiting/tailwhipping and just wait it out. N-air has terrible range. F-smash is the worst F-smash in the game and should never be used (horribly unviable startup, ending lag, worst charge release time, and doesn't actually outrange enough attacks).

3. That is an incredibly false and over exagerated statement. PK Fire isn't that hard to hit, especially at a recovering opponent. I pillar spike a lot, it's not that difficult. It does have some lag on wiff, but saying it's slower then most smashes? It's faster then a lot of smashes honestly. It's a great move, argue it all you want.

Startup: Frame 20.

That is REALLY slow.

You can basically only pillar spike horrible recoveries against people who don't DI ridiculously bad...I'm not impressed.

4. I stated a lot that PK Thunder can be obvious, thats why you have to use it in an incredibly obscene manner, so people DONT know what to look for. Getting hit by PKT2 isn't like getting hit with a Falcon Punch. Could be a misjudge of how far Ness goes, the shield could deteriorate, etc etc. Whatever the reason, it's not too hard to hit with it, especially if you edge camp with it.

It IS comparably hard to land as a Falcon Punch if your opponent isn't dumb and just decides to be conservative and knows proper reaction and matchup knowledge. It's not viable in high level play.

6. Usually on dtilt trips, I use a fsmash, or a predicted roll, so a buff on a move that is possible to hit, don't see a problem, though that's usually the only case I find myself using it, so saying it shouldn't be ever applied in competitive play is an incredibly broad and silly statement. PK Flash, eh, I haven't hit with it really, so dun care.

D-tilt has no range, so good luck actually landing that.

Ness is in fact terrible. He has no range except on a few moves that are outclassed for spacing by MANY characters, bad pressure/camp/approach options, and extremely predictable KO options. He's good in teams where his ability to reliably score clutch KOs is useful, but he's awful in singles. Virtually any character can outspace him because his range is so fail, and because he only has average speed at best.

 

[rPSIvysaur]

I think information priority comes from their own character mains. They know what work and what don't. You are mostly theorycrafting... besides, there are somethings you must admit are good about Ness. BTW, what do you think of no free fall on PK Pulse?

 

[A2ZOMG]

Ness has a good grab and B-throw...and his F-air is spammable. That's all that's really good about him when you exclude avoidable gimmicks. His range is too terrible in general to make the rest of his moveset reliable considering that he doesn't have crazy startup to compensate for this.

Rather, I have in fact had some tournament experience against Ness a long time ago. What I can definitely say in how you play against Ness is that you can outspace him because his range fails, and he can't afford to whiff since he doesn't have crazy low ending lag on anything. He doesn't have much to keep you out anyway.

 

[Thinkaman]

Saying that the rest of Ness's moveset isn't as good as fair and b-throw is kind of silly, given that Ness's fair and b-throw are honestly two of the best moves in the game.

Ness's amazing dash grab is being overlooked. Ness can get grabs easier than everyone except perhaps Peach and Olimar... and his throws in BBrawl all do 10-14% with great positional advantages.

Heck, think of Ness like an offensive Olimar.

Frankly, all of his aerials are really, really good. Dair is slow, but it isn't jsut an offstage gimmick, he can space it very well out of double jump on some grounded opponents. Uair and bair are powerful and have good positioning; both are attacks I can realistically land in matches. Nair is just plain good too.

I play Ness like Jigglypuff: "Ground moves? You mean like, grabs?"

 

[rPSIvysaur]

So are there any MU's that are really difficult for Ness? Perhaps worse than 60:40? Are there any specific buffs that would help this MU? (At Ness mains)

 

[A2ZOMG]

Saying that the rest of Ness's moveset isn't as good as fair and b-throw is kind of silly, given that Ness's fair and b-throw are honestly two of the best moves in the game.

Ness's F-air is average. Ness's B-throw is moderately above average. Everything else Ness has is below average to outright horrible. Ness doesn't come close to having some of the best attacks in the game by far.

Ness's amazing dash grab is being overlooked. Ness can get grabs easier than everyone except perhaps Peach and Olimar... and his throws in BBrawl all do 10-14% with great positional advantages.

His positional advantages aren't that good, he doesn't have very good followups off of throws and has few ways to significantly punish airdodges as long as they don't airdodge directly into PKT and just learn to hit it. Sure, 10-14% throws are cool, but other characters are MUCH better at comboing off of throws for at least 17%.

Also, Squirtle and ROB get grabs more easily, not to mention King DDD.

Heck, think of Ness like an offensive Olimar.

Nah, he's more like an infinitely less safe version of ROB. He has these tools that he would like to use for zoning, except they fail at zoning, and he telegraphs a lot, but has infinitely less range and safety. In exchange, he has a few gimmicky moves that do more knockback. Oh and I should point out, ROB's grab game by far is better than Ness's currently, not to mention his recovery.

Frankly, all of his aerials are really, really good. Dair is slow, but it isn't jsut an offstage gimmick, he can space it very well out of double jump on some grounded opponents. Uair and bair are powerful and have good positioning; both are attacks I can realistically land in matches. Nair is just plain good too.

D-air has too much commitment. Punish it from the side on reaction. U-air and B-air have too fail range to be reliable, and Ness can't do much for whiffing them. N-air has fail range, and is outclassed by fairly common ones that come out frame 2-3.

 

[Linkshot]

In bBrawl? I'm not sure. But I know that in vBrawl, Mario was always a ***** to me.

I've always thought of Ness' throws as PSI Rockin.

 

[rPSIvysaur]

I've realized something. At a certain point when we are discussing a character, we just have to stop listening to A2ZOMG. Honestly, if you think Ness' B-throw is only above average... I don't really know what to say...

 

[A2ZOMG]

If Ness's B-throw was one of the best attacks in the game, logically I would be using it constantly.

 

[Linkshot]

To even be able to use something constantly and it still be the best, it would:

1) Have to combo into itself well
2) Kill at respectable percents
3) Not stale

No move fits that. There is not a best move.

 

[Steeler]

don't think of bthrow as a move. think of grab as a move. a frame 6 attack that goes through shields and kills at 120+ is pretty good. before then you can just do 14% or so and attempt to follow up on your positioning advantage.

when you think of it this way, grabs are just really really good moves for most characters.

 

[A2ZOMG]

I'm talking about how much a move consistently helps you win when you use it in most situations.

That's why moves like Metaknight's Mach Tornado, Shuttle Loop, and Snakes tilts and grenades get titles like that. They always are helpful when you use them.

Ness's B-throw is only helpful if you wait until 120%, otherwise it's useless. Although, his grab is alright, but not exactly good enough to make up for the fact that his options are very limited. He does alright damage from a throw, but his combos aren't very good. Actually getting people to 120% really takes longer for Ness than it should.

 

[rPSIvysaur]

One landing punished by a PK Fire or a whiffed move into a PK Fire can lead to a pretty damage racking combo.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Except PK Fire is not a viable move.

You can't combo into it, punishing a regular landing in this game is hard as hell without decently large and quick lingering hitboxes, not to mention high mobility. And whiffing moves? Anyone can punish whiffs. Other characters usually do it better since they are better at followups. And rather, Ness himself is much more prone to getting punished on whiffs fundamentally.

Considering the massive startup of PK Fire...I can only see you really easily punishing people on reaction if they spam Smashes or Ganon's F-air constantly.

 

[Mit]

Except PK Fire is not a viable move.

You can't combo into it, punishing a regular landing in this game is hard as hell without decently large and quick lingering hitboxes, not to mention high mobility. And whiffing moves? Anyone can punish whiffs. Other characters usually do it better since they are better at followups. And rather, Ness himself is much more prone to getting punished on whiffs fundamentally.

Considering the massive startup of PK Fire...I can only see you really easily punishing people on reaction if they spam Smashes or Ganon's F-air constantly.

What about predicting moves? Baiting your opponent into doing something that you can punish with PK Fire? I swear you don't take that into consideration nearly enough. There's more than just "oh, my opponent just whiffed an attack, I need to punish it!" If you baited the punish, you obviously have tons more time to react, and appropriately get PK Fire out in time for the punish.

I think you just need to play more Ness mains. Plus, when we have Ness mains saying he's fine, no matter how many numbers and frame data you throw out, it's hard to take your opinion over theirs. They're the ones who play him all the time, and if they're satisfied, it's hard to think he really needs more help.

It doesn't sound like there's much to fix him with your opinion of him anyways, short of tons of timing changes.



Oh, and I play a Ness main quite often now, and I can vouch for those terrifying PKT2 mindgames. They don't do them at a distance when you can just 'wait them out', and they don't do it in situations where it's easy for you to just dodge to safety and avoid it, or even get a move out to cancel it. It's something that's hard to understand until you experience it often from a skilled Ness main.

 

[The Milk Monster]

Yeah seriously. I've seen Think been hit by PKT2, by a Ness main.


@A2Z
Just because PK Fire is a slow move, how does that automatically make it unviable? I see every Ness main use PK Fire a lot.

Just because it doesn't come out on single digit frames doesn't make it unviable.

Just read Mit's post, and I agree with almost EVERY single one of the things he said.

A2Z, you're assuming everyone is a robot, and can predict everything the opponent throws out, and can punish it perfectly. No one is perfect, and Ness mains know how to react if they hit a PK Fire. They will get a lot of damage off of one PK Fire. Baiting them and knowing they'll wiff will get you a load of options to do.

You really do need to play more Ness mains, people that dedicate a lot of time to Ness. You're opinion is just one against a few, who happen to be Ness mains, saying he's fine now, and like where he is. He doesn't really need fixing, he's perfect the way he is now. I'd rate him lower on high tier.

You basically are just saying he's a garbage character, and if he was, why would people play him, if they didn't feel confident that they could win? There'd be no point if he had no kill power, no approach, no projectile. If everyone was a robot and played Meta, doing everything 100% frame perfect every match, I could maybe see no Ness's.

Thats the point of ****ing PKT2. You're not going to just sit there and wait till they stand infront of you to loop it around and hit, you'll circle it or some **** until you bait something out of them, hope they wiff, and BOOM circle it back. PKT2 <3.

AAAAARG I hate the Smash community sometimes.

 

[A2ZOMG]

What about predicting moves? Baiting your opponent into doing something that you can punish with PK Fire? I swear you don't take that into consideration nearly enough. There's more than just "oh, my opponent just whiffed an attack, I need to punish it!" If you baited the punish, you obviously have tons more time to react, and appropriately get PK Fire out in time for the punish.

There is very little reason to be baited by Ness. He can't threaten you from a neutral state safely, and he doesn't have many mixups. He can't afford to whiff because his range sucks and because he doesn't have crazy low ending lag. You don't have to be baited into PK fire if you don't suck. This is completely different from say...Marth baiting you with aerials. Marth has massive range and some crazy low ending lag and excellent frame traps. You are at a risk when Marth is baiting you, because he can potentially switch it up into a poke that you can do very little about, and say he learns that you like shieldgrabbing a lot. He can just blatantly F-air into your grab range and Up-B if you're not Mario.

Ness as I'm explaining doesn't have good mixups, crazy low ending lag, or respectable frame traps that he can viably use.

I think you just need to play more Ness mains. Plus, when we have Ness mains saying he's fine, no matter how many numbers and frame data you throw out, it's hard to take your opinion over theirs. They're the ones who play him all the time, and if they're satisfied, it's hard to think he really needs more help.

Hmmmmm, I played one of the best players in the entire world and his Ness, and he was the one who in fact told me that Ness is garbage.

Nobody has actually directly addressed any counters to my points furthermore. All anyone is telling me is what happens when the opponent is tricked due to a lack of proper matchup experience.

It doesn't sound like there's much to fix him with your opinion of him anyways, short of tons of timing changes.

Make his gimmicky stuff safe, and then he's fine. He'll still have trouble actually landing that stuff, but being able to get away with it is more important, since he lacks viable poke options.

Oh, and I play a Ness main quite often now, and I can vouch for those terrifying PKT2 mindgames. They don't do them at a distance when you can just 'wait them out', and they don't do it in situations where it's easy for you to just dodge to safety and avoid it, or even get a move out to cancel it. It's something that's hard to understand until you experience it often from a skilled Ness main.

Post a video of it. I'll bet I can always explain a way you could have easily avoided it provided you didn't massively screw up beforehand somewhere by not playing conservatively enough.

 

[rPSIvysaur]

I think A2ZOMG should just make his own version of BBrawl with his timing changes where you have to relearn your character.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Timing changes =/= needing to relearn a character. Buffering in this game is easy.

KO percents, and things like Ike and CF's SideB changes not to mention Ganon's D-tilt trip change matter MUCH more for relearning a character. Just because Lucas and Luigi got a timing change, that does very little to change what you need to know about that character.

It's not a crime if Ness gets buffed further, and if we want him to be unique and viable, logicially his gimmicky stuff should be made safe. I really doubt he has many favorable matchups that matter anyway.

 

[Linkshot]

How about this? I'm using Ness and playing conservative, too!

What does the opponent do? One of us has to approach.

In A2ZOMG land, all matches go to timer from nobody moving!

 

[JOE!]

A2 is right about ness.

looking at the numbers/data, ness is a bad character.

however, what makes him good is how all that data interacts with other characters at certain times and situations, which lead to Ness having tools to actuallly perform well.

this however isnt exactly comprehenisble, or realistically calcuable. So we have a bit of an issue here.

Ness mains who knwo how to do his tricks say he's fine. Others who look at his data, and apparently are immune to mind-games, messing up, being human, say he has bad attributes that hold him back.


Eh...

 

[A2ZOMG]

No, Linkshot, Ness loses in this situation because he does not have viable pokes and is outspaced/outzoned by almost the entire cast. You can approach him conservatively because of his poor options in general.

 

[JOE!]

A2, perhaps giving an example of a scenario would go over better that just :

"play conservativly, grasshoppa"

 

[Ehic]

Lets not repeat the 10 page argument on Ness (I think that was in around pages 35-50). Lets move on to Lucas.

 

[A2ZOMG]

I'm rather convinced Lucas is better than Ness, but still not that good.

Lucas has a better recovery, something that resembles a decent poke option, and his N-air is pretty gay on shields especially if you can perfectly time the autocancel. His PK Thunder also gimps offstage, and PK Freeze is almost a viable gimp tool.

Thanks to the spotdodge buff, F-smash is almost or barely viable out of spotdodge, which is really handy for getting kills. And then of course being able to land anything else more easily helps.

Caping Lucas's PK Fire in point blank range is hilarious.

 

[rPSIvysaur]

First of all I'd like to bring up some MU's that are most likely worse than 60:40 that Lucas (and possibly Ness) may have issues with still in BBrawl:

Snake
Marth
G&W

These characters are my real main concerns.
(I'd also like to say that I've beaten more Marths in BBrawl with G&W than with Lucas)

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Late tonight I'll have a big thing to say about Lucas. Ness feels midish to me in BBrawl, but Lucas is just blatantly high tier. I had one tester tell me he thought Lucas was a strong candidate for top tier.

More details later though; I'm going to go play some games with friends now.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Probably what needs to happen to Snake, Marth, and G&W is that they should be nerfed honestly.

A while ago, I made suggestions.

Snake: nerf D-throw a lot and slightly buff other throws, probably knock off 1 more percent from F-tilt because the damage is still pretty stupid since it's just too easy to land in general.
Marth: Hmmmmmm...Nerf F-air or DB. Also, add 1 to the damage of his throws to tone down some of his **** combos
G&W: damage nerf to B-air