BBR Weekly Character Discussion #25: Ness

[gallax]

Ok whats not reliable then on my list?

 

[T-block]

Ivysaur u-smash, GW Judgement... lol

Reliable usually means whether it's reasonable to expect to land the move. That's why you hear things like "This character can kill reliably at 90%" or "This character has no reliable kill moves until 180%".

We're getting kinda off-topic.

 

[Marc]

I don't think there are many moves as reliable as killing from a GRAB and many of the characters listed are already way beyond low tier. The characters in E, F and G pretty much all fall short and that's only discussing consistent killing moves.

Zelda bair/fair all day!!!!!

Edit:

Gaw- fsmash/usmash/dsmash/9hammer

Smashes are telegraphed, hammer is a 1 in 7 chance I think.

Olimars- purple smash

You'd have to have a purple Pikmin out at the right time.

kirby- fsmash/hammer

Fsmash is reliable, hammer not so much.

dkong- smash/superpunch

fox -usmash

These two characters are beasts.

luigi- upb/fsmash

Does Luigi have a setup into up+B on Snake? If not, not reliable at all and actually risky.

wolf- dsmash(sweetspot)

Does work.

Pt- rocksmash/squirtle dthrow(not fatigued)/ivy usmash

Addressed by Reflex.

Ike- uair/fsmash/usmash/bair/ftilt

They all involve punishing Snake's landing, which Ike can do well.

yoshi- uair

Does work I suppose.

falcon- knee

Good luck consistently landing a sweetspot knee.

 

[T-block]

Luigi's jab > up-b works on Snake I think... my friend does it all the time.

Addressed by Reflex.

 

[Marc]

I'm not even sorry.

 

[T-block]

i get no respect

 

[TheReflexWonder]

I'm not even sorry.

Yesssss.

Anyway, Ness has good properties in many of his moves, but fundamental differences in his character screw him, big-time.

Eternally rising double-jump means that he has NO reliable option to get off the ledge.

Grab-release shenanigans from Squirtle, Charizard, Marth, DK, Meta Knight, and maybe more (Sheik?) hurt severely.

I don't know what T-block is talking about--I'm convinced that a grab on Ness as Squirtle ****s Ness hard, so long as you listen to how many buttons the opponent presses to get out of the grab. You can force ground releases very reliably if you know what you're doing.

Eh...He's probably in the right spot as he is. I wouldn't mind seeing him in a Low Tier setting, but he's probably too good for that.

 

[ShadowLink84]

I do think that Ness has done better than many expected him to, but at the same time the flaws that he has hurt him BADLY.
Even more so since a grab=death for anyone with a move below 11 frames of start up.
The issues on the edge that he suffers are also very problematic since his double jump rises so his options on the ledge are a bit more limited.

I do believe that his current spot on the tierlist is accurate though he does have the potential to rise a spot or two.

 

[T-block]

Even so, if you grab towards the edge, Squirtle will get maybe...50% max? from the grab release.... and less if the grab is at 0%.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

Even so, if you grab towards the edge, Squirtle will get maybe...50% max? from the grab release.... and less if the grab is at 0%.

What do you mean? You go an arbitrary distance forward for each grab, so unless you grab Ness very close to the edge, you get as much damage as you can continue to ground release him for.

 

[gallax]

Ness's grab is quite a good kill move. Lol. With the new infinite rule ness shouldnt be moving since any char with a good grab release on him (marth/zard/squirtle/dk) make them REALLY good counters now.

 

[T-block]

You do move forward though, and if the Ness is good enough at mashing to force breaks quickly, those distances start to add up while you're only getting something like 2% per break. If you land a grab so that there's a lot of distance between you and the edge, then yeah you can probably grab release until d-throw kill percents. When you get closer though, it can end before kill percents.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

You do move forward though, and if the Ness is good enough at mashing to force breaks quickly, those distances start to add up while you're only getting something like 2% per break. If you land a grab so that there's a lot of distance between you and the edge, then yeah you can probably grab release until d-throw kill percents. When you get closer though, it can end before kill percents.

I'm pretty sure it's close to no distance on each grab...You can choose to move a little closer than necessary each time, but you don't have to.

 

[gallax]

With marth 1 grab=15% minimum. Thats as bad as wario's fthrow and ddd's bthrow. It adds up real quick. And as long as you space yourself near the middle of the stage as marth as much as you can you are gonna get at least 30% damage. Thats rough.

Edit: @reflex marth does move forward considerably when he grab releases ness. But i think u may be referring to PT?

 

[T-block]

Hmm... I guess I'm moving forward more than I have to then. You do have to hold forward to walk a bit before regrabbing, right?

 

[TheReflexWonder]

With marth 1 grab=15% minimum. Thats as bad as wario's fthrow and ddd's bthrow. It adds up real quick. And as long as you space yourself near the middle of the stage as marth as much as you can you are gonna get at least 30% damage. Thats rough.

Wario's F-Throw does 13%.

Also, Charizard's grab release is far from infinite. You will probably get 10-20% from pummels (assuming you're not on the complete other side of the stage or right next to the ledge, or Ness is at really high percents), and a free sweetspotted D-Tilt, which does nice damage and is an excellent KO move.

Another option is simply grab-releasing Ness offstage and attempting to react. Charizard does especially well with this; if Ness tries to immediately double-jump F-Air, you can hit him with a ranged attack like F-Tilt and get an easy edgeguard, or Ness can wait and try to recover from below, which makes him easy to D-Air, since Charizard's D-Air hitbox is absolutely ridiculous.

Hmm... I guess I'm moving forward more than I have to then. You do have to hold forward to walk a bit before regrabbing, right?

Yes, you do.

 

[T-block]

I'll practise it when I get back to my hometown >_>

I still maintain that Charizard's grab is much more deadly than Squirtle's, because of the grab release offstage you mentioned. Dash grab right to the edge and then short burst Flamethrower as soon as he releases, jumping out after him as soon as Flamethrower finishes.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

Edit: @reflex marth does move forward considerably when he grab releases ness. But i think u may be referring to PT?

Yes. For whatever reason, Ness just sort of snaps back to Squirtle if you do it right.

 

[EdreesesPieces]

Its reliable in that it WILL kill if hit. Talkin about ivy usmash.

By reliable I meant you can reasonably expect a decent player to land it.

Kirby's fsmash please that thing is so easy to avoid it's called a shield. I often SEE the fmash starting to come out then I shield, that's how easy it is to avoid. Ness grab can be pivot grabbed, dash grabbed, shield grabbed - there's tons of ways to get a grab, so you can reasonably expect ness players to land a grab, because there's a ton of mix ups, spacing variations and mind games. Most kill moves in this game do not have that luxury of mix up.

Like Marc said, smashes in general are telegraphed. Can you smash out of a dash? Can you run and pivot directions, gain an instant 4-5 steps in the reverse direction and do a smash? (Pivot grab) Can you smash instantly out of shield without dropping your shield? NO. Grabs are easier to land than smashes, and Ness's dash attack grab range is just as large if not larger than most smashes in the game. Purple Pikmin is situational (again as Marc said) and you won't always have it ready. Ness can try to grab anytime he wants in the match.

Also Yoshi's up air does NOT reliably kill Snake. Go to the yoshi forums and realize that our #1 problem with snake is getting a kill. Up air stales fast because it is used as a combo move. The benefit of Ness back throw is that you don't ever use it to rack up damage so it is always fresh. That is one of the reasons grabs as kills are better than aerials - aerials may get stale, so they are not as reliable in landing a kill because they make you either change your playstyle to avoid using the move, or get stale. Ness's backthrow suffers neither problem. And Falcon's knee is a joke, an amazing falcon player might land this once in tournament every 2-3 months, whereas a Ness lands multiple grabs a match. The mere fact that you even put this on your list shows you were running out of ideas on reliable kill moves.

The only point I'm making is that Ness has an easier time killing Snake than other characters around his position on the tier list. And that is because one of his strongest kill moves is performed out of a grab. Kill moves out of grabs are extremely underrated.

 

[T-block]

You can u-smash out of a dash, and u-smash out of a shield. Just saying =P

Apparently I refuse to talk about Ness in this thread ._. I'll shut up now.

 

[Praxis]

Zelda bair/fair all day!!!!!

Edit:

Gaw- fsmash/usmash/dsmash/9hammer

Olimars- purple smash

kirby- fsmash/hammer

dkong- smash/superpunch

fox -usmash

luigi- upb/fsmash

wolf- dsmash(sweetspot)

Pt- rocksmash/squirtle dthrow(not fatigued)/ivy usmash

Ike- uair/fsmash/usmash/bair/ftilt

yoshi- uair

falcon- knee

Reliable but not so useful:

falcon- falcon pawnch!!!

ganondorf- warlock punch!!!

Hint- the key word in Edrees' post was RELIABLY. I don't think a 9 hammer or purple pikmin or Luigi up-B count as reliable. I don't even think most smashes count, because they rely on forcing Snake to airdodge into it generally. Grabs can actually PUNISH misspacings, not just punish reads.

 

[gallax]

The only point I'm making is that Ness has an easier time killing Snake than other characters around his position on the tier list. And that is because one of his strongest kill moves is performed out of a grab. Kill moves out of grabs are extremely underrated.

I agree. Lol.

Hint- the key word in Edrees' post was RELIABLY. I don't think a 9 hammer or purple pikmin or Luigi up-B count as reliable. I don't even think most smashes count, because they rely on forcing Snake to airdodge into it generally. Grabs can actually PUNISH misspacings, not just punish reads.

Ok i was just pointing out that many chars have kill moves and people need to learn how to set them up and force an airdodge in front of them.

And Ness' grab is awesome. Its nice having a grab that kills. Means even shielding isnt safe.

 

[[FBC] ESAM]

Gallax, there aren't any infinite rules besdies they must end before 300%. We aren't taking into account "No grab infinite" rules.

 

[Crow!]

Ness' grab = kill option would be more useful if most characters didn't have a way to score a kill move after grabbing Ness, as well. The dynamic of the game changes a lot because of it, but it doesn't necessarily solidly favor Ness since it usually affects both players.

 

[Pierce7d]

The Ness boards are going to be so upset when they realize how derailed we let this thread get.

 

[EdreesesPieces]

Ness' grab = kill option would be more useful if most characters didn't have a way to score a kill move after grabbing Ness, as well. The dynamic of the game changes a lot because of it, but it doesn't necessarily solidly favor Ness since it usually affects both players.

Well, the back throw itself is useful. It just means overall Ness gets killed as easily as he can kill, which lowers his capability to win a match, but that doesn't change the fact the back throw itself is a good kill move.

It's true that we let this get off track a bit, but at least the thread is way more lively compared to similar WCD threads of characters around his level.

 

[Marc]

I could remove several posts, but I think discussing the merit of reliable killing moves is very relevant to Ness as a character. It's what sets him apart from many of his peers and should be emphasized the same way grab release exploits on him have always been.

 

[Alphicans]

The Ness boards are going to be so upset when they realize how derailed we let this thread get.

They're gonna be upset that some people thought fthrow had set knock back lol.

 

[Pierce7d]

Alright, moving along.

Let's talk about Ness' top tier match-ups a bit more in depth.

I happen to know that Ness' Fair is pretty safe, and that Ness can catch MK with PK Thunder really reliably when he's in the air. How does Ness keep up though? Between GR CG, gimping, and MK using his own tools to play safe, is Fair really enough? How does Ness rack up damage on MK to GET him to that percent to land that Bthrow?

Also, how is Ness vs. Snake? I can only imagine that Nades are really gay vs. Fair, and Snake's own grab game on Ness is ridiculous. Also, Bthrow still probably doesn't kill Snake till at least 140? Can Ness juggle Snake? I know Ness' Dair has the strongest BKB of any meteor, but can he reliably spike Snake? How does Ness get in on Snake? Is he better off camping?

Also, I'm curious as to how Ness does against Falco, ICs, Wario, and Diddy? I can speculate doing decent against ICs, using Fair to not get grabbed, and being able to heal from Blizzard. I can see Fair being a big problem for Wario, amongst Ness' other moves. I feel that Falco wrecks Ness, even with being able to absorb lasers. My mind is juggling endless scenarios about how Ness vs. Diddy works, but I don't know what the MU is.

Ness Boards have it marked as 55:45 Diddy, and Diddy boards haven't gotten to it yet it seems.

 

[Shaya]

IMO:

Ness loses to Diddy. Not badly. But Diddy's fair is broken, Ness' jump doesn't work out too well for him when diddy can move so fast and cover so much area.

Ness is closeish with Falco. Maybe... Recently found out Falco actually has a kill move on ness out of a ground release (bdacus :\); so ouchy.

Ness v Snake, definitely bad. It's probably his worst (even worse than Marth).

ICs are so so; I'd say its fair to call it evenish. PK Fire ***** CPU. And there are ways Ness can use it without fear of a ps grab. Magnet for healing, fair beating everything bar alternating grounded/sh blizzard. ICs can't really punish rising dairs from ness that well either. His fthrow always sets himself up for easy nana **** (Nana will always move towards Popo in a predictable fashion; ness' jump is -fantastic- for this)

I'd say Ness does okay... but no great against Wario; Ness' unique jump doesn't do enough for him due to wario's aerial mobility (read WHOOSH UAIR), but otherwise his fair is really good at keeping a wario grounded and his nair can beat/clash with wario's weaker aerials too. Wario can't really abuse full hop stuff though, as ness' jump definitely will get him free bairs/nairs/uairs.
Grab release to fsmash...

 

[TheTantalus]

Ness sucks against Metaknight. Coney is trying to learn ness to fight Metaknight because Dedede is bad at that matchup and his wario isn't good enough. When testing this theory, we ran about even in games. I would lose on something novelty that I hadn't seen before. Ness' mindgames are usually all novelty factor and this is why someone like Judge can lose to shaky so badly.

First of all, I'd like to point out that Ness gets grab released in the air if he struggles and you aren't grab jabbing him when he breaks out. He releases on the ground if he struggles and you are jabbing him.

MK and dsmash out of that grab release. But the grab releases are never guaranteed, I suppose it could be possible at some monstrous high level of ness play that you could figure out the timing to always break out in air based on your percent vs the speed of opponent grab jabs.

Now Ness has some interesting options against MK- Fair and bair, and can actually challenge MK in the air. You actually must remain grounded to beat a good ness, which is where ness' greatest flaws are.

His smash moves are slow, only one is even powerful enough to kill at reasonable percent. This means Ness' air approaches are almost guaranteed. Ness' tilts are bad. Ness' dash attack is bad. So if ness approaches on ground you can almost guarantee approach in shield. If not, it will be aerials. Utilt beats most of them with it's disjointed hitbox. Ness is left with very little options other than to literally camp his balls off. Which can create good setups via pkfire and pkthunder but ness relies on aerials to kill and rack damage.

Ness is better than other characters who are limited with the same problems (mario, bowser, falcon etc.) but can't really exceed beyond ike or lucas due to the lack of approach techniques and inability to fight high tiers well.

 

[Crow!]

Data time - a little late, but late is better than never.

First, I would like to caution that for characters as low as E tier, the sample size of serious players representing them is quite small. Drawing conclusions from this data alone may be dangerous, much more so than with higher tier characters.

As usual, the following graph takes tournament results as compiled by Ankoku (current as of the end of May, 2010), groups the results by character and player name, and shows on the Y-Axis how well the N-th best player (arranged on the X-Axis) of characters A, B, C... has been doing in tournaments over the course of 6 months.

Notice that MLG: Columbus was a June tournament and not a May one; Shaky's impressive performance is not present here. This data is becoming a bit uncomfortably outdated; it might be time to start prodding Ankoku again lest his list thread become less frequently posted-in due to inactivity.

Ike, however, is still a better character. This says more about Ike than about Ness.

 

[Shaky]

I don't see the point of the BBR discussing low tier characters when only 1 or 2 people get facts right about Ness. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but I only found handful of posts in this thread that accurately portray Ness. I can't wait for the Yoshi discussion, not having an OOS game means Yoshi loses to everyone

 

[Shaya]

Educate us then

 

[Marc]

We originally weren't going to do low tiers because we lack data on them and that was apparently outrageous. Now we do them and that's a problem too. >_>

So yeah, correct us, educate us. You're pretty much the only Ness player with real breakout performances in the world, you can't really expect us to know the character as well as you do.

 

[Neon Ness]

Ness sucks against Metaknight. Coney is trying to learn ness to fight Metaknight because Dedede is bad at that matchup and his wario isn't good enough. When testing this theory, we ran about even in games. I would lose on something novelty that I hadn't seen before. Ness' mindgames are usually all novelty factor and this is why someone like Judge can lose to shaky so badly.

You can't say Ness loses to MK based off of sets between the same 2 people though (one who as you said is still learning the character). Not only that but you said you went even so I don't get how that = Ness sucks. I guess I just have trouble believing someone could go even off of novelty effect alone, coney had to have made a lot of smart decisions in there somewhere

That last part sounds like a stab at Shaky. :\ It is possible he won because he played intelligently.

All in all, there was more correct info in here than I would have guessed since no purple names are active Ness mains. Glad to see that. (edit: I think I could have worded that more nicely. :\ I didn't mean to offend anyone by saying I'm surprised there was intelligent discussion here. It's just with unpopular characters a lot of false stuff is spread, but most posts were reasonable despite Ness not appearing much in tournaments as actual evidence to back up people's arguments.) Although there were some iffy/wrong things stated about Lucas... and somehow a lot of PT derailment lol

Also, I don't see why you need a secret forum to discuss all of this.

 

[Eagleye893]

As soon as I get a chance, I'll post here. I've been looking unbelievably in depth into all of ness' moves, and I can provide some info that will help In determining ness' playability.

The thing that ness has most trouble with is gr stuff. Recovery shouldn't be an issue for the best of ness mains. We have lots of things we can do to ensure we get to the stage, but sometimes it will lead to more damage on us.

An overlooked ability can bring ness some relief: pkjump. I've started reviving it. It solves some approaching problems with ness for characters who could possibly outcamp him.

 

[Yink]

The Ness boards are going to be so upset when they realize how derailed we let this thread get.

Nah, not really. Threads get derailed at some point in time, and it got back on track well enough

IMO:

Ness loses to Diddy. Not badly. But Diddy's fair is broken, Ness' jump doesn't work out too well for him when diddy can move so fast and cover so much area.

I can agree with Ness losing to Diddy. It's not terrible, you just have to be in the air a lot (for Ness, I meant). Watch the banana's and grabs.

Ness is closeish with Falco. Maybe... Recently found out Falco actually has a kill move on ness out of a ground release (bdacus :\); so ouchy.

Another so-so, I think what matters most for Ness in this is how you deal with the first 40%ish of your stock. Getting into grab releases puts you in bad positions offstage (and Ness' offstage game is not the best). If you manage to get past the chain grab it's not horrible.

Ness v Snake, definitely bad. It's probably his worst (even worse than Marth).

Really? I think Snake vs Ness isn't his hardest at all, I'd be willing to say that's more along the lines of D3. Most Snakes I've spoken to lately even agree it's more along the lines of 55:45 Snake in terms of ratios.

ICs are so so; I'd say its fair to call it evenish. PK Fire ***** CPU. And there are ways Ness can use it without fear of a ps grab. Magnet for healing, fair beating everything bar alternating grounded/sh blizzard. ICs can't really punish rising dairs from ness that well either. His fthrow always sets himself up for easy nana **** (Nana will always move towards Popo in a predictable fashion; ness' jump is -fantastic- for this)

I agree with almost all of it. I'd say this is incredibly even, and a fun match. Nair does everything for you.

I'd say Ness does okay... but no great against Wario; Ness' unique jump doesn't do enough for him due to wario's aerial mobility (read WHOOSH UAIR), but otherwise his fair is really good at keeping a wario grounded and his nair can beat/clash with wario's weaker aerials too. Wario can't really abuse full hop stuff though, as ness' jump definitely will get him free bairs/nairs/uairs.
Grab release to fsmash...

My answers were in blue for that. ^ I'm not picking on you Shaya, I just thought I'd give a little more detail and background to it.

I personally think Ness needs to rise a little, despite being a Ness main and therefore a little biased.

 

[Eagleye893]

Ness should get a rise... He truly doesn't have a significant amount of trouble against many characters. Almost everyone he goes against is fairly even. The only ones I can think of to be more difficult are DDD, Marth, Ike (personal opinion), Falco (slightly), and.... I'm not sure who else...

Also, I've been slowly discovering some great usages of ness' moves. Most of them are based on a great reaction timing, but it still helps.

dtilt has been extremely overlooked by almost every ness main. I decided to help it: instead of the old usage of just spamming it rapidly or hoping that it trips and reacting to it, I've found out that just a quick double shot of dtilt will almost always provide the ness with a better chance of getting something as a followup. If you trip with the first hit, most characters' trip animations make them bounce just over the second hit, so you just grab and continue racking damage. If you go against someone's shield, they may spotdodge, in which case you just wait out and use an attack to punish. If they keep their shield up the whole time, they can have a chance to grab the ness, but it is slightly less likely. If the ness is unable to hit with the dtilt hits, they can always use a random aerial out of it, often catching an opponent offguard and hitting them as they try to react. You can also shield immediately after the dtilts and absorb any attacks that might come right after they come out of their shield... but that might lead into grabs on ness. If they do catch on to this technique, the ness can simply switch to dtilt flurry or oneshot with grab or aerial followup (maybe even jab, but they'll still shield). If they shield and know when to time putting down their shield to punish only the two shot, they will take down their shield just in time to get hit by a third dtilt or fourth dtilt and allow for the previously mentioned followups or just racking damage with a ton of dtilts. The options of dtilt are expansive and often lead into other attacks if done properly... but a couple characters are unaffected by this (ike, snake, possibly MK, ZSS [her jab], lucario [maybe jab and grab, but unsure], and maybe marth with his grab and upb...). It gives ness a good option once he gets in very close (which is my aim in a few matchups, surprisingly) and behind the opponent (note the operative word "and;" it isn't very good of an idea to just rush into a place where you can be grabbed).

^Thats just random. It works quite a bit for me... but then again, I haven't been to an offline tourney in a while, so I need to test to ensure.

Also, I was saying earlier that PKjump is making it's comeback... Remember EB360, anyone?

PKjump is this ability similar to lucas' crazy zap jump with pkfire, but instead of giving a boost up, ness gets a boost forward. It places pkfire in a spot near where ness will land, and if spaced properly will provide great shield pressure and allow ness to rush in somewhat safely against many characters. Ness can followup with uair fairly easily if the pkfire hits and rack some good damage, even if the opponent DI's out of the pillar. If the bolt of pkfire just hits a shield, he can slow his forward momentum and instead change to a retreating fair. also, the ness can drop from the pkjump behind the opponent with a bair and have a good chance of poking through their shield, if the ness decides to use bair instantly before they land. If there is an oncoming attack OoS from the opponent, ness can almost always use airdodge and reach the ground. the airdodge comes out just before reaching the opponent and keeps invincibility frames all the way to the ground, I'm fairly sure, and into either a quick ground attack or shielding.

^for me, neither of these things, dtilt or PKjump, need an unbelievable amount of thought... mainly reaction to stimuli trained for.



I know everyone will be like, "what a noob! This is all BS." Well, I'm just saying what I've been looking into





On a fairly unrelated note, Ness does very well in assisting partners with his wind momentum cancel. Most ness mains don't use it, which is somewhat detrimental to them.




I play ness in an odd way. Everyone will agree. But it helps. xD

 

[DMG]

Ness vs Wario is definitely bad for Ness. That is all.