Difficult Matchups? - Ask Matchup Questions Here

[ORANGEtheGORILLa]

Ness is very floaty how can I deal with characters that are good jugglers?

 

[Noa.]

When you're getting juggled just hold left or right and then suddenly change directions. Ness is not easy to juggle because your aerial mobility is a lot higher than most characters. You can psi magnet as a mixup to mistime their uair and fast falling helps as well of course.

 

[Shadó Chimera / シャドーキメラ]

PSI Magnet doesn't stall anymore. Unless you meant using the windbox, but could that really work? o.o

 

[291C]

PSI Magnet doesn't stall anymore. Unless you meant using the windbox, but could that really work? o.o

It stalls and raises you up if you do it on the way up a jump.. So it sort of stalls.

 

[Noa.]

When you're falling the PSI magnet does stall you, just barely. It's not very noticeable but it's still an option. PSI magnet arrests your momentum a lot more strongly when you do it while rising.

 

[ORANGEtheGORILLa]

Ness dittos are one of the worst match ups for ness... Trust me

 

[Shadó Chimera / シャドーキメラ]

Ness dittos are one of the worst match ups for ness... Trust me

That's what I like about them.

 

[pato_]

Hey all, this is my first post here.
tl;dr: Rosalina/Luma, Greninja, Palutena, Sonic

I just started using Ness this past weekend, and even though I'm having lots of fun with him, I found a few matchups that are causing me problems (I'm well aware that a lot has to do with me not being too familiarized with the character, though).
anyway, like everyone else, I'm having lots of trouble against Rosaluma, why the hell can Luma hit me when I grab rosalina?!?!?! haha If I KO Luma, Rosalina just runs away for 8 seconds and guess who is back? I also need to practice my punish game against rolls in general (grabs and dash attacks should be the way to go most of the times, right?)

Greninja: I've found this match to be kinda hard, or maybe barely even, I'll upload a couple of videos later where I played a against a friend, while I won the matches it just seemed to me that I was putting way more effort into the match than he was, sneak attack has way more range than it would first look like, and he can roll like crazy, maybe abuse pk fire more?

and lastly, I don't think it has been mentioned too much but Palutena, surprisingly, to me at least, has proven to be a hard MU as well, her reflector is huge, with the floatiness of Ness her up smash is very powerful, I think a rushdown is my best bet against her, dash attacks and fairs galore, have you had any problems against her as well?


I've also found out that a good Sonic is haaard.

Anyway, looking forward to reading your input!

 

[pollo20x6]

anyway, like everyone else, I'm having lots of trouble against Rosaluma, why the hell can Luma hit me when I grab rosalina?!?!?!

I know exactly what you mean. I also play as Ness. She is definitely a hard character to beat from the get go with how that star takes up most of the hits.

I found a solution to get around this that works most of the time depending on the other player's skill level. Even though I don't really like it, it does feel like the only way to combat it. I spam PK Fire. Any good player will know how to get around and punish a PK Fire spammer, but if you manage to hit Luma, it'll trap it. After that, you just keep launching them. What will happen is either you'll kill Luma, giving you some time to get some quality one on one time,
Or
you can rack up some damage on Rosalina.
PK Fire is completely useless unless it opens up and as I'm sure you know, getting a successful hit with PK Fire is not that easy against someone who is anticipating it. Fortunately Luma tends to activate it easier, so although the Rosalina player might expect it, they'll accidentally roll into or get hit by the open flame that Luma activated.

After killing Luma, however, spamming PK Fire is sure to get you killed because the other player will not have a massive star to activate it, allowing for short hops and rolls to punish the failed PK Fire attempt.

I'm not condoning spamming. I mean, I'm not really against it either because this game seems pretty well designed to make it easy to punish spammers. By all means, spam away, people.
But this case is special because taking on Rosalina and Luma with Ness alone is a pretty steep uphill battle. Getting rid of Luma is very important and once you get it in a PK Fire, it's almost always going to die, unless it's at low percentages. In that case, it'll just rack up damage, but will get away.

 

[Noa.]

Hey all, this is my first post here.
tl;dr: Rosalina/Luma, Greninja, Palutena, Sonic

I just started using Ness this past weekend, and even though I'm having lots of fun with him, I found a few matchups that are causing me problems (I'm well aware that a lot has to do with me not being too familiarized with the character, though).
anyway, like everyone else, I'm having lots of trouble against Rosaluma, why the hell can Luma hit me when I grab rosalina?!?!?! haha If I KO Luma, Rosalina just runs away for 8 seconds and guess who is back? I also need to practice my punish game against rolls in general (grabs and dash attacks should be the way to go most of the times, right?)

Greninja: I've found this match to be kinda hard, or maybe barely even, I'll upload a couple of videos later where I played a against a friend, while I won the matches it just seemed to me that I was putting way more effort into the match than he was, sneak attack has way more range than it would first look like, and he can roll like crazy, maybe abuse pk fire more?

and lastly, I don't think it has been mentioned too much but Palutena, surprisingly, to me at least, has proven to be a hard MU as well, her reflector is huge, with the floatiness of Ness her up smash is very powerful, I think a rushdown is my best bet against her, dash attacks and fairs galore, have you had any problems against her as well?


I've also found out that a good Sonic is haaard.

Anyway, looking forward to reading your input!

Rosalina is probably Ness's hardest matchup, or at least is the hardest matchup that I've played against yet. She has a lot of disjointed hitboxes which makes it very difficult to get in on her is the biggest reason why.

Positioning yourself against Rosalina when she's charging luma shot is important. The longer she charges the shot the closer you want to get to rosalina. You want luma to either land a bit in front of you or way past behind you. If it stops a bit in front of you, you can spam pk fires until it dies. If it lands way behind you then you can approach Rosalina more easily since luma isn't there. While Rosalina is charging neutral shot you cannot jump unless there are platforms or you're close enough to jump over Rosalina and bair her. If you land on the ground while she's charging the shot that is a guaranteed hit because of air dodge landing lag.

When you're spamming pk fire to kill Luma you keep at it until it's dead. In this situation the Rosalina either waits for Luma to die or approaches you while you're trying to kill Luma. Again it's only safe to spam pk fire on Luma if it is located between you and Rosalina. If Rosalina waits it's all fine and dandy you get to kill Luma and then approach a weaker Rosalina. If Rosalina approaches she has three options. She can walk up to the fire and shield, which is an awful option for her. In that case you can grab her for free. She can jump over the fire and try an aerial approach, in which case you can nair/fair/uair her approach or if she is using fair you can shield grab it. Her last approach is to roll around the fire which you can punish with a smash or whatever you want really.

Approaching Rosalina without Luma is like approaching any other character in the game. You can dash grab if she shields, dash attack or pk fire if she spot dodges, or run in and shield if she goes for an attack. The speed and range of her attacks makes shielding them and punishing them very different. Some of her moves like dtilt, dash attack, and dsmash are easier to punish with a nair oos than a shield grab.

When you land a grab on Rosalina you can dthrow for combos or uthrow for juggles. With a combination of uair and pk thunder it's very possible to juggle Rosalina. When rosalina is trying to land jump at her. If she dairs too late you can uair her and hit her. If she dairs too early you can pk thunder around the halo and hit her with pk thunder. If you try to fight the halo with your uair it won't work lol. So juggle Rosalina with uair or bait an early dair from her and punish with pk thunder.

When Rosalina is recovering, that is an excellent time to rack up some free damage. When Rosalina is falling and just above stage line level pk thunder towards her. She either has to take the hit or eat it up with Gravitational pull. If gets hit by it then that's damage. If she gravitational pulls it then she has to recover lower. When she's recovering onto stage with her up b from a lower angle just go offstage and nair it. She's vulnerable because her recovery has no hitbox, and if she's recovering low then she can only go in an upward trajectory limiting her recovery options. The key to forcing her to recover low is pk thundering at the right time. If you do it too early then she can just GP it and still recover high with her up b.

In this matchup you can never use your up b to recover like ever. You must always VI at a decent vertical angle to ensure that you can make it back with just your double jump. If you ever try to recover with up b offstage and you're not far away from Rosalina you will instantly die. Just can't make any mistakes lol.

And look at Nakat's post in another thread for tips on how to deal with Sonic.

 

[ORANGEtheGORILLa]

Rosaluma is very hard for a lot of match ups so if you want to know her weaknesses go to her thread and weave around her

 

[pato_]

I know exactly what you mean.

thanks a lot, man, seems like PF Fire is the way to go to get rid of Luma first, fighting them both at the same time is horrible

Rosalina is probably Ness's hardest matchup, or at least is the hardest matchup that I've played against yet. She has a lot of disjointed hitboxes which makes it very difficult to get in on her is the biggest reason why.
...

And look at Nakat's post in another thread for tips on how to deal with Sonic.

thanks for such an in depth response! The tips for when she is off the stage are very helpful!

I did read Nakat's answer recenty, great input

Rosaluma is very hard for a lot of match ups so if you want to know her weaknesses go to her thread and weave around her

I've been having good results using Yoshi against her but as Ness I've had lots of trouble, I'll just keep going at it with my friend who is a Rosaluma main, I just hope I just don't get to beat him because I pick up on his habits but learn a general Rosaluma as well hehe

thanks everyone

 

[Luco]

Actually something to note on that is that if Rosalina is charging Luma shot and you're jumping but you can't get behind her for whatever reason, that's actually a good time to use PKT1. If she doesn't want to take the damage she has to release Luma and shield/GP, and by that time you've cancelled your momentum with PKT so usually it works out. Best used as a mixup.

Luma shot can be reflected by the bat... that's hilarious when you can pull it off. Also i'd argue being right in front of Luma is a bad position to be in because then it starts spamming smash attacks. Ideally you actually want to be in mid range (PK Fire range) against the Luma.

If you're recovering using PKT, do it as far away from the stage as possible, or at least in a position where Rosalina isn't nearby.

Something key to remember about this MU, or rather Rosalina in general, is that if Luma is hit away, Rosalina can only control her once she's hit the ground again, so if you've done that and you're stringing together something against Rosalina, don't be afraid to keep going because Luma will not be disrupting you.

 

[Uffe]

Ness dittos are one of the worst match ups for ness... Trust me

I hate Ness dittos for the fact I can't really use PKT or PKF.

 

[Luco]

I hate Ness dittos for the fact I can't really use PKT or PKF.

Oh you can USE them.... mwahahahahahah!

 

[Freikugel]

Vs. Ness and Rosalina were guaranteed losses for me... I've gotten somewhat better, though.

PKF is punishable enough, so I wouldn't use it for anything but punishing rolls. You have other approach options anyway: Dash attack (don't get shield-grabbed), yo-yo gets Ness into the air, and short-hop Fairs can space. If he engages close quarters, especially if he rolls behind you, down-smash will probably connect and knock him off the stage...

Ness is really easy to stall out off-stage, since you can go practically anywhere. Ledge-jumping sets up an easy Bair kill. If push comes to shove, you can even hit yourself with his PKT2 to halt its trajectory. If you're being edgeguarded and a not-very-competent Ness locks himself into a move, you can totally jump over him and Bair, too.

And Utilt works really well thanks to Ness' poor ground range. Nairs and grabs out of shields are your best friend.
----
Does anybody else have a higher suicide rate when facing Rosalina? Just when I'm about to win, I kill myself and Rosalina makes an easy comeback thanks to rage mode. No wonder it's a bad MU. :/

 

[pollo20x6]

I hate Ness dittos for the fact I can't really use PKT or PKF.

I love Ness dittos because I usually PSI Magnet their recovery away.
That or when I throw them over the edge, I launch a PK Thunder, then they pull out the PSI Magnet, and I'll just pull it back as the fall down. It limits their options on how to recover and messes with their mind.
Or perhaps my second favorite moment against Ness players is throw out a PK Thunder, then they pull out PSI Magnet, then I pull it back and launch myself into them. The time it takes to pull out and take away the PSI Magnent makes it all the easier to knock them out.

 

[Ranias]

I hate Ness dittos for the fact I can't really use PKT or PKF.

You can actually land them if you play unpredictably or bait a PSI Magnet at the wrong time. For instance, you can pretend to try to hit with a PK Thunder every time you launch the other Ness into the air, but now and again you can instead suddenly wait until just before they land to get PK Thunder hit in. Ness dittos rely heavily on reads.

 

[Uffe]

You can actually land them if you play unpredictably or bait a PSI Magnet at the wrong time. For instance, you can pretend to try to hit with a PK Thunder every time you launch the other Ness into the air, but now and again you can instead suddenly wait until just before they land to get PK Thunder hit in. Ness dittos rely heavily on reads.

I had the opportunity of playing an old Ness main earlier today and actually managed to land a few PKs here and there against him. He was able to do the same. Maybe they're more useful than I anticipated.

 

[291C]

I had the opportunity of playing an old Ness main earlier today and actually managed to land a few PKs here and there against him. He was able to do the same. Maybe they're more useful than I anticipated.

It's just such a fast move, sometimes it's hard to get the PSI Magnet out in time...

 

[Noa.]

Using Psi Magnet in most situations requires a read just because it has such a slow startup. And the recovery on it is huge as well. The price that has to be paid to heal. ;_;

 

[Luco]

Using Psi Magnet in most situations requires a read just because it has such a slow startup. And the recovery on it is huge as well. The price that has to be paid to heal. ;_;

But if you absorb something then magnet cancel awaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

 

[ORANGEtheGORILLa]

There are small openings during pkf I've had people sheild out of them since magnet opens so fast you can easily absorb it if they don't punish in time

 

[Code Bread]

Online lag is Ness' worst matchup.

 

[Luco]

I don't find it to be that bad thankfully but it can sometimes screw with PKT in extreme circumstances and I hate that.

 

[Code Bread]

It screws up the timing on a lot of my attacks and grabs. It's gotten to the point where I don't really want to play online unless I'm doofing around with Jiggs. Want to improve my main. Can't use my main. Rough life.

 

[Noa.]

I think jiggs is affected more by lag than ness. Mispacing aerials with jiggs is far more punishing than the way in which lag messes up ness. Unless you get a lag spike while recovering with pk thunder. Then you just auto die lol.

 

[ORANGEtheGORILLa]

Lag definitely messes up the double pkt recovery, and the location of pkt overall. I've died countless times to pkt lag problems. The character most affected by lag is either or

 

[Code Bread]

I think jiggs is affected more by lag than ness. Mispacing aerials with jiggs is far more punishing than the way in which lag messes up ness. Unless you get a lag spike while recovering with pk thunder. Then you just auto die lol.

The best part is that I don't care if I lose with Jiggs because it's too much fun.
When I play Ness, I try hard to win because I want to be legitimately good with him.
Sounds stupid, but it's how I roll.

I do disagree that Jiggs suffers from lag more than Ness, but to each their own.

 

[PSIBoy]

Hmm... I personally have a lot of trouble with the ZSS matchup. It seems all her aerials have far greater range than mine, so air combat is out of the question. On the ground, she has Paralyzer followed up with grab if you shield or absorb. I just can't figure out a way to deal with it. I think I'm just not experienced enough with the matchup, though.

I also struggle a bit against Mario, Greninja, and ROB, but they aren't as bad as ZSS. Mario, I just gotta play smart, don't get grabbed and comboed. Greninja, I've gotten better in dealing with, though I hate his up-smash with a loathing passion. ROB... Is just all around annoying. I heard the best way to beat him is to outsmart him, though.

Do I even need to mention Rosalina? I haven't played a really good one online (yet, but by really good one I mean one that I haven't been able to take a stock off of just about every match), but that Luma and her aerials...

 

[Luco]

With ZSS, PSI Magnet cancelling is actually very important in this MU. If you see ZSS charging up a paralyzer, use PSI Magnet and as soon as it hits the magnet just press a direction to cancel the magnet and roll away.

I think you'll find Fair will generally beat her out but I could be wrong. Errr, I dunno, I don't have too much trouble with this MU but I personally think it's about even so it's probably just learning how you can abuse your own usual things like OoS Nair and avoiding her setups. :o

 

[PSIBoy]

I didn't know that about PSI Magnet. I guess I need to work on that, don't I? Well, fair I think may have beat her out a few times, but I guess it was just a timing issue. I think I just really need to work on being a little more unpredictable.

 

[ORANGEtheGORILLa]

You can magnet cancel :o? That could really help with pits arrows

 

[PSIBoy]

Okay. It has just come to my attention I stink at the Dr. Mario and Bowser Jr. matchup too, both with Ness and other characters. Dr. Mario can prevent me from reaching the ledge with his Megavitamins just as I'm about to grab it, and I can't PKT back to the ledge. I figure just PKT2 through it (which leaves me vulnerable at first and may result in be bouncing off the stage) or head onto the stage (which can leave me wide open). Bowser Jr. tends to use Mechakoopa followed by trying to ram me down with his side special. Thoughts?

 

[291C]

Okay. It has just come to my attention I stink at the Dr. Mario and Bowser Jr. matchup too, both with Ness and other characters. Dr. Mario can prevent me from reaching the ledge with his Megavitamins just as I'm about to grab it, and I can't PKT back to the ledge. I figure just PKT2 through it (which leaves me vulnerable at first and may result in be bouncing off the stage) or head onto the stage (which can leave me wide open). Bowser Jr. tends to use Mechakoopa followed by trying to ram me down with his side special. Thoughts?

When I fight Dr. Mario, I do my best to recover above the ledge... just as I would Mario. To avoid getting gimped by a megavitamin, try and angle yourself to have to preform a vertically launched PKT2.. I think that's your best bet.
The goal when fighting Dr. Mario is getting him off the stage. His recovery is atrocious and tail-whipping is a very effective way to keep him from doing so.

I think I've fought 1 bowser jr, and that was in a FG battle, so I don't really know much about him.

 

[Shadó Chimera / シャドーキメラ]

Grab the Mechakoopa with a Nair or a dash attack.

 

[PSIBoy]

When I fight Dr. Mario, I do my best to recover above the ledge... just as I would Mario. To avoid getting gimped by a megavitamin, try and angle yourself to have to preform a vertically launched PKT2.. I think that's your best bet.
The goal when fighting Dr. Mario is getting him off the stage. His recovery is atrocious and tail-whipping is a very effective way to keep him from doing so.

I think I've fought 1 bowser jr, and that was in a FG battle, so I don't really know much about him.

Sometimes, though I am knocked below the ledge or at ledge height, so that would be difficult to get out of. And I am aware of his bad recovery, but thank you for that piece of advice anyway. Just fight him like Little Mac... when it comes to grabs. F-throw/B-throw him off, follow up with f-air or n-air and if he used up his aerial jump, he's finished pretty much.

Grab the Mechakoopa with a Nair or a dash attack.

That would leave me open to his ramming attack, which Bowser Jrs. tend to spam after Mechakoopa. Very hard to time an aerial or dash attack to deflect it while grabbing the Mechakoopa.

 

[C0rvus]

Is this the official matchup thread? I did a sort of writeup on the Rosalina matchup since a friend of mine plays her. I guess I could post it, but there seems to be enough on here about it.

 

[Shadó Chimera / シャドーキメラ]

That would leave me open to his ramming attack, which Bowser Jrs. tend to spam after Mechakoopa.

You can also just stand there and grab it. Maybe try using a Fair?

Very hard to time an aerial or dash attack to deflect it while grabbing the Mechakoopa.

Yeah, that could be hard in lag. :/

 

[PSIBoy]

You can also just stand there and grab it. Maybe try using a Fair?

Hmm. I'll try that. Bit hard to time, but I can probably get the hang of it.