How does Ness approach?

[Earthboundy]

Title pretty much says it all. What options are good for approaching with Ness?

 

[Ness Lee]

In the neutral I usually like to space with SH fair and SH nair, but always make sure to fall back out of range so you don't get punished. If that baits an approach, dash away and turn around with Pk fire or bair. It's mostly about spacing and baiting an approach. If they start getting too comfortable shielding, you might be able to get in a dash grab, but don't abuse it.

 

[EarthBoundEnigma]

Ness has some of the best punishment options in the game, so you're going to want to bait out laggy moves and evade their approach, looking for an opening to use such amazing tools as:

• PK Fire (which can lead into more punishment options, itself if you follow it up closely enough in the air, or even a pillar spike using down-air if you managed to trap them offstage.)
• Forward throw into edge guarding with PKT and both grounded and midair PK Fires
• Down Throw into (if they DI upward) up-aerials or (if they DI forward) forward-aerial strings
• Back air to kill from anywhere onstage

Getting them into this unfavorable position is the hard part, and Ness doesn't have many viable moves in his repertoire for this express purpose. He only has fair, nair, and movement feints such as jumping at an opponent and not attacking, to bait out their shield, as well as dashing at an opponent and immediately stopping or jumping away.

 

[Yink]

I'm glad we had some good responses to this question, but it could've easily been asked in the Question and Answer thread. In the future, please be sure to ask questions like this there. LINK: http://smashboards.com/threads/have...ess-question-answer-thread-check-here.368810/

 

[Noa.]

Check out this thread here:

http://smashboards.com/threads/ness-in-the-neutral-and-other-stuff.412998/

 

[Zanarkan]

Ness is a secondary for me but I have put in about as much time as my main on him. The biggest mistake I think you can make in the neutral with approaches as Ness is over using PK Fire. His Nair in my opinion is his single best approach option, Fair is also very good in certain matchups. Ness' Nair is an amazing move, it basically auto cancels and you can get two of them off in a single short hop. It also has great knock back at high percents and it's a good combo/grab setup at low percents. It can also be used as a good punish out of shield, however grab is definitely better here if you are facing them and you can get a shield grab off.

One other option that I haven't seen mentioned here much is his Bair. While it does have a decent amount of end lag it can stil be a good spacing tool due to Ness having great aerial mobility. RAR back air approaches can work well in a lot of situations similar to how a Mario would space in the neutral. Just make sure you retreat after the hit box comes out.