How should you approach as Ness?

[Lanayru3]

First off, my apologies if a similar thread was already made.

Anyways, I'm a Falcon main who wants to learn how to use Ness effectively as my secondary. As someone who just picked up Ness, however, I often find myself being too predictable in my approaches, such as constantly spamming PK Fire or Dash Attack all the time.

So, how should I properly approach as Ness?

 

[EarthBoundEnigma]

Spend more time in the air than on the ground. Only dash attack if you're sure it will connect or out-reach the opponent.
Fair is essentially the dash attack with better control, combo potential, and no lag.

PK Fire is a punishment tool and edge guard option. It isn't how Ness opens aggression. (With exception being the very slow characters.)
Against certain characters' strategies, PK Thunder will actually be your approach whenever they are hanging back or evading. (Link and Pit, for example.)
Generally speaking your goal is to just use fair over and over until you can land pretty much any other aerial to finish the job, or back throw.
As you get better you'll resort to using your specials to edge guard very easily instead of having to go offstage to harass the opponent, and will get plenty of KOs from just edge game.
Lastly, throws. Your approach should incorporate as many down and forward throws as you can. Down throw fair fair or uair uair doesn't need a PK Fire to set up. Just get them to shield.
Forward throws do better damage and set knockback, making them good for forcing opponents to recover and letting you use Ness' amazing specials to either take the stock or do easy damage.

 

[Sir_Zedd]

Enigma covered alot right there, I'll just add one thing to what he said

Turning around and aggressively approaching with N-airs and B-airs can throw people off if your frontal assault gets stale. Facing backwards also sets up easy pivot grabs (the extended range is godly with Ness)

 

[PKBeam]

(the extended range is godly with Ness)

Spoiler

and that's not even the full range.

 

[Mysteltainn]

Basically, Ness loves the air, his aerials are quite good. F-Air and B-Air are great for spacing, U-Air can sometimes be used after a PSI Fire -> D-Throw -> F-Air combo, while N-Air has excellent priority I find. Only one I tend not to use is D-Air, I just don't feel it's worth it any more in this instalment after its nerfs.

Everyone else covered everything else from what I've seen, so there's no point in beating a dead horse. As you get more comfortable with his mechanics though, Ness becomes great at ledge-guarding. Jumping and using PSI Fire so that it slants sharper and goes down (if the enemy is recovering lower) can really screw characters over that rely on momentum to get back, while PSI Thunder is always a nice idea for juggling people both on and off stage. The key to PSI Thunder is basically mind games. FOW does a great job of this, when his enemy air dodges his PSI Thunder, he ensures that it isn't too far away from himself, and will often hit himself with it to avoid the enemy retaliating to reposition himself on the other side of the stage.

And of course, Ness rarely has issues with people over 110% who decide to go super defensive, one misplaced Shield and it's B-Throw / gg for most characters.

 

[ThatNintendoDude]

I've started to play Ness a lot like Jigglypuff, using Fair to try and bait out a mistake from my opponent. Go in, Fair, back off while still in the animation. Alternatively, like above posters have said, you can fully commit to the Fair or Bair, and also throw in some Nairs to free up space. Only commit to dash attack to catch a fleeing opponent of if you're sure you won't be punished.

 

[SageEnder]

the best use of pk fire I have found in the neutral game is the pivot pk fire, when they try to approach dash back and pivot pk fire, I catch falcon, and little mac players with that for days

 

[Earthbound360]

I've started to play Ness a lot like Jigglypuff, using Fair to try and bait out a mistake from my opponent. Go in, Fair, back off while still in the animation. Alternatively, like above posters have said, you can fully commit to the Fair or Bair, and also throw in some Nairs to free up space. Only commit to dash attack to catch a fleeing opponent of if you're sure you won't be punished.

Be a bit careful with this. Sadly enough, some characters can fully shield the fair, then dash forwards and punish you for it. In some cases, it might be safer to SH nair and do a second nair as you land. The timing is tight, but it's doable.

 

[ThatNintendoDude]

the best use of pk fire I have found in the neutral game is the pivot pk fire, when they try to approach dash back and pivot pk fire, I catch falcon, and little mac players with that for days

I'll have to try that. I've been practicing pivot bow with Toon Link, not sure why I didn't think to try pivot PK Fire.

Really, mixing up PK Fire in general seems like a key to succes. Pivot, DJC, etc.

 

[SageEnder]

Be a bit careful with this. Sadly enough, some characters can fully shield the fair, then dash forwards and punish you for it. In some cases, it might be safer to SH nair and do a second nair as you land. The timing is tight, but it's doable.

Yeah I have been starting to mix this into my game more, better players and people you play alot of rounds with really start to get better at punishing the fair, especially against characters with strong punish games like zss.

how often are you guys using RAR bair, I have been having alot of success using it sparingly, when opponents are in kill percent, and it has generally been a pretty safe option for me

 

[Earthbound360]

Yeah I have been starting to mix this into my game more, better players and people you play alot of rounds with really start to get better at punishing the fair, especially against characters with strong punish games like zss.

how often are you guys using RAR bair, I have been having alot of success using it sparingly, when opponents are in kill percent, and it has generally been a pretty safe option for me

It's good, not foolproof. Was better in Brawl when bair could hit at any height out of a short hop.

 

[SageEnder]

It's good, not foolproof. Was better in Brawl when bair could hit at any height out of a short hop.

Yeah I miss old bair it a much much more satisfying animation when it hit

 

[PKBeam]

it was easier to sweetspot in Brawl too.