How's my Ness?

[Iceweasel]

I decided to pick up Ness after getting his Classic trophy, and I've gotta say, I'm loving it. It's almost everything I love about Brawl's Zero Suit, except with better kill moves. I haven't played him against a human yet, so I'd like to know how well I'm playing. I seem to have combos down okay, but my recovery is weak and I think I have spacing problems. Yes, I know I roll too much and am generally predictable - I do that with every character, and I'm trying to stop. I mean, are my move choices good? Are there good options I'm not using? Is PK Flash secretly an OP technique? Am I doing the wrong thing by using aerial PK Fire as a spacing tool? Is it better to dodge projectiles "the normal way" than to try and deal with my laggy PSI Magnet?

Here's a few videos of me vs. a few level 9s. Apologies for the potato quality, my capture card is a cheap USB device. If you see a PK Flash, it's probably a tech error. There's several botched RARs in there too.
Vs. Pit
Vs. Zero Suit
Vs. Mario Nintendo, Youtube, and copyright law: Go **** yourselves.
Vs. Palutena I chose her because I though that her counter and reflector could make her a hard counter for Ness. Turns out she uses both rarely, so I picked a fight with Mario next. Then Nintendo claimed they own my video. Which, due to outdated laws, is technically true, but it doesn't mean that they're not still being money-grubbing scumbags right now.
Vs. The Good Captain I know the CPU is bad, but come on. Could it at least TRY to jab me? Maybe its because I know this character so well, but the CPU Falcon plays absolutely atrociously. I almost didn't upload it for this reason, but I figured I should have Ness fight my main, just in case I want to replace him.


Ness questions
*I heard somewhere that his Dair can meteor - Can it? I've tried, but it doesn't seem to do anything but damage. Does Ness have a meteor move, besides a poorly executed recovery?
*Someone said Ness's custom ups can avoid a PK Thunder stage spike by teching, then get it back - Can vanilla PKT do it too? I've tried a bunch of times in Training on FD, but I can't get the timing down.
*Is it, with practice, feasible to recover if you can't see the thunder? My Falcon habit is to recover low if I can't recover to the side, but with Ness this often leaves me unable to see my thunder ball and miss. Can an experienced Ness player do a straight upwards recovery with his eyes closed?
*This is moot, since my local is customs-off, but is PK Freeze any good? Better than PK flash? Does Ness have a PSI Magnet variant that's not a waste of a move slot?
*Where, besides this board, should I go to learn Ness tricks? What Youtube guides are written by people who know what they're talking about?

 

[Noa.]

Playing against CPUs makes it much much harder to improve. I can't really critique videos against a cpu because they play so differently from humans. I suggest that you at least post videos of For Glory matches.

And also we have a video critique thread. So you should post there instead of creating your own thread

Welcome to the Ness boards!

And Pk flash is useless lol.

 

[Funen1]

Yeah, fights against CPUs are hard to judge outside of basic execution. I'll try to help with the other questions though.

- D-air does have a sweetspot that spikes. However, it only lasts one frame (frame 20 iirc) and isn't particularly big, meaning it's very hard to hit. It basically falls into the "more power to you if you can do it (semi-)consistently" category, but is otherwise not worth it.
- Your wording is a bit confusing, but are you referring to Ness being able to initiate a second PKT right after bouncing off the stage with a PKT2? Vanilla PKT can do that too. Just remember that you can only do this once, and keep in mind that the angles that Ness bounces off something as opposed to sliding differ depending on whether you're doing it on the left or right side of the stage.
- With enough training, anything is possible. Controlling PK Thunder in general is no exception. Being able to move it where you want to without actually seeing the bolt comes with practice - you get a "feel" for how wide it curves and how fast it flies.
- All of Ness' neutral-B moves are not that good, but the custom versions are even worse than PK Flash. If anything, PK Flash is an option against characters with linear recoveries or against players who otherwise recover predictably, but still usually not the best option.
- In terms of Youtube, NAKAT, one of Smash 4's top Ness players, has various guides here, including not just Ness guides but also some regarding other characters. He and FOW stream on Twitch regularly throughout the week (their channels are "nakat973" and "1fow1", respectively), and FOW in particular will talk a lot about Ness' tools when he does a Ness "showcase".