Is Ness "Borderline Broken" ?

[SupremeSuperiorStick]

A lot of people have been arguing that Ness was over-powered. A few top players like ZeRo have also said that he was "borderline broken".



I'm just curious to see what you guys think about these claims.

 

[Lukingordex]

How can a character that has more than 2 not good Match Ups be "borderline broken"?

He loses to Sonic, to Rosalina, to Sheik and to Megaman and has a considerably amount of MUs against the top/high tier characters that are even.

He's just a very good character that has the tools to do well, which should have been the case of every character really.

 

[Shadó Chimera / シャドーキメラ]

Last I checked, Ness isn't Sheik so I'm tempted to say no.

 

[raizur]

With Ness' recovery, and the MU that aren't in his favor, no, he's not. If he was broken, he wouldn't have a problem with dealing with everyone on the cast, similar to Meta knight in brawl. This is just the tip of the iceberg when concerning if Ness is OP or not.

 

[T0MMY]

A lot of people have been arguing that Ness was over-powered. A few top players like ZeRo have also said that he was "borderline broken".

Could you provide a link to the source of ZeRo saying this?
But my response to the question would be something along the lines of how something is either broken or it isn't - there is no in-between. It is like saying "borderline pregnant".
Of course this is probably just using the term "broken" out of context to mean "good" or "too good" in which case that is rather subjective and we'll leave it to the tourney results to help us out - last I checked Ness isn't getting these kinds of results.

 

[Earthbound360]

The question should first be, are Sheik, Rosalina, Luigi, and Pikachu broken?

 

[raizur]

Could you provide a link to the source of ZeRo saying this?
But my response to the question would be something along the lines of how something is either broken or it isn't - there is no in-between. It is like saying "borderline pregnant".
Of course this is probably just using the term "broken" out of context to mean "good" or "too good" in which case that is rather subjective and we'll leave it to the tourney results to help us out - last I checked Ness isn't getting these kinds of results.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1A6eOkTfjg skip to 2:33 he says it there. ZeRo also goes in depth to why he said it.

 

[L9999]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1A6eOkTfjg skip to 2:33 he says it there. ZeRo also goes in depth to why he said it.

This guy doesn't know Ness AT ALL. Seriously, I made a wall of text in a thread here explaining everything wrong about his video.

 

[Noa.]

I won't lie Ness has some BS stuff and is a great character in this game. It can feel a bit dumb playing against Ness sometimes. But there are other characters who are much worse to play against. And there are characters that are better than Ness. Ness is probably in that 7 to 9 range, 5th is the best I would call him right now.

 

[Funen1]

ZeRo is honestly not the most reliable source of metagame info, best player or not. He has sometimes presented info that is straight out false (i.e., his competitive stage analysis video) and influenced by opinions or simply an insufficient amount of in-depth knowledge. raizur's link above is a good example, his descriptions of what Ness and Luigi can do are clear hyperbole, especially to us Ness players who know that PKT2 is strong but not nearly strong enough to kill unaided at 0%. Maybe he did mean it as hyperbole, I don't know, but even then it's still on everyone else to recognize it as such.

 

[Noa.]

I think he meant it as hyperbole. Pkt2 is usually good at killing if they're above 30. Though it can kill at less than that if you're close to the blast zone.

But yeah 0% is unlikely.

 

[Teshie U]

that feel when people believe what top players say

-asa

 

[NocturnalQuill]

In my opinion, Ness is the most balanced character in the entire game. He has a very unique playstyle (aerialist with tons of multi-hit moves disjointed hitboxes) with plenty of good matchups, but exploitable weaknesses, like his meh ground game and easily gimped recovery. Ness is good but you can beat him if you play smart.

 

[Uffe]

Out of all the kill moves Ness has in this game, he's only got about five practical ones. Those are his uair, bair, nair, d-smash, and b-throw. His f-smash, dair, PKT2, and PKFl are near useless, if anything. You can land them, but they take a certain degree of effort. F-smash is slow, dair has to be sweet spotted, PKT2 requires anticipation, and PKFl is blatantly obvious. Call the last two attacks borderline broken, but if they weren't, there wouldn't be any reason to have them at your disposal.

 

[Noa.]

Out of all the kill moves Ness has in this game, he's only got about five practical ones. Those are his uair, bair, nair, d-smash, and b-throw. His f-smash, dair, PKT2, and PKFl are near useless, if anything. You can land them, but they take a certain degree of effort. F-smash is slow, dair has to be sweet spotted, PKT2 requires anticipation, and PKFl is blatantly obvious. Call the last two attacks borderline broken, but if they weren't, there wouldn't be any reason to have them at your disposal.

What.

Five, reliable, strong kill moves is a lot better than most characters have. Though I wouldn't say that nair is too reliable a kill move. What does Sheik have really? Bouncing Fish and vanish. Everything else of hers kills very late or is really hard to land. Pika has Usmash, Fsmash, and maybe bair? Diddy has only his fsmash. Fox has bair, usmash, and fsmash. Ness's KO power is super amazing and is honestly among the best in the game. How early his moves kill compared to how easy those moves are to land is quite ridiculous. The only other character that rivals Ness in his reliability to kill early is Luigi.


Ness is a high tier, and maybe top tier character. He's amazing and better than the majority of the cast. Be thankful that you play a character that is overtuned and very strong. He's not really balanced, and he has amazing, stupid tools.

 

[Uffe]

What.

Five, reliable, strong kill moves is a lot better than most characters have. Though I wouldn't say that nair is too reliable a kill move. What does Sheik have really? Bouncing Fish and vanish. Everything else of hers kills very late or is really hard to land. Pika has Usmash, Fsmash, and maybe bair? Diddy has only his fsmash. Fox has bair, usmash, and fsmash. Ness's KO power is super amazing and is honestly among the best in the game. How early his moves kill compared to how easy those moves are to land is quite ridiculous. The only other character that rivals Ness in his reliability to kill early is Luigi.


Ness is a high tier, and maybe top tier character. He's amazing and better than the majority of the cast. Be thankful that you play a character that is overtuned and very strong. He's not really balanced, and he has amazing, stupid tools.

You make it sound as if I'm ungrateful Ness has kill moves. Imagine Sheik and Pikachu having a lot of kill moves while being able to combo. You won't have to, because Luigi exists, so you can see what would happen. What I'm saying is that Sheik, Pikachu, and Luigi are combo oriented, so while the former characters don't have a lot of KO moves, they rack up damage quick, making it unnecessary for them to have many kill moves in the first place. Luigi has what? About eight kill moves? God only knows why he's a combo machine. I forgot to mention Falcon as well. Fox also has uair, so four for him. Ness himself doesn't really have combos. The ones he does have has to be performed around certain percentages.

 

[Noa.]

Ness himself doesn't really have combos.

Wait what.

Like.

What.

 

[SupremeSuperiorStick]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1A6eOkTfjg skip to 2:33 he says it there. ZeRo also goes in depth to why he said it.

Thanks Raizur Was looking for the quote.

This guy doesn't know Ness AT ALL. Seriously, I made a wall of text in a thread here explaining everything wrong about his video.

Mind copy-pasting it here? Looks like it would be good to add to this discussion.

ZeRo is honestly not the most reliable source of metagame info, best player or not. He has sometimes presented info that is straight out false (i.e., his competitive stage analysis video) and influenced by opinions or simply an insufficient amount of in-depth knowledge. raizur's link above is a good example, his descriptions of what Ness and Luigi can do are clear hyperbole, especially to us Ness players who know that PKT2 is strong but not nearly strong enough to kill unaided at 0%. Maybe he did mean it as hyperbole, I don't know, but even then it's still on everyone else to recognize it as such.

Yeah I even remember him saying Meta Knight was 2nd in Brawl ...

 

[DeleteThisAcct]

The claims are such hyperbole; people whine and salt way too hard about bThrow and PKT2 primarily. It's kinda sickening - and that's coming from someone who has fought his share of Ness's and actually enjoys fighting Ness (both without Ness, and in Ness dittos.)

Let's get a few things straight:

1.) Characters are allowed to have kill moves. In Training, bThrow, at the ledge of Final Destination, doesn't even kill Mario until 87% exact, without DI. fSmash uncharged won't kill from the center of FD until 78% if sweetspotted at the tip - otherwise it kills from the center of FD at 103%. Mind you, that since Training adjusts both players percentages, you'll have to factor in that the rage mechanic is helping too and that these moves probably kill a bit later in reality.

That being said, don't even get me started on how early Ryu can kill if you're using the Street Fighter input for Shoryuken. Also, don't get me started on just how fast Shulk can rack up damage and kill with Buster into Smash arts respectively, along with the ridiculous range he has - especially in comparison to other sword users.

2.) PKT2 is move that kills Mario from the center of Final Destination at exactly 40% without DI at the absolute earliest (according to the findings of both myself and the smashbros subreddit irc chatroom, which I admit is a bit early - perhaps 50 or 60% would be more fair), BUT ONLY if sweetspotted by using it at close range (roughly a little less than a quarter of the length of FD or closer). The knockback reduces considerably the further Ness has to travel, and can even be knocked out of it after a certain point. Last but not least, the move has roughly a 1.5 to 2 second long audio and visual telegraph (longer if you're attempting mindgames) where Ness is reduced to a sitting duck for punishes - if you can't react to that, or if you set yourself up to get punished by it, then you deserve to get hit by it.

3.) PK Fire is easily escapable. You can DI out of it, perfect shield any of the rapid hits (once already caught in it) then roll out of it, and even jump out of it, all with little effort; making it near useless against any mid to high level player. I'll use it once near the beginning of the match to see if they know how to escape it, and if they do, I don't even bother to use the move offensively for the rest of the match, and will instead use it only as a defensive measure to shut down certain combos and approaches.

4.) Yoshi. Little lag, very small punish window, super armored recovery, and oh, let's not forget his dAir can do in the upwards of 34% in a single use if done right. If that's not broken, then I don't know what is.

5.) Ness can be gimped to oblivion and back by virtually everyone. Villager and Rosalina come especially to mind.

6.) Ness, is primarily known in Smash, to my knowledge, for his punish game. Others claim that Ness has a terrible neutral game, bad approaches, and easily punishable recovery - that said, Ness' killing ability compensates for that. Take that away, and he doesn't have much else going for him.

7.) As virtually everyone else has pointed out, people with planks in their own eye are so quick to point out the splinter in another's. There are quite a few characters that are far more broken / cheap / etc.

If you ask me, Ness is pretty balanced at best, slightly above average at worst, but regardless, he's nothing that any mid level player or higher can't handle; and has a decent amount of counters.

EDIT: Corrected typos and incoherent sentences. I really shouldn't type long posts at 5am...

 

[Uffe]

Wait what.

Like.

What.

He doesn't really have combos. Here are the following ones that I know of that aren't used off of platforms.

(PKF) > d-throw > fair
SH > uair > nair (at a certain percentage)
D-tilt > f-smash

If there are more, please, let me know, because I'm honestly in dire need of more.

 

[Noa.]

He doesn't really have combos. Here are the following ones that I know of that aren't used off of platforms.

(PKF) > d-throw > fair
SH > uair > nair (at a certain percentage)
D-tilt > f-smash

If there are more, please, let me know, because I'm honestly in dire need of more.

You can combo out of dthrow for days.

Dthrow to double fair,
Dthrow to triple fair,
Dthrow to fair to nair,
Dthrow to fair to uair,
Dthrow to uair,
Dthrow to nair,

All guaranteed combos spending on character, percent, and DI. Just got to practice which follow up to do. Combos out of dthrow stop working like at 40 or 50 percent.

Uair to nair
Uair to bair

Dtilt to anything if it's a trip

If you catch someone with a rising fair, another fair, nair or uair works.

Pk fire to whatever is not always a combo, but sometimes is.

Plenty of combos and follow ups.

And when you grab someone and fthrow them offstage you then do pk Thunder harassment. Each bit of pk Thunder does 8 percent. Land just two pk Thunder and they get back onstage with an extra 16 percent. Land three and they get back onstage with an extra 24 percent.

Being good at pk Thunder juggling is being good with Ness. Being bad with pk Thunder juggling is being bad with Ness. Pk thunder is a free way to add so much percent to people when ever you launch them into the air.

Ness is a stupid character. Amazing. Better than at least 40 characters, probably better than 45 characters. He's a high tier. Amazing. Overtuned. So much better than almost the whole cast. He's not balanced. He's my slightly above average. He's quite amazing and very strong.

 

[L9999]

Thanks Raizur Was looking for the quote.

Mind copy-pasting it here? Looks like it would be good to add to this discussion.

Yeah I even remember him saying Meta Knight was 2nd in Brawl ...

You mean getting killed by an air dodge read? ZeRo really doesn't know Ness.
1. PK Thunder gets free guaranteed edgeguards: Not guaranteed at all. Maybe Lucas' PK Thunder if you are a master, but regular not.
2. He can trick you into hitting you with PKT.....ridiculous....airdodge read...: That is something called mindgames. Most characters can do it. Not guaranteed options. Who uses PKT2 to punish an airdodge? Uair/Nair/Bair exist for something. And it doesn't kill at 20%. And he goes on and on.....
3. DThrow combos ALWAYS into Uair/Fair: DI exists.
4. Nair is the best....it kills....ridiculous....: Nair doesn't kill unless its at the edge at 140% or something. And like #2 he just goes on and on.....
5. Dair is a decent spike: Dair is an air taunt. It's there for disrespect only.
6. PK Fire...guaranteed grab: Do I even need to explain this?
7. DSmash catches people under the ledge...kills them early: WHAT?! Unless you are playing Smash 64/P:M. Correct me if I'm wrong but DSmash doesn't go under the ledge. And it barely kills.
8. FSmash has ridiculous range: WHAT?! It barely has range! Either that or the animation is completely misleading.

Here it is. On number 7 I learned that Dsmash covers SOME ledges, but it nothing like Smash P:M where it's every stage. I think every person that plays Ness, whether they are good or not, can agree that ZeRo overrates Ness a little too much.

 

[Lochy]

I think Ness' linear recovery, laggy pk fire and bad dair doesn't make him broken.
But he is amazing

 

[Uffe]

You can combo out of dthrow for days.

Dthrow to double fair,
Dthrow to triple fair,
Dthrow to fair to nair,
Dthrow to fair to uair,
Dthrow to uair,
Dthrow to nair,

All guaranteed combos spending on character, percent, and DI. Just got to practice which follow up to do. Combos out of dthrow stop working like at 40 or 50 percent.

Uair to nair
Uair to bair

Dtilt to anything if it's a trip

If you catch someone with a rising fair, another fair, nair or uair works.

Pk fire to whatever is not always a combo, but sometimes is.

Plenty of combos and follow ups.

And when you grab someone and fthrow them offstage you then do pk Thunder harassment. Each bit of pk Thunder does 8 percent. Land just two pk Thunder and they get back onstage with an extra 16 percent. Land three and they get back onstage with an extra 24 percent.

Being good at pk Thunder juggling is being good with Ness. Being bad with pk Thunder juggling is being bad with Ness. Pk thunder is a free way to add so much percent to people when ever you launch them into the air.

Ness is a stupid character. Amazing. Better than at least 40 characters, probably better than 45 characters. He's a high tier. Amazing. Overtuned. So much better than almost the whole cast. He's not balanced. He's my slightly above average. He's quite amazing and very strong.

I'm talking about consecutive hits. D-throw > fair, your opponent is going to get hit. The thing that'll change that is their DI. If you do manage to land this, then it does about 10-12 hits. Uair > nair or uair > uair. That's a 2 hit combo. But it only works if your opponent doesn't block you and it works at around 20%, so it's not very reliable. D-tilt > f-smash, also a 2 hit combo. Only works if your opponent trips. I'm not looking for generic d-throw into attacks. That's what I'm talking about when I say he doesn't really have combos.

 

[Earthbound360]

Ness' combo game is pretty good. It's not as extensive as Pikachu or Luigi's, but he hits like a truck.

I honestly think Ness is very balanced. He's got such glaring flaws to balance out his fairly strong (not even OP) positives. Like seriously, if you don't notice his flaws, you're bad.
But I'm not gonna convince you, so why bother.

 

[Noa.]

I'm talking about consecutive hits. D-throw > fair, your opponent is going to get hit. The thing that'll change that is their DI. If you do manage to land this, then it does about 10-12 hits. Uair > nair or uair > uair. That's a 2 hit combo. But it only works if your opponent doesn't block you and it works at around 20%, so it's not very reliable. D-tilt > f-smash, also a 2 hit combo. Only works if your opponent trips. I'm not looking for generic d-throw into attacks. That's what I'm talking about when I say he doesn't really have combos.

A two hit combo is still a combo. And the amount of hits doesn't matter. Only the damage. And getting 20 to 30 percent of combos is quite good.

 

[Swampertrulz]

Ness is pretty damn balanced I don't know what ZeRo was thinking when he said that Ness is "Borderline Broken".

 

[L9999]

Ness is pretty damn balanced I don't know what ZeRo was thinking when he said that Ness is "Borderline Broken".

And that is the reason this thread exists.

 

[Swampertrulz]

And that is the reason this thread exists.

And that is why I posted it.

 

[DeleteThisAcct]

Didn't ZeRo main Diddy Kong and abuse Hoo-Hah at one point simply because he's "easy and powerful"? If so, I think that makes him officially the last person who should ever have the right to complain about anything being broken.

 

[Swampertrulz]

Didn't ZeRo main Diddy Kong and abuse Hoo-Hah at one point simply because he's "easy and powerful"? If so, I think that makes him officially the last person to ever have the right to complain about anything being broken.

Oh yeah I forgot about that. It's so true.

 

[Earthbound360]

Technically, if he's "borderline broken," then he's not broken, therefore balanced.

Get outlogic'd.

 

[Swampertrulz]

Technically, if he's "borderline broken," then he's not broken, therefore balanced.

Get outlogic'd.

but ZeRo meant he's broken okay Logic Master?

 

[ArnoHero]

The question should first be, are Sheik, Rosalina, Luigi, and Pikachu broken?

Shiek and Rosa are the only ones I'd consider to be broken.
Luigi has some really poor issues with spacing that people can often CP.

Like someone else said in the thread with a comparison to MK, if they aren't toppling literally everything then they're not broken. Luigi and Pikachu have a few answers. There are matchups that aren't in their favor.

 

[ArnoHero]

I would say that Ness is borderline broken. He's right there with (behind?) Luigi, Pika, and Yoshi.
I've heard Zero complain that Ness is really powerful on a few occasions. Same with M2K. I've heard players reference FOW saying "He's talented and he's playing Ness, so." in regards to meeting up with him in bracket.

 

[Comorant]

The real reason Ness seems broken in this game is because he has lots of reliable kill options in a game where most of the cast struggles to KO. If everyone had better kill moves his throws and aerials wouldn't seem so ridiculous.

 

[JosePollo]

I think he meant it as hyperbole. Pkt2 is usually good at killing if they're above 30. Though it can kill at less than that if you're close to the blast zone.

But yeah 0% is unlikely.

I think what ZeRo was referring to in the video is Ness' ability to gimp certain characters using the tail of PK Thunder, not specifically PKT2. I know I've killed a number of Little Macs and Captain Falcons myself on FG by doing that. It's still a huge stretch to call Ness borderline broken, though, being a Ness player (not specifically a main) myself.

 

[Uffe]

A two hit combo is still a combo. And the amount of hits doesn't matter. Only the damage. And getting 20 to 30 percent of combos is quite good.

I know a 2 hit combo is still a combo, and I'm still fine with it. As EB360 stated, his combos aren't as extensive as Pikachu's or Luigi's, which is kind of what I don't like about Ness. Ganondorf has a few 2 hit combos himself, which is cool. I can't go over to Pika or Luigi, though, because I end up getting bored with them. Ness, Samus, and Gdorf are all my favorites in this game. I wonder how useful bair > bair > dair is in this game.

 

[Uffe]

I would say that Ness is borderline broken. He's right there with (behind?) Luigi, Pika, and Yoshi.
I've heard Zero complain that Ness is really powerful on a few occasions. Same with M2K. I've heard players reference FOW saying "He's talented and he's playing Ness, so." in regards to meeting up with him in bracket.

To say that FOW is talented and then saying that he's winning because of Ness (him being borderline broken) discredits his talent. FOW was doing great with Ness in Brawl and Ness was considered low tier at that time. A lot of what Ness has in Sm4sh isn't that much different in what he had in Brawl. The real noticeable differences in properties were with his yo-yo, down air, and his PK Thunder being able to go through a characters body at start up. Other than that, he's still pretty much got the same kill moves. So to discredit FOW because he's using Ness is horse ****. I'm not going to go off tier lists, but match ups, and Ness has some pretty bad match ups. It's time people stop parroting what ZeRo or whoever have to say about a certain character they don't even invest time in and start listening to the ones who do, or find out yourself by using that character and just seeing how good you yourself actually do.

 

[Schiffe]

I believe this claim was made due to Ness' ability to kill reliably (and relatively early as well) and how he can rack up damages like if it was nothing. His aerial game is very good too.

Despite these strong points, Ness' weakness shows no mercy to him. Once he's offstage, he's almost assured to not comeback if he's against decent "Edge Guards". Even though you might say "No sane person is ever going to jump into PKT2 point-blank", all it takes is a bit of timing and it's over for him.