Let's talk about Ness' GOOD matchups.

[Zero May Cry]

I was originally gonna post this in the normal MU thread but I decided it'd be best if i posted a new thread so as to not derail the MU thread. So anyway, I find that in the MU discussion we're just talking about Ness' bad matches and I get that that's because people usually request difficult MUs to be discussed each week. But I believe that in the midst of that we need to talk about the characters that Ness beats so that we just... know. I feel like we could be so focused on the bad MUs that we completely forget about his good matchups. In this thread, I'd like to see people talk about why Ness beats certain characters and what Ness users can do to take advantage of the other character's big disadvantage in the matchup.

 

[choknater]

I feel like Falcon and Ganon are very easy to beat.

Ness generally has an easy time with big bodies too because of pk fire, so Bowser, DK, DDD.

Ness combo/kill power also gives him great matchups against the spacies.

 

[Kokomaniac]

The fats aren't always as easy, dedede agt and range make him much more dangerous

 

[Akhenderson]

I'm not sold on the fact that Ness has a really good match up against Falcon, but does have it either even or sort of tipped over. Sure, Falcon can die easily from chain grabs, fair spacing and a really predictable recovery that may as well make you look like an oracle, but Falcon does the same thing.
He can tech read you multiple times, allowing for multiple grabs and Ness is at that weight where Falcon easily combos him with up air chains, nair -> grab and throw -> knee. It really is one of those match ups in which the one who gains momentum fast and takes advantage of it, wins, similarly to how a round of Melty Blood works (for those of you who played it anyways).

I would actually go to the record saying that Ness has an even, if not better match up fighting against Mewtwo. Sure, Mewtwo plays similarly to Marth and we all know how the Marth match up is, but Mewtwo doesn't have the same speed to approach or space as Marth, besides approaching with teleport. The teleport is also made simple to spot by watching a Mewtwo's play style. Usually the approach option is to go for shadow ball into teleport or just straight up teleport which then leads into different aerial attacks, usually nair. Other then that, the other way he can get closer to you is wavedashing towards you, which is a significantly weaker approach option because of our fair and PK fire.
The one thing he has going for him is his recovery which is very difficult to edgeguard, and that's one of Ness's strengths. I haven't tried it much, but I should be going more for PK Thunder on Mewtwo just to tack up extra damage rather than trying to go for a kill because it's safe and makes Mewtwo easier to kill with bairs and back throws.
Also Mewtwo has a difficult time killing you while you're on stage. Offstage is when it becomes a nightmare. Never try to recover from a lower vantage point because then Mewtwo can just down smash or forward smash you for an easy kill.
To me, it feels 50/50 or 55/45 in Ness's favor.

Bowser is a match up we win most certainly. Just avoid small stages and you'll be fine. Sure he can super armor his way through PK Fire, but he takes quite a bit of damage from doing so.

DK is similar... except don't get grabbed and then you'l be fine. Grab into fair is a good kill move on Ness at decent percentages. Like Bowser, avoid smaller maps.

I feel like another good match up is against Snake (This is just speculation, not tournament experience). Snake's down smash can be removed just by a grounded PK Fire and Snake's speed isn't that great. (especially when the PK Fire creates a hazard from it as well.) Snake's linear recovery makes PK Flash and dair even easier to hit. Since Ness is almost always in the air (At least, how I play), the tranquilizer is not a useful tool, but grab -> c4 is still an issue.

 

[Zero May Cry]

I gotta disagree on what you say about the Mewtwo matchup. I honestly think it's one of Ness' worst matchups- like 30-70 in Mewtwo's favor, or worse. I like to refer to the Mewtwo matchup as the Marth matchup but worse, since he has the disjointed hitbox (tail) like Marth does, but then he has a projectile, can teleport, and has a float which keeps him very safe. PK fire becomes very difficult to use in this MU since powershielding is easier with Mewtwo (no really, it is) and his side-b can reflect PK fire. Ness has few options to punish teleport > float nair outside of maybe up smash out of shield, but that's a pretty slow option. Teleport > fair is pretty threatening as well. Contrary to what you're saying, Mewtwo combos and juggles Ness pretty well, as Ness has few aerial responses to Mewtwo's devastating uair tail swing. Dair doesn't come out fast enough and most of the time it doesn't even reach Mewtwo. Even if you do trade with his tail, you're in a bad position above him and then you have to weave your way around him coming down. In recovery, Mewtwo can swat Ness with his back air while Ness attempts to hit himself with PKT, and this often leads to free wall of pain style kills, especially when float is used. Long story short, Ness gets bodied by Mewtwo's tail and superior offensive options.

Bowser is pretty free for Ness. Combos for days and PK fire builds mad percentage on him. Same for DK. A local DK player says that the usual cargo hold followups just don't work on Ness, but I'm not sure if this is true. He's usually an execution monster when it comes to that stuff though. Haven't played a Snake yet.

 

[Boiko]

M2 is better Marth and has such an easy time with Ness. Up tilt stops any approach Ness has outside of pkf which is negated with teleport or side b.

I play with Rolex a good amount and I think I'd call it 50-50 or 55-45 Ness. I'll get into details later though.
Edit: For Snake, that is.

 

[The_NZA]

DK is probably in Ness's favor. Bowser feels in Ness's favor. Game n Watch feels like it is in Ness's favor, as does Roy. Charizard is probably in Ness's favor.

 

[SpaceJello]

DK is probably in Ness's favor. Bowser feels in Ness's favor. Game n Watch feels like it is in Ness's favor, as does Roy. Charizard is probably in Ness's favor.

id have to disagree with you on roy. roy certainly does not feel in your favor, atleast for me. that being said, easy mu imo are big characters like ddd, bowser,dk. ivy is not too bad. then theyre are mu that are primarily dependent on how good you are with pkfire and chain grabbing like gannon, fox, falco,wolf. honestly if youre really good with pkfire, meaning able to land 3-4 of them and follow di/ read the buffer roll that should win you alot of match ups. but who wants to spam pk fire a whole match?

 

[Eagleye893]

I've been playing a bit with some people at WaveDash Wednesdays around Chicago, so I've gotten a bit of an idea of various matchups... so many different characters. These are all opinions.

Ness vs Wolf is probably the most advantageous of spacy matchups for us because of his attacking angles. We are also JUST floaty enough to not get destroyed in combos with proper DI. Our "shine" is about the same range as his, plus our FAir spaces against it easily. Oddly enough, absorbing the laser in semi-neutral situations is pretty garbage; it moves slow and he's already in a position to hit us when we go to try and heal from it. That isn't to say it's not still hard.

Ness vs Falcon is a very slight advantage due to being in proper combo weight and the neutral game being fairly even. PK Flash is hilarious on his recovery.
Ness vs Ganon is slightly in our favor because he's weightier and less quick on fast-fall with a slight higher potential for PK-Fire spam. His range on his aerials is scary, making our spacing game more strict. The one great ganon I played transitioned from melee and stomped me (literally and metaphorically)

Ness vs Shiek is a slight advantage. We have similar shield pressure to her needles and decent combo game. I haven't gotten to play a top shiek player, so this might be a bit skewed.

Ness vs Ike is in our favor. Big guy, predictable recovery for easy DAir or PKFire or Flash. On top of those things, his range and speed can be combatted with PKFire, PSImagnet, and FAir nicely. We have a decent defensive advantage, and on top of that comboing him is average.

Ness vs Charizard is in slightly our favor. Decently easy to combo, recovery not the best vs us. His tail and range can be a problem, but his tail also has a hitbox in certain situations, and you can use that to your advantage. Also, most combos he has are strict enough that if he's not perfect you can throw out a DAir/NAir to trade if he's close (ie one of the huge downB ground jumps) or a FAir/BAir to trade or edge him out. PSImagnet combo extensions are very nice on Charizard.

Ness vs Roy is hard to call, but can easily swing one way or another with a given situation. DThrow>Regrab is real with proper DI reads, and that can be converted later into other combo extensions. His range

Bad Matchups for me so far: Marth, M2, Link.

Everything else is fairly even.

 

[Zero May Cry]

eagleye laid it out pretty well. A few things though -

Roy - this MU is definitely not in our advantage. It's not as bad as the Marth matchup, but it's similar. A Roy who spaces well can be very difficult for Ness to get in on, and then there's the fact that Roy outranges us and combos Ness for days. However, it's better than the Marth MU simply because we have a great combo game on Roy. dthrow chain grab at low percents, djc up air strings at mid percents, and of course down throw to back air for a kill. If you're smart, you can also gimp his recovery as you would a Marth's recovery.

Ness destroys spacies given the right amount of space to do uthrow combos. Or he can simply fthrow them off stage and get an easy edgeguard. PK Flash bodies Falcon. eagleye, I think you're pretty spot on about the bad MUs as well. I honestly think Mewtwo is pretty close to a hard counter for Ness. I think it's like 25-75 in Mewtwo's favor honestly. Not impossible, but Mewtwo has to put in half as much effort as the Ness player.

 

[choknater]

played a good sheik in tourny yesterday, it's winnable but definitely not easy

the proper sheik strategy vs ness is evasion and poking with needles. it can be very frustrating when she is able to dodge fairs and pk fires. a badly placed pk fire can allow sheik to approach during the lag, get under ness, and threaten with grabs and tilts.

she is combo food and easy to kill, sure, but a good sheik will use her best attributes: speed and evasion

 

[CaptinMoses]

I think Bowser gets destroyed by Ness on any stage that isn't WarioWare. For, starters; he's huge. You will seldom have trouble connecting with a PK Fire and from there you can destroy him. Grab>D-Throw is B&B, if he DI's infront, DJC F-air to regrab. If he DI's behind, you can B-air and then rising B-air at mid percents and then get a free edgeguard. If he doesn't Di, Magnet > DJC Fair Regrab. I honestly think its Bowsers worst MU.

 

[The_NZA]

We MESS up GnW. I don't think I've ever seriously lost to a GnW.

 

[CaptinMoses]

I think G&W is pretty tricky I get my PK's bucketed and walled out be his f-air. Any tips, or should we save it untill his turn in the MU thread?

 

[The_NZA]

I think if you occupy the air in front of him without committing until he's on the ground and open, and you go in for a djc fair, you can usually outrange every option and get him. Off a grab, you have ridiculously mean combos and kills off of throws at raelly low percents. as far as off stage...mix up the recovery. Use DJ air dodge, or recover far enough from the stage where he doesn't know if you are going for the ledge sweetspot or platform cancelled recovery.

 

[Bryonato]

GnW MU is all about spacing pkf and baiting into grabs because anything else you do will get CC'd into Dtilt

 

[Ganreizu]

I think DDD has the best match-up among heavies, with bowser being the worst. Can still get messed up but bowser gets combo'd for years so easily.

 

[The_NZA]

Apollo Ali's DDD messes me up. He's insanely consistent with the v. Ness edgeguards.

 

[Boiko]

Bowser is probably Ness' best matchup. Slow, huge target to hit with PKF, even if his crouch prevents hit stun, just keep throwing from a distance. Yo-yo off the stage = death.

Anyone who says Falcon is in our boy's favor, is either misguided, or hasn't played a good Falcon. I believe Ness has four kryptonite match ups, if you will. Those that without sheer excellent play, give Ness an extremely hard time. They are:
Samus, Mewtwo, Falcon, and Link. Samus simply cannot be comboed, combos Ness hard, has amazing stage control, can easily SDI PKF, and lives forever. A good Samus will utilize the non linear side of recovery to weave through PK Flash off stage and safely return to ledge. Mewtwo has so many tools, cannot be comboed easily, also SDI PKF easily (floaties man), teleport past PKF to punish, kills off the top super early and can punish Ness' recovery. I played with Emukiller and Frozen this weekend, Frozen, being around the same skill level as me, and they both handles Ness so well. Emu even saying that there isn't much Ness can do that doesn't get punished. Falcon has super free combos into knee. Down throw > knee is guaranteed regardless of DI. He's super fast and weaves around PKF no problem. Easy to punish off stage, but his stage control is just so good. Link has auto combos with his boomerang which will hit you eventually. All he needs to do it camp with projectiles. Crouch into WD back boomerang trumps PKF approach. Played with Aklo this weekend, friendlies went back and forth because he didn't know the MU so well, but when he got hits, he confirmed into early kills pretty easily. BTW, Aklo is a 13 year old kid that beat Emukiller in tournament 2-0, LOL.

Anyway, those are my thoughts.

 

[The_NZA]

Your dthrow into knee knowledge is quite wrong. Di down and away definitely prevents the Knee at most percents. Doesn't save you from the uthrow though.

Also, I haven't really heard of you, Boiko, but i'd love to see some vids of your Ness if you think your on Frozen's level. I played him last weekend for like 45 minutes and took maybe 3 games. Most games went down to 1 or 2 stock, but he's a pretty strong player (using a really strong character).

 

[Boiko]

Pretty sure if you are thrown off of a platform or the stage, it's still guaranteed. Every time I DI'd down and away I still got hit.

Yeah, see that's the thing, I don't go out too much, but I am going to KTAR X, so maybe I'll have some videos there. I went pretty much even with Gallo, with him just barely clutching out our money match 2-1 in a last hit last stock situation. Frozen beat me 2-0 in tournament, although it was generally both games. He played the MU very well. Didn't help that he just beat Stereo Kidd right before me, haha. Speaking of which, Stereo Kidd called me out for a Ness ditto money match which I handily won with a double two stock. I've beaten Codi, G$, Animal, Raptor, John Numbers, and other strong players. Basically, the analysis that my peers use to compare me to Ness mains such as Awestin is that my neutral is weaker, but my punish game is substantially harder. Gallo and Frozen should be able to attest for this, as I BELIEVE I had a couple of zero to deaths on Gallo, and I know I had two on Frozen, because I was down 4 stocks to 1 game two and I brought I back to high damage last stock. The talks going around LI now are what is going to happen when I play Rolex, so that's exciting. That's briefly my resume, lol. I 100 percent understand taking anything I say with a grain of salt, as you haven't seen any proof, but hopefully I can share something soon.

 

[Roost3r]

I'm glad someone agrees with me that the Samus matchup is a pain. She just lives so long against us and boxes us out so hard.

 

[CaptinMoses]

I think in general Ness struggles with floaty characters. Not like, does awful against them, but combo-ing them is impossible.

 

[Boiko]

I'm glad someone agrees with me that the Samus matchup is a pain. She just lives so long against us and boxes us out so hard.

Yeah, definitely one of the hardest MUs IMO. She can completely shut out your approach with spaced zairs and control space with missiles. Even when you manage to get in, comboing is next to impossible. PK Flash works decently well as an edge guard. Plus she has the slowest grapple reel in the game so you can punish it with rising Nair/Dair. She has mediocre verticle recovery so hitting a dair is very good. Basically you need to play a slow match against her and focus on getting the better of your exchanges. Also, you need to accept that your great combos and grab follow ups, generally don't work so you get one or two hits and get out. It's just a slow battle of attrition.

 

[Boiko]

We MESS up GnW. I don't think I've ever seriously lost to a GnW.

Famous last words.

 

[The_NZA]

Famous last words.

Oh my god hilarious to see that now.

Le sigh...3.0 I beat Strongbad's GnW in a friendly set and went 1-2 in a close set with UTDZac at LTC2, and he 9'd me.

3.5 I lose to nubs. Never again.

 

[SouthernGent]

I personally don't enjoy the G&W match up but that is mainly because I don't think he needs a ridiculously long recovery move with an upwards hit box that can also be acted out of.

 

[EarthboundHero]

The Ness vs. Lucario MU might be my favorite.

1. I can bat that aura thing back at him. Just gotta worry about power shields tho.
2. Recovery can be Yo-Yo gimped, PK Flash predicted easy, or even the dair will get him.
3.Dash can easily be punished.

I mean that's all I can think of. But none the less it's a great MU for me.

 

[Boiko]

The Ness vs. Lucario MU might be my favorite.

1. I can bat that aura thing back at him. Just gotta worry about power shields tho.
2. Recovery can be Yo-Yo gimped, PK Flash predicted easy, or even the dair will get him.
3.Dash can easily be punished.

I mean that's all I can think of. But none the less it's a great MU for me.

Lucario is also super susceptible to crouch cancel, so mix that in with dtilt>instant dair>jab reset ayyyy.

 

[CaptinMoses]

Big blue ball heals over 40% lel

 

[silkys]

I think in general Ness struggles with floaty characters. Not like, does awful against them, but combo-ing them is impossible.

Agreed. I completely get shut out by Zelda every time I play against her. Her B is an easy reflect against any projectiles and approaching her is always risky since her short hop fair always outreaches my DJC fair. Super lame stuff.

 

[Ninjagamer1234]

One of Ness's best match-ups is Fox. His fast falling makes him VERY easy to be combo'd by starting with up-throw bair/nair/fair (sometimes u-air) depending on the DI. Fox really has no extremely good options of working around Ness, especially on stages like PS2 or FoD

 

[Boiko]

One of Ness's best match-ups is Fox. His fast falling makes him VERY easy to be combo'd by starting with up-throw bair/nair/fair (sometimes u-air) depending on the DI. Fox really has no extremely good options of working around Ness, especially on stages like PS2 or FoD

To say that Fox is one of Ness' BEST MUs is definitely a bit misguided. Ness does not have a winning MU on Fox, but I do think he has one of the better MUs on Fox across the cast (sans, ROB, Samus, and a few others). Yes, Ness can combo Fox extremely hard. Up throw can regrab into another up throw in and uair>regrab> into up throw into uair chains> into bair, but it's DI dependent, since you can SDI Ness' uair almost completely out of his follow up range. Ness also has great edge guards on Fox and can cover a couple of options pretty quickly with ftilt, rising aerials, fair>nair conversions, dsmash, magnet, etc. Ness can also convert off of dthrow at mid-high percents into ftilt or bair depending on DI, both putting Fox in a bad position. However, Ness has a hard time dealing with shield pressure, which Fox is great at. He also punishes your recovery super hard, and can convert into kill moves off of a grab (up throw>uair). SDI-ing consistently is hard, and I've played plenty of Foxes that only hit the second hit, sooo. This MU comes down to getting the most out of every opportunity you get, because Fox mains shouldn't be giving you a lot of opportunities.

 

[Ninjagamer1234]

To say that Fox is one of Ness' BEST MUs is definitely a bit misguided. Ness does not have a winning MU on Fox, but I do think he has one of the better MUs on Fox across the cast (sans, ROB, Samus, and a few others). Yes, Ness can combo Fox extremely hard. Up throw can regrab into another up throw in and uair>regrab> into up throw into uair chains> into bair, but it's DI dependent, since you can SDI Ness' uair almost completely out of his follow up range. Ness also has great edge guards on Fox and can cover a couple of options pretty quickly with ftilt, rising aerials, fair>nair conversions, dsmash, magnet, etc. Ness can also convert off of dthrow at mid-high percents into ftilt or bair depending on DI, both putting Fox in a bad position. However, Ness has a hard time dealing with shield pressure, which Fox is great at. He also punishes your recovery super hard, and can convert into kill moves off of a grab (up throw>uair). SDI-ing consistently is hard, and I've played plenty of Foxes that only hit the second hit, sooo. This MU comes down to getting the most out of every opportunity you get, because Fox mains shouldn't be giving you a lot of opportunities.

That is very true about his recovery is very punishable and I agree. It is also true that it is very hard for Ness when he is getting shield pressured, I just feel Ness has a definite advantage (something you said in your post) so I guess we can both agree on this

 

[Boiko]

An overall advantage? No, definitely not. More tools than most the cast, yes. Match up is in Fox's favor.