Meta Knight Match-up Discussion 8 | Ness

[Katakiri]

Welcome to our Ness match-up discussion!

"OK!"

Discuss character strengths, weaknesses, ground-game, air-game, and all things Baseball Bat vs Bats here.​

Got questions, opinions, or suggestions you want to share about other characters? Head over to the Meta Knight Match-Up Discussion Directory Thread or the Meta Knight Social/General Discussion; we're more than happy to help you.​

Some rules, guidelines, and tips. Some of these are a given since you joined any forums.

1. Be respectful of each other. No insults, no trolling, no flaming, or any of that nonsense.
2. Be aware that some of the discussions can and will be old, so don't call out someone for "wrong" data if that post was referring to say, patch 1.03 stuff.
3. Be impartial; learn to see things from other sides. So, don't boast about all the advantages. Notice weaknesses and strengths from both parties.
4. Stay on topic.
5. Have fun.

Frame Data to expand your mind!:​

|Hit Frames|Hit Frames
Jab | 6, HYAYAYAYAYAYA, 30 | 3-4, 9-10, 17-18
Dash Attack | 7-11 | 8, 15, 22
F-Tilt | 6, 12, 17 | 7-10
U-Tilt | 8-10, 8-14, 11-14 | 7-8
D-Tilt | 3-4 | 3-4
Side Smash | 24 | 21-22
Up Smash | 8, 12, 17 | 6-11, 12-35
Down Smash | 4, 9 | 10-15, 17-18, 23-25, 26-29, 31-32
N-Air | 6-7, 8-20 | 5-15
F-Air | 9, 12, 15 | 8-18, 20
B-Air | 7-8, 13-14, 20-21 | 10-11, 12-18
U-Air | 6 | 8-11
D-Air | 4 | 20, 21-24
Grab | 7-8 | 6-7
Dash Grab | 9-10 | 8-9
Pivot Grab | 9-10 | 10-11

 

[LostinpinK]

Another pretty good matchup against a high tier!

The key in this matchup is to avoir pk fire at all costs and to edgeguard him, imo.
If we get hit by pk fire, it's pretty much 12% + grab + follow up = ~30% or straight up kill with the bat, so it should be baited and avoided with empty hops and punished with a dash attack or a dash grab.
His air game has tremedous priorities so we shouldn't challenge him directly, which means Dair spacing is not that great against him.
Edgeguarding : once he's offstage, he'll take a lot of hits or die. Make sure you know how dangerous pk thunder is before going though. I feel like Dair is way too dangerous to use for a gimp, but a perfectly spaced Bair will wreck Ness with it's godly knockback. Nair is only for airdodge reading imo, because he outranges / outprioritzes it pretty hard. The matchup would be tough if we couldn't edgeguard him like that but well, we can.
He has the edge in neutral because of his projectile game, jab, dtilt, fair, nair and grab so we have to be super patient in neutral, especially at 80+% where he can kill us with a single grab if he has rage / is on the border of the stage. As long as we don't get hit by PKFire, we can reset to neutral pretty easily, and our advantage state is way better.

About stages, i'm still wondering because great stages for MK like halberd or BF are also great for Ness. I do think Halberd is slightly better for us but I'd like more input there. Maybe T&C is our best bet?

I'd say 55-45, just because we have the tools to play neutral patiently and destroy him once we're in / he's offstage.

 

[Bearbuddy4]

Another pretty good matchup against a high tier!

The key in this matchup is to avoir pk fire at all costs and to edgeguard him, imo.
If we get hit by pk fire, it's pretty much 12% + grab + follow up = ~30% or straight up kill with the bat, so it should be baited and avoided with empty hops and punished with a dash attack or a dash grab.
His air game has tremedous priorities so we shouldn't challenge him directly, which means Dair spacing is not that great against him.
Edgeguarding : once he's offstage, he'll take a lot of hits or die. Make sure you know how dangerous pk thunder is before going though. I feel like Dair is way too dangerous to use for a gimp, but a perfectly spaced Bair will wreck Ness with it's godly knockback. Nair is only for airdodge reading imo, because he outranges / outprioritzes it pretty hard. The matchup would be tough if we couldn't edgeguard him like that but well, we can.
He has the edge in neutral because of his projectile game, jab, dtilt, fair, nair and grab so we have to be super patient in neutral, especially at 80+% where he can kill us with a single grab if he has rage / is on the border of the stage. As long as we don't get hit by PKFire, we can reset to neutral pretty easily, and our advantage state is way better.

About stages, i'm still wondering because great stages for MK like halberd or BF are also great for Ness. I do think Halberd is slightly better for us but I'd like more input there. Maybe T&C is our best bet?

I'd say 55-45, just because we have the tools to play neutral patiently and destroy him once we're in / he's offstage.

Im glad you posted this. I played a ness and got 2 stocked. The first life I got pk fire'd to death. In my second stock I started to avoid it at all costs but his aerials wrecked me.

 

[warionumbah2]

I don't think Ness has the upperhand in neutral to the point where it effects the MU,the only silly thing about Ness in neutral is his aerials and dash attack. His ground moves have poor range and they aren't disjointed, getting into a CQC situation with ness tends to never happen since Ness will do something MK can't and that's safely using aerials in neutral.

PK fire is highly punishable, you should be able to shield on reaction the moment he shouts PK unless he wants a gurranteed 20-22% he won't be doing it unless its a turn around PK fire after you attempt to chase him. Thing with MK is that his neutral is poor only because of his inability to use SH aerials, when you look at ground game and only the ground MK has one of the best ground tools in the game. Unless a character has a dominant neutral and ground game comparable to MKs () i honestly don't think it effects the MU score. MKs wins 60:40.

When Ness is off stage he will activate his second jump and either airdgodge or fair, we have options against these one of them is basically taking the fair on shield instantly shuttle loop or nair oos. My personal fav is spacing MKs f smash by pivoting, if you go just outside of ness' s fair range you'll land a sweet spot f smash. Ness can however snap the ledge with his 2nd jump but sometimes his fat head will pop above the stage so we can catch him with our frame 4 D-Smash.

I never challenge his pkt2, unless i straight up go for it . A single moment of hesitation before going after him can result in an insta kill. I like to foxtrot in neutral since MKs initial dash lasts a long time and his dash attack and grab have a burst speed effect so just before MKs wings turn into a cape you can input A to make him lunge with his DA. A great strategy to use in neutral to bait players is dashing towards your opponent into shield then foxtrot the other direction and react to whatever they do, its relatively safe since MK dashes in the opposite direction and his initial dash covers alot of ground too. Zero actually did this with Diddy back in apex leading into many dash grabs, so i feel its a good option MK can pick up on since he has amazing ground speed, great dash grab and even a dash attack to replace his grab in most situations.

I think Helberd and Lylat are good options for obvious reasons. Battlefield is ok but the blastzone is huge so you pretty much wanna edgeguard Ness every chance you get which is pretty stressful.

 

[AmishTechnology]

warionumba brings in a couple very good points:

The cookie cutter options for a Ness who is under the ledge but close enough to not have to use PK Thunder are indeed: double jump fair (because the disjoint beats all normals that you have) or airdodge if you go for the bair or something. OoS upB sounds like a great option for fair, haven't thought of that.

Indeed, you have to go for the PK Thunder gimp ahead of time, it seems to start and end way earlier than in previous games. At least the ledge trump timing is extremely telegraphed. I think PK Thunder makes for good wall teching practice. If you purely want to learn and experiment, keep attempting to gimp the PK Thunder and just wall tehlch your flubs lol.

PK Fire spam screws with people unfamiliar with the match up, but the solution is so simple: just run up and shield on reaction. Even without perfect shield, you can often drop shield and grab or dash attack before he shields due to the long animation. Admittedly, this can be very hard on bad wi-fi, but that's irrelevant to actual play.

Ness has poor options to cover those below him. Chase him with those u-airs!

Neither drill nor tornado beat PK Fire. Don't try.

PK Thunder as a projectile has N64-like hitstun... Ness can easily link it to guaranteed uairs and stuff if he hits you with it as an edgeguard and you get sucked into the stage. DI may help, just be aware of this. Don't be afraid to downB to recover if he PK Thunders since Ness himself becomes inert. However, if you use downB on stage, he's going to turn it around to hit himself and KO you due to downB's lag... don't do that.

His main neutral options are the super disjointes fair and dash attack and PK Fire. Nair is a very common OoS option due to its speed. He'll mix up bair when you are killable. Uair is a strong kill move of his.

 

[Luco]

Hmm, a few things.

First of all, PK Fire doesn't form the crux of our neutral game (everyone seems to think it does though, which is funny =P ). It is true that your mobility is superior here but OoS Nairs and Bairs are things you have to be careful of.

You guys have also mostly omitted Bthrow, which I think is one of the largest tools we have against you. According to my favourite thread of all time (ehuehuehuehue http://smashboards.com/threads/nesss-back-throw-and-ko-percents-the-thread.387966/ ), MK will die from Bthrow at 84%, 118% and 141% from near side, centre and far-side of FD respectively. These percents go down significantly with rage (with 110% rage MK will be dying from centre-stage at about 100%, for instance). Similar to the star-crew, this gives an average kill percent of about 120%, which is a significant factor in this MU.

On the other hand, MK can still take advantage of us offstage, if less so than in Brawl. I get the feeling that DJ AD-cancelling into say, Nair or Uair could be frustrating for you. Additionally, Ness doesn't have too many options when being juggled, so you'll usually have the advantage when we're above you. Also Ness' PKT1 hitstun was reduced post-patch, so although we can sometimes get follow-ups off it it's surprisingly rare.

A grab early on will probably lead into a disadvantageous situation for you, whether we get a few Fairs or bait an AD into say a Nair or Uair, etc. On the other hand, a successful grab from you can put us offstage which can be frustrating.

I'm not sure I'm convinced the MU is actually in your favour, but I haven't played this MU at high level so I can't comment on an actual ratio. Other Ness mains that have more experience in this MU would be able to comment.

 

[LostinpinK]

I don't find up air chains all that great against Ness because his Nair comes out so fast / has such a huge hitbox with great aerial mobility. At low %, I never go for the Uair and bait his Nair to Usmash him instead.
SH above PKFire is also a good option to dodge the hit. I'm a bit paranoid of shielding on the ground against Ness.
The only real danger with PKfire is when you're chasing him on the ground and he just reverse side B. The rest is easily avoidable.

But damn, like for Rosalina no one recognizes they have a bad MU against us because they have never played us.

 

[warionumbah2]

Lack of MU experience + Lack of knowledge on Sm4sh MK + Poor opinion on Sm4sh MK because yet again lack of knowledge of high level MKs and MK as a fighter.

We can't avoid it i see other character boards that think they 60:40 us smh and it ain't the top tiers either. Its hilarious a very small group of members outside of MK boards view him as a good character and have a good understanding of his strengths and weaknesses.

 

[ItoI6]

i wasnt really playing seriously at this tournament i had just gotten back to norcal and was trying to show off/meetandgreet people but yeah you can see how i play it here https://youtu.be/NKjX0sR5VjQ?t=2h4m24s

this guy is ranked 11th in norcal so hes not a total scrub or anything

just be very deliberate and fastfall onto ness with dair and itll hit him, doing it any other way fails. ness doesnt have many options aside from dash shielding back and forth in his neutral game which makes him not too threatening if you play aware of that and arent in percents to be afraid of backthrow. ness is also perhaps the easiest character to land dash attack upair footstool lock on which i got like 3 times and then ****ed up lol it doesnt work straight from 0 but a bit past that or if you have some rage and itll always work until past like 15 or so percent.

i know ness is a good character but from my matchup experience it doesnt seem that good for him tbh. definitely one of mks better high tier matchups

 

[Bonk!]

I feel like when you get to that iconic moment for any Ness matchup where both players are on their last stocks and high percent is just really difficult to play in. We can kill Ness early because we have combos that link into kill move finishers, but when we miss the opportunities to close the stock the matchup can become that much more challenging. A very good Ness is a very patient Ness, meaning they will not approach you and lame you out with a wall of f-air, n-air, side b, etc. until you mess up your pressure and they kill you with a back throw. I have a really hard time securing the kill when I reach this part of a game. Any advice?

 

[Dre.]

I feel like when you get to that iconic moment for any Ness matchup where both players are on their last stocks and high percent is just really difficult to play in. We can kill Ness early because we have combos that link into kill move finishers, but when we miss the opportunities to close the stock the matchup can become that much more challenging. A very good Ness is a very patient Ness, meaning they will not approach you and lame you out with a wall of f-air, n-air, side b, etc. until you mess up your pressure and they kill you with a back throw. I have a really hard time securing the kill when I reach this part of a game. Any advice?

Hey Bonk! Replying to this a bit late but I do actually have a lot of experience about the Ness MU as a dedicated MK main. The Neutral game against Ness is really hard once we hit high percents, moreso than against other characters. He's too short to catch with an USmash and our already poor game at high %'s is even poorer against lighter characters like Ness. Shorthop fairs and bairs are really important for pressure and don't be afraid to toss out a dash attack or two, because he can't grab us out of it! The hardest part with MK is getting in and staying in, so once you're in make it count! Dthrow is still one of the better options if you can't kill with fthrow, but if you get the grab follow ups even at high percents are very doable.

 

[warionumbah2]

Sh fairs and bairs? that's not safe at all. Down throw isn't helpful at high percents and deals lowest damage out of all his throws and combos into nothing.

 

[Zonez]

I feel like this MU is at least 50 - 50 simply because of back throw. It's so ridiculously powerful, I'm surprised it wasn't nerfed when Sonic's was. Like Bonk said, securing that last stock can be incredibly difficult if the Ness is patient. Getting the final kill is really my only problem with the MU, the back throw gives us no room for error there.

Just felt like adding this while someone put it up to the front again.

 

[Dre.]

Sh fairs and bairs? that's not safe at all. Down throw isn't helpful at high percents and deals lowest damage out of all his throws and combos into nothing.

To be fair, nothing is good out of grab at high percents, but down throw is best because it forces Ness above you while leaving enough space to bait airdodge / leave shuttle loop open.

 

[warionumbah2]

To be fair, nothing is good out of grab at high percents, but down throw is best because it forces Ness above you while leaving enough space to bait airdodge / leave shuttle loop open.

What are you on? Up throw(which kills better with platforms) and Back throw(another kill throw) deal 10% i think 11 or 12% fresh that's much better than Down throw which gets you NOTHING at high percents. This is MK 101 never use down throw at high percents, your opponent only needs to DI away.

This is very poor advice which would lead any MK to losing badly. Up throw and Back throw are solid to use at high percents just to get them to a percent where tornado kills or up throw.

 

[Dre.]

What are you on? Up throw(which kills better with platforms) and Back throw(another kill throw) deal 10% i think 11 or 12% fresh that's much better than Down throw which gets you NOTHING at high percents. This is MK 101 never use down throw at high percents, your opponent only needs to DI away.

This is very poor advice which would lead any MK to losing badly. Up throw and Back throw are solid to use at high percents just to get them to a percent where tornado kills or up throw.

It seems we have a different opinion of what means "High percents" If we're talking about ~150 percent, yeah up throw and back throw are better, but if we're talking ~90-110 then down throw is better because upthrow gives Ness WAY too much space to work with. and backthrow is likely going to just put him back on stage.

 

[warionumbah2]

It seems we have a different opinion of what means "High percents" If we're talking about ~150 percent, yeah up throw and back throw are better, but if we're talking ~90-110 then down throw is better because upthrow gives Ness WAY too much space to work with. and backthrow is likely going to just put him back on stage.

90-110% he dies to DA into Shuttle loop or forward throw into shuttle loop. Are you sure you're a dedicated main?

The situation Bonk is talking about is at high percents such as +120%

 

[ZTD | TECHnology]

Where would there be boards be if we didn't have @ warionumbah2 calling people out?

<3

 

[Ulevo]

A couple of things I want to note on the match up. Ness has a rather large grab box, and this means he is able to grab you if you attempt to cross up his shield easier than other characters might. You need to be rather deliberate when you attempt to do this. If Ness grabs you early, you need to DI away from him, otherwise you risk being hit from up air, which does significantly more damage than forward air. Neutral air I found is actually very useful in this match up. It is difficult to challenge his up air with down air, but at early % you can at least trade with neutral air. Neutral air is also able to eliminate PKT1 if we are in a juggle situation, as long as you time it properly.

In terms of stages, I feel that Final Destination is a strong pick, as is Town & City. Duck Hunt is likely even better. Ness has rather dominating hit boxes that are hard to challenge, and take up a significant portion of the stage space. Having more room to breath to avoid these is quite helpful, and it makes it harder for Ness to keep up with our mobility. It also gives us a stronger chance to survive back throws post 100%, and these stages have larger bases meaning we are less likely to be right on the ledge when we are grabbed, which is the worse place to be.

I definitely feel differently about this match up than my previous preconceptions.

 

[warionumbah2]

I feel like when you get to that iconic moment for any Ness matchup where both players are on their last stocks and high percent is just really difficult to play in. We can kill Ness early because we have combos that link into kill move finishers, but when we miss the opportunities to close the stock the matchup can become that much more challenging. A very good Ness is a very patient Ness, meaning they will not approach you and lame you out with a wall of f-air, n-air, side b, etc. until you mess up your pressure and they kill you with a back throw. I have a really hard time securing the kill when I reach this part of a game. Any advice?

Lage reply but you should try Ftilt to Shuttle launh. Works on floaty chars or chars with not so fast fall speed,the more rage the better.

 

[AmishTechnology]

Found a good YOLO against Ness. If you ever deny his second jump while edge-guarding (e.g. they like to double-jump fair beneath stage edge, you pre-emptively go off-stage and n-air them during their double jump), a good guaranteed suicide KO option is drill. You can either drill Ness to the blast zone or, even if you whiff somehow, you can drill his super telegraphed PK Thunder sperm trail. Same concept applies for Lucas. If Ness/Lucas is aware of this or is just a cautious player, he may start to do autopilot airdodges for every double jump whenever recovering, which you can abuse with a "hard read" Tornado/Up B. Just a neat suicide option in case you guys weren't aware. They also die first even if you are on the last stock because you will drill them far enough to have them die horizontally on the blast zone or, if you whiffed but hit the PK Sperm instead, Nesswill continue to fall while you still have some horizontal/upward momentum from the Drill, then start falling FAR later than they do. Just... hit one of them, lol. Oh, and Lucas's PK Thunder goes through you, so that drill deny on the sperm cell won't work on him I think.

 

[TrueAnarchY]

I feel like when you get to that iconic moment for any Ness matchup where both players are on their last stocks and high percent is just really difficult to play in. We can kill Ness early because we have combos that link into kill move finishers, but when we miss the opportunities to close the stock the matchup can become that much more challenging. A very good Ness is a very patient Ness, meaning they will not approach you and lame you out with a wall of f-air, n-air, side b, etc. until you mess up your pressure and they kill you with a back throw. I have a really hard time securing the kill when I reach this part of a game. Any advice?

I have found just trying to bait PK fire to be pretty useful, considering it can be punished on reaction with dimensional cape. I do not have extremely high level Ness experience but I have found just waiting and punishing PK fire walls at high percents useful. Plus trying to get in for throws offstage to try and gimp him or just kill with Uthrow or Bthrow as a last resort.

 

[QTP2T]

I have found just trying to bait PK fire to be pretty useful, considering it can be punished on reaction with dimensional cape. I do not have extremely high level Ness experience but I have found just waiting and punishing PK fire walls at high percents useful. Plus trying to get in for throws offstage to try and gimp him or just kill with Uthrow or Bthrow as a last resort.

A smart ness wouldn't dare use PK fire at high percents because 1) it's waaay to punishable and most characters can kill ness if he misses 2) the risk is not worth the reward. You can DI out of PK fire as it is, but it's even easier at high percents. There is no reason for a ness to use PK fire in this situation. However, getting ness off stage and gimping him is a very easy way to get a kill. It's something, as a ness main, I struggle to deal with.

Honestly, a smart ness very rarely goes for PK fire anyway, unless he's using it as a spacing tool or he gets a read. In the high percent situation, fight patience with patience. Wait for ness to whiff a grab and go in for the kill :D