MU Discussion: Ness

[Fuerzo]

I honestly think that Ness is our worst MU after Sheik. His aerials beat out ours, PK Thunder edgeguarding/juggling is a nightmare to deal with even with Yoshi's air mobility since Yoshi has to recover high, and his spacing can let him quickly conquer the neutral. On the other hand, Yoshi's double jump (and sometimes nair) mean he doesn't suffer as much from fair strings. Anyone else have trouble with Ness? Anyone have general and specific advice, including both strategy and stage selection?

 

[GSM_Dren]

I don't think that it is as horrifying of a MU after sheik. Near release, for sometime I believed that Yoshi had the +1 advantage over ness, but now I suspect that it is about even for both sides (as discussed on the Ness boards too). Below I linked a close Bo5 set I had with a friend that mains ness, its from a few months ago, but I think showcases each character's strengths and weaknesses.

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Eggs are killer in this matchup. They cannot be absorbed and help us immensely to approach. A mixture of ETS and SH ET should be able to put enough pressure to keep him in shield and we can then follow up with an egg lay, or if the egg connects we can land with a nair. From an egg lay we could usmash/fsmash, or toss an egg, upon release a smart ness would either dodge/nair to prevent any more damage. If he gets too close to the ledge, you could consider trying to egg lay him off. Also, if you're a sniper, you can try to egg his recovery as it shortens it and he falls to his doom (I've only done this a few times ever).

Nair is an amazing tool for us because it breaks through ness' jab string (unfortunately not for his fair). We can also juggle using utilt -> uair. A ness does not ever want to be above yoshi so use that to your advantage.

Ness has an amazing fair as well as a decent dash attack against us. We cannot do much to challenge the fair and his dthrow -> fair is usually guaranteed. I would suggest to just DJ asap and reset yourself to a better position. His uair (big head hitbox) and bair are kill moves, so be careful at high percents. The same goes for his Bthrow, avoid it like the plague and try to keep your landings as safe as possible.

PK fire is not as good of an option for ness because of the endlag and the fact that we can reliably just DJ out and away (and maybe punish). Be wary and just avoid getting caught within it. PK thunder is wicked good for him, especially when we're off stage. We can try challenge it with a nair or dodge, but its fast speed means we probably might get hit with it a few times. If you do get hit by it, try to avoid drifting into your opponent as it is a free uair for them.

As for stages, I don't think ness has that many inherently bad stages (might have to consult the ness boards for this). I think platformed stages would help a bit more for yoshi than it would for ness. If he is on the platform we can shark from below with utilt, usmash, uair, etc., while he can't do too much if we're on the platform. I guess a stage like lylat would also be bad because the stage tilting screws up pk fire.

 

[Lukingordex]

This Match up is either even or maybe a very small advantage for Yoshi.

I also play Ness so I'll try to explain this MU in both sides:

Yoshi's strong points:
- Yoshi has better tools in neutral than Ness and wins it most of the time (most characters do anyway)
- Yoshi abuses' Ness disadvantaged state very well, specially if Ness is above him (as @ GSM_Dren already stated)
- Yoshi controls the stage very well against Ness thanks to his better mobility.

Ness' strong points:
- Has better reward than Yoshi overall, specially with his combos at low %s.
- Has good kill moves and they have a easier time hitting than Yoshi's does.
- Can give some trouble with PK Thunder, but not as much as he does against other character because of Yoshi's aerial speed.

So basically, Yoshi dominates Ness most of the time, but Ness kind of balances it out by being more rewarded than Yoshi when he gets a hit and being able to land kill moves with more ease.

As for the stages, I personally like stages where the Neutral game is more of a factor, such as Final Destination, Smashville or Lylat Cruise.

Battlefield and Halberd benefits Ness more than Yoshi so I don't recommend those stages.

 

[muddykips]

I really don't think it's wise to choose BF in this matchup, or maps with permanent platforms in general, because:
-When Yoshi's offstage, it gives Ness a place to safely use PK Thunder without fear of us swooping down on him like a hawk
-It severely restricts our approach options, including using eggs from above, using b reverses, falling nairs...
-We're limited in where we can kill using downb. Ness is tiny enough for him to not go through the platform for the second hit of downb to connect
-Doesn't Ness have upair? That kills us from under platforms just as well as anything we can throw out imo

Ness has a generally worse disadvantaged state than us, but I really feel that platforms put Yoshi in a similar situation. I'd say BF / Halberd / Lylat are the worst ones for Yoshi, while stages that give us room to breathe like FD / TnC are good.

As for which character has the "advantage", I think Yoshi has a +1 / +.5 advantage just in terms of comparing them as characters, but stage choice can make a huge difference in Ness' favor.

 

[Lukingordex]

Lylat is a terrible stage for Ness naturally already, and it does make his neutral even worse against Yoshi.

If I was Ness and had to face a Yoshi I would immediately ban that stage.

 

[Delta-cod]

So while this isn't a video of Yoshi vs. Ness, I did end up watching this set recently and I found Ness's neutral game to be quite lacking. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEW-fENB8yE)

So then I looked for more videos and watched this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CbbtAKuZNM

And I'm just getting more reinforcement of the idea that Ness has a lacking neutral against us. We only really need to respect Fair (in all states, basically). His disadvantaged state is pretty bad against us, as long as you respect Fair. If you're below him you're in a pretty good spot.

Anyways, I didn't have too much new exciting things to say, but I wanted to get these thoughts down somewhere. Excuse my rambling, finals are upon me.

 

[yoshi8984]

Hm, I can't really give too great of an analysis on this MU, but I personally feel it's +1 Yoshi's favor. Normally I have a Yoshi main who's been my rival for the longest, but I somehow beat him last tourney I went to lol.

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I think the key for Ness is that he has to stay in a solid mid-range. Too far and he's not getting anywhere and just gets Egg'd. Too close and he just gets a Nair or Jab to the face. He also can't toss out PKFs or PKTs since Yoshi can ignore them with ease.

I felt like to win, I had to play super carefully and had to stick with a bunch of Nairs and Bairs, then space myself with good precision. His Bair however is fairly safe on shield, unless powershield (but question - does Yoshi's powershield this game actually benefit him? )

Yoshi never wants to be directly above Ness, but Ness has it worse if he's above Yoshi. Like Delta said, you also want to respect our Fair.

In terms of stages, I'm usually comfy on Delfino for making our recovery safer and that we can kind of shark there, but I feel Yoshi is even better there, so I'd avoid it. I did feel way more comfortable on BF (I'm one who prefers platforms), but SV is cool with me as well. Not sure if you Yoshi mains do like platforms (it's probs a personal preference thing), but I know my premier ban is Lylat since the tilting sucks and screws up our recovery.

I would like to know, can Yoshi double jump through both the head and the tail of PK Thunder? Or does the head knock him out of his super armor?

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Frankly I need some more MU experience here. It's a weird MU, to say the least. xD

 

[Fuerzo]

On stage selection: FD isn't a great stage for Yoshi, but it's probably worse for Ness. That, the AC stages, and Lylat are what Yoshi probably wants against Ness.