Ness as a Whole, Point of Inquiry into Ness.

[BairJew]

Being a new smasher i've spent the basis of playing melee on learning and practicing, separately working and improving on tech skills and combo'ing as separate units. Then applying them into a match and gaining practice of combining all applications into a fluid set. Yet, struggling to surpass those who are ahead of you in knowledge and practice is difficult especially with "low tier" characters. The amount of mistakes you can make are equal to none, whereas with a more top tier character you are allowed more mistakes with an equal chance of success. There is only so far tech skill and patience can take you, before the losses become frustrating. Even continued practice seems to be unable to assist in the problem I have becoming entangled with. Basically with this I hope to find inspiration or techniques which you other ness players have used out there with higher chances of success against these top tier characters being played by top players. This may also help those others ness players out there in the spiraling depression of continuous losses. Also hoping to connect and find other ness players and hopefully trade notes and ideas on improving play and gaining experience from each other. Looking forward to your posts.

 

[Max?]

As much as I love your passion, it's damn near impossible for Ness to be viable at Top Level. He just has too much working against him and has to exert a disproportionate amount of effort to keep up with people in general, let alone top players. Ness is great in low tiers, a lot of fun to play and has some potential (I guess?) as a CP character, but you're going to be hard pressed to make anything of yourself with just Ness alone.

That said, god speed and hopefully you can do it.

 

[Deleted member]

ness is bad overall because he has a very poor macro game.

to be specific, a macro game covers a surface strategy approach. for example, your average sheik player can go into a match and think to himself "I'm going to use my shield heavily, DI everything away, and throw needles and wait until i can get something better." the sheik player acknowledges that the match-up is in his favor heavily for several important reasons, but more importantly ness can't really get around those reasons. lots of characters can do this very well, and it's particularly effective used on a lower tier as a higher tier as a very general statement. for another example, try fighting a kirby player with fox's dair to grab as your crutch tactic. that kirby player will have to outplay you very badly.

ness has poor range and poor recovery, and while you could do a lot worse for that list, those are pretty important holes to have as a character. the majority of your losses against players you are better than as ness will be some basic exploitation of his poor range and recovery.

on the other hand, ness has a surprisingly sweet micro game. that is, if the opponent chooses to actually interact with ness instead of "I'm a better character and here's why" against him, ness has surprisingly good movement and just flat out good combos and edge guarding and you'll be able to surprise a lot of players.

if you're new to the game, you're going to get sacked regardless of the character you play. you can't really use it as an excuse to move to a better character until you feel that you can no longer improve as the worse one. most players will never have this problem, they'll switch early to get an easy increase in their win %, which is totally reasonable.

 

[BairJew]

As much as I love your passion, it's damn near impossible for Ness to be viable at Top Level. He just has too much working against him and has to exert a disproportionate amount of effort to keep up with people in general, let alone top players. Ness is great in low tiers, a lot of fun to play and has some potential (I guess?) as a CP character, but you're going to be hard pressed to make anything of yourself with just Ness alone.

That said, god speed and hopefully you can do it.

Thanks man, and yeah he really is near impossible to win with even if you put massive amounts of work into him, especially against top players. Some reason I love the play style of him more than any other character in the game even with his massive flaws which is pretty much recovery based and range of his attacks. I'm trying to pick up a more top tier character and put some solid work into improvement and hope it pays off.

ness is bad overall because he has a very poor macro game.

to be specific, a macro game covers a surface strategy approach. for example, your average sheik player can go into a match and think to himself "I'm going to use my shield heavily, DI everything away, and throw needles and wait until i can get something better." the sheik player acknowledges that the match-up is in his favor heavily for several important reasons, but more importantly ness can't really get around those reasons. lots of characters can do this very well, and it's particularly effective used on a lower tier as a higher tier as a very general statement. for another example, try fighting a kirby player with fox's dair to grab as your crutch tactic. that kirby player will have to outplay you very badly.

ness has poor range and poor recovery, and while you could do a lot worse for that list, those are pretty important holes to have as a character. the majority of your losses against players you are better than as ness will be some basic exploitation of his poor range and recovery.

on the other hand, ness has a surprisingly sweet micro game. that is, if the opponent chooses to actually interact with ness instead of "I'm a better character and here's why" against him, ness has surprisingly good movement and just flat out good combos and edge guarding and you'll be able to surprise a lot of players.

if you're new to the game, you're going to get sacked regardless of the character you play. you can't really use it as an excuse to move to a better character until you feel that you can no longer improve as the worse one. most players will never have this problem, they'll switch early to get an easy increase in their win %, which is totally reasonable.

Thank you for the post, I do realize how poor of a character ness is I've thought several times about dropping him completely due to realization of how awful certain aspects of play were with him. This includes his grab range, recovery, attack range, ect. Basically exactly what you said. As I posted above I am actually thinking about picking up a more top tier character not because i've done everything I could with ness but because i'm a new player and have the opportunity to switch early in some sense. By keeping ness as my main I wont get very far in tournaments or competitive play in general. So hopefully by keeping ness as a side project I can focus my efforts into a more top tier character. I was just curious to see what other ness players do when it comes to tournament situations I suppose and possibly pick up some tips on things I maybe haven't thought of when I play.

 

[Mr.Jackpot]

Ness could kill a LOT easier if it weren't for his grab range, he has some pretty nice throws but has a harder time than others (lolmarth) using them. His general attack range isn't very good either, but recovery isn't THAT bad, I would say it's about as good (or bad) as Fox's. That being said, Ness is better off than most of the other low tiers and really should be moved out of bottom tier, I'm really sick of the "lolomg you just jump on nesses pk thunder and he diez!!!" argument.

Also, successfully edgeguarding with PK Flash really helps my mood whenever I'm feeling discouraged with Ness. Even when I lose matches, I feel a bit more satisfied

 

[Largemike32197]

Even without the easy jump out there gimp ness is pretty easy to bair or edge jump with inv. Frames nair as whoever. Really for most match ups i feel that if you get grabbed by say sheik you let sheik do that to you. And often I think people are kidding themselfes when they think oh i am better its just he picked _____

 

[Van.]

I would say it's about as good (or bad) as Fox's

Nope. Not even close.

 

[BairJew]

Ness could kill a LOT easier if it weren't for his grab range, he has some pretty nice throws but has a harder time than others (lolmarth) using them. His general attack range isn't very good either, but recovery isn't THAT bad, I would say it's about as good (or bad) as Fox's. That being said, Ness is better off than most of the other low tiers and really should be moved out of bottom tier, I'm really sick of the "lolomg you just jump on nesses pk thunder and he diez!!!" argument.

Also, successfully edgeguarding with PK Flash really helps my mood whenever I'm feeling discouraged with Ness. Even when I lose matches, I feel a bit more satisfied

Loved your input especially the part about fox's recovery gotta agree, fox's may be slightly better but they are both pretty punishable. I feel the same way when playing matches as ness little things that I can pull off put a smile on my face. Yet there are certain points in which I get quite discouraged.

Even without the easy jump out there gimp ness is pretty easy to bair or edge jump with inv. Frames nair as whoever. Really for most match ups i feel that if you get grabbed by say sheik you let sheik do that to you. And often I think people are kidding themselfes when they think oh i am better its just he picked _____

So I'm guessing your not a ness player, or even like ness for that matter? I was hopefully looking for tips on how to improve as a ness player not quit playing him entirely.

 

[Largemike32197]

Play to leanr bro. But i mess around a lot with dk vs falco and mewtwo vs sheik.

 

[Van.]

Loved your input especially the part about fox's recovery gotta agree, fox's may be slightly better but they are both pretty punishable. I feel the same way when playing matches as ness little things that I can pull off put a smile on my face. Yet there are certain points in which I get quite discouraged.



So I'm guessing your not a ness player, or even like ness for that matter? I was hopefully looking for tips on how to improve as a ness player not quit playing him entirely.

Ness can't DJ sweetspot, which gets him *****.

His Up-B can go the same distance as foxes and in the same number of directions, but you have to be very precise to do a vertical up-B with ness.

Fox has his Side B, which is a relatively lagless option with 5 adjustable lengths, which ness has nothing remotely like, and he has shinestalling to further help him recover.

Ness's inpressive DJ length is nullified by the fact that he can't use it to get close to the stage, he has to enter his up-B as far from the stage as he can safely recover, because otherwise he will be gimped with an aerial, or his opponent will simply jump out, eat 8%, and watch ness fall to his death.

If ness does somehom manage to get the ledge, he has poor options as a DJC character, since its slower and more predictable for him to ledgehop aerials and waveland onstage, while fox has a variety of options.

Ness's recovery is third worst in this game, while foxes is probably top ten.

 

[Mr.Jackpot]

Ness can't DJ sweetspot, which gets him *****.

LMAO! Have you seen his DJ sweetspot range? It makes me feel like I'm playing that really bad sequel to Melee.

 

[Van.]

I remember a post from kk that said otherwise.

I'll assume you conceded all of my other points.

 

[KirbyKaze]

LMAO! Have you seen his DJ sweetspot range? It makes me feel like I'm playing that really bad sequel to Melee.

He can? Video please. Or explain. Or something.

Ness probably has the worst recovery in the game. Who has it worse?

 

[Deleted member]

He can? Video please. Or explain. Or something.

Ness probably has the worst recovery in the game. Who has it worse?

i was thinking the same thing. mario/doc have pretty **** recovery? ness is probably the worst yeah.

 

[Mr.Jackpot]

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=78593

I disagree with a lot of this list but everyone that's listed below Ness has recovery worse than him except for arguably Game and Watch and Luigi, Yoshi could be lower than Ness too.

 

[Van.]

I'd count yoshi and roy as having worse recoveries than ness.

Luigi has a top 3 recovery 12.5% of the time.

 

[Mr.Jackpot]

Tornado can do pretty dang high at full length too.

 

[KirbyKaze]

I'd count yoshi and roy as having worse recoveries than ness.

Luigi has a top 3 recovery 12.5% of the time.

Roy you can MAYBE make a case for. But if we consider recovery as something that includes resistance to gimps then no. The ability to double jump sweetspot is invaluable to gimp avoidance (unless you're Peach, Yoshi, or Mewtwo) and Roy can actually threaten to hit people in those 50/50 or 33/33/33 option coverage situations with his Up+B hitbox whereas Ness simply can't. Ness can't usually attack with aerials during recovery, either.

Yoshi's DJ through everything will protect him from low percent KOs whereas Ness's recovery repertoire will never do that. It's too easy to cover early airdodges in a variety of systematic ways but with Yoshi, many characters absolutely cannot do anything about his jump armor; you can hit him, but he'll just keep going. In order for his recovery to be bad, he has to be careless with his DJ onstage. This means most forms of B-throw gimps are useless on him aside from damage racking, which obviously makes his recovery SIGNIFICANTLY better vs gimp strategies than Ness's.

 

[Van.]

You got me on yoshi, definently.

You may be right about roy too, but he can't really use aerials when recovering either. I guess he could fair. But it sucks.

 

[KirbyKaze]

Side... B...?

 

[Deleted member]

i play ness and roy rather heavily, and roy's recovery is way better than ness's.

 

[Van.]

Side... B...?

If you say so.

It just seems like it doesn't stall him, and its tiny, and it isn't safe on hit even when you're offstage.

 

[Mr.Jackpot]

Can we talk about Ness now?

 

[Deleted member]

Can we talk about Ness now?

I give you a haiku~

I wish I had range
So maybe I should play Sheik
Ness is frustrating

 

[KirbyKaze]

If you say so.

It just seems like it doesn't stall him, and its tiny, and it isn't safe on hit even when you're offstage.

Still more than what Ness has

 

[Strong Badam]

He can? Video please. Or explain. Or something.

I prefer his reverse Up-B sweetspot.

 

[KirbyKaze]

Okay so Ness literally cannot DJ sweetspot.

Good work Ness.

 

[Strong Badam]

he has to fall for a bit after the DJ... pretty easy for marth to dtilt or most chars to hit him.

 

[KirbyKaze]

The real significance is that they can just run off DJ <move> and crap like that if he looks like he's going low and it covers way too much for this poor character.

 

[Max?]

I just got a recording set up which I was planning on testing out at PC's tonight. You guys might have some new Mofo vids to look forward to (tho you will soon realize that my Ness is the truth) if I can get it to work.

 

[Niko45]

I think Ness's recovery is by far better than Roy's.

 

[Van.]

^ It'd be nice if you and umbreon could give explanations of your conclusions, if you get around to it. I think roys is better too, but I'm shaky on it.

 

[Deleted member]

^ It'd be nice if you and umbreon could give explanations of your conclusions, if you get around to it. I think roys is better too, but I'm shaky on it.

i'm guessing he plays roy but not ness. players in this game tend to underrate their most played characters, or overate the ones they don't play in a relative way.

as opposed to brawl, where most players overrate their character and underrate the opponent's.

both roy and ness get gimped pretty hard, but at least with roy you can up B through people early if they go out after you, and he can double jump to get a sweetspot. ness is just screwed at all times.

 

[Niko45]

Yea I play Roy who dies consistently at < 80% off stage. Ness's up B is obviously really exploitable but half the time he doesn't need to up B at all because his double jump and general floating covers a ****load of ground. He can also protect himself with a great hitbox (fair).

I think it's easy to imagine specific scenarios where Ness' recovery is gimped but on the whole it doesn't happen severely often from what I've seen (not just of me vs Ness but just watching Mofo/PC/Max play in general). Idk it's just not uncommon to me to see Ness making it back at high %. Roy just has an extremely linear edgeguardable recovery that is also just going to fail to make the stage at much lower % than the rest of the cast.

I guess if I were to try to rephrase more clearly, Ness has really bad low % recovery but if you manage to get to higher % his recovery becomes really legit because with more distance from the stage he can get off a full DJ arc safely and then choose to fair/fastfall/up B from there. So I consider this recovery better because you actually have options (where as Roy barely even has air dodge as on option, he's so desperate to make the stage so early on). A quick air dodge escape at low % can allow Ness to carry over into higher %, where his recovery actually becomes decent.

Also, Kirby has really bad recovery. Might be the worst? Yoshi's is also probably really bad if you know how to exploit it (which I don't unfortunately).

 

[Max?]

Zelda's recovery is pretty horrendous.

 

[Deleted member]

Zelda's recovery is pretty horrendous.

as a zelda player... you'd be surprised. i live pretty much every time I use her up B. except vs m2k, he just kills me lol. but pretty much no one else does, ever.

i generally just assume that ness/roy are screwed whenever they're offstage. both chars have some tricks around it, but ness's is definitely more exploitable if you know what you're doing. it's just bad.

 

[Max?]

Combine how long it takes Ness to recover and the fact that PKT can be interrupted in a billion ways, and you may have the worst recovery in the game there.

Oh also Niko, Ness can't DJ sweetspot at ALL, which removes probably the best recovery option that (pretty much?) every other character in the game has.

 

[Mr.Jackpot]

blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah You guys might have some new Mofo vids to look forward to (blahblahblah)blahblahblahblahblahblah.

Holy **** that's awesome!

 

[Niko45]

DJ sweet spotting isn't really a primary form of recovering for any of the characters with big slow cancelable DJ's (Yoshi, Mewtwo, Peach) so that's not really a unique ness weakness. These characters mostly recover high to recover successfully.

Anyway I'll bow out of this discussion since I don't really know what I'm talking about but all I'm saying is Ness' recovery seems more boned super hard by some characters where as Roy's is consistently bad.

 

[KirbyKaze]

DJ sweet spotting isn't really a primary form of recovering for any of the characters with big slow cancelable DJ's (Yoshi, Mewtwo, Peach) so that's not really a unique ness weakness. These characters mostly recover high to recover successfully.

Anyway I'll bow out of this discussion since I don't really know what I'm talking about but all I'm saying is Ness' recovery seems more boned super hard by some characters where as Roy's is consistently bad.

Ness isn't comparable to the other characters without DJ sweetspots because their alternative recoveries are actually good.

Let's compare Mewtwo's recovery and Ness's recovery.

Mewtwo has an invincible teleport. This fully invincible recovery (when active) comes out near instantly and he can sweetspot the ledge with it (which is like DJ sweetspot but you're invincible before you grab the edge and thus are on crack). It also has no landing lag with proper execution (so if they try to get rid of your edge crack, you can land onstage safely; as a bonus is his floatiness allows you TONS of time to see which one they're covering). He also has the most aerial mobility in the game, and is massively floaty. His airdodge makes him disappear. It is very feasible for him, as a result of his aerial mobility and invincible teleport, to jump backwards, go over the opponent, and float to whatever side he wants, teleporting to an appropriate spot if he's approached. Or teleport THROUGH THEM if they attack him as he's trying to float towards the level in any way.

Ness, in comparison, is less floaty, has less aerial mobility, has no invincible Up+B so he's automatically far more vulnerable to any kind of projectile. His priority is in obvious spots so you can space crap during his free fall on him really easily, etc. His Up+B takes a minute to do anything and there's no invincibility. Because of his lack of invincible, lagless teleport he is far more vulnerable to characters stalking an appropriate zone outside his DJ peak, and he also can't really challenge them if they're doing it right because his important hitboxes are in obvious and exploitable locations. This makes it extremely difficult for him to land with safety because he lacks the ability to effectively threaten anyone, and it's incredibly easy to setup little traps that cover all his recovery options as long as you remember to stay below or away from his Fair. His airdodge isn't particularly outstanding in any way, either.

You'll find a similar (though less ridiculous) comparison if you do it with Yoshi or Peach. The jabs and Bair traps that like 10 characters use to cover Ness's options during gimping or freefall? Yoshi can superman those and keep going until like 300%. On a side note, I'd argue Peach's umbrella kind of gives her a ghetto DJ sweetspot alternative anyway that's functionally the same, but that's neither here nor there. End of the day, Ness has none of the advantages they have. While they might be able to live without DJ sweetspot, Ness doesn't have massive invincibility abuse, or super armor abuse, or a repertoire of crazy tricks and boatloads of priority to fall back on to cover his faults like they do.

Ness blows.