Ness Community Guide (Recommended Strategies)

[Neon Ness]

There's a height range where you can fastfall a SH Dair and Ness will land laglessly. I don't have anything framewise to provide per se, but I time the fastfall immediately after Ness' foot lunges downward, and it's been working for me.

If there is one thing I would avoid using Dair for it is for when foes have solid ground below them and you are up in the air, so I disagree with trying to beat out Uair users. When characters like Olimar and D3 have you in the air I wouldn't try beating their's because they can slap on 20% or so easily if you fail. And when characters like Wario or Tink have you in the air I'd stay away from their's as well because they can KO.

Really Dair isn't the best when it comes to preventing juggles on Ness, it really is a blind spot on him that at the least can almost be made up for with Nair, but it is still there.

And I'm really glad this is here. I still see a lot of videos where Nesses dair from above when it can be fairly easy to get around for opponents, I mean I still do it too sometimes. I agree that he has a blind spot beneath him since dair's startup is so long/it's a largely telegraphed move.

It's somewhat covered by using nair/PKT intelligently, but... I dunno. Sometimes I think it's better to just go the other way if your opponent's not bent on chasing you down as you try to land.

 

[PSI.kick]

Dair isn't the best for preventing juggling, but it can still be good if they don't expect it. Once they catch on though you can bait with it and then next time you airdodge below then uair or something. (mmm uair... we should cover that next.)
i definitely agree dair shouldn't be our only option. Main thing with it is to throw it in with aerial combos, i like dj dairing them right after a sh uair, its nice. then you ff them and nair or get on the ground or whatever.
quick question, can you grab someone if they tech your dair?

 

[Neon Ness]

Yeah, you can grab someone normally once they stand up/roll after a tech. Tech chasiiin'.

 

[_clinton]

We should talk about how to use Dthrow, that thing is always fun even if I prefer just using Ness' other 3 throws overall.

 

[PSI.kick]

dthrow is probably the best for teams, it covers you somewhat and takes both of you out for a second. But yeah we should talk about throws and what followups we can do.
dthrow is fairly good for popping them up just above us for juggling, uair is usually better for that until higher percents though.
fthrow i usually follow up with a fair or dash attack

 

[Eagleye893]

SH FF dair (assuming the dair is performed immediately from the start) assures that you will auto cancel immediately on the soonest frame. So basically shff dair means that you get a jab immediately on landing if you need to support it... Dtilt on landing is too risky sometimes... I should be doing that more though.

Oh... What you want to do in an ideal situation with dair is start the move some distance away from your opponent, have the foot come out immediately as you move above him, and retreat just as you are nearing your hitbox frame appearance... I would show examples, but I don't know how...

Also, anyone wanna just randomly WiFi so I can see some application of dair, dtilt, and maybe even some dthrow tactics? One time, I thought it was possible to dthrow, run slightly forward, then immediately FH Nair for a hit, but it was so strict in timing and opponent DI that I didn't bother.


@psikick, I thought immediately after you said throw in teams about how throws into ness' psimag wind are almost always true combos, unless your opponent is super pro at teching everything.

 

[PSI.kick]

ill wifi eagle.

yeah but you know what im talking about with dthrow in teams, it's like pika's fthrow, it damages them if they touch you. I do think we should discuss followups to throws... (partly because i have no idea what the heck to do after i throw them xD)

Super Edit:

Adding to edgeguarding with pkt:
A really good option is to miss with your head and scoop them purely with the tail, that way they don't get the vertical boost from getting hit, just stunned where they were with their sj eaten up and in a troubled position. Sometimes you will want to hit them with the head for a pkf followed up with a pillar spike or something, but depending on the character, just tail whipping them and canceling the head on the stage then edge hogging can be a very effective way to put pkt to use. If you feel like they will punish you then loop your pkt back up and pkt2 yourself away from the ledge to the other side of the stage.

experimenting with some pkt stuff atm O.O

 

[Eagleye893]

Okay, guys... I've got some ideas going... Ya know how I've been liking FH aerials so much? They're just good... Now I've got more reason to like them.

The platforms on some stages are at very convenient heights. For example, SV has a platform that moves, but it's height makes every aerial performed from the ground up to the platform similar to that of a SH from ground to ground. What I mean is, you can do FH aerials similar to DAS aerials, but land on the platform. This is useful for a couple reasons. The obvious one is that you don't wanna accidentally land and lag, but the other is that it proves my point that I made a while back about the whole FH dair > FF> land on platform deal that I was thinking of. Being able to mess with your opponent this way makes everything just great. We know we can do FH bair> uair and land on the platform while performing both aerials. Bair > Nair. Fair> Nair. Nair> uair... They all work.

Now noting this, we can apply this info to the height of every platform in the game, whether it is on a slant or not.
TO PROPERLY KNOW WHICH PLATFORMS YOU CAN DO WHAT ON, I MAY NEED SOME INFO ON PLATFORM HEIGHTS FOR STAGES! This would be in reference to portions of main floor and is only significant for CP and other legal stages.

Starting this info-fest off...

FD GOT NO PLATFORMS!!!
SV is our benchmark, noting that all FH'd aerials that eventually lead to landing on the platform act similar to DAS for SH aerials, but are instead using FH to get onto a platform and perform two aerials during that time.
BF's platform height is slightly lower than that of SV, in relation to the main floor... And also from mid platforms to top... I think. This means that fair>uair and Nair>bair are possible when FH'ing to land on one of BF's platforms from main ground.
Lylat is too tricky...
Yoshi's is too...

I haven't tested CP stages entirely...

 

[PSI.kick]

I get what you mean, and yeah its nice.

would that work on brinstar? :3

Ninja edit: THIS IS MY GOD POST.

 

[Eagleye893]

definitely... however, the platform height difference opposed to the main ground is variable depending on where you stand.... the left platform to the top and the right platform to the top might be okay though.... I need to test all these stages.

 

[Shaky]

I might do a PK Thunder contribution later.

PK THUNDERRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

 

[wwwilliam0024]

Shaky show ur self!! lets fight!

 

[Yink]

Eagle, I added the tag [GUIDE] to this thread so people were well aware of it. If you dislike it, please tell me.

 

[Eagleye893]

OMG~!!!! AWESOME!! THANKS, YINK!!!

After I get my "winter break assignments" done, I'll be sure to add on to some info, and possibly share some new ideas that I've had with a couple old ness stuffs.

I'll also have a video about the whole FH aerials involving platform height to show which platforms are awesome for everything.
(sadly, FH aerials on SV that end with ness landing on the platform from the ground all act like DAS... BF is slightly more awesome than SV, because FH Fair > Uair and FH Nair > Bair work from ground to platform)

 

[PSI.kick]

When we get more stuff/have too much to put into the op we should get a page directory.

 

[Eagleye893]

When we get more stuff/have too much to put into the op we should get a page directory.

as of right now, It's not worth it. We haven't discussed enough really.


I'll start off the new school year right... but tomorrow.



DELAY AGAIN!!

 

[Susi]

If you are too close to dash grab, try out running/sliding shield grab. Helps getting tech chase grabs etc

Pleaaase change that blue text ;_;

 

[Eagleye893]

Okay, Susi, fixed the blue color on that spacing thingy... still haven't completely fixed the layout, but oh well.



Also, I've gotten an idea and have started testing it out. I've always wanted to get a dtilt > grab assured, but that is always dependent on DI and percent. dtilt > dashgrab is never assured either, because you almost always go past the opponent unless you perfect-space the dtilt. So I tried going with jab. Surprisingly, from nearly every percent, I could jab > dashgrab a CPU standing still. The only way it DIDN'T work was when the opponent was right next to me, in which case dtilt > grab is much more assured. The problem with this is that anyone smart enough will just jab and be able to hit you it's good pressure for some situations, such as using dtilt at a medium distance of it's range and transitioning into a jab.

This idea came from Fair > dashgrab. Sometimes, I land with fair and cancel it's lag well. It pushes the opponent almost perfectly into a spot that is directly at your dashgrab's closest possible distance unless the opponent is luigi or at high percent.

Small/Quick hits are good lead-ins to grabs.


Other thing, AC'd Dair can bring you close to an opponent and give spacing for a quick buffered dash attack or grab. I've used this a lot.




EDIT: that jab > dashgrab thing I was talking about... that jab can be used as a tech-chase-esque starting move if you hit with the jab. Some characters can hit you quick, but most of the time you have the ability to shield/perfect-shield and punish. If they shield, you get the grab. If they spotdodge, you can bair or nair or dair. It's all dependent... on stuff...

 

[Man of Popsicle]

i dont know if this really helps but ive taken almost every mk ive played game one by abusing nair, bair, and pkt1 (tailwhip guard and head hits, even when in the air), and most of them fall prey to easy pkt2 kos early on.

ftilt is killer vs. fatties

fair is overrated and is more of a support move than an approach

/allthishorribleplayersgot/

EDIT: Not that I've really played any good MK's.

 

[Eagleye893]

Ftilt is really only a good combo finisher. Uair>ftilt racks a total of about 24%. fair>ftilt depends. Dair AC into ftilt is quick and extending with range. The only good thing about ftilt is it's fair amount of range at mid directional and it's higher percent with upward tilt. 12% is higher than basically anything else of ness that is quick (which is why bair is so broke... 15% AND quick...). Ftilt can't kill EVER! if you are lucky enough to get an ftilt on your opponent near the edge of the stage, they deserve to die.


Oh... It's not good enough to go from FH pkfire or PKJUMP.

 

[Red(SP)]

*Sorry, I have taken my post to the Q/A thread*

Thank you for your time.

 

[Eagleye893]

I was going to put something important on here.... what was it? Oh yeah... forgot.

I'll be making a video for how to use PKjump and FH PKfire to more effectiveness shortly in the future. I'm busy today.

 

[Eagleye893]

I'm terribly sorry for the double-posting, but I felt it to be worth noting, b/c this pertains to PK Jump, an aspect un-tapped by many Ness mains.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUCIbO2fRvg

The video doesn't have all the Annotations yet, but it will in the next few days. PLZ watch and see. There are LOTS of things you can do with PK Jump. I might've missed some things.

 

[P.I.E.]

This has all been devilishly useful :3 thanks for all the hardwork and contributions you guys put into the ness boards!

 

[Eagleye893]

Okay, I'm still not finished with this. I've gotta set aside some time to do **** and record some things to post here.

You know how some things are a bit difficult to do from jumping OoS? I personally find doing Dair and PK Fire difficult from jumping OoS, or at least to use them in the manner that they would normally be used. FH PK Fire OoS is difficult to make an aerial followup (Uair, Nair, Fair) possible at the end of the PK Fire. Applying my other jump button wisely (the L button), I've made it possible to jump OoS with a FH PK Fire and still be able to UAir on the ending. Because the time it takes to move your thumb from X to B is significant, using the L button for jump or switching Y to special allows for someone to quickly close up the button timing gap. Just a bit of a hint. You can also use PK Flash more effectively with this, b/c if you jump and immediately use PK Flash, you don't go off the ground and also allow for the PK flash to come out quicker. Basically, this helps for those of you who find difficulty in using OoS punishes effectively. I still need to master FH PK Fire OoS....



Another thing that I may have touched on only slightly is that you can use Ness' Second jump to go back onto stage in cool ways. This has been a gimmick of mine that I use a lot to get around my enemies and destroy their setup to edgeguard. Ness' second jump goes really high an hovers around the full height for a noticeable amOunt of time. Judging from that, I took one of my previous ideas of just snapping to the ledge accurately and modified it so that I LAND ONSTAGE very precisely. Because Ness' Bair, Dair (when timed very well), and Uair all have minimal landing lags, and because being stuck on the ledge is normally a bad idea, judging the second jump height perfectly so that ness only barely goes above the stage allows for some tricks in airdodging, attacking, and just moving around a ledge. You can use this tactic for almost unstoppable edgeguarding (Nair/Bair while rising up, Nair on landing, dtilt for extra catching, then move around to cover whatever may follow), but you need to time the dropping perfectly... Or you can Nair down when they are losing invincibility, Bair, up to catch the getup stuff, and land with Uair/something to catch everything else... It's much easier to have a video to describe this... But basically it just allows for a bunch of smooth movements around stages and their most significant parts so that you get better stage control. I'll show a video of what I mean later once I get some time to do so...

I could probably also touch on PSImagnet around SV's moving platform. I've seen something a bit weird with it, but haven't been able to recreate the oddity. Once, I spaced ness' height above the main stage well enough to PSImag and land on the platform similar to a platform cancel rather than landing on the platform from above. Because PSImagnet and PKT are similar in how ness halts his up/down aerial movement, I was thinking that something similar might apply to PKT... But that's for another day of testing.

Let's get this board searching for some cool stuff about ness! I have only really developed some old ideas, but they're not really helping any more than anything else.

 

[Neon Ness]

Let's get this board searching for some cool stuff about ness! I have only really developed some old ideas, but they're not really helping any more than anything else.

Well, old ideas are all we really have right now. Sometimes it's better to understand/master those than go hunting for new ATs.

Even if there's no new mechanic to explore we all have stuff to improve upon. Personally I think a higher influx of tournament videos from Ness players would be a huge help, so we could get a feel for how the higher level Nesses are winning/playing and learn from that. Of course we still get videos from Shaky which is great, but it'd be great if we could see what others are doing as well. We only really get a few new videos once every blue moon.

A big part of improvement comes out of correcting your own errors of course, but another part of it is learning from the greats. Without a frequent source of tournament level gameplay videos I feel like a lot of mid/lower level Nesses lack a clear example to work from.

I guess what I'm saying is it seems like Ness players are kind of all sparse and doing their own thing when they could be teaching/learning from each other a lot more. I don't know.

 

[Man of Popsicle]

I hate AT's. I'd rather just get good at strategy. And yeah, our community spirit/effort seems to have dwindled over time, though Ness does have more than one effective playstyle.
Also Eagleye, Ness's ledge roll is alright, plus he can drop instadj and air dodge.

Protip: to win play people that suck (MoP recommended strategy)

 

[Eagleye893]

I'm more talking about how ness could deal with on-ledge opponents fairly well... Not that ness being on ledge is a BAD thing, but I'd rather not be the one On ledge.

 

[Man of Popsicle]

Well here's a start; CP stages with hollow floors like Halberd and Delfino.
Other than that I like to drop off dj a little bit away and out of range then PKT2 psych them out and aim towards like a platform.

 

[Eagleye893]

Posting stuff here later today (or very early tomorrow) as to some stuff that I'd need to clarify. I'M USING MY VOICE THIS TIME INSTEAD OF ANNOTATIONS, SO THESE VIDS WILL ACTUALLY BE OF SOME USE! xD

(re-visit of PK Jump, explaining a couple of things)


(explanation of FH Aerials around platforms [BF, SV, Brinstar, Halberd (using different slants), Frigate, PS1 (only main stage), Lylat (only the non-horizontal-movement stuff, b/c implementing all of the slant shifts is difficult), YI (this stage is great for this stuff), PS2 (main stage only), and... other CP stages (not RC, b/c that stage moves too much)])


(rising back to stage from offstage: tips on placement and when to time aerials for most effectiveness)


(PKT2 bounce off the ledge: ATTEMPTS at using the technique; This also includes using the go-through aspect of some stages [halberd, delfino, etc.] to allow yourself to NOT grab the ledge but instead confuse an edge-guarding player.)


-- I may or may not get to more stuff, but this is what I WANT to get done. I have the PK Jump stuff basically finished, but I need to edit out some of the garbage.



-------EDIT: I had stuff to do so this will be a bit postponed in putting up. Now I've got work.