Noa.
Smash Master
I wrote this on Facebook and thought I should say it here as well. This is really a Ness primer.
All right Ness is one of the easier characters to play.
In neutral you want to constantly be in the air. There's not too much of a point to walking and running around a lot.
Just walk up to them and do well spaced short hopped aerials in their face. Nair, fair, and Bair are the aerials you do in neutral. Nair is great for everything and your default. spam that **** it's amazing. Fair is amazing anti air and beats most other aerials in the game. If you think they're going to jump then use a fair to stuff them. Bair is nice cause it does 15% sweet spotted, is super safe on shield cause of pushback, and has more range than nair. Bair comes out frame 10 and nair comes out frame 4 or 5. You'll use nair more often but Bair works too. Fair is not that good against grounded opponents generally.
They key to sh aerials safely to to mixup what you do after you aerial. Like do a rising short hop aerial and then drift away cause you want to space it well and hit with the end of your hitbox. After you're drifting away you have some options. If you did a sh nair you can land with another nair. You can sh double nair. Or as you drift away you can just land on the ground. Though often people will punish you for that. The best option is that after you sh aerial and retreat away, just double jump and do another nair. When you get them to be wary of punishing your landing after you short hop, you can just land.
Just pressure them with aerials constantly. They'll be scared to jump cause your aerials best theirs. And they'll usually just try to shield. Keep jumping at them and condition them to shield. And then just jump at them and tomahawk, and then grab them. A tomahawk is an empty short hop or landing. You just jump into the air to fake them out. So useful for ness and the best way for him to land grabs. Short hop at them and then land and grab them.
That's like the basic game plan for Ness in neutral.
If you're playing against a character who has an aerial that can beat your aerials, such as sheik fair or diddyfair, then you have to play pretty differently though. Stay grounded and just try to run in and shield a lot. Mixup between dash attack, dash grab, and short hop nair. Now earlier when I was talking about short hop nair I was talking about spacing it well. In those cases you move forward diagonally and retreat. Against sheik and Diddy to combat their aerials just run underneath them and do a sh nair straight up.
You can also try to land pk Fire their landing If they land close to you, but you gotta be careful if they still have their double jump.
Pk Fire is not a spacing tool or pressure took. It is way too laggy to be used like that. You use it to punish things and on a hard read. If you hard read a spot dodge you can pk Fire. You can punish them for charging a smash or getting stuck in a laggy move. You can punish them for landing near you without a double jump. Do not just spam pk Fire cause **** is laggy though.
And yeah that's ness in the neutral.
After that make sure you practice your dthrow combos and pk Thunder juggling. It's really important to get good at both. They add tons of extra damage to your oppoenent. Whenever you send them offstage or high into the air, pk Thunder immediately and hit them with it. A good pk Thunder juggle is imperative to winning.
When you want to kill just spam sh uair and randomly dash grab and you'll kill them sooner or later.
All right Ness is one of the easier characters to play.
In neutral you want to constantly be in the air. There's not too much of a point to walking and running around a lot.
Just walk up to them and do well spaced short hopped aerials in their face. Nair, fair, and Bair are the aerials you do in neutral. Nair is great for everything and your default. spam that **** it's amazing. Fair is amazing anti air and beats most other aerials in the game. If you think they're going to jump then use a fair to stuff them. Bair is nice cause it does 15% sweet spotted, is super safe on shield cause of pushback, and has more range than nair. Bair comes out frame 10 and nair comes out frame 4 or 5. You'll use nair more often but Bair works too. Fair is not that good against grounded opponents generally.
They key to sh aerials safely to to mixup what you do after you aerial. Like do a rising short hop aerial and then drift away cause you want to space it well and hit with the end of your hitbox. After you're drifting away you have some options. If you did a sh nair you can land with another nair. You can sh double nair. Or as you drift away you can just land on the ground. Though often people will punish you for that. The best option is that after you sh aerial and retreat away, just double jump and do another nair. When you get them to be wary of punishing your landing after you short hop, you can just land.
Just pressure them with aerials constantly. They'll be scared to jump cause your aerials best theirs. And they'll usually just try to shield. Keep jumping at them and condition them to shield. And then just jump at them and tomahawk, and then grab them. A tomahawk is an empty short hop or landing. You just jump into the air to fake them out. So useful for ness and the best way for him to land grabs. Short hop at them and then land and grab them.
That's like the basic game plan for Ness in neutral.
If you're playing against a character who has an aerial that can beat your aerials, such as sheik fair or diddyfair, then you have to play pretty differently though. Stay grounded and just try to run in and shield a lot. Mixup between dash attack, dash grab, and short hop nair. Now earlier when I was talking about short hop nair I was talking about spacing it well. In those cases you move forward diagonally and retreat. Against sheik and Diddy to combat their aerials just run underneath them and do a sh nair straight up.
You can also try to land pk Fire their landing If they land close to you, but you gotta be careful if they still have their double jump.
Pk Fire is not a spacing tool or pressure took. It is way too laggy to be used like that. You use it to punish things and on a hard read. If you hard read a spot dodge you can pk Fire. You can punish them for charging a smash or getting stuck in a laggy move. You can punish them for landing near you without a double jump. Do not just spam pk Fire cause **** is laggy though.
And yeah that's ness in the neutral.
After that make sure you practice your dthrow combos and pk Thunder juggling. It's really important to get good at both. They add tons of extra damage to your oppoenent. Whenever you send them offstage or high into the air, pk Thunder immediately and hit them with it. A good pk Thunder juggle is imperative to winning.
When you want to kill just spam sh uair and randomly dash grab and you'll kill them sooner or later.
