Ness Mains Almost Extinct?

[ιota [UPSB]]

Basically what this guy said. I main Falcon in Melee and second Ness but I'm thinking of dropping Falcon for the most part. I just have SO much fun with Ness. It's my dream to get good.

lol, are you me? I feel exactly the same way ;_;

I keep trying to think about other, better mid-low tier characters I could pick up and main instead of Ness, that I would find just as fun and really enjoy the movement of, but short of maaaaybe Yoshi, no dice haha.

 

[FearTheTree]

For all the Ness mains here, what are some characters to cover Ness' weaknesses? I main Ness and need to find some counters for his counters.

 

[Gatoray]

For all the Ness mains here, what are some characters to cover Ness' weaknesses? I main Ness and need to find some counters for his counters.

I feel that Peach is not only good enough (if played well) to counter high tiers, but her movement feels pretty similar to Ness with the DJCs, floatiness and all that.

 

[ιota [UPSB]]

Also, while I don't think I'm that qualified to give advice, you should ideally look for a high tier character that can handle sheik, falco, prolly fox, and other rough matchups for ness. iirc Sheik and Falco wreck Ness the hardest, so maybe decide based around those matchups and some others if possible? Ultimately it depends on what kind of character you'd actually want to play... but there aren't very many matchups (almost none that'd come up in a tourney setting) that're considered favorable for Ness on a character vs. character basis, so just plan around the really really rough matchups if you really don't care what the secondary character you pick up feels/plays like.

 

[Gatoray]

iirc Sheik and Falco wreck Ness the hardest.

Not Marth? I have the most trouble with Marth. Am I missing some important matchup tricks?

 

[ιota [UPSB]]

Well again I don't really know that well, I'd ask an actually experienced Ness player, but from what I've read here briefly I think there are definitely worse matchups for Ness. It's not really that Marth is easy, iirc that's also a fairly tough matchup potentially, but it isn't as bad as some others, which you should probably plan around more if you're going to pick up a secondary for the purposes of complementing Ness' really bad matchups.

I may be wrong, though, and if that's the case then let me know .-. (imo Marth is sort of just a noob stomper, in the sense that he punishes hard for misspacing and mistakes that newer players like myself will make frequently....like my Falcon gets kinda wrecked by Marths, but that doesn't have any reflection on the actual matchup)

 

[KirbyKaze]

Not Marth? I have the most trouble with Marth. Am I missing some important matchup tricks?

You're probably jumping too much or lingering in the air at bad times.

 

[Gatoray]

You're probably jumping too much or lingering in the air at bad times.

What else am I supposed to do? Dash attack is disjointed but a big pain when it misses. None of Ness' other quick ground attacks have enough range to beat the sword. The only other thing I can think of doing is baiting (which only works for so long), going for the hard-head PK Fire, or spamming DJCFFL Fairs. PK Thunder can work sometimes, but it's like, the second most punishable move in the game if it misses.

I guess Usmash or reverse Dsmash could be used somehow...

 

[KirbyKaze]

If you're trying to straight up beat Marth's attacks then you're doing yourself a disservice. You simply don't have enough range to focus on that as a main strategy with ANYTHING in your moveset aside from spacing fair (which is not difficult for Marth to space around by any means since his movement is faster than yours and your fair is also crouch / shield grab food).

In contrast, the ground affords you stronger defensive tools (crouch, dodges, shield) while simultaneously giving you more flexibility with your movement (dash, wavedash, dodges). The air isn't totally useless -- you want Marth to try and swat you so you're gonna have to spend some time airborne -- but you don't want to linger there. In general, Marth leaves himself more vulnerable to being hit or pushed when his moves are misplaced because his attacks are laggier than the average top tier. So the idea is you're gonna goad him into swinging, weave inside him with your ground movement, and go to work from there. Then you stick to him. This is how basically every character who doesn't have the gift of flight, a broken projectile, or Lil' Vicky's tap dancing shoes plays against Marth.

Once you're inside his range, you have a lot more freedom with what you do because Marth is not as strong up close as he is at mid-range. But until you've actually crossed that threshold, you're probably doing yourself few favours by jumping in with... whatever the hell you're jumping in with.

 

[Double Helix]

KirbyKaze basically summed it up. Marth players that just come in at you because you are a kid that isn't very good against most of the cast, use your wavedashes and wavedashes OoS to do the job. After baiting one of his swings its really easy to open him up with a DJC fair -> grab. Once you've grabbed him, he is pretty easy to keep hitting. Like with every character that you face as Ness, you need to win the neutral game.

Something that will probably work once against campy Marth players because you are Ness and can't approach is PK Fire. As bad as the move is, he can hit it out of the air with his sword, then it still goes through. So he can't really shield because he is still in ending lag from using a move.

As for the worst matchups...Sheik is worse than Falco who is worse than the rest of the cast. I would rather face Jigglypuff, Marth, Falcon, Fox, and Ice Climbers consistently in a bracket than to see either of those two characters. Sheik can chain-grab you and has needles. Falco has lasers. So far, my best stage pick against Falco is his (in my opinion) best overall stage, Yoshi's Story. It sucks.

As for Sheik, it is kinda like facing Marth...only now the lag after a move is done is far shorter, and her aerials are still better than yours. Also don't get grabbed. And she out-camps you. So have fun with that. I know I am x.x

In the end, Fox is not that rough of a matchup (as far as I have played). I would rather face him than Marth. It sucks for sure, but he is very comboable.

 

[KirbyKaze]

I like PK Fire vs Marth as an edgeguard

 

[Gatoray]

Against the spacies lasers, sometimes you can cheese yourself some health back with PSI Magnet if you are far away enough. Once they realize you're actually willing to use that move, you can sorta bait them with it if you time it right. Probably the biggest gimmick in the game though, only useful until someone realizes that move still exists.

 

[Double Helix]

I like PK Fire vs Marth as an edgeguard

PK Fire is a good edgeguard against spacies who like to wall-jump illusion as well. Against Marth, I still need to try CC->bat.

 

[KirbyKaze]

You can SH PK fire on illusion sweet spots too.

 

[ιota [UPSB]]

Nice, so just toss it right at/ in front of the ledge? How forgiving is the spacing on that, or does it need to practically hit the very edge?

 

[Double Helix]

I will have to try it. Which means I need to face some spacies. I really just prefer Ftilt though. For UpB, the bat should be sufficient if they go for the edge if you don't have time to go offstage.

It seems like most people who face Marth (that I have seen) never make use of the old school Marth killer. Is there a reason for that?

 

[ιota [UPSB]]

So I would love to main Ness, but the fact that he's generally thought of as being in F-tier, i.e. unplayable tier, is a little disconcerting. It's not that I really care about tiers all that much, I enjoy playing characters that I find fun, and since I think Ness is really fun, I'm always going to play him regardless of where he stands relative to the rest of the cast.

With that said, though, I feel like it would be a huge sink of time and effort, and relatively fruitless, to really decide to pick him up as a main. If I wanted to do that, and really try and push a low/mid-low tier character like Ness to their limits, I would probably rather pick up someone like Yoshi or something, idk, that could potentially actually show results. But not that long ago, Yoshi was thought of as way less viable than he is now (like bottom of B tier, close to not usable, vs. higher up in that and somewhat more usable).


My point is, I guess, the following question directed toward both the other newer ness players like myself, and also more importantly, the more experienced/strong/dedicated Ness players:

Do you think Ness has the potential to be even just a bit higher-tier/stronger than he is? Is he under-represented and untapped, and thus "unplayable tier", or is he really just THAT bad, regardless of how far we could try to push him?

I think even if he has the potential to be the lowest character considered "situationally playable/general not viable, but sometimes is", it would give me more drive to improve with him, but I know that I don't have the experience or the knowledge to really determine that, which is why I'm asking ^^

 

[Gatoray]

I feel your pain, and I'll admit I've been working on my Peach more since everything I learn in the lab with Ness has almost no practicality in an actual match. Also, since Ness has such a unique play style, I find it very hard to switch between him and my other mains, specifically Peach. All these things combined are discouraging me from ever playing him in a serious tournament match and therefore discouraging me to seriously practice him anymore.

However, I don't feel like he's at a complete loss. I think he can at LEAST gain enough notoriety to graduate from F tier into the same tier as the somewhat viable low tiers. I feel Mofo has done enough to show that he has potential and is not a complete joke. Also, even though the lag is really stupid on PK Fire, I still think there is some undiscovered technology such as ledge-canceled PK Fire. Yes it does exist, it's just hard since there's a really small timing window for it to actually be useful.

I still feel "at home" with Ness. When I play Peach I find myself going into autopilot a lot and overall not really knowing how to adapt. With Ness, over time I find that my adaptability is accelerated, partially due to a sandbag effect and partially due to that low tier pride that comes with maining Ness.

I think I'll keep him a secret and pull him out when people least expect it... as long as they're not playing Sheik or Falco.

 

[LovinMitts]

I main both Ness and Sheik, with Falcon and Puff as secondaries. I use Ness for spacies, Falcon for Marth, and I pull out Sheik or Puff when I encounter a weird matchup for Ness, and Puff if the spacie I'm playing is just too much for my Ness.

 

[dan smith]

i secondary peach and i'm terrible with her. she does have some playstyle similarities though.

overall i think ness deserves to be garbage tier, although if you don't get hit, you can easily take down high tier characters.