Ness Matchup Discussion (PRELIMINARY)

[ShuckleBoard]

Also, a question. If you hit Luigi with fsmash when he's using Green Missile, will he fly the opposite direction, or just be hit like normal?

He just gets hit normally or clashes if he is close enough to you because the missile is not classified as a projectile.

 

[Bowserdude]

He just gets hit normally or clashes if he is close enough to you because the missile is not classified as a projectile.

Oh. Would've been kinda funny to watch him fly off the ledge.

 

[Earthbound360]

You can absorb the fireballs all you want, in fact I'd argue that PSIM makes this matchup a lot easier for Ness than a lot of other characters. You shouldn't get caught in the lag of PSIM as long as you're magnet cancelling properly and mix up your escape options out of the cancel.

I have a lot of experience vs. Luigi since I play in state against 2fast and Boss often. But don't move on from Sonic just yet, I still have some thought I want to post, probably tonight or tomorrow night.

 

[Dee-SmashinBoss]

When can we talk about Kirby or Peach,
Btw I read somewhere that PKT2 makes ness a projectile?
If that's the case, then Zelda too.

 

[NSunderdog]

definitely rossluma

 

[Earthbound360]

Ohhhkay Sonic, been holding out a bit on my thoughts here but I do have some (not as much as I'd like to have though).

Lemme just get this out of the way first. This matchup is BAD. Like seriously, bad, probably our worst.

So let's start with the neutral. This is the worst or second worst part of the matchup here. You can NOT just go throwing out aerials defensively. I don't care what it is, or how safe you think it is, Sonic in his optimal range can ALWAYS punish it, yes that includes fade back SH fair. There's a particularly big part here I want to discuss that I call Sonic's "zone." When Sonic is about half an FD away from you, this is his zone. This is the perfect stick and move location for him where he can hover just outside of your range, but move quickly in to punish any attack you throw out. You do NOT want to let him in this zone. You either want him very far away, to the point where not even his speed can punish your moves, or be right up in his face (preferrably this one, since this is advantageous for Ness).

Needless to say, don't use PKF in this matchup. You can get punished for this just about anywhere.

Now while Sonic IS in his zone, you MUST know his movement options and spin dash tricks. Please please PLEASE do yourself a favor and sit in training mode as Sonic for a few minutes and get a grasp of his options out of his side B spin dash. Upon starting the spin dash, Sonic backs up. During this time, he can shield and jump cancel it. These are primary fake outs that you MUST know exist. Refrain from throwing out any instinctive moves when dealing with these fake outs. Sonic players always sit in his zone, and toss these babies out, waiting for you to make a move, then they capitalize on it. After that initial "rollback," Sonic loses access to the shield fake. At this point, he must commit to actually rolling in your direction, or use the jump cancel (which isn't nearly as threatening IMO).

During the actual attack of the spin dash, Sonic can jump and turn around. Turning around has no hitbox temporarily, while jumping adds another hitbox and allows him to do an aerial follow up. This is the Sonic BnB, and the reason why getting hit by spin dash is so dangerous. That's 3 hitboxes mind you, so when you see that ball of death coming in, shield or dodge potentially 3 hits. Sonic cannot grab during spin dash, but if he hits your shield, he'll probably just jump away anyways.

I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to know spin dash mechanics. Familiarize yourself with them, and try to not ever fall victim to his fake outs when Sonic is in his zone. Falling for these attacks and throwing out whiffed attacks is EXACTLY what Sonic players want us to do. You must be very pinpoint and deliberate with your hits here.

Now let's say you get Sonic out of his zone. You're right up in his face, he can't abuse spin dash tricks or weave in and out of your range. This is actually where the matchup gets good. Sonic' up close game really isn't spectacular. His priority is average, and at this range your combo damage is much better. Basically, once you're in his face, make the most of it, and try not to let him get away from you again.

When it comes to comboing Sonic, PKF is mediocre. His quick UpB can get him out of it. PKT juggles I feel are tough on him too because of his UpB with his dive kick combined. His UpB also drops a hitbox downwards, so it might just eat your thunder. Sonic just has so many ways of changing his aerial momentum, and if you miss with thunder, you're probably gonna get punished because he's so fast. I'd stick with mostly grabs and aerials for damage.

For aerials, Ness actually wins this by a long shot. Unless you've been set up by a spin dash jump, you should win most aerial encounters. Fair can pretty much do this alone. Not much else to say here. You wanna take him to the air. If he's up there, he's not dominating the ground.

Now for the KO phase. Sonic had a huge buff to his KO ability in this game, with fsmash gaining range, and usmash and bthrow gaining KO power. I still think Ness has better KO moves, but Sonic has an easier time landing them. It is INCREDIBLY hard for Ness to land a grab in this matchup, I'd say more difficult than any other character in this game (and that's one of the reasons this matchup sucks so much). Sure, Ness will KO him sooner, but Sonic will have many more opportunities here. Be wary of Sonic's dash grab and dashing into usmash. You should rarely get hit by uthrow into uair, just air dodge that, and NEVER let him have that opportunity. It may be an even aspect of the matchup overall.

Off stage is a nightmare. I'd say Sonic is one of the more potent edgeguarders of Ness, right up there with Sheik and Rosy. Respect the spring gimp. You don't want to get hit with it during any part of PKT2, even the invincible part. The spring will cut the distance of PKT2 in half even if you don't get hurt by it. If you do, it semi spikes, which is never good. On top of that, Sonic can go VERY deep with his edgeguards if he feels like it (though it seems like few Sonic players go for this strategy) because of his large recovery. Gimping Sonic is also no easy task. He's got multiple recovery options in the form of spin dashes, homing attacks, and that amazing spring recovery. PKT edgeguards are okay here, not great IMO. Definitely a bad part of the matchup here. Never get caught off stage, and try to be as safe and accurate with your own edgeguards as possible.

I think that covers basically everything I have to say here. So quick tips:
1. Know how spin dash works
2. Don't fall for spin dash fakes
3. Get him in the air
4. Don't be off stage
5. Very limited use of PKF
6. Get in close
7. Don't get uthrow -> uaired
8. Don't abuse fair. I know it feels safe in a lot of matchups but it really isn't here.
9. A little extra one, try to spot dodge homing attack if you see it coming. The lag when he hits the ground is huge.

Final notes, I don't think it's safe to say a "punish game" is what's most effective on Sonic. Sonic has a bunch of nigh unpunishable **** in his aresenal. What I really feel like you should be doing is a strong prediction game, anticipating his movements and getting in when you can.
The matchup overall is -2 straight for me. No more, no less.

 

[PKBeam]

Btw I read somewhere that PKT2 makes ness a projectile?

It doesn't, and I don't believe there's any evidence anywhere that suggests that this is true.

 

[ShuckleBoard]

I vote for Luigi for next discussion interested in what EarthBound360 has to say .

 

[Spiritmonger]

Nakat post a video guide to handle Sonic, it may help some of you
I fell you have to wait and punish his side b with uair, or pkf if you're quick enough.
nair to get out of his chains
cp stages with plateform, I feel BF is a good one

 

[Yink]

Since people seem to be winding down on Sonic, I think our next potential ones to discuss (from what I've seen in the previous posts) would either be Luigi or Zero Suit Samus. Thoughts?

 

[Earthbound360]

I have more knowledge on Weegee, but I'm going to be playing a good amount of ZSS this upcoming week. Either one works for me.

 

[kj22]

Interesting that ness mains think the mu's heavily in sonic's favor...in brawl was the mu close to even?

As a sonic secondary I dislike this mu because #hottoapproachwithsonic...Ness has a quick gtfo moves with nair and jab upon landing, and fair is hard to shield grab because of it's multiple hits. As long as you're not throwing out laggy moves while Sonic's nowhere near you it can be pretty tough to get in.

I feel like played optimally, this match will definitely go time, especially if the sonic has the lead.
Curious why you guys didn't ask the sonic boards/ask boards to help with mu? I'm guessing this is preliminary like the title says so you aren't doing that atm?

 

[gilligan156]

So I hate to come in and suggest changing everything but ...

Wouldn't it make more sense to make a new thread for each matchup discussion (one new one per week?) and keep a main thread stickied with the discussion results and links to the individual threads? Matchup metas change, it would allow discussions on the matchup to continue and videos/gifs to accumulate, and it would make it wayyyyy easier to find relevant discussion on the matchup you want to improve at. Additionally it would allow for multiple matchup discussions at once.

Just my thoughts...

 

[PKBeam]

preliminary matchup discussion.

i feel like luigi's tougher than ZSS, even moreso without MU knowledge.

 

[Earthbound360]

Luigi is ****ing scary. You've got to know your stuff in this matchup.

 

[PKBeam]

yeah he is actually.
up-b still gives me shivers.

 

[Nkguy01]

What would you say is best to do against a Sonic that uses spin dish to either jump or kind of run into you? He kind of used it like Jigz rollout in the sense that he rolled straight into me. I fought Kj's Sonic that rarely approached once he had the lead. It was incredibly hard to catch up to him once he had the lead.

I tried to challenge it by holding the jab button. It clanked but it did bring Ness and Sonic closer to eachother.

I also got a lucky pivot grab once he ran in with spin dash and killed. Didn't expect it to work since attacks beat grabs so I'm assuming I caught the ending animation of the spin dash.

 

[Earthbound360]

First step is to NOT fear the spin dash coming at you. That's not what makes Sonic scary. The spin dash taking off is what scares me, because that's where all the mindgames come in (holding the charge, shielding out of the charge, jumping out of the charge, etc.).

I personalyl love when Sonic jsut comes straight at me. I usually just SH nair, and it beats it so long as you time it right. I've also pivot grabbed Sonic out of it for the KO, but that's a bit harder to time. Thing's will get a bit more tricky when they start prematurely jumping out of spin dash and go into things like homing attacks, but for the sake of handling a head on spin dash, nair works just fine.

I have a match of me vs. Seagull Joe that I think I'll post when it goes up on Youtube. You can see exactly how I challenge the spin dash constantly.

 

[Nkguy01]

First step is to NOT fear the spin dash coming at you. That's not what makes Sonic scary. The spin dash taking off is what scares me, because that's where all the mindgames come in (holding the charge, shielding out of the charge, jumping out of the charge, etc.).

I personalyl love when Sonic jsut comes straight at me. I usually just SH nair, and it beats it so long as you time it right. I've also pivot grabbed Sonic out of it for the KO, but that's a bit harder to time. Thing's will get a bit more tricky when they start prematurely jumping out of spin dash and go into things like homing attacks, but for the sake of handling a head on spin dash, nair works just fine.

I have a match of me vs. Seagull Joe that I think I'll post when it goes up on Youtube. You can see exactly how I challenge the spin dash constantly.

Dude yes. Post the video please haha. I'm probably going to watch Nakat's later today.

 

[FullMoon]

Hey Ness mains, the Greninja boards are going to discuss the Ness MU and we would appreciate any input from you guys as that one can be kinda weird: http://smashboards.com/threads/mast...ypuff-ness-charizard-3-16-3-23.369356/page-14

It shouldn't take too long, so homesickness shouldn't strike.

 

[Phoenix_Dark]

After that initial "rollback," Sonic loses access to the fake. At this point, he must commit to actually rolling in your direction.

I just wanted to correct this as it's untrue. Yes, he can no longer shield cancel at this point, but by no means is he forced to approach at this point. Sonic can still jump straight up out of his charge by hitting the attack button. This vertical hop has a hitbox that's pretty good at catching people trying to jump over you. He can also choose to hit the jump button to hop around in the charging animation, but this has no hitbox until the special is released and turns into the actual attacks hitbox. This option really isn't all that useful, but it's still another option. One of Sonic's greatest strengths is his lack of commitment to his approaches. Knowing these options is integral to winning the matchup.

 

[Earthbound360]

I think I worded that poorly. I meant to say he loses access to that shield cancel fake (hence me saying "the fake"). But yes it is true, Sonic can jump cancel his spin dash charge whenever he wants. I feel like this is a lot more predictable though, and you don't have to worry as much once he's done charging the roll. Those jumps aren't that threatening, especially since Ness WANTS Sonic to be in the air.

 

[Yink]

So I hate to come in and suggest changing everything but ...

Wouldn't it make more sense to make a new thread for each matchup discussion (one new one per week?) and keep a main thread stickied with the discussion results and links to the individual threads? Matchup metas change, it would allow discussions on the matchup to continue and videos/gifs to accumulate, and it would make it wayyyyy easier to find relevant discussion on the matchup you want to improve at. Additionally it would allow for multiple matchup discussions at once.

Just my thoughts...

If you want to go ahead and do this by all means. It's preliminary right now as it is, but I'm down with you making a thread now that the game is out and the meta is developing nicely.

 

[DavemanCozy]

I promise you the airwing flying over Onett is not an alien ship. It's just me from the Fox boards letting you know that we've started discussion on the
vs MU

Click here to let us know about your thoughts on the Ness vs Fox matchup.

 

[Pazx]

I'd like to see Luco's thoughts on a lot of the prominent Sydney characters in general, but I've struggled with ZSS more than Luigi so I'm happy to discuss that.

 

[ShuckleBoard]

I'm fine with ZSS so let's do it!

 

[Douchuumen]

Any thoughts on Shulk? He probably outranges Ness and can trouble him offstage but I'm not sure what else to think about the matchup.

 

[Luco]

Hahahaha funny you should mention that, I'm literally discussing it right now in a bunch of VMs on Berserker01's profile with SolidSense. I'll get back to you on it at some point, it appears to be a very interesting MU. :o

 

[Ffamran]

Batter up! The Falco boards introduced their Ness matchup discussion and would love the star player to give his tips on batting, pitching, and catching. Link to the thread: http://smashboards.com/threads/ssb4-falco-matchup-discussion-21-ness-soccer-vs-baseball.396527/.

A little note: this is an ongoing thread, so drop in whenever and if you want to fight more Falcos, then check out this thread: http://smashboards.com/threads/anyone-want-to-exchange-nnids-or-friend-codes.386513/.

 

[epic11]

The only characters i have trouble with as a ness main are: Sonic, Rosalina and luma. Also camping characters like megaman, link, Rob and greninja but maybe thats just my personal problem. For all the other characters i don't really see bad matchups for Ness as long as you try to not get juggled and use your Up B well.

 

[Luco]

So the Rosi boards have us a 70:30 MU in their favour.

Are you guys sure we shouldn't be inviting others to discuss our MUs with us?

 

[Earthbound360]

So the Rosi boards have us a 70:30 MU in their favour.

Are you guys sure we shouldn't be inviting others to discuss our MUs with us?

We did invite them. A long time ago. No one came.

I honestly hate discussing matchups with other character boards because they always have a huge in-group mentality. They always think the matchup is vastly in their favor, no matter what character, and they think that all of the ambassadors are idiots for thinking otherwise. Plus, I hate arguing.

Personally, I don't care if they think it's 70:30. I'll let them think that, then uair them at 90% for the KO.

 

[Ffamran]

We did invite them. A long time ago. No one came.

I honestly hate discussing matchups with other character boards because they always have a huge in-group mentality. They always think the matchup is vastly in their favor, no matter what character, and they think that all of the ambassadors are idiots for thinking otherwise. Plus, I hate arguing.

Personally, I don't care if they think it's 70:30. I'll let them think that, then uair them at 90% for the KO.

The Falco boards are the opposite; we think either everything murders us or goes even at best.

 

[PKBeam]

a lot of people just overrate gimps, especially on ness.
it's like they believe that they can slap an instant disadvantage offstage because PKT2 works differently from most recoveries.

no-one bothers to actually think about it.
just like grab release.

 

[Earthbound360]

How much you wanna bet we have bad matchups against Mario, G&W, Villager, and Jigglypuff according to their boards?

 

[PKBeam]

I can't find any Ness MU discussion on their boards.
But honestly I wouldn't be surprised if some of the Marios put down +2 beause "he can gimp ness super easy" or something like that.

 

[Earthbound360]

I have actually never been gimped by a Mario ever. Fludd, cape, not even fair spiked.

I mean, I think I've been baired into the stage like once, but anyone can do that lol.

What non-Ness mains fail to realize is that Ness is very capable of recovering without using PKT2 most of the time. The at the times he must, he's usually able to push the opponent out of the position to gimp before using it.

 

[Kodystri]

I have actually never been gimped by a Mario ever. Fludd, cape, not even fair spiked.

I mean, I think I've been baired into the stage like once, but anyone can do that lol.

What non-Ness mains fail to realize is that Ness is very capable of recovering without using PKT2 most of the time. The at the times he must, he's usually able to push the opponent out of the position to gimp before using it.

SOOO TRUE! LOL. The only time I have to use PKT2 is when I edgeguard or I messed up and they hit me farther to the point I have to use PKT2. Even when I have to use PKT2, I learned how to angle it quite well so I can grab the edge from any position.

 

[Kodystri]

I can't find any Ness MU discussion on their boards.
But honestly I wouldn't be surprised if some of the Marios put down +2 beause "he can gimp ness super easy" or something like that.

A lot of characters can gimp Ness super easy if he has to use PKT2

 

[yoshi8984]

I have actually never been gimped by a Mario ever. Fludd, cape, not even fair spiked.

This recovery tho.
And I still 2-stocked the guy with me living at like 187% lol