Ness Matchups

[Kensou]

Well as the title says, I do believe most of us should make a comprehensive guide to Ness's matchups, either to start with his worst matchups so we can figure out ways to overcome them, or start with the good ones to reconfirm Ness's supremacy. I'm by no means a pro but I just felt in love with Ness aerial game in Brawl that it was enough reason to main him in this game.

Anyways, so far Ness's worst matchups seem to be:

Wolf
Game & Watch
Marth

and a good Matchup would be:

Bowser

Feel free to add any kind of tips VS any other char.

 

[Earthbound360]

I dont like facing a Metaknight either. His moves are long enough and quick nough to hit Ness out of any aerial combos he may attempt, and hitting him with a dthrow feels useless due to his ability to fly out. Also, his edgeguarding kills Ness off stage since he has a pretty abusable recovery.

I surprisingly do well against Ike and Olimar though.Ike is just so punishable and Ness outspeeds him in the air even with his bair. Also, PK Fire makes a GREAT lag punisher for Ike since his moves are all laggy and just out of range of PKF. He also gets caught up in it quite nicely.

Olimar also may have those strong aerials, but Ness seems to be able to outrange them except for maybe his uair.

 

[bylim5]

marth is my nightmare

 

[DiasFlac]

Olimar is also his worst match up (imo) he can gimp his recovery really easy. (just by throwing a Pikman on him)

 

[Smashbros_7]

Earthbound 360, teach me how to beat Olimar!

 

[Masky]

Zelda and Pikachu are good matchups (imo) for Ness because he can avoid Din's fire, Thunder, or Thundershock wih PSI Magnet or reflect them with the bat. Thunder heals like 30% :o

 

[Firus]

I agree with most of what's been said so far--I've found Olimar, Pikachu, and Zelda to be good matchups for Ness, and Meta Knight, Wolf, and Marth to be tough.

The other day, I was facing my friend, who was Down B (with Pikachu) spamming on Hyrule Temple in the bottom part, and then I went up to the top where it was coming down and used PSI Magnet. He stopped spamming (at least for the moment).

 

[Mushy]

Eh, pikachu seems pretty similar to Ness in the air (as close a mouse can get to a boy).
But the thunder has such little lag and way too much range for me. help?

Wolf is hard, but seriously, he's not a Ness counterpick or anything. Keep him in the air and you have a slight advantage.

....Marth is my nightmare too. The only way I can do anything is by mindgaming and DI-ing simultaneously... It's like.....juggling and running a decathalon.

 

[Earthbound360]

^^^
I disagree. WOlf is 100x harder than Marth. His blaster just keeps Ness away from him forever and his fast fall speed makes him hard to combo in the air since he can just fastfall and airdodge.

 

[PK-ow!]

Basically, when fighting Wolf or Marth, I don't let them jump. And you have to dodge Marth's Fair spamming like MAD.
Your advantage now, that you didn't have in Melee, (in addition to the general power boost ) is your jump is actually higher now.

You have to be where Marth's sword doesn't want you to be.

Earthbound360, concerning Wolf: That's what PK Thunder is for.

Oh, and Nair. Its hitbox strangely lingers after the animation apparently ends, and with full power. If Wolf is dodgy, Nair will get him when he comes back. And you can still float away thx to the low lag.

 

[Wave⁂]

The new PSI Magnet cancel should make Ness's matchups against many characters easier, like Wolf.

 

[Fatmanonice]

The new PSI Magnet cancel should make Ness's matchups against many characters easier, like Wolf.

PSI Magnet cancel? How does that work?

 

[Firus]

PSI Magnet cancel? How does that work?

I could explain it to you, but I think the best way to explain this is for you to just go to [thread=162092]this thread[/thread] and read the first post.

The PSI Magnet Cancel is very useful, in my opinion.

 

[thesage]

Worst:

Marth, Toon Link, and GaW.

I haven't played a good GaW yet, but from looking at the character's potential (bair) he ***** everybody.

I also have yet to play a really spammy toon link but that's the problem. He's the only character (besides Link) where Ness can't do anything to their projectiles except dodge, shield, and bat reflect (situational).

Marth is still a problem, but nowhere near as bad as in melee.

Pit probably will cause problems until people learn that Pit has one of the most gimpable up-bs ever. Then the pit players will learn how to glide, then everyone learns to edgeguard that. I just spam fair and make good use of the psi magnet cancel.

Link could cause problems if u have a hard time approaching him. Watch of for that dair.

Unlike other characters he doesn't have a matchup equivalent to his sheik matchup in melee.

Use psi magnet to push away snakes grenades. Use pk fire to blow up his d-smash bomb after he's planted it and he's still close to it.

Ness' fair is still good, SPAM it. Upsmash is good too ^_^. D-smash is like a reverse up-smash or w/e lol.

IMO: Ness isn't top tier material, but he certainly isn't trash. He's still underrepped by good players (like in 64 T_T). I predict him to be mid tier most likely. At best lower upper tier. I can't see him being low tier as he really doesn't have that many bad matchups compared to a lot of the characters (Mario, PT, Samus).

As long as a counter to him equivalent to shiek in melee doesn't happen, he's playable in tournaments IMO.

Edit: He won two times who won two times? I think Ille qui vincit bis, vincit bis works better?

Da mihi caput =P

 

[Conda]

Anyone else having problems with ROB?

 

[Masky]

Rob can be a pain because he has both an energy projectile (laser) and a solid projectile (gyro), along with him just being a great character. I think fair still outprioritizes Rob's air attacks though, though I do recall being outprioritized at least a couple of times. Ness can duck his laser too btw, which can be useful if you don't know which projectile he's going to use and don't want a gyro thrown at you while you're in PSI Magnet

Oh, yeah, and the last Rob I played I was able to pull off this combo consistently: dthrow -> fair -> AAA -> PK Thunder (-> ???)