Picking up Ness as a Secondary

[Dumpabump]

What are the MUST know things that I should learn about Ness?

Any help is appreciated!

 

[PapaJ]

What are the MUST know things that I should learn about Ness?

Any help is appreciated!

-Do not spam PKfire. As much as people love to complain the recovery and distance of the move is only good if you know what you're doing.

-Dthrow > Fair > Fair is a combo you should get used to. It does 22% damage and you can juggle your opponents offstage.

-Do not Stale Back-throw. If you grab an opponent near the ledge and you can't kill with it you're better off doing a Fthrow, Dthrow, Uthrow and trying to rack more damage.

-PKthunder is an amazing offstage tool as it can do 8% damage + 1% with every hit of the "tail" of pkthunder.

-With relation to the above tip if the opponent is getting close to the ledge and you need to move aim the PKthunder at ness that way you will be launched roughly midstage.

-You're offstage game consists of using Fairs to push them away. Bair for KO's/damage, Uair for KO's/damage. Along with PKT you should be fine in attacking offstage

-When recovering with PKT2, when Ness hits himself, if you angle it right on the left side of the stage you'll slide up the stage making it harder for opponents to gimp. To my knowledge this can only be done on the left side the right side will cause you to bash your head and possibly die.

-If you ever find yourself hitting the side of a stage don't worry you have a small window of time to input another PKT to try and recover. Timing is important so practice it otherwise you'll die sooner then you should

-PKT2 can kill ridiculously early. You also have Invincibility Frames for the first 1/3rd of the move. This means no matter what the opponent does they cannot stop you. However when ness hits an opponent or item his distance traveled is reduced a bit meaning you may not be able to make it to the stage. Also try to recover as close as possible.

-Because of PKT2 I-Frames you can get some good kills with PKT2. Uthrow > Up B > Ness if the opponent is fast falling and you can tell where they will be in relation to you. This isn't necessary but it's good to have under your sleeve for some sneaky kills.

And that's all I can think of. If anyone else can think of something that'd be great.

 

[Dumpabump]

-Do not spam PKfire. As much as people love to complain the recovery and distance of the move is only good if you know what you're doing.

-Dthrow > Fair > Fair is a combo you should get used to. It does 22% damage and you can juggle your opponents offstage.

-Do not Stale Back-throw. If you grab an opponent near the ledge and you can't kill with it you're better off doing a Fthrow, Dthrow, Uthrow and trying to rack more damage.

-PKthunder is an amazing offstage tool as it can do 8% damage + 1% with every hit of the "tail" of pkthunder.

-With relation to the above tip if the opponent is getting close to the ledge and you need to move aim the PKthunder at ness that way you will be launched roughly midstage.

-You're offstage game consists of using Fairs to push them away. Bair for KO's/damage, Uair for KO's/damage. Along with PKT you should be fine in attacking offstage

-When recovering with PKT2, when Ness hits himself, if you angle it right on the left side of the stage you'll slide up the stage making it harder for opponents to gimp. To my knowledge this can only be done on the left side the right side will cause you to bash your head and possibly die.

-If you ever find yourself hitting the side of a stage don't worry you have a small window of time to input another PKT to try and recover. Timing is important so practice it otherwise you'll die sooner then you should

-PKT2 can kill ridiculously early. You also have Invincibility Frames for the first 1/3rd of the move. This means no matter what the opponent does they cannot stop you. However when ness hits an opponent or item his distance traveled is reduced a bit meaning you may not be able to make it to the stage. Also try to recover as close as possible.

-Because of PKT2 I-Frames you can get some good kills with PKT2. Uthrow > Up B > Ness if the opponent is fast falling and you can tell where they will be in relation to you. This isn't necessary but it's good to have under your sleeve for some sneaky kills.

And that's all I can think of. If anyone else can think of something that'd be great.

Thank you very much! I will keep this all in mind

Who are the toughest and easiest matchups for Ness?

Also, any other variations of d-throw combos? I feel like the fair one would get stale after a while. Would tomahawking be a good idea to bait out the airdodge then punish the landing lag?

I see in a lot of Ness videos that the player does a short hop before starting PKT. Why is that, and should I start doing that?

 

[Greward]

Also, any other variations of d-throw combos? I feel like the fair one would get stale after a while. Would tomahawking be a good idea to bait out the airdodge then punish the landing lag?

dthrow fair - more fairs or up air works
dthrow nair - bair sometimes works too
dthrow up air

landing up air is a pretty good combo starter too.

tomahawking after dthrow can work at low %, although it's rarely used since you usually prefer to just go for the fair string.

It's very important as Ness to master PK Thunder.
PK fire is a good landing punish, it is also usable when you knock the opponent down with nair at mid percents. In neutral game PK fire can catch a dash startup but it's risky.

Neutral game is mostly Fair to beat aerial approach, nair to beat dash grab, and bair for shield pressure, looking for dash grab whenever possible. There are mixups of course but this is the basics. Tomahawking as Ness in neutral game is also very good since he's an aerial heavy character and most people will shield when Ness is in the air.
Use mostly up air for landing, it has the lowest landing lag out of Ness' aerials.

Bad matchups are Rosalina, Sheik, Luigi and Sonic. He might have others but these are the ones i see most agreed on.

 

[Earthbound360]

Learn how to recover safely. Preserve the DJ, use it in tandem with air dodge and aerials to make recovery safe. However, do NOT be afraid of PKT2 to recover (unless in specific matchups). PKT2 is your friend, it's high invulnerability frames will do you well if you use it close enough to the stage.

Do NOT abuse PKF. It's mostly for movement reads, catching landings, and punishment.

I agree mostly with other tips that have been mentioned above, though I want to mention that I think one of the most effective edgeguard aerials Ness has is actually his nair. It's quick and covers a lot of options.

In fact, I also want to mention hwo important nair is in general. I think nair and uair are Ness' best aerials. Nair is so quick, has a great hitbox, and hits hard for how fast it is. It's an amazing trading tool in the neutral, and a great defensive OoS option.

Dthrow combos into just about any aerial until a certain percent. Your most sought after follow ups will mostly be double fair or uair depending on DI. There's no real reason to go for anything else.

Also, one small correction to an above statement. Uair technically has the least end lag, but bair has only 1 more frame of endlag, and a LOT more shield pushback. It's a bit safer than uair in my experience.

Bad matchups are mostly Luigi, Rosalina, Sheik, and Sonic.

The biggest things about Ness are mastery of the fundamentals. He's got some dandy ATs here and there, but the biggest thing that will help you is understanding of punishment and capitalizing on opponent weaknesses. Learn when to grab people, know how to follow DI with aerials, juggle with PKT while limiting enemy movement, and punish reads on movement with PKF.