I'm actually a bit tired of talking about how Ivysaur gets gimped fairly easily yet most other characters supposedly do not. Yeah, his recovery is bad. Yes, the PROCEDURE to gimp him is simple. (Force an Up B while keeping the ledge occupied.) However, it's not a sure thing. A lot of things can go wrong. The opponent might not do something to get invincibility in time and will get stagespiked by Vine Whip. The opponent might get up a bit early, thinking Ivysaur is dead and he gets the tether anyway. The opponent might get hit by Razor Leaf and have the edge stolen from him. There are too many things to count here and I don't think that the core of this dicussion should revolve around how easy it is to gimp Ivysaur. That's like saying, "Jigglypuff is the lightest character in the game, advantage to us because it only takes us a few hits to KO her" or "DK has relatively bad vertical recover, advantage to us because all you have to do is footstool/meteor him and he dies." If it's a universal thing about that character, chances are it won't be the strongest factor to decide in a match-up.
No, what's strong is the fact that Ness gets his butt handed to him on stage, where you're going to be fighting for the majority of the match (against Ivysaur, anyway). Ivysaur's Jab (which can be set up by a grab-release) completely outranges pretty much anything Ness can do on the ground, and if he can use an attack on Ivy, Ivy can easily cancel the Jab and defend himself. Ivysaur's bair and B moves impede Ness's approach. Ivysaur's attacks in general are going to beat out Ness's because vines/clouds of poison are disjointed/longer ranged and Ness has to get past that to fight Ivy effectively. Ness has a stronger B-throw, while Ivysaur has a better killing U-throw and a B-throw that can kill as well, though not as effectively. Ivysaur has greater or equal killing power as opposed to Ness.
Stuff like that are the strong points of this match-up. Getting knocked off the stage isn't a sure KO. Both can be gimped, but I want people to stop revolving around this because in all honesty, Ness's recovery is only better than Ivy's by a similar amount as to how much better Ivysaur can gimp Ness instead of the other way around. It doesn't matter that much because it's not a drastic thing. Both have relatively safe answers to each other when recovery is involved, and both can and do KO opponents who screw up edgeguarding, so why is that still the focus of the match-up? I decided to go with 65:35 Ivysaur. i want someone to disprove that, or else I won't have anything else to say about this fight. Though, I'm still going to say 65:35 PT, since before I didn't even factor in Down B too much. Ivy getting quick and relatively easy damage on Ness -> b-throw -> switch to Charizard -> grab-release to dtilt is an example of what I need to factor into this fight. I'll just keep it at 65:35, though at best it's 60:40. I truly do not see what Ness has over PT.
... You do realize how fast PKT goes right? Also, just because you can eat PKT doesn't make this simple, ness can tailwhip you.
I love how everyone throws out "tailwhip" whenever Ness is up for how he is relatively easy to edgeguard. As if nobody can piece the simple crap together. Tell me, how can you tailwhip someone who is right on top of Ness's head? He can't do anything about that! All you have to really do is linger there when Ness tries to recover low. I've done it far too many times to count.
Also, don't say that you can't predict when Ness is going to PKT. He will ALWAYS use his midair jump before he PKTs. If he's caught without his midair jump and needs to recovery, that's a simple matter of using Water Gun (if you haven't already to waste Ness's midair jump) or you can fly out and smack Ness. If he's going to use it from down below, all you have to do is stay out of uair's range and take the PKT, which, if I recall correctly, has a 20 frame start-up.
Gimping Ness with any character in the game isn't that hard. The reason why I emphasize it in Squirtle vs. Ness, however, is because there aren't many characters who can safely force Ness to PKT2, and that alone + a very predictable recovery makes Ness's recovery go from mediocre at best to... well, bad!
And I can say the same exact thing for squirtle. Just stay above squirtle and you have NOTHING to worry about. You can go for a stage spike (back is wide open), or just a regular spike. And ness has a nasty dair/bair.
In terms of Squirtle recovering, yep, he's probably dead.
Too bad this is pretty much the only way you're going to gimp Squirtle (or if he can't make it back to the stage). Squirtle can gimp Ness without even leaving the stage. I d0n't see how Ness can be even with Squirtle for gimping. The only things Ness's Up B have over Squirtle's in terms of recovery are 1) being an infinitely better killing move and 2) covering more distance in general. Squirtle can start his Up B before Ness reaches him (and it comes out much faster than PKT) and angle it as needed to recover or to block Ness off. PKT brings Squirtle towards the stage, so stagespike with it or just make living generally easier for Squirtle (unless you PKT -> uair, but that doesn't happen very often anyway). All of Ness's aerials get outranged by it, so you either need to hit Squirtle where he's vulnerable or use PKT.
