Regarding Fair and Dair

[dontcallmeRP]

I've been playing Ness competitively since the early melee days, and I'd like to get some feedback on a couple of gripes I have with his P:M incarnation.

In melee, Fair was probably Ness's most useful move. A giant disjointed hitbox that was useful for applying offensive pressure as well as for covering a retreat. In Brawl, they ruined it - the hitbox was smaller if I'm not mistaken and the hits just didn't link together reliably enough. I feel like those problems were not addressed (at least not yet) in the transition to PM. It seems as if opponents can DI out of the hits very easily and even follow up with a punish, whereas in melee that was rarely the case. In order to land the final hit (the part that makes the move worth using offensively) you need to have impeccable spacing and just hope that your opponent doesnt easily DI out of the lead-in hits. I feel like what was arguably Ness's best move in melee has lost about 75% of its functionality, and I really hope that the PM developers make an attempt at some point to restore the properties of the Fair to how they were in melee.

On the other hand, dash attack is practically on autopilot now and doesn't require that deceptive spacing to land the popup, so that's pretty good I guess...

Now about Dair. When I first saw his new Dair I was elated, and couldnt wait to start spiking fools Smash 64 style. But one of my favorite tricky Ness options from melee - a sudden, djc'd fastfalled dair from a fair distance above the opponent - doesn't really seem to be possible with the new dair. This option was great because it granted you a lot of freedom in execution; you could pull it out at many different heights with many different timings and just come down hard and fast with a high priority hitbox. This was useful for reading tech rolls as well.

But now, if youre above even a modest height and djcff the dair, the hitbox is gone before you can even get to the ground. Personally I feel that the dair should either

a) have the hitbox stay out just a bit longer so that it lasts for the duration of a full jumped djcff

or

b) have some more startup frames before the hitbox comes out. Not as much as his melee incarnation - good lord, no - but something around the amount of startup that falcon has on his dair seems like a good idea.

What say ye?

 

[The_NZA]

I like the foot having no startup because its unique but I'm always down for it to last longer. At the same time, dont you think its possible that the metagame will adapt so that kind of change will be unnecessary? Maybe you can djc something else into down air. Like nair into dair? Or just realize for the tradeoff, you've gotten a new dair with new approaches (instant dair to the ground).

As far as the fair, I totally agree and I posted about it here:
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=331777

I think we should all posit these questions to the BR, because many people did not play ness extensively in melee and its possible his fair was simply overlooked. Honestly, it seems like the new fair makes Ness's close spacing heavy range game WAY worse (with the exception of the newly gained pk-fire). Its only usage i've found now is lcancelling it into a running grab.

 

[dontcallmeRP]

djc nair into ff dair is a good idea, ill have to try that out.

And I totally agree with you, I think this is really more of a case of the PM backroom not really having much Ness experience. I know they gave him lots of buffs in other areas, and I appreciate it, but it doesn't make sense that they would keep what was arguably his best move in melee in its gimped Brawl state, especially when they worked so hard stay faithful to the other characters' melee playstyles when reworking them. Ness needs that Fair back, and until he does, he will feel more like Brawl Ness than Melee Ness

 

[The_NZA]

djc nair into ff dair is a good idea, ill have to try that out.

And I totally agree with you, I think this is really more of a case of the PM backroom not really having much Ness experience. I know they gave him lots of buffs in other areas, and I appreciate it, but it doesn't make sense that they would keep what was arguably his best move in melee in its gimped Brawl state, especially when they worked so hard stay faithful to the other characters' melee playstyles when reworking them. Ness needs that Fair back, and until he does, he will feel more like Brawl Ness than Melee Ness

On contrary, I think he feels more like 64 ness than brawl ness. Or maybe a mix.

 

[GMaster171]

Fair being bad? I really don't understand where you are coming from in saying that. After watching the Hax vs Mofo match again (which imo is a perfect representation of a on-point Ness), it actually feels as though P:M fair has higher range/coverage than Melee. I use it exactly as Mofo does in the video, and it works just as well as it did for him, keeping opponents away and netting free grabs when connecting with any hit (djc fair works y'know). Its not needed to hit with the last hit to do anything offensive based, getting a grab off of the weak hits is fully possible, and is actually preferred in all cases.

About dair, imo its much better than Melee's. The 64 version of the attack has what Ness needed in his aerials. Quick enough to get extremely low DJCs, powerful damage dealer, gives almost a guaranteed regrab at low %, sets up to uair kills at higher %, and goes well with new DJ mechanics for offstage attacks and covering below Ness. Really its much better than Melee's or Brawl's, in its usability. With Ness dash range, its actually easier to read techs as you can DD into it, rather than being forced to commit to a full hop, which they can easily wait out. The way you say to use it would only work on an adapting opponent a couple times, as seen in the video, Hax quickly picked up on it, and Mofo got punished during the start up quite a few times (as well, the new dair would have covered him in most of the cases when he got punished, eg the cases where he wasn't just poked, when Hax literally jumped into Mofo with uair.)

imo, 64 Ness was the best rendition of him, he lost most of his combos going to Melee, and even more so going to brawl. Instead of complaining about things could change, learn how to use what you do have to the best you can, this has always been true for every character (working around Fox's grab weakness, Falcon's recovery, Bowser's size), and doesn't change even when there is a possibility for the character to change.

My 2 cents, I love Ness.

 

[Revven]

P:M Fair has the same range as Melee and is also even less SDIable than Melee. Meaning, players can't even get out of it as easily. The notion that it's worse is... definitely wrong.

 

[Mr.Jackpot]

imo, 64 Ness was the best rendition of him, he lost most of his combos going to Melee, and even more so going to brawl. Instead of complaining about things could change, learn how to use what you do have to the best you can, this has always been true for every character (working around Fox's grab weakness, Falcon's recovery, Bowser's size), and doesn't change even when there is a possibility for the character to change.

That's like saying 64's rendition of Link was the best because he lost his 0-death combos going to Melee.

Melee Ness -> Project M Ness is the by far worst transition in the game and that's not because he's low tier (see Bowser and G&W). Somebody needs to get Simna or something back into the Brawl modding scene because I feel like I'm playing a completely different character.

 

[GMaster171]

Maybe that was a poor example, but Ness was still strongest in 64 because he could match the rest of the cast in killing ability, whereas in Melee and Brawl he had to work much harder for kills compared to everyone. He has always had major weaknesses, but in 64 he at least had a slight ability to cover them, which was reduced in Melee, and nearly non-existant in Brawl.

I fail to see how one changed move and a whole list of buff to what Ness already had results in a completely different character. How do you propose they fix Ness other than what they have done? Other than the dair change (which is a buff in almost every way), he seems to work on the same basis as Melee, with a few new tricks. Comparing that, among other, video to P:M videos, much of Ness' setups, strategies and styles are very similar, and I personally feel as though hes is much better than he has ever been, and feels close enough to his Melee self that only small changes to how you play have to be made, which is something that must be done for any character.

Basically, I'm asking how he feels "completely" different?

 

[dontcallmeRP]

Well obviously he feels different because he's been given new moves and new functionality on other moves, and to be clear nobody ever said that he became a worse overall character in the transition to PM, so I'm not sure where that came from.

For the returning melee characters in PM, it seems like the developers' intentions were to preserve their melee playstyles as much as possible, while providing buffs where necessary. Ness got a lot off buffs and new moves and all, and that's cool, but the Fair was Ness' bread and butter move in melee, and it's different, and worse, in PM. So when you combine the facts that 1) Ness' previously most useful move isn't nearly as reliable as it used to be, and 2) many of his other moves have been changed or rebuilt from scratch altogether, I don't think it's some ludicrious statement to say that it kinda feels like playing a new character.

By the way, just to be clear, I like all the new buffs, I don't have a problem with finding new setups and uses for the new dair, magnet, yoyo, etc; I think that's all really cool. But Fair is definitely not what it used to be. I'm not sure why you think that watching one video of Mofo's Ness makes you some kind of expert on the properties of the melee Fair. I've been playing Ness in melee tournaments regularly since 2004 with an extreme focus on Fair in my playstyle. Ness Fair spacing is burned into my brain at this point, and I'm telling you, it's just not the same. Characters drop out of it or outprioritize it much more easily now. It used to be a ****ing wall of a move, when spaced properly there were very few characters (most notably marth) that could get around it or beat it directly, and now it seems to happen in almost every matchup. I'm not saying that none of the other PM characters should be able to beat it, I'm just saying the move is much less useful. But don't take my word for it, let's get Simna in here and see what he has to say.

 

[The_NZA]

I remember a perfectly spaced fair game could only be stopped consistently be a smart marth and even then, there were angles you could get in on that he couldn't do anything about. WIth that said, I think its totally possible that fair is just as good and 2 things are at play

1. DJCing consistently in the way you want is harder, and the metagame hasn't developed to fairing out of djcing well.

2. Other characters space better in PM so Ness's fair is no longer valid in its previous purpose except against a few characters.

But honestly, GMaster, its a real **** thing to say "be happy with what you have" because it implies we Ness players are ungrateful/impossible to please, and that we aren't willing to work through what we have to play well and just want to be bailed out by the BR. By the very nature that we are Ness players (commenting on Ness's meta in melee) should imply that we never expect to be bailed out.

 

[dontcallmeRP]

Well even just a plain old shorthopped fair was great in many situations, the hitbox still ends up in a nice spot where you cant get around very easily or squeeze underneath with most chars. It was not at all uncommon to be able to repeatedly shorthop fair dk/bowser/ganon across the entire stage pretty safely. There were always tricky movement options in melee as well, but if you did manage to intercept your opponent with the fair, 90% of the time they would take every subsequent hit and get knocked away on the last one, and that doesn't seem to happen as consistently in PM.

I know Revven said that the hitbox size is the same and that it's apparently harder to SDI out of, but those aren't the only properties of the move. I'm starting to think that maybe the melee version put out hitboxes faster (i.e. more hits per second)? Whatever the case, the melee version did a much better job of "holding" the opponent inside the spark until they were knocked away by the last hit. In PM it seems more likely that you'll land a couple of hits in a row before they somehow get out of it and wind up standing right next to you, so it's a lot less safe.

 

[GMaster171]

I didn't mean to call anyone ungrateful, and I'm in no position to say anyone is really. I just was trying to get people to use something for more than two weeks before deeming it needing a change. If in two or three months if Ness mains still have found no way to use fair effectively and feel as though it is not doing what it is supposed to, then it may become a topic for change.

Its really just a difference in how we feel about these suggestions, and I was merely putting forward another side to look upon this. I feel as though asking for changes such as these is rushed and the move itself should be looked into more. If the may end up being considered for the best in the long run, such as Dair might be, asking for changes now may be premature.

I didn't mean to sound aggressive in either of my posts, I just wanted people to give more time and work to these things before asking for changes. I have worked with Ness in P:M as much or more than most, and I feel as though almost everything that has changed has been positive for Ness' game without completely changing what he does.

 

[dontcallmeRP]

Yeah, I agree with almost everything you say. I'm a lot more warmed up to the 64 dair now (although I still wouldn't mind if they decided to make the hitbox last longer so those old tricks could still be used along with the new ones)

The only gripe I really have for Ness is that I want his most integral move from melee to function like it did in that game, just like they did for DK's bair, Falco's shine, etc. I don't think Ness' fair got the same attention or consideration that a lot of the more popular characters' signature moves did, and I have to drastically adapt my strategy to accomodate.

 

[The_NZA]

I didn't mean to call anyone ungrateful, and I'm in no position to say anyone is really. I just was trying to get people to use something for more than two weeks before deeming it needing a change. If in two or three months if Ness mains still have found no way to use fair effectively and feel as though it is not doing what it is supposed to, then it may become a topic for change.

Its really just a difference in how we feel about these suggestions, and I was merely putting forward another side to look upon this. I feel as though asking for changes such as these is rushed and the move itself should be looked into more. If the may end up being considered for the best in the long run, such as Dair might be, asking for changes now may be premature.

I didn't mean to sound aggressive in either of my posts, I just wanted people to give more time and work to these things before asking for changes. I have worked with Ness in P:M as much or more than most, and I feel as though almost everything that has changed has been positive for Ness' game without completely changing what he does.

Fair enough (pun intended) but just to be clear, I do appreciate all the time you've put into the character and Ness is certainly way better than he used to be. I think the dair, as you mentioned, is cool even though its different and it will come to have many applications that are better. I have a hard time seeing the fair in any light as a better tool, but we will see. I'm not opposed to reviewing it for another few months and hopefully being wrong on this. I just wanted to equivocate the gut feeling so that eyes stay focused on it.

 

[GMaster171]

Of course, I want Ness to be as good as he can be, but I also enjoy just learning how to use what I have, its just the kind of person I am.

Btw, for everyone here, I am planning on beginning a "Ness Tutorial Series" going over ground moves, air moves, specials, ATs and finally movement and B&B combos. This would be a rather large project, would take a month or more, and might be 4 or 5 videos, but I would be willing to do it with some support from fellow players.

Basically what I'm envisioning is creating a move set analyzing thread, devoted to the current uses of Ness' moves, being as thorough as possible, with as many people contributing as possible. Of course this kinda only works if people do contribute, as I have my uses of everything, but I would be very arrogant to think they are the only uses. With a video devoted to each of the parts above, and another to show how to bring these moves together, it would be an extremely valuable resource for new and old players, showing the ropes to anyone interested in Ness, and giving new information/techniques even to veterans.

I am starting part of this regardless, this weekend I'm beginning work on a video explaining my new PKF AT, but to go any further I will need some moreopinions. atm I just need to know that people are remotely interested in such a project. If I can ask, if you are interested in helping, either post here, or preferably PM me, any skill level is welcome, only thing I ask is to be open about learning and contributing, and try to keep change requests else where if possible.

I hope this goes well, there is so much to be gained by everyone involved, as well as anyone who takes a look at it. It will help bring the community together and do extremely well to advance Ness' meta game.

On the other hand, I may just be babbling about wishful thinking, all depends on how willing everyone is. Hope to hear from people, thanks for your time.

 

[The_NZA]

Sounds exciting. I wish I had video capture material so I could help. I've been figuring out low percentage combos utilizing a mix of fullhopped rising dairs/shorthoppedrising dairs, into falling dairs, into DJC dairs, into rising dairs->dj uairs.

BTW, for Ness terminology, we need terms to distinguish his types of jumps. There are rising dairs (since theres no startup), dj aerials, djcaerials, and you can get some weird height things if you interrupt the first jump with the second jump.

 

[GMaster171]

No worries, I'm getting a Dazzle tomorrow, so I'll have examples of video quality up by the end of the weekend if all goes well. As well, I am prepared to do the work for the project, all I ask from others is opinions on moves, I can put it all together and create suitable examples for each, either from previous game play or believable set ups (which I most likely will do for PKF, its still a pain to do on command), as much as I would love to have only in game examples, this might be a stretch. I'm fairly certain I can create examples that can and do happen.

I know how diverse Ness' movements can be with the optional DJC in place, so I will probably have an entire section just on how to move with Ness (DJC, non DJC, FH/SH, WD, ledgehopping, platform work, and probably recovery and any combination of them.)

Will probably make a thread later to start the project, stating the objective, the process, the rewards, and basically get the idea out there, only need like 3 or 4 peoples opinions and I can get enough info to do it.

All I ask is people contribute a couple times, giving an idea, a constructive opinion or an argument to the usage of a move will get a part in the credits, if its any reward lol :D

 

[The_NZA]

For the record to everyone, I've found with practice, fair still has many applications. With persistence, I've found ways to implement it in similar melee ways although I'm having a hard time deciding how much better it is than simply bairing.

 

[drsusredfish]

I think the new fair and dair are just fine. fair definatley links better than melee and the new dair actually combos from down b. down b to fair works too.

 

[`dazrin]

Fair is an amazing move.. >_>

It's very disjointed, hard to SDI out of, and it's basically a free grab at any%- and Ness' grabs should always lead into a free combo. Seriously a great move. The 64 dair is AMAZING for combos and edgeguards. You can use Magnet to "wavedash" in the air to position yourself for a rising downair. You can also combo dair -> bair falcon stomp->knee style. These two moves are amazing. I think any Melee Ness mains just need to try to apply these moves a bit more instead of complaining that things simply aren't the same.

Just my opinion.

 

[SinisterB]

^ Kinda good stuff there.

I think you guys are crazy.

 

[TechMage299]

Being a ness player in the n64, i can finally use ness outside of the old console

 

[nessmaster1]

I hope someone in the BR will see/test this and give it serious contemplation into working it into the game. I'll provide a link. Let me know what you kids think!! Basic edit to the dair, I think that what I have done brings the best of the P:M Diar and the best of the Brawl Dair together in one awesome move. Honestly this is the only thing with Ness that I would change with P:M. Let me know what you think.

*scrubbed link*

 

[Shadic]

Hi @ nessmaster1 ,

Unfortunately, we don't want a bunch of threads like this popping up for every character, so I'm going to have to close this one down. I made a post that relates to this quite recently:

Also, we generally aren't looking for people giving lists of what characters "need," and we're certainly more interested in players exploring what characters already have.

While "everything is subject to change," we'd like to encourage people to spend their efforts expanding their character's metagame instead of simply asking for changes.

And @ TechMage299 - Please be wary when bumping old threads that you're actually providing new content/spurring conversation. Thank you.