Suggestions for a New Ness Player

[toasty]

Ness has great punish game, but terrible pressure game. What are you talking about toasty.

PS: if anyone's planning on asking why you have to be good at punishing...1) l2smash (hah, kidding) but 2) answer me this: When can you land a hit on your opponent? When they leave themselves open, right? Also called punishing, in its simplest form [and is the crux of getting the first hit with Ness anyway, since he doesn't have great pressure-approach options]

I didn't say he was bad at punishing. Other characters are better than him at punishing [which doesn't help because Ness has a lot of stuff he can punished heavily for]. I said that he can't approach too well so you have to focus on punishing with him [which really means: focus on baiting and be really good at capitalizing on the few opportunities you get]

All you have to do vs. Falcon is hit him...

Do you know how honestly hard that is?

What do you think of SH DJC'ed uair as an approach? The hitbox is huuuuge and priority is pretty good.

you have to be very careful when approaching with uair but even MORE careful when approaching with ANYTHING DJC'ed. You run the risk of trading hits and being hit off the stage without your double jump. Uair is situational as an approach but it's good because it can lead to great things. Just make sure to never make it a habit. It can be outspaced and punished quite well if it's read

Also, retreating fair is like, ridiculously safe. I'm going to start just being smart with my hitbox usages. Whenever I start thinking in terms of spacing, I do so much better.

yes, a thousand times yes. I almost never do retreating fairs anymore, which is sad, because it's really really good.

You have to be constantly aware of your surroundings as Ness and actively maintaining proper spacing for EVERYTHING is beyond essential.

It's important for every character but Ness has the misfortune of not being able to survive well without a constant focus on spacing...this is part of why I don't play him at a high level any more:

He's way too ****ing stressful to use at a tournament level.

 

[ChivalRuse]

He's way too ****ing stressful to use at a tournament level.

That's probably why like nobody plays him in tournament, ever.

And to clarify my remarks on uair as an approach - yea, I agree that it's not something to make a habit of. But there's always the mix-up running / wavedash forward (crazy fast way to approach with Ness) SH delayed uair and DJC'ed uair.

That's where you can be tricky with DJCing. If they try to outspace you with like a pivot or wavedash back you can just DJC to cover more ground with the uair. Not to mention the uair gets a significant momentum boost from running into it, and decent with wavedashing into it.

 

[Simna ibn Sind]

I'm picking up Ness and sum1 told me there are some good tips for playing Ness in this topic, but I can't find them.


Actual tip for general improvement: Take how you normally play Ness and then add in all kinds of random dash dances and WDs and low, fast DjCfflcs(aimed at nothing...just for fun) and do all that stuff.....do it more and more often and do it fast.....whenever you have a free moment....whenever you and your opponent are colliding in some way



keep doing that more ^^^

the idea isn't to use stuff like that in actual matches as a strategy for victory, but in doing that you increase the speed of your play(you need to be fast....i dont care if you can jc shine with fox 15 times in a row you need to be faster) and you keep doing it until you can play at a very high speed both comfortably and without sacrificing any control.

And while you're at it: learn to do retreating SHdouble lasers with fox if you havent already....and then practice your jc shines.....

Like I know I used to stress people learning to use PK Thunder and they should, but really learn that other stuff first please. Learning to use PK Thunder is very very essential and while I personally am the PK Thunder ultimate supreme god of everything who has hit every single person he has ever played(that's a good spread over the US and some of Europe and Canada) at least once, but mostly more than once, with PKT2 except for Ken who I've only played in two matches ever(I know, no johns, but my controller was messed up one of the times), YOU CAN BE KINDA GOOD WITH IT TOO, but it would be better if you got good at the other stuff first [/Beef Stroganoff]


YYG is cool....learn that after you are good at PKT

 

[toasty]

And this is why I'm sad I was suddenly unable to attend Genesis.

Gah. Wish I could've met you

Don't imagine you'll be attending Pound 4 huh XD

And yeah honestly, that was when I was so good with Ness's tech skill...when I [lol obvious] practiced my *** off.

But nah I'm not saying that what you said is common sense, it just sounded silly for me to illustrate that point.

But for REAL I take this kinda thing for granted simply because I just kinda did it on my own without being told...mostly from watching other Ness players who were really fast and I just thought "zomg I need to be like that" and went from there...

bah, before I ramble for no reason: good **** Simna. I'm probably going to fux around with Ness again because of you XD

 

[ChivalRuse]

Yea, Simna!

And lol today I was playing my friend, and I hit him with upsmash OOS and he was like, "wow, did you just upsmash oos?" because he plays Ness, too, and apparently never uses upsmash OOS. And I laughed. It's pretty good, actually. Upsmash is underused, in general (other than for YYG ).

 

[thesage]

U-smash is good if you are good at hitting with it. It's a really awkward move for me to space cuz it's so slow. WHY CAN'T YOU BE 64 U-SMASH.

Besides I generally just go for djc uair anyways lol. Leads to more combos.

 

[Deleted member]

learn DJC. dashdance a lot. be really fast. learn slight and specific DIs for things like sheik's CG. learn to recover via holding up into 2nd jump air dodge. combo like a mother****er, cause it's all you got.

anyone who says ness can't combo is going to get ****ed up. bad.

 

[thesage]

Mow, how do you combo Marth?

 

[Deleted member]

fast. really fast.

try nairs. they hit him at a good trajectory for his falling speed. Also throw your body into him, Marth has no immediate answers to something inside of his hitbox because he grab extends out to far and anything else is too slow.

 

[vrud]

@toasty: U say using ness is more stressful in tournaments? Personally, i like using my ness in tournaments. It makes me take the matches way less seriously whether thats a good thing or a bad thing who knows XD

Anyway, i have a tournament in a week and theres gonna be recording equipment so if i dun get ***** hardcore ill try to get some vids to post!

 

[thesage]

fast. really fast.

try nairs. they hit him at a good trajectory for his falling speed. Also throw your body into him, Marth has no immediate answers to something inside of his hitbox because he grab extends out to far and anything else is too slow.

I suck at using nair to continue combos. I guess I have to learn how to use it vs. him.

Oh yea on the wtfrape grab combos Ness has vs. ffer's:

You have to be really good at doing them otherwise they can jump out or nair out of the combo. Practice it on lvl 9 comps. I personally find Fox the hardest one, but he's the one I've practiced the least lol.

Edit: I just discovered something that may be awesome. Ness can cc fox's nair (strong hit) til 84%. Usually it leads into bat. Could somebody please test this out cuz this may just be useful lol.

 

[Deleted member]

also more good ness advice, don't waste time learning bad things like YYG or tricks with his special moves. There are some uses for them like PK fire on ICs but generally Ness's B moves are bad. His upsmash and downsmash are bad also, as is upsmash out of shield. Instead, learn proper use of his tilts, jump cancel grabs (X+Z), wavedash out of shield, proper DJC timing, and making good use of his excellent sidestep. Jab canceling isn't that good since ness is easy to CC, and CC grab is really bad for ness in general. generally ness is best left to using his grabs and aerials, but most of his other A button moves are good also.

 

[thesage]

Mow... I tried combo'ing Marth with nair, but I had some problems. I was able to "combo" a lvl. 1 cpu Marth, but the lvl. 9 kept hitting me out of it.... Should the hits count as consecutive hits in training mode? At what percents does it work? I noticed that after 47% it sets up for tech chases nicely on Marth.

Also, I also think that Ness may be able to cc bat a lot of things.... You have anything to say about this Mow? I've always had problems cc'ing things with Ness, which is weird cuz I love cc'ing whenver I use another character.

D-smash has a lot of hitstun but it's nearly impossible to hit with. U-smash combo into bat, but it's also hard to hit with...

What should I do when I wd oos? I usually go for grab.

Also wavelanding is fun to use to psych out ur opponents.

 

[ChivalRuse]

Sage, do you ever go to MD/VA tournaments or smashfests? I wanna do Ness dittos!

Also, yes, Mow is right for saying usmash and dsmash are bad. They suck.

Hey, do you guys know if bat can reflect Link and Y.Link's bombs?

 

[toasty]

Yes.

inb4dontwasteyourtime

 

[ChivalRuse]

It's just that I hate shield-dashing my way through bomb spam, and I like to look cool.

On that note, how does Ness handle Y.Links who run away using platforms and projectile camp? That was giving me some problems today.

 

[toasty]

actually it's pretty tough.

you could go with the standard "just don't approach" approach but where's the fun in that!

learn powershielding XD



OH QUESTION: As Pika I was able to angle ftilts to beat ALL of Y.Link's projectiles! If I spaced it right, that is.

Can Ness's tilts do the same?

 

[thesage]

I used to go to chu's smashfest pretty regularly, but I go to college in Richmond now so I can't really do that. I will be home next weekend though. My friend may be holding a smashfest at his house so you could come over there. If he doesn't you can come to my house and we can Ness ditto all day haha.

Well, if I lose I'll just pick shiek lololol.

For y. link's projectiles I would just wd towards him and jump over them. They all get pretty predictable after a while. Same with link. Ness can wtf combo the links. Learn those combos so that way once you get through the spam they are dead.

Edit: powershielding doesn't really work with the bombs and hte boomerang toasty...

 

[Deleted member]

when using WD out of shield, don't look for any one thing but rather use it to readjust your position and see if anything is available. Going for one thing makes an already bad character predictable. rather than learning strategies for a character like you would do in higher tiers, lower tiers must generally play to their strengths and mitigate their weaknesses as much as possible.

Ness has exactly 2 strengths. Those being speed and combos. Ness is probably the only low tier with truly extensive combos even against good DI. You should focus your game around those, using plenty of WD our DJC out of shield, lots of dashdance grabs, or aim for dash attacks such that only the 3rd hit connects. CC is much the same way, although you don't want to use Ness's crouch for the most part. Ness is much better at sidestepping or WD out of shield defensively. Given the above example of a spammy YLink, you want to shield and WD out of it at him for every possible projectile. Once you're in, you can grab him and expect to hurt him really bad. I actually love that match quite a bit.

Defensively, try to minimize the amount of time you have to crouch, get grabbed, or use his up B to recover for any reason. It's usually better to DI a hit up and 2nd jump air dodge than to up B. Don't realy on your range ever for any reason. Just be fast and get in and then do lots of damage until you win.

 

[thesage]

The main problem I have with Ness is that some character I simply can't really combo them once I get into their face (Mario, Doc, Luigi, Peach, Marth, Jiggs) and it's really annoyinng for me to have to hit them a lot of times while they only need a few hits to win. I'm really lucky I'm picking up Shiek since she handles all of those characters nicely, but still... does anybody have any suggestions comboing those characters? Everybody else I can at least get a 30% combo off of one hit and I know I can improve my tech speed to lengthen my combos, those characters though... no matter what I do I can't combo them outside of maybe d-throw...

 

[Deleted member]

do more dair/bair/dash attack combo starters. work from there.

 

[thesage]

You can combo from the sweetspot of bair? O_o;

 

[ChivalRuse]

Don't realy on your range ever for any reason. Just be fast and get in and then do lots of damage until you win.

Sort of like how Fox has no range. But it doesn't matter, because he's the fastest character in the game.

And on the subject of minimizing - when you take Ness's already tricky DJC mindgames and further complicate them with Ness's quick and reliable dash dance, you start getting hit, like, a lot less. Also, approaching with your shield by running or wavedashing into it is a nice way to avoid getting hit by random SHFFL'ed aerials. Then you either punish your opponent with an OOS option or you simply retreat with a backward wavedash out of shield. The benefit of this movement tactic is that you start getting grabbed less, since most people don't try to grab a moving object.

It's furthermore very important to be aware of your opponent's dash dancing. If you observe this to be the case, you can sometimes bait him by SHFFL'ing an advancing fair, tempting him to grab you when you land. But if you're quick enough you can just run away immediately after landing and punish him for whiffing the grab. I usually do this by running away, short hopping, and DJCing a bair in his face.

 

[thesage]

I'm incorporating wavelanding into my playstyle now. It's pretty fun.

I like to wd under shffled approaches from Falcon lol.

 

[toasty]

Wavelanding is godly. Especially ESPECIALLY on PLATFORMS. I can't stress enough how much it helps.

[just to throw it out there for anyone who doesn't know. If a Marth f/bthrows you, you can DJC-waveland backward right before you hit the ground. They'll generally try and f/bthrow you into fsmash at low damage and then edgeguard but since you wavelanded, you can bat their whiffed fsmash...but don't always try that. You're usually too far away but at least you're not getting tippperrrred =D]

Ness's speed is siiiiick. It takes practice to maintain a truly fast Ness. But you can really suprise people with his speed [right Mow? ]

Sometimes...I sorta wish I still mained him >_>

 

[thesage]

I wish Ness was a good character... He matches my playstyle and mentality so well but he sucks so much. Oh well, Shiek may just be a close enough fit. She autocombos like the ****.

Anybody have any suggestions for combo'ing the characters I mentioned?

 

[toasty]

they're tough characters to combo.

you can link stuff on Marth a good deal, like I've said along with Mow, and the key is NAIR =D

as for the others...man it's mad annoying.

don't worry about combos.

worry about not getting comboed/hit by them and then do some damage when you can.

Welcome to Ness.

XD

 

[thesage]

I'll just shiek gay those matchups.