the metagame of ness

[Ganreizu]

I always felt like pkf was underused, but I understood why because of landing lag. However, ledge cancelling would absolutely change the viability of this move and I think it could be used for edgeguarding/extending combos (comparable to marth's neutral b)

Eh, it's really quite difficult to set up and if you try to edgeguard with a ledge cancel you're 100% dead if you fail even if you land on the platform because that means the pkf won't come out, you'll have the lag, give up the edgeguard, and easily get punished for trying all at once.

 

[iAmMatt]

Eh, it's really quite difficult to set up and if you try to edgeguard with a ledge cancel you're 100% dead if you fail even if you land on the platform because that means the pkf won't come out, you'll have the lag, give up the edgeguard, and easily get punished for trying all at once.

This definitely makes sense, but I would guess that using pkf as an edgeguard is extremely situational. I would attempt it on a fastfaller who's a way's below the ledge so they can't sdi up and punish me while I'm off stage from the ledge cancel.

 

[Ganreizu]

This definitely makes sense, but I would guess that using pkf as an edgeguard is extremely situational. I would attempt it on a fastfaller who's a way's below the ledge so they can't sdi up and punish me while I'm off stage from the ledge cancel.

I don't mean pkf edgeguard in general, just an edgecancelled pkf edgeguard. Pkf can DESTROY spacies that are recovering horizontally, because it lasts long enough that the pillar falls down and interrupts their upb and they die 90% of the time. Only way they live is if they get hit by it far off the ledge and they go diagonal instead of straight up.

 

[iAmMatt]

Pkf can DESTROY spacies that are recovering horizontally

Used this countless times against my casual friends lol

 

[whims]

doesn't pkf also cover spacies side b and force them to a. go high b. sweetspot or c. upb? i've seen higher level nesses use it a decent amount but due to the lag on the end of pkf it would be more of a read option. i've used it and the spacie has sweetspotted and still caught me on the end of the lag so idk. just curious

also i think ledgecancelled pkf would be a great option if it could be made consistent. it's definitely humanly achievable, but it's a lot of work

 

[Jamwa]

it's definitely humanly achievable, but it's a lot of work

basically ness summed up. if we want to make this character relevant (read: better) these techniques are worth achieving consistency with.

im currently working on my ledgecancelled pkfs and it's coming along slowly. there's certain situations that i can now recognize when i can definitely get the ledge cancel, but they are few and far between.

im trying backwards dj off ledge and airdodge straight horizontal onstage. its a few frames lenient and lets ness shield before vulnerability, and sometimes if you miss the airdodge but still hold inwards you land onstage somehow.

also experimenting with djc ac dair tomahawk approaches. requires a lot of conditioning before your opponent decides to shield instead of cc and react or just throw hitboxes out, but it's definitely devastating if you can just get a quick grab or run past them and rising nair/djc bair

using pkt1 less and less as i discover how nichely useful it is, but i've been overusing it on purpose to discover when it is specifically not useful. ledge cancelled aerials or pkf seem the best options available to ness, or just fsmashing opponents that cannot sweetspot (like falcon) and from a distance where it is difficult to tech > walljump > airdodge back on stage (which is really bad since ness cant always punish this).

backwards djc reverse nair seems ****ing awesome and i reccomend ppl use it. djc nair in general is very good against opponents that want to cc fair. retreating djc nair is also very good if you know the autocancel timings, and is a very good mixup with djc dair ac because sometimes ppl will try to hit you before you can dair and end up jumping into a nair with bad DI (and if they dont jump at you sometimes you can get away due to low ac landing lag)

magnet still sucks and zps is something required.
still gotta learn to shield drop but i can tell it would be amazing for ness

djc uair is very versatile against falcon and marth, we should use it more. if you look at marth's frame data, we can uair his foot/hand when he tries to forward air if we can get under him, which basically reduces the minimum range marth can safely sh fair us at. against falcon, we can trade uair with a lot of his aerials or even beat them out (like nair), but it's a very specific spacing and i dont intuitively understand it yet so i wont tell you how to do it.

perfect wavedashing i have found to be incredibly useful as it makes up for our horrible grab range and it significantly increases the punishes available to us out of neutral.

pivot dsmash is still something im working on in terms of consistency but im interested if it can perhaps shield poke certain characters, and if it does, this would be incredibly useful.

still very confused as to how platform warping with ness' double jump works but it happens sometimes when the platforms rise/lower on FoD/PS. its not a tech that i aim to take advantage of, but rather be able to identify so that when i accidentally do it i dont just fsmash by accident or do something laggy and get punished.

 

[whims]

basically ness summed up. if we want to make this character relevant (read: better) these techniques are worth achieving consistency with.

im currently working on my ledgecancelled pkfs and it's coming along slowly. there's certain situations that i can now recognize when i can definitely get the ledge cancel, but they are few and far between.

im trying backwards dj off ledge and airdodge straight horizontal onstage. its a few frames lenient and lets ness shield before vulnerability, and sometimes if you miss the airdodge but still hold inwards you land onstage somehow.

also experimenting with djc ac dair tomahawk approaches. requires a lot of conditioning before your opponent decides to shield instead of cc and react or just throw hitboxes out, but it's definitely devastating if you can just get a quick grab or run past them and rising nair/djc bair

using pkt1 less and less as i discover how nichely useful it is, but i've been overusing it on purpose to discover when it is specifically not useful. ledge cancelled aerials or pkf seem the best options available to ness, or just fsmashing opponents that cannot sweetspot (like falcon) and from a distance where it is difficult to tech > walljump > airdodge back on stage (which is really bad since ness cant always punish this).

backwards djc reverse nair seems ****ing awesome and i reccomend ppl use it. djc nair in general is very good against opponents that want to cc fair. retreating djc nair is also very good if you know the autocancel timings, and is a very good mixup with djc dair ac because sometimes ppl will try to hit you before you can dair and end up jumping into a nair with bad DI (and if they dont jump at you sometimes you can get away due to low ac landing lag)

magnet still sucks and zps is something required.
still gotta learn to shield drop but i can tell it would be amazing for ness

djc uair is very versatile against falcon and marth, we should use it more. if you look at marth's frame data, we can uair his foot/hand when he tries to forward air if we can get under him, which basically reduces the minimum range marth can safely sh fair us at. against falcon, we can trade uair with a lot of his aerials or even beat them out (like nair), but it's a very specific spacing and i dont intuitively understand it yet so i wont tell you how to do it.

perfect wavedashing i have found to be incredibly useful as it makes up for our horrible grab range and it significantly increases the punishes available to us out of neutral.

pivot dsmash is still something im working on in terms of consistency but im interested if it can perhaps shield poke certain characters, and if it does, this would be incredibly useful.

still very confused as to how platform warping with ness' double jump works but it happens sometimes when the platforms rise/lower on FoD/PS. its not a tech that i aim to take advantage of, but rather be able to identify so that when i accidentally do it i dont just fsmash by accident or do something laggy and get punished.

i need to start drilling ledge cancelled pkf more. i've tried to do the turnaround djc ledge cancel pkf to grab ledge but i haven't been able to get it yet.

is there a gfycat or video of backwards dj airdodge on stage? that seems like it has potential

pkt1 is useful on spacies iirc, but yeah it's usually better to low ftilt or fsmash falcon, ganon, or anyone trying to sweetspot who can't get ones like spacies. covering yourself with pkt1 and forcing marth, falcon, ganon, or sheik (i'm sure there are others) to recover high, then going into pkt2 is a great option select if you can recognize the situations. speaking of pkt2, there so so many angles and i feel like they could be used in very specific situations to cover options. i recently got a downwards crawl angle from fd's ledge (similar to the one on the grass transformation on ps), and i'm wondering if it could be duplicated in other areas, such as off platforms. this specific angle is not particularly useful except in a style situation as u sd afterwards, but it's interesting to consider. i also need to work on crawl angles

i've also found djc uair to be good against fox/falcon and maybe falco (he can beat it with dair of course) at lower percents, especially on pokemon or fd since it can be chained off an uthrow

nair is also useful when an opponent is trying to land on you (especially against other nesses that are djc dairing a lot). frame 5 nair even works on reaction to seeing the djc dair setup, which i find ridiculous. can be baited ofc, so it requires some conditioning beforehand imo

dsmash is almost entirely useless in terms of TAS play but i absolutely love it as a mixup. shield poking is one of the few things it can do, and even then it's pretty bad, but i'd love to see it implemented as a pivot. i'll have to practice (and my pivots in general tbh, since pivot fsmash is about as good for ness as marth pivot fsmash is for him)

 

[Ganreizu]

I've had decent success with dsmash against falcon when he tech rolls behind me, or if i'm on a side platform and he tries to jump up and aerial me. I love to dtilt when i'm above characters, too. (it's hilarious)

 

[whims]

honestly just playing around with weird stuff ness can do is fun and hilarious and makes the game enjoyable to me

 

[Jamwa]

woah, somehow did a nil after running off FoD and then backwards dj (i think its called a platform warp? idk). if this isn't recreatable or was some niche situation that we cannot setup that sucks but if we can it'd be amazing.... run off to avoid a dash grab or something, dj back and instantly land > grab > bthrow (screw it up tho and u get hit out of your duble jump)

 

[Ganreizu]

woah, somehow did a nil after running off FoD and then backwards dj (i think its called a platform warp? idk). if this isn't recreatable or was some niche situation that we cannot setup that sucks but if we can it'd be amazing.... run off to avoid a dash grab or something, dj back and instantly land > grab > bthrow (screw it up tho and u get hit out of your duble jump)

I've done it a couple times randomly. It's definitely recreatable but still frame perfect.

 

[whims]

there's a weird thing on yoshi's where u can crawl angle from an almost sweetspot on the ledge up to the platform, then land on the plaform (platform warp i guess) even tho it doesn't look like you'll make it. you get the long endlag but it's an interesting and very situational mindgame, comparable to that fod platform warp^

 

[CnB | Chandy]

so, in the sheik match-up, obviously dair and uair lead to a lot. follow-ups out of dair and uair are already common knowledge, but generally sheik makes it hard to land a dair or uair in neutral and it's also quite rare that you'll be able to land a uair out of a throw because ness' throws are all quite easy to DI and have long start up, making them very reactable. at no point can ness force a knockdown on sheik out of dthrow to set-up tech chases as long as she DIs correctly, even with a platform above him, and uthrow sends sheik too high to follow-up at all but the lowest percents.

what you'll probably end up getting much more often than a raw dair or uair on a sheik is a well spaced short hop fair. if you get the last strong hit of fair and you autocancel it (DJC is actually not advised here), you have some pretty good follow-ups that are guaranteed provided you can react to sheik's DI and tech chase well

if they DI in, up, or some combination of in and up, you can get an autocancel uair, which leads into a guaranteed nair or another fair depending on their DI off the uair. if they DI up and away, you can hit them with the nice hit of dash attack and combo off of that.
https://gfycat.com/CanineVengefulBluebreastedkookaburra

if they DI away, down or down and away, fair will cause a knockdown, which you can tech chase on reaction if you position yourself correctly. just like with spacies, you have to react to the DI early and dash to sheik's landing in order to be in the right spot to cover all the options on reaction. every time you see this DI you should instinctually react with a dash. it's just the initial dash; you don't want to continue into a run because that limits your ability to turn around in case they tech behind and it might make you run through sheik which would leave you out of position to cover in place options.

from here, if they missed tech, you can either dash attack (which is optimal as they can't SDI up and roll out) or you can take a risk and running dtilt jab reset, which is susceptible to SDI but leads to a bigger punish. if they tech in place, you can grab. if you read the tech in place you can punish with a dair or an uair but it can't be done on reaction so weigh the risk/reward yourself. https://gfycat.com/GrandIdleAndalusianhorse

if they tech away, continue into a run and dash attack them to punish the roll. if they tech in, cancel your initial dash by dashing the opposite direction and dash attacking. https://gfycat.com/SadPaleHorse

those are all the optimal mid% follow-ups out of autocancel fair. the sheik match-up is super rough so you'll need everything you can get. practice hard!

addendum:
at low percents ness has some guaranteed stuff but nothing too great. if ness uthrows sheik between 0 and 25 he can always get one guaranteed fullhop aerial follow up (DJCing is too slow, it won't be guaranteed). if sheik DIs up or does slight DI in either direction, you can get a free uair or bair for damage but it doesn't lead into much. if she DIs hard in front of you, you can't get a bair, but you can get a uair, nair or fair if you react to the DI quickly enough. if she DIs hard behind, you can't get a fair or a uair, but you can still get nair and bair.

if there are platforms around things get spicier. starting at 15% on PS, Yoshi's, and some heights of FoD, Ness can uthrow, autocancel fullhop uair onto the platform and utilt, all guaranteed, plus a guaranteed nair if you just want damage. you might try to get another uair or a fair here for better follow-ups but to my knowledge the nair is the only thing that's guaranteed. it isn't guaranteed until 19% on BF and 21% on dreamland because of the higher platforms.

at low low percents ness can do some neat stuff but it's quite hard. from 5% to 11%, the lowest djc uair true combos into utilt regardless of DI. if they don't DI the utilt out, you can get a regrab and then uthrow --> aerial follow-up for more guaranteed damage. neat stuff.
https://gfycat.com/GroundedThoseJohndory

 

[_Snover_]

I was thinking about and experimenting with this for a bit. Chandy, I saw you posted something similar so forgive me if this is essentially what you said:

Fairing into the ground actually seems really good if you don't hit a shield. I've been working with using it as a sort of "connector" or initiation into grabs, although I'm thinking more about the weak hits than the strong hit that Chandy was talking about. Against spacies, for example, I like doing approaching DJC fair -> uthrow. I think this could work well since Ness's fair has electric hitboxes, so they have more hitlag.

If you hit a shield you're essentially screwed though. :T

EDIT: Changed hitstun to hitlag. my b

 

[Ganreizu]

I think this could work well since Ness's fair has electric hitboxes, so they have more hitstun.

I don't think this is true. Is it true?

 

[_Snover_]

Ah, I'm sorry. It's more hitlag, not hitstun.

 

[Ganreizu]

No i mean i don't think ness has electric hitboxes on anything he has. The wiki gives conflicting information. :/

http://www.ssbwiki.com/Electric

http://www.ssbwiki.com/PK

"Since the concept of type does not exist in games before Super Smash Bros. Brawl, only characters' Brawl and Smash 4movesets are included in this list. For example, while some of Ness's attacks in Smash 64 or Mewtwo's or Ness's attacks in Melee could be considered PK attacks, they are not coded as being so."

 

[_Snover_]

I think bair, fair, and PKT do... I'd need to check, but I don't have access to a setup at the moment.

 

[ChivalRuse]

I still think that SH auto cancelled dair is not utilized enough in the Ness metagame. If you get the last frame of the hitbox on shield, it is positive on block. So shield pressuring with this and dashing through shield immediately is possible. Or dairing to d-tilt. You can also get better combos if you auto cancel the dair on a tech chase or in neutral because you will have more frames to work with after landing the pop up.

 

[_Snover_]

Senpai!! I mean, hey Chivalruse.

If you AC dair on someone's shield, then, do you know if you would be able to land a grab? Don't know with how stubby Ness's limbs are...

 

[whims]

auto cancels are something fairly underdeveloped with ness imo

sh auto cancel dair never gives me enough room to work with; full hop/off a platform/djc auto cancel dair always works better for me

simna uses it liberally; also, the strafing after the dair animation begins can be really useful for mixups

i do get shieldgrabbed a fair amount/hit with an oos option, but it's a fairly safe option on shield in comparison to other options ness has. u can always autocancel dair into utilt shield poke or bait a shield release and utilt

with some conditioning, you can land autocancel dair on shield, land behind, and grab. fairly easy to buffer roll out of, though

again with conditioning and mixing up dair timings, you can bait a jump and ac dair into dtilt jab reset, which leads into tipper bat (a lot of the time even with the dtilts sdi'd), yyg, regrab, and some others

ac dair is just a good ness option tbh. bad option since ness is a bad character, and there's a lot that can be done to stuff it, but with good reads and mindgames it's effective

 

[_Snover_]

No i mean i don't think ness has electric hitboxes on anything he has. The wiki gives conflicting information. :/

http://www.ssbwiki.com/Electric

http://www.ssbwiki.com/PK

"Since the concept of type does not exist in games before Super Smash Bros. Brawl, only characters' Brawl and Smash 4movesets are included in this list. For example, while some of Ness's attacks in Smash 64 or Mewtwo's or Ness's attacks in Melee could be considered PK attacks, they are not coded as being so."

PK attacks are listed as Brawl/Sm4sh only on the upper-right corner as you referenced, but electric attacks involve all games. I think PK attacks in the later games are just subclasses of electric attacks. So according to this list, Ness has higher hitlag (1.5x) on the following moves (indicated to be an electric attack in Melee by the chart):

1. PK Thunder (I'm guessing both versions... Doesn't indicate.)
2. PK Flash
3. Dash attack
4. Fair
5. Bair

 

[ChivalRuse]

Senpai!! I mean, hey Chivalruse.

If you AC dair on someone's shield, then, do you know if you would be able to land a grab? Don't know with how stubby Ness's limbs are...

Only if you're frame perfect. Probably safer to just jab or d-tilt.

W whims If you need space, try dash dancing away into pivot SH ac dair. DJC AC dair is okay, but you lose your double jump, so it's riskier.

 

[Ganreizu]

auto cancels are something fairly underdeveloped with ness imo

For sure. He's the only character with so much autocancel. It should to be abused more.

I keep trying to work on good options out of ledge dash but it's pretty difficult. The most annoying situation ness has is when he's on ledge and the opponent is waiting just outside of range of his aerials, but ledgedash powershield never seems to result in anything but grabbing ledge again. I can't seem to get the perfect ledge dash turn around sh bair that i got once ever, but i haven't practiced it either.

I saw on reddit that you can buffer shield drop during the last 4 frames of any landing lag. Autocancel is conveniently 4 frames, so ness can shield drop immediately once he lands with an DJC AC dair onto a platform. This is another reason that i don't like to airdodge land on platforms besides it being more frames and less flexible in movement anyway.

I find fast falling to be difficult with ness mostly because i neglect it but his double jump is so huge and he has 3 different jumps that it's really ambiguous when you're supposed to fast fall. When he DJCs, that aerial sets the apex of his jump to the first frame of the aerial right? So for example if we're chasing a character in the air, instead of using the full height of a double jump we can fake out the chase by forcing a fast fall with an aerial with good autocancel (fair or bair might be best).

Also, does PSI magnet have reduced release frames when you absorb stuff?

 

[Jamwa]

djc ac nair is beaut for shield poking/ covering jumps oos/ landing safely behind shields. if your back is towards the opponent, you can get a huge momentum boost by using backwards dj and nair. it's very fast and not used at all.

repeated quick djc fairs are amazing for comboing characters across the ground and forcing SDI habits, just make sure they dont CC the first hit. usually against lighter characters i will use this as it is easier to recognize whether you should back off or try for an ftilt, jc grab, nair, fsmash, or turn around dsmash. generally dont use dsmash or fsmash unless im going for a shield poke and it only works against certain characters at VERY specific spacings

psi mag has increased release frames if anything (i assume its absorb frames + normal release), its definitely not useful bar absorbing samus' charge shot or din's fire (lol zelda)
falco/fox can actually lock you into magnet with approaching sh lasers and then get a free punish so do not reccomend in this MU unless for funsies
it's ok against pills and fireballs SOMETIMES but make sure the mario is retreating after he throws it or he can easily react and get a punish

holding yoyo over the ledge is definitely not a good way to edge guard, since ledge cancelling a bair and fast falling to the ledge covers more options and you dont need to commit as early as charging yo yo

AC Dair does not reliably give you +0 on shield so do not expect it to; players will run into your dair so it hits early and get free shield grabs/oos punishes. its important to mix up with fair/nair (djcd or not) or just empty fullhopping

 

[whims]

Also, does PSI magnet have reduced release frames when you absorb stuff?

it has 18 frames of lag from the absorb and then 21 frames of normal release, so unless u can buffer release down b during the absorb lag and it end as soon as the 18 frames are over, no

i find it to be fairly useful in some ness dittos when your opponent forgets he's playing against ness and tries to pk flash edgeguard when i have my dj (not a good idea in the first place, but hey). i also team with a samus and charge shot is rlly nice. in all honesty it's a casual move with a ridiculous amount of lag, and idk why shine got a frame 1 hitbox, turnaround, and jump cancelling while ness is just stuck there for about half a second at minimum

I saw on reddit that you can buffer shield drop during the last 4 frames of any landing lag. Autocancel is conveniently 4 frames, so ness can shield drop immediately once he lands with an DJC AC dair onto a platform. This is another reason that i don't like to airdodge land on platforms besides it being more frames and less flexible in movement anyway.

that sounds like a really interesting form of movement. i'd rlly like to see it tbh

and yeah i agree ledge options with ness suck; the best options i've found are rising aerial (easy to punish/react to), psi-dash into spotdodge, shield, or grab (kinda hard to execute and again easy to react to), and just normal getups like rolling and standing up. if your opponent knows what they're doing it should be death if you're on the ledge, so mixups are essentially the only thing that may keep you alive, provided they aren't reactable (most of them are)

i need to do some labbing on shield pokes with ness (fsmash, fair, and dsmash specifically). lots of strange scenarios created by those moves that i'd like to explore

 

[Jamwa]

buffering shield drops is just something you should do as any character really, and learning to buffer it manually is important

by buffering manually i mean moving the stick in the right direction at the approximate timing that you would normally be able to do it by, but moving it slowly so that movement is done over 3 or so frames or whatever and makes shield dropping first frame something you can consistently achieve

 

[Ganreizu]

that sounds like a really interesting form of movement. i'd rlly like to see it tbh

and yeah i agree ledge options with ness suck; the best options i've found are rising aerial (easy to punish/react to), psi-dash into spotdodge, shield, or grab (kinda hard to execute and again easy to react to), and just normal getups like rolling and standing up. if your opponent knows what they're doing it should be death if you're on the ledge, so mixups are essentially the only thing that may keep you alive, provided they aren't reactable (most of them are)

You'd be surprised how difficult it is to react to perfect or near perfect ledge dash. It's just what you do after that is hard.

The psi dash shield drop is actually easy since you're almost always holding straight left or right anyway.

 

[whims]

You'd be surprised how difficult it is to react to perfect or near perfect ledge dash. It's just what you do after that is hard.

The psi dash shield drop is actually easy since you're almost always holding straight left or right anyway.

yeah those two things i really need to work on - ledge options and shield dropping. i play mostly netplay with only a couple ppl which i should probably change and detox on console by labbing occasionally

 

[Ganreizu]

Just figured everyone should know:

I found out yesterday that you can buffer a jump out of autocancel or empty landing by tap jumping (y or x doesn't work) on the 2nd-4th frame of landing lag. I haven't been able to test the implications but ness should be able to get frame perfect DJCs out of psi dash. It's a global tech but i think would only really benefit ness and peach (theoretically getting frame perfect FC nairs).

 

[thesage]

I love you guys for figuring some new stuff out.

Im happy somebody figured out the djc ledge mechanics. I did some of those frame perfect things a couple of times on accident and it's nice to see the inputs listed and the frames mapped for those things.

I think a major development in Ness's metagame that needs to be figured out are what are the optimal DIs for all the nasty combos other characters have on him. The better DI, the less likely we are knocked off stage and get forced to use pkt2.

 

[Jamwa]

i have decided that djc uairing as fast as possible is absolutely required in the falcon matchup as a counter to any aerial/grab approach that isnt dair

falcon forces ness to stick to mirco movements as his low disjoint can be abused with good reaction speed and proper inputs, and his fast speed will just take advantage of anything else you commit to by taking stage positioning/running shields/just absolutely kneeing you till you dont exist.

still discerning whether ness' low fair/uair mixups are useful at all vs marth or if the matchup is unwinnable.
low fair/uair defs better against falco than fox. against fox i am deciding that bairs and high djc reverse nairs are the way in (or around?) at low percents fox should not be able to nair you (i.e. <50%) because you should be able to CC on reaction, SDI inwards towards fox and grab him. limiting fox to bairs and uairs and drills really lets you use djc bairs and reverse nairs to weave into his zone, otherwise he will just camp you and u better pick another character.

DIing with ness is very hard as you have to accomodate for the fact that your double jump doesnt rise till frame 13 or 14, and on frames 10/11/12 ness is actually lower than his jumping point.
something i have discovered; you can buffer ness' double jump out of fox's uthrow so that your hitbox moves down/stops moving up and fox will almost always get the first hit of uair on you. use this to your advantage to guarantee more chances of being able to SDI his uair instead of just dying. SDIing fox's uair is very important because we can fast fall with him and uair him before he lands and start a combo, or even DJC dair and follow fox's movement (provided you didnt use your double jump as aforementioned)

 

[Ganreizu]

i have decided that djc uairing as fast as possible is absolutely required in the falcon matchup as a counter to any aerial/grab approach that isnt dair

falcon forces ness to stick to mirco movements as his low disjoint can be abused with good reaction speed and proper inputs, and his fast speed will just take advantage of anything else you commit to by taking stage positioning/running shields/just absolutely kneeing you till you dont exist.

I noticed this last night against my friend who is one of the better falcons around here. I kept djc uairing his nairs and he had trouble getting in until i dropped the timing on his approach. I think uair and utilt are amazing in neutral against falcon.

 

[whims]

in the hax$ vs mofo set a while back, mofo used djc uair and djc bair a ridiculous amount. i also saw him using fair as his main neutral go to, but i never saw utilt although i do agree that it's better vs falcon than vs some other characters

 

[ChivalRuse]

Fair is definitely a staple of neutral regardless of if vs Falcon or not. But I could also see how uair could be pretty useful vs Falcon considering he is more aerial-based than the average character.

 

[Ganreizu]

in the hax$ vs mofo set a while back, mofo used djc uair and djc bair a ridiculous amount. i also saw him using fair as his main neutral go to, but i never saw utilt although i do agree that it's better vs falcon than vs some other characters

I don't think utilt is as good as uair can be since i know he grabs off uair in that set. Utilt is a good "**** off" move a lot of the time though; i can catch falcon coming in from a bunch of angles with less likelihood of trading vs uair since the disjoint on uair is pitiful except for like 1 frame.

 

[whims]

I don't think utilt is as good as uair can be since i know he grabs off uair in that set. Utilt is a good "**** off" move a lot of the time though; i can catch falcon coming in from a bunch of angles with less likelihood of trading vs uair since the disjoint on uair is pitiful except for like 1 frame.

the intangibility on ness's head for a short interval during utilt can also help slightly if timed right; but yeah uair combos and is comparably easier to land out of neutral imo

 

[ChivalRuse]

The interesting thing about u-tilt is that - while it looks like it is equally disjointed in front and behind him - actually, relative to his center, the hitbox pokes out much further behind him. Thanks to the invincibility on his head, this enables you to stuff approaches when you are facing away from the opponent. Stuff like SHFFL'd nairs can potentially be nullified with proper timing.

 

[Simna ibn Sind]

The interesting thing about u-tilt is that - while it looks like it is equally disjointed in front and behind him - actually, relative to his center, the hitbox pokes out much further behind him. Thanks to the invincibility on his head, this enables you to stuff approaches when you are facing away from the opponent. Stuff like SHFFL'd nairs can potentially be nullified with proper timing.

The difference in disjointedness between front and back utilts is actually pretty small for the two frames when Ness' head is invincible and for the frames after it's significantly more disjointed in the front.

Also I think we should take a look at ftilt's uses for stuffing as well. CF has good range that he can put right in front of you(nair and uair) rather than above you and a high-angled ftilt will beat those a lot more than a utilt which is more likely to lose or trade.

 

[Simna ibn Sind]

Regarding low djc uairs: these will cover both the higher and lower approaches that are covered by utilts and ftilts respectively....they also have less cooldown lag on them than ftilt and utilt, but they are less disjointed and have more startup lag.