The PSI Powered Youth: Game Play General

[JML]

ok after some random online macthes and random little macs i finally found a realy good one and played like 30 games with him
and man, this matchup xD

i got completely destroyed the first few matches
if little mac has stage control, then that's it for you

fthrow is your friend
and pk-flash is just amazing in this matchup, pk-flash is good, pk-flash is not useless, pk-flash DOES stuff ... finally

after the first few games we went about ewven, Ness has great tools to shut little mac down with his grabgame, fthrow ,bthrow and pk-flash and pkt1 and with all these tools, this MU looked about even
I don't wanna know how other characters without that stuff want to face him xD

people, who know how to control little mac will be scary in smash 4

Don't forget that Fair shutdown. Can usually gimp his recoveries just by timing Fair right if that little mac recovers mid to high.

 

[Tikao]

Don't forget that Fair shutdown. Can usually gimp his recoveries just by timing Fair right if that little mac recovers mid to high.

if he does that, then you can simply grab him out of your shield near the edge without a chance of getting hit
and if he recovery even higher, than you got a free punish anyway

gimping mac is not the problem, it's getting him into that position to be gimped xD

 

[Earthbound360]

You guys, if Rosalina ends up being high tier (like what I'm expecting), Ness is going to be low tier again. She can gimp PKT recovery without even having to pay attention to the game.

 

[SuperArtCancel]

The Little Mac match up isn't really to hard for me. You'd be surprised by how easy it is to punish side b's and dash attacks if you just shield and go for a d throw into fair or uair. As long as you don't throw out pk fires mindlessly you should be fine.

 

[thesage]

You guys, if Rosalina ends up being high tier (like what I'm expecting), Ness is going to be low tier again. She can gimp PKT recovery without even having to pay attention to the game.

Just because she can edgeguard Ness really well doesn't mean that it's a bad matchup. We need to know more about the other aspects of the matchup before deciding if it's a bad matchup or not.

 

[Earthbound360]

Just because she can edgeguard Ness really well doesn't mean that it's a bad matchup. We need to know more about the other aspects of the matchup before deciding if it's a bad matchup or not.

Normaly I'd agree with this, but this gimp is so easy and practical that it's just disgusting. It's like death grab V2 here.

Olimar and Lucas had stupid gimps on Ness in Brawl, but those were good matchups. The difference here is that those two had to at least WORK for the gimp, and it wasn't even the most practical decision most of the time.
In this case, it almost always WILL be the most practical edgeguard for Rosy, and your opponent can be calling their grandmother while they do it. That's how much effort it takes.

 

[Tikao]

you'll probadly need a 2.main for rosalina

she needs to be ... no she doesn't even need to be close

she simply sucks in your pkt1 tail while being "close" to it and it will pull the entire pkt1 towards her, meaing you need to recover, before she can press down-b ... guess what of both is faster
and you can't count on rosalina messing up, it's too easy for her to fail
Ness' jumps are realy high on their own, so that's everything we have to hope for in this matchup regarding recovering

oh, and Luma doesn't realy like rosalina getting grabbed, and ness realy needs grabs in this game to work


won't realy be his best Matchup

 

[Simna ibn Sind]

A thing with Rosalina and Luma: You may find that Luma generally floats too high to be hit by pk fire on the ground, but if you tap Luma with an attack it will fall down to the floor for a bit making it an easy pk fire target. This work even if your attack pops Luma up before falling back down. Luma can't tech, right?

 

[NocturnalQuill]

Normaly I'd agree with this, but this gimp is so easy and practical that it's just disgusting. It's like death grab V2 here.

Rosalina and Luma is a problem, but I think it's a little unfair to compare it to Brawl's 10 frame grab lag. Multiple characters could capitalize on that. I think Ness is going to be upper-mid tier.

 

[Meccs]

Quite honestly, I think Ness will be high-high mid tier. I think this will be his best Smash game yet. I think he matches up well against a majority of the cast. Rosalina will more than likely end up top tier, so it will suck having a lost matchup against a character like that, but I think Ness will be just fine in 4. I have a lot of confidence for some reason.

I seriously don't like the change to dair. It feels so awkward and clunky. The sparkles are a nice touch I guess, but I feel like actually landing a fast dair is just not possible now. It's probably because I suck though and can't do it.

Likewise. I hate Dair now and its a shame cause i loved it in Brawl.

 

[Simna ibn Sind]

There is plenty of space on a 49 character tier list. What I would be concerned about as a Ness player is my bad recovery. Rosalina aside, Ness recovery can still get beaten pretty easily by just about anyone. I'd be concerned that my aerial game lacks the reliable combo starter it once had, deals little damage, and my shorthop puts my aerials above most of the cast. I'd be concerned that my ground game outside of PK Fire and dash attack is short ranged which makes my safe game very limited.

 

[Meccs]

I don't think his recovery is all that terrible, tbh. It has decent reach, and now that the ledge mechanics are different, aiming for the ledge is pretty safe. Aside from Rosalina, I don't think gimping Ness's PKT is as easy as most people (opponents) tend to think.
Speaking of the ledge:
I really enjoy pushing people off the ledge (by grabbing it) and then hitting em with a sweetspotted Bair.
Does anyone else use the Yo-Yo a lot edgeguarding? It's worked really well for me to basically crowd the edge with Dsmash, sweetspotted was killing people around 120% quick as they either stayed on it to long and let their invincibility frames run out, or tried to get back up some way other than jumping. The hitbox is real nice for pressuring the ledge.
ALSO: From my experience, chasing people off stage with PKT usually hits them right back up and into a followup Uair/Fair/grab/ (or Fsmash if it's spaced perfectly) and I love it. I really like Ness's ledge/offstage pressure in 4 so far.

 

[Agent Emerald]

After playing a few for glory matches, I found out Ness's Nair is a decent combo breaker and spacing tool. It comes out fast enough to deny Sheik and presumably most other characters' Down grab to Uair combos. I don't know about Fair though.

 

[Meccs]

Yup, Nair is great, in my experience its been better than Fair for that. plus Nair hits all around Ness rather than just in front so its nice to counter somebody trying to follow up.

 

[Luco]

I don't think Rosalina and Luma will be that terrifying for Ness. I'd like you guys to recall Game and Watch in brawl, a character whose hurtbox(? I dunno what it's technically known as) for his bucket was absolutely terrifyingly massive. He also had what I would consider to be a better recovery than R&L and yet most of the reason we were beaten by G&W was because he actually outranged us in a game where our Fair was critical to our range and spacing as well as beat us up close game in his grab game. He only ended up a -2, and from what I can tell we have more on Rosalina than we do on him.

The Luma has 52 hit points you have to take away before you can safely grab Rosalina. With that in mind, try to bypass Luma early on and focus on getting more non-commital damage to Rosalina. Additionally, if the two become separated, Luma can't act if it's too far away from Rosalina so you can take advantage of that. Finally, from what I can see, Rosalina's aerials aren't actually that great (some of them look annoying but I don't think she outranges us here) so although I have incredibly limited experience in this match-up I think that we can work around it... potentially.

I'm pretty sure we've suffered more crippling match-ups throughout our life than these two, and a general meta will evolve as well most likely to deal with her puppeteering nonsense.

In general, I think Ness will end up high mid with the potential to evolve an even stronger meta game as time goes by. Most of his low tier issues have been addressed and he's been given one of the strongest combo games out of everyone. He's pretty great! :D

EDIT: By the by, does anyone else get the feeling we have an immensely good time versus Villager? Especially without customs, it just feels like he has to approach and when he does we just... beat him outright. I'm calling it now, that MU will be in our favour by at least +1 unless he's using timber counter (custom downB) in which case I have absolutely no idea.

 

[Meccs]

The only reason I don't like the Rosalina matchup is that easy gimp. Other than that, on stage, I think Ness fares just fine.

 

[Simna ibn Sind]

Something I wanna mention real quick in here because the situation has come up a few times:

Giving a percent that something kills at is even more vague than every before. Before, people could get by saying things like "X-move kills at 100%" even though they are leaving out crucial info like the target character, the stage, and location on the stage.
NOW, not only do we still need that same information, but we also need info on the % of the character USING X-move. In Smash4 the higher your percent the stronger your moves(this isnt just for Lucario anymore).

So when we talk about kill%s, let's remember that.

 

[Simna ibn Sind]

@ Luco regarding GW in Brawl vs. RL in 3DS: If GW absorbed the tail of pk thunder he would just get the tail. If RL absorbs the tail of pk thunder in 3DS they get the whole thing.

 

[Luco]

@ Luco regarding GW in Brawl vs. RL in 3DS: If GW absorbed the tail of pk thunder he would just get the tail. If RL absorbs the tail of pk thunder in 3DS they get the whole thing.

My point was that G&W rarely actually went for it. Hehe, but yes, I understand your point...

These kinds of match-ups are our hardest but they're not impossible. They tend to require mixups offstage - recovering higher or lower than usual if Rosalina acts like she wants to use GP.

 

[Tikao]

GaW bucket can't becompared with rosalina's gravity pull in tearms of gimping ness

the hitbox of gravity pull is waaay bigger, and sucking up the tale will kill ness as well, you have a long ranged, fast move you can use on ness' recovery at any given time

with GaW you got a medium ranged, fast move, that only works at the bigging of Ness' recovery, if suck up the tail, then you end up in lag just above Ness, meaining you get hit by it, and a light charakter like GaW can get killed quite easily if he flies in the wrong direction

as rosalina you can basically jump in Ness' recovery at any given time without a risk of getting hit and a got 100% sucess rate, if you don't mess up pressing down-b


this doesn't mean we got a -9001 MU here, but it is a big minus

 

[Luco]

Rosalina is incredibly light as well, in fact I suspect even moreso than G&W. if she failed I don't think she'd be in the best position either.

That said, i'm willing to play this MU more before I talk too much about it.

 

[Meccs]

So reflecting Luma Shot with the bat is pretty much a one hit KO just for everyone's information. iirc Rosalina can hold it indefinitely though so it's not as easy as predicting regular smash attack.

 

[thesage]

Here's some useful general stuff I found regarding Ness that doesn't necessarily require it's own thread but I think should be said.

U-smash comes out rather quickly. The initial hitbox is when nice starts throwing the yo-yo in his hands. I think it's been significantly buffed and is good for setting up pkt juggles/frametraps (going to make another thread about that).

Dair might be a good edgeguarding move. It has a pretty big hitbox and if you hit somebody with either the weak or strong hit when they are above 90% and offstage they are probably going to die.

I'm going to be making a post relating to pkt juggles in a couple of days. I think it's going to be a very important aspect of Ness in smash 4.

 

[Meccs]

So how will air dodge cancelling affect Ness' close-mid game? I tried it out and Nair and Uair seem to be the best cancel options.

Also, I'm getting really pissed off losing to Yoshi so much. It's like I'm unable punish him. Every move he just gets away right after. It's two matches in a row now I've had a Yoshi on their last stock to upwards of 175% but couldn't even get a god**** grab to save my life and ended up losing. I don't get it.

 

[Simna ibn Sind]

So how will air dodge cancelling affect Ness' close-mid game? I tried it out and Nair and Uair seem to be the best cancel options.

Also, I'm getting really pissed off losing to Yoshi so much. It's like I'm unable punish him. Every move he just gets away right after. It's two matches in a row now I've had a Yoshi on their last stock to upwards of 175% but couldn't even get a god**** grab to save my life and ended up losing. I don't get it.

Try something other than grab oos. Yoshi's dash attack likes to go right thru your shield, so shield it backwards. Or drop your shield and dsmash.

 

[Luco]

Ah what's this about air dodge cancelling? So far i've just been taking advantage of the fact that Ness can Nair just as his air dodge is ending before he hits the ground. :/

 

[Eagleye893]

I thought that dair had auto-cancel frames at the beginning. I'll see when I can get my 3DS back.

Yeah, Yoshi's dash attack is absolutely hilarious. It doesn't seem like it should be a good move, but it has such weird movement and priority that it catches me off guard too much.

I've never seen people use gravity pull, so I have literally no clue of its range or how it works. Can someone post a video or something showing how far it pulls from?

 

[thesage]

Ness' dair has such a huge hitbox that I used it to spike somebody that was trying to sweetspot the ledge on a stage with a curved ledge while I was still onstage. Hope that was a clear enough explanation.

 

[Eagleye893]

I can't stand wifi lag... I can't even use aerials it's that bad.

EDIT: Things I'm learning as I play

-- Pacman's sideB is bad. You can go between the pellet and him and put out a Nair.
-- I've been playing someone else's ness. Our UAir is really good. Also NAir
-- There are some cases where you can dthrow/dash-attack/uair someone to pop them up and fake for a UAir/FAir followup to get off a PK Flash.
-- Holding Ness' PK Flash until it reaches the end, It will drift slightly behind Ness. As such, you actually want to face away from the person you're trying to hit with the fully charged version of PK Flash because it doesn't need to accelerate in the opposite direction. Uncharged doesn't matter

 

[Jonkku]

I was trying out the hitboxes on Ness' bat, and I did notice something.

Spoiler: I think the picture says all

 

[Luco]

In a sad and ironic way it makes sense. Imagine trying to hit someone with a baseball bat who's right next to you. Your knuckles would slam into them and... not much would happen.

Still that majorly sucks =/

has anyone found a good use of dodge-cancelling? I think it'll be easier and more practical on the wii U version but here I can't seem to integrate it into my gameplay. it seems to get punished more than just regular SH Nairs.

 

[Tikao]

Like i said, uair is love, uair is life

best killmove besides bthrow (which won't work that great over the entire stage)
awesome for juggling, awesome hitbox with huge range that can also hit to it's sides, stays out longer than you would expect (ff uair dabess) nearly no startup lag, not much endlag, nearly no landing lag, deals decent amount of damage (13%)

so it is our best juggling tool to rack up damage with ( one uair = 2 fairs damage wise)
has great range
is fast
depending on our position our best killmove

can you guys help me to legalize marriage with smash bros. moves?

 

[thesage]

Uair is pretty ****ing sweet, but I honestly think pkt is the best juggling move lol. Uair kills early as balls though.

 

[Meccs]

Too lazy too look to seem if I posted this already, but:

Hitting people back on stage with PKT and following up with Uair (sometimes Fsmash even) has worked surprisingly well so far.

edit: okay I got unlazy and saw I already said something about this but w/e I think it's worth repeating.

 

[Luco]

Yeah i've done PKT to Uair and Fair before, it puts you in a really nice position most of the time.

And Uair is sexy, finishing off a PK Fire + Dthrow + Fair + Fair combo with a nicely FF-ed Uair in to maybe another SH Nair just makes my day and also makes about 50 percent from nothing.

Ness' Uair has been significantly buffed in this game in the place of his slight Bair nerf. it's a good move guys, covers so much both horizontally and vertically, goes through so many Dairs and does so much. It's pretty great. <3

 

[thesage]

Bair is still stronk and fast and lagless almost

 

[Luco]

Yeah Bair's still strong, I actually suspect it's about as strong as brawl past about 100%, it's just before that point its knockback curve is really slow, almost like Ness' Bthrow now. It also doesn't like, stop the whole game for a second anymore to let EVERYONE in the immediate vicinity know: "Hey guys, this Ness just got a Bair in!"

... which i'm a bit sad that it doesn't do anymore but oh wellsies. :3

 

[thesage]

It also doesn't like, stop the whole game for a second anymore to let EVERYONE in the immediate vicinity know: "Hey guys, this Ness just got a Bair in!"

... which i'm a bit sad that it doesn't do anymore but oh wellsies. :3

Rolling pkt says hi =3

Also I've noticed that you can kinda juggle with rolling pkt if you follow your opponent with Ness himself and then when you are close enough use pkt. It's riskier, but so troll.

 

[Tikao]

bair doesn't seem nerfed to me, just slightly harder to hit the sweetspot than in brawl. still kills early, maybe a bit later due to the new side blastzones, but the move itself seems nearly the same

 

[Eagleye893]

So you can reflect falco's reflector... Reflect-ception!

Later tonight, does anyone want to test with me all the moves that Ness can reflect? My main concern is megaman and new characters.