Tier List Speculation

[Deleted member]

Yeah I don't think Ness is very bad.

I think ness is bad. i also think ness is supposed to be bad and there's nothing wrong with him as-is.

 

[Overswarm]

Why would a character be okay being "bad"? I can understand "worse than other characters", but "bad" seems like a waste in a game where you're literally balancing things.

 

[Ripple]

the only problem with ness that I have is that his pummel is SO damn long. I have to wait over a full second after a pummel before I can throw someone

 

[Pwnz0rz Man]

I think ness is bad. i also think ness is supposed to be bad and there's nothing wrong with him as-is.

I'm afraid I don't understand how a character being bad is okay. No one should be bad in this game, not as good as certain characters or in certain matchups sure, but out and out bad? No way. With that said, I don't think Ness is as bad as he's made out to be, I still feel he's better than D3 and he's usually considered somewhere in the low-mid or high-low.

 

[Archangel]

Ness is only bad at getting back to the stage vs some characters. In every other aspect he's far better than people think. If you have played a good ness yet...you are going to be in for something when you get Shine-Dair'd...or whatever the hell his DownB is now.. -_-.

 

[Oracle]

Ness is really good but I'm not gonna waste my time explaining why because I know everyone is just gonna ignore what I say lol

 

[Kink-Link5]

The fact that people think DeDeDe is in bottom 5 let alone bottom of the barrel is what's weird to me. Guess Fly needs to show some punks that Penguins CAN Fly.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

Perhaps people need to go to the Character Discussion subforums before judging characters they haven't seen much of. :x

 

[Oracle]

Or they could just not judge characters they don't know anything about.

That would be too easy though

 

[Deleted member]

I'm afraid I don't understand how a character being bad is okay. No one should be bad in this game, not as good as certain characters or in certain matchups sure, but out and out bad? No way. With that said, I don't think Ness is as bad as he's made out to be, I still feel he's better than D3 and he's usually considered somewhere in the low-mid or high-low.

Some characters are going to be better than others. If some have to be good and some have to be bad in a relative way, I would rather the characters with flawed design like ness to be bad, because making flawed character designs good usually means polarizing the character in some really stupid aspect that makes them really hated.

i think ness is better than DDD because i think every character is better than DDD. if ness was the 2nd worst, i would be okay with that.

this game should have bad characters. having all of the characters be not_bad would be irritating in its own way, regardless of the methods needed to overcome that some designs are just naturally better than others.

 

[DMG]

What about... ya know, good characters with polarizing aspects? Not like people enjoy some of the things the better characters can do either. If Ness can get away with some janky stuff, and still suck because everyone elses janky stuff is better, I think that's fine. I'm more concerned about the general power level average: it's not fun having a super star like Fox Falco etc and then look at Ness lol.

I understand the concerns about keeping characters unique in design, but like I can't find a justification why Ness shouldn't be buffed or couldn't be given a polarizing aspect, if we're directly looking someone like Sonic in the face and applauding. If we're proactively going against the "polarizing" aspects, regardless of power level, then I'm definitely more sympathetic or apathetic towards Ness remaining "bad".

 

[Overswarm]

I'll only say it one more time:

Make Ness' PK Flash be something you just press "B" and then it comes out, and you can control it while controlling Ness, similar to Pit's arrows except not nearly as mobile. That would be some epic stuff.

Short hop PK Flash into dash attack to prevent shield grab. PK Flash on stage while edge hogging.

That'd be cool.

 

[DMG]

No

Make it just as mobile as Pit arrows

With LIGHTNING BOLTS N DARK RED AURA FIRE

and it does a bajillion damage

Balance


Make his PK flash a Sonic spin

Broccoli Sword

 

[V-K]

I think ness is bad. i also think ness is supposed to be bad and there's nothing wrong with him as-is.

Bad?
Fair = giant hitbox, pretty much always leads into follow up
Dthrow = free combo
Dair = instant, can be used in combos or as finisher
Nair oos = r4pe

I don't think Fishburne used Ness in his full potential either.

 

[DMG]

Fair is a lot less reliable for setting up another hit than people realize. Half the time, people can DJ or roll out before you get the grab.

 

[Kink-Link5]

Yeah I don't think Ness is very bad.

All this really shows, if anything, is that Ness is a hard matchup for Charizard, which, as a player of both characters I already knew. PK Fire alone shuts down a large portion of Charizard's entire character. It's particularly concerning that Bane took Fishburne to BF, since a lot of what Ness does especially against Charizard works best on 3-plat stages, and Charizard can't get the benefits he would on YS or Smashville on the stage. I can gather that DSR was on since he didn't go back to Dreamland, but I still think it was a really poor choice to settle on BF as a counterpick.

 

[Problem2]

I guess these are just more individual bad match-ups vs Ness.
(The sound is desynched on most of these vids, which is rather unfortunate.)

 

[Archangel]

I could be wrong....but it sounds to me like some of your are deciding who's better or worse based on which youtube videos impress you. Even worse....based on whatever characters you decide are impressive or aesthetically pleasing. Even worse, based on name recognition in these videos of said characters.

If this is really all it takes for you to come to your conclusions about who is good/bad then you probably should leave this thread.

 

[DMG]

Awestin lives in the same region as Oracle Problem Me Seth etc. We've all seen and had to play against his Ness, and can vouch for him.

 

[SpiderMad]

Rubyiris would also contend for Ness being good, I think he refers to KiraFlax using him

 

[V-K]

I could be wrong....but it sounds to me like some of your are deciding who's better or worse based on which youtube videos impress you. Even worse....based on whatever characters you decide are impressive or aesthetically pleasing. Even worse, based on name recognition in these videos of said characters.

If this is really all it takes for you to come to your conclusions about who is good/bad then you probably should leave this thread.

So a Ness beating a Charizard player 3-1 in Grand Finals is a completely meaningless fact?

 

[Hylian]

So a Ness beating a Charizard player 3-1 in Grand Finals is a completely meaningless fact?

When neither of the players are recognizable it doesn't mean quite as much. I have no problem beating that ness player lol or at least I didn't last time I played him. I would rate his skill level around players who got 17th at SCSYN. Awestin on the other hand I believe really shows off what ness is capable of because of the caliber of players he's beating.

 

[Overswarm]

So a Ness beating a Charizard player 3-1 in Grand Finals is a completely meaningless fact?

Yes. Winning is not the acme of skill, nor is it necessarily a good indication of long-term success. If this Ness went and won many more tournaments, or traveled frequently, we would be able to find the evidence more substantial.

 

[Oracle]

Nobody has provided any reasons for why ness is a bad character. Why do you guys think hes so bad?

 

[Scythe]

I think Ness is probably bottom 5 but he's not bad, he's just not great and 90% of the cast is great.

 

[JOE!]

Nobody has provided any reasons for why ness is a bad character. Why do you guys think hes so bad?

Because he isn't a space animal/shiek/marth therefor it is blasphemous for him to be comparable to them.

 

[ClinkStryphart]

Ness is only bad at getting back to the stage vs some characters. In every other aspect he's far better than people think. If you have played a good ness yet...you are going to be in for something when you get Shine-Dair'd...or whatever the hell his DownB is now.. -_-.

Couldn't have said it better my self. Ness has a ton of tricks espically since shielding against him generally is pointless. Primarly PK-fire is what makes him imo really really good. If I'm not mistaken it the (down B) has the shine or electric hit + the absorb feature.

 

[Deleted member]

Nobody has provided any reasons for why ness is a bad character. Why do you guys think hes so bad?

mediocre speed, mediocre range, mediocre combos against good DI, no recovery, inability to gain stage control, and as was mentioned earlier, other characters are just better so why not use them instead?

there's nothing wrong with ness or DDD being bad. some characters have to be bad simply on the merit that they're not as good as other characters. there is nothing wrong with it.

DMG: good characters with polarizing aspects tend to be good based around whatever makes them polarized. These characters are incredibly annoying and gimmicky and no one likes them. See: Brawl Olimar.

 

[Problem2]

I think the biggest misonception is that Ness has a bad recovery. Ness can recover from insane distances. He can be almost anywhere on Dreamland and make it back. He's floaty, he has good air mobility, his mid-air jump goes really high, and his PKT2 is longer than Fire Fox. When Ness starts PKT, he gets a momentary hitbox on his head that can out prioritize many moves such as Wario's d-air. If he aims into himself as quickly as possible, it leaves only a few frames of vulnerability. The risk of trying to stop the PKT2 is high. It has a nigh-unbeatable hitbox at the start. It even beats Aurabomb, and it kills really early.

So the answer is to hit the end of it right? Well kind of, but if Ness angles it into the ground, he cancels out of it and is allowed to do anything, making it extremely safe. If the PKT2 ends at a certain minimum distance off the ground, he also suffers no landing lag. The move still has a decent hitbox at the end, so you still have to really space your attack perfectly, or get hit or trade with it (at least the tip doesn't kill). It's just about like a better Fire Fox in every way imaginable.

Ness's on stage game is pretty good too. He has Peach's n-air. His d-air comes out really fast, has high knockback, and has more stun than Falcon's when you bounce someone off the ground with it, making it a guaranteed combo into u-air against all but the floatiest of characters. The set up usually nets a kill around the 90%s.

His d-throw is relatively similar to Shiek's old d-throw. Offers amazing tech chase opportunities against fast faller and gives free combos against anyone else. Ness's b-throw is a kill throw, often killing at around 120%, but it heavily depends on stage, character and location on stage.

Any big or slow character has an even harder time vs Ness because of how hard it is to avoid PK Fire. The move bursts, even when it hits shield. Throwing out PK Fire is a bit safer than in past entries because Ness still has air control after throwing it (he can even fast fall).

We've had discussions on if Ness is one of the best in the game. It's kind of hard to guage how good Ness is with the lack of good players committed to him, though we've all dabbled with playing Ness to see what he is like. There is no way though that Ness is a bad charcter, laughable to think he's the worst in the game. Ness has the tools to do fine and is better than at least half the cast. Point is, PMBR should leave Ness alone. Don't make him better or worse than he is right now until the metagame developes further.

 

[JOE!]

Umbreon, of course characters may end up being worse off than others, but you seem to be implying that it is ok to make them -intentionally- bad...

 

[Overswarm]

He's not implying that; he's implying that a character's design should speak for itself in a vacuum. Once that character is released into the wild with others, that character can simply be bad and still have a unique design and that isn't something we should attempt to "fix". You can still make Ness kill things and he can do interesting combos and kill and whatnot... it is more that he is outshined by the others present in the cast. I disagree, but I get where he's coming from.

 

[Plum]

Umbreon is just saying that every game will have to have characters that are bad relative to the rest of the cast, which is true, and that it's fine, which it is.
Whether or not Ness is in that category is still a little bit up in the air given the lack of development in most characters that aren't high tier Melee vets.

 

[Archangel]

mediocre speed, mediocre range, mediocre combos against good DI, no recovery, inability to gain stage control, and as was mentioned earlier, other characters are just better so why not use them instead?

there's nothing wrong with ness or DDD being bad. some characters have to be bad simply on the merit that they're not as good as other characters. there is nothing wrong with it.

DMG: good characters with polarizing aspects tend to be good based around whatever makes them polarized. These characters are incredibly annoying and gimmicky and no one likes them. See: Brawl Olimar.

I agree with the latter half.

As for your lists of reasons why he's bad. I think alot of them can be said about other characters.

Mediocre Range....yeah when measured against Ike, DDD, Marth...etc.

Mediocre speed....compared to Sonic,Fox, Falcon...etc. yeah.I'm going to assume you are saying his combination of mediocre range and speed matched with his design is his flaw? If so then yeah I can see that.

Mediocre Combos against good DI. This is the real spotty one. I think against good DI most characters have mediocre combos. The exception being Lucario-Falcon type characters that are so Combo heavy that it's near impossible to avoid combos from good players...but the bulk of the cast has a hard time getting off combos if the opponent knows how to DI.

No Recovery - Even with the increased distance I think it's just horrible I 100% agree.

Inability to gain stage control - I think this is strictly character to character dependent. He can dominate the stage against some characters while getting completely dominated by others.

I won't deny that Ness is currently far from the top level but he's not as near the bottom as you might think at first glance. He's got some decent tools that aren't being completely utilized by the masses just yet.

Another thing I just realized is that some characters just visually or design-wise are not likable. I play pit who unlike ness is good near the top of the heap imo. However he is plagued by this same attitude. I'm not sure exactly how to put it but it's something like...That characters is boring, plain, not flashy and therefore I don't like him and I'm more than willing to ignore/downplay his potential. to use you as an example. I think ____ is bad and ____ should be bad follows behind that. Now, Before it's said by someone else I will also say the opposite applies. I think _____ is good and ____ should be good. Usually this follows Characters that are the flashiest, complex, exciting, fast pace, a fan favorite ..etc. Therefore I am more willing to except him/her as a great character and subtlety boost this characters potential subconsciously.

Bias is nearly inescapable though as much as I hate to admit it. I'm sure if you posed the question of what characters should be at the top and what characters should be at the bottom you'll end up with a wide array of answers with many some sort of pretentious foundations to disguise their illiberality. The truth will still remain, people like what they like and hate what they hate, this will always play a part in the construction of tier lists even speculatively. Sure numerical data and theory will play a part, as well as consistent results and placings, As well as collective success or lack thereof will be taken into account, However, as long as there is room for opinion and personal prejudices finding a result that reflects truth without influence is....next to impossible but the least influence we allow in our individual views the better. Especially considering those eventually become collective perceptions years later I think it's important to avoid overloads of bias viewpoints.

So....even though it's a speculation thread I think it would serve everyone well if we (as a whole) gave a conscious effort to objectively explain our viewpoints.

good day everyone .

 

[The_NZA]

I didn't want to really post this because i'm not interested in all of you switching to Ness, but here's IMO the best PM video of Ness (played by Sinister B).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZZYTPQ1mH0#t=9m41s

I think Ness's combo game is immaculate and spacing game with fair is pretty freakin good and can almost always lead into a grab when lcancelled. His pkfire offers good mixups, his dash attack has decent range. He has killing moves he can count on, even if his smash's are relatively slow. I think his psi magnet offers him good aerial mobility options although I think the BR was really really lazy with its trajectory (they didn't give it considerations for how it should work with his djc combo game and did not design it with Ness's other tools in mind).

His magnet trajectory is the only really obvious things in his toolset that is undeveloped and could use changing. Besides that he has plenty of good tools.

 

[Archangel]

I didn't want to really post this because i'm not interested in all of you switching to Ness, but here's IMO the best PM video of Ness (played by Sinister B).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZZYTPQ1mH0#t=9m41s

I think Ness's combo game is immaculate and spacing game with fair is pretty freakin good and can almost always lead into a grab when lcancelled. His pkfire offers good mixups, his dash attack has decent range. He has killing moves he can count on, even if his smash's are relatively slow. I think his psi magnet offers him good aerial mobility options although I think the BR was really really lazy with its trajectory (they didn't give it considerations for how it should work with his djc combo game and did not design it with Ness's other tools in mind).

Everyone has immaculate combos on star fox? I'm not playing devil's advocate if that's what it's starting to look like. I'm just asking wondering why not show how well he combos on a character that isn't built to be combo/CG'd to death. The ability to Combo/CG Fox does not make you a good character by default. See: Roy

I agree mostly with everything else you said I just want you to keep in mind evolution and adaptations. For example Ness's Dash attack has good range but it's a dash attack that last 123874908273498 frames. As great as it is it can be defeated by pressing the jump button or in many cases R followed by A. Just one of those things to keep in mind.

 

[Red(SP)]

Tl; dr. Ness is a good character that's pointed out on obvious flaws 24/7.

He can easily become one of the most deadliest characters in the metagame if used in the highest level of mindset.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

Just like everyone else.

 

[Plum]

Anybody play Brawl+ back in the day?
Do you guys remember Ness back when it was like, 4.3 or something?
He still had the piss poor recovery, average range and speed, and etc. that define his character but in an effort to make him good he was polarized to such a degree that it was just a horrendous experience for everyone involved, both players and the dev team. Sure, he was a high tier character, but it was at the cost of just horrible design.

Heck, just look at Ness in Smash 64. He has some crazy **** things that he can do, but the design flaws of his character limit him so much that he's pretty crappy overall.
I think Ness is an unfortunate victim of his own character and it's something that has shown in every Smash game to date. I'm of the (biased) opinion that if you really want to abuse Ness's character flaws when playing against him it makes him much worse. I have no doubt that he's better in Project M than he has been in any other Smash game, but so is everybody else. Which is why people are saying that it's not necessarily that Ness is bad, it's just that everybody else improved as much as he did (and some more) so his relative place in the cast is similar to where it has always been.

 

[Kink-Link5]

I think the biggest misonception is that Ness has a bad recovery. Ness can recover from insane distances. He can be almost anywhere on Dreamland and make it back. He's floaty, he has good air mobility, his mid-air jump goes really high, and his PKT2 is longer than Fire Fox. When Ness starts PKT, he gets a momentary hitbox on his head that can out prioritize many moves such as Wario's d-air. If he aims into himself as quickly as possible, it leaves only a few frames of vulnerability. The risk of trying to stop the PKT2 is high. It has a nigh-unbeatable hitbox at the start. It even beats Aurabomb, and it kills really early

I think a bigger misconception is that length of a recovery makes a recovery good. See: Marth

Or maybe that a bad recovery makes a bad character. See: Marth

I'm not really sure which is the more widespread idea.

 

[V-K]

For example Ness's Dash attack has good range but it's a dash attack that last 123874908273498 frames. As great as it is it can be defeated by pressing the jump button or in many cases R followed by A. Just one of those things to keep in mind.

It really doesn't last that long in PM. And the advantage is that the big hitbox is not part of Ness' body, so you can basically poke the opponent's shield without being in grab range.