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The_NZA
RE dedede: yeah same. i think he's a pretty solid mid-tier because he does well against a lot of melee characters. but thats also part of the reason im starting to come around on ness too.
Ness does get **** on by people who can outspace (like every character i play), so that's a big reason i think he can't be THAT good, butttttt he looks pretty good in matchups against pretty good characters.
I'll go ahead and post here why Ness is low tier since I sometimes talk about it but the majority of my conversations on the topic are held in private conversations.
Ness is IMO the 3rd or 4th worst character in the game for a few reasons. Let's start with an observation.
Every character in Smash has to beat shields, because Shielding is one of the strongest techniques in the game. Every character has one of 4 ways to do this.
1. Range/disjoints that can safely pressure a shield
2. Speed to move in and out of danger zones, force bad reactions, and then go in for grabs
3. Grab range, in which case their "threat zone" and "grab zone" can ambiguously overlap once again making the grab a valid mixup
4. Projectiles, allowing them to forego having good speed/grab range/disjoints so that they can close the distance and force a shield in a situation that leads to a grab (think Mario/Ivy)
Every character has SOME combination of these and is able to win neutral off of it. Ness has none of these.
1. None of Ness's aerials can be safely spaced on shield without full crossups (which means he HAS to close in very close to be safe on shield). Even Ness perfectly spacing bair on the front of Marth's shield will lose to a frame perfect shield grab.
2. Ness is above average in speed but not ACTUALLY fast like ZSS, Marth, Luigi, Falcon, Fox, Sonic, Pikachu, Squirtle, or any actual fast characters, so his speed doesn't really stack up
3. according to the stats sheet, Ness has the 3rd (?) worst grab range in the game. Only characters with worse grab range are Pikachu and Sonic, who are both fast.
4. Ness's projectile is garbage for the purpose of beating shields. THIS IS WITH 1 EXCEPTION--those players who master a 1 frame technique that results in a 4 frame landing lag horizontal pkfire could overcome this giving Ness a reasonable neutral game. It is possible for this to be accomplished but I don't think requiring this is really good design...
Consider these 4 things individually and then add them together. As someone playing against Ness, what do you really need to worry about when you are 3 characters away? DJC fair/bair? Just have your WD OOS game or shield grab game down and you should be fine.
"But wait, uncle NZA. There's no way that's true--I've seen Ness's zip zap around with their DJC aerials. I KNOW Ness can move fast so why are you trying to convince me otherwise".
Well, my boy, consider how scary that DJC aerial style is. And then remember that Ness can't DJC WITHOUT committing to an aerial. Yes my son, he must commit to a close range aerial that is frame disadvantaged on shield that cannot even be timed to have maximum frame advantage because he has to start the no-windup aerials at the start of the second jump that gives him his momentum, meaning he hits your shield with most of his aerials unoptimally. Meaning if you stay in DJC fair/bair range against him, he can't even reliably approach you with DJC aerials without you threatening--shield + OOS responses. There's no jumping with ness and not committing to an aerial into a tomahawk grab unless your willing to float down with the 27th worst fall speed in the game. So he can't even reliably tomahawk from max DJC range.
Basically, if you are three character lengths away from Ness, he has no options against you except for guessing with pkfire, djc aerials, or dash attacks which all lose to shield. If he can get close enough to mag dash, mag + aerial, and actually open up grab options, he actually has okay options. except most players can tell when Ness is trying to get this close and can usually wall him out at that point OR just shield mag + out of magnet option and still be in frame advantage versus the Ness player.
Ness's redeeming aspect to his play has to do with his punish game once he gets a hit, which largely will come from grab followups, dtilts, and platform reads. And these followups are VERY potent--until people adapt. And don't get me wrong--people aren't adapting yet, especially on the national level. Not that that's surprising. Most PM players aren't that adaptive yet by nature, and many haven't developed tons of character v character, style v style, or character v style experience so its to be expected.
But Much of Ness's damage comes from a combination of Fair chains, dair followups, dtilt to dair followups, and jab resets. Very few combos Ness has against non-fastfallers exist without a combination of the tools listed above. ALL of the tools above can be counterplayed REACTIVELY and can either stop the combo outright or force a really hard guessing game on a character that essentially NEEDS 40-50% everytime he wins neutral.
Fair can be SDI'd into Ness + a fast 3 or 4 frame aerial means you will hit him before he gets a followup. The dair followups can be teched to get out of them (unless a platform is involved). Dtilt to dair is also techable, forcing a hard mixup for a character like Ness to do (the child is slow and has to do some guessing). And Jab resets can be buffer rolled/get up attacked, making them unreliable. If Ness can't get 40-50% on every neutral engagement he wins, he's probably losing.
Finally, the biggest issue with Ness in this patch is that he just doesn't have reliable ways to kill a lot of the cast at high percents, forcing him into a essentially horrible matchup spread. Ness's dthrow to uair no longer works at kill percents of any kind v. floaties like GnW, Peach, samus, kirby, squirtle, Ivy, Zelda, Luigi, Sonic, Mario, Mewtwo(?), etc. Ness's dtilt to uair doesn't work against those characters. Fair to uair doesn't work. He's forced to essentially get a raw dair in neutral (extremely hard), a raw bair in neutral (good luck), or knick at the opponent till he is at 140+% when he can finally usmash OOS. It is not uncommon to see Ness struggle to kill floaties at every stock in a set, and when a character with a terrible neutral who relies on combos can neither combo his opponent reliably NOR setup kills on them, he's in pretty bad shape.
None of this gets into recoveries, which we already know Ness has an abysmal one. People are only starting to learn to exploit it with edgeguarding, and most characters can guarantee edgeguards on Ness on most stages at all percents, with some characters having some pretty hard counters in certain positions (DDD jet hammer, ike fsmash, Link upb, Marth Fsmash). Due to the way projectiles clank with pk thunder (against which the counterplay is practically non existent), Ness players can expect to lose random stocks much like an olimar to people clanking with his thunder on their way to winning a national, which means sacrificing stocks at a variety of percents for free.
So yeah, I don't doubt that Ness might have some even or close to even matchups with some fast fallers and semi fast fallers. But as far as I'm concerned, he sucks v. all the floaties, he's bad against swordies, he's bad v. people who can keep him out (sheik, Link), he's bad v. characters who have really good defensive camping abilities and good grab range (DK, Charizard, DDD). That doesn't mean Ness can't do work while you all haven't downloaded the right ways to play against Ness players of a variety of styles. But it in no way makes him good.
This has already been proven too, imo, with how well even good ness's have done when faced with people who actually have Ness experience. Sol/Sora/Apollo Ali rocked Boiko's Ness and Poob messed up Stereokidd. Ness will keep doing well in brackets where he faces mostly semi fastfallers/fastfallers and people who have little Ness experience or play the matchup wrong. But deep inside, the metagame will reveal itself and his magnet will probably be nerfed in 3.6 without compensation, like his pkfire/grab followups/magnet before.
Changes I would test with Ness for him to actually be good?
1. Decrease startup of Magnet from frame 8 JCable on frame 11 to frame 5 JCable on frame 8
2. Increase damage (which in turn buffs hitstun) from 4% to 6%. The concept being that he will be able to mag dash into actual kill followups on floaties AND comboing with magnet will be more reliable and incentivized (whereas right now its mostly there for flashiness while it gives your opponent more opportunities to DI mixup you)
3. Increase damage of Ness's bair from 15% to 16% or 17%, giving it more shield stun and therefore making it safer on shield. You could compensate the knockback to be the same, although it isn't necessary. With this change, Ness could reliably pressure a shield from a distance with well spaced bairs, allowing him to "open up" opponents more and have the chance to "stagger" their neutral and setup the circumstances for himself to get into that close range where he gets his mag dash and dash grab mixups.
Those are my opinions in total about Ness.
