His Footsies are fine. Magnet is an excellent spacing tool, he has a nice wavedash to compliment it. I 100% consider it a tool in his footsies game based on how closely you can do a magdash to the ground. Am I ever directly attacking my opponent with mag? Never. It's a good bait tool, magging towards your opponent, pulling back, baiting. Ness is fast, effecient, and dangerous on the ground. If he catches you with magnet you're done. Magnet > waveland > shield is a nice movement option to always throw out. You have to constantly mix things up for his footsies to work but there is a plan and there are always ways to improving it. Again, good range does not mean good neutral
That's great that you consider magnet a good spacing tool in the neutral, but it's really not. By using magnet>waveland>shield, you're committing to, a 24 frame action with a hitbox existing for a total of 2 frames if you perform this action as quickly as possible (the entire animation is very slightly longer to account for wavelanding from higher off the ground, but w/e, close enough). That's a huge commitment for something an opponent can beat simply by holding down. Magnet loses to CC, so if you're trying to just jump in behind a magnet for an approach option, a good player is going to just hold down and punish you. Alternatively, they can SDI the magnet and you can't get any follow ups...even beyond that they can just shield it and follow up after your next action.
What you're failing to consider beyond Ness' mix-ups in the neutral, is an opponent's answer to his mix ups. Unfortunately for Ness, ALL OF HIS OPTIONS lose to the same option from the opponent. Reading or predicting a particular approach is not necessary when they're all answered in the same way. It's great that he CAN mix things up, but like I said, they all lose to CC, Shield, or SDI, so the opponent just needs to choose depending on positioning, percentage, and other factors. It's very easy to counteract.
The distance was not the only point I made about his recovery. It's just an added + that his pk thunder goes a long way. His double jump is the real star. If you hang on to his double jump, you have a lot of aerial manuverability to 1. Position yourself in an optimal recovery position (which depends on the situation and what options your opponent has and will likely use to edgeguard you) and 2. counter any early attempts of an offstage edgegard. If Marth is waiting on stage with a forward smash, I ALWAYS sweetspot. It's totally scenario based, and Double jump gives you enough resource to make a worthy decision. I do understand how edgeguarding works lol. if you want a real bad recovery let's talk about sheik.
Before anything, simply because one recovery is objectively worse, it doesn't mean that Ness' isn't bad. I agree, his double jump is the best part of his recovery. It goes a great distance, and of course he can rising aerial to cover himself. However, there are going to be circumstances where his double jump has been consumed and he has to use his PKT2. He can be hit out of a DJC, for example. How can you know that Marth is going to forward smash on stage? If you ALWAYS sweetspot, I'm going to adapt, feign an attack, force you to sweet spot, and then just take ledge. Sweet spotting isn't always the best option. If I'm just hanging on the ledge, are you going to try to sweet spot? Probably not, because I'll just roll. What if you're below the ledge at an angle wider than 90 degrees? You can't shoot straight up and due to Ness' hang time at the apex of his recovery, you can't sweet spot. Recovering above the ledge is preferred, sure, but it's not always going to be the position you're in. And even if you are, Marth's fsmash should beat your sweet spot attempt, lol. He has a sword, he reaches out much farther than your LGB.
You can judge my experience as much as you want. I'm not playing with neighborhood kids though lol. I play with one of the greater Toon Links in the country on the regular, and Tink in general has a lot of great tools against Ness's recovery. This includes arrow for PKT1, Fsmash for a missed sweetspot, and everything against me landing on stage. But I have a lot more options than just those 3 scenarios which you seem to be limiting it to. There's a lot of counterplay to be had that i don't think YOU'VE put much research or attention on lol. we're not going to turn this into "DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM". I'm not looking to prove myself, just Ness and what I know can be possible. Nobody in the cast outright consistently overpowers Ness in this current meta, it's just players being better than other players.
That's great that you have experiences against one good Toon Link player?? I've traveled across the country and have results against numerous top players. I've collaborated with other top placing Ness mains to discuss the character in great detail. I've spent hours researching his frame data and testing possible scenarios. You're just stating situations that I've explored, that I've seen fail in practice with absolutely no basis for support. "Do you know who I am" is an important fact to consider because there is a thing called credibility. Do you have national results with Ness like myself, stereo, nza, aki, octo, eli, etc.?? If not, then maybe you're a good theorycrafter, and that's totally possible. But as for right now, you're explaining a very linear game plan that any mid level player would have numerous answers to.
If a stall put you in a worse position you wouldn't stall
Err...no. A stall sacrifices your position in an attempt to alter the scenario to be move favorable for you. Typically, dropping lower and giving yourself less drift are negative objectively speaking. It may result in you getting back to stage because it allows you to recover against a specific blind spot against your opponent, but in exchange, if you're opponent reads this, they typically get a greater punish.
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Yeah.. It doesn't sound like you believe in mixups, and that's what it takes to have a great neutral game with this character. His platform game is 100%, his magdash is supreme.. You bring up pk fire but if you're using it in a spot that would be incredibly disadvantageous to you you're doing it wrong. In neutral you're always making decisions that keep you at an advantage, if not making it hard for your opponent to approach you. Ness has the tools to do that. It's just harder with him. Wavedash and nair are fine OoS options, I'm not sure I see the problem there.
See above regarding all mix ups having the same answer from an opponent. This is a typical argument where you're making a point that you're "playing from an advantageous position" but you're failing to consider that your opponent possesses greater tools to do that in the neutral.
and i could say the exact same about you lol. Doesn't seem like you totally understand how to take the reigns in neutral.
Okay.
In closing, your optimism about Ness is great and refreshing, and I encourage you to continue to try to prove me wrong. However, before you do that, you should fine tune your thinking process to not be so one dimensional. Smash boils down to having an answer for everything. You use x tool in the neutral, your opponent counters with y, you adapt and use z tool instead, and your opponent begins to counter with yz, etc. One most continually adapt to changing circumstances. You're going to see that your "x" "y" and "z" are all answered by the same tool in your opponent's kit. So you're now forced to try to find something new while dealing with their options which you may not have established a suitable counter for.
Ness' neutral game is weak. His punish game is severely limited by SDI. He has weak kill conversions. He has one of the lowest thresholds for vertical kills, a tool which is extremely important in smash. He has poor follow ups off of grab. You end scratching your head very often when you realize that you have no adequate way to deal with standard pressure.
Didn't proofread again. Probably not going to respond again. I've advocated for Ness' tier list position for months and months, just go read my old essays and you'll see that I was optimistic as you. Then I began to learn as my opponent's began to adapt, Ness runs out of options very quickly. But please, keep up the optimism, I mean it.
