Untapped Potential

[DerfMidWest]

I think by people saying ness has untapped potential they mean he should be ranked a little higher. Not that he's good.

 

[robyextreme]

everyones ****ing over low tier potential... every character has potential it's just that the top 8 can afford to make mistakes most of the time, while the other ones simply can't. so if you're someone who makes very little mistakes, you're gonna be good with any character.

most characters will always suck until melee gets some better coders.

 

[oliman]

Game n Watch

Why?

Cuz no one plays him. I'm guessing half of the people posting here don't know what his neutral b does.

but in terms of techs n stuff like that, falco players still have a bit to go and there are the weird characters with funky movement and techs like samus, link, luigi, etc.

 

[DerfMidWest]

Uhm... They can't afford to make mistakes. They can capitalize on mistakes better.
Making mistakes is why people lose.

 

[Bones0]

Someone, please enlighten me as to why this is.

EDIT: I figure the genesis of this is in people seeing thunder jackets, some funky DJC movement and Mofo comboing Hax's **** off on FD. These gimmicks (except for the last one to an extent, he has a somewhat workable combo game, though it frequently depends on the opponent being ignorant of appropriate DI/SDI) don't begin to compensate for the fact he has no safe ground game, no crouch game, no dependable out of shield game and he's prone as **** to baiting. More to the point, his sparkly gay double jump guarantees that he can't efficiently reposition, can't handle most platforms, can't recover to anyone with a trace of edgeguarding algorithm etc.

Once you understand how situational most of Ness' options are, and work to exclude aforementioned situations, he's useless.

I've been playing Ness (albeit, poorly) since before the YYG was even discovered, so I can safely say I am not just being mesmerized by WTF jacket and deathline moments. That being said, I do think the YYG could be a pretty useful tool against even opponents who understand how it works and how to deal with it. It's easy enough that it can be done consistently and reliably (I know this from my own experience), and the setup only really requires the opponent to be at a high enough % that usmash knocks them back as it comes out. This means there are many opportunities to usmash OoS during pressure or set it up off of tech chases.

The other two things you mentioned were funky DJC movement and punishment. I don't think DJC tricks should be discarded as gimmicks or things that will never work vs. good opponents. The ability to stall while airborne for a variable amount of time is a huge tool that can't be accounted for every time. I like to think of it as a vertical DD because of how the opponent below you has to pretty much guess whether you are just coming down or DJCing down to them in order to hit you. DJCing to the side also adds great movement options in addition to Ness's already above average aerial mobility. Just by varying timings of the DJC and the aerial, Ness can use very low and fast aerials, or he can soar across the stage without having to go super high (very float-like). As far as punishment, even with solid DI opponents are going to get comboed pretty hard, and Ness has a good amount of tools to abuse positional advantage once he gets it. Getting caught above or at the ledge by Ness becomes a completely different ballgame than when you both have space to move around.

As far as ground game, I don't agree at all that he has a very unsafe ground game. In fact I think he has a pretty damn safe ground game. He has a great shield size, long WD, and a decent DD and roll. The major issue with his ground game is its lack of potency, not its safety. He can stay grounded all day, but he has very few ways of generating openings. Like you said, he can't really CCC at all. His grab his too small to go for shield grabs or cold run up grabs, and his tilts just don't give him any sort of knockdown or positioning advantage to work off of (the exception may be utilt, but it's easily punished if it doesn't hit). I think his dash attack is underrated because people just go "NO IT CAN BE CCED!!!" but if you use it properly (i.e. vs. DDing opponents) it is pretty uncommon for it to get CCed. It's certainly not a reliable launcher to start combos from though. So the thing I would say that holds Ness back the most is the gaping chasm in between his solid neutral spacing and his solid punishment/advantageous positioning game. He just doesn't have the tools to convert good neutral spacing into solid hits like the rest of the top tiers. If you misspace a move a little vs. Marth, you're getting grabbed and are in a very dire situation. If you misspace a move a little vs. Ness, he can't really do much. He has to either be reading your mind so he is right on top of you when you make the mistake, or he has to rely on you making a stupid decision that any character could get a guaranteed punish on.

So yeah, I don't think Ness will become top tier or anything, but I think he has a LOT of potential to improve in certain areas, such as setting traps to enable him to get first hits, and just being overall more efficient when it comes to punishing people. Even with Falco being a really common character, his punishment game is still being escalated every tournament with new ways of racking up damage as consistently as possible, keeping opponents in bad positions as safely as possible, and edgeguarding with the highest success rate as possible. Ness (and most characters) can improve vastly in these aspects, and because Ness has more unexplored tools to do it with (DJC, aerial combinations, subtle ground move usage, YYG, punishments off of throws), I think he has more room to improve than other characters like G&W who are simply more 2-dimensional ().

 

[DerfMidWest]

I think G&W has less room for development than almost every other character except maybe Zelda or Pichu. lol

For some reason I didn't see this...
Pichu has stuff.
His weird upB mechanics and doraki jump stuff is pree cool.

 

[Kink-Link5]

Bowser, Roy, Kirby, Falcon, Zelda, Game and Watch.

I think most people can say that these characters' options are pretty thoroughly explored in most realms. Like what's Falcon going to do new from here? Space bair like it's Smash 64? More Falcons probably should actuslly; he already has a very good defensive game full of baits and punishes out of dash dance, but really it isn't like Fox or Sheik where they are always exploring new options and consecutive attacks to pry more and more at a likewise evolving opponent.

s0fting with Kirby is 20% authentic and 80% fraudulent, so that could stand to get looked into more.

 

[Jim Morrison]

I'm just gonna say my main because I'm heavily biased just like every single poster in this thread.

 

[DerfMidWest]

I'm just gonna say my main because I'm heavily biased just like every single poster in this thread.

Thats the way to go
Although, part of the reason I picked up ICs was because I felt that they were under-explored and could still advance as a character.

 

[Bl@ckChris]

anybody who even thinks marth is close to tapped out is dead wrong.

dr peepee shows me the light, and damn does that character have some ridiculous things he can do.

 

[RFrizzle]

In all honesty, I think falcon is almost tapped out. But there are things that could push him a little further. Shield/shai dropping, edge canceling, and better spacing. I don't see him moving up much, but he has a little juice left to squeeze out of him.

 

[I R MarF]

Young Link definitely has untapped potential. I don't see what makes him worse than Link or DK.

 

[rawrimamonster]

In all honesty, I think falcon is almost tapped out. But there are things that could push him a little further. Shield/shai dropping, edge canceling, and better spacing. I don't see him moving up much, but he has a little juice left to squeeze out of him.

I kinda agree, at this point aside minor technical things its up to player potential now.

On topic though, Luigi, Yoshi, Younglink I believe have potential. Also I agree marth shouldnt be counted out, what I see happening right now is that the marth game that ken created years ago is running dry, BONE dry as everyone knows what its about now and its running on good players alone. But as far as him as a character I see lots of potential still, but he has to be played by smart players who will push new playstyles. A lotta dumb players still play Marth and just get ***** trying to space and give up.

Spoiler

I think Roy has some potential as well, in certain matchups

 

[Divinokage]

I think it's the players themselves that have untapped potential. I mean it's not everyone that can take one character to top level... I think when one understands the game a lot better than it takes minimal amount of work in order to make crappier characters on par with that kind of level. How many can actually beat let's say Hbox with YL? Only 1 guy if that says anything. Your understanding needs to be so great to be successful like this.

 

[~Tac~]

I agree with Kage for the most part. It's obvious that a high ranked, low tier player must generate somewhat more consideration against that of a top tier say... Yoshi vs Falco. Vman(of course) shows great understanding in his character, resulting in development of Yoshi.

If not for him or many other, I'm sure few were even aware that Yoshi's dtilt has a set knockback regardless of percent. Yet it took someone that developed such understanding to find and implement it.

I suppose it's just a mixture of both opinions, but that's how I feel a character's "untapped potential" develops. It all starts with the player, the character is the toolbelt.

 

[wangsterbaiter]

Young Link. He's got a great defense, along with good movement. Nice Ground moves.

 

[Rykard]

i don't think it is untapped potential but moreso people just waiting for a character to be proven it can be competitive. At this point in the game's life, I'm pretty sure we are aware of what every character can do and the properties of all their moves. It is more or less just learning to play to the strengths of the character and having those players actually be good at the game than finding untapped potential.

 

[DerfMidWest]

You are absolutely wrong.

 

[PGH Carroll]

I kinda agree with him

 

[Divinokage]

I kinda do as well since I'm 100% sure I will never lose to a low tier player, it only seems like characters have untapped potential because only a few have the proper understanding of the game in general. Those kinds of characters is super obvious what they are trying to look for with their limited options. You'd have to be demented in your mind using those kinds of things in order to beat a top player.

 

[Signia]

I think marth was pretty much totally explored early on.
And Doc is Doc.

I don't see Doc players making much use of his Up-B glitch and that move is amazing out of shield.

 

[KirbyKaze]

You are absolutely wrong.

"Absolutely" is a pretty strong word.

I think a lot of characters have visible ceilings at this point tbh.

 

[DerfMidWest]

I don't see Doc players making much use of his Up-B glitch and that move is amazing out of shield.

I actually thought about this after posting, it seems like the only thing doc players could really incorporate into their play now.

@KirbyKaze: I phrased that post very stupidly. I still feel as though there are plenty of advancements that could be made to character technicality/how they play.

For example: samus. I feel like the top samus players, for the most part, don't take full advantage of the more technical aspects of the character.

 

[KirbyKaze]

I actually thought about this after posting, it seems like the only thing doc players could really incorporate into their play now.

None of the Docs are good at d-throw fair. Think about it.

 

[Deadgye]

I don't see Doc players making much use of his Up-B glitch and that move is amazing out of shield.

Haha yeah. I'd wager Doc has the potential for one of best out of shield moves in the game. Invincibility on the frame it hits, sends them up, etc. And even though there's only a frame or two of leeway it doesn't actually seem that hard to do consistently.

I personally think Mario has a decent amount of untapped potential, but that's because I'm a Mario main. He's got good combos and mind games, decent gimps, is hard to combo, and has situational gimmicks like up-b walljump. He'll never be top-tier though lol.

Honestly though.. Mario's biggest untapped potential is using him as a training partner. He teaches you how to properly execute combos quickly and efficiently; If you take too much time lining stuff up he will usually break out of it. He teaches you to edgeguard instead of just holding the ledge and rolling since he has so many recovery mindgames. And lastly he teaches you that you need to set up, or rather combo into, kills; He becomes uncomboable if you just stack damage.

 

[KirbyKaze]

I don't think Mario is bad at all except for his helplessness vs certain kinds of cheese. And Sheik's existence altogether (although one could argue Sheik is a form of cheese).

Doc players can't do a lot of Doc's gay stuff (d-throw fair, perfect CGs, shield WD camp, etc) but they've learned how to do other solid stuff. It's kind of like the Samus potential thing where each Samus specializes in 1-3 areas of her and have a handful of really refined aspects of her game... and then the other areas are shoddy. So we kind of get to see parts of the ultimate Samus, but never the complete version.

Most Ganons are really bad at his CGs so I guess we could see improvements in Ganon punishment. But aside from that I don't think Ganon is going anywhere any time soon.

Yoshi has potential. Ness does not. Neither does Mr. Game & Watch for the most part (there may be more to using his weak hits and stuff but like... his lack of an l-cancel on some of his combo moves really limits the utility of those moves and thus Mr. Game & Watch). I think Mewtwo may have more tricks left in him but... when you break him down he really looks kind of bland aside from his cool punishment game. He's got such low priority in some important places...

 

[I R MarF]

Bowser, Ness, and Pichu definitely have limited potential since they are just severely lacking in certain fundamentals which bar them from high level competition.

But Yoshi, Y. Link, and maybe even Kirby deserve some attention. Especially Y. Link who has plenty of decent options.

 

[DerfMidWest]

Every character has limited potential...

Pichu is also better/less limited than bowser, kirby, ness, and maybe mewtwo as well.

Roy is also pretty much garbage.

 

[Kink-Link5]

I'm pretty throughly convinced Roy is the third worst character in the game

Maybe even second worst. At least Kirby can ledge stall forever. Dash Dance Grab only does so much.

 

[KirbyKaze]

I'm pretty throughly convinced Roy is the third worst character in the game

And you were doing so well for a new poster too.

I guess the streak had to end somewhere.



These are my thoughts on Roy. I'm just copy-pasting this from an MBR discussion on the low tiers. I don't feel like writing a new thing and I don't think anyone will care about me posting it here 'cuz this is a few months old (although my opinion hasn't changed much) and the discussion has kind of moved on anyway.

Oh yeah and Bones is wrong about vertical DD with Ness. DJC movements don't give him anything close to that. If anything it's more comparable to a castrated version of Peach's float (which he mentioned, but the ability to stall in air vs. Fox's ability to play a vertical spacing game with his DJ as a result of his fall movement & fast jump & waveland & so forth are totally different concepts). Ness's DJC swing movements are also heavily nerfed in their utility because in order to cancel his momentum he needs to attack, and his attacks are wonderfully flawed. His DJ also cripples him vs people that play heavy platform games. Ness's jump has some useful utility but by and large the ground is his friend.

==========

I don't see how Roy could be worse than 5th.

He has much better ways to circumvent his crappy traits than a lot of these other characters (like Ness, Bowser, Kirby, Pichu). A bunch of these characters seriously have like... one decent gimmick and then their whole character is garbage.

Bowser is awful once you get past how good Up+B OOS is. Yes, Up+B OOS requires you sort of play around his shield with some respect. And it's lame. But he seriously has no other useful shield options so to speak of. Projectiles in general crush this character unless he's on YS. His approach is completely non-existent and his moveset & normals are a complete joke. His movement is terrible except on YS. Maybe Bowser is secretly like low tier (as opposed to bottom tier) if we played YS only but bleh. Bowser sucks.

Ness has cool combos, sure, but he literally has nothing else going for him. He cannot play a pillar game with DJCs. The frames do not work out. It's slow and horrible. He can do some swing jump nonsense but the reach it provides is not enough for it to be really good for challenging a dash dance or similar. He has terrible crouch options (slow, low range, will never work, etc), the worst standard grab ever, and no real shield game so to speak of (I hear nair OOS is supposed to be okay sometimes?). His only reasonably good options for movement are WD back and DD but those are nerfed by his awful grab and lack of good normals. This leaves him with...? Combos. But how does he get them started? Also, his recovery.

Kirby is horrible. He has no range, no combo game, no priority, etc. His only good thing is that he can crouch and then do a basic 2-step combo if they whiff into him (assuming he gets an up tilt). His d-throw is horrible and shakeable for tons of characters at like 40% (they land on their feet before Kirby finishes and get away from the follow up for free). He doesn't have another combo throw at all. His only other decent trait is that his uair is really strong but that's not enough because he's still slow, no range, etc. His recovery is horrific.

Pichu just doesn't do enough with his hits, has no range, is frail when forced to tech, chain grabbable by tons of characters, etc. He's probably better than Kirby and Bowser though just because he can throw > move on a lot of relevant characters and he doesn't auto-lose to Fox's neutral B + Y button. He also has no CC game and a pretty crap OOS game.

Roy has a crappy OOS game but he can actually crouch into things. His good movement game also helps him circumvent his crappy OOS game. His high grab range (and range in general) gives some functionality to his good movement (DD and WD). His d-tilt is a good normal and unless the opponent true CCs it can knock people over at fairly low damage, which makes it good vs fake CC. His combos aren't as good but his tech chasing is solid and he has better edgeguarding than most of the above characters. He's also got the range & priority to stuff approaches without the opponent missing in front of him, because he has some decent normals, a good grab, and side-B.

I think he's better than GaW too, personally. But that one requires a lot more effort to argue because GaW has a lot of awkward death grabs, solid set combos, a strong crouch, a decent set of normals (which buffs his WD game), and some other shenanigans that Bowser, Kirby, Ness, and Pichu lack.

Also, since we're on the topic of really incomplete characters I might as well throw in Yoshi. I thought Yoshi's parry was some godlike technique for a while but it's just more defense on an already super defensive character. Yoshi's parry feels like it's just a sidestep that happens to combo you if you run into it. Yoshi still has no approach and no real offense so to speak of. He relies entirely on you running into him and him netting a really good counterattack from it. That's my impression of the character thus far. This is not a good strategy vs people who have ludicrous punishment games on you (especially off grab), or those with good dash dances. I don't know Yoshi as intimately as some of the people here, but I'm somewhat disillusioned with him (at least in NTSC) as of late. I seriously don't see how he gets in.

 

[DerfMidWest]

Roy is trash.

 

[KirbyKaze]

This is true. But then that makes Bowser, Pichu, Kirby, and Ness a noun that's considered worse than trash. I'm thinking feces right now.

 

[Kink-Link5]

New poster? I've been here longer than you, KK :<

 

[KirbyKaze]

You seem like a new poster. Maybe I've just never noticed you. At any rate my b.

edit: Unless you have a secret account I don't know about, you haven't been here longer than me. My join date lies.

 

[Bl@ckChris]

KK is really good at posting true things.

it's like he knows how this game works or something...

 

[KirbyKaze]

KK is really good at posting true things.

it's like he knows how this game works or something...

A thousand monkeys with a thousand typewriters make my posts. I just proofread for grammar.

edit: I should note that one thing I revised was my opinion on Roy's OOS game. It's not as bad as I thought because WD OOS is quite good and his gigantic shield grab is also solid. Whereas characters like Ness can't even shield grab Sheik's thigh half the time, Roy will never run into this problem. This empowers dash / run > shield a lot and gives the shield a lot more utility. But Roy, like Marth, isn't built for abusing shield (I think of the bottom tiers, Kirby is probably the best with a shield). And Roy certainly has better things to do (like run around). Still, it's another (useful) thing he can do that many of his 'peers' cannot.

 

[DerfMidWest]

KK I only disagree with you on the subject of Pichu's OoS game.
Of course he has simple stuff. Nair is quick and gets people off of you quickly (uair is similar, but combos into grab and stuff) the drawback of course, is that they have no range. But shine OoS also has no range (not to say shine OoS is bad or that Pichu's nair OoS is even comparable to it)
WD OoS ->d/ftilt is also surprisingly effective.
But the real thing is Agility. Its the best OoS option for pichu. Normally, I think this move is overrated and gimmicky, but OoS and off the ledge are tge only times I feel that its actually viable. It creates space very quickly and allows pichu to cover a lot of ground. Because of it, Pichu can't be easily pressured in shield.

I don't really think he's better than roy, but roy sucks.
Mewtwo sucks more though.

 

[Bones0]

Oh yeah and Bones is wrong about vertical DD with Ness. DJC movements don't give him anything close to that. If anything it's more comparable to a castrated version of Peach's float (which he mentioned, but the ability to stall in air vs. Fox's ability to play a vertical spacing game with his DJ as a result of his fall movement & fast jump & waveland & so forth are totally different concepts). Ness's DJC swing movements are also heavily nerfed in their utility because in order to cancel his momentum he needs to attack, and his attacks are wonderfully flawed. His DJ also cripples him vs people that play heavy platform games. Ness's jump has some useful utility but by and large the ground is his friend.

I didn't mean to legitimately compare DJC timing mixups to full-fledged DD mixups. I just think it's a tool that is largely underdeveloped and one that makes him a lot more dangerous coming down from the air (especially with dair's hitbox) compared to a lot of characters who are just more helpless. A Marth floating down towards a Fox fishing for an usmash seems way worse than a Ness floating down (except for the part where after you land you're still Ness, obv). As far as having to attack to cancel momentum, you can always just not DJC and continue the DJ into a platform WL. Maybe people just suck at calling DJC bluffs by attacking you which is why I get away with DJCing dairs all the time. I probably play much more aerial based than most Ness players, but it's never really felt super awful to me. I tend to just play more non-commital with my aerials by FH dairing or throwing other aerials out around them as opposed to doing bad stuff like approaching with DJC fair into their shield. If they're just never going to fall for any traps then yeah, you sort of have to get your hands dirty, but that seems the same for virtually all low tiers, and even some of the mid tiers.

I also love nair OoS. It reminds me of Peach's a lot. It's got a decent hitbox, comes out fast enough to deal with almost anything (WD OoS and roll are good enough for the rest), and it has enough KB that they won't be right back on top of you before you land.

Everything else I more or less agreed with.

KK I only disagree with you on the subject of Pichu's OoS game.
Of course he has simple stuff. Nair is quick and gets people off of you quickly (uair is similar, but combos into grab and stuff) the drawback of course, is that they have no range. But shine OoS also has no range (not to say shine OoS is bad or that Pichu's nair OoS is even comparable to it)
WD OoS ->d/ftilt is also surprisingly effective.
But the real thing is Agility. Its the best OoS option for pichu. Normally, I think this move is overrated and gimmicky, but OoS and off the ledge are tge only times I feel that its actually viable. It creates space very quickly and allows pichu to cover a lot of ground. Because of it, Pichu can't be easily pressured in shield.

I don't really think he's better than roy, but roy sucks.
Mewtwo sucks more though.

Falco's shine OoS has pretty awful range, but Fox's goes further than his grab on both sides and above him. It also ends quickly and can be JCed into a WD or DJ, meaning you can very often shine OoS and just skidaddle before they can hit you with the attack they were trying to space around your shine. Pichu up-Bing OoS sounds awful. I thought that move had a pretty significant amount of startup compared to Pikachu's?

I just checked and unless I'm misreading the Hitbox/Frame Data threads, both Xchus don't hit or move with up-B until after 13 frames of startup. That's pretty awful imo. You're just a sitting duck as soon as you start it, and there's no potential for knocking people away so you can gain stage control.

 

[onionchowder]

I'm not a Ness main (in Melee) by any means, but I agree with a lot of Bones' comments about Ness. DJC mixing up aerial timings is great for tech chasing and baiting/punishing whiffed Utilts/Usmashes. The DJC functions like a really ****ty float without float cancelling. Ness' aerials are fast and pretty strong, and he has some fairly unique options, such as DJC Bair OoS. Unfortunately, Ness has a lot of horribly crippling flaws; his movement is slow, his grab is embarrassingly small, and his recovery is god-awful. He doesn't take hits well the way Peach and Samus do.

While we're on the topic of low-tiers, why has nobody mentioned Mewtwo? Taj showed that Mewtwo can do stuff; why can't anybody emulate or expand on his playstyle?

 

[KirbyKaze]

But the real thing is Agility. Its the best OoS option for pichu. Normally, I think this move is overrated and gimmicky, but OoS and off the ledge are tge only times I feel that its actually viable. It creates space very quickly and allows pichu to cover a lot of ground. Because of it, Pichu can't be easily pressured in shield.

Up+B OOS is a really ghetto marriage of WD and teleport that does much less. I personally think FJ OOS is amazing with Pichu because people want to grab him more than anything and he's quick enough to fall on them with a punish if they whiff. Kind of cute. In related news, not having a shield grab sucks.

I'll entertain nair OOS too but it's low range and priority causes it to lose in a lot of situations where the frame say it should work out decently. On the note of WD OOS... generally when you have to WD to counterattack OOS, the shield's utility is limited. WD is good but using it to setup a counterattack (especially with Pichu's crappy normals) is kind of ghetto because it's undeniably slower than grab, jump options, roll, sidestep, etc. And his normals sucking (once again) limits its utility. He also doesn't... attack a huge range with numerous options like Peach (Peach shield is amazing). Pichu's shield is good for resetting to neutral, but that's not... good enough. Like, seriously. Shields are important.

I guess I can give him points for uair OOS > death CG vs FFers but... pressure should be spacing oriented vs Pichu. Holes are fine because you can outrange all his possible counterattacks. And uair OOS only works if they're trying to play frames like vs Marth or something.


Moving on to Ness...

Ness's nair OOS is not comparable to Peach's because Peach's disjointed hitboxes beat moves and Ness's don't. Also, range. Ness's range is awful. Ness's nair losing to so much also presents an issue vs combo starters because Ness is squishy. Peach is not and can afford to lose a few exchanges in the shield game. These are gigantic differences.

Bones, the problem with saying "It's like a vertical DD" is that there are characters WITH vertical DD's (Fox, Falcon, kind of Falco) and Ness's cancel doesn't have comparable utility or potency. It's closer to a breed of float & Puff's momentum shift but he has to commit to get it - this greatly limits its utility. Half of what makes float so good is that you get a good position and then... you don't have to do anything for like 2.5 seconds if they don't engage you (or handle it well). Ness has to swing within a certain window during his jump - this makes the DJC rather limited as an air stall. Furthermore, his aerials are also just worse than Peach's so we really have to question how wise an aerial style can be with a character who can be out-positioned so easily (fair doesn't cover low or high - just in front) with awful combo break options (which is partially a byproduct of his DJ, low priority on nair, and complete lack of a defensively useful up+B).

Also, he's not good at the Sheik thing where you whiff an aerial and cover yourself with a gigantic broken move. Ness's cover moves often lose to DD grab just because of their poor range or relative slowness (f-tilt is obnoxiously slow for how low range it is). Against characters like Falcon, Sheik, Marth, Fox... this is a big problem.

I'm not sold on dair. There are numerous tricks with it but to threaten with it has some problems. Namely it's slow, requires you be above them to get priority (generally bad), can't be followed on shield in a lot of situations, etc. It's okay but... it has issues. The bigger threat is bair IMO 'cuz it has priority and speed on its side and 16% electrical damage (which gives it resistance to ground tech at some point, which is handy - almost every character plays ground vs Ness [except Puff, Peach, YL, gay Foxes, etc]).

Regarding the myth of "Ness hits everyone super hard!" While his combos are good, he lacks reliable starters. Until he gets his DJC uairs going, almost all his setups are escapable (barring dair and throw, I guess). If Ness could feasibly regrab tech chase like Sheik & Falcon he would be x190918 better because his throws **** but he has issues getting them (his stubby arms suck - he relies a lot on knockdowns or comboing into grab). But his tiny grab range limits his ability to react tech chase, he's average ground speed, and he doesn't have a good dash attack to counter the rolls.

FWIW I actually do play Ness a lot in friendlies and find him extremely fun! He's really cool if the opponent doesn't blatantly exploit his weaknesses all the time. As Mow once said, "Ness has a pretty sweet micro game." The trouble is, his macro game sucks and that's where most hits come from at the end of the day.

I really like his DJC uair combos and weak nair > ****.

You guys don't get it - I /want/ Ness to be good and to rise above his current status but these weaknesses need to be addressed before that can happen.

PK Fire is underrated.

Ness gets points for his fair beating Puff's aerials and DJC fair linking to various KO moves on bad DI. I think he's one of the better awful characters vs Purin.





I feel like posting more opinions. Here are some to chew on:

Kirby's complete and utter lack of a good grab vs 18/26 characters (rough estimate) is his biggest problem. His game otherwise is cohesive - he has a simple poking game, enough priority to win clashes with a good position, good grab range, and a solid shield game (best shield in the bottom 8 or so characters maybe). He just doesn't have a real mixup in terms of attack-block-grab because his throws suck. That said, his positional traps are solid and with a way through shield aside from chip damage with his crappy throws he would improve a ton. He would also benefit from more ground speed and another quality ground launch move (in grab form preferably). His crouch is a better standalone move than anything in bottom 8 except Roy's grab and/or dash dance.

Not that it matters, but in Raynex's prime (so this was a few years ago and I was still actually playing Kirby somewhat seriously) he and I did a friendly (?) set of Fox (him) vs Kirbs (me). I actually did pretty well, taking two games on FoD and BF (and Raynex was and is the freaking man). He won in the 5th game by camping me on FD with lasers and dash dance. It was pretty ****. But my point is... my analysis of the character and experiences indicate to me that Kirby is fine vs a lot of aggressive strategies because he's really maneuverable in close quarters. Crouch denies a lot of stuff, he has a fast WD, quick jump, and solid moves (tilts, grab, bair, jab). I get that if Raynex camped from game 1 it would have been a 3-0 sweep but like... Kirby isn't bad in combat (especially if the opponent likes to swing at him with aerials or dash stuff [grab, dash attack, u-smash, etc]). His other main weakness (I mentioned crappy grabs earlier) is that he sucks at closing space. If the opponent doesn't play to that, and closes to gap for him, he's honestly not /that/ bad. If they give him a grab and a way to close space in PM I assure you he will shoot up like 10+ spots. Heck, more air mobility, a comboing throw, and Puff's nair would do it. He's underpowered but his design isn't that bad at all.

Roy > GaW at high level (as a character, obviously, not in the MU specifically [Roy GaW seems really gay what with Roy's lame throw tech chase and GaW's CC & CG suite - each character really limits the other]) but GaW >> Roy at mid level (and lower). This is because high level promotes maintaining control more and not committing unless you're attacking an opening or covering an option you can't react to, which Roy is better at. Having a shield is also important vs spacies and Falcon. GaW is much better when people make more mistakes in neutral (with DD spacing and such) because he hits harder and has immediately brutal punishment; Roy's tech chase vs a chunk of characters is comparably good to GaW's throw combos (it's still worse though) but requires way more finesse to do properly than the GaW throw formula: "CG > finisher, throw > aerial finisher, directional mixup with f/b-throw into something, throw > combo move > more moves, throw > gimmick (jab, etc) > kill move or more throw, etc."

Yoshi's parry is (at least on paper) a great offensive tool because it makes stuff like nair > parry into another aerial very powerful (denies shield grabs, doesn't commit you much, etc). This would be much better if you couldn't grab Yoshi through his front side of nair with numerous tall characters (especially Sheik). That said, bair is probably where it's at and backwards nair is solid. I think Sheik and ICs (especially with wobbling legal) are his hardest MUs in NTSC because they win by playing a gayer camping game and by doing 800% per grab combo. Sheik's shield is hard to get through and I'm unconvinced Yoshi has a grab combo on her if she holds away whenever she thinks she might be grabbed like a Fox vs Puff (this counters buffering the d-throw).

Pichu's best trait in neutral game (aside from a decent dash dance for maneuvering) is how easily he crosses up vs shields with aerial approaches. And that low nair at full power gives him +1 (so you can beat shield grabs). He can b-throw > fair on Puff if she doesn't DI away, which might be useful at some point. If Pichu figures out how to get by shield, retreat nair, crouch, bair, fair weaves, etc. Which is woefully unlikely :/

Bowser only has 1 move (except on YS). The grab release infinite vs FFers on PS's rock & fire transformations, while hilarious, does very little 'cuz the damage builds super slowly, it's ridiculously hard to do, and you have no practical combo finisher (aside from platform transformation jank, which should be looked into).

Link is better vs Falcon than most low tiers. Roy is playable vs Falcon on FD and FoD at high level. Ness is playable vs Falcon on FD and loses to him 10-0 or 9-1 on DL64, KJ64, Hyrule, and a few other big stages if Falcon decides he hates fun and wants everyone to appreciate how much he hates fun. Run away forever > eventually hit an auto-combo > kill or resume running away is a really broken strat vs characters with awful jumps.

Link > YL because damage, range, and lower percent knockdowns with his normals vs spacies do matter. YL is better vs Sheik and Puff. Link is same or very slightly worse vs Peach, very slightly better vs spacies, better vs Falcon, and better vs Marth. Link is better vs ICs, Samus, and Ganon. YL might be better vs Doc but I'm not sure why I think that. YL might be better in this meta because he's got utility as a CP character vs Hbox (him, specifically) but I have trouble taking that argument seriously because only Armada actually beats him with YL despite many cheesy attempts by others.

Mute City isn't as bad as Brinstar. And both are better than KJ64.

ICs are much better vs obscure characters with wobbling on because it removes a lot of room for error during otherwise technically demanding punishments. Rather than needing to recall the handoff on Link or adjust an existing handoff or CG timing, you can just auto-kill them. This is, incidentally, part of why Sheik's CG is so gay (d-throw unaffected by weight). Anyway, back to ICs. Many sets have been lost by ICs dropping their handoff and then Falcon knees them some time after. Or Mario hits a random move, kills Nana, and then duels with Popo (who loses in a really epic fashion). This kind of thing happens much much less with wobbling.

Mario isn't that bad but he's kind of awkward. His bair wall is surprisingly gay though. Gayer than DK's IMO if only because he doesn't commit as much when he does it - he has follow up actions outside of 'land and dash away' or 'land and jump again'. This is a huge deal. DK's bair is better as a move but Mario's versatility gives him more room for player skill to mitigate his priority weaknesses (his priority is below average but he has enough so that you can work with it). DK's too telegraphed with too many things. His biggest issue is that he struggles varying his gameplay and his normals suck (his ground game is fairly solid - his DD grab is awesome but that's almost all he has so it's easy for opponents to figure out his ranges & stuff 'cuz he's largely only using a few options and his gimmicks are kind of meh).

Mario's up angled f-smash is often much better than the straight version. Especially for policing SH fair-happy Sheiks and such. The angle actually makes a huge difference. Fair is harder to hit on her recovery than I thought but Mario is also faster around the edge than I thought and his smashes are easy enough to hit on their own. His recovery stalls suck if the opponent knows to refresh invulnerability the extra time to counter it (or hits you through whatever stall you're using).

Puff is top tier. Puff players are just largely uncreative. PP has some crazy ideas for Puff with weaving & momentum shifts.

M2K's old turnip stuff still works vs Puff with Peach. And if you can force her onto the ground then you can pressure her really well & turnip zoning is really strong. Peach struggles with pulling Puff to the ground though. PM leaders, if you're reading this, give Peach a new dair. Falco's current dair, ideally. And give Sheik a combo throw or Melee Peach d-smash so she can fight shields. Losing to shield > WD or shield > wait is really lame.