I will never for the life understand how you guys find it in you to say that Luigi deserved any kind of nerf when Ness can KO as early as Luigi does with his backthrow. Or how ZSS gets her insane combos out of down throw to kill you at like 60%.
It doesn't work that way. Ness' dash grab doesn't go as far as Luigi's and all Ness' grab variations are 6-7 frames more punishable, also his low % grab follow ups are nothing compared to what Luigi got out of his down throw. Their neutrals are also vastly different because Luigi has a good projectile and Ness doesn't. Ness' back throw is a really good move but he can't win the game by only going for that from 0 to 100%, and even at 100%+ he's less likely to even connect with a grab than Luigi is.
If you want to go to ZSS, we're talking of a grab that comes out almost 3 times as slow as Luigi's, and one that isn't 6-7 frames more punishable but instead 40. Setting up a grab safely with paralyzer or dsmash most of the time will realistically almost never work because your opponent can react to both, and if you do connect with a dsmash, nair or uairs are a better option out of it because their likelyhood of success/reward ratio is much better. Zair to grab works on some fastfallers who can't jump inbetween. Regardless, even once you do get a grab the DI read is roughly a 50:50, you'll either read it right and get a shot at the bnb or you read it wrong and have to go for uair to bair and by then you've missed your chance on that particular stock (although if you read a towards DI and the opponent DIs away you can't follow up with anything). Lastly, even if you do read the DI correctly, some characters pop out of up b more than half the time while some (fat characters) get trapped no matter how badly you connect with it.
The percent range in which you are guaranteed to connect both uairs as well as up b properly is extremely narrow, and it's a low enough % that if your opponent DIs the last hit of up b correctly they won't die unless they're very close to the ledge (in which case they can DI towards you after dthrow to avoid being put too close to the ledge in the end). The only way it'll kill is with bad DI, very low ceiling/platform shenanigans and rage. In the last case it can kill your opponent with the initial hits if they're light enough, but in rage scenarios connecting the first uair after dthrow becomes very precise and will often be escapeable.
ZSS' bnb is a really good option in some matchups but almost not an option at all in some others, moreso a luxury that you'll sometimes get (followed by "BALANCE" shouts in twitch chat). It's not something worth fishing for especially with ZSS' punishable and slow grab unless you're playing versus ROB/DK/Ganondorf/Bowser/Dedede etc. Its kill potential is also vastly overrated due to cases of bad DI, and it isn't a guaranteed combo against anyone to begin with because you can mix your DI enough to throw ZSS off.
Everyone who says ZSS' dthrow -> uair (-> uair) -> up b combo is overpowered: I challenge you to keep a memo open every time you watch a ZSS play on stream or at a local tournament versus any other character than the big ones I mentioned. Keep a count of how many times ZSS gets a grab at mid percents (30-60%) and how many times it results in an up b
kill. Two numbers side by side. I'll guarantee you it'll end up looking nothing better than 5:1.
