PMMikey
To be the best~
I never even thought about this, but is he rushing, balanced or defensive? I've been rushing with him and maybe I'm playing completely wrong, what do you think?
-
Welcome to Smashboards, the world's largest Super Smash Brothers community! Over 250,000 Smash Bros. fans from around the world have come to discuss these great games in over 19 million posts!
You are currently viewing our boards as a visitor. Click here to sign up right now and start on your path in the Smash community!
What type of character is Ness?
- Thread starter PMMikey
- Start date
ATH_
Smash Ace
Matters how you want to play him. There is no definite label and it is unnecessary to even ponder on it.
Ness can be played in whatever fashion you like, some may have larger benefits but more risk while others have less risk for smaller benefits, this is how most characters work. Not including those like Kirby in Melee (High Risk low Benefit) and Meta Knight in Brawl (Low risk high benefit)
Ness can be played in whatever fashion you like, some may have larger benefits but more risk while others have less risk for smaller benefits, this is how most characters work. Not including those like Kirby in Melee (High Risk low Benefit) and Meta Knight in Brawl (Low risk high benefit)
PMMikey
To be the best~
I mean you're right but I want different opinion on it just to see what others say.
ATH_
Smash Ace
What I'm saying is that there is no "wrong" way to play him other than "don't be completely stupid" like self destructing until the game ends.
PMMikey
To be the best~
I gotcha I gotcha
Noa.
Smash Master
Aggressive vs defensive is not always black and white. It happens in the matter of degrees. Almost all characters have some defensive capabilities and some offensive capabilities. Which kind of character they are is determined by how many of options they have for aggression or defense, as well as the quality of these options.
Defensive options are basically tools that you can use to zone and control the stage. Zoning someone means that you are limiting their options or forcing them to commit to a certain option. When you're approaching sheik and she's charging needles, you are forced to periodically sheild while you're running at her to avoid damage. Or when Duck Hunt places a can on the stage and you're forced to jump over it or shield it. Or when you're approaching Rosalina and luma is acting as a literal wall to your attacks. Zoning has to do with hindering your opponent when they're trying to approach you. Most defensive tools are/have long range, disjointed hitboxes, safe on shield, projectiles, lingering hitboxes, high priority, etc
Aggressive options are defined by zone breakers, and moves that prop your opponent into a disadvantageous spot. Zone breakers are attacks that are faster than you can react to, and that have decent enough knockback to give you stage control when you land them. Examples of zone breakers are most characters' dash attack and nair. And then moves that allow you to put your opponent into disadvantageous positions that allow you to keep putting pressure and aggression on your oppoenent. Moves that lead into air juggles, combos or edgeguarding fall into this category.
What kind of character is Ness? I would consider him an aggressive character. He lacks enough quality defensive tools to be played successfully in that way all the time. The only zoning capabilities he has is pk fire, fair, and pk Thunder. Fair is great against almost all aerial approaches, but is pretty poor at stopping or inhibiting ground approaches since it doesn't have enough range to be safe on shield, unless you retreat with it and give up stage control. Pk fire lacks both the range and speed to be used as a safe spacing tool. If anyone just runs in and shield you you'll get punished. You can typically react to it since it's so slow. Pk fire is a punishing tool, used for capturing landings, and spotdodges, as well as other things. It is not a good spacing tool in the majority of situations.
However for aggression ness has quite a few options. For zone breakers he has a wonderful dash attack and fair. Dash attack not only has wonderful range and disjointed hitboxes, but props them up in the air for a juggle. Nair also has amazing speed, and has enough knockback to give you a lot of control over the stage. If you approach and land a rising fair, you can lead to more fairs. Approaching with a dash grab leads to either a dthrow with combos, an fthrow with edgeguarding, or an uuthrow to juggle. Running up and short hot nairing or fairing is a great way to stop someone if they rely heavily on aerial defensive options.
I would consider ness to be a rush down character simply because he has the tools to break through zones, as well as the tools that put his opponents in bad positions.
What makes Ness unique from other rush down characters? Well unlike sheik, or falcon, he has very low mobility. A lot of aggressive characters rely on being
Mobile, since it makes it significantly easier to break through zoning. Ness has a pretty terrible dash speed and Max air speed. What does he gain in compensation for this? He has a pretty huge reward for landing hits. His damage per hit is very high, and he has his wonderful fair combos which heavily inflates his reward for landing a grab. What makes Ness different from other characters that are forced to approach, have poor mobility, and great reward? These kinds if characters would be Luigi, Doc, Ike, and the Heavies. He is much smaller than all of them. He is lighter than the heavies. And he has a much easier time getting out of juggles compared to the rest of the characters in his class. Ness's wonderful aerial acceleration and deceleration means that he can often wiggle around and past characters that are trying to juggle him. Ness's size and floatiness also make him difficult to combo.
However, I would say that Ness's most unique characteristic is his Pk thunder. There is nothing else in the game like it. No other projectile is designed to be so medicore and poor in neutral, yet spectacular in advantageous positions. No other projectile is as controllable and precise as pk Thunder, while lasting a long time. Pk Thunder also bounces them up, leading them to another bad position and often times another pk Thunder. And no other projectile has the threat of leading into one of the strongest KO moves in the game if a player is too preoccupied with dodging the projectile.
Defensive options are basically tools that you can use to zone and control the stage. Zoning someone means that you are limiting their options or forcing them to commit to a certain option. When you're approaching sheik and she's charging needles, you are forced to periodically sheild while you're running at her to avoid damage. Or when Duck Hunt places a can on the stage and you're forced to jump over it or shield it. Or when you're approaching Rosalina and luma is acting as a literal wall to your attacks. Zoning has to do with hindering your opponent when they're trying to approach you. Most defensive tools are/have long range, disjointed hitboxes, safe on shield, projectiles, lingering hitboxes, high priority, etc
Aggressive options are defined by zone breakers, and moves that prop your opponent into a disadvantageous spot. Zone breakers are attacks that are faster than you can react to, and that have decent enough knockback to give you stage control when you land them. Examples of zone breakers are most characters' dash attack and nair. And then moves that allow you to put your opponent into disadvantageous positions that allow you to keep putting pressure and aggression on your oppoenent. Moves that lead into air juggles, combos or edgeguarding fall into this category.
What kind of character is Ness? I would consider him an aggressive character. He lacks enough quality defensive tools to be played successfully in that way all the time. The only zoning capabilities he has is pk fire, fair, and pk Thunder. Fair is great against almost all aerial approaches, but is pretty poor at stopping or inhibiting ground approaches since it doesn't have enough range to be safe on shield, unless you retreat with it and give up stage control. Pk fire lacks both the range and speed to be used as a safe spacing tool. If anyone just runs in and shield you you'll get punished. You can typically react to it since it's so slow. Pk fire is a punishing tool, used for capturing landings, and spotdodges, as well as other things. It is not a good spacing tool in the majority of situations.
However for aggression ness has quite a few options. For zone breakers he has a wonderful dash attack and fair. Dash attack not only has wonderful range and disjointed hitboxes, but props them up in the air for a juggle. Nair also has amazing speed, and has enough knockback to give you a lot of control over the stage. If you approach and land a rising fair, you can lead to more fairs. Approaching with a dash grab leads to either a dthrow with combos, an fthrow with edgeguarding, or an uuthrow to juggle. Running up and short hot nairing or fairing is a great way to stop someone if they rely heavily on aerial defensive options.
I would consider ness to be a rush down character simply because he has the tools to break through zones, as well as the tools that put his opponents in bad positions.
What makes Ness unique from other rush down characters? Well unlike sheik, or falcon, he has very low mobility. A lot of aggressive characters rely on being
Mobile, since it makes it significantly easier to break through zoning. Ness has a pretty terrible dash speed and Max air speed. What does he gain in compensation for this? He has a pretty huge reward for landing hits. His damage per hit is very high, and he has his wonderful fair combos which heavily inflates his reward for landing a grab. What makes Ness different from other characters that are forced to approach, have poor mobility, and great reward? These kinds if characters would be Luigi, Doc, Ike, and the Heavies. He is much smaller than all of them. He is lighter than the heavies. And he has a much easier time getting out of juggles compared to the rest of the characters in his class. Ness's wonderful aerial acceleration and deceleration means that he can often wiggle around and past characters that are trying to juggle him. Ness's size and floatiness also make him difficult to combo.
However, I would say that Ness's most unique characteristic is his Pk thunder. There is nothing else in the game like it. No other projectile is designed to be so medicore and poor in neutral, yet spectacular in advantageous positions. No other projectile is as controllable and precise as pk Thunder, while lasting a long time. Pk Thunder also bounces them up, leading them to another bad position and often times another pk Thunder. And no other projectile has the threat of leading into one of the strongest KO moves in the game if a player is too preoccupied with dodging the projectile.
Earthboundy
Smash Apprentice
Ness is easily both. I think it also largely depends on who you are versing. For example, I play defensive against Little Mac, but offensive against Bowser. I'd recommend practicing with both play styles and see which suits you best, or you could always be somewhere in between offensive and defensive.
EarthBoundEnigma
Smash Journeyman
At a competent level of play, Ness needs an in-your-face style of play to stay defensive. His defense is keeping you on your defense. Other than a defensive scenario, Ness needs to be offensive to force the opponent's defensive play to enable his genuine offensive options: grab combos.
Earthbound360
Smash Hero
I don't know what to really call Ness. He's most certainly not a projectile based character, and he has mediocre defensive options. I guess that'd lump him in the "offensive" category by default, but he's not really that kind of hard pressure, pin them down kind of monster like Fox or Falcon either.
He has some moves that hit really hard and do a lot of damage (uair, bair, bthrow, PKT2, etc.), but he's not really a heavy, tank fighter like Bowser and Ganondorf. He actually has to combo his hits together, like Sheik and Luigi, but as I said, he's not all weak combo moves either.
Ness strikes me as a true well-rounder, even moreso than Mario. He sort of lies in between those two archetypes. He's got strong moves, and weak moves (and a couple unusable ones lol). He's not particularly fast, but he's not obnoxiously slow either. You typically want to get up close and stay on the offensive, but like I said, his agression factor is about on par with other characters who can't be defined as "defensive."
He has some moves that hit really hard and do a lot of damage (uair, bair, bthrow, PKT2, etc.), but he's not really a heavy, tank fighter like Bowser and Ganondorf. He actually has to combo his hits together, like Sheik and Luigi, but as I said, he's not all weak combo moves either.
Ness strikes me as a true well-rounder, even moreso than Mario. He sort of lies in between those two archetypes. He's got strong moves, and weak moves (and a couple unusable ones lol). He's not particularly fast, but he's not obnoxiously slow either. You typically want to get up close and stay on the offensive, but like I said, his agression factor is about on par with other characters who can't be defined as "defensive."
Noa.
Smash Master
I think Ness is an aggressive character. He's just slow is all. I really do feel like the character most ismilar to him is Luigi. Both are very slow, and want to get in and do lots of good combos. Their attack speed is not slow, but still pack a punch.
Earthbound360
Smash Hero
They really do both play similarly. They both want to grab you really badly, are very combo oriented, and prefer to string together their excellent air moves. They both have short ranged projectiles (although they serve different purposes), lack extremely good mobility options, and can kill off of their throws. Oh, and don't forget those gimpable recoveries 
PixelPerfect
Smash Apprentice
Ness, to me, has some versatility with how you can play him. You can play defensively with all of his specials to keep them away(I don't really see it as the best option but I have seen others play him like that) and shield grab them, or you can use his aerials, Smash attacks or PK thunder into yourself to act aggressively, or play him more balanced with his good combo potential and specials with decent range. The only thing he really lacks are good mobility options.
Last edited:
PMMikey
To be the best~
Thank you all for your tips this has definitely helped my game out!
