Crossup nair/fair, falling / frame canceled uair, empty hop > auto-canceled dair, fh pk fire, magnet stalling, dtilt. Ness's aerial presence is enough to bait a shield.
Mobility-wise, he has zap jumping if you desperately need a method of closing space and mixing up with a projectile.
Pk fire also guarantees two things: your opponent is trapped in flame depending on where it combusts, or that your opponent shields/DI'd and evades in one possible direction.
first off, the opponent, assuming they know what they're doing, isn't just going to let you run up and do any of this stuff. They're going to be trying to space/poke in neutral just like you are. If you have a good understanding of neutral game you will realize why I said what i said.
crossup nair is a bad approach option because of ness's fall speed and it is not disjointed. It will likely get you punished by opponents with good OoS options, especially if they power shield.
Crossup fair will likely result in a loss or reset of neutral because of the end lag on his fair and his fall speed.
Upair has to be well spaced, usually tip range for ness to be completely safe on shield unless its a crossup and not a perfect shield. Unfortunately the hit lag on shield and the lack of shield stun on perfect shields makes it to where he's never really at frame advantage when doing any variation of falling Upair.
Auto-canceled dair is pretty much his only viable tool to force shields in neutral and even that is not very intimidating because of his fall speed.
Full-hop pk fire is also not really a good option because of the angle of the fire and the tremendous end lag on the move. If it misses or is shielded you are almost certainly be punished.
Magnet stalling is also not very intimidating because of his fall speed. IMO magnet stalling is only really useful when trying not to get while landing or in the air.
Zap jumping is extremely risky and should only be used for hard reads or punishes(very situational)
As for PK fire, you can attack while in it with a fast enough move (luigi nair, falcon jab, etc.). you can spot dodge, you can dodge roll, you can jump/walk out (if you're not in the center). It can be reflected even on hit. And NEVER USE THIS MOVE AGAINST GAME & WATCH. He can bucket the fires and get oil panic off of one pk fire. If anything, follow ups are only guaranteed on a select few and only if they're in the center of the fire
His air speed is faster than his ground speed. Shows how much you honestly know of the character.
you are correct but that wasn't the point i was trying to make. his lack of speed(mobility) hinders his ability to pressure shields.
Little range compared to who? The sword users? 3 of his aerials disjoint.
It's amazing that he has much more combos than just dthrow, right? Even then, ness isn't a character that relies heavily on combos to begin with.
Though I agree with your sentiment that people who are overtly getting grabbed by ness are more often than not bad, he does get grabs in the same vein that the characters you listed do as well.
Among his airs the only disjoint worthy of mention is Fair. His bair, although dijointed, the disjoint is underwhelming. Combine this with ness's very small frame and you are much more likely to trade compared to moves like Fair or other moves that have a lot of disjoint.
the same applies to Dair on top of the move being kinda trash offensively.
and for the record, I know ness quite well. Me being a DK main proves nothing.
back throw brought up a number of times, and this may just be a bit of bias coming from me considering I'm a Ness main, but I think it's justifiable. Considering some of Ness's other kill moves aren't moves you can just throw out and expect to get the hit. Side-Smash, Neutral-B, Down-Smash, U-Air, B-air, D-air these are moves that require the proper set up to make them kill and sometimes it's not always easy, expecially if the opponent already can see it coming, so it's good to have that kill throw as another option.
