Ness (SSB4)

Ness (, Ness) returns as a playable character in Super Smash Bros. 4. Ness was officially confirmed on October 3rd, 2014, alongside and, coinciding with the Western release of. As in every previous Smash Bros. installation, Ness is once again voiced by Makiko Ōmoto, who has now recorded new voice clips for both versions of the game.

Ness is ranked 28th/29th out of 54 characters on the tier list (tied with ), placing both him and Lucas as the lowest C tier characters. This is a vast improvement from his 26th out of 38 in Brawl, and his best placement relative to previous Smash Bros. games. Ness no longer suffers from having 10 extra grab release frames, which was a huge detriment to his survival. Besides that, Ness possesses arguably the best grab game among the entire cast (competing with 's and 's), with his forward and up throws leaving opponents in very unfavorable positions, his down throw being a great combo starter at lower percentages and his back throw being the most powerful throw in the game, on top of being difficult to DI properly. Other notable strengths include an effective projectile game with PK Fire and PK Thunder, a formidable air game courtesy of his powerful aerials, and a versatile combo game thanks to his throws and aerials. Despite being a middleweight, he also has high raw KO power and high damage output, a prime example being his aerials, forward smash, PK Flash and PK Thunder 2. Finally, due to the strengths above, Ness possesses very useful options to cover getups from a ledge or on the ground.

However, Ness has rather sub-par mobility and range, which often forces him to be methodical with his approaches, or play defensively in order to gain the lead, which can leave him at a disadvantage against characters with greater range on their attacks such as Cloud. Lastly and the most problematic is his recovery. Despite being greatly improved, PK Thunder remains quite gimpable as the lightning bolt can clang with other attacks, while opponents can forcibly push Ness out of the way or even take a hit from the lightning bolt, making his recovery fail.

While Ness has poor matchups against several characters that were ranked higher than him, particularly, , and , Ness has achieved good representation and above average results thanks to top players such as , , , , , and.

How to unlock (3DS version only)
Complete one of the following: After completing one of the two methods, Ness must then be defeated on Magicant.
 * Play 10 VS Matches.
 * Clear on any difficulty.

Attributes
Ness is an unusual blend of character archetypes, being a short, projectile-heavy character with a lot of versatility with his moves. Ness's weight is average and his falling speed is rather slow, giving him no disadvantage with weight alone. His walking speed is slow while his dashing speed and air speed are both sub-par, but his air acceleration is very high.

Ness possesses three projectiles: PK Flash, PK Fire, and PK Thunder. PK Flash can be used as an extremely powerful punishing or edge-guarding option, dealing huge knockback which can KO even Bowser, the heaviest character, under 70%. PK Fire possesses a good amount of range and holds opponents in it when it hits them (due to being impossible to SDI out of), granting Ness guaranteed follow-ups (such as grab, an additional PK Fire, or a forward smash to finish the opponent) as long as he acts quickly enough. Also, it can be used off-stage against characters with more linear recoveries to combo into down air. PK Thunder is one of the more unique projectiles in the game. When used, the player will lose control of Ness and instead take control of a large thunder ball for a few seconds. PK Thunder can essentially be used to knock opponents towards Ness for follow ups, to mindgame opponents into a PK Thunder 2 trap to finish them, to edgeguard, and to juggle opponents. The knockback it provides can also hit an opponent over the upper blast line (especially light and floaty characters), allowing it to be used as a situational KO move as well. His down special move, PSI Magnet, provides a psychic shield that can heal him when hit with an energy based attack, making it extremely effective against characters with slower projectiles such as Samus or the Mii Gunner. PSI Magnet has fast start-up and end-lag, this allows Ness to cancel his double jump momentum and allows him to reverse himself mid-air more reliably, making it effective for avoiding vertical attacks such as Mario's up smash when Ness is on the air.

Ness's biggest strength is found in his superb aerial game. Most of Ness's aerial moves can be used to either space, combo, or KO. All aerials, excluding down aerial, are capable of auto-canceling out of a short hop. His neutral aerial possesses very little startup and ending lag, and hits on both sides of Ness, making it a useful out of shield option. His forward aerial has quick startup, a disjointed hitbox, and traps opponents, essentially allowing it to chain into either itself or another move. It is a powerful spacing tool and is helpful in approaching opponents. His up aerial, one of the strongest in the game, can be used to combo at lower percents and KO reliably at higher percents. It possesses a large hitbox and little lag, making it low risk, high reward. His back aerial is another reliable KO move that possesses low lag. His down aerial can occasionally be useful in edgeguarding, although it has significant startup in comparison to his other aerials. Down aerial has a large autocancel window, giving Ness the ability to decrease the length of his shorthop, as Ness extends his hurtbox by using the move. Ness can use this property to Tomahawk much more effectively, buffer landing options, mix up his platform movement, and occasionally avoid techchase situations. Thanks to his floatiness, Ness can perform a neutral aerial or up aerial after a short hop air dodge, allowing him to jump through moves with invincibility and whiff punish.

While Ness's aerials make him a formidable fighter at close quarters, he can struggle to pressure from afar. His dash attack has an exceptionally long range and is a decent approach, but leaves him vulnerable to landing aerials and is only safe if properly spaced. PK Fire covers a lot of ground and can be used to perform a PK Jump, a technique that allows Ness to approach or retreat by inputting the move 1 frame after double jumping. If Ness buffers an airdodge after double jumping, he can increase the height of his double. If Ness uses PSI Magnet then PK Thunder by the ledge, he will snap immediately, rather than stalling as he would normally. By combining these two traits together, Ness can often recover without having to use PK Thunder to travel, alleviating one of his biggest weaknesses.

Ness's grab game is also very potent. His standing grab has slightly below average range and is fast. His pivot grab is surprisingly disjointed and his dash grab gives him a substantial speed boost. As mentioned earlier, Ness can trap opponents with PK Fire or PK Jump in order to set up for a grab. Ness possesses one of the fastest pummels in the game, allowing him to deal a decent amount of damage before throwing. His down throw neatly sets up for aerial attacks, leading into a forward air chain at lower percents or an up air at higher percents. Ness's forward throw has very high base knockback and can set up edgeguards. Up throw can be used to play situational mindgames with PK Thunder. Ness's infamous back throw is the strongest throw in the game; while it has very low base knockback, it has extremely high knockback scaling and is often regarded as his most effective and commonly used KO option.

Ness is far from perfect, however. He possesses below average speed in both the ground and the air, making it hard for him to chase most opponents. His ground game is also generally weak as he possesses short-ranged tilt attacks. His up and down smashes are also somewhat situational. While his up smash can be used as an out of shield option and his down smash as a useful edgeguarding option to two-frame opponents, both KO considerably later than his other KO options in a neutral situation, and his forward smash, while extremely powerful, possesses both high startup and ending lag, making it easily punishable if it misses. Ness's biggest flaw, however, is his recovery. While there have been various buffs to his recovery that make it much more reliable and viable than in previous Smash games, it is still easy to gimp if Ness is not careful enough with his double jump offstage. Characters with multiple jumps, such as, and , with counters, such as most of the Fire Emblem characters, or with moves that reflect or absorb, such as , , and can force Ness into disadvantage when offstage.

Custom moves can give Ness great advantages and brand new options. PK Freeze can freeze opponents, allowing free follow-ups, especially with PK Fire. PK Fire Burst has more range and power and always goes straight, making it a spacing tool rather than a combo tool. Lasting PK Thunder goes right through opponents and moves slower, allowing for better control. Recovery with PK Thunder 2 is also longer, significantly improving Ness' offstage survivability. Rolling PK Thunder travels much slower but is much stronger. While the recovery with PK Thunder 2 is mediocre due to the drastically decreased distance of it, the move is also significantly stronger, which allows it to KO even earlier than normal PK Thunder 2. Forward PSI Magnet is the same, but has a semi-spike hitbox in front of Ness, functioning similar to 's Reflector. Finally, if the opponent has no energy projectiles, PSI Vacuum is the optimal choice, as it draws opponents in and is the strongest of Ness's down special moves damage-wise.

Overall, Ness is viewed as a viable character in tournament play, due to his good combo game and extremely potent kill options. Despite this, he is believed to have a somewhat volatile matchup spread; he is especially vulnerable to characters that can abuse his poor mobility and low range to zone him out. Characters such as Rosalina and Luma, Marth, and Corrin are seen as especially troublesome matchups for Ness.

Changes from Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Ness has been heavily buffed in the transition from Brawl to SSB4. His grab-release animation with 10 extra frames of ending lag, which was one of his most detrimental flaws, has been removed, and many of the other flaws he had (mainly his recovery) have been addressed. Ness also greatly benefits from the general changes of SSB4, as the new edge-trumping mechanic makes his recovery much harder to gimp, and the changes to hitstun canceling allows him to combo with his moves much more efficiently while the weakening of SDI makes his multi hit moves more reliable. The introduction of rage also benefits him as it improves his KO potential when he's at higher percents. He also greatly benefits from the removal of chain grabbing which was one of the main reasons why his longer grounded grab release was so exploitable.

As for direct changes outside of the length of his grounded grab release animation, he has seen a mix of buffs and nerfs. Ness overall has greater mobility, his smash attacks are stronger and his down smash can now be used as a powerful edgeguarding tool as Ness can now charge to close to a ledge and it now semi-spikes opponents.

However, Ness has seen more direct nerfs overall. Ness' damage output is overall lower and a variety of his moves have smaller hitboxes. His aerial game has seen some downgrades as his forward aerial deals less damage, has more landing lag and has much smaller hitboxes making it a less effective spacing tool while his down aerial has less range, is considerably weaker and it has lost its extremely lenient auto-cancel window making it no longer auto-cancel in a short hop and making it a much worse move overall. His down throw also has considerably increased knockback hindering its setup potential at higher percents.

Overall, Ness is significantly better than he ever was in previous Super Smash Bros. games due to the general changes to the mechanics greatly benefiting him overall and he has also seen solid tournament representation and greatly improved results due to his vast improvement.

Ground attacks

 * Neutral attack:
 * Forward tilt:
 * Up tilt:
 * Down tilt:
 * Dash attack:
 * Forward smash:
 * Yoyo:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Dash attack:
 * Forward smash:
 * Yoyo:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Forward smash:
 * Yoyo:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Down smash:

Aerial attacks

 * Neutral aerial:
 * Forward aerial:
 * Back aerial:
 * Up aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Back aerial:
 * Up aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Back aerial:
 * Up aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Back aerial:
 * Up aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Up aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Down aerial:

Throws/other attacks

 * Grabs:
 * Pummel:
 * Down throw:
 * Pummel:
 * Down throw:
 * Pummel:
 * Down throw:
 * Down throw:

Special moves

 * PK Flash:
 * PK Fire:
 * PK Thunder:
 * PK Thunder 2:
 * PSI Magnet:
 * PK Starstorm:
 * PK Thunder:
 * PK Thunder 2:
 * PSI Magnet:
 * PK Starstorm:
 * PK Thunder 2:
 * PSI Magnet:
 * PK Starstorm:
 * PSI Magnet:
 * PK Starstorm:
 * PK Starstorm:
 * PK Starstorm:
 * PK Starstorm:
 * PK Starstorm:

Update history
Ness has been slightly nerfed overall in game updates. His most notable nerfs are the reduced damage output to his down throw and PK Fire having slightly more endlag. The changes to shield mechanics also hamper him slightly due to the majority of his non PSI-based moves having a rather low damage output. Ness has also got some other useful buffs, however, such as a faster PSI Magnet and his down aerial having a bigger hitbox and lasts one more frame (though it's still his least useful aerial), and while the buffs do not truly compensate for his nerfs, he remains a strong character.

 1.0.4

 1.0.6

 1.0.8

 1.1.0

 1.1.1

 1.1.3

Moveset
For a gallery of Ness's hitboxes, see here.

Tier placement and history
Opinions on Ness' competitive viability have shifted throughout the game's lifespan. During the early metagame, smashers immediately noticed the vast buffs made to Ness, including the removal of the 10 extra frame grab-release animations, significant improvements to his combo game, and edge-trumping making his recovery less exploitable. These buffs, alongside Ness having one of the best throw games in SSB4, a highly versatile aerial game, and excellent KO power and damage output, led many players to believe that Ness was at least a high tier, with a few going as far as to call him a top tier. These claims were backed up with above-average results in competitive play throughout the first 2 years of the game's lifespan, with playing 5th at  and 7th at  and  placing 7th at  and 9th at GENESIS 3. Ness's positive reception solidified him into the 13th position on the first official 4BR tier list. This reception continued onto the second tier list, where Ness saw a small drop to 16th, mainly due to the additions of and.

Over time, however, Ness' flaws came to be more apparent, with players noticing that his subpar mobility, mediocre ground game, and notably gimpable recovery made him struggle against several high and top tiers, most notably and. As a result, opinions on Ness began to fall off drastically: his results stagnated as many of his best players became less active by the end of 2016. In addition, Ness's EarthBound pseudo-clone Lucas saw a shift in perception: while Lucas was initially considered inferior to Ness, over time opinions shifted the other way around due to Lucas' buffs received from patches and his commendable results thanks to. At the same time, Ness gained new counters in the form of and, whose buffs also helped create a large spike in popularity. Although Ness still saw strong results, such as FOW placing 17th at and  placing 5th at, it didn't compensate the loss of his stagnant results he had already suffered. This resulted in a much larger decline to 24th on the third tier list, being tied with for the largest tier drop between the second and third tier lists; this drop also had him reassessed as a mid-tier character.

Throughout 2017, several mains began to return to the scene, with FOW briefly coming out of retirement to place 13th at and 25th at  respectively. NAKAT, despite using Ness as a secondary in favor of Fox in 2016, began to co-main Ness. With Ness, NAKAT saw great results such as 3rd at, 13th at , and 17th at both and. Other notable players include, who placed 5th at and 17th at , and , who had a breakout performance at  by defeating , , and , ultimately placing 17th. These improved results, however, failed to shift opinions on Ness as many top players, including, , , and , widely believed that Lucas was superior to Ness. Due to this, Ness dropped once again on the fourth and final tier list to 28th/29th, now sharing the spot with Lucas, though due to the expansion of the tiers, he was once again considered a high tier character.

This placement, as well as his tie with Lucas, was challenged in 2018 as several dedicated players, including Gackt, S1, and, continued to see above-average placements at a national level, with Gackt placing 17th at , S1 placing 5th at , and BestNess placing 13th at , to name a few. Furthermore, Lucas's results dropped significantly as entered retirement. With Ness's rise by the end of the game's active lifespan as well as improved results over characters such as, , and , players such as Dabuz once again believed that Ness was the superior EarthBound character and deserved to be higher on the tier list.

Despite the ups and downs Ness had faced, he is unanimously considered superior to any of his previous incarnations, although several players use secondaries in order to complement the character on a national level.

Most historically significant players
Any number following the Smasher name indicates placement on the PGR 100, which recognizes the official top 100 players in Super Smash Bros. 4 of all time.

See also: Category:Ness players (SSB4)


 * - The best Ness player in the Midwest. Placed 9th at, 13th at both and , and 17th at both  and  with wins over players such as , , and . Ranked 3rd on the Chicago Smash 4 Power Rankings.
 * - The best Ness player in Texas. Placed 9th at, 17th at , and 25th at with wins over  and.
 * - The best Ness player in the world by the end of the game's active lifespan. Placed 4th at, 7th at , 13th at , and 25th at with wins over , , and . Ranked 1st on the Utah Power Rankings.
 * (#56) - The best solo-Ness player of all time. Placed 4th at, 5th at , 7th at , 13th at , and 25th at with wins over players such as , , and.
 * - One of the best Ness players in the world. Placed 13th at, 17th at both  and , and 25th at  with wins over players such as , , and.
 * (#49) - Co-mains Fox and Ness and is considered one of the best Ness players in the world. Placed 9th at, 13th at both and , and 17th at both  and  with wins over players such as , , and.
 * (#83) - The best Ness player in Northern California. Placed 7th at, 9th at , and 33rd at both and  with wins over , , and.
 * - The best Ness player in Europe. Placed 5th at both and, 7th at both  and , and 9th at  with wins over , , and . Ranked 5th on the European Smash 4 Power Rankings.
 * - One of the best Ness players in Japan. Placed 5th at, 9th at , and 17th at both and  with wins over , , and.
 * - The best Ness player in the Tri-state area. Placed 5th at, 13th at , 17th at , and 25th at with wins over , , and.

Solo Events

 * All-Star Battle: Secret: Ness is one of the opponents fought in this event. All opponents are characters that have been unlockable in previous Super Smash Bros. games.
 * It's Past Your Bedtime!: As, the player must make Ness, and  fall asleep at the same time by using Sing.
 * Playing Tricks: Ness must bury two s at the same time with Pitfalls.

Co-op Events

 * The Ultimate Battle: Two players select a character and must defeat the entire roster.
 * Visiting Onett: Ness and must defeat, , , , , and.

Trivia

 * Ness and are the only characters in SSB4 with different voice clips for custom moves; in Ness's case, he has a unique voice clip when using PK Freeze.
 * Ness's amiibo description on the North American amiibo website is based on his trophy description from Melee.
 * Ness's yo-yo in this game reads "SUPER NINTENDO 2014" and "MOTHER", in reference to his console of origin, SSB4's year of release, and his home series.
 * Ness's custom special PK Freeze is one of only three custom specials in the game that have a preview image featuring a non-silhouetted character besides the user of the attack (alongside 's Ice Slasher and 's PK Freeze). This is likely due to the characters being frozen.
 * Ness and Jigglypuff are the only original 12 characters to be excluded from newcomer poster art.
 * One set of Ness's custom moves reference Lucas's moveset in Brawl (and as later included in Smash 4).
 * is the only game where Ness and do not have the same availability.

Ness (SSB4)