Ness (PM): Difference between revisions

Ness is a flexible character suiting both aggressive and zoning oriented playstyles. With an average weight and fall speed, he remains somewhat susceptible and exasperates his unreliable recover. His aerial moves lead into each other well, giving him a strong combo game once he can get his opponent off the ground.

Up tilt is useful for its high base knockback at low percents. Useful for aerial followups, but does however lose out to double jump cancelled up air for sheer utility.

Ness's down aerial now functions similarly to how it did in ''Super Smash Bros.'' The move is a powerful, quick, and easy to sweetspot meteor smash, making it effective for edgeguarding opponents. In addition it has great utility out of shield and for pressuring shielding opponents. If two players are shielding back to back, Ness can jump and use down air to cover his escape upwards or pressure his opponent's shield.

[[PK Fire]] is Ness's primary offensive projectile allowing him to control space and prevent opponents from approaching recklessly. Ness fires it horizontally when grounded, and downward diagonally when in the air. Upon hitting an opponent, projectile or destructible object, the projectile ignites. It deals doing one strong hit, followed by successive weak hits, and engulfs opponent in place. Ness maintains momentum after using PK Fire in the air, making the move useful for protection when landing.

[[PSI Magnet]] inflicts damage and Ness can jump out of it, giving the move a pseudo-[[waveshine]] capability while greatly advancing his combo game.  

[[PK Flash]] does not travel as high and has a much faster but still very slow startup, but it travels very quickly if Ness sends it forward. Fully charged it covers a very large area and launches very powerfully upwards. Though difficult to time, it can cover the ledge while an opponent is trying to recover and force opponents to recover low or air stall. It is a very large commitment as the long cool down prevents Ness from moving in time to attempt another edgeguard, even if PK Flash forces the opponents with a slow recovery close to the [[blast zone]]. Regardless, it still remains an effective finisher or edgeguarding move in certain matchups.

Ness's up special [[PK Thunder]], has two phases. The first phase, is much more useful than in previous games. It has a hitbox on its tail allowing it to trap opponents in certain situations. The angle of collision determines the angle at which Ness is launched. PK Thunder can also be used as an offensive projectile to juggle or KO airborne opponents or knock grounded opponents closer to Ness. Characters with slow recoveries are especcially vulnerable to it while trying to recover. It does competes with PK Flash in this utility though. The second phase in which Ness's movement takes place occurs if Ness directs his thunder into himself. [[PK Thunder 2]] deals massive damage and knockback and sends Ness a very far distance, at the cost of being easy to gimp, relatively hard to control, and having a huge amount of ending lag. The ending lag can be mitigated by sweetspotting the ledge with PK Thunder 2, however this can be difficult. Furthermore, projectiles that are not [[transcendent]] can destroy the PK Thunder and leave Ness [[helpless]]. PK Thunder can also be used as an offensive projectile to juggle or KO airborne opponents or knock grounded opponents closer to Ness.

Ness's grab game is generally effective. His back throw is a very reliable K.O.ing move at higher percents. Ness's forward throw has very low knockback scaling, giving it a decent launch power even at 0 setting up for very early edgeguarding. Up and down throws both can be used as combo starters, sending opponents into the air and setting up for an aerial attack depending on the weight, damage, and fall speed of the opponent. Ness's grab range is very short, limiting the usefulness of his standing grab.  

Ness's recovery, despite its length, has significant weakness as it can be intercepted before and after initiation. Additionally, his relatively floaty falling speed makes him vulnerable to many vertical finishers (i.e. {{PM|Fox}}'s up air) and gives him some difficulty getting back to the stage. Ness tends to fare poorly against characters with large disjoins and a strong edgeguarding game. Marth and {{PM|Ivysaur}} are notable examples. Characters with fast, solid projectiles like {{PM|Sheik}} can make it very difficult for him to recover low because of the long start up time of his recovery. He also has limited options for dealing with pressure, giving him weaknesses against fast characters with aggressive playstyles. Ness tends to have favorable match ups against heavy, larger, slower characters due to the extensive length of combos he can pull off on them, and the strength of his zoning tools.