Ness (SSB4): Difference between revisions

Ness is an unusual blend of character archetypes, being a short, projectile-heavy character with a lot of versatility with his moves. Ness' weight and falling speed are average, giving him no disadvantage with weight alone. He possesses three projectiles: [[PK Flash]], [[PK Fire]], and [[PK Thunder]]. While PK Flash is very powerful, it has little mobility, huge amounts of lag, and is generally only used as a situational edgeguard. PK Fire is fairly quick, possesses a good amount of range, and the projectile holds opponents in it when it hits them, allowing Ness free follow ups as long as he acts quick enough. 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 or juggle opponents. The knockback it provides can also hit an opponent over the upper blast line, allowing it to be used as a very situational KO move as well, and it can allow him to use the powerful PK Thunder 2. His fourth special move, [[PSI Magnet]], provides a psychic shield that can heal him when hit with an energy based attack, however, it does contain a bit of starting and ending lag.

Ness' biggest strength is found in his superb aerial game. Four of Ness' five aerials are very strong and can be used to combo, space, and kill. Neutral aerial possesses very little starting and ending lag, and hits on both sides of Ness, making it a very useful out of shield option. His forward aerial has little lag, a large, disjointed hitbox, and traps opponents, essentially allowing it to chain into either itself or another move. It is a powerful spacing tool and very useful in approaching opponents. His up aerial can be used to combo at lower percents and KO reliably at higher percents. It possesses a large hitbox and little lag, allowing it to be of low risk to use. His back aerial is another reliable KO move that possesses low lag. His down aerial, while being unarguably his worst aerial due to its slow startup and its large ending lag, can still be useful as a situational edgeguarding option.

Ness' grab game is also very strong. While he has a short grab range, he can easily trap opponents with PK Fire 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 sets up for an aerial attack and can lead into a forward air at lower percents, or an up air at higher percents. Ness' infamous back throw is unarguably the best kill throw in the game; while it has very low base knockback, it has extremely high knockback scaling and is often regarded as his best KO option.

Ness isn't completely infallible, however. Ness possesses below average speed in both the ground and the air, making it hard for him to chase faster opponents. His ground game is also generally weak as he possesses weak and low range tilts. His smash attacks are also below average. While his up smash can be used as an out of shield option and his down smash as a situational edgeguard, both KO considerably later than his other KO options, and his forward smash, while very powerful, possesses high ending lag and is 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's still relatively easy to gimp for characters with multiple jumps, such as Jigglypuff, Kirby, and Meta Knight, or with moves that reflect or absorb, such as Rosalina, Fox, Villager, and Pit.

Ness has also seen a mixture of buffs and nerfs through game patches. In 1.0.4, the damage of Ness's down throw was reduced, causing combos out of down throw to do less damage, and the ending lag of PK Thunder 2 was increased, making grounded landings with it easier to punish. In 1.0.8, the ending lag of PSI Magnet was significantly reduced, causing the move to be a much better option against projectiles with energy properties due to it now being harder to punish. In 1.1.0, the size of down aerial's meteor hitbox was made larger, making the meteor smash portion of the move slightly easier to hit, and PK Fire was given one more frame of endlag, causing the move to be very slightly easier to punish and for Ness have to wait a tiny bit longer in order to punish those caught in the fire pillar. However, these changes are small and negligible and have barely affected Ness, both positively and negatively, in competitive play.

Overall, Ness' strengths drastically outweigh his weaknesses and he is viewed as a very potent character in tournament play. He is believed to have advatageous matchups against most of the cast, with {{SSB4|Rosalina}} being the only character that truly counters him solidly.