Ness (SSBM)

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Ness in Super Smash Bros. Melee
Universe	EarthBound
Other playable appearances	in SSB in Brawl in SSB4
Availability	Starter
Tier	F (23) (North America) H (23) (Europe)

“	A psychic boy with a distinct midair jump.	”
—Description from Melee's manual.

Ness (ネス, Ness) is a default character in Super Smash Bros. Melee. Announced at E3 2001, he was originally going to be replaced by Lucas from Mother 3; the ultimate cancellation of the game for the Nintendo 64, however, caused Masahiro Sakurai to retain Ness.

He is currently ranked 23rd on the tier list, placing in F tier. This is a slight drop from his previous ranking where he was 10th in Smash 64. While still having fantastic throws and a great aerial game thanks to his double jump cancel, Ness has a poor approach on the ground due to significant range issues in most of his attacks; his recovery is also easy to intercept and edgeguard against, and he also has significant trouble KOing opponents, due to his surprisingly weak KO power and due to his aforementionned poor range. As a result of these significant weaknesses, Ness has very poor matchups, with six nearly unwinnable, one even (against Yoshi), and only three slightly favorable (against Bowser, Kirby, and Pichu).

Attributes

Ness is an unusual blend of character archetypes; many of his attributes are unique in comparison to other characters, such as his projectiles, his recovery and his midair jump. Ness has above average traction and a moderately low falling speed, giving him an above-average wavedash that is relatively quick. Ness is a projectile-heavy character, as he has 3 projectiles: PK Flash, PK Fire and PK Thunder, while also having a healing move in his PSI Magnet.

Arguably Ness's greatest strength is his double jump cancel (often abbreviated DJC). By cancelling out of his midair jump with an aerial, Ness can quickly and efficiently use his multiple aerial attacks; as Ness's ground-based options are poor, his various aerial attacks can act as superior alternatives to them, with his neutral aerial and forward aerial attacks acting as potential combo starters (especially the latter) and his back and up air attacks acting as KO moves. Due to this, his air approach is considered to be much better than his ground approach. Furthermore, Ness alone has access to the Yo-yo glitch, which can significantly increase his range and options when performed properly.

Ness, however, suffers from very poor range in his attacks, which, in turn, significantly increases his difficulty in approaching and KOing opponents, especially on the ground. Ness's tilts have little range; furthermore, while Ness does have a decently-lengthed wavedash, none of his smashes can be used in wavesmashing, as his forward smash needs to be sweetspotted to actually be powerful, while his up and down smashes are laggy and have poor hitbox placements and awkwardly weak knockback. Thus, his dash attack is considered to be his only reliable ground approach option, which can be exploited due to its long ending lag. Also, Ness's grab has the second shortest range in all of the game (only to Pikachu), thus making it difficult for him to KO opponents via his powerful throws, while his dash grab is considered the worst in the game (along with Yoshi) as it just barely increases its range and it features considerable lag if it whiffs. Furthermore, as Ness has a high short hop and a low falling speed, he also has a rather poor SHFFL. Additionally, all of his projectiles are heavily flawed: PK Flash is slow, has poor mobility, and is only useful as a situational edge guard, PK Fire can be versatile when used properly, but has very poor range and is SDI'd extremely easily and is slow, essentially making it a very poor projectile on the ground and its only real use being to gimp fast-fallers, while PK Thunder is considered more useful, it is very slow and leaves Ness very vulnerable. Also, while PSI Magnet can be effective, it is laggy and is very character dependent, as he cannot use it at all against other projectile-heavy characters with no energy projectiles (such as Link and his younger counterpart) or against characters with no projectiles at all, making it relatively situational. Finally, against opponents with particularly good spacing games, like Marth, Ness can be easily overwhelmed in his attempts to approach opponents in the air.

Assuming he can approach his opponents, Ness suffers from heavy KOing problems, as he has surprisingly weak KO power and poor range. He possesses arguably the worst set of smashes in the game; none of his smashes are especially powerful (particularily his up and down smashes which can't KO even at 430-500%), and not even his forward smash (unless it is tipped), as it is among the weakest when untipped, not KOing until at least 150%. Also, his back and up air not only suffer from very poor range, but the latter KO's at very high percents compared to his other finishers, only KOing at around 130% near the top blast line and even higher the farther he is from the top blast line. His back throw is his most powerful finisher, but his terrible grab range often keeps him from using it, especially against characters like Marth. Finally, his PK Flash and PK Thunder 2 are extremely situational and will rarely be used to outright KO someone.

Outside of his poor approach, Ness also suffers from an abysmal recovery. Ness's recovery has its merits; he has the second highest midair jump in the game (second to only Yoshi) and his midair jump has unusual properties in its trajectory; PK Thunder 2 also grants a rather long distance, with a moderately large sweetspot and a long period of invincibility frames. Despite these benefits, however, Ness's recovery still is exceedingly vulnerable to gimping, in spite of its long length. If Ness uses an aerial to fend off edgeguarders, his double jump is cancelled and can prevent him from recovering if unable to act soon enough. PK Thunder's projectile instantly disappears upon hitting opponents, and this is very easily abusable by edgeguarders, further worsened by PK Thunder 2's slow startup. In the process of having to start PK Thunder 2, characters with good recoveries (such as Jigglypuff or Samus) can merely jump into the projectile and take minor knockback and damage, immediately sending Ness into a state of helplessness (however, this is extremely risky, as if they miss, they will be hit by PK Thunder 2, which K.O.s at 90% in most cases). Projectiles such as Link's Boomerangs and the Ice Climbers' Ice Shot can easily disrupt the projectile as well, and in these cases, damage is not even inflicted to the opponent. PK Thunder 2 also has extremely drastic angling issues, and it can easily curve under lips of stages, most notably on Battlefield. Additionally, should Ness end up parallel to the ground while using the attack, the ending lag can easily be abused and punished. Finally, its linear nature can make it easy to read and edgeguard for many characters, despite the invincibility frames found within it; attacks like Mario's Cape or Link's Spin Attack can easily intercept the attack as Ness charges to the stage.

Changes from Smash 64 to Melee

In his transition from Smash 64 to Melee, Ness has been given one major buff: the addition of the Yo-yo glitch, which can drastically improve his otherwise poor range and ground approach, while also receiving other good buffs on his overall range. However, he has received drastic nerfs in other much more important areas that reduced the effectiveness of his PK Fire and most notably, removed his most notable combo finisher in his down aerial, while making it an extremely unsafe move on the ground (unless the move is auto-cancelled), significantly impaired his already poor recovery and drastically reduced his KO power and options. Also, his outstanding combo game has both been buffed and nerfed: his forward aerial can now chain into itself and other aerials while his dash attack has many different follow-up options depending on where it hits, (while also having greatly increased range as mentionned previously), and he now has an up and down throw, giving him two good setup and combo throws. However, his down aerial's start-up lag has been drastically increased and as such, can't be comboed into anymore while now being easily punishable on the ground if not auto-cancelled. Finally, while the overall range in his attacks has increased, it still remains extremely poor in comparaison with the entire cast and thus, can still be easily and quickly overwhelmed when approaching opponents due to the barely increased range relative to the cast. As a result, Ness has a lower tier placing in Melee; while already placing in the low tier of Smash 64 despite the early Smash 64 metagame viewing him as a top-tier, and Ness is still seen as nearly non-viable in tournaments.

Aesthetics

• Ness's grounded jump is no longer psychokinetic.
• Ness has new voice samples.
• Ness's cap is turned right.
• Ness's backpack is two strapped.
• Ness's default costume have been slightly changed (red cap has blue instead of purple, beige and blue striped shirt and blue shorts instead of yellow/purple and purple, blue cap has purple instead of violet, tan and purple striped shirt and purple shorts instead of yellow/violet and violet, and orange and brown striped shirt and green shorts instead of light green/orange and orange like Mario's team battle costume.)

Attributes

• Ness is significantly heavier (81.818 → 94), which improves his endurance, but makes him easier to combo.
• Air speed (28 → 0.93) and dashing speed (40 → 1.4) were greatly improved.
• Ness's walking speed is slightly slower (0.28 → 0.84).
• Ness is significantly floatier (55 → 1.83), hindering his vertical endurance. While this makes him harder to combo, the falling speed change is enough for this to be considered a nerf.

Ground Attacks

• Forward tilt is much stronger.
• Down tilt is much faster and can now infinite.
• Dash attack is now a multi-hitting move that does more damage and has significantly more range, combo potential and overall utility.
• His dash attack has become psychokinetic.
• Forward smash now has longer reach and is faster. All hitboxes also deal much more damage.
• Forward smash's tipper hitbox is much weaker, KOing around 18% later, and it now has 3 drastically weaker sourspots on the base of his bat that can't KO until 150%.
• Ness now has access to the Yo-yo glitch.
• His up and down smashes have less reach, deal drastically less damage and they have been drastically weakened to the point where the strongest hitboxes (the initial hitbox) can't KO until 200% while the swinging parts can no longer KO even well past Sudden Death.

Aerial Attacks

• Ness has a new neutral aerial: a spin. It deals 3% less damage on both hitboxes.
• Forward aerial does more damage, has more range and has much better combo potential as it can now chain into itself or other aerials from low to K.O. percents.
• His back and forward aerial have become psychokinetic.
• Up aerial has more reach with a bigger hitbox.
• Ness's head when doing his up aerial is no longer intangible.
• Down aerial has much higher base knockback, making it a deadly 0-death KO tool if not meteor-canceled.
• Ness's down aerial deals 3% less damage, no longer deals extra shield damage and like most other meteor smashes, now has significantly more start-up lag. Unlike with most other meteor smashes, however, it has affected Ness far more than any other veteran, as his down aerial was a very potent combo finisher and could be used in shield break combos (due to its almost non-existent start-up and due to it doing extra shield damage in Smash 64). Because of this, the drastically increased start-up lag has completely removed its comboing capabilities and can't be used in shield break combos anymore, while making it a dangerously unsafe and difficult to land move if used on the ground, making it near useless on the ground.

Grabs and Throws

• Forward and back throw deal 5% less damage: 16% → 11%. The former also has drastically lower knockback scaling and cannot KO reliably until well beyond Sudden Death.
• Ness has been given an up throw and a down throw, providing him with more options.

Special Moves

• Ness now has a new neutral special: PK Flash. A chargeable green ball of light that increases in power and moves downward the longer the button is held. Once it reaches full power, it explodes, dealing huge knockback.
• PK Fire travels a smaller distance, and it is now considerably easier to SDI out of.
• PK Fire is moved to Ness's side special.
• Ness's PK Thunder travels faster and deals 2% more damage.
• Ness's PK Thunder 2 travels a much shorter distance, damage when hitting an opponent is 5% less, is significantly weaker (now KOing in the 90% range), now has a drastically weaker late hitbox which deals 5% less damage than the normal hitbox and can't KO until roughly 135%, and has a lot more ending and landing lag, now having around 120 frames (or at least 2 seconds) of lag if he uses PK Thunder 2 on the ground or if he lands while in the middle of the animation of PK Thunder 2. As such, Ness's recovery is considered to be much worse overall.
• PSI Magnet is considerably faster, improving Ness's defensive game.
• The color of PSI Magnet is now blue instead of green.
• The crowd no longer cheers when Ness absorbs a projectile with PSI Magnet.
• The crowd no longer gasps when Ness hits himself with PK Thunder.

Moveset

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

Ness's aerial attacks

		Name	Damage	Description
Neutral attack			3%	Punches forward twice, then kicks.
			2%
			4%
Forward tilt	↗		12%	Does a roundhouse kick forward. Can be angled up or down.
	→		11%
	↘		10%
Up tilt			7%	Thrusts both his hands upward. Ness's head is intangible during the early part of the animation. Can combo into itself and DJC'd up aerials.
Down tilt			3%	Thrusts his leg downward, then pivots his foot to hit the opponent. Can combo into itself by mashing the A button after the move is executed, and is an infinite against a wall.
Dash attack			5% (hit 1), 4% (hits 2-3) (≈12.28% total)	Throws his hands forward, sending three sparks PSI energy in front of himself. Good, disjointed range. 1st hit powerfully semi-spikes opponents, 2nd hit does very weak vertical knockback and the last hit deals powerful vertical knockback.
Forward smash			18% (body), 20% (bat base), 22% (bat mid), 24% (bat tip)	Swings his bat forward. Has high knockback and damage at the tip of the bat, but has very weak knockback for a smash attack when untipped and has a little bit of start-up lag. The bat can reflect projectiles.
Up smash			9% (startup), 4% (charging), 6% (attack)	Does a variation on the "around-the-world" yo-yo trick, swinging his yo-yo above his head. Has good range and speed. Used to perform the extremely powerful Yo-yo Glitch, but doesn't have any utility outside of it. Like his down smash, this attack is incapable of K.O.ing unless his opponent is over 200%, and the swinging part even has almost non-existent knockback not K.O.ing until at least 500%. The attack has a hitbox while charging.
Down smash			11% (startup), 4% (charging), 7% (attack)	Sends his yo-yo backwards and "walks-the-dog" with it before pulling the yo-yo back. Has good range and speed, however, this attack is incapable of K.O.ing unless his opponent is over 180%. More powerful than the up smash in terms of knockback, but still extremely weak. The attack has a hitbox while charging. The swinging part of the attack has barely any base knockback and can't K.O. until the 430% range.
Neutral aerial			11% (clean), 8% (late)	Spins around, arms stretched out. Has good knockback and is very fast with high combo potential. Poor range.
Forward aerial			3% (hits 1-4), 5% (hit 5) (≈15.74% total)	Throws both his hands forward, sending multiple sparks PSI energy in front of himself. Is a fast, multi-hitting move, with good range and high knockback on the last hit K.O.ing under 130% off-stage. Generally used as a spacing move and can chain into itself several times at low to high percents.
Back aerial			16% (clean), 10% (late)	Thrusts both his feet backwards. If sweetspotted, it electrifies the opponent and semi-spikes them with extreme power. Is fast with very high knockback albeit poor range. The fourth most powerful back aerial in Melee.
Up aerial			13%	Headbutts upward. Has amazing juggling potential when DJC'd and a good KO move with very low lag, but poor range. Unlike in Smash 64, Ness`s head is no longer intangible.
Down aerial			12%	Pulls his legs to his body before stomping downwards. Is a meteor smash, and has a decent amount of start-up lag. Great range, extremely high knockback at 0% (most powerful meteor smash at 0% in Melee), but it also has very low knockback scaling, being unable to KO grounded opponents at even 200%, and is relatively easy to meteor cancel. It also has no IASA frames (being interrupted on the same frame as Mario's forward aerial, but Mario's seem slower compared to Ness's).
Grab			—
Pummel			3%	Headbutts the opponent.
Forward throw			11%	Psychically throws the opponent forward. Very strong base knockback, but very low knockback scaling.
Back throw			11%	Psychically throws the opponent behind him. Has extremely low base knockback but very high knockback scaling. This is Ness's strongest throw and and by far te strongest throw in the game, KOing reliably at 90% and above.
Up throw			10%	Psychically spins the opponent above his head and throws them upwards. Can chaingrab Fox, Falco and Captain Falcon at low % and has a decent amount of followups. Good knockback.
Down throw			1% (hits 1-5), 4% (throw)	Slams the opponent to the ground and hits them with fire. Low knockback but allows a decent amount of followups, including being able to lead into an up aerial to KO.
Floor attack (front)			6%	Punches on both sides whilst getting up.
Floor attack (back)			6%	Gets up and does a sweep kick with both feet.
Edge attack (fast)			8%	Somersaults onto the stage, and kicks upwards with both feet.
Edge attack (slow)			10%	Slowly picks himself up and does a jump kick.
Neutral special		PK Flash	11-36%	A sphere of green light appears above Ness. As the attack button is held, the sphere moves downwards and increases in power and size, until the attack button is released or until it is fully charged, it explodes. Has transcendent priority.
Side special		PK Fire	2% (lightning), 3% (pillar hit 1), 2% (pillar 2-7)	Fires a yellow, lightning-bolt shaped projectile that travels in a straight line until it hits an enemy or destructible portion of a stage, at which point it explodes into flames. The bolt has a hurtbox, which is what activates the pillar upon contact; the surrounding hitbox deals 2% and has minor knockback. The spawned pillar also has a hurtbox that slowly shrinks in size.
Up special		PK Thunder	8% (thunder head), 1% (thunder tail), 25% (PK Thunder 2 clean), 20% (PK Thunder 2 late)	Creates a stream of lightning that can be aimed into opponents to deal damage with the head and stun with the tail. Aiming the head into Ness himself will launch him in a trajectory opposite to the side he was hit on, which is referred to as PK Thunder 2. PK Thunder 2 has intangibility frames during the first half of the move. PK Thunder has transcendent priority.
Down special		PSI Magnet	0%, heals 2.0x the damage of absorbed projectiles	Creates a blue energy field around him which allows him to absorb all energy-based projectiles. It can be held.

Taunt

• Turns to the screen and nods his head while saying "Okay".

Idle pose

• Looks from side to side.

Crowd cheer

	English	Japanese
Cheer
Description	Ness Ness Ness!	Ness Ness Ness!
Pitch	Group chant	Group chant

Victory poses

An orchestrated version of the final four Soundstone Melodies from EarthBound.

• Looks to the left and right of him, then places an arm on the back of his head in a bashful manner.
• Swings around his bat four times, then poses with it.
• Jumps up and down twice, places arms on waist, and says "Okay!"

In Competitive play

Matchups

Super Smash Bros. Melee Character Matchups

Avg.

Notable players

See also: Category:Ness professionals (SSBM)

Active

•  Hungrybox
•  Jim Jam Flim Flam
•  Simna ibn Sind
•  VRud
•  Nihlus

Inactive

•  Mofo
•  Nessby

Tier placement and history

Ness was initially viewed as low-mid tier character in the metagame, with a peak of 15th place on the second tier list. Following this, however, Ness's standing on the tier list constantly fell down to the lower tiers, with most players noticing that his nerfs from Super Smash Bros. severely impaired his KO power and his already poor linear, predictable recovery; this was especially noted in the earlier Smash 64 metagame, as Ness was initially viewed as a top-tiered character.

On the current tier list, Ness places at 23rd, in the F tier, and he is considered almost non-viable for tournament play. Dedicated Ness players are rare in the current metagame, with most Ness players often using him as a situational counterpick; Hungrybox only used Ness once in all of Apex 2013, in an attempt to counter Armada's Young Link, and he mostly used Jigglypuff for the rest of the tournament. Other players of Ness are semi-active and generally do not place very well with him.

In 1-P Mode

Classic Mode

In Classic Mode, Ness can appear as an ordinary opponent, as an ally or opponent in the team battles, alongside Yoshi, Peach, or Mewtwo, as a member of a multi-character battle, or as a metal opponent. In Ness's appearance, he appears on either Onett or Fourside (if unlocked) as a regular opponent and on Battlefield as a metal opponent. When on a team with Yoshi, he appears on Yoshi's Island.

Adventure Mode

Ness's appearance in the Adventure Mode is in Stage 9: Onett. In the stage, the player must fight against three computer players, each one being Ness, on Onett; in the fight, the only item that appear is Mr. Saturn. The player must defeat all three opponents within five minutes to continue.

All-Star Mode

Ness and his allies are fought on Onett.

Event Matches

Ness is featured in the following event matches:

• Event 5: Spare Change: the player controls Ness and fights Captain Falcon in a coin battle on Onett. The player must collect 200 coins within 80 seconds in order to clear the event.
• Event 30: All-Star Match 3: Ness is the third opponent to be fought in this series of staged battles. The player battles him on Onett, which will transition to the next stage if Ness gets defeated. With a timer of four minutes, the player must defeat him along with Kirby, Pikachu and the Ice Climbers.
• Event 36: Space Travelers: As Ness, the player must defeat Samus, Kirby, Fox, Captain Falcon, and Falco. The player battles the first three characters on Fourside and battles the last two on Battlefield.

Ending images

• 

  Classic Mode

• 

  Adventure Mode

• 

  All-Star Mode

Trophy descriptions

In addition to the normal trophy about Ness as a character, there are two trophies about him as a fighter, unlocked by completing both Adventure and All-Star modes respectively with Ness on any difficulty:

Ness

Ness is a young boy who's mastered the psychic power known as PSI. Ness was living a normal life in the suburbs of Onett until a meteor crashed into a nearby mountain and sent him on a wild adventure. Believing in the ultimate powers of wisdom, courage, and friendship, Ness proves that some heroes come in small packages.

• EarthBound 06/95

Ness [Smash]

The key to mastering Ness is controlling his unique midair jump, which makes up for what he lacks in speed. His PK Flash attack may seem weak at first glance, but it grows more powerful the longer you hold down the B Button. To do a lot of damage with PK Fire, try to burn your opponent as many times as possible.

• B: PK Flash
• Smash B: PK Fire

Ness [Smash]

Ness's mind is his best weapon. PK Thunder is a PSI missile weapon that can be guided using the Control Stick, and if Ness hits himself with it, he turns into a living missile capable of doing massive damage. This move can also be used for recovery. PSI Magnet turns energy missile attacks into health; try out certain Pokémon for stamina replenishment.

• Up & B: PK Thunder
• Down & B: PSI Magnet

• 

  Classic

• 

  [Smash]

• 

  [Smash]

Alternate costumes

Ness's alternate costumes in Melee

Trivia

The yoyo's texture.

The "Electric Ness" glitch being performed.

• Ness is one of three characters whose neutral special changed during his jump to Melee, the others being Link and Jigglypuff. In the original Super Smash Bros., his neutral special was PK Fire; from Melee onward, he now uses PK Flash.
• If one looks closely at Ness's Yoyo, he or she can see the words DOLPHIN LOOP, with it being made by HALLAB NINTENDO in 2001 (Melee’s release year). Dolphin being a reference to the Gamecube's codename, and the "makers" a reference to the developer and publisher of Melee respectively. His bat reads NETT SPORTS.
• Hitting Ness as he's using PK Thunder can cause his body to constantly produce sparks afterward, though these sparks only provide a cosmetic effect. This glitch continues until he gets KOed, shields, or performs PK Thunder again.
• Ness's amiibo description on the North American amiibo website is based on his trophy description from Melee.