Falco Matchup #12: Ness

[-DR3W-]

Match-Up Thread #12

​

In this thread, post any contribution you have regarding the Ness matchup.

Keep these in mind when posting:
- What do we have against him?
- What to watch out for?
- Certain do's & don'ts
- Any additional information or data necessary.

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

Uhh.... Watch Fow play. Honestly, I cannot think of any other Ness that could remotely show us what Ness needs to fear and what he can really pull off. Yink might though. Have not heard too much from Ness. Either way, certainly need to call in ness mains. Anyone's opinion here will like be bias anyway even if it is correct. Who honestly plays a respectable Ness player often?

Ground release can be forced. You get 10 frames to abuse it. Easiest thing is ftilt, jab, dash attack. Dash grab is not possible I believe. 3 frame for dash to come out, 8 for the dash grab. Usmash is 7 frames and intial dash is 3 frames. So might be possible. I never looked into air release stuff. Maybe Falco can do something, not sure.

Ness can kill with bthrow at around the time you can kill him with usmash. So avoid getting grabbed at high percents.

Pretty sure its Falco's favor and its another case of if you do not know the match-up, you might get wrecked when you shouldn't.

 

[Bloodcross]

Well, we get 6 grabs from 0%, so at most you'll be CG'ing him up to 43%.

Ness is pretty susceptible to juggling. He has nothing but AD and Dair is way too slow. He's not like Lucas with a faster Dair and sexy Down B stuff

Falco can edgeguard Ness pretty well by forcing ness below the stage with lasers, reflector, and bair. And his Up B is punishable too. If you let yourself get hit with the PK Thunder when Ness is recovering (before he hits himself with it), he'll just die lol... but don't waste your DJ doing this. Hell, idk if this is smart, I don't play Ness at all lol.

I keep hearing about how we have a guaranteed UpSmash from both ground and air release? I'll test this later... maybe. Pretty sure BDacus is guaranteed from an air release. Other than that, Jab, Dash Attack, Ftilt, Gattling Combo off ground release works.

PK Fire is easy to react to so please don't get hit by it... I think we can Jab it? correct me if I'm wrong there.

Fair can be a ***** and makes him kinda hard to grab... so don't whiff a grab if Ness spaces himself. Roll away if you have to.

And like mentioned above, avoid getting grabbed at high percent. But it's pretty hard for Ness to grab us when he grabs with his elbows pretty much LOL. Plus Jab is a good way to stop Ness in his tracks if he thinks he can just run up to us.

 

[StarFruit]

ness doesn't like to get grabbed in this matchup and spends alot of time in the air with fair and bair. So just always try to stay out of range of the diagonal pk fire (his other moves dont have a very big hitbox). Watch out for the pk tether shenanigans, especially below the stage. Some nesses may prefer to edgegrab but at high percents that thing really gimps you. Also bloodcross mentioned just running into ness...this is questionable. Maybe i'm just really bad - but every time i play a ness, i try that once or twice and get hit by the recovery. Ness can recover with up B relatively fast so i wouldn't risk going for the gimp unless you can get in there really fast. Ness is super floaty but doesn't have a good range of attacks. If you stay too close you will probably get pk fired eventually but if you stay too far and just laser, he can counter camp with his magnet. I don't really have anything on counter/attacking ness but these are some things to keep in mind. He has the potential to kill falco at like 100% or around there with the back throw or a F smash read so just get out of that range and be careful.

 

[PersonallyIPreferDair]

From my experience of playing as Ness, he's a character you don't want to face with no before-hand experience.

A good Ness should spam fair while retreating to get your percent up. His up throw and back throw have crazy knockback, along with some of his aerials. Bloddcross' statement about running into his pk thunder is not really the greatest idea; if you aren't prepared to di you will die at quite low percents. Pk thunder also stage spikes if you don't di or tech. A problem with this match is that we lose one of our greatest assets against Ness, the laser. Ness can force you to approach, a rather unusual tactic for Falco.

As for Falco, options such as jab work just as well as usual. The chain grab gives a good amount damage (assuming the Ness will let you grab him). Ness is pretty light, so Falco doesn't have too many problems killing him. As mentioned before grab release bdacus or regular upsmash could work. If Ness recovers above the edge you can gimp him with your reflector.

I'd say 55:45 Falco

 

[DEHF]

This match up is bad for Ness.

 

[Seagull Joe]

CG>Spike>Kill. is slow in the air unlike so his approaching Falco's SHDL and Iap alone is probably a pain in the ***. Be wary at high percents for 's grab cause he wants to Bthrow.

Matchup is probably +2 .

 

[Bloodcross]

65-35 Falco btw imo

@PIPD: Falco doesn't need to camp him when we can just **** him up close; so, who cares if we're forced to approach?

 

[Yink]

This match up is bad for Ness.

This.

It's really, really bad before ~40%, considering if you get us offstage with a dair, then you can basically do another one and it eats PKT altogether.

Ness mains will most likely pick a stage like BF to play on, with the platforms being helpful. If it were me, I'd say myself as well as other Ness mains generally just take the hits of your blaster for awhile, and then finally start to fight. If I were you, I'd just use the blaster a couple times and then just hang out on the other side of the stage...Ness HAS to approach in this matchup, unless he's winning by percent lead. Then he'll just duck under your blaster for awhile (but not really eat any with magnet unless you're above maybe 45, otherwise chain grabbing will happen again).

Watch out for fairs and bairs, and your game offstage because of PKT's tail potentionally messing up your recovery. And bthrow in general, because it always seems to kill sooner than people think. But Ness MIGHT like getting grabbed, but he definitely has the tools to keep you away (heh, it's like Sakurai was all "hey you're gonna get grab released but HERE MAKE IT EASIER NOT TO BE").

Ban Brinstar. Take the Ness to Yoshi's (if it's a good Falco stage, because it's a HORRIBLE stage for Ness/Lucas).

I hope that was helpful. If you have any other questions, I can do my absolute best to answer them. 6:4 Falco's favor

 

[MARLX]

60-40 falco favor

Very easy to tell that the match up is in falco's favor. Up close ness can't do anything, in the air ness can't do anything (besides bair). We can chain grab to decent percent and meteor smash ness. (Ness can't recover). Falco has better racking up damage and also killing moves than Ness.

 

[Bloodcross]

Very easy to tell that the match up is in falco's favor. Up close ness can't do anything, in the air ness can't do anything (besides bair). We can chain grab to decent percent and meteor smash ness. (Ness can't recover). Falco has better racking up damage and also killing moves than Ness.

YO THIS *****

im blown AWAWYT

 

[-DR3W-]

A lot of info in 10 hours.

Impressive. Especially for the Falco board.

 

[Host Change]

I mained Ness for 2-1/2 years and then I switched to Falco in April so I have some thoughts on this matchup.

Ness has to use his aerials (forward air, neutral air and bair in particular) a lot to start building up damage. Watch out for PK fire because if you get caught in it he can follow up with a down throw doing about 29% total or if Falco is in high %'s Ness can throw him backwards for the kill. As far as smash attacks go the yoyo isn't the most useful, so expect the fsmash if anything. When going for the kill, Ness users usually prefer to take to the air though and hit their opponent with a bair or they either go for a spike or throw their opponent backwards. Knowing Ness's limitations and how he has to play is very helpful in this matchup.

As Falco, you have to mix up the laser and not overdo it because Ness's PSI magnet will simply heal him. I personally think that the short hop reflector is decent for this matchup because it can mess up Ness's approach as well as reflect PK fire. (This needs to be tested some however because I haven't really played any good Ness users as my Falco yet, I'm just using what I know about both characters) Bair is better than most of Ness's air options as well, so that's a plus since Ness's main approach tends to be in the air. If a Falco player can eat Ness's PK thunder off stage so that he cannot recover, then go for it. However, if not timed properly, you risk getting killed depending on the % and certainly taking a lot of damage so use caution when going for the gimp.

All in all, this matchup is certainly in Falco's favor, but it's one of those that you have to know how to play or it could be trouble in a tournament scene. I would say its about 65-35 Falco.

EDIT: One more thing I would like to add is watch out for PK thunder mindgames in this MU. Any serious Ness main is very good with the move and can do all kinds of crazy stuff. If it can be landed, it's a fantastic kill option, however due to the time it takes to set it up, there are better choices because most people will have plenty of time to react properly. Also, Ness may pretend to be doing the PK thuder slam and just control the thunder to hit Falco instead. In this case, be sure to use the reflector. When this happens, there are frames of lag for Ness. Granted, the reflector has the same problem, but I've noticed that a laser can pretty much always hit Ness in this situation right after giving an extra 3%. This isn't something that can be used every time, but it's a good way to end some of the PK thunder shenanagins (probably failed at spelling that lol)

 

[Eagleye893]

This.

It's really, really bad before ~40%, considering if you get us offstage with a dair, then you can basically do another one and it eats PKT altogether.

Ness mains will most likely pick a stage like BF to play on, with the platforms being helpful. If it were me, I'd say myself as well as other Ness mains generally just take the hits of your blaster for awhile, and then finally start to fight. If I were you, I'd just use the blaster a couple times and then just hang out on the other side of the stage...Ness HAS to approach in this matchup, unless he's winning by percent lead. Then he'll just duck under your blaster for awhile (but not really eat any with magnet unless you're above maybe 45, otherwise chain grabbing will happen again).

Watch out for fairs and bairs, and your game offstage because of PKT's tail potentionally messing up your recovery. And bthrow in general, because it always seems to kill sooner than people think. But Ness MIGHT like getting grabbed, but he definitely has the tools to keep you away (heh, it's like Sakurai was all "hey you're gonna get grab released but HERE MAKE IT EASIER NOT TO BE").

Ban Brinstar. Take the Ness to Yoshi's (if it's a good Falco stage, because it's a HORRIBLE stage for Ness/Lucas).

I hope that was helpful. If you have any other questions, I can do my absolute best to answer them. 6:4 Falco's favor

I basically agree with everything Y1NK says here.


A couple of funny things though:

Ness' Dtilt, if spammed for a short amount of time, can cancel and outprioritize/outspace IAP, I think. I need to re-test that, but I've been able to get people with that several times. It MIGHT be grounded Phantasm. Someone check!!!! PLEASE! the problem for ness if this hits is that Falco can easily jab or grab or ftilt or dash attack.

The Ness should be absorbing at least one laser per 10 seconds while keeping enough distance from your Phantasm if Falco is trying to laser camp. If not, the Ness isn't PSImagnet-ing well. I recommend getting closer so you have the chance of using a tilt or Reflector or DACUS to punish the Ness that over-magnets (aka, me), but not too close or else you just get in range of FAir.

Reflector the PK Fire Pillar if you are trapped AND Ness isn't behind you or preparing to use an aerial PK Fire on you. If the latter two, try and Jump out or shield it.

As Y1nk said, Dair ***** Ness if we get hit offstage. You can easily follow up and kill the Ness if you are quick about it.

As said before, the CG goes till about 30-40%, but most of the time you would want to get out at around 30-ish and go with a Dair.


Falco is a relatively good counter to Ness (+1 or +2, 60:40 for Falco). I like playing good Falcos though. xD



EDIT: My primarily used aerials are BAir, UAir, FAir, and DAir. NAir, to me, has too much landing lag, but it can be good for covering airdodges and stuff.

 

[MARLX]

YO THIS *****

im blown AWAWYT

Did I mess up or somthing??

 

[Marcbri]

Quite an easy match-up. Probably one of the worst for poor Ness.

He can't camp. Forced to approach. All of his approaches are punishable with lasers and bair. if he approaches by ground jab and ftilt destroy him. He kinda has to rely on gimmicks and stuff like that. Sure if he manages to get 1 hit he can rack up some % but he shouldn't in the first place. Besides that we gotta be careful at high % for kill moves and that's about all.

Oh and: Force upb = 1 stock less if done right.

 

[StarFruit]

@MARLX No bloodcross just has a crush on you and is trying to hide it dw.

 

[Yink]

I basically agree with everything Y1NK says here.


A couple of funny things though:

Ness' Dtilt, if spammed for a short amount of time, can cancel and outprioritize/outspace IAP, I think. I need to re-test that, but I've been able to get people with that several times. It MIGHT be grounded Phantasm. Someone check!!!! PLEASE! the problem for ness if this hits is that Falco can easily jab or grab or ftilt or dash attack.

The Ness should be absorbing at least one laser per 10 seconds while keeping enough distance from your Phantasm if Falco is trying to laser camp. If not, the Ness isn't PSImagnet-ing well. I recommend getting closer so you have the chance of using a tilt or Reflector or DACUS to punish the Ness that over-magnets (aka, me), but not too close or else you just get in range of FAir.

Reflector the PK Fire Pillar if you are trapped AND Ness isn't behind you or preparing to use an aerial PK Fire on you. If the latter two, try and Jump out or shield it.

As Y1nk said, Dair ***** Ness if we get hit offstage. You can easily follow up and kill the Ness if you are quick about it.

As said before, the CG goes till about 30-40%, but most of the time you would want to get out at around 30-ish and go with a Dair.


Falco is a relatively good counter to Ness (+1 or +2, 60:40 for Falco). I like playing good Falcos though. xD



EDIT: My primarily used aerials are BAir, UAir, FAir, and DAir. NAir, to me, has too much landing lag, but it can be good for covering airdodges and stuff.

I can always rely on you to back me up, I knew I was forgetting a little. <3

Quite an easy match-up. Probably one of the worst for poor Ness.

Disagree, it's not even close to one of his worst matchups, but it is horrifying if well, EITHER side doesn't know how to handle it. Goes from bad to worse.

 

[clowsui]

from playing smash64 this MU seems like a +2 for falco

essentially if you buckle down and play a little more patient than usual and just focus on ness' zones you will have a much much MUCH easier time w/ this. trying to disrespect ness when you can't just doesn't work because he has good tools @ falco's bad ranges. now when you ARE in good spots for falco you can abuse him and he will take tons of damage

ness is actually not terrible at edgeguarding so you really just have to watch out and play smart recovery games too

 

[EaszyPeaszy]

Very easy to tell that the match up is in falco's favor. Up close ness can't do anything, in the air ness can't do anything (besides bair). We can chain grab to decent percent and meteor smash ness. (Ness can't recover). Falco has better racking up damage and also killing moves than Ness.

Smhh 'Ness can't do anything in air (besides bair)' wuh bout retreating fair tbh.

 

[1PokeMastr]

Smhh 'Ness can't do anything in air (besides bair)' wuh bout retreating fair tbh.

We have Dacus.

Edit: Rather than just contributing little to this, why not give my own thoughts on this MU?

From personal experience, I'd have to say it's at least 60:40 nothing higher. Maybe 65:35 at Least, the highest number being for Falco.

From experience, Ness usually uses Fair, Bair or Pk Fire as an Approach, now, if they're spaced properly, and they retreat on them, we can just shield, or Nair Oos/ Bair Oos to punish, to punish a Fair, I go with Dash Attack Oos, Usmash, Boost Dair( Input Dash, Short Hop Dair), Or a Nair, this Implies they hit our shield. If not, and they approach, Falco can just camp lasers.

Now, we can't really do much with our lasers in this Mu since the have the Psi Magnet, but, we can still force an approach, just fire lasers in the other direction and Iap when they get close, or Bair/ Shield grab them.

Now, if they Pk Fire, you can Ps it easily, if they're close, reflector, this way they get hit, and if they catch you with Pk fire as a punish, smash Di away and down while holding shield, you should be able to roll out of it, on chance, you can reflector it while being hit by it. I only know this from playing Marth, Marth can do the First hit of Dancing Blade to interrupt Ness/ Counter Pk fire entirely, as Falco's Reflector, Dancing Blade(Hit one) and Counter all are active on frame 4. This kind of makes Pk fire unsafe for Ness now.

Now, when I land a Grab at Low damage, I don't usually CG to the ledge, I Dair early so I can get a Read off of them and follow up with an F-Smash/ Dash Attack/ Dacus/ D-Smash/ Jab/ Grab/ Shield Grab. It works.

As for when you're recovering, Phantasm is easy predicted. You either land on stage or go for the ledge. Now, here's a trick around that, if they go near the edge, go for the stage, if they stand about 3/4's of the way on the stage or even 2/3's of the way, go for the edge. Also, i always go for a Long cancel, it gives you a boost so that, if they catch you onstage, their spacing will be off because they weren't expecting you to cancel.

Now, for when Ness is recovering, if he just drifts to the edge, or Jump to it, do one Jab, this will interrupt them and they'll end up under the stage. And if they're far enough to Pk thunder, stay near the edge and instant snap to it before they reach it, if timed properly, They bounce off and die. In other words, Ness should have an Issue recovering.

At high damages, for Ness, I like to Air release them just to scare them, implying I land a grab, if you're at Low Percent, Ness isn't going to approach you often, so, wait for a Punish to Usmash or do a Smash in General. Or make a read with Dacus.

When you're in the 130-140% Area, then Falco, Worry about B-Throw. Before then, if you have good Di, you'll be safe

I'll put more later on, if you want to talk to me, Leave me a Message or, add me on Facebook. http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000398800240


Also, side note. Every move that's in the Air that has Horizontal or Vertical knock back will stage spike even a few ground moves will.

 

[Host Change]

I played Ness in a tournament match yesterday, and I had a lot of luck when I would bait his PSI magnet with my lasers and hit him with a Bair. I know both characters pretty well, but I had not played many Falco vs Ness matches.

Just thought I would throw that in.

 

[xZ1!C3x]

Camp/Space well
CG>spike>neutralize his pk thunder/edgehog
Be mindfull of psi magnet(bait it if they abuse it)
I love Reflector in this mu just don't abuse it
Don't get grabbed 100% and above
70-30 Falco's favor

 

[#HBC | ZoZo]

Don't camp ness with lasers

 

[Host Change]

Don't camp ness with lasers

Well if you're referring to what I posted, I lasered at the beginning of the first stock when it didn't matter and made it look like a weird pattern. Then I would make it look like I was going to laser (and the PSI magnet would come up) and I'd do something else. After that I would throw in one or two lasers and I had a lot of luck with it.

However, I do agree 100% that you don't want to use the laser very often. A really good Ness would probably be able to read that a lot better. Also, my spacing when I would shoot was a lot closer than I would camp against the majority of the Brawl cast. It was close/medium range when I would give it a shot. It's good to mix things up though.

 

[-DR3W-]

****ing ******** post from months ago.

 

[XEELT]

I'd say this matchups around 6-4 or 65-35 I've been played Yink, and a good friend of mine plays ness and I've adaped to atleast his ness, really it's just avoiding his grab, making sure you can smash DI out of the PK fire if he gets it ever and try reflecting it once you get out of it so when he runs for a follow up he gets hit by the fire, jab shuts down almost all of the things he does, camping lazers isn't the best idea, but using lazers to trick an absorb into following something up always works well. jabbing shuts down a lot, and if you can get the cg spike thats basically it for ness, just go down and get hit by the thunder, or if your a stock up already go for the dair trade with a 1 stock advantage. bair and nair do really well and punishing ness isn't too hard. then grab release tactics that everyone has on him are just bad, and easily give extra damage.

but I know ness can kill same range as we can with backthrow his pk thunder can go out and rack up some damage while were coming down from getting hit up/off stage. his spike isnt anything to fear unless they know the timing to hit us through illusion. his grab range while dashing can be pretty annoying because its pretty far, but over all theres not to much ness can do other than fair avoid lazers and try to rack up damage with pk fire and pk thunder as far as I know of. if we havent already I'd say get a ness main to say their ideas. I'm not 100% right and not that good.

 

[BleachigoZX]

8:2

Ness.

Zucco.

 

[Darktega]

Errr... Necromansing here (again). I have one question, what can we do about their boost grab (or dash, haven't tested it to see what it looks like), is annoying as hell. I won't say is unpunishable but they can spam it and it travels quite a distance. If I try to SH they still grab me, so I had to do full jumps to try to punish it but obviously they get away, and well... What am I asking for are options to punish it grounded. :3

 

[teluoborg]

Jab/Ftilt/Shine/whatever.

IDK, it seems like it's the worst idea ever to run straight at Falco when he's expecting it.

 

[Darktega]

Yeah, thought of that and tried jab, but... Failed the timing and I just started jumping the hell out of it...
But now at least I know it works.