Sorry for double post but. Yeah I agree with most of this, and Im glad that you changed from 7-3 to 55-45. I disagree with ground game, while Mario has the better ground game, it's not by much. I suppose Mario's tilts do outrange Ness but...
Ness' do more damage (down tilt especially) and are generally faster. Judy, Mario isn't the only player who can use his utilt spam. Ness can too! His uptilt functions the same, with less spam but more range/priority. His ftilt does more damage and it's priority is insane. And Ness downtilt is just plain better than Mario's downtilt.
Tilt wise, I think Ness wins out.
Well, Mario's dtilt serves absolutely NO purpose, so Ness definitely wins out there. But Mario's Ftilt is faster and has more range, and Mario's Utilt is one of his most important juggling tools. It's basically a combo REstarter for when the opponent is getting knocked too far from Uair chains; the Utilt puts them back in place overhead. His jab game is also slightly better even though Ness' jab -> dashgrab = sex. Combine that with the fact that Mario's smashes have more range and power, and he wins out on the ground.
Ness can SH 2 aerials into one Hop too you know. 2 bairs, (like Mario) 2 fairs (unlike Mario) 2 uairs, 2 nairs. In fact ALL of Ness aerials can be SH except his dair.
Indeed...I've always found the timing a bit strict and never found a real purpose for it. But you're right, he does. Must've slipped my mind.
I disagree with even KO. The sheer power of Ness backthrow makes him a better killer. FINALLY someone realises that Ness has equal weight to Mario (

) But yeah, he also has his bair (strong) PK flash, PKT2, and Fsmash. It's better but not by much.
All of Ness' KO options only KO at % higher than an up-angled Fsmash, which kills at 100% with DI off the edge. It's also disjointed and covers more range than all of Ness' smashes if pivot smashed (decided that I don't like the term "stutter step"). Usmash is about as safe as Bthrow as well and only KOs 12 % higher and is also disjointed. The Bthrow is an excellent tool to have for guaranteed KOs, but that's all he has that can compete with Mario's Fsmash and Usmash.
Ness can limit his approach via psi magnet cancel (said before) and counter Mario's SH aerials with his. A defensive Ness is just as (if not more) as deadly as Mario. Again, what Mario can do, Ness can do too. Upsmash OOS is also possible with him.
Psi magnet doesn't really limit much. You eat the fireball, but we're still coming in right behind it. As long as we've gotten close, its done its job. From there, we're close enough to shield or whatever since we're also suffering no lag.
What defensive options does Ness have? I'm curious.
Ness' Usmash OOS is probably good (I've never tried it), but it kills at much higher percentages and is slower. Overall, less of a threat.
Yes Mario's edge guarding plays a big role, but his recovery is much to underrated. It takes alot of flack. And no offense Mario mains, Mario just isn't as tough to face as Peach, DK and Rob (who are 55-45)
(Yes, Ness AND Mario aren't that great

)
It's definetely a 50-50.
Answer me this. You've played Mario for awhile. If you were going up against a good Ness by your standards, do you think you could gimp him? With all the tools at Mario's disposal and how effective they are against Ness offstage, do you really think we're just pulling this out of our
asses?
I think Mario can gimp G-dorf, DK, and Link farse worse by the fact that Ness has such a splendid double jump.
Mario destroys their recoveries though. Like...to the point where if you haven't gimped them at least once per round, you're doing something wrong. Ness' recovery is a cut above them in terms of gimp difficulty.
@ Matador, I love how you know alot more about Ness. Kudos to you!
I knew we'd come back to this matchup sooner or later
