Discuss Ness specific game-play here.

Beta has pseudo Thundersliding from Brawl Lucas, which is basically when you use your character's momentum to slide into your PK Thunder prematurely. Only instead of sliding off ledges like in Brawl, you use the momentum from your full hop double jump. This allows you to do swift PK Thunder 2. To do the instant PK Strikes you press jump, then press and hold your double jump while simultaneously using pk thunder. From here you can:

1. Let go and you'll do a PKT2 instantly downward.


2. Hold Northwest/Northeast for a diagonal PKT2.


If you hold Northeast you'll bounce back to the right which can can be a blessing if you're bouncing away from the opponent, a curse otherwise.


3. Hold Left/Right then quickly the opposite direction can be used to get a nearly horizontal angle, but it's tricky to pull off.



These Thunderhopping techniques are really explosive and can make for some unexpected swift KO's.
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Using PK Fire on a flat wall will set off the fire pillar, even if that flat wall is the tiny ledge on the stage. This is very useful as it can damage opponents and create a setup for an edgeguard/spike.


The easiest way to practice this is to hang on the ledge, back off, immediately jump + PK Fire toward the ledge simultaneously.

A new technique that I found in Beta is a moving Fire Pillar. If you get a PK Fire at just the right spot of the ledge, the fire pillar will actually appear on stage and run down the side. This is good for cutting off horizontal recoveries at stage level, but the fire disappears before dipping deep so it doesn't cover low recoveries.


The easiest way to practice this is to hang on the ledge, back off, immediately jump, then PK Fire toward the ledge. Getting the timing can be tricky.

That concludes the advanced techniques I've discovered in Beta so far.

Is it just me or does his second jump seem a bit weird?

On official Smash Bros titles Ness has a weird loop flip on his double jump, SSF2 just finally caught up.

Here are some changes I've noticed:
*Fsmash range increased, tipper added, removed randomized knockback. (Buff)
*Upsmash/Downsmash can no longer be charged over a ledge. (Nerf, since holding your YoYo's over the ledge was good edgeguard)
*Upair knockback decreased. (Nerf)
*Fair has more knockback. (I want to play with this more.)
*Dtilt knockback decreased, damage decreased from 3-2.(I have to play with this more)
*Dash Attack now has a long extending hitbox. (Buff)
*PK Pulse starts way over Ness' head and has less mobility (Nerf, it's much more time consuming to use this as an edgeguard and punish landings.)
*PK Fire now kicks people upward. (Nerf, landing a PK Fire in 9b could lead to crazy amounts of damage since it almost locked them inside)
*I think PK Fire's Fire Pillar is smaller? (Nerf?)
*PK Thunder has invincibility at the start like in Smash 4. (Buff)
*PSI Magnet can finally recover hp, but loses aerial horizontal drifting after the first use which hurts his recovery options. (Nerf, since I think PSI Magnet's lack of recovery was mostly a bug.)

That's all I got so far, I'll learn more as I play him against more human opponents. Ness feels really good in Beta and he looks much more crisp.

So here are my 2 cents:
*PkThunder2 cant no longer sweetspot the ledge, making him vulnerable to edgeguard situations if he's set against an Spacey with disjoints and priority + landing lag (A.k.a. Swords, Zss, etc) [Nerf]
*Dthrow and Uthrow being his main combo starter grabs are DI'able towards multiple directions with true ease making the followups a true read challenge, uthrow has increased knockback and increased ending lag making aerial followups harder to reach even at low percents. [Nerf]
*Full Hop Double Jump height decreased [Nerf if im not wrong about it]
*Dtilt knockback decreased and now directed up, characters now can be trapped in a continuous dtilt [Buff]
*PkThunder cancelling now has greater ending lag[Nerf]
*PkFlash charge is cancelled if it touches a platform, making edgeguard situations even harder on platform based stages[Nerf]
*Fair hitbox reduced [Nerf]
*Upsmash hitstun reduced [Nerf]
*DJC feels slower, idk if its the aerial speed being reduced or anything else [Gotta lab it more]
*Ground speed increased [Buff]
Thats all i got for now, also some bugs.
**EDIT**
Continuation:
*Dair seems to have couple more of startup frames, but apparently it is an spike now instead of a meteor, further Test is needed [Buff]
*Utilt range increased, same speed, knockback increased as well [Buff]
*Ftilt has less endlag [Buff]
*Jab is faster [Buff]
*Air horizontal momentum has been reduced during DJC apparently [Nerf]
*Getup attack now keeps its invincibility frames during the active hitbox[Buff]
*Ledge attack has less startup after input [Buff]
*Pummel is way faster [Buff]
*Grab range seems to have been increased [Buff]
*Much like smash4, his pkthunder2 now has more knockback and its not shortened when hitting someone, also faster [Buff]
Regarding the Upsmash and Dsmash not being able to be use as edgeguard options i just found out it is possible, and its even better (with upsmash at least, as the yoyo bends down to the stage) but Ness gotta put himself at an specific distance away of the ledge, which its quite problematic when it comes to the variety of stages there is, also probably the distance may differ with each stage.
The tech:
The tech is showcased on those gifs but im so stupid i just dont know how to make them watchable on the post_{nvm i found how}

That tech was possible in 9b already though...

Would you be so kind to tell us which tech?

I did some more labbing
*UpB now hits twice during the first frames, now people tanking the pkthunder to gimp wont be a thing[Buff]
Major Flaws about Beta Ness:
*Lack of Butter-bread combos: 9b ness had a pretty solid combo game which would be devastating if pulled right, dthrow to upsmash was a true combo if the DI was read right, it somewhat is currently but theres a lack of followups thanks to the endlag upsmash has and the easier the DI is, uthrow on the other hand was a heavy combo starter as it would combo on absolutely any aerial, it was already DI'able(the 9b ness uthrow properties seems to have been passed down to beta falco uthrow) and it would work on amazing followups, current Beta Ness lacks true butterbread combos which make his insane power somewhat unreliable as it depends heavily on reads, since his neutral is slower thanks to his aerials having more lag and his projectiles as well. I do believe Ness should keep his 9b Uthrow ButterBread combos since it cant be as harming as Bowser's Koo-Pah, his Upair has been already nerfed enough to make the uthrow combos balanced enough.
*Too much lag: I do understand his attacks have been mostly buffed on damage and knockback but i believe some shouldnt have as much damage and knockback, his metagame would be slowpaced as his neutral(yes, neutral game once again) has been nerfed on speed and his punish game inst as good anymore, overall he should have some nerfs on knockback and ending lag on some of his attacks to make up for the speed he has lost, on words of many previous ness mains "Beta ness is too stiff"
*Recovery Sweetspot: This is actually one of Beta Ness most important flaws, the adition of ending lag to most recovery moves affect almost everybody, but since his recovery has low priority (As most attacks stop him on spot) its way easier to read and counter, he definitely got a huge increase in distance and kill power, but as a recovery move its somewhat it flawed and easier to counter since it cant sweetspot the ledge, which since its based on smash4 pkthunder2, it should.
*His attacks interaction with others: His fair doesnt cacel (outprioritize) others attack's nor does many of his movements as he was able to in 9b, but i do believe thats part of the "trading" disabled function, which i hope will be up when the next update comes out.

Thats all the flaws i see on current ness metagame after endless labbing, here are some bugs/things that i believe should be fixed:
-His current Dash attack its pretty good as an approach option considering its range, but if the opponent knows the MU enough it will find out his Dash Attack is a huge hurtbox:



http://i.imgur.com/JQcGFul.gifv for some reason this Gif has been bugged and wont show properly like the others, heres the direct link

If its an intentional nerf put there to balance the range out then i humbly ask to nerf the range to balance that hurtbox, because when the Metagame learns the MU this movement will put ness in a huge disadvantage as many will exploit this trait.

-His PkThunder puts him in a helpless animation:


i dont know how to trigger this bug, nor i know if theres any way out, but it must be fixed.

-PsiMagnet possible visual bug(idk if the psimagnet's effects remain active during this bug, havent had the chance to lab it nor do i know how to exactly trigger it


Thats all for now.

Does anyone else think that Ness' version of PK Missile in Beta is based on Lucas' version in the official Smash games?

It seems to go farther than it does in the official Smash games, if my mind isn't playing tricks on me, at least.

Yes, that change is listed above, it also possess an apparently superarmor on the very first frames.

I made a video on all the moves Ness can absorb


[Let me know if I missed anything]

Pretty amazing work, thanks a lot for your contribution, altho i might add to your list things that you missed:
Megaman:
Jab
Fsmash
Upair
Sandbag:
Upb doenst do damage
Neutral b doesn’t do damage
Pacman:
Upb, absorbs but no healing
Hydrant doesn’t do damage
Bandana dee:
Sideb
Isaac:
Downb
Ftilt
Upb
dtilt
Mr. game and watch
Neutral b doesn’t absorb(This is weird since Neutral b is a projectile)
Downb doesn’t absord
Peach:
Turnips doesn’t do damage

Woah, I didn't know Ness could just not take damage instead of taking those projectiles. That's actually pretty based, gives him some chances to bypass some setups and even kill moves (Sandbag's suicide Up-B manuever).

Yeah its actually weird, he ignores some projectiles, some others ignore him, his Down B has weird properties or the other's projectiles do, i cant explain it (i.e. he ignores 's fruits but samus' sideb/downb ignores him)

Hey thanks, I'll try to make an update on this some other time