Ness (Super Smash Flash 2)

Ness is a playable veteran character in Super Smash Flash 2. His moveset is based on his attacks in the Super Smash Bros. series. His sprites are custom made and based on his appearance in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. He is a starter character which is recurring change in the main Super Smash Bros. games where his availability status switches between starter and unlockable. His voice clips are from Brawl.

Ness is currently ranked 21st on the tier list; one up from his 22nd tier position last demo. Ness posses a strong aerial game, decent combo potential and strong finishers in his forward smash, a sweet spotted back aerial, up aerial, PK Flash, PK Thunder 2, and his back throw. He has a projectile in PK Fire, he can absorb certain projectiles with PSI Magnet to heal himself and can reflect projectiles with his forward smash. He has solid aerials and combined with Double jump canceling gives him a great aerial game.

However, Ness suffers from a predictable recovery that is easy to gimp when the opponent hits Ness into it. He has problems with range in some of his attacks. Due to slow falling speed it makes him easy to be KO'ed vertically.

Ness's cons overcome his pros and is the reason he is ranked in the middle.

Ness appears to have a small player base and poor representation in online tournaments. However, Nstinct, who is a notable Ness player, takes decent spots in tournaments with him.

Attributes
It's difficult to generalize Ness due to his diverse attributes. Ness has different options to deal with projectiles; he is able to absorb certain ones with PSI Magnet which will heal him and has the ability to reflect certain ones with his forward smash. He has finishers in his forward smash, Pk Flash, Pk Thunder 2, back throw, back and up aerials. He has a great air game with fast and powerful aerials along with having the ability to double jump cancel which aids in his already great air game. He has a good grab and throw game, despite possessing the sixth shortest grab in the current demo. He can chain grab certain characters with his down throw, he can set up edge guards with his forward throw and can KO opponents with his back throw while his up throw sets up for Up Tilt and Up Air juggles. He has a good projectile in his PK Fire which can help him rack up damage by trapping the opponent while also being useful for edge guarding and can create shield pressure. He has a strong meteor smash in his down aerial which is easy to combo into. He has long reaching recovery with having the second longest midair jump in the game and PK Thunder covering a considerable distance.

However, Ness's major flaw is his poor range which leaves him vulnerable to characters with disjointed hitboxes (ex. and ). Another disadvantage off his poor range is that most of his finishers requires Ness to be close to his opponent while his longest reaching finisher, his forward smash, is slow and predictable. Ness's second major flaw is his easy to gimp recovery. Due to his lightweight and falling speed makes him easy to be KO'ed vertically and horizontally.

Ground attacks

 * Standard attack: Left jab. 3%
 * Standard Attack 2: Cross. 3%
 * Standard Attack 3: Front kick. 5%
 * Down tilt: Ness crouches and very quickly kicks out in front of him. 3% Very fast, and should be used as a poke.
 * Down smash: Ness sends his yo-yo behind himself to throw a "sleeper" before pulling the yo-yo across to his front to attack. 10% uncharged, 13% fully charged. Opponents can get hurt by the yo-yo while it is being charged, doing 1% each hit.
 * Side tilt: Kicks out in front of him. 11% Fast poke again.
 * Forward smash:
 * Uncharged: Ness swings his bat. There is a 1/20 chance it will become an extremely powerful attack and say "SMAAAASH!!". 20% when the text appears, 12% regular.
 * Fully Charged: Ness swings his bat. The text "SMAAAASH!!" appears above him and the attacks deals significant knockback. 20%.
 * Up tilt: Raises his hands, which grow large, up into the air. High priority, outprioritizing most attacks. 8%
 * Up smash: Ness sends his yo-yo forward and performs "around-the-world" over himself, with the yo-yo ending behind him before he pulls it back. 12% uncharged, 17% fully charged. Opponents can get hurt by the yo-yo while it is being charged, doing 2% each hit.
 * Dash attack: Dashes forward with his arms outstretched. 9%

Aerial attacks

 * Neutral aerial: Spins diagonally in the air with arms outstretched. 12%-11% strong hit, 8% weak hit.
 * Forward aerial: Ness sticks out his palms sending a stream of Psionic sparks in front of him. The last spark has decent knockback. Four hits for 3% each, for a total of 12%.
 * Back aerial : Kicks out backwards with both feet embedded with Psi. 12% sweet-spotted, 5% sour-spotted.
 * Up aerial: Headbutts up into the air. 13%
 * Down aerial: Ness pulls his legs to his body before stomping down into the air with extreme force. This move powerfully meteor smashes opponents with high base knockback. However, it has low knockback scaling, unable to KO grounded opponents at high percentages. 15%-14% sweet spotted, 9% sour spotted.

Grabs & throws

 * Grab: Reaches out.
 * Pummel: Headbutt. 2% per hit.
 * Forward throw: Uses Psi powers to throw the opponent forward. 9%
 * Back throw: Uses Psi to lift opponents behind him before launching them. The strongest back throw in the game and on of the strongest throws in general. 12%
 * Up throw: Uses Psi to spin the opponent above him before launching them upwards. Can lead into Up Tilt and Up Air juggles in early percents. Useful on fast fallers or heavy characters. 10%
 * Down throw: Throws opponent on the ground before igniting them on fire. Chain grabs. 9%

Other

 * Ledge attack: Climbs up, then swings his foot in front of him. 8%
 * 100% ledge attack: None.
 * Floor attack: Kicks both sides. 5%

Misc.

 * Entrance: Teleports in using PK Teleport, then shakes off the soot he gathered upon impact.
 * Taunts:
 * Standard: Ness nods and says "Ok".
 * Side: Points his baseball bat forward.
 * Down: Fires a series of sparkles in front of him. The pattern in which he fires the sparkles may be a reference to PK Rockin.
 * Fanfare: Remix of Victory fanfare from Melee.
 * Win: Jumps around twice, then nods his head two times.
 * Lose: Simply claps for the winner.

Changes from v0.9a
Ness has received a string of buffs. His KO options and recovery are overall better. However, Ness appears to not be more effective than he was last demo.

Notable players

 * Nstinct
 * Appley

Tier placement history
Ness was seen as a bottom-low tier character when he was first introduced in demo v0.7. In the tier lists for demos v0.7; Ness was ranked 14th of D tier on the first list and 13th of E tier on the second list. In demo v0.8b; like, Ness had a huge tier leap with ranking 2nd of S tier. In demo v0.9a; Ness had a huge tier drop(the biggest drop between demos v0.8b and v0.9a) by ranking 22nd of what can considered C tier where he is now viewed as a low tier character. In demo v0.9b, Ness rose up one position where he is currently ranked 21st of B tier and is seen as a middle tier character.

Trivia

 * Ness along with ,  and are the only characters so far to wear their default costumes in team battle when they are on the red team.
 * Ness,, , and  are the only characters who had an unlockable status in the main Super Smash Bros. games to be starters in SSF2. While  and  are also starters; they had to be unlocked in the demo they debuted in.
 * Ness is the first character in SSF2 to receive custom made sprites.