TRENT
Trent was a random evil tree in the middle of the woods that was “huge, gnarly, and tough as tails”, able to grow and retract his face at will. He eventually devoured a sawmill operator called George Maclachlan who intended to saw him down to test the merits of his new saw. It’s clear Trent didn’t just go devouring random people, though, as apparently upon devouring Maclachlan he fused with him. Maclachlan actually seems to be the dominant personality over Trent, as Trent was just a random evil tree in the woods, whereas once Maclachlan was devoured Trent went to continue running his saw mill.
Trent had his lumberjacks, the woodcutters, go and abduct random people in the woods before encasing them in wood and removing their brains. Trent then had his men mail out these “woodpuppets” in boxes back to their families, whereupon being released they would attempt to murder said families. Trent and the woodcutters also kill the woodpuppets for sport in healthy competition. While Trent is an evil boss who refers to his men as his “woodcutting slaves”, they seem to be just as evil as him, given how much they seem to enjoy all of this.
Trent refers to himself as George Maclachlan after eating the man, but the game refers to him as Trent despite this name never being directly stated. If nothing else, Trent has some form of influence over Maclachlan, as before he fused with Trent he wasn’t some sort of evil psychopath.
In Smash Bros, Trent functions as a 3v1 boss – he eats the likes of Whispy Woods for breakfast, literally.
STATS
Size: 30+
Weight: 30
Falling Speed: 20
Traction: 7
Jumps: 7
Aerial Control: 6
Aerial Speed: 3
Ground Movement: 1
Trent’s size is variable because of his roots, of which Trent has a massive eight. His main body is is 1.5x as wide as Bowser, but he’s very tall at double Ganondorf height. Regardless,Trent can be even larger by extending out his roots during his attacks, which are constantly part of his hurtbox. More details on this will be explained soon.
Trent takes stun normally. His ways to deal with this will also be detailed very shortly. He is also completely solid.
Trent wouldn’t be that horrible of an aerial character, having actually decent jumps as he pushes himself skywards with his roots, but his ridiculous fall speed is what prohibits him from going to the air in most cases.
SPECIALS
NEUTRAL SPECIAL – ROOTATION
Pressing this causes the next of Trent’s roots in sequence to flash briefly, signifying that’s the root you’ll be using in your attacks that involve a singular root. Each of Trent’s 8 roots can be doing something at the same time, and this “move” is lagless to use and can be used during lag and stun. If a move involves multiple roots, then of course the currently selected one will be one of the roots involved, with the other roots being the next ones in line for rotation that aren’t currently occupied.
Stunning Trent only prohibits him from shielding, dodging, and using attacks outside of this one that don’t involve roots. Roots cannot be stunned, and each one has 200 HP that must be depleted. Once a root’s gone, it doesn’t come back. Roots are not hurtboxes when Trent is not using them for anything and they’re up against him, retracted, and regenerate 5 HP per second while like this. Attacking a root deals a third of that damage to Trent’s actual damage counter. Roots are the width of Wario.
UP SPECIAL – ROOT
This is one of many moves that has you move your root about into position before you strike with it – you can extend the root up to Final Destination’s width away from Trent at Ganon’s dashing speed. When you’re ready to attack, press A/B/Z to attack, or shield to retract the root at double speed as Trent is free to use other moves, though unable to use that particular root until it retracts. This will henceforth be referred to as “root control”.
Once the root is in position, the tip will just stab downwards quickly, dealing 10% and a spike on par with Rob’s dair. If it comes into contact with the ground, the move actually serves its purpose, as the root embeds itself into the ground. This means Trent cannot be knocked further away from the root than the amount he extended it. If Trent walks against the root’s maximum pull, he won’t pull away from it, but if he dashes against it for .3 seconds, he’ll automatically uproot from it. You can also input a special usmash to instantly uproot all roots. Pressing any root attack when your currently selected root is rooted will also uproot and retract it first. Foes can uproot individual roots by dealing 50% to them.
If this is used in the air and you already have something rooted, Trent will automatically reel himself in to his root. With only one rooted, Trent will reel himself in very, very slowly when he’s pulling himself up against gravity, at Ganondorf’s walking speed. Each additional root rooted will cause the speed is Trent’s lifted out to double, with no cap on how fast he can be pulled up, potentially almost instantly like a tether recovery. . .Without having to actually land the tether recovery! Trent can DI slightly left and right as he’s being pulled up, and can attack.
If multiple roots are pulling Trent up, he will be specifically pulling himself to the nearest one. If there are somehow multiple roots on either side of him, roots that are not on the same side of him as the nearest root will not help.
If you don’t have anything rooted, this functions as a generic tether recovery in the air. The lashing root deals 15% and knockback that KOs at 130% as it lashes out, and travels upwards 1.75x as far as Ivysaur’s recovery. If you actually “land” the tether, the root will root onto the side of the stage (Not the ledge, but right next to it) as Trent gets pulled up normally.
Once you start getting pulled up, no matter how you go about it, you can press Up Special again to fire another root at the far side of the stage and root it to start pulling yourself up faster, should you be getting impatient.
Nothing prohibits you from shorthopping and using this move on the stage as a means of transportation. In fact, it’s encouraged, as it lets you attack while moving. Just moving your position for the sake of it isn’t especially important when your roots are what matter, but this can potentially let you drag foes with your solid main body, blocking them off from escaping root/minion attacks. You can even launch yourself if you have enough roots, go to pull yourself towards them, then uproot them all, but this is very impractical, and is more useful for going through the terrible stages Junahu would like you to play through.
SIDE SPECIAL – WOODCUTTER
Trent bellows “Come, my woodcutting slaves!” to summon a woodcutter. This is a fairly laggy process as Trent says it dramatically, but Trent can use most of his moveset during it, so there’s little reason to worry. In general, there’s minimal reason to not be constantly using this move, but the amount of woodcutters that can be out at once, should you somehow reach it, caps at 10. Because of how much you will spam this move, there are a lot of actual varying phrases he will say as he uses this move.
Woodcutters are burly men with comparable size and movement to Ganondorf. They have three attacks. A horizontal axe swing is their quickest attack, that deals 10% and knockback that KOs at 150%. Their second attack is a vertical axe swing where they bring the axe to the ground before swinging it up in a half circle in front of themselves, dealing 14% and knockback that KOs at 120%. Their strongest attack is one where they lift their axes over their heads before swinging it down with Dedede fsmash lag, dealing 20% and knockback that KOs at 85%. Woodcutters will only use their strongest attack if the foe is in prone, pitfalled, or stunned in some way.
Woodcutters have a fantastic 60 HP, have their own invisible damage percentages, and weigh as much as Ganondorf. This is pretty severe stuff, but they will mindlessly pursue the nearest foe and are easily baited off-stage, regardless of the fact that they have two jumps. You will want to block off the stupid woodcutters with your solid body – moving around by pulling yourself with roots doesn’t sound so stupid now, does it?
Woodcutters can damage Trent, what with him being a tree and them being lumberjacks, and Trent can damage the woodcutters back. Aside from their prohibition from using their third attack, Woodcutters have one particular thing in their AI, though – they are horribly, horribly afraid of Trent, and will go out of their way to avoid attacking Trent at all, even his roots. This means if you have a root along the ground next to an attacking woodcutter, they will only use their horizontal slash attack to avoid hitting your root, and if a foe is up against your main body the woodcutter will back up before attacking you. This sadly means that if your root is in the way and a foe is stunned, woodcutters will stupidly use the horizontal slash over their big overhead swing – you can’t even hold the foe grabbed for them, as that would involve them hitting your root.
If the foe is entirely surrounded by your hurtbox, woodcutters have one final attack they can use that you are immune to, just for the sole purpose of not harming your precious tree bark. In such a situation, woodcutters will simply spam melee Ganondorf’s jab on the foe, a very fast attack with pathetic power. As some compensation, this will not release foes who are grabbed, enabling them to pummel on foes.
All attacks woodcutters land, outside of their situational jab, will cause foes hit to generate blood in a cartoony fashion without any actual gore, much like when you’re damaged in Illbleed. The horizontal swing generates a Kirby width of blood, the vertical swing a Wario width, and the overhead swing a Bowser width.
As if foes could not have enough fun luring woodcutters off-stage, woodcutters are vulnerable to each other’s axe attacks (Not the blood generated from them). This isn’t as terrible as it sounds, considering how durable they are, and it actually is a good thing as they too will generate blood when they stupidly hit each other. Woodcutters have an AI cue to avoid fellow woodcutters preparing an overhead swing, in the least, and will patiently wait to the side of that foe to chase them after they’re hit.
As for what blood does, it doesn’t seem to do much of anything immediately. Foes/woodcutters who turn around while dashing will trip. While dashing doesn’t directly trip foes, if they stop dashing on blood they will slide forwards a bit based off their speed – Ganon a Kirby width and Sonic a good platform. They can attack during this sliding, but if they come into contact with a solid object (Trent) during this, then they will trip.
The primary function of the blood is if a root is rooted within 2 platforms of blood on the ground, in which case Trent will absorb all blood on the ground as nutrients into his body. Rooted roots automatically suck up a Kirby width of blood per second, and every Kirby width heals Trent’s damage percentage of 10% and that particular root of 25%. This healed damage also goes towards the stamina that must be depleted to uproot the root, though it cannot go over 50. Roots start visibly withering as they get more damaged, so if one’s close to dying you can specifically choose to have that root go absorb some blood.
DOWN SPECIAL – WOODPUPPET
Trent takes out a Ganon tall Bowser sized coffin with his current root. You gain root control as you hold the coffin in your root, it wide open. You can place it by pressing B, or press A to slam the coffin shut. If you switch to another root without letting go of the coffin, Trent will automatically close the coffin if a foe comes in range. Pressing Down Special with no woodcutters out with a wooden coffin already out will cause Trent’s current root to go grab the coffin, wherever it is. Slamming the coffin shut on a foe causes electricity from the sky to randomly hit the coffin, dealing 25% to them as a scream is heard. This turns them into a woodpuppet as they walk out of the coffin as it automatically opens – due to the varying sizes and shapes of the many chars in Brawl, let alone MYM Brawl, this is simply a wooden texture over their body. If you grab a woodcutter for whatever reason, they will just die horribly and fail to become woodpuppets, generating a Bowser’s worth of blood on the ground around the coffin as they die before their dead body drops out.
Being turned into a woodpuppet gives the foe a unique walking animation with their arms outstretched, moving as fast as a 2/10 dash. The character cannot dash, losing access to their dashing attack, though that doesn’t terribly matter unless you’re playing Koala Kong or something. The movement nerf is rather annoying when trying to get away from 8 roots and 10 woodcutters. . .Foes also gain an additional 5/10 tacked onto their falling speed.
The main purpose of turning a foe into a woodpuppet is that once a woodpuppet is on the field, woodcutters will ignore all non woodpuppet foes. They will ruthlessly pursue the poor woodpuppets, and woodcutters deal double damage to woodpuppets. Woodcutters won’t care about damaging Trent if it means they get a chance to take a swing at a woodpuppet, meaning you can hold down woodpuppets with your grab for the woodcutters. Running away from so many minions is difficult when you’re so slow as a woodpuppet, and just luring woodcutters off-stage is more difficult than usual due to your increased falling speed. After taking 50% or more from woodcutters, woodpuppets will be freed from their status effect. Woodpuppets take triple damage from fire, but any fire attack will instantly burn off their woodpuppet coating. If the woodpuppet uses a fire attack, they will take triple the damage of their own attack as it burns it off. The foe’s allies can use fire/axe swinging attacks if they have them to free their ally, but this will obviously still damage them.
Inputting Down Special with a wood coffin already placed and woodcutters already out will cause the woodcutter nearest to the coffin to shut/open the coffin. If a foe a woodcutter is pursuing is in front of the coffin ready to be turned into a woodpuppet, that woodcutter will go to close the coffin automatically. This is very exploitable by the foe, and can lead to an easy way to kill other woodcutters, though you at least get some blood out of it.
Yes, you can hold the coffin off-stage, and it serves as a great counter-measure to foes constantly luring woodcutters off-stage. After they’re in the coffin, you can of course drop it down and watch them fall to their doom as they get transformed and then have increased falling speed. Unfortunately, Trent closes the coffin slower than his minions, so it’s very predictable if you’re attempting it.
GRAB-GAME
GRAB – ENTANGLING ROOTS
You gain root control for this move for as long as you hold Z, then the end of the root will attempt to wrap around where it is, grabbing whatever is there. If you fail, the root retracts as in other moves of this type. In any case, this is Trent’s “disabler” attack, but you can also grab items, woodcutters, and wood coffins. To make Trent release something he has grabbed, the portion of the root that has the object grabbed must be dealt 20%. Foes can escape Trent’s grab on their own at 2.35x escape difficulty.
Trent can still freely move around his root with “root control” when he has something grabbed. Not only can he use his pummel and throw by inputting Z and the appropriate direction, he can use his entire moveset! None of his non pummel/throw attacks damage grabbed foes unless stated otherwise. Going to root via Up Special while you have something grabbed will pitfall the object and deal 12% to it, and not cause the root to root. If you bury a wood coffin, Trent will bury it so that the entrance to the coffin is facing upwards, making the hitbox on the move when it closes wider but bound to the ground.
Grabbing a wood coffin functions like when you initially take it out with down special, and items work completely normally, but are activated by pressing pummel instead of jab. As for grabbing woodcutters, being grabbed by Trent doesn’t put them in a grabbed state, but prohibits them from moving. This lets you keep woodcutters stationary, or better yet control their movement with your own superior intelligence. Woodcutters move ever so slightly slower than Ganon’s dash, meaning it’s also possible to save them from a stupid death from being baited off-stage.
PUMMEL – ABSORPTION
Trent’s root pulsates as he absorbs blood from the foe. This deals 5% to them, heals Trent’s damage percentage of 5%, and heals the root that has the foe grabbed by 10%. This pummel takes a second to complete. If you swap to another root while you have a foe grabbed, Trent will automatically pummel the victim until they escape the grab.
FORWARD THROW – SLIDE
Trent throws the foe diagonally downwards against the ground, dealing 14% before they slide along the ground on their stomachs in prone for knockback that KOs at 150%. As foes slide, they are hitboxes to outside foes that deal 10% and knockback that KOs at 165%. Yes, they can damage woodcutters, but if any woodcutter is about to be hit by this attack and is facing the foe coming at them, an AI cue will trigger to make them use their vertical swing attack. The vertical swing starts from the ground, so the hitbox is right where the prone foe is and will hit them immediately.
Used on a woodcutter, Trent will not knock them into prone, just sliding them along the ground with weaker knockback that KOs at 200% and dealing no damage to them. Woodcutters will prepare their overhead swing attack as they slide along.
Used on a wood coffin, Trent will open the coffin if it isn’t already. It travels just as far as a foe, dealing 16% and knockback that KOs at 120% on contact. Halfway through the coffin’s slide, it will fall forwards as the lid slams shut, trapping anybody who might be inside. As an added bonus to turning any foe you hit with this into a woodpuppet, they will have to crawl out from under the coffin and will be in prone afterwards. You can even potentially position this so you slide the coffin off the stage, the foe falling a ways before they ever get out of the coffin and having additional falling speed as a wood puppet once they get out for what’s probably an assured kill. It’s not as good as it sounds due to the precise spacing required, but you can grab and hold a foe in position for when the coffin collapses over.
BACK THROW – HANG
Trent curls his root around the foe’s neck and thrusts his root backwards, but doesn’t actually let go of the foe. This does a minimal 4% to foes and knockback that KOs at 170%. . .Due to Trent not actually letting go of the foe before they take their knockback, though, the move has a max knockback cap of Final Destination’s width. Foes will automatically escape the root if they’re thrown against the ground, though they will at least exit from this in prone.
If the knockback/root “leash” on the foe manages to knock them off-stage, then the root will follow physics as the foe dangles downwards. When they reach the maximum distance the root can hold them, a more brutal version of the sound effect from Snake’s pummel plays as the foe takes a massive 20%. From there, the foe will hang, having to escape at triple grab difficulty and taking 3% per half second. Another foe can show up to free them at this point just like from the normal grab by attacking the portion of the root they’re hung by, serving as a potential way to bait foes off-stage. Foes can in-fact save their allies at any point during this move, increasing incentive if you’re in a position to outright –kill- with this or something.
Needless to say, if Trent’s actual body is up against an edge and you use this throw, you can get even more appealing results, dipping foes off the bottom blast zones as you hang them. Trent normally likes to stay in the middle of the stage, though, mainly for the simple reason that if he’s not in the middle he can’t abuse his solid nature to separate foes.
Using this on a coffin will have the coffin close either on contact with the ground if the coffin simply hits the ground, but if thrown off-stage the coffin door will constantly be open, automatically closing shut on contact with a foe. Once the coffin is actually at the max length and literally hanging in place, then it won’t be a constant hitbox and will have to be closed manually by Trent, dangling in place forever until Trent does something with that root.
UP THROW – DEVOUR
If you haven’t brought the foe within a Bowser of Trent’s mouth, this throw is a generic quick toss upwards that deals 10% and vertical knockback that KOs at 155%. If you have, though, Trent chomps down on the foe and chews them for a while, dealing 18% to the foe. After a bit of chewing, Trent decides the foe is not worthy of fusing with him and spits them upwards, puking up a good chunk of blood and acid as he spits up these bodily fluids 2.15 Ganondorfs. The foe takes knockback a minimum of 2.5 Ganondorfs into the air, and the knockback KOs at 175%. The blood is roughly a Wario’s worth and falls back down harmlessly, but should the foe decide to DI back down to try to attack Trent from above, they’ll have to deal with the acid he vomited up at them. The acid deals 16% and stun on par with Zamus’ dsmash, so foes are left with little choice but to DI to the left or right rather than landing on top of Trent.
If the acid hits a woodpuppet, it will set them on fire. This will deal 10 hits of 1% per second to the foe until 50% is dealt to them, at which point the woodpuppet armor finally burns off. Yes, “burning” status effects aside from Trent’s will not instantly cure foes from woodpuppet status, but will instead deal triple damage and cure them once the effect expires. What’s more, the increased falling speed of woodpuppets means that unless the foe is at exceedingly high percents and/or has a very low base falling speed, the acid vomited up will combo into the throw.
DOWN THROW – SMASH
Trent lifts up the foe higher and higher before smashing them downwards. Used off-stage, this is a spike on par with Ganon’s dair and deals 16%. If the foe hits the stage, they are spiked through and take 27%, getting spiked slightly weaker than Rob’s dair once they spawn below the stage. As you’d expect, this throw is incredibly laggy, giving outside foes plenty of chance to free their ally before you send them down there.
Using this on a coffin will cause it to slam shut on contact with the ground, and just drag foes downwards with it if you dthrow it in the air. It’s rather impractical given how laggy it is, but can be something you can casually throw down from high up to inhibit somebody recovering.
STANDARDS
NEUTRAL ATTACK – JUMPROOT
Trent gains root control, then at the selected position extends his root into the background before turning and heading straight for the foreground. No, this is not a Z plane hitting attack, but it instead creates what is essentially a root trip wire. If a character attacks this from the side (Meaning this sadly cannot gimp any non-horizontal recoveries) with a jointed attack, Trent will take the damage, but the foe will take the knockback of their own attack. Attempting to dash past this will cause foes to trip. Woodcutters are intelligent enough to slowly step over these.
Yes, you can just place this right in front of Trent, but Trent’s so large foes can find other portions of his hurtbox to hit without hitting the root. Sure, you could place more to essentially cover one whole side, but that’s a significant root investment and foes can just jump over you anyway. You can cover both sides. . .And be left with next to no roots at all for actually attacking anything, and still be vulnerable to grabs.
If a character is launched with knockback into one of these roots, they will be catapulted in the opposite direction with 1.5x the knockback. If it’s a character, they can slightly choose their trajectory, so it’s nearly impossible to set up infinites with this without significant root investment, and that only occupies one of three foes. This property is arguably more useful on your woodcutters and coffins. Used on a coffin thrown from fthrow, you can make it significantly less predictable where it’s going to fall down and make things more frantic. On a woodcutter, you can save them as they get knocked off the edge of the stage. If the foe is just baiting them off, then you can use the second part of the jab to help them out.
Hitting jab with a trip root already out will cause Trent to flail around the “trip wire” portion in a manner like a jump rope a single time, dealing a simple 5% and weak knockback in the direction you did it. This may not seem useful, but if you hold the jab, Trent will continue to perform the jab automatically even if you swap to another root. One of these off-stage is probably your best counter-measure to woodcutter suicide baiting, though it won’t save them from being knocked off like the trip wire version.
DASHING ATTACK – ROOT WALK
Trent brings a whopping six of his roots underneath his body and uses them as supports to hoist up his gigantic body. Trent then proceeds to use these roots to dash forwards, going significantly faster than his pitiful dashing speed. Trent actually reaches the respectable speed of Mario’s dash during this attack. Trent will keep walking forwards until the move is canceled by crouching or reaching the end of a platform/in front of a walk off, though you can cancel this by crouching. While walking, Trent can use his remaining two roots normally as well as any attacks involving his body. He can even jump, and the attack won’t be interrupted.
As long as this attack is going, the roots underneath Trent are a hitbox that deal 13 hits of 1% and very light set knockback in the opposite direction Trent is traveling. If you walk through an average size character, they should take 8% or so. The ability to walk “through” people is the main notable thing about this attack other than the movement speed, as the roots below Trent are not solid unlike his main body. Anybody shorter than Ganon can fit under Trent, meaning you can swap the side of you a foe is on without having to worry about woodcutter micromanagement, since they can’t pass under you when you use this move.
When Trent “cancels” out of this attack by crouching, there’s a delay before Trent crashes down, becoming a hitbox that deals 15% and knockback that KOs at 115%. The threat of this in tandem with the main move lets you abuse Trent’s solid status on demand, turning it on and off as you like to separate/group up enemies as you see fit.
FORWARD TILT – ACID
Trent vomits forth some acid, previously seen in the uthrow. It’s a simple projectile that travels 1.25 platforms before hitting the ground and vanishing, dealing 16% and stun on par with Zamus’ dsmash to those who it hits. This is a way to stun foes without getting personally involved and endangering yourself, so woodcutters can use the overhead swing on them. While that’s theoretically nice, there are probably just as many if not more woodcutters than foes, so they’ll get in the way of this. You really have to take advantage of your height to snipe the acid over the woodcutters’ heads, hitting foes with it at the end of the trajectory. While it’s predictable, they’ll also be dealing with a minion simultaneously, much less your roots.
This does indeed function the same on woodpuppets as in the uthrow, setting them on fire and dealing 10 hits of 1% for 5 seconds until burning off their woodpuppet status.
If a burning woodpuppet comes into contact with another woodpuppet, that woodpuppet will also catch on fire. Obviously this also works in the uthrow. This is great if you have multiple woodpuppets not just for spreading more damage around, but for giving foes reason to split up from each other so you can pick them off more easily.
UP TILT – BUCK
Trent bends his upper section down in front of him slightly before bucking it upwards. This is somewhat laggy and does diagonally upwards knockback behind Trent for 11% and knockback that KOs at 135%. Obviously, it has the very functional purpose of knocking off people who think camping/damage racking on top of you is a good idea, kind of a necessary feature. Aside from that, this is needed to help woodcutters get over you to pursue foes who have fled from them to your other side, as otherwise you’re left with painstakingly moving them with your grab, whereas this can move a bulk of woodcutters all at once.
DOWN TILT – BURROW
Trent gains root control as usual before slapping his root forwards in a very weak but very spammable move. This deals 6% and knockback that KOs at 175%. If the foe was on the ground, this will cause them to trip.
Trent has an easier time destroying shields than the likes of Gooper Blooper. Not just because of his 8 roots with which to grab people, but because he can shield poke foes from 8 directions, and has minions to help him to boot. This attack is good for being a clean horizontal swipe that can easily go along the ground and hit the underside of a foe’s shield, and trips them to boot. With how many hitboxes Trent is sending flailing out all over the place, this is relevant because a shield is a lot more helpful to the foe than a dodge when they can very easily be hit as they come out of said dodge.
If you tell a root that is rooted via Up Special to dtilt, it won’t uproot and do the slap, but will instead poke out through the bottom of the stage, giving you root control before it casually stabs downwards for a hilariously quick but weak “spike” half as strong as Rob’s dair, dealing 5%. The root stays where it is after this, enabling you to easily hit enemies under the stage from dthrow. The downside is due to the tip of the root not being inside the stage, this root no longer counts as a rooted one.
I don’t think I need to tell you that any poor sap you find under the stage is prime fodder to get grabbed and hanged via bthrow.
SMASHES
FORWARD SMASH – FORTY LASHES
Charging determines how many roots Trent will use for this attack, anywhere from 1 to all 8, though Trent will ignore roots that are occupied. Once the charging is done, you gain root control of all roots you’ve gained with the charging before slamming them all down once you’re ready. Trent slams them down one after the other rather than all at once, potentially giving you a hitbox as long as Final Destination and 8x as tall as Wario is wide. The roots deal 35% and knockback that KOs at 65% for some hilariously strong power as they laggily slam down, though if foes can’t outrun it and you have enough roots, the lag isn’t exactly a huge issue.
The advantages to this attack are obvious and can’t be overstated, so I’ll be talking about the disadvantages. . .If foes do dodge the attack, even just one, your roots will all be grouped together as they slowly reel back. Not only does this mean you won’t be able to use a lot of roots as they come back, potentially none, but foes will be able to attack all of them at once, dealing good damage to you but more importantly massively taking down the stamina of the roots which you can’t get back. It’s not as much of an issue if you slam all the roots just a short distance in front of yourself so they’re not reeling back for long, but then you don’t have the glorious infinite range hitbox. Needless to say, such a long range powerful attack will also severely shorten the lifespan of your woodcutters.
If you slam down a root with a foe grabbed in it, this will deal 12% to them. If you spam the fsmash on this specific root, this will deal damage to them faster than your pummel, but will not give you the healing. If the foe has a low percentage, it’s also unlikely you’ll get the fsmash off twice before they escape the grab. Used on a root with a coffin in it, Trent will open the coffin up as he slams down the tentacle before closing it as he retracts it.
DOWN SMASH – BUZZSAWS
Trent takes out a Wario sized buzzsaw with his currently selected root as you gain root control, spinning it around with the tip of his root as you charge the smash. Trent is intelligent enough to have the very tip of his tentacle be what holds the buzzsaw, the tip of it inside the middle of the buzzsaw to avoid harming it rather than him holding the rough edges. Upon release, Trent throws the buzzsaw at whatever direction you want, traveling at Mario’s dashing speed in whatever direction you sent it, though with a heavy falling speed of 7/10. On contact, the buzzsaw deals 26-42% and knockback that KOs at 100-70%, the knockback being dealt directly away from the portion of the buzzsaw you hit. As if the buzzsaw wasn’t ridiculously powerful enough, it has doubled power against woodpuppets – to emphasize, that’s 52-84% and knockback that KOs at 50-35%. Obviously, any hit from this will “cure” a woodpuppet, but it will OHKO all but the heaviest of characters. Because this attack needs more bonuses, hitting with it generates a Bowser worth of blood.
The buzzsaw will keep going on contact with the ground, the lower half of it inside the stage as it goes along. The buzzsaw will loop around stages like a hothead, though can do so on any stage flawlessly outside of stuff like Yoshi’s Island/walk-offs. The buzzsaw will expire after traveling 1.5x Final Destination’s width. This proves a very effective tool for murdering foes under the stage from dthrow.
Needless to say, such a fantastic tool has severe downsides. That is, Trent is completely vulnerable to the buzzsaw, nevermind his woodcutters. No, “vulnerable” to the buzzsaw is an understatement – you see, if the buzzsaw comes into contact with one of Trent’s roots, it will cut it clean off, disconnecting it from Trent! Sure, you can just move back all your roots before using root control on this move to fire the dsmash out far enough you won’t get hit, but it’s very possible that the buzzsaw could loop back around the stage and kill you that way.
As far as how to deal with this crippling disadvantage, if the buzzsaw specifically comes into contact with the –tip- of a root, then Trent will automatically regrab it, holding it on the tip of his root like an item. Grabbing the buzzsaw also works. If you really want, you can throw it at one of your roots tips to immediately use it as an item. The buzzsaw is considered an item, and using the pummel will cause it to rev in place, dealing 25 hits of 1% and flinching per second (Just be careful none of your roots are nearby), generating a Kirby width of blood every 10 hits. If you use a throw to re-throw the buzzsaw rather than dsmash, the buzzsaw will be as powerful as an uncharged dsmash throughout the course of the throw.
To this point, I’ve made cutting off your roots seem like the worst thing imaginable, but in actuality, the roots do not die once they are separated from Trent. Throughout his level in Illbleed, Trent attacks you regardless of you being miles away from his location with his roots. As such, dismembered roots still act completely normally, shockingly, with you able to select them in the rootation as usual. The main limitations are that their length is set at where they were cut off from Trent with the buzzsaw, unable to extend. By the same token, moves that utilize root control will be unable to move the tip of the root more than this distance.
If an unattached root attempts to root itself into the ground, it will just burrow underground with only the tip sticking out, extending out as necessary with root control. This is important as unattached roots can take knockback, having their own percentages with weight comparable to Game & Watch. They have to be uprooted if they burrow underground. These roots make excellent fodder as under the stage gimpers via dtilt since they can’t actually help your stability via traditional rooting/blood absorption, sending out buzzsaws along the bottom with dsmash to foes spiked under the stage.
UP SMASH – SANDSTORM
While you position your root via root control, the root spins around several times into the air to form a spiral shape pointing straight upwards. The root spiral is roughly Ganondorf’s width and twice his height. Once it starts spinning, it spins around for an exceedingly long time, 3 seconds, dealing 10-20 hits of 1% and flinching per second, with the final hit dealing vertical knockback that KOs at 170-140%. It’s perfectly possible to DI out from this, but you have more than enough ways to knock them back in. Besides, if foes DI out from the side they take knockback that KOs at 200% anyway in the direction they DI’d out, potentially enabling you to rebound them back in with a trip root from the jab.
That’s all the move does if you use root control to activate the move in the air, but if you use it on the ground it will form a tornado 2.5x Ganon’s height and Bowser’s width, kicking up a lot of sand inside of it. Being inside the tornado deals 20 hits of 1% and flinching unavoidly before you’re launched up with insanely high base knockback, a minimum of 5 Ganondorfs, but low knockback growth that KOs at 200%. The tornado lasts 6.5-13 seconds.
Trent has a tendency in this moveset to be vulnerable to anything that is not immediately generated by him, and this tornado is no exception. The minimum knockback is set, pushing Trent those 5 Ganondorfs into the air regardless of his weight – this is your only way to really get into the air. His roots aren’t affected by it, meaning he can treat this as a sort of wall and snipe at foes who attempt to approach over it, so no worries there.
Seeing this tornado can lift up Trent himself, it’s only natural it can lift up anything else. Buzzsaws, coffins, woodcutters, acid from ftilt, blood (Though that’s just aesthetic) it’s all fair game. It takes a second for anything inside the tornado to be shot up out of it, and if you’re spinning inside at the same time as a buzzsaw or acid, you’ll get hit, and a coffin will close in on you. Buzzsaws/coffins will get shot straight upwards out of a tornado before landing back in them again, turning them into even bigger deathtraps. A tornado with a buzzsaw/coffin in it is probably the thing you can most reliably treat as a “wall” in Trent’s moveset, enabling you to corner foes against it with an army of woodcutters, or use it to separate foes on either side of it. In the case of ftilt acid/blood, half of the acid will go to the left and half to the right as it gets splattered out of the tornado, going at Mario-Meta Knight’s dashing speed with a 5-8/10 falling speed, being just as powerful as ever.
Yes, this means you can essentially treat a construct 2.5X Ganon’s height and Bowser’s width as hitting a foe with a buzzsaw or a coffin. As usual, though, when something is insanely overpowered in Trent’s moveset, it has a big catch. Especially in the case of the coffin, foes can just knock the woodcutters into the tornado to take the punishment instead of them. This serves as an effective blood generator, though, due to the varied angles all of the blood the woodcutters will be making will be shot out at, enabling your various rooted roots across the stage to all get a slice of the pie.
If you’re using a root under the stage via Up Special and dtilt with the root against the bottom of the stage, it will create an upside down tornado. Needless to say, the knockback is far more useful here, and this particular root can launch buzzsaws into this tornado as even further overkill to finish those immortal Dragonball characters.
AERIALS
DOWN AERIAL – TIMBER!
Trent falls over forwards and falls at twice his already ridiculously high falling speed – essentially, you can consider it an instant teleport to the ground, with anything in-between getting hit. Even if they have invulnerability frames for the whole hitbox’s duration, they’ll be dragged with Trent due to his solid status – due to how insanely fast Trent falls, it’s actually quite possible, surprisingly. Contact with Trent’s underside at any point during this move does 50% and a spike 4x as strong as Ganon’s dair. If a foe dodged the main attack but was under Trent at the end of the move, they will still take 16% and become pitfalled. Hitting a foe on the stage with the meat of this move still does 50%, but pitfalls them – pitfalls them upside down under the stage, where a under the stage root will probably be waiting to murder them horribly if they can survive that. This also creates an earthshaking hitbox on the entire stage for a full second, including under it, that deals 20% and knockback that KOs at 140%.
No, you cannot activate this move whenever you are casually poked into the air or using your natural jumps, as it has plenty of starting lag and 2 seconds worth of landing lag. Being boosted by the sandstorm is essentially mandatory to use this move, outside of a suicide KO off-stage. As such, foes will see this coming a mile away when you boost yourself up via sandstorm.
Of course, this move has abominable ending lag, worse than you’ve ever seen or will ever see again. Trent takes 5 seconds to get up from this move, and considering he’s horizontal on the ground as he gets up is incredibly easy to beat upon. Attacking him during this ending lag will not interrupt it, though hitstun will obviously not stack with this ending lag. Needless to say, Trent can still use root attacks during this lag.
The meat of the move comes into play if you’re rooted via Up Special and using this move off-stage – you will only go down 4 Ganondorfs with this move before being snapped back up to where you were previously, and you’ll still get a hitbox just as powerful as ever. Yes, this can technically work whenever you’re rooted to something above you, but on most stages this almost always translates to off-stage. God help the poor soul who fights you on New Pork City or Temple. This is already incredible, but in such a situation this move shockingly becomes spammable as Trent goes up and down, his underside constantly a hitbox as he goes down.
If you have all the remaining foes off-stage, feel free to jump off-stage and just spam this move away. If you do this, any off-stage woodcutters will realize to come stand on your back as you do this, and will exclusively use the horizontal swing to avoid damaging you. While you can’t use your standards or smashes from this position, the grab-game is up for grabs, which is really all you need from here, enabling you to throw foes under yourself to get spiked as you hump the ledge in the most literal fashion imaginable. If the foes get knocked under the stage, your root there positioned from Up Special/dtilt combo should prove plenty helpful.
Obviously, if so much as one foe is left on the stage in this scenario, they can just uproot the single connected root and send you falling to your death in an embarrassing fashion, along with your entire clan of woodcutters. You won’t just be using this move in this situation only, though – foes love to take advantage of your solid status while you’re pulling yourself up to sit on top of you and damage you as you make your way back up. While you might think that’s stupid of them, if you have enough roots/blood to supply them on the stage, this can be a more feasible method of killing you than uprooting you. If a foe decides to do this, you can just start spamming dair and try to grab them to throw them under you, in whichever order.
NEUTRAL AERIAL – WHIRLING WOOD
Trent starts wrapping two roots around himself. He continues wrapping them around and around until his roots cannot reach any farther and they are desperately trying to unwind, then lets go. The roots extend further and further out from Trent as they spin out and unravel around his body, eventually reaching their maximum distance with one consistently on either side of him. The roots are not hitboxes at all as they wrap around him, but become hitboxes that deal 10% and knockback that KOs at 165% in a general direction away from Trent as they unravel. This is Trent’s single laggiest attack, taking 4 seconds to start up with another 6 seconds worth of duration, though the range trade-off can be seen as worth it. Needless to say, this aerial continues if Trent lands on the ground during it.
If you are up against Trent’s body when the roots are wrapping around him, you will get grabbed by the root as you get stuck against Trent’s body as the root continues wrapping around. People cannot escape the grab at all and cannot even be saved from this grab by their teammates, but considering how incredibly close you have to be Trent to get grabbed by this you have to be fairly incompetent to get grabbed. You will be released from the grab only when the portion of the root that grabbed you unravels, at which point you will automatically get hit by the root. Of course, other people can just outright destroy the root to cancel out one half of this move.
The root wrapping around you is actually the more useful portion of this move, as it’s very good at encouraging foes to leave your direct body alone. After the wrapping part of the move is over, though, foes will tend to flock to your main body to avoid the long range hitbox and hit you from below. Hopefully, you can predict this and zone them with some properly placed trip wire roots.
If you’re hanging horizontally from a vine off-stage via dair, you can grab foes attempting to stand on your back to kill you with this, though you may also accidentally grab woodcutters.
FORWARD AERIAL – SUCTION
Trent opens his mouth wide and inhales, causing the entirety of the screen he’s facing to have a pushing effect towards his body as strong as Whispy Woods’ push effect on Green Greens. Trent will automatically keep doing this until he takes stun or another attack is issued to his main body with no limitations whatsoever. The game does not care if you land, the move will keep going. . .And going. . .And going. . .
This is more useful on woodcutters than foes, making it more difficult for them to get off-stage and even helping you save them in some cases. This move can also pull tornados towards you, at the exceedingly slow pace of a fourth of Kirby’s width per second. While very slow, bringing it closer can serve as a nice way to close in a foe between your solid body and the tornado. Pushing a foe into it manually is generally less preferable, as your solid status should be more of a psychological factor of blocking the foe off than a literal one in such a scenario so you don’t have to tank so much.
BACK AERIAL – TREE SAP
Trent oozes tree sap out of his back in another aerial that doesn’t cancel on ground contact. This sap slowly goes down Trent’s back as he regains the ability to use other attacks over 2.5 seconds, with Trent not fully recovering the ability to send out a full amount of ooze until 7 seconds have passed. This ooze causes anybody who attacks Trent’s body to get stuck to it with regular grab escape difficulty. If they’re stuck longer than it takes for the ooze to wear off of Trent, the ooze will move down onto the ground, sticking the foe to that instead. If Trent moves while he uses this attack, he will create a trail of ooze as he moves. The ooze doesn’t last long, just 2.5 more seconds after it goes off Trent’s body, but if you move yourself quickly by pulling yourself about with roots you can cover a good portion of stage in ooze. While regular grab escape difficulty is pretty terrible against so many foes, it more often than not can lead to a real grab.
If you leak this off-stage, this won’t put foes into a grab state if they get hit by it in the air. Instead, it will just double their fall speed for 2.5 seconds or stick them to any ground they come in contact with, at which point they will enter grab escape. If they come into contact with the ledge first, they will become stuck to it, preventing other allies from using the ledge, while Trent can still use it normally due to his unconventional tether. This falling speed increase stacks with the one from turning foes into woodpuppets.
If Trent uses this while suspended from an Up Special Root off-stage while facing downwards due to dair, then the sap will obviously never run off of Trent unless you go back to being vertical all of a sudden, taking 5 seconds for the sap to go away, providing you with a fantastic defense to foes who think they can just ride on your back.
UP AERIAL – BRANCH SNARE
Trent snares the foe in the branches above his face at the top of his body. The branches “home” on any foe standing on top of or very slightly above Trent, and deal 8% and diagonally vertical knockback that KOs at 170%. It’s quite a fast GTFO/anti-air move, and makes approaching over top of Trent a royal pain. The move will not “home” on woodcutters, making this a good way to gang up on them with them. While you might question how often this’d happen, when you’re just recovering from off-stage in a more normal manner and foes come onto your head to attack, woodcutters will often follow and can help defend you from being gimped. If the foe for just baits the woodcutters off, then they’ll be letting you recover and you’ll be blocking their way back with your solid body.
RELEVANT FINAL SMASH
Note: If items are off, Trent’s Final Smash will automatically activate if he can survive for 2 minutes on each stock. It will not activate more than once per stock.
This Final Smash causes two crash test dummy surgeons to rush in with a woodpuppet on a stretcher. They’ll hammer away at the woodpuppet on the stretcher for 3 seconds before removing the woodpuppet’s brain, at which point the woodpuppet will get up and attack. The crash test dummy surgeons will then take out another woodpuppet and put him on the table, repeating the process again over 3 seconds, potentially infinitely. The crash test dummy surgeons area is a little over a platform wide, and if you deplete the 75 stamina it has the final smash will “end”, but any woodpuppets already out will keep attacking.
The true woodpuppets are marth sized, and walk around with a 2/10 dashing speed, 8/10 falling speed, two jumps and have two attacks. One is a fast weak kick, dealing 7% and knockback that KOs at 150%, and the other is an arm spinning move that deals 23 hits of 1% and flinching with a duration comparable to Wario’s dsmash. Woodpuppets have 40 HP, and have their own invisible damage percents as they take knockback, weighing on par with Marth. Woodpuppets cannot harm Trent and Trent can’t harm them outside of his acid (Ftilt/uthrow) and buzzsaws. Woodpuppets will not actively attack woodcutters, but woodcutters will happily go after them.
If an actual player turned into a woodpuppet from Trent’s coffin comes in front of the crash test dummy surgeons, the surgeons will attempt to grab that player before executing a pummel KO on them over 3 seconds as they hammer away at them and attempt to remove their brain. The grab escape difficulty is only 1.5x, but if you input grab in front of the surgeons when a foe is being operated on, it will stack on an extra .75x grab difficulty, stacking infinitely, potentially. That said, if any foes hit the surgeons even once, the process will be interrupted and the foe freed.
If the foe’s brain is removed successfully, they’ll become an ally of you, controlled by a level 9 AI. When they die, they will respawn normally without being a woodpuppet. Allied player character woodpuppets cannot harm you or other woodpuppets, and will not attempt to harm woodcutters. You cannot harm them outside ftilt/uthrow/dsmash, but your woodcutters can and will treat them as just as big a threat as any other woodpuppet foe – at this point you may want to let the woodcutters die off, unless you still have another woodpuppet foe with their brain still in-tact, as woodcutters will prioritize those over brainless woodpuppets. In any case, the set gives you more than enough opportunities to kill woodcutters in a beneficial way, and if you don’t feel like going for blood you can just let them get killed off. And yes, if a brainless woodpuppet is “cured” of woodpuppet status, they instantly die.
Yes, any and all woodpuppets, whether or not a player is inside, brainless or not, can be set on fire from ftilt/uthrow acid, and on contact with another woodpuppet the burning will spread. With enough of these woodpuppets, it can be nigh impossible to avoid catching ablaze for any foe who’s stuck as one.
PLAYSTYLE SUMMARY
Trent is undoubtedly one of the very hardest bosses to kill, even with him having no real means of flight and being so bound to the stage. Trent accomplishes this through rooting himself into the ground and by absorbing blood, which conveniently he can do simultaneously. Blood isn’t generated by itself entirely, but if you keep on summoning woodcutters it can certainly feel like it. So long as you have a coffin out, the woodcutters will die in a very natural life cycle that generates more and more blood for you to heal yourself with. The only part where you have to intervene in this life cycle is to prevent the woodcutters from suiciding in a blind rush off the stage and dying like flies, producing no blood. Jab trip roots and fair are the most passive preemptive methods you can take without heavy micromanagement of woodcutters. If you want to get more involved with preventing their suicide, don’t go after individual woodcutters with the grab, as it’s not worth the effort. Just abuse your solid nature to block off the woodcutters in large groups.
While a nice bonus, your actual damage percentage isn’t the primary concern. You mainly just need to make an effort to keep your roots healthy, as they can’t be replaced. While it can be hard to find uses for all 8 roots, you just need to make use of set and forget moves such as jab and having them hold an aerial coffin, and grabbing foes. Those options are nice, but the thing you’re going to want to do most is to root your roots in from the Up Special. This is the most useful, and is generally the easiest thing for somebody with a human, non supercomputer brain to accomplish with 8 roots, is to just send them into the stage in a uniform fashion. It’s not like no versatility exists from this position anyway, with dtilt enabling you to use these roots for a potential alternative offensive purpose. Even if no foes ever go under the stage, these roots make good candidates to launch dsmash buzzsaws simply so you can see them coming and not get your roots chopped off by them.
If you can survive until the Final Smash, the life cycle comes around full circle. You don’t have to so heavily rely on clumsy minions to hit human enemies, and can instead just have your woodcutters hit your AI woodpuppets to make boatloads of blood. As far as the role of minions to harass enemies to keep foes occupied, the AI woodpuppets take the previous job of the woodcutters, and are generally better at it with their high damage long lingering hitboxes. All –you- have to do is to block off the crash test dummy surgeons (You sadly can’t sit on top of them). This is probably the main time you actually want all of your foes on one side of you, as you want as many woodpuppets as possible to be generated. Foes can potentially knock you back past the surgeons instead of approaching over you, but with all your constant healing during this phase they’ll struggle to make you budge at all. It’s very easy to block off foes attempting to approach over you by just simply jumping and abusing your solid body, throwing in a uair if necessary. You just have to be cautious to avoid foes going under you during this time, but so long as you land before they get more than halfway past your mass, they’ll be “pushed” back in front of you as you crash back down.
When enemies –do- get over you to get to the surgeons, you can typically see it coming from a mile away with a giant recovery move like Dedede’s or something. In said scenarios, you can just try to grab and place the foe in a coffin, or if they’re already a woodpuppet, onto the operating table. The advantages of woodpuppet foes are never more apparent than in this phase, but their increased falling speed also makes it much easier to use your body as a wall as they struggle even more to approach over you, enabling you to push woodpuppet foes into the table with surprisingly heated pressure. If you get multiple woodpuppet foes and have plenty of healing, don’t hesitate to burn them all alive with ftilt/uthrow. You only really need to set one on fire for it to spread to everyone in a matter of time. If you still have the surgeons, eventually all the woodpuppets on fire will burn to nothing and you can start over without them catching fire to each other.
The under the stage gimping game with dtilt roots is a nice bit of insurance for foes sent under with dthrow, but it really comes most into play when Trent is defending himself. Yes, even if Trent is knocked a ways off-stage, it’s not over if he has plenty of roots ingrained in the stage. If you have a clever combination of foes who are attacking you as you pull yourself up and your roots at the same time, though, it is possible for you to finally fall. While you don’t have as much direct resistance against the foes attacking your roots, so long as you get the foe attempting to gimp your body off your back you should survive if you have ample roots invested in Up Special. This is where the dair comes into play, as you constantly try to knock foes under you or under the stage where a dtilt root should be waiting for them. Ironically, in this scenario where foes are working their very hardest to kill you and have an actual chance, this is also your best chance to actively work towards killing them with your own gimping, because killing you wasn’t difficult enough already.
