Kirby's utilt lock can be contrasted to Sheik's ftilt lock. We **** big, heavy and/or fastfalling characters weally well with this, and the more it stales, the better we combo with it... AND it ends in a bair, our favorite aerial!
Anyways... how good is the Gonzo combo?
It's got two variations:
*fthrow>uair>fthrow>uair = The
bolded areas are the parts we HAVE to do, and the
italized parts mean that we can change one of those according to the situation (rising fairs if they're planning on jumping, where we can string them in the air afterwards... Or falling fairs, in case the uair might not reach them or knock them back too far)... This variation of the combo os notorious for being able to be footstooled out of right before the 2nd grab, so we usually follow up with the 2nd variation (although it is still great damage for those characters who have a very hard time getting that footstool off).
*fthrow>uair>
reverse utilt>bair = The italized area means that you can repeat it as many times as possible (preferably un-buffered, wait for the opponent to fall as much as he can before his hitstun goes away, this way you can get in more utilts than with buffered approaches), until the opponent DIs too far for another utilt (lots of damage, it's great!). This is the better version of the gonzo combo, because it's harder for the opponent to footstool a utilt, instead of a grab. It can also lead to instant edgeguards if executed near the ledges, and everyone knows Kirby is a nightmare when edgeguarding.
So, basically, it's our most known "damage racker", getting in some easy 0% > +-40% and setting up for juggles afterwards. Some characters are much more vulnerable than others (Captain Falcon and Fox eat 3 fthrows instead of the normal 2 if they don't know how to get out of it which is hard for them due to them being fastfallers, as well as eating a large amount of unbuffered utilts), some have traits that prevent them from being combo'd like other characters do (Sheik completely evades the uair follow-up due to her skinny hurtbox, and Snake can just take out a grenade so we have to predict his responses in order to follow-up), and some are only vulnerable to one type of variation (Luigi can nair out of the fthrow combos, but if you dthrow him instead of fthrow, you can utilt chain him and end with a bair, like the second combo variation).
Also, does Kirby have any good cross ups?
Fair>bair is an OK cross-up due to fair having very small ending lag after the 3rd hitbox, so if the opponent shields the whole rising fair while we cross over them, we can fastfall and bair them if they drop their shields and land safely; the knockback of our bair is strong enough to have to make opponents have to close the new distance between us before doing something, and that's extra frames to their follow-ups, which we like them to have.
Usually we just do rising and falling bairs, and mix 'em up. We cross over them if we expect them to grab (where they miss miserably), and we don't if we expect an anti-air counterattack.
