^ At least Bowser has the air speed he needs compared to Ridley. Rids having his air speed would be one of the first things I'd ask for as a buff probably, along with giving Ridley's d-air the more consistent spiking power that someone like Bowser's has. Maybe give Ridley's up smash some insane buff too after what Samus' got from 3.1.0. Not asking for a win button or for heavies to get some special treatment.
I definitely feel similarly as you know, but I just try to be positive and optimistic regardless, even if it's not always easy. Lord knows I didn't support Ridley to be playable in Smash a good chunk of my life just to become a debbie downer on using him after about a year. I still feel I can learn and progress with him, even if there's a certain level I can't reach due to his inherent weaknesses, but it hasn't affected my enjoyment in using him, nor am I letting it. Anyone whose waited for him to join the roster for years and years I know at least feels similarly in that respect.
And for all the flak others like Vreyvus give Ridley now on his limits/flaws (rightfully so admittedly), Vrey still uses him and posts occasional findings with him for what it's worth. Character loyalty is getting rarer and rarer nowadays when one can just switch to a high tier to main without a 2nd thought (well it's always been like that to a point, but y'know), so I admire Vreyvus' dedication to Ridley and Bowser in spite of his gripes. Trela, you might be right on that he'll drop Ridley altogether. I don't know, but still.
Smash Ultimate still has I think a minimum of at least a handful more balance updates/patches to go (minimum being keyword), some of which can come even after the final DLC characters are out. If Ridley still doesn't get anything by the next balance patch, then I might start having to accept/consider the possibility that he's just the SSB4 Jigglypuff of this game in terms of how the changing meta treats him... I don't know, but we'll see.
While on the subject, how would you buff Ridley, out of curiosity? Like what's the first thing you'd give him? It's usually agreed that he needs buffs, but the answers of how he should get them seem to vary, so thought I'd ask, having said my piece on it I guess.
The very first thing I think I'd give Ridley, if I was in charge of balancing the game, would be a bunch of minor tweaks here and there that improve his combo game, such as fixing areas that are very easy to frame leak, combo linkages that are either super tight or impractical, and just all-around get his moves linking into one-another better. A great example of this is down tilt or down throw into up air. I've seen much discussion on this in the Ridleycord, about various Ridley players trying to make these work by reversing up tilt, or doing a special version of dash (burst dash, was it?) that makes you go a bit further, but, coming from a non-pro, I've yet to get this combo working in a semi-competitive environment (weekly sets, friendlies, or gatherings with frequent weekly-goers and playing tourney rulesets). Down throw just doesn't link well enough into up tilt, and down tilt never links into anything if sweet-spotted it seems, as Ridley is simply too far away, especially if they DI away.
-I'd alter the trajectory of down tilt such that, if sweet spotted, it sends your opponent towards Ridley for follow-ups, either fair, nair, grab at low percents, up tilt, etc. (Vreyvus said this in his post, and I thought it was a brilliant idea).
-I'd buff Ridley's initial dash speed. A lot. As of now, he's #65 in the game for initial dash speed, which is very slow. While his sprint speed is quite high, at higher levels of play many players adopt a movement style of fox trotting, which makes Ridley quite sluggish given he has one of the slowest initial dash speeds in the game. In fact, at higher levels of play, initial dash speed seems to matter way more than your actual running dash speed, and this may be why Ridley's been having trouble keeping up in higher levels of play as the meta has evolved. People have gotten better, at all levels, and it's made this weakness of his more and more apparent. This would make following up after a down throw / DI away scenario with up tilt much smoother. It'd also help him approach, as his slow initial dash is part of the troubles he has with avoiding projectiles and finding an opening on a campy opponent. This may also let us finally link plasma into SPR.
-I'd make short hop fair auto-cancel like short hop nair, such that it can be followed up more easily with grabs, down tilt, or dash attack. I do believe OverLade's combos with fair into regrab or dash attack were debunked, weren't they? I was never able to do them during a match, personally.
-I'd buff Ridley's grab hitbox and give it more active frames. When I play other characters, it feels way easier to grab than it does with Ridley. I whiff so many grabs and half the time I feel like Ridley's hand slides right across my opponent while playing the grab animation, but it still doesn't actually grab them. This is particularly frustrating against small characters like Pichu, that feel very hard to grab.
I'd personally love seeing his up B come out more quickly.
Air speed would definitely help Ridley with a lot, personally, and I think it'd be a very amazing buff. Sometimes I really feel slow in the air with him. It'd help with:
-Avoiding being juggled, and juggling more successfully. There have been many times I've been unable to catch an air-borne Snake or Ness simply because they float faster than I do while airborne. It'd also let you get out of juggling scenarios.
-It'd let us follow up more easily after dtilt or dthrow into uair
-It'd make our air dodge to ledge grab option for recovery go much further
-It'd let us get back to stage under more scenarios where we have already spent some of our jumps, or are down in the lower left or lower right corners of the screen, perhaps after spikes or aggressive chase scenarios off-stage.
Weight is a clear and simple buff I'd like to see. Not much to say on this one.
I may edit this to add more later, but, in general, I feel like Ridley is just "too slow" in many ways to follow up with his moves. A lot of the time, he just kind of starts feeling bulky. I feel like the design choices they made when setting Ridley up was such that they wished for him to be a nimble, yet fragile, large character. He needs to be more nimble, better at following up on his moves, better at comboing, and quicker in general than he is right now. If I had to choose just one of the above, I'm thinking it may honestly be the initial dash speed that'd do the most for him, especially at the highest play levels, though getting his moves connecting into one-another better in combo strings in general would certainly be welcome.
Oh, and, another jump would be amazing as well from a fun-factor perspective, though I don't know how much it'd do for him when he's struggling in neutral and getting pushed off-stage anyways.
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