"What has awoken in you? I want you to hit me with it all! Now, bring it!"
Steven Stone
Hoenn's strongest Pokemon Trainer; Steven Stone joins the Brawl!
-Information-
Steven Stone is (in Ruby and Sapphire) the Pokemon League Champion and hence, the strongest trainer in all of Hoenn. Steven specializes in Steel type Pokemon, Metagross and Aggron being the two most prominent members of his team. In Pokemon Emerald, Steven steps down from his position as Pokemon League Champion in order to continue his research.
In Smash, Steven acts much like Pokemon Trainer, but being the caring trainer he is, he uses all six of his Pokemon equally being able to switch them out via use of each Pokemon's Down Special while they’re standing directly before Steven. While standing directly in front of Steven and upon input of the Down B command, a small menu will pop open displaying Steven’s five other Pokemon. From this menu, you’re able to select which Pokemon to use via a cursor. Your current Pokemon also has super armor during this time…but the menu will only remain open for two seconds, so select quickly. Steven can also select which Pokemon he wishes to use from the character select screen as well.
Because they are a Pokemon League Champion's Pokemon, Steven's Pokemon are VERY well trained and do NOT have a stamina system like Pokemon Trainer does, rather Steven is allowed to use whichever Pokemon he pleases at any given situation. And with that…read below for all of the in-depth details about Steven’s trusted Pokemon friends; each one is unique in their own ways and fits a different situation…
***
*** BACKGROUND ***
Skarmory is the only one of Steven’s Pokemon not from the 3rd generation of Pokemon, as well as the Hoenn Elite Four as a whole. Skarmory debuted in the 2nd generation as an exclusive Pokemon to the Silver version, players having to choose between it and Gligar when selecting the Silver and Gold versions.
Skarmory has never been all that notable in the mainstream eye of Pokemon, but Skarmory is about as close as one can get to the embodiment of competetive Pokemon. Skarmory is THE best physical wall in the game. Blissey is considered the best special wall, and when you bring them both together many consider the combination to be quite broken, “Skarmbliss”.
Skarmory revolves around taking hits and setting up traps for its opponent in the competitive environment. A Skarmory is far from capable of taking out six Pokemon on its own, requiring a good team to back it up. That said, Skarmory provides excellent support by setting up it’s many entry hazards, then by forcing the enemy to switch into them with Whirlwind/Roar. Skarmory plays much like it does in the competitive Pokemon enviornment in Smash Bros, having little power to KO foes, but extremely durable and great at setting up traps.
*** STATS ***
Size: 7/10
Skarmory stands around as tall as Bowser, but is only around as wide as Ganondorf. He’s big, but not huge.
Weight: 9/10
Skarmory’s always been a b*tch to take down since second gen, and it shows no signs of changing any time soon.
Walking Speed: 5/10
Nothing special.
Dashing Speed: 6.5/10
Decent, but not spectacular. Around the level of Charizard’s run in both stats and appearance.
Traction: 5/10
Skarmory is more graceful in his gliding around the ground then Charizard, but he’s far from amazing.
Power: 3/10
Skarmory is far from a heavy hitter, being one of Steven’s damage rackers. He only has one truly viable KO option.
Attack Speed: 5/10
Despite being rather weak, Skarmory isn’t all that fast either. He’s by no means slow, but his attack speed isn’t what makes him such an amazing damage racker, unlike most who specialize in the field.
Range: 7/10
While not a lot of Skarmory’s attacks have range above average, he has amazing stage control with his whirlwinds.
Priority: 5/10
Skarmory’s melee attacks aren’t all that impressive, but you’ll rarely actually be trying to hit the foes with those anyway. You’ll be relying on his disjointed hitboxes to get the job done, which means while Skarmory’s overall priority isn’t all that great, you’ll rarely have to worry about clashing with enemy attacks or being out prioritized.
First Jump: 3.5/10
Skarmory’s main jump isn’t anything notable at all, him struggling to use his short legs to boost up his heavy body.
Extra Jumps: 9/10
However; Skarmory has four extra jumps by flapping his wings on the level of Meta Knight’s.
Fall Speed: 7/10
Sadly, what could’ve been an absolutely killer aerial game is hurt by Skarmory’s heavyweight status which makes him fall faster then one would want.
Gliding: 7/10
Skarmory’s glide is a really mixed bag. On the plus side, it’s twice as long as Meta Knight’s and much easier to control. If you handle Skarmory well enough during the glide you could potentially even turn him around. On the downside, Skarmory moves very slowly during the glide and has a horrible glide attack, meaning he begs to be gimped.
Recovery: 8/10
Skarmory can always get back to the stage with his glide if he so chooses, and if he’s not knocked out particularly far he can use a less gimpable recovery with his up special. When all’s said and done, when combined with Skarmory’s massive weight, Skarmory simply refuses to die, surving to absolutely ridiculous percentages while racking up his enemy’s percentage along with him.
Crouch: 3/10
While this cuts Skarmory’s height in half, considering his already large height this won’t help him dodge much.
Crawl: None
Hover: None
Wall jump: None
Wall cling: None
*** ANIMATIONS***
Standard Pose
Skarmory stands tall with his wings up against his sides.
Idle Pose
Skarmory extends out his wings and strikes the pose you see on the headers.
Walking
Skarmory slowly puts one foot in front of the other, looking cautiously from side to side.
Running
Skarmory unfurls his wings and gets them out as he goes faster, getting ready for the next step up in the chain.
Dashing
Skarmory extends out his wings and glides along the ground like the dashes of Meta Knight and Charizard.
Crouching
Skarmoy sits on his legs and furls up his wings into his sides, looking like a bird sitting in a nest. Try using this on the tree in Onett or similar situations for nice screenshots.
First Jump
Skarmory gathers all the strength he can in his tiny legs as he jumps up.
Extra Jumps
Skarmory simply flaps his wings as he goes upwards, just like the extra jumps of Meta Knight, Pit, Charizard, etc.
Shield
Skarmory blocks his face with his wings as a bubble shield forms over himself.
Spot Dodge
Skarmory turns to face the camera and does his shield pose, but no bubble shield forms.
Roll
Skarmory either flaps in front of or behind himself to propel himself in the desired direction. This is somewhat laggy for a roll, but it goes as far as Mewtwo’s.
Air Dodge
Skarmory leans into the background, flapping frantically.
Asleep
Skarmory goes into his crouch pose, but closes his eyes and gets a typical anime snot bubble.
Dizzy
Skarmory flails about, flapping frantically.
***
*** MOVESET ***
*** SPECIALS ***
Down Special – Spikes
Skarmory looks to the ground as he stands on his legs, then suddenly lets out a cry as he rapidly flaps forwards a couple times, letting out one spike onto the ground with each flap of his wings. This has an above average duration, though the actual starting and ending lag are low. The spikes come out right in front of Skarmory, not even a stage builder block away. Each Spike only deals 1% and tiny hitstun with horrible disjointed priority as you shoot it out. . .This is an absolutely horrendous move.
However; whether or not the spikes hit anyone, they’ll fall onto the ground in front of Skarmory as he shoots them out. When foes walk over the spikes, they’ll take 3% damage with set small knockback away from the spikes. While you can only have one set of spikes out at a time, you can lay more spikes in the same area by using the move right at the same spot up to two more times to make the spike trap deal 9% damage when foes walk over it.
Neutral Special - Toxic
Skarmory looks upward as he opens his mouth wide and extends out his wings for average starting lag, then hurls out some toxic acid in an animation like when he uses this move in the Stadium games. The acid has infinite disjointed priority and goes up a battlefield platform, then, comes back down, dropping barely just in front of Skarmory at the same range as where spikes come out when Skarmory lays them. Skarmory cannot move until the acid hits the ground, though the acid goes through it’s arc quite quickly, thankfully, and the move has very little end lag.
If the acid hits anyone, they’ll take some brief hitstun and become poisoned, taking 1% per second for 10 seconds. Considering the lag of the move and the small horizontal range, this isn’t particularly good payoff, wouldn’t you agree? This isn’t the move’s primary function, though. Notice how the move has the same horizontal range as Spikes? If you use Toxic onto any spikes you’ve laid out, they’ll turn into toxic spikes. In addition to dealing the regular damage they would of before, the spikes will now poison the foe like the move does normally. You can stregnthen the poison on the spikes by using toxic on them by up to two more times, each use increasing the damage per second of the poison by 1%, meaning the spikes can potentially do up to a total of 39%, assuming you give the poison the time it needs to work.
Side Special - Whirlwind
Skarmory starts making a gust of wind, slowing flapping his wings behind himself then in front of himself, then picking up the pace as a whirlwind forms in front of him. This move is chargeable by holding B as Skarmory forms the whirlwind, but the charge can’t be saved. The longer the charge, the bigger the whirlwind. At minimum charge (.25 seconds), the whirlwind is only Mario’s size, but at max charge (1.5 seconds) the whirlwind is 1.5X Ganondorf’s height and Bowser’s width.
The whirlwind travels forward rather quickly at first at the speed of Meta Knight’s dash, but gradually slows down as it moves, losing 16.66% of it’s speed for second, meaning it lasts for 6 seconds. The whirlwind will suck foes within half a Battlefield platform’s distance away from it and carry them along with it, this being rather hard to DI out of. This move on it’s own is best used for gimping.
However; that’s not all this move has the potential to do. If the whirlwind goes over any spikes you’ve laid, it will suck them up and they’ll swirl around in the whirlwind. Anybody who’s trapped in the whirlwind will take half 1/2/3% damage per second depending on the level of the spikes, and they’ll also be poisoned for the full effect of the spikes if they’re toxic.
In addition, this move is quite notable in FFAs in that if you suck up two foes in the whirlwind, they’ll rapidly bump into each other, damaging each other. Bigger/heavier characters take less damage from this and deal more damage into those they bump into. Two Marios trapped in a whirlwind would deal 8% to each other per second. If Bowser and Jigglypuff were in the whirlwind together, though, Jigglypuff would be taking a massive 16% per second while Bowser would be taking a mere 4% per second.
If any non energy based projectiles are thrown into the tornado such as Dedede’s Waddle Dees or throwing items, they’ll start spinning around in the whirlwind, dealing the damage/knockback they normally would to anybody who gets caught in it. The projectile won’t vanish until the whirlwind does, meaning you can potentially prevent Dedede from using his side special due to having two Waddle Dees out that he can’t get rid of.
Up Special – Brave Bird
Skarmory lets out a screech and flies up double Ganondorf’s height, then starts going downwards at a 45 degree angle until he hits the ground, going at the speed of his run. Skarmory has super armor during this recovery and any foes hit by his beak take 10% and average knockback, though 3% is dealt to Skarmory in recoil damage.
This recovery isn’t controllable at all and doesn’t go nearly as far as Skarmory’s glide, but he’s completely immune to being gimped, though that doesn’t mean he can’t take some damage from a skilled foe as he comes to the stage. The move has above average start up lag but no end lag.
*** STANDARDS ***
Standard Attack – Drill Peck
Skarmory pecks into the ground upon the first press of A, doing 7% and below average knockback and priority with below average range in front of himself. Pressing A again will cause Skarmory to start drilling his beak about as it’s into the ground, his beak doing 5 hits of 1% and flinching per second, you having to mash/hold A to keep up the drilling. In addition to Skarmory’s drilling beak, small particles will fly about randomly the size of a Franklin Badge. Two particles come out per second and do 3% and flinching, one always coming out behind Skarm and the other in front of him, going out a max distance of a Battlefield platform.
This move has a more notable use, though. If you peck down onto a buried trap, on the second press of A Skarmory will dig into the ground and pick up the trap in his mouth, then throw it away. This has average lag. This can only dispose of traps literally within the ground, like Snake’s mines.
Dashing Attack – Living Storm
Skarmory continues dashing forwards, slightly increasing his speed by one level or so. This has below average lag to come in or out of and you can hold A for as long as you want. This has no hitbox whatsoever, but it helps Skarmory’s movement speed. If Skarmory moves into any whirlwinds along the way, the whirlwind will start swirling around him as he dashes forwards, covering him like a shield. Once Skarmory comes out of this attack, though, any whirlwinds swirling around him will instantly disperse, so use with care.
*** TILTS ***
Forward Tilt – Steel Wing
Skarmory swoops his wings forward for average starting and ending lag as he lets out a cry. Average priority and range, 7% and below average knockback. Too laggy and weak to be all that notable.
This is usually a quite generic and useless attack, but this has an extremely important use and is vital to using Skarmory. If you use this within half a Battlefield platform of a whirlwind, you’ll increase it’s speed back up to it’s max, which also in turn renews its 6 second duration. This only works if you use the move behind the whirlwind, as otherwise you’ll be blowing currents against it, slowing it down. If the whirlwind is on it’s last two seconds of life, though, you’ll renew it as starts going back in the other direction, the whirlwind too slow to put up much of a fight against you as you kick up currents.
Using this move allows you to have multiple whirlwinds up at once due to being able to renew them. If you can manage to get multiple whirlwinds set up and then use Steel Wing to gust them into each other, the whirlwinds will fuse together, merging their sizes though unable to go beyond the max size of a single whirlwind. The main motive in doing this is that the max speed of the combined whirlwind will increase by 1.5X, also increasing the duration of the whirlwind when left alone to 9 seconds.
Up Tilt – Headbutt
Skarmory headbutts upwards for low lag on either end, but below average range and priority. This does 6% and weak upward knockback, making this a rather generic and useless move. If you hit with it, the horn coming out of Skarmory’s head will glisten briefly, indicating it’s getting harder. This will occur if you ram your head into something other then a player such as a platform (Drop through platforms work too), although the ending lag will be increased to above average due to Skarmory’s head getting stuck in the object, him taking some time to take it out.
Down Tilt – Egg Bomb
Skarmory sits in its crouched position like a bird in its nest. . .What’s he doing? Nothing seems to really happen when you press A besides give you some average lag. . .Once you come up from your crouching position, though, you’ll find that you’ve laid an egg! Maybe he isn’t a he after all. . .? You can pick it up from your current position quite quickly and then throw it forward. It has a 50/50 chance of being either explosive or containing an item like Chansey’s eggs, though won’t contain items if items are turned off. Explosive eggs deal 12% with average knockback. Egg bombs will automatically explode after sticking around as long as Link’s bombs and you can only have one out at a time.
*** SMASHES ***
Forward Smash – Sand Attack
Skarmory kicks up sand from the ground up into his enemy’s face. The cloud of sandy particles stretches out about Bowser’s size in front of Skarmory with mass decent priority disjointed flinching hits. This move has average starting lag though little end lag. Foes take 15-22 hits of 1% from this attack based on the charge.
If you kick up some sand as a whirlwind is coming into you, the sand will be added to the whirlwind’s mix as it flies around, adding an extra 3% damage per second that foes will take upon entering the whirlwind. This on it’s own isn’t all that spectacular and is harder to add to the mix then some of the other ingredients, but it’s use lies elsewhere. . .
Up Smash - Sandstorm
Skarmory turns to face the camera as he fully extends out his wings and lets out a massive roar. This has no starting lag, though a long duration, as long as Wario’s dsmash. By default, this move does nothing but push foes within three Bowsers in any direction away from Skarmory at the level of FLUDD’s pushing power, making this an excellent GTFO move, but it deals no damage or hitstun at all, making it useful for little else.
If Skarmory has any whirlwinds up, they’ll instantly change the direction they’re going to fly directly towards Skarmory, though unable to go through obstacles. Foes can still be hit by the whirlwinds as normal while you do this, so this can be a great way to directly control the whirlwinds, though you’ll be sacrificing them to perform this move. Once the whirlwinds get to Skarmory, they swirl around him briefly, then fly up off the top of the screen.
If there was only one whirlwind or if none of the whirlwinds had sand particles flying around inside them from Sand Attack, the attack ends right there. However, if the criteria is met, then a sandstorm brews. The sandstorm lasts for the duration of Steven’s remaining stock, though it’s far from easy to set up. The sandstorm covers the entire screen, obscuring vision exceptionally. Foes will take 3% per second for the duration of the sandstorm and will be constantly pushed very slightly in the way the sandstorm is going, the way Skarmory was facing when he activated this attack. Any spikes you had going around in the sandstorms will come flying across the screen, one per second, an infinite amount of them coming for as long as the sandstorm lasts. While a sandstorm is up, Skarmory cannot brew any more whirlwinds due to the sandstorm being far stronger then any whirlwinds he can make. Once you have a sandstorm up, you have little reason to keep Skarmory out and should switch to another of Steven’s Pokemon, preferably Aggron or Metagross for the KO.
When Skarmory goes to activate this move, foes will want to punish him ASAP. If he’s interrupted during the move, any whirlwinds instantly vanish as well as all of their contents, undoing all of Skarmory’s hard work. The best way to actually get this move off is to make it so two whirlwinds are going to go into each other (One with sand particles inside it), then leap in the middle and use your usmash. This will leave you with minimal vulnerable time, as once the whirlwinds go to go off the top of the screen the move can no longer be interrupted. This still requires a lot of setting up, but you can hide behind your whirlwinds while doing so and not make yourself vulnerable, making it a far better option.
Down Smash – Stealth Rock
Skarmory goes through an animation identical to spikes, but only takes out a single large rock with average starting lag and below average end lag. The rock buries itself into the ground afterwards. Whenever somebody goes over the spot the stealth rock is buried, it will pop out and trip the foe before going back into the ground. If the rock is hit during this time, it’ll be destroyed. Skarmory can only have one stealth rock up at a time, and this is very easily negated by using a dashing attack when going over the spot the rock resides to destroy it as you pass by, the stealth rock having bad priority.
If a whirlwind goes by the rock, the rock won’t be added to the mass of junk flying around in the whirlwind, but it will be lifted up out of the ground and go flying triple Ganondorf’s height upwards before falling back down into the ground. While it’s going up it’s a extremely high priority hitbox that deals 20-30% with high-very high vertical knockback based on the charge. The stealth rock will hit any foes in the whirlwind, shooting up through it. This is Skarmory’s ONLY KO option, and it’s very hard to pull off due to how easy it is to destroy the stealth rock.
*** AERIALS ***
Neutral Aerial – Welcoming with Open Arms
Skarmory turns to face the camera and extends out his wings, holding them open for as long as you hold A, around one Skarmory distance on either side. Upon releasing A, Skarmory clamps his wings together, catching anything inbetween them during that time. Both opening out Skarmory’s wings and closing them has below average lag, so the whole move has average lag if you simply press A. This move has grab priority. Upon grabbing someone, Skarmory will throw them upwards for 10% and average knockback. While this prevents the move from being used for gimping of any sort, this means the move can be used to help allies recover.
That’s not the main purpose of the move though. You can grab throwing items as they’re thrown at you/non energy based projectiles, such as Waddle Dees, then throw them back at your enemy. This makes Skarmory all the more defensive, even against camping against certain characters. In addition to these sorts of items, Skarmory can grab whirlwinds and throw them triple Ganondorf’s height upwards, giving you all the more control over your spinning traps of doom.
Forward Aerial – Steel Wing
This is identical to the ftilt, allowing Skarmory to fan the whirlwind while in the air to help with gimping. There’s slightly less lag on the aerial version, but the move will be interrupted if you land on the ground with bad landing lag, so this is generally strictly only used for it’s intended purpose: gimping. Still, if the whirlwind goes a bit farther then you intended and goes off stage, you’ll need to chase after it and use your fair on it to get it back onto the stage.
Back Aerial - Screech
Skarmory turns his head around in mid-air, then lets out a loud screech with the classic Red/Blue sound effect for the move. The screech is an invisible projectile that can go up to a battlefield platform away at an average speed, and the move has below average start lag with no end lag. Being hit by the projectile infinite priority hitbox will cause the foe to hold their ears in pain for a brief stun around half that of ZSS’ dsmash, but the stun time increases as their percentage goes up.
This is Skarmory’s only stunner, but the stun time is too small to follow the move up for a combo until getting to very high percentages. This also can’t be used for gimping due to foes gaining their jumps/up special back after being hit by it. The practical use of this move is to stun foes so they’ll be sucked into a passing whirlwind.
Up Aerial – Double Edge
Skarmory headbutts upwards just like his utilt, going through an identical animation. This has the same bad range as the utilt, but the starting lag is increased to average, the ending lag still being brief. Unlike the utilt, this move has good priority with super armor frames. If Skarmory hits a foe with this move, he’ll deal an impressive 15% with above average vertical knockback to the foe for a potential KO at high percents, but he’ll also take 15% and be spiked downwards with above average knockback. This makes the move deadly to use when not over solid ground.
This is where the utilt begins to serve an actual purpose. If you cause the horn on Skarmory’s head to sharpen 5 times from hitting either foes or other various objects with it, Skarmory’s head will harden from having been forced around so much and he’ll gain the rock head ability. Rock Head prevents Skarmory from taking recoil damage which eliminates the downside of this move. This makes the uair a viable KO option on a stage like Battlefield where you can ram your utilt into the drop through platforms, but very awkward on Final Destination where Skarmory will have to land the utilt on a foe 5 times with all of it’s horrible range and priority. Skarmory loses Rock Head every time Steven loses a stock.
Down Aerial - Roost
Skarmory extends out its wings and legs fully, falling very quickly downwards. This won’t end until you touch the ground. However; this isn’t a stall then fall attack, as this attack has no hitbox whatsoever. This has no start-up lag, but average ending lag when Skarm slows down as he reaches the ground then goes into his crouching position and falls asleep.
While you’re asleep on the ground, you’ll heal 1% per second. From here you have three button inputs. Pressing shield or moving the control stick causes you to wake up with average lag. Pressing A causes Skarmory to snore, emitting a small high priority hitbox for 5% and weak knockback in front of it. Far from a good option to defend Skarm while he’s snoozing.
Pressing B will cause Skarmory to perform his dtilt, Egg Bomb. If you’re asleep when the bomb goes off, Skarmory will be shocked awake for 5% damage, going into his regular crouching pose, but this also causes an explosion the size of Bowser around Skarmory that does 15% with above average knockback. This is a great way to punish foes attempting to disturb Skarmory’s rest, but if foes predict it you’ll just negate any healing you managed to get.
*** THROWS ***
Grab – Iron Grasp
Skarmory reaches out with his wings like in his ftilt/fair. This is one of the faster grabs but doesn’t reach out nearly as far as one would like.
Pummel – Rapid Spin
This has nothing whatsoever to do with the Pokemon move of the same name, as Skarmory rapidly spins the foe around rather then spinning around himself. Skarmory releases the grip with one of his wings on the foe, then whacks the foe to cause them to start spinning around rapidly, taking 2% per second. This lasts until the foe escapes the grab, or until you input the pummel input again which has Skarmory catch the foe with both his wings again. If the foe is facing the opposite way they originally were, Skarmory will quickly move around to get on the other side of the foe.
It’s very hard to get down a consistent timing for changing which way you’re facing, but it can help considerably if you grab a foe right next to a stealth rock you want to push them into with your fthrow but are behind it.
Forward Throw – Eye of the Storm
Skarmory starts kicking up a whirlwind like in his side special, letting go of the foe but them getting trapped in the whirlwind. Foes can escape by button mashing like a regular grab before Skarm releases the whirlwind, so don’t get too greedy with making the whirlwind big before letting it go with your foe swirling inside it. This is a particularly good way to force foes into your Stealth Rock.
Back Throw – Gone with the Wind
Skarmory holds his foe out behind him, the throw lasting forever until the foe escapes, being as hard to escape as a regular grab. This does no damage to the foe. The most obvious use of this move is using your foe as a meat shield from enemy attacks, as Skarmory holds them a good way behind himself. Use them as a shield from foes, stage hazards, whatever floats your boat.
What makes this less situational is that if a whirlwind is passing by Skarmory while he’s holding a foe out, the whirlwind will sweep the foe he’s holding into itself as it passes by. In addition, if there was a foe already in the tornado, the foe coming into the tornado will bump the one that was originally in the tornado out of it for 8% damage right into Skarmory, who will automatically grab them. In team battles with two Skarmories, this can potentially lead to an infinite (There are a lot of infinites in team battles, particularly double Dededes, but you don’t see that dominating the metagame), if the other uses ftilt/fair to keep fanning the whirlwind back into the Skarmory doing the grabbing and bthrowing.
Up Throw – Air Bombing
Skarmory flies up double Ganondorf’s height off the ground, holding the foe against himself as he flies. From here you can fly left and right at the speed of Ganon’s walk (He’s being weighed down a lot) and foes can still escape out of the grab. Once you release A, Skarm will drop the foe, them being in a footstooled state for the distance Skarm is off the ground then regaining their jumps. This is mainly used for dropping foes into whirlwinds or spikes, though can also be used to gimp characters with horrendous vertical recoveries for an early kill. This throw happens quite quickly (Aside from Skarm’s flight speed) and any foes Skarmory throws down will deal 10% and average knockback to other foes, making this throw exceptional for FFAs.
Down Throw - Dig
Skarmory digs a whole in by drilling into the ground with his beak, throws the foe into the hole, then buries them within it, kicking the dirt back over them. Foes take 5% damage per second while underground until they button mash their way out, it being as hard to escape as any other grab.
If a whirlwind goes past the foe buried underground, they’ll be brought up out of ground and sucked into it. In addition, if Skarmory uses this move over a trap buried underground such as Snake’s mines, then the victim will suffer the effects of the trap when they get thrown underground. Why disable Snake’s mines when you can use them against him?
*** FINAL SMASH – AIR LOCK***
Skarmory’s got the smash ball! About time. Skarmory lets out a cry ripped straight from the Gameboy games as the screen zooms in on him. When the screen zooms out, he’ll have a sandstorm set up. The sandstorm will be treated as if it had maxxed out toxic spikes. Skarmory’s done his job. Time to switch out to somebody who can actually do something worth a d*mn in the sandstorm, seeing Skarmory can’t make whirlwinds when a sandstorm’s up. The sandstorm still lasts until Steven loses a stock, as always.
If the final smash is used when Skarmory already has a sandstorm up, though, the sandstorm will die down just enough so that Skarmory can still make whirlwinds, enabling him to actually continue playing in it. When able to make whirlwinds in a sandstorm, Skarmory functions exceptionally well due to the sandstorm helping him gimp foes, assuming he knocks them off the platform in the right direction, enabling him to get lots of early KOs. He also doesn’t have to worry about setting up more spikes to damage, as the sandstorm’s already taking care of all the damage racking. All Skarmory needs to focus on is gimping the foe to all hell and the occasional stealth rock.
*** SITUATIONALS ***
Ledge Attack - Rush Saw
Skarmory lets go of the ledge and flies from the edge, off the screen...Suddenly, *****, Skarmory comes back onto the screen from the same side he left, charging fowards at a high speed at a height that would place him just above the ground of the platform he left. He charges fowards until he reaches the platform and then he neatly lands on the ground. During the charge, Skarmory is a high-priority hitbox that deals 14% with above average knockback to anyone in his way. If there are any obstacles in his path during the move, or he is hit, the move will be instantly canceled.
Ledge Attack Over 100% - Mocking Bomb
Skarmory slowly climbs back onto the platform. As it does so, a farting noise is heard as a little white glop falls from his butt. EWWWWW! So, Skarmory's -ahem- dropping has no priority, and falls at quick speed. If it hits someone, they will enter freefall instantly from the foul smell. Since this is done over a pit where characters will be recovering, this can be a nasty edgeguarding move.
Rising Attack (On Stomach) - Buzz Dash
Skarmory starts to quicky beat its wings, slowly lifting itself off the ground as it remains in a flying postion. As it beats it wings, they are average priority hitboxes that deal 2% per hit, for a maximum of 6 hits. After it is off the ground, it will then dash fowards through the air as far as Luigi's dash attack at a similar speed. This part has below average piority and deals 7% with average knockback. Skarmory then neatly lands on its feet for low end lag, but it is able to dash off the edge of platforms.
Rising Attack (On Back) - Slight Readjustment
Skarmory will quickly flap its wings upwads once and then get back up to is feet. The wing flapping creates a very small gust of wind that pushed enemies away as far as Bowser is tall, and it can also slightly move any whirlwinds Skarmory has active. A simple move but it has its uses.
Tripped Attack - Fake Egg
Skarmory chirps for a moment, which is the only indication that it has done this move. After Skarmory moves away from the spot it tripped, you can see a little egg that Skarmory supposedly laid. Any character, including Skarmory itself, can pick up the egg and throw it at enemies for 6% and average knockback. Only one "egg" can be laid at a time, and yes, it is entirley possible for Skarm to simply stand up on the spot and immediatley pick up the false egg, but that would be very predicatble, wouldn't it?
*** OVERALL PLAYSTYLE – THE WIND WAKER***
Early on in a match, Skarmory will want to be setting up his toxic spikes while playing as defensively as he can. Skarmory is nothing if you don’t take your time to set up. While Skarmory is plenty good on defense, he’s more then likely to get behind in damage count at this point. After setting up the spikes, it’s finally time to start building up a whirlwind. Your foe probably won’t give you much time to make it too big, but don’t worry. So long as you have one up at all, setting up additional whirlwinds is much, much easier.
Once you have a whirlwind up, you’ll constantly want to be hiding behind it and fanning it, building it up by pushing additional whirlwinds into it until you max out it’s size and speed. Always keep the whirlwind between you and your foe so they have a bunch of swirling traps to go through to get to you. While you let your strong toxic spikes rack up damage on your foe, you can choose to either set up a stealth rock, or if you’re daring make another whirlwind with some sand in it and try for a sandstorm. It can be quite difficult to keep two whirlwinds going at once, so your best bet is to try to make the second one close to the first and use usmash in the middle of them ASAP so your foe has less time to interrupt you.
If you do get a sandstorm up, you’ll sacrifice your whirlwinds and thus lose your main way of KOing (Stealth Rock), but your foes will start racking up to insane damage percentages. Your best to KO from here would be uair, but why force poor Skarmory to KO someone when one of his good buddies like Aggron or Metagross could do it for him? The heavy hitters will love having a sandstorm set up for them, as all they have to do is sit and wait for the foe’s damage percentage to rack up before easily slaughtering them with their beastly KO moves. If you insist on using Skarmory for the KO, you could work on making your uair usable by spamming utilt, although this will only work all that well if there are platforms for you to use it on.
If you don’t go for a sandstorm, then Skarmory can far more easily KO the foe himself by setting up stealth rocks in the path of the whirlwinds. Still, stealth rocks can easily be destroyed by the foe, so the best time to set them up is in front of a whirlwind with your enemy trapped inside, so they’ll have no chance to disarm your trap. Using your fthrow to force foes into a stealth rock is also an excellent option.
Once the foe goes flying, Skarmory is an excellent gimper, assuming he has a whirlwind by his side. You can manipulate the whirlwind to your heart’s content with your nair and fair as you use it to push foes to prevent them from getting back to the stage. You may actually NOT want anything in your whirlwind when you use it for gimping purposes, as if they’re hit they’ll regain all their jumps, so making a new whirlwind when they first get knocked away is a good option. Don’t worry about Skarmory’s lack of a way to make the whirlwind to go downwards, as it slowly descends on it’s own.
Skarmory is rather complicated and will generally scare off newer players due to his heavy reliance on his whirlwinds and actually using his moves in unison, but those who have the patience to figure out how the steel bird works will find an excellent team player, just like in the Pokemon games. While Skarmory can be played alone, he works considerably better as a damage racking machine for the rest of Steven’s team.
***
*** EXTRAS ***
*** Extra Animations ***
Up Taunt - Reflection
Skarmory suddenly starts reflecting light off his well polished steel, becoming very bright briefly and lets out a magestic cry.
Side Taunt - Quick Adjustment
Skarmory brushes the spike on the top of his head with his wings as if he were combing his hair, the spike shining briefly as he does so. Seems he's a bit too concerned with his looks.
Down Taunt - Itching for Battle
Steven extends out his hand with Skarmory's pokeball in it and a red beam shoots out from it to try to recall Skarmory, but Skarmory dodges it, squawking in annoyance, turning to glare at Steven as he furls up his wings and puts them on his hips. He clearly still has more fight left in him.
Win Pose 1 - Spotlight
Steven pumps his fist and lets out a satisfied grunt, smirking, but then Skarmory comes out in front of him and spreads out his wings and lets out a cry in the middle of it, letting out a cry.
Win Pose 2 - Hatchlings
Steven is nowhere to be seen as Skarmory is in his crouching pose, asleep. The sounds of eggs cracking open is suddenly heard underneath him, which causes Skarmory to stand up and back away to look at what was under him to reveal there baby Skarmories hatching from three eggs, letting out cries. Guess he's a she. . .
Win Pose 3 - Wrong Pokemon
Steven strikes the same pose as the first win pose, but instead sends out Aggron, who lets out a mighty roar. Suddenly, a whirlwind comes by and blows Aggron away, and Skarmory comes from the side of the screen, his wings furled up and put on his hips as he glares at Steven, who just shrugs.
Loss Pose - Steel Clap
Skarmory claps his wings alongside Steven, who also claps. Skarmory occassionally increases his clapping speed and starts making a whirlwind, but Steven glares at Skarmory, him hanging his head in shame and stopping.
*** Kirby Hat – Spiked Puffball***
Unlike most other Pokemon kirby hats, Kirby simply gets Skarmory’s spike coming up out of his head. Kirby gains the ability to use spikes as his neutral special, spitting out the spikes, though he also gains Skarmory’s neutral A, drill peck. Instead of using a beak, Kirby uses the horn on the top of his head to do the drilling. Swallowing Skarmory (Or any of Steven’s Pokemon for that matter) also makes Kirby immune to the automatic 3% per second of sandstorm due to turning him into a steel type, making sandstorms less potent against the pink star warrior.
Cradily
Cradily is a strange Pokemon for Steven to have; instead of being a Steel type like many of Steven's other Pokemon, Cradily is a Grass/Rock type essentially being a living fossil. Living millions of years ago where it caught prey with its tentacles and then dissolved it using highly corrosive acids, Cradily is a fearsome Pokemon indeed.
While certainly being one of the more interesting Generation III Pokemon, Cradily is sadly very rarely used being incredibly weak to Ice type attacks. Fortunately this doesn’t care over to Smash so no advantage for the Ice Climbers there at least!
Stats
Size: 8/10
Cradily is a rather large target, being rather tall (about a head taller than Ganondorf when stretched out) but not particularly wide.
Weight: 6/10
Being essentially a living fossil adds some considerable girth to Cradily’s weight. Weighing 132 pounds, Cradily is about the weight of an average human.
Walking Speed: 2/10
Cradily was NOT built for speed clearly, his gameplay mostly revolves around planting oneself in a set location and weakening foes with his impressive range, not chasing them down. Cradily is only able to walk, albeit very, VERY slowly.
Running Speed: 0/10
Simply put, Cradily CAN’T run. His only form of movement is a very slow walk that has him inching his way forward very, very slowly. This also means that Cradily lacks a Dash Attack.
Traction: 10/10
Cradily will NEVER trip as he never builds up enough speed to even be able to trip.
Power: 5/10
Cradily’s attacks aren’t really the strongest, but they last a good deal of time making Cradily an excellent damage added. Unfortunately, he lacks any serious KO moves.
Attack Speed: 5/10
A real mixed pot of moves here, some of them are lightning quick (surprising considering his slow movement) but some of them are painfully slow.
Range: 8/10
This is where Cradily excels, with exceptional range and multiple projectiles, Cradily doesn’t NEED to move to take foes head on!
Priority: 6/10
Lots of projectiles and disjoined hitboxes make Cradily a dream to play when fighting foes from a distance. Some of his attacks even eat through shields.
First Jump: 0/10
You’re joking, right?
Second Jump: 0/10
Nope, not getting any better here.
Recovery: 0/10
What part of “Cradily can’t jump” can you not grasp? Cradily has next to NO chance for survival if he’s knocked off stage because he has no recovery move. Theoretically, he should have a one for recovery because he’s TECHNICALLY able to grab onto ledges, but seriously, if your opponent SOMEHOW manages to budge Cradily, he’s pretty much a goner.
Fall Speed: 7/10
He’s a relatively heavy/large plant fossil, he’s gonna fall quite fast.
Crouch: 4/10
He can pull his head down a fair bit, but nothing spectacular.
Crawl: No
Wall Jump: No
Wall Cling: No
Hover: No
Glide: No
Animations
Basic Pose
Cradily’s head slowly moves up and down a slight bit and the tentacles around its head quiver as it remains rather motionless otherwise.
Idle Pose
Cradily shakes his head causing the pink little tentacles to wave wildly as the apparent shiver goes down his neck, causing that to shake too.
Walking Pose
Cradily inches along using its roots, very slow movement…in fact, his head is still bobbing as if in a basic pose. Another thing to note is that even when walking, Cradily will occasionally enter his idle pose, seems his upper body didn’t get the message it was time to move!
Running Pose
Cradily doesn’t run. Pretty simple animation, no?
Dashing Pose
Cradily really picks up some speed here as he retains the same speed and animation from his walking pose.
Crouching
Cradily’s head ducks down like a snake, still bobbing up and down slightly like the basic animation.
Jump 1
Cradily appears as if he wants to jump….but just can’t.
Jump 2
Cradily falls like a rock, no second jump animation needed.
Shield
Cradily solidifies his body like a rock, standing perfectly motionless.
Forward Roll
No such luck here either, sorry.
Backward Roll
Nothin, nada, zip, zero, zilch.
Side-step Dodge
Cradily’s head dodges into the background, covering its eyes with its tentacles. Surprisingly, this also protects his body somehow…huh…
Air Dodge
Air dodge? What’s Cradily doing in the air in the first place…?
Swimming
Like Giga Bowser, Cradily falls straight down to the ocean floor when knocked into water.
Drowning
Cradily doesn’t drown; he sinks.
Dizzy
Cradily’s head extends outwards fully as he rotates his neck in a circle.
Asleep
Cradily’s head slumps forward, extending his neck fully along the ground.
Specials
Neutral B: AncientPower
Cradily shakes his head and then glares forward, a strange gray beam of energy coming out of his eyes the stretches a full Bowser width forward and a Mario height high. If a foe comes in contact with this beam for over one second, they solidify into stone for three seconds (although they take no damage or knockback).
While solidified, the opponents are (obviously) unable to move or attack. By wriggling the control stick, the opponent can break free of their petrifaction earlier. After breaking free, the opponent receives mild, set knockback so as to avoid being hit repeatedly with this attack.
This is another one of Cradily’s attacks that’s exceptional for slowing the opponent down so you can finish them off with a down smash!
Side B: Gastro Acid
Cradily rears back and then lunges forward (mindgame potential because it looks like some of his other attacks maybe?), spraying a shower of stomach acid forward in an arc that travels up to a Bowser width and a half before touching the ground. If the acid hits an opponent, they begin to take rapid damage, 1% per half a second for three seconds as the acid burns away at them. If it misses an opponent, the acid will stay on the ground for eight seconds before vanishing; any opponent who touches it while it’s on the ground takes the damage seen above so long as they're standing in the acid.
Now there are a few special properties to this attack. The biggest one is that if you hit an opponent who is shielding with Gastro Acid, their shield will begin to vanish at double the normal rate, effectively making an opponent drop their guard or risk taking a LOT of damage after their shield breaks.
This move can also be used to dissolve any items lying around the stage (with the exception of Pokeballs and Assist Trophies) including explosives and character specific items.
This move is great for taking out defensive players who like to hide behind their shields.
Up B: Ingrain
Almost unnoticeably, Cradily thrusts his roots into the ground planting him firmly in place. This reduces Cradily’s minimal walking speed to absolute zero but allows Cradily to rotate his neck to face either direction. This ALSO allows Cradily to use his side tilt (Root Slip) without turning to face his opponent making it excellent for mindgames.
With his roots in the ground, Cradily gains permanent super armor until he takes 20%. After taking 20%, Cradily will be stunned for a moment as if his shield just broke and will also be unable to use Ingrain again for eight seconds.
One final (albeit minor) benefit of Ingrain is that it heals Cradily for 1% every two seconds. While nothing game breaking, constant, although slight, healing is never a bad thing, is it?
Down B: Pokemon Switch
While standing in front of Steven, Cradily can activate his down special attack, causing a small window to pop up allowing him to switch out with any of Steven’s other Pokemon. Because Cradily won’t be or can’t move very far from directly in front of Steven, he has one of the easier times switching out…
However…if he gets knocked away from Steven, it can be a fight simply getting back over to him…
Because of the fact that Cradily is almost always in front of Steven, he doesn’t have an alternate Down B move.
Neutral Combo and Tilts
Neutral Combo: Lily Whip
With one tap of the A button, Cradily whips his head forward causing almost non-existent knockback and 3%. With another tap of the A button, Cradily begins to spin his head (not his neck too, his head alone) repeatedly striking the foe with the tentacles on its head. This acts as an infinite jab much like Captain Falcon’s and causes multiple tiny hits (1% each) with flinching knockback
Side Tilt: Root Slip
Cradily shakes his head as one of his roots stabs into the ground. A moment later about a Bowser width forward the root will shoot out of the ground about the height of a Pokeball. Any opponent that runs over said root will trip over it, landing before Cradily in their tripped stance and taking 8%. Obviously a very situational move, Root Slip is excellent for taking out characters too fast for their own good or characters with aggressive ground games. It also sets them up perfectly for some of Cradily’s close range, powerful attacks.
Up Tilt: Confuse Ray
Cradily’s head lurches back and down before suddenly shooting straight up. At the full extension of his neck, Cradily emits a cone shaped burst of purple energy that is Mario’s height and Bowser’s width. If an opponent touches this, they’ll take flinching knockback (great for stopping aerial attacks) and low damage (5%).
However, this is a CONFUSE Ray. Upon touching the ray, the opponent’s controls will be reversed for five seconds; up will be crouch, down will be jump, left will be right and vice versa. There is however one way to remedy this and it’s actually quite simple.
If you’re confused by Cradily’s attack, stand perfectly still for two seconds, this will allow your character to gather their bearings…unfortunately it also leaves you entirely open to a follow up attack by Cradily…
Down Tilt: Sticky Goo
Cradily fully stretches his neck upwards and then looks down. He then sprays a show of sticky fluid beneath him. Once it hits the ground, it spreads a short distance, going off a Kirby width to both sides. Initially, if this hits opponent’s before it touches the ground it causes 5% and medium horizontal knockback…however the real purpose of this move is to set up for Cradily’s better killing moves…
When an opponent touches the sticky fluid that’s on the ground, they instantly become stuck fast, unable to move or attack until they’ve broken free! If caught in the goo, wriggle the control stick rapidly to escape, obviously at higher percents it becomes harder to escape too. Upon escaping, your character will receive minor, set knockback so they don’t get trapped in the goo indefinitely. The goo will remain on the stage for ten seconds or until the opponent breaks free of it. Once the goo disappears, Cradily must wait three seconds before using it again so as to prevent cheap spamming of the attack.
This move is excellent for setting up Cradily’s more powerful killing moves and can easily be combo’d into via the help of Cradily’s side tilt. The root trip into sticky goo combo is an excellent set up for a killer finish as is the confuse ray into the sticky goo.
Smash Attacks
Side Smash: Sludge Bomb
Cradily seems to take a deep breath as it rears backwards. When the smash is released, Cradily’s head lunges forward and sprays a blob of sludge at his opponent that flies forward about half of Final Destination! The sludge deals 13-20% depending on the charge and Cradily while lunging forward does 4% since he’s not really meant to hit opponents. Whichever part hits the opponent (which is usually the sludge bomb as even when Cradily hits, he usually follows up immediately with the sludge) deals moderate knockback. Either hit has moderate priority but the sludge bomb itself acts as a weird disjointed hit box.
However, there’s an extra little tidbit of information about this attack; when it hits an opponent, they become covered in nasty, sticky sludge! This reduces their movement speed by 1/6th for ten seconds.
Up Smash: Rock Slide
Cradily thrusts his head into the ground and violently tears it out, hurling a series of rocks upwards of various shapes and sizes. The rocks cause about 4-6% each depending on the charge but Cradily launches about five rocks at once, each one flying off in a separate direction. The rocks fly at a rather slow speed (about that of a melee weapon when tossed over a character’s shoulder) and disappear when they hit the ground.
This attack has mild start up lag but little end lag. While it has the potential to do insane amounts of damage, the chances of EVERY rock hitting are neigh impossible as they fly up to half of Final Destination away maximum. The rocks deal low knockback but also have great priority. Oddly enough, the easiest way to dodge this attack is by staying close to Cradily…which is probably where you want to be the least…
Down Smash: Solarbeam
Cradily extends his neck upward and aims towards the ground before him. A moment later he fires a powerful blast of solar energy from his mouth causing 16-25% depending on the charge and heavy knockback. Unfortunate it suffers from some noticeable start up and end lag and only strikes the area directly before Cradily, not to both sides.
However, if you use this in conjunction with Ingrain, Cradily roots himself in and rotates his neck as he fires Solarbeam, striking both sides with a slightly weakened version (14-22%) with medium-high knockback. The speed at which he rotates is about that of Captain Falcon’s down smash making this excellent move for catching opponents off guard.
This is Cradily’s prime KO move although it is a tad slow…if only there was a way to somehow stick your opponent in place before you…wait…
Aerials
Neutral Air: Protect
Cradily pulls his head in close to his body, covering his face with his tentacles. This attack does no damage or knockback, but instead negates any knockback from any attack that hits Cradily as he falls.
The animation lasts about a second and a half and has a bit of end lag, it’s really best used for when Cradily’s being juggled by an aggressive opponent’s attacks, keeping him from using his down air. This also effectively acts as Cradily’s air dodge considering he doesn’t have a REAL air dodge.
Forward Air: Seed Bomb
Cradily spits forward a seed that, if it hits an opponent, explodes upon contact dealing 13% and medium-high knockback. However, if the seed MISSES an opponent, it hits the ground and buries itself. If an opponent treads over a planted Seed Bomb, it explodes like one of Snake’s mines, dealing 14% and high knockback. This attack suffers from some above average end lag.
Only one Seed Bomb may be planted at one time. If Seed Bomb is used again while a Seed Bomb is already planted, the first one will vanish instantly.
Back Air: Sunny Day
Cradily’s head lurches backwards suddenly as it turns to face the camera. As his head goes backwards, the tentacles around it extend outward, giving Cradily the appearance of a sun. Cradily’s outstretched tentacles act as a low priority hitbox and deal 10% with low horizontal knockback.
Oddly enough this attack also causes fire damage for whatever reason…
Up Air: Amnesia
Cradily looks awkwardly towards the camera…it seems even HE’S confused about why or how he’s airborne. A moment later, a large question mark appears over his head acting as a high priority hitbox that deals 10%.
The real glory of Amnesia however is the knockback it causes; it’s randomized. When hit with the question mark, the opponent could fly in ANY direction with medium knockback…or if you’re lucky, you could spike them straight down too…
Down Air: Earthquake
Cradily trembles slightly before shooting straight down as a high priority, striking the ground beneath him with tremendous force! Any opponents caught under Cradily as he falls are spiked downward and receive 9%. When Cradily hits the ground, he creates a tremor, causing any opponents within one and a half Bowser distance from Cradily to enter their tripped state, it does, however, do no damage or knockback. This attacks suffers from some mild start up lag and above average end lag once Cradily hits the ground.
This move is EXCELLENT for returning Cradily to solid ground when an opponent tries to juggle him. Remember, the air is not Cradily’s friend, stay firmly planted and don’t get juggled!
Grabs and Throws
Grab: Cradily lunges forward and clamps down on the opponent’s head with his jaws (face?). A grab with a surprisingly long range and speed.
Pummel: Giga Drain
Clamping down on the opponent harder, Cradily begins to siphon health from them, damaging the foe and restoring Cradily’s health! Tapping the A button rapidly siphons more health from your opponent for a maximum of up to 10% healed. Unfortunately, once you activate Cradily’s pummel you’re forced to use it; Cradily can’t throw an opponent after using Giga Drain until the next time he grabs them. Once the opponent manages to break away, they fly back slight farther than a normal grab release so as to avoid Cradily grabbing them against instantly with his ranged grab.
Forward Throw: Wring Out
Clamping down hard on the opponent’s head, Cradily begins to thrash violently around, the opponent struggling to break free of Cradily’s vice-esque grip. After spinning them around twice in a circle before him Cradily slams the foe against the ground twice before tossing them before him.
An excellent throw when it comes to damage, unfortunately it’s somewhat lacking when it comes to knockback. Dealing about 13% and set knockback of about 1/4th of Final Destination, this throw doesn’t have much KO potential…
Upward Throw: Constrict
A four of Cradily’s tentacles seize the opponent by their arms and legs, hoisting them into the air above Cradily about…a distance a tad bit higher than Ganondorf is tall. After leaving them dangling over Cradily’s head for a while, struggling the whole time, a fifth tentacle shoots out of the ground. This tentacle then shoots straight up, hitting the opponent in the stomach sending them airborne even further.
What? You say you thought something dirty was going to happen? Perv. Anyway, this attack deals some good damage (11%) and decent knockback…try following this throw up with a Confuse Ray or some of Cradily’s other little tricks and traps…
Downward Throw: Earth Power
Slamming the foe into the ground, Cradily causes a powerful tremor to shake the foe back and forth. After a moment, they opponent shoots out of the ground with medium diagonal knockback. Overall the opponent takes about 15%, unfortunately this move doesn’t set up for any good combos or anything so it’s usefulness is exclusively for damaging.
Back Throw: Double Team
Using Double Team, Cradily creates a replica of himself directly behind him. Spinning his neck around, he hurls the opponent backwards to the clone who in turn, snatches the opponent with his tentacles and slams the opponent head first into the ground before casually tossing him or her behind the replica. Once the throw is complete, the replica waves with one of its tentacles and vanishes. This is another one of Cradily’s throws best used for adding up damage rather than KO’ing.
Final Smash
Primal Vibes
Cradily grabs the Smash Ball (seriously, how’d he pull that one off?) and begins to glow! With a tap of the B button, he activates his Final Smash; Primal Vibes! Once activated, Cradily lets out a roar as the screen blurs signify that passing of a LOT of time. Once the screen stops blurring, it tints to a light brownish color like and old time photo.
Now…what good does this do besides make the screen look funky? Simply put; a lot. Because a lot of time has passed, the opponents have become old! This does no damage or knockback…but opens the door to a lot of both! By becoming so old, the Smashers have been slowed greatly, reduced to ½ of their normal speed. Not only this, but both their attack power and resistance to knockback have been reduced by ¼ !
Also…the one character to withstand the test of time and adapt to these harsh changes is, of course, Cradily! Having adapted over the years, Cradily is now VERY mobile, his speed increasing from the 0/10 stat it previously was to 5/10; he now moves at about Mario’s speed! Unfortunately he still can’t jump but…one step at a time, one step at a time…
After 15 seconds, the screen blurs again…it appears as if Cradily can’t control the Primal Vibes for too long; everyone’s back to their normal stats…Cradily included…
Taunts
Up Taunt: Flower Power
A small patch of flowers grows around Cradily who looks down at them and begins bobbing his head as if pleased. If an opponent steps on the flowers, a black cloud will appear over Cradily's head.
Side Taunt: Shy Cradily
Two red lines appear under Cradily's eyes, apparently, he's actually quite shy! He then presses his head to the ground, looking away from the camera.
Down Taunt: Crydily
Cradily emits his cry from the Pokemon games as his body begins to sway left and right.
Victory Poses
Victory Pose 1: Flower Garden
Cradily appears besides Steven on the win screen. Raising his head into the air Cradily begins to sway slightly as a large amount of flowers instantly grow beneath the contenders. Even after the flowers have grown Cradily continues to sway.
Victory Pose 2: Pokemon Praise
Steven exclaims, “Great job!” as he pats Cradily’s head. The excited Pokemon begins to bob its head as Steven laughs.
Victory Pose 3: Uplifting Victory
Cradily’s tentacles lift Steven into the air who exclaims slightly at the sudden loss of solid ground beneath him. After a moment, Cradily sets him back down and bobs his head as if laughing. Steven stares at the Pokemon sternly however…seems he didn’t think it was too funny…
Lose Pose: Steven looks visibly disappointed, as does Cradily. Steven however is a good loser and claps for his opponent.
Kirby Hat: Ancient Puffball
After inhaling Cradily, Kirby gains the top portion of Cradily’s head, a few of his tentacles and, most importantly, the ability to use AncientPower.
Playstyle: Venus Smash Trap
As soon as Cradily is set lose from the Pokeball, you’re going to want to activate Sticky Goo as a precaution against ground based opponents. Immediately afterwards, Ingrain is the way to go. With its potential to keep Cradily in the game even at insane percents, Ingrain is Cradily’s number one defensive tool; not only does it keep Cradily from being knocked off stage where his lack of recovery will destroy him, but it also helps keep him directly in front of Steven where he can easily switch out for another Pokemon without any notice.
Since Cradily can’t really move, his entire playstyle revolves around being defensive, defensive, defensive. With Ingrain holding him to the ground and Sticky Goo making ground approaches against Cradily difficult, Cradily is the absolute definition of a fortress-esque character in Smash.
An excellent combo to catch your opponents with can be the Root Slip -> Sticky Goo -> Solarbeam combo which is essentially Cradily’s prime KO option. When it comes to foes attacking from above, Confuse Ray is the way to take them out of the air as opposed to the damaging Rock Slide (which is simply too unreliable to use as a proper KO move).
If somehow Cradily is knocked airborne (of if you’re on a stage with only springs, you know you love that stage…) Cradily players will want to focus on one thing and one thing only; getting back to solid ground. While in the air, Cradily’s attacks aren’t so hot and he’ll easily get juggled by faster character or characters with great air games. When knocked into the air, try and use Earthquake as soon as possible to return to the ground so you can Ingrain again. If for whatever reason you’re unable to use Earthquake (which it’s somewhat laggy so if your opponent is being really aggressive that’s understandable…) Protect will be your best friend.
If an opponent is picking a ranged fight, use one of Cradily’s longer ranged attacks such as Rock Slide, Sludge Bomb or Gastro Acid, any mixture of these should lure an opponent into a fight. Also, don’t forget to use a mixture of AncientPower and Sticky Goo to keep your opponent up close once they’ve come near.
If an opponent is playing way too defensively, Cradily’s Gastro Acid should dissolve their shield in no time. If it doesn’t, use Cradily’s surprisingly lengthy grab to snatch them up and punish them with one of Cradily’s particularly damaging throws.
Overall, in order to play Cradily successfully, one must be a master of waiting. Wait for your opponent to get close, then trap them with an all out assault of Cradily’s fluently moving combo moves! Once they’re in your reach, there’s no escape! Also…make sure you NEVER use Cradily on a moving stage…
Claydol
Mechanics
Levitate-
Claydol floats in the air roughly Pikachu's height above the stage, making him immune to low attacks. He is also unaffected by traction, making it very easy for him to turn and protecting him against tripping. His levitated state does make him rather susceptible to high attacks however. Claydol also has unlimited jumps, meaning he will always be in the air. His falling speed is very fast, however, keeping him from maintaining much height. Another interesting effect of this is that Claydol has no "ground" attacks. Rather all of his attacks are aerial. He has a Neutral A/Neutral Aerial, Dash Aerial, Tilt Aerials, and Smash Aerials. Naturally, he can also aerial grab. Another odd property of Claydol's levitation is that he cannot ledge grab or be knocked to the ground. In fact- the only time his body comes into contact with the ground is through the use of Claydol's Crouch and Dair.
Stats
Height- Somewhat Short
Not counting levitation, Claydol is about the same size as Mario.
Width- Average
Claydol is again roughly the size of Mario.
Weight- Heavy
Despite being rather small (4'11"), Claydol weighs 238.1 lbs, making him a real heavyweight. He also has a notably high defense stat. His weight in Smash would probably compare to Ike's.
"Walk" Speed- Slow
Claydol just floats around, not really trying to get anywhere quickly.
Dash Speed- Fast
Due to levitation, Claydol can move quite fast.
Jumps- Unlimited
First 5 Jumps- Medium
Claydol's first 5 jumps give him a great recovery and outweigh his huge falling speed.
All Additional Jumps- Mediocre
Each of Claydol's jumps after the fifth compares to Peach's second jump (what second jump). Basically, all they are good for is limited aerial stalling, as he falls very fast.
Falling Speed- Very Fast
Claydol's falling speed is so fast that it outweighs his unlimited jumps, making aerial camping impossible. Note that all attacks do provide an aerial stall however.
Traction- Unaffected
Claydol's Levitate ability renders him immune to tripping and allows him to move with ease on any surface.
Dodges- Average
Claydol isn't a particularly great dodger, more about confusing the opponent than direct defense.
Crouch- Yes, Great
Claydol's crouch does serve a useful purpose for him, as it allows him to bypass his own levitation ability, making him more susceptible to low attacks and less susceptible to high attacks.
Crawl- No
Wall Jump- No
Would it really make since for something that doesn't even touch surfaces to wall jump?
Glide- No
Again...
Animations
Standing Pose
Claydol isn't really a very interesting Pokemon in terms of stancing. It basically just floats there, not leaning in any direction.
Idle Pose
Claydol spins around a few times and randomly winks its many eyes.
"Walk" Pose
Claydol floats around, leaning in the direction he is going. His pace is slow and leasurely. The contended look in his eyes reflects blistful ignorance or innocence.
Dash Pose
Claydol starts floating faster, leaning forward a bit farther than his walk pose. He has sped up considerably, but he is still far from quick. His eyes reflects a more determined look, as they appear focused and perhaps even angry.
All Jumps
Claydol spins around several times, giving him some vertical lift and stalling him in the air for the duration. This is much like Peach's second jump in function.
Shield
Claydol surrounds itself with rocks all around. The rocks crack as more damage is dealt to the shield, eventually causing the rocks to split and break.
Sidestep
Claydol steps to the side, rapidly waving his arms around much like R.O.B. It tends to look pretty comical in Claydol's case. Average sidestep.
Roll
Claydol rolls much like Mewtwo, except being a bit slower.
Airdodge
Claydol moves to the side while opening one of it's beaks as if to say "Phew". It has a relieved look in it's eyes.
Specials
Neutral Special- Subsitute
This move is by far the most important part of Claydol's game in Smash. Claydol takes 20% damage and creates an exact copy of himself that has 25% stamina. This has low lag on both ends. When a Substitute has been created, the player is able to control both Claydol and his Substitute to a limited extent. The main one is completely controllable, working like normal (except without use of the C-Stick or Motion Control Smashing). The secondary one is controlled with the C-Stick or with Motion controls and is unable to perform most moves. The secondary one does not have to be the Substitute (and the main does not have to be the original). By pressing Neutral Special when a Substitute is already created, the controls are switched, allowing the player to have full control of the other one. Switching between playing as the original and the fake is a lagless action. This is very useful, as it can be used to mindgame foes and perform normally dangerous attacks, such as Self Destruct, without harming the original. Mastery of Substitute is almost synonimous with mastery of Claydol- that is, you must master the Substitute to properly play Claydol on a competitive level.
Side Special- Reflect/Light Screen
The currently controlled Claydol's eyes shine bright purple/pink and a thin wall of light roughly as tall as a human character (like Marth) appears in front of it. If the currently controlled Claydol was the original, this move is Reflect. If the currently controlled Claydol was a substitute, this move is Light Screen. What do these walls of light do? Reflect causes all physical attacks launched at the wall to be nullified. Light Screen causes all non-physical (fire, water, energy, darkness, etc.) attacks launched at the wall to be nullified. The walls oddly have physical properties- they can be used to wall cling and wall jump (though not by Claydol). If an attack that the walls do not protect against hit them, they vanish. They also allow certain attacks and grabs to infinite against them (so definitely don't use this move against King Dedede.) This move has very low lag on both ends. While you can have several light walls up, each one disappears after 5 seconds.
Up Special- Teleport
When used without a Substitute, this move functions exactly like Mewtwo's Up Special. When used with a Substitute, this move will cause the original and the Substitute to disappear like in Mewtwo's Up Special and trade places when they reappear. When the latter effect is used as a recovery, the original can be saved from falling to its death at the cost of dooming his substitute (and thereby "wasting" 25% of his health). Both options produce only the same lag and duration as Mewtwo's Up Special. Aside from being used as a recovery, this can also be used to mindgame foe's into getting the two Claydol's confused.
Down Special (Away From Steven)- Self Destruct
The currently controlled Claydol self destructs, causing itself to be destroyed and creating a huge explosion, roughly the size of a Smart Bomb explosion. This explosion deals high upwards knockback (KO'ing Mario at roughly 75%) and 30% damage to all (friend or foe) who are struck by it. This move has low beginning lag (and of course there is nothing left to suffer ending lag). During this low ending lag, the exploding Claydol will flash red and release steam briefly. While the cost of this move could be high (as it could cause the original to be destroyed), having a Substitute destroy itself with this move is a great way to minimize the move's cost.
Down Special (In Front of Steven)- Switch
Claydol is called back into his Pokeball and a menu is brought up, allowing the player to choose the Pokemon that Steven summons. There is only a short amount of time to choose. There is no lag on either end. There are invinceability frames throughout. Only one switch can be performed every 20 seconds.
Normal Aerials
Neutral Aerial- Cosmic Power
Claydol's eyes glow pink as he fires two pink crescent moons forwards that zigzag as they travel roughly half the distance of Final Destination, even traveling through people, objects, and the stage. One crescent moon will be above and one will be below Claydol's height when he initiated this move, with the center area only being touched when the crescents zigzag inwards. The crescents travel at a fairly fast speed (just a bit slower than one of Pit's arrows). When the crescents strike anything, they release a burst of little stars that have a circumference of a bob omb explosion. All struck foes take 3% damage and low upwards knockback. This move has low beginning lag and some slight ending lag. No hitstun. The crescents have literally no priority at all- attacks and projectiles will go right through them, leaving the crescents unaffected. This makes attacks worthless for defending against the crescents.
Dash Aerial- Rapid Spin
Claydol seems to fall flat, as if he were a top that just stopped spinning, his "head" facing the screen and his feet facing the background. He begins rapidly spinning, his faces + eyes becoming a nice visual effect. While spinning, Claydol orbits his original location, never actually re-entering this spot until the move ends. He orbits roughly 3/4 of a Battlefield platform's width away from the original spot. Foes struck by Claydol take 4% damage and are bounced away as if they had run into a Bouncer item, though the power of this knockback is only 3/4 of the Bouncer. This move has fairly low lag on both ends and a duration of roughly 1 1/4 seconds. Great priority. No hitstun.
Tilt Aerials
Side Tilt Aerial- Zen Headbutt
Claydol tilts backwards very briefly and then slams its head(?) forwards. This move's only hitbox is Claydol's head. Struck foes take 10% and medium knockback (kills Mario at roughly 150%). This attack has low beginning lag and medium ending lag. Medium priority. No hitstun. An interesting property of this move is that, even if it misses, foes within Bowser's width in front of Claydol will flinch- the priority of this flinch auto-exceeding the priority of any move they are using. This naturally gives this move some use as a gimping and defensive tool.
Up Tilt Aerial- Rock Slide
Claydol's eyes glow brightly as several rocks are raised over its head, remain there briefly, and then suddenly slide diagonally downwards in the direction Claydol is facing. The hitbox of this move is a diagonal line starting roughly Claydol's height above Claydol and ending roughly Claydol's width in tront of Claydol. Struck foes take 7% and good forwards knockback (KOs Mario at roughly 110%). This move has medium beginning lag and low ending lag. This move has great priority, serving as a nice defensive wall. No hitstun.
Down Tilt Aerial- Stealth Rock
Claydol spins around one time and sends out a swarm of very small (and hard to see) but pointy rocks below him. They travel at a swift speed, covering their maximum distance of a Battlefield Platform under Claydol in about 1/10th of a second. Foes struck by the Stealth Rock flinch, but then realize that no harm has been dealt to them. Little does the foe know that they are covered in the tiny shards. When the foe attempts to shield, they take 2% damage per second that they do so. The stealth rocks disappear after 3 seconds. Using this move on the foe again while they are already under the effect of Stealth Rock simply renews the duration. This move has low beginning lag and no ending lag. The stealth rocks have no physical presense as far as priority is concerned, thus all attacks and projectiles will go right through them. Note that this move will also strike foes that are shielding, as the attack goes through shields- but the stones do no shield damage. This move can be fired while crouching. When this happens, the Stealth Rocks will be fired forwards.
Smash Aerials
Side Smash Aerial- Psybeam
Claydol's eyes glow bright pink as he slams his head forward a bit and fires a bright pinkish purple beam of light with properties much like R.O.B.'s laser (minus the recharge time and the ability to aim). Struck foes take 10% damage and good horizontal knockback (KOs Mario at roughly 100%). In addition to this, the struck foe(s) are confused, reversing their controls for 1...4 seconds (+1 second for each second of charging, with a max charge of 3 seconds). While the foe is confused, they will imagine little cartoonish birds flying around their heads. This move has fairly high beginning lag and fairly low ending lag. No hitstun.
Up Smash Aerial- Sandstorm
A huge sandstorm is whipped up around Claydol. Use the control stick to have a limited control over where the wind blows (it will have a natural upwards arc). Claydol will become visible at the ending location of the storm, which would be roughly 3 of Claydol's heights above him at max duration. This move can be ended at any time by releasing the "charge" (releasing A) and it will reach max duration after about 2 seconds. Foes who are struck by the Sandstorm will take repeated hits of 1% damage (5 hits per second on average), though the hits are easy to DI away from. Claydol will be rapidly spinning when he becomes visible, striking foes at that location for 12% and good forwards knockback. This move has fairly low lag on both ends. Great priority. No hitstun on any hits.
Down Smash Aerial- Earthquake
Claydol starts rapidly spinning like a drill (a slight stall) and suddenly falls downwards very very fast. When/if Claydol hits the ground, it releases 1...4 large shockwaves that spread out the full length of the surface it is on. Struck foes will trip and take 5....20% damage (based on how close they are to the epicenter of the Earthquake, or Claydol). This move has medium lag on both ends and a short duration. No hitstun. Note that the hitbox of this move is only the ground, so foes who are not making contact with the ground will be unaffected. Also note that only (up to) two shockwaves are capable of hitting foes due to invinceability frames that appear while the foe trips (example- if the max number of shockwaves is used and the foe is struck by the first, they may be struck by the third, but not the second or fourth). This aerial can cause Claydol to suicide if used incorrectly.
Grabs/Throws
Grab- Power Trick
Claydol lifts the foe with psycic energy, much like with Mewtwo's Side Special in melee. Unlike that move however, the foe stays trapped in Claydol's grab. Claydol is able to freely move, jump, fall, etc. and the foe will be dragged with him. This only has 1.25x the average grab duration, so it can be difficult to escape. The reach and lag for this grab is basically identical to that of Mewtwo's Side Special. This move is named Power Trick because, unlike Claydol's other moves, the power and speed of his moves are basically swapped- his throws are slow but powerful, making them Claydol's best killing options other than Self-Destruct. Another odd property of Claydol's grab is that foes are capable of attacking Claydol while grabbed. Note that you must hold Z to keep the foe trapped. Releasing Z will cause Claydol to use the throw that corresponds to the direction the control stick is currently pressed in. This grab can be used at any elevation.
Pummel- Confusion
Claydol's grab attack can be described in two words- grab counter. That's right, if the grabbed foe attempts to attack Claydol, Claydol can use his grab attack to cause the foe to be confused and attack themselves instead!
The foe will suffer all of the damage from their attack but no knockback. This allows Claydol to hit them with a throw. No lag at all. The animation for this move involves Claydol's eyes releasing a blinding pink light. The foe must actually be in the process of performing an attack for this to be successful. This grab attack is made even more unique in that it can be performed while throwing!
Neutral/Forward Throw- Psycic
It is only fitting that a psycic pokemon should have Psycic right? Claydol's eyes glow brightly and a pink psycic aura radiates from the grabbed foe. One second later, they are shot forwards for 10% and great forwards knockback (that KOs Mario at 80%). This throw has some slight beginning lag (not counting the 1 second duration) and a little ending lag. Claydol's best throw for KO'ing.
Back Throw- Rock Smash
Claydol causes the foe to be flipped into the air and throw just behind Claydol. The foe is slammed into the ground, breaking rocks with their body. This is naturally very painful for the foe, as they take 16% damage. This throw is completely incapable of chaining, as the foe has invinceabililty frames until they regain the ability to react. This throw has no lag on either end, but a duration of roughly 3/4 of a second. This throw is quite useful for its spiking potential.
Up Throw- Stone Edge
A sharp stone that looks like a sword appears below the grabbed foe. It slices upwards, dealing 11% and good upwards knockback to them (KO's Mario at 110%). With only a small amount of lag on either end and a duration of 1/2 of a second, this is Claydol's fastest and weakest throw.
Down Throw- Rock Tomb
Rocks appear and trap both Claydol and the grabbed foe become in a pyramid shaped clump of rocks. This causes them to rapidly plummet. There can only be two outcomes- either they are both dropped to their dooms, resulting in Clayside, or they hit the stage, causing the grabbed foe to be dealt 13% and good upwards knockback (KO's Mario at 105%). This move has medium beginning lag and a variable duration that (of course) depends on distance from the stage/death.
Final Smash- Ancient Power
In Pokemon, Ancient Power is a move that may raise all stats. This carries over to Smash as Claydol's Final Smash. For 30 seconds, or until Claydol loses a stock (whichever comes first), all of Claydol's stats are buffed. 3 damage is added to all attacks and +25% is added to Claydol's movement speeds, weight, and dealt knockback. In addition to this, Claydol's moves now have 25% less lag.
Taunts
Up Taunt
Claydol spins like a top briefly and then becomes cartoonishly dizzy.
Side Taunt
Claydol lifts small rocks above its head and starts juggling them with psycic energy.
Down Taunt
The original Claydol controls the substitute Claydol to breakdance using psycic energy. This can be used if you forget which Claydol is the original. If used with no Substitute, Claydol will simply sigh.
Victory Poses
Up Pose
Claydol's eyes all glow bright pink. He lifts the losers up into the air (as they humorously keep clapping) and throws them out of sight. Steven starts scolding Claydol, though it is obvious that he is choking back laughter.
Side Pose
Claydol starts spinning like a top, travelling in circels around Steven. Steven looks slightly confused (and somewhat dizzy).
Down Pose
Claydol sighs and falls down. The battle obviously exhausted him. Steven calls Claydol back into the Pokeball.
Pros
Heavyweight.
Usually unhittable by low attacks.
Great recovery.
Unlimited jumps.
Can grab at any elevation.
Can rack up damage fairly well.
Many fast moves.
Grabs are good for KO'ing.
Unaffected by traction.
Substitute is very useful when used properly.
Can be great at mindgames with Neutral and Up Specials.
Defensively effective thanks to Neutral, Side, and Up Specials.
Good Final Smash.
Can switch to Skarmory, Aggron, Metagross, Armaldo, or Cradily.
Cons
High learning curve.
Very fast faller.
Especially susceptible to high attacks, aerials, and comboes.
Reliant on throws and self destruct to KO.
Cannot grab the edge.
Substitute damages Claydol for 20%, so it is harmful when not used to its fullest.
Throws are slow.
Lacks the ability to chain grab.
Can be attacked by grabbed foes.
Playstyle
Claydol is a very interesting character to play as- and, against a master, Claydol can be an interesting opponent. One of the best, if not the best, damage rackers on Steven's team, thanks to his quick A attacks that can be used at any elevation. Claydol is equipped with a variety of defensive and offensive options.
Let's start with the most critical part of Claydol's game- mindgames. Claydol is exceptional at mindgaming foes thanks to his Neutral Special, which summons a fake Claydol. The player is able to switch between full control of the original and full control of the fake, with the other having only partial controlability. This is the ability that makes or breaks a Claydol player. The key to using this is being unpredictable. You do not want to build habits with this, because the foe may figure you out. The entire goal of the mindgame is to keep the foe from learning which Claydol is the real one and which is the fake. This can be accomplished through frequent switching of primary control between the original and the fake and through use of Teleport, which causes the Claydol's to switch places- especially confusing when they were already adjacent. Just be careful not to mindgame yourself. The last thing you want is to self-destruct the original Claydol! If you do happen to lose track of which Claydol is which, just use your down taunt (though this also ends the mindgame for your foe).
Now we move on to damage racking. Claydol is equipped with a number of quick moves. The most effective attacks for damage racking are Neutral A (a reliable projectile), Side Tilt, and Dash Attack. Neutral A is great for its quickness and projectile reach. Don't hesistate to spam it when necessary. Side Tilt is excellent for melee damage, as well as interrupting attacks with a high-priority flinch. Dash Attack is mainly for its great circumferential reach and defensive abilities, though as a dash attack, it can be predictable. None of Claydol's moves are particularly bad for damage racking, but they don't normally combo well. Down Tilt compliments all other forms of damage racking, as it punishes foes with some damage when they use their shield, as well as having the ability to flinch shielded opponents.
Claydol doesn't have a whole lot of KO'ing options. He is basically limited to Self-Destructing and his throws (fortunately, he can even grab and throw foes in midair). Both options have their downsides. Self-Destructing comes at one of two costs- the health that your Substitute currently has or an entire stock (depending on if you self-destruct the original or the copy). It is, however, a very powerful move with a great hitbox and quick activation... it shouldn't be a move that you will be using often, so it can be hard to see coming. As for your throws, they are slow but powerful- the most risky and powerful of all usually being the Forward Throw. Claydol does possess the ability to spike with his Back Throw and the ability to Clayside foes with the Down Throw.
Finally we arrive at defense. Claydol has a lot of defensive options- most of which are the spawn of his mindgames (so I will not bother restating much of that information). On top of his mindgames, Claydol also possesses a side special which can produce a wall of light that protects against physical (original) or non-physical attacks (substitute). These walls are incredibly useful when used at the proper time (or against the proper attacks). They can be used to counter projectile spam or even prevent a powerful attack or combo from happening.
Claydol does have other tactics at his disposal as well:
The player can switch primary control even while performing attacks or keeping a foe grabbed. For example, if the player simply holds Z and switches primary control with Neutral B, the Claydol that is not grabbing the foe can be made to attack the grabbed foe. This can be immensely useful, but Claydol is still incapable of chain grabbing foes.
Opponents of Claydol must keep calm and wary at all times (or atleast while Claydol has a Substitute on the field). Your eyes must discern the original from the copy. If you remove Claydol's ability to confuse you, Claydol becomes nearly useless.
Allies that Claydol players should consider are:
King Dedede- Benefits heavily from the ability to chain throw against light walls.
Another Claydol- With 2 originals and 2 copies, the mindgame potential is doubled!
Power Characters- Any character that can KO foes for Claydol.
Opponents Should Consider Using:
King Dedede- Claydol can be chained against light screens that are used on the ground.
Counter Stages:
Claydol performs badly on scrolling stages, as controlling both an original and a substitute Claydol can be difficult to impossible.
ARMALDO. A PLATE POKEMON.
ARMALDO'S TOUGH ARMOR MAKES ALL ATTACKS BOUNCE OFF. THIS POKEMON'S TWO ENORMOUS CLAWS CAN BE FREELY EXTENDED OR CONTRACTED. THEY HAVE THE POWER TO PUNCH RIGHT THROUGH A STEEL SLAB.
ARMALDO IS A POKEMON SPECIES THAT BECAME EXTINCT IN PREHISTORIC TIMES. THIS POKEMON IS SAID TO HAVE WALKED ON ITS HIND LEGS, WHICH WOULD HAVE BEEN MORE CONVENIENT FOR LIFE ON LAND.
ARMALDO USUALLY LIVES ON LAND. HOWEVER, WHEN IT HUNTS FOR PREY, IT DIVES BENEATH THE OCEAN. IT SWIMS AROUND USING ITS TWO LARGE WINGS.
As the Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald Pokedex entries above state, Armaldo is a prehistoric Pokemon brought to life again. Its powerful claws and hard shell make it a predatory force to be reckoned with, but it lacks heavily in speed. Outside of its great physical attack power and defense, and its hindering speed, it has relatively average stats. Despite being a Rock- and Bug-typed Pokemon, it possesses worthwhile aerial and aquatic abilities due to the wings lining its back.
Size > > 7/10
Armaldo stands at about Link's height and width.
Weight > > 9/10
Armaldo actually only weighs about 150 pounds, but his defensive strength makes him seem much heavier when taking hits.
Power > > 10/10
Armaldo's great Attack stat translates over very well.
Movement Speed > > 1/10
Armaldo is an absolute slug when moving around, whether on the ground or in the air.
Attack Speed > > 3/10
Armaldo is also quite slow about attacking, relying more on brute strength than speed.
Jump > > 7/10
Armaldo's ground jump is just okay, but his mid-air jump gets him some great distance upward.
Range > > 3/10
Armaldo isn't pathetic as far as range goes, but he's definitely subpar.
Priority > > 8/10
Armaldo's powerful moves boast an above-average priority, but nothing too extreme.
Falling Speed > > 8/10
Armaldo falls quickly, though not as fast as fastfallers like Fox and Sheik.
Traction > > 10/10
Moving slowly sometimes has its advantages.
Crouch > > 8/10
Armaldo bends all the way over, practically lying on his stomach. He's still a bit thick, but hey, you can't win 'em all.
Swim Time > > 10/10
Armaldo is an excellent swimmer, and can stay afloat for a very long time.
Abilities > > Crawl
Armaldo has the ability to crawl from his crouched position, and this is often a wise move, since he moves about as fast this way as any other.
Standing / Idle
Armaldo stands almost motionless, slightly shifting his feet for his idle animation once in a while.
Walking / Running
Armaldo trudges deliberately forward, somewhat like Bowser.
Dashing
Armaldo's dashing animation is similar to his walking/running one, albeit a bit quicker.
Jumping
Armaldo shoves off the ground with his feet slowly for his ground jump, not gaining more than an average amount of height. For his mid-air jump, he beats his wings at an alarming rate, rising high into the air.
Shielding
Armaldo stands tall while shielding, just like in his standing animation. That's all you have to do when you're covered in defensive plates.
Dodging
Armaldo leans back onto one foot, almost falling over backward, to sidestep dodge. For rolling dodges, he slithers slowly into the background on his stomach. For air dodges, Armaldo leans backward. All of Armaldo's dodges are slow to execute, but last longer than the average dodge.
Tripping
In the rare event that Armaldo does trip, he simply loses his footing and falls flat on his face. Because of this, Armaldo has no Tripped Attack, and will perform his Get-Up Attack from the front after tripping.
Swimming
Armaldo slithers like a snake through the water, moving at high speed. His wings can also be seen beating furiously as he moves.
Dizzy
Armaldo sways back and forth, although not much, still attempting to maintain a sturdy, defensive posture.
Asleep
Armaldo's limbs hang limp, and he closes his eyes as he sleeps peacefully.
Neutral Special > > Harden
Armaldo quickly hardens his already tough outer layer. This happens almost instantly upon use, and lasts for three seconds. There is no visual indication that this has happened. During this entire time, Armaldo has superarmor, and is still able to attack. However, having hardened his joints, he is completely unable to move or jump in this state. Actions or attacks (such as his Up Special) that attempt to move him will profit him no movement, only the motion. After three seconds of superarmor, Armaldo's skin returns to normal, with little lag.
However, do not consider this any kind of ultimate shield. Armaldo has to wait 30 seconds between uses of this move, meaning at least 27 seconds will be spent without the powerful superarmor at your disposal. Aside from that, don't forget that superarmor may protect you from knockback, but you can still be damaged, and opponents with projectiles will relish those three seconds when you can't move. Use this wisely, though, and it's one of Armaldo's key abilities.
Side Special > > False Swipe
This is a powerful, but restrained technique, used to weaken, but never knock out, an opponent. Armaldo leans back, one claw extended into the air, then performs a powerful slash in front of him. This startup lag is similar to Bowser's Forward Smash if not charged at all, and hits over a similar, but slightly smaller, area. This is a powerful move that deals 25% damage, but the knockback is set, only knocking opponents away as far as a diagonally-aimed Fire Fox travels. For this reason, it's a powerful damager, but is virtually incapable of scoring KOs. This move has rather long ending lag after the swipe.
Up Special > > Aerial Ace
Upon this move being input, Armaldo will stall where he is for about a second, having superarmor. One of two things then happens, depending on if the Special button is still held.
If the button is released, this functions as a recovery move, with Armaldo vanishing quickly and reappearing in a flash of light in the direction the control stick is tilted, about the distance Lucario travels with his Extremespeed, as a loud slashing noise permeates the air. Armaldo will not sweetspot ledges with this, always attempting to travel the full distance, only stopped by solid platforms. While Armaldo is stopped by solid platforms, he'll pass straight through anything else without even touching it, including enemy attacks, projectiles, and traps. He enters a helpless state after the movement.
If the Special button is held while Armaldo stalls in the air, this becomes an attacking move rather than a recovery one, though it can still be used for recovery. Armaldo vanishes similarly to the way he does in his recovery version of this move, but reappears directly over the nearest opponent within about a Battlefield platform's length to any direction. If no one is within the area, Armaldo will reappear at the same location he used the move. He'll then perform a lightning-quick slash with one claw, which deals 18% damage and strong upward knockback. Essentially, this becomes an automatically-targetting version of Meta Knight's Dimensional Cape, but it has downsides as well...
For one, Armaldo enters a helpless state if he finishes this attack in the air. Additionally, Armaldo suffers a lot of ending lag after the slash, and even more if he doesn't find an opponent close enough to target. Finally, don't forget that if your opponent determines where you go, and they know you enter a helpless state if you end up in the air, they just may get themselves over a ledge as you use this move, as a well-timed dodge and edge-guard will secure them an easy KO. This is a powerful KO move if used right, but should be used sparingly to keep it from being predictable, and always used in safe locations.
Down Special > > Protect
Armaldo crosses his claws in front of him, as a hexagonal blue barrier forms around him. This takes about three-quarters of a second to do, during which time Armaldo is completely vulnerable. If he's hit during this time, the Protect will fail. If he succeeds, however, the Protect will block the next single hit to strike Armaldo completely, whether it's something weak like the spray a single drop from Squirtle's Water Gun, or even the push effect from Toon Link's Down Aerial when it strikes the ground near you, or a powerful attack like PK Flash or Falcon Punch. Armaldo won't suffer any damage, knockback, hitstun, or even shieldstun from the attack, it simply being absorbed effortlessly by his protective barrier, which dissolves quickly upon taking the hit. Of special note is the fact that this will even block a single attempt to grab Armaldo, whether it be from a standard grab or a special one like Lucario's Force Palm.
However, like Harden, this move can only be used so often. This one has a minute-long regeneration from the time of one use to the next available use. Of course, if you could theoretically go a full minute without having your Protect hit and destroyed, you would have another ready as soon as you took a hit, but a more realistic approach may be to alternate wisely between Harden and Protect, using them to deal with your foes most potent damagers and KO moves.
Neutral Attack > > Iron Jaw
Armaldo reaches forward in an attempt to grab a nearby victim, essentially "hugging" anyone within range with his large claws. This counts as a grab-type move, ignoring shields similarly. This is a slow grab, with only a moderate range, but Armaldo can grab multiple opponents, and the attack that follows is a powerful one. After grabbing a victim, Armaldo proceeds to sink his powerful teeth into them. This deals a painful 15% damage, after which Armaldo drops his opponent onto their back in front of him. While the grab is slow, the bit happens rather quickly, and Armaldo suffers only moderate ending lag after releasing his victim.
Forward Tilt > > Metal Claw
Armaldo's skin takes on a metallic appearance as he raises a claw skyward. This action takes about half a second, and no further action is taken automatically. Upon another press of the Attack button, Armaldo performs the powerful metallic slash, but is unable to move while waiting. The slash deals 15% damage, covering a short range, but since the actual slash is quick after setting up, this is easier than some of Armaldo's moves to hit with. Afterward, Armaldo suffers long ending lag comparable to Ike's Forward Smash.
Note that if Armaldo is hit while waiting to slash, he will end the move abruptly without executing the slash, but will retain the metallic skin for an additional five seconds, with the same effect as a Metal Box item has. This wears off effortlessly and laglessly, like the Metal Box's effect, so Armaldo doesn't have to worry about ending lag for this.
Up Tilt > > Rock Blast
Armaldo reaches down and breaks a chunk out of the floor, roughly half the size of Kirby, then heaves it upward. The boulder (not necessarily stone, but I'll refer to it as a boulder anyway) travels upward about the height of Luigi's Super Jump Punch, dealing 10% damage and okay upward knockback as it goes, shattering to dust when it strikes an opponent or reaches its peak height. Armaldo suffers a lot of startup and a fair amount of ending lag for this move, but its nice for him to have a projectile once in a while, even if it is only a decent one that fires upward.
Worthy of note is the fact that the ground Armaldo breaks will now have a small hold in it, which will heavily increase the chances of a character, including Armaldo, running over it to trip. Of course, with some characters having good Tripped Attacks, they may use this to their advantage. The stage heals itself after three seconds.
Down Tilt > > Endure
Armaldo, crouched low to the ground, spreads his limbs suddenly as an orange aura surrounds him. The spreading of the limbs is a quick gesture that turns Armaldo into an 8% damage-dealing hitbox for only a moment. The orange aura then takes about a second to fully surround Armaldo, after which he can move freely. If hit while creating the aura, he won't keep it, and he'll take the damage and knockback as usual. The aura remains for the next ten seconds, and will force Armaldo to respawn without losing a stock if he's knocked over the ledge, though he'll retain his damage.
This is obviously yet another defensive technique for Armaldo, and as such has a drawback, though this one is different from the others. Using this more than once in a stock decreases its chances of being successful at respawning Armaldo if he passes the blast zone. For example, on the second use of this during a particular stock, it has only a 50% chance of saving Armaldo
each time he passes the edges of the screen, and so on and so forth for further uses. Note that the appearance of the orange aura remains the same, so you'll be relying strictly on luck to save you.
Dash Attack > > Fury Cutter
Armaldo stops abruptly, slashing one claw quickly. This is one of his only quick moves, but a very useful one. The slash has roughly the range of Bowser's Neutral Attack slashes, and is performed about as quickly. The trick is, Armaldo can hit the button again during the moderate ending lag of the first slash to perform another directly after it. He can repeat this for up to six slashes. The first deals 1% and flinching knockback, and subsequent slashes increase the damage by 1% each time, still with flinching knockback until the final slash. In other words, if you land all six slashes, and you probably will if you land the first one, you'll deal an impressive total of 21% damage. If Armaldo ends before the sixth slash, he'll suffer moderate ending lag, while ending after the sixth gives okay diagonal knockback, but also a lot more ending lag as Armaldo stops himself from going into a blind rage.
Forward Smash > > Brick Break
Armaldo charges up, then thrusts one of his claws forward in a powerful stab attack. This has about half the range of Marth's Shieldbreaker, with slightly longer startup lag, but the same devastating effect on shields, only to a greater degree. Yes, Brick Break is almost guaranteed to destroy shields it hits. However, as a direct hit, it deals only a pathetic 5 - 10% damage and flinching knockback, and has a lot of ending lag, so opponents wise enough not to shield will find Armaldo highly punishable.
Up Smash > > Predatory Instinct
Armaldo charges looking ready to pouncs, as a faint red sphere extends out from his center. Charging changes the size of the sphere, which is his target area. At smallest, it's only directly over him, but at largest, it can be the size of a Smart Bomb's explosion. When the charge is released, Armaldo will charge at the opponent closest to him within the target area, glowing a deep red and moving at about the speed of Pikachu's dash. He'll pass straight through them to the edge of his target area in that direction, so he's capable of hitting multiple opponents if they're close together or lined up, dealing 15% damage and okay diagonal knockback as he hits. If there is no one in the target area, he'll charge directly upward. Armaldo suffers a lot of ending lag after this move finishes, but it has less startup lag than most of his moves, something just a bit above average.
Down Smash > > X-Scissor
Armaldo holds one claw above its head and the other at its side while charging this move. When the charge is released, it slams them together in a powerful slash that forms an "X" shape. The hitbox for this move is very precise, being only directly in front of Armaldo and not large at all, but this attack deals an impressive 25 - 40% damage and great horizontal knockback. There's a lot of startup lag and ending lag, as well as a fair amount of lag between the release of the charge and the slamming together of the claws, so this is a painfully slow move, but it has the ability to KO the foe at surprisingly low damage due to its sheer power.
Neutral Aerial > > Rapid Spin
Armaldo beats its wings rapidly, spinning horizontally in mid-air while remaining upright. This is a decently quick attack for Armaldo, having moderate startup and ending lag. The actual spin lasts for about a second, and Armaldo falls normally during this time. In addition to dealing multi-hit damage up to 12%, Armaldo reflects projectiles at twice the speed they hit him at as he spins, making this both an offensive and defensive tactic. The final hit of the multi-hit damage deals weak upward knockback.
Forward Aerial > > Air Cutter
Armaldo performs a slow and deliberate slash in front of him. This has range similar to a single hit of Marth's Neutral Aerial, with lots of lag on either end. The slash deals 14% damage and good horizontal knockback, but more important is the effect it has on the pocket of air Armaldo slashes.
The area around the center of the slash for about the size of King Dedede now experiences a strong outward push effect, somewhat like the water from F.L.U.D.D. or Water Gun, which lasts for three seconds. This affects both Armaldo and his opponents, pushing them away from the center of the air pocket with surprising force. This is a powerful gimping technique if used correctly, but in the hands of an uncontrolled player, can be a very suicidal technique. Suffice it to say, this should not be used to ward off opponents making an attempt to gimp Armaldo.
Backward Aerial > > Ironhide
Armaldo arches its back, letting out a cry. As it arches back, the plates on its back shift slightly and protrude out a short distance, dealing 10% damage and pretty good diagonal knockback. This has moderate startup and ending lag, making it another decent-speed attack for Armaldo, but lacks a bit in power. Luckily, it has another trait. The protruding plates protect Armaldo very well from the back, reflecting projectiles as well as cutting in half the damage and knockback from any physical or melee attacks Armaldo takes until the move finishes. After about a second of having his back plates sticking out, Armaldo leans forward as they slide into place again.
Up Aerial > > Shower of Stones
Armaldo pulls a rock from "hammerspace," about the size of Kirby, and proceeds to smash it over his head. The breaking of the rock, like Charizard's Rock Smash, deals great upward knockback accompanied by 20% damage, but this can be difficult to pull off while falling through the air. Fortunately, this attack has another use.
The smashed bits of the rock fall directly downward, covering an area about as wide as Donkey Kong. About 10 pieces fall in total, each over a random trajectory within the bounded area. If they hit the ground or an opponent, they'll disappear, in the latter case dealing 6% damage and flinching knockback as they do. This attack may have a lot of startup and ending lag, but it works wonders for approaching from above, being a high-priority interruption attack that you can use as you drop to your opponent's location.
Down Aerial > > Rock Slide
Armaldo stalls in the air and crosses his claws in front of his face as millions of dust particles surround him, forming a large boulder about the size of Bowser. This takes about a second to do, and Armaldo has superarmor during this time. After forming the boulder, Armaldo will begin to fall quickly, at about Fox's falling speed. Armaldo will not stop falling until he hits the ground, dealing 16% damage and strong downward knockback to anyone he hits along the way. As long as he falls from at least the height of the highest platform on Battlefield, the boulder will smash as it strikes the ground, ending the move as it deals another 16% hit and downward knockback to any opponents within a short distance.
However, if Armaldo uses this move from a lower distance, the massive boulder won't fall far enough to break apart. Armaldo, now stuck inside the boulder, can roll around at the speed of Jigglypuff's run, dealing 8% damage and weak upward knockback to anyone he runs into. He's a high-priority hitbox, and has superarmor while inside the boulder, taking the damage from attacks that hit the boulder. Fortunately for his opponents, the boulder is destructible, and will smash as if it had fallen from a higher height after taking 20 damage. Armaldo suffers moderate ending lag whenever the boulder smashes, whether it be from the fall or from an attack, but suffers none as a low-height boulder hits the ground.
Grab > > Sand Attack
Armaldo kicks sand up to blind the opponent and make them stay in place. This is a surprisingly strong grab, and has a range similar to that of a Fire Flower's flames, but is also a painfully slow and often predictable one.
Pummel > > Swords Dance
Armaldo performs part of a fierce-looking dance, which takes about half a second. This Pummel does no damage, but each use of it pumps the subsequent Throw (assuming the Pummel is successfully followed by a Throw) up, making it deal an extra 2% damage.
Forward Throw > > Shaping Stone
Armaldo kicks up a bit of sand and dust into his claws, and quickly forms a likeness of the character's head from it. He then smashes the stone sculpture in their face, dealing 12% damage and knocking the opponent directly to the ground. This Throw is slow to start up, as Armaldo has to sculpt the figure, and has a lot of ending lag as well, as Armaldo sort of chuckles at his cleverness.
Backward Throw > > Stuck In Steel
Armaldo sheds a steely plate from his back (a new one regrows instantly), picking it up hastily and then slamming it into his opponent. The hot steel quickly conforms to their body shape, encasing them in metal. They'll now have the same effect as a Metal Box item for the next five seconds (an additonal second is added for each use of Swords Dance before this Throw), and due to the body heat from Armaldo still making the metal fairly hot, they'll also take 2% damage per second for those five seconds. This is a slow Throw to begin, but ends quickly, without very noticeable ending lag.
Up Throw > > Knock Off
Armaldo creeps up to his opponent and delivers a mighty uppercut with one claw, sending them directly upward with 8% damage and okay knockback. On a more interesting note, any items the foe was carrying will drop from their grasp as they fly upward. This includes held items, collected items like the Dragoon Pieces, gear items like a Franklin Badge, and even Smash Balls. Yes, this is a technique guaranteed to get the power of the Smash Ball out of your opponent. Unfortunately, without items, it's just a simple uppercut attack, though it executes more quickly than any of Armaldo's other Throws.
Down Throw > > Lethal Grip
This is a very slow Throw, which is important, because it's also extremely powerful. Armaldo lumbers toward his opponent menacingly, then grips them between both claws. During this entire time, the opponent is still free to break the hold of the "grab" without any worry. Once Armaldo gets his claws around them, however, the fearsome part of this Throw begins. If an opponent is slow enough at button mashing, or at high enough damage to not have escaped by now, Armaldo will squeeze his claws tightly around the victim's chest, dealing constant damage at an insane 20% per second! Opponents can still break free of the grab while the damage is accumulating, at which point they'll collapse to the ground as if receiving downward knockback. If Armaldo's total damage from this Throw reaches 50%, he'll automatically toss his opponent to the ground for 5% more damage, though this scenario is extremely unlikely. As stated, this Throw is painfully slow to start, and also suffers a ton of ending lag, no matter when the opponent gets free. Swords Dance doesn't affect this Throw much, just adding to the 5%-dealing slam at the end, if you manage to reach that point.
Ledge Attack (Under 100%) > > Rumble
Armaldo hangs from one claw and smacks the ledge hard with the other, tripping all opponents on the ground within about half of Battlefield's length. As this is happening, Armaldo climbs up surprisingly quickly, being up before a tripped opponent can stand. This starts somewhat slowly, but as mentioned, ends at an incredibly fast speed for Armaldo.
Ledge Attack (100% +) > > Spire
Armaldo lifts one claw and slams it down on the top of the ledge. At the very moment he slams the ground, a rock stalagmite stabs up through the ground about a Battlefield platform away, being about as wide as Ivysaur at the base and as tall as Marth. This shoots up quickly, dealing 12% damage and good upward knockback to those unfortunate enough to touch it, after which it quickly retracts. Armaldo is slow to start this action, and crawls up slowly afterward as well.
Get-Up Attack (From Front) > > Quake
Similar to his first Ledge Attack, Armaldo pounds the ground with all four limbs, causing a powerful earthquake that trips opponents as he stands up. This, though a little slower than the earlier quake, is more powerful, and will affect all opponents standing on the same platform as Armaldo, no matter how far they are from him. Again, he stands up quickly after causing the quake.
Get-Up Attack (From Back) > > Mud Sport
Armaldo rolls around quickly, covering himself in dust and mud, then stands up. This takes about a second to do, and if successfully completed, will cut the damage and knockback Armaldo takes from all attacks to 0.75X their normal damage and knockback for the next three seconds.
Final Smash > > Ancientpower
Armaldo calls forth the arcane powers of the earth, bellowing a fierce cry and stabbing his claws into the ground (in the air, he'll instead raise them skyward). As he does this, at three random locations on the field (always on solid platforms, though, not pass-through ones), the ground will separate, revealing crevices filled with boiling lava. These are about as wide as a Battlefield platform, and will spew fiery good upward over an infinite vertical area for about a second before dying down. They spew almost without warning, dealing multi-hit damage up to 40% and finishing with a strong upward blow of another 10% damage. All three volcanic crevices form and spew simultaenously, and after dying down shortly after, seal up. After this, Armaldo's Final Smash is finished. Though this is a powerful Final Smash, it's easily avoided by being over the ledge for a short time, as the magma pools only spew directly upward, and always appear on solid ground.
Taunts and Victory Poses
Up Taunt > > Battle Cry
Armaldo lets out his cry from the Pokemon games, banging his claws together twice as he does.
Side Taunt > > Shed Stone
Armaldo shakes about rapidly, and a few stony pebbles fall from his frame to the ground.
Down Taunt > > Stomp
Armaldo stomps once with each foot, then opens his mouth and bares his teeth forward, making the same cry he does for his Up Taunt.
Up Victory Pose > > Congratulations
Steven appears alongside Armaldo, looking pleased. Chuckling, Steven pats Armaldo on the back twice. Armaldo, in an effort to return the gesture of congratulations, smacks Steven on the back twice as well. Steven is visibly winded by the first "pat," and is knocked to his knees by the second. Armaldo, oblivious to Steven's plight, holds his head high, beaming. After a while, Steven will look up at Armaldo and force a smile, obviously still in a bit of pain and trying to recover from having the wind knocked out of him.
Side Victory Pose > > Leader of the Pack
Steven stands in the center of the screen, arms folded, smirking and shaking his head slightly as he looks off the left side of the screen, obviously amused by something he finds a bit ridiculous. After a moment, we see Armaldo march in proudly from that side of the screen, followed by three small Anoriths that crawl behind him. Steven watches them pass all the way past the screen, and then the cycle repeats, but from the right side this time.
Down Victory Pose > > Rock Steady
Armaldo appears alone for this Victory Pose, reaching down and breaking a piece of the ground out, then heaving the rock into the sky. He then stands upright, not moving a muscle. After a few seconds, the rock comes crashing down on Armaldo's head, smashing into a million pieces as the Plate Pokemon doesn't even blink.
Loss Pose > > A Sore Loser
Armaldo, enraged by his loss, can be seen in the background attempting to charge toward the winner. Steven stands beside him, struggling to hold Armaldo back by pushing the whole of his body against Armaldo's torso. Despite not being next to the winner, Armaldo will make the occasional slash behind Steven's back with his claws.
Playstyle > > Stand Your Ground Rock/Bug
Armaldo's playstyle has a heavy emphasis on proper defense and striking at unexpected times. Between Harden, Protect, Endure, and even moves like Rapid Spin and Ironhide, Armaldo's capability for taking hits, deflecting blows, and staying alive are many. Properly using all of these techniques makes Armaldo more than your regular "tank" characters like Bowser, able to survive to insane percentages.
Armaldo's moves are almost all powerful and damage-dealing, but beware of those with lower knockback when you're shooting for KOs, which Armaldo can do at lower percentages than the majority of the roster. Attacks like False Swipe and Iron Jaw should be used for damage-racking at setting up other attacks, but shouldn't be relied on for KOs. The majority of Armaldo's moves have at least average knockback, though, making even many of his defensive options powerful enough to KO, such as Ironhide, his Backward Aerial.
One of Armaldo's best abilities is that of edge-guarding. Without even jumping over the ledge to gimp or edge-hog, Armaldo is a threat to those over the ledge. By using Protect or Harden as an enemy approaches the ledge, Armaldo makes himself impervious to those attacks the opponent may use to return to the stage, and can punish those landing on the stage with a powerful blow from his Predatory Instinct or, more preferrably, X-Scissor attack. If an Armaldo player is daring enough to go over the ledge, they can use Air Cutter near the ledge to create a powerful push of air that keeps their opponents from it, though reckless use of this is fatal to Armaldo as well. Use it far enough away that you can recover to the edge safely, though, and you'll almost assuredly secure yourself a KO.
When it comes to standard battle on the main platform, Armaldo struggles, largely due to his incredibly low speed. His fastest and most reliable approaching options are his Predatory Instint and Aerial Ace, both of which can become predictable and easily dodged and punished. Armaldo players will often find themselves trying to grab their opponent and perform a Backward Throw, as encasing their opponent in steel often helps keep them closer to the ground and a bit less mobile, and Armaldo is powerful enough not to feel the added defense on them too heavily.
Keep in mind that among Armaldo's defensive options are a few offensive-defensive combinations, such as Rapid Spin, Metal Claw, and Rock Slide used from a low jump. All of these, when properly used, can be both powerful attacks meant to punish foes, or defensive moves that deflect projectiles, add to Armaldo's already-impressive weight, or encase Armaldo in superarmor as he rolls around the field of battle.
Forcing your opponents to approach is key, and the best way to do that is to block their projectile attacks and get them in close. Opponents with fast, spammable projectiles are Armaldo's biggest weakness, as they can maintain a good distance while racking up damage on this supertank Pokemon. Fortunately, Armaldo has a couple of reflective attacks to hopefully force an approach out of even these characters.
Characters who get in close simply need to have a bit of Armaldo's power unleashed on them. Use Armaldo's faster (not that any are particularly fast) attacks, as well as his higher-priority ones to deal heavy blows. Your goal should be a push over the ledge, especially considering Armaldo's powerful edge-guarding ability. Luckily, a large number of Armaldo's attacks have directly horizontal knockback, so learn those inside and out.
Armaldo becomes slow and predictable on his own, so he's best used as a survival option for Steven, trying to score that last necessary KO while surviving to insane damage percentages. Armaldo is likely to be one of the last Pokemon you employ during a particular stock, due to his defensive strength and heavy-hitting attack power.
PokéDex Entry 376 - Metagross - Type Classification: Steel/Psychic
Metagross has four brains in total. Combined, the four brains can breeze through difficult calculations faster than a supercomputer. This Pokémon can float in the air by tucking in its four legs. When hunting, this Pokémon pins the prey to the ground under its massive body. It then eats the helpless victim using the large mouth on its stomach.
>>>Super Smash Brothers Restriction: All of Metagross's stat altering abilities will stack and can be used an unlimited amount of times unless stated differently. Stat alterations are signified by the opponent flashing blue.
Psychic - Neutral Special – 15% - Metagross raises his upper right arm, and shoots out a slow moving disk, the size of Bowser height-wise, but nearly flat width-wise, directly forward. It travels at about the speed of Bowser’s walk at the slowest pace. The disk moves for one and a half seconds until disappearing. The entire disk is a single hitbox, which kills at 115%. Slightly above average start-up lag, average ending lag. Extremely high priority.
However, much like in the games, this attack has a chance of lowering your opponents ‘defense’. In other words, this move has a 10% chance of causing your opponent to get killed 15% earlier than normal by any attack, which is signified by the opponent flashing blue for two seconds after getting his by this attack. The opponents ‘defense’ is brought back to normal after losing a stock.
Meteor Mash – Side Special – 10% upwards hitbox, 12% falling hitbox, 16&%landing hitbox – Metagross angles his upper left arm towards the sky and shoots it. Yes, Metagross shoots his arm. It goes up straight in front of him, directly upwards, causing knockback equivalent to that of Mario’s Down Tilt to the side.
However, once it goes off into the blast zone, it comes crashing back down, about one stage builder block in front of Metagross. During it’s decent, it causes spiking knockback that would kill at about 70% off stage (to prevent constantly being hit by it at below 70%, you MUST DI the attack). If you’re under it when it lands, you take strong horizontal knockback, killing at 105%.
Above average start-up lag, low ending lag. Transcended priority.
Explosion – Up Special – 25% - Metagross brings all four of his arms together down below his body, and then suddenly, there is a massive explosion (about the size of two Bowser’s). Immediately upon using this attack, Metagross takes a whopping 30% damage. However, it propels Metagross the length of one and a half fully-charged Wario Wafts.
It should also be mentioned that both Metagross and the explosion cause 25% damage, but while the explosion causes knockback that would kill at 80% normally, Metagross causes surprisingly mediocre knockback – only usually killing around 120%.
Very high start-up lag, no ending lag due to you going into helpless after using the attack. Invincibility frames, so no priority is needed.
Iron Defense – Down Special – Metagross takes his two upper arms and jams them together. At first, it looks like nothing is happening, but suddenly, Metagross, let’s out a shout of “Gross!” and then his body suddenly flashes red. Metagross’ defense has been increased! In other words, he now dies 20% later than normal. This move can only be used three times during the entire match – any time after that will result in no effect. All effects of this move are erased after losing a stock.
Extremely high start-up and average ending lag. You are highly susceptible to get hit while using this move.
Roar – Neutral Attack – 5% - Metagross pounds his forward fists down in front of him, and lets out an elongated, loud yell of “GROSS!”. This move lasts as long as Bowser’s Forward Smash and causes unpleasant specs of spit to shoot out about the length of ¾ of a stage builder block in front of him. If the opponent is directly in front of Metagross when the attack is used (as in, literally almost on top of Metagross), the opponent enters the dizzy state, due to the roar being so loud the opponent gets a headache.
Start-up and ending lag equivalent to that of Zelda's neutral attack. Below average priority.
Metal Claw – Forward Tilt – 6%, 6% - Metagross swipes forward twice. First with his upper left hand, second with his upper right hand. Very, very basic move – if you’re hit by the first, you will also be hit by the second. Not much of a killer, but it can potentially start killing around 125%. This move has a 15% chance of decreasing your opponents defense, so that they will die 5% earlier than normal. This effect can only be had twice on the opponent, and the effect is taken away after the opponent loses a stock. Below average start-up and ending lag, average priority.
Flash Cannon – Upward Tilt – 13% - Metagross quickly drops onto his stomach and moves all four of his hands together, up over his head. A bright light suddenly appears, giving 13% damage and mediocre knockback to any opponent who touches it (killing about 160%). This move is quick, and good for stopping aerial approaches, due to its’ surprisingly high priority. This move also has defense lowering capabilities – a 15% chance to have the opponent die 5% earlier than normal. Low start-up and ending lag.
Mud-Slap – Downward Tilt – 8% - Metagross butts his head into the ground, and then jerks it back up, causing mud to fly up directly in front of him. It only reaches about half a stage builder block in front of him, but it does give your opponent flinching knockback, causing them to back off. Decent spacer, due to it having nearly no lag. It should also be noted, that if you get hit by this move, you are 10% more likely to trip for the next thirty seconds. Next to no lag on both ends. Low priority.
Scary Face – Forward Smash – 5% - Metagross swipes both of his upper arms together, directly in front of him (the width of a standing Mario is the farthest this move will reach), attempting to grab the opponent. If he is successful, he will hold the opponent and his eyes will flash a bright yellow color, and then let go of the opponents, having them go into their ground grab release animation.
After this, your opponent travels slower than their normal pace, going 15% less uncharged and 20% fully charged. This is a pretty big blow, but it can only be done twice per stock. This is to make up for Metagross’ poor speed. After a stock is lost, your opponent’s speed reverts back to normal.
However, while the attack is pretty quick to start-up, if you miss, it has terrible ending lag – about three quarters of a second! Metagross falls over on the ground and has to pick himself up, do to losing half of his support. Average priority.
Rock Smash – Upward Smash – 19% strong hitbox uncharged, 26% strong hitbxo fully charged, 7% weak hitbox uncharged, 10% weak hitbox fully charged – Metagross pulls a large rock out of the ground with his upper left leg and hoists it above his head. Giving a slight moment of hesitation, he then proceeds to break it by moving his… claw things… into a fist.
When the Rock is well, smashed, it delivers good knockback assuming your opponent was on or right next to the rock (killing at about 95%). However, this is highly predictable, so don’t count on landing the attack much. Smaller rocks will rain down on both sides of Metagross, though only extending about the length of one half of a stage builder block on either side. These cause flinching knockback.
Lag is equal to that of Charizard’s Rock Smash. High priority.
Thunder Punch – Down Smash – 17% uncharged, 25% fully charged – Metagross brings back his upper right hand, allowing electrical energy to begin to flow through it. Suddenly, her jerks it forward, attempting to hit the opponent with all of his might. The move barely reaches just in front of Metagross, giving it incredibly poor range.
If the opponent is hit, they take good horizontal knockback, getting killed at around 105%. That’s all there is on the face of this move – just a punch. However, if you notice, it’s not just a punch. It’s a mother ****ing thunder punch so you better respect it! Whenever you are hit by this move, you take a 10% chance of having your movement speed drop down to 65% that of your normal speed for five seconds. After five seconds, you return to whatever speed you were at before (this means that effects given by other moves, such as Scary Face, will remain after the attack).
Average lag on both ends. Slightly above average priority. It may seem like a harsh decrease, but the move has terrible range and isn’t exactly outstanding in the lag department, so that rare decrease in speed is payment enough for even landing this attack
Psych Balls – Neutral Aerial - 13% - Giving a grunt, Metagross swings his arms out and summons two purple balls, about the size of Mario, two stage builder blocks away from him on either side. They swirl around him, going into both the foreground and background (meaning that they will hit in the FG/BG) extremely quickly. They should rejoin with Metagross after about half a second of swirling. He is allowed to move while the move is out, but he’s not allowed to use any other moves. The balls deal mediocre knockback, killing at around 150%. Slightly above average start-up lag and no ending lag. Average priority. Another useful functions of this move is that it autocancels. Yay!
Light Screen – Forward Aerial – 8% - Swiping his two forward hands directly in front of him, Metagross summons a light screen. This is a convenient move, as it acts much like Mario’s cape. It will reflect projectiles, and any opponent unfortunate enough to touch the Light Screen or any projectile reflected by the Light Screen (which isn’t likely) will have a 30% change of their attacks causing 20% less damage for the remainder of the stock.
Of course, the move has below average start-up and ending lag, but pathetically low priority. If an opponent attacks through it, the Light Screen will make a satisfying shattering noise as it disappears. However, it should be noted that the light screen will stay up for about a quarter of a second and Metagross will be stuck right behind it (though, if it hits a projectile, it immediately disappears, regardless of how long it’s been out).
Iron Head – Backward Aerial – 16% - Giving a grunt, Metagross turns a steel color and turns around. He then proceeds to dash the length of one stage builder block backwards. After this, he turns back to the direction he was originally facing. Usually, the opponent is given notably strong knockback, which kills at around 100%. The move has lag equivalent of that to Wario’s Forward Smash, on both ends.
However, if you land the move on the opponent while they’re on the ground, they enter the pitfalled animation. Also, to prevent this move from being totally useless (due to massive ending lag), Iron Head autocancels, so you can pretty much follow up with anything. High priority.
Magnet Rise - Upward Aerial - 5% - Metagross swings his forward arms out in front of him, hoping to catch an opponent. If he does, he gives them a tight squeeze, causing electricity to pulse through their body. They then travel quickly upwards, about the distance of three stage builder blocks.
The question here is, why would you want to do that? Helping your opponent recover for 5% is a bit useless, no? Well, that's where you're wrong. You see, the point of this move is that it essentially gives Metagross an untechable stage spike. That's right, you cannot tech this attack, and landing it correctly means you get a free stage spike. Extremely useful for free K.O.'s, though the range is poor, and despite the below average start-up lag, it has surprisingly above average ending lag.
Bite - Downward Aerial - 3% per chew - You know the mouth on Metagross's stomach that the handy dandy PokeDex entry mentioned? This move puts it to use. The mouth opens, making any opponent that touches Metagross gets sucked into it (or any opponent that is unfortunate enough to travel between Metagross's arms).
After activating the move, the mouth will stay open for one second, and unless you pause and rotate the camera under Metagross, there is no visual indication of the move - only that Metagross cannot use any other move during this second. Once the opponent is sucked up, Metagross still has full aerial movement, as the mouth chews on the opponent on its own, damaging 3% per half a second. To escape, you have to button mash, so at lower percents, you'll usually only get about two chews in, but at hight percents you can get four or five.
If Metagross touches the ground while the opponent is being chewed, he'll merely angled his body so that he can spit the opponent about four stage builder blocks away from him, and then return to his normal upright position. Once the opponent escapes in the air, they travel about two stage builder blocks downwards.
The move also has absolutely zero priority. It doesn't hit through anything, so try to capitalize on a laggy attack that your opponent may throw out. Incredibly low start-up and ending lag.
Animation - Metagross swipes his arms in front of him, in an attempt to grab the opponent. However, to avoid being generally bad due to poor range and boring because being boring sucks, Metagross extends his hand 1.5x their usual distance using psychic extensions (AKA purple hand-shaped things). It's still boring, but it looks cool!
Hammer Arm - Pummel - 3% - Metagross slams his upper right arm into the opponents head. It's a bit on the slow side, but for every five Hammer Arms you land (these can be spread across multiple grabs) your opponents speed goes down 5%. However, this can only be done to the opponent three times per stock.
Rain Dance - Forward Throw - 2% damage per second - Metagross tosses the opponent about two stage builder blocks forward and claps his forward hands together, causing a rain cloud to appear just above the opponent. It stays there for an incredibly long five seconds, causing 2% damage per second.
During this time, the opponent is 20% more likely to trip! Take advantage of it! And yes, I know I'm breaking the golden rule of Pokemon movesetting by having Metagross use a move that doesn't fit him very well at all. **** you, Rool.
Hyper Beam - Backward Throw - 18% - This move will be one of Metagross's main methods of scoring K.O.s. He gives the opponent a toss and then brings his two forward arms together. Suddenly, a beam of light shoots out from them going about the distance of half of FD and blasts into the opponent, causing great horizontal knockback, killing at 100%.
Now then, a throw this powerful and long ranged shouldn't be abused. It can be used only once per stock.
Chain Toss - Upward Throw - 8% - Anybody who's ever heard of King Dedede's infamous chain grab should have shivered at the name of this attack. Much like the name suggests, Metagross's up throw is a chain grab. If you'd notice, he doesn't have any other attacks that are particularly well suited for damage racking (the neutral special kind of counts), so this move is here to prevent him from essentially being a giant clump of status effects that can't get opponents to K.O. percentages in a reasonable time.
Metagross literally just tossed the opponent upward haphazardly into the air. The move has exceptionally long hitstun, so waiting for the opponent to come back down is all you have to do. This should last until about 50% on most characters, but give or take 10% for the floaty or fast-falling characters. Once the opponents are out of chain grabbing range, you can still abuse the long hitstun time to try and follow up with an aerial.
Earthquake - Downward Throw - 14% - Metagross pins the enemy to the ground with one of his arms and then bangs onto the ground with two of his other arms. This causes the opponent to slide forward on the ground for mediocre knockback (it barely starts killing around 150%). Aside from being a decent damager, the move also causes the ground to shake, meaning that the opponent runs a 5% risk per every step they take that might cause them to enter the pitfalled animation. The shaking lasts for three seconds.
Metagross suddenly explodes just like in his up special, doing the same damage/knockback as he does in it, but he doesn’t get propelled upwards and takes no damage. After the smoke clears, the main body of Metagross is laying on the ground lifelessly and his four Beldum legs, which contain his four brains, are hovering up alongside his body.
Metagross’ main body and the four Beldums are all invulnerable. You’re given one of the four Beldums to control at random while the others are computer controlled. You can switch which Beldum you control at any given time by pressing B, and your nametag will always be hovering above whichever Beldum you're in control in, to clear up confusion.
Essentially, you have five seconds to swarm about the enemy. Each time you hit them cause 5% damage and flinching knockback, though they are invunerable for a short while after getting hit (to prevent you from just sitting on top of them and dealing 300% in the short five seconds). At most, you can probably get in a good 50% to 60% with this attack, which greatly aids Metagross's lack of decent damaging attacks.
You travel quickly, about the speed of Sonic during his dash, and can move in all directions.
Metagross is a very unique character in the sense that he's good, but also very bad at the same time. He has good kill moves, a chain grab, a projectile, and even a move that can hit dodging opponents! However, his recovery does damage to himself, he's slow, he's heavy, and has generally poor range.
Ideally, you should start the match out by spacing with your neutral air, which very luckily, autocancels. Use this to keep your distance, and try to use it to approach your opponent. If your opponent is approaching you, using Psychic may help mess with their approach a bit, so try to mix that in along with your neutral airs.
Once you get a comfortable feel for the match, you can do either one of two things. You can try for the grab to begin damaging with the up throw, or you can try to stack your status effects, to force your opponent's character be less effective overall.
Once your opponent starts approaching kill percentages, attempting to land a thunder punch or a rock smash would be good. Your back air helps quite a bit here too. However, your back throw will usually be your best option, but don't abuse it! Opponents with good D.I. can also probably escape getting killed by it as early as usual, so be weary for that!
After you get the kill, ALWAYS go for the Iron Defense! This can be a life saver when you're in kill percentages at the end of the stock and your opponent isn't. However, it should be noted that since this is a weight increase, it also increased how easily you'll get combo'd, so be careful if you land an early kill and use this move!
Essentially, this is how Metagross works. Start off with neutral air/psychic spam, then move onto damaging/stat changing, go for the kill, and then use Iron Defense. It should be noted that Metagross is dependent on stat changes (particularly in the speed department) to help him K.O. opponents, so be sure to try and land those status-effecting moves often!
Final Smash – Split Up
Metagross suddenly explodes just like in his up special, doing the same damage/knockback as he does in it, but he doesn’t get propelled upwards and takes no damage. After the smoke clears, the main body of Metagross is laying on the ground lifelessly and his four Beldum legs, which contain his four brains, are hovering up alongside his body.
Metagross’ main body and the four Beldums are all invulnerable. You’re given one of the four Beldums to control at random while the others are computer controlled. Beldum has average movement and jumping powers. You can press A to dash forward and perform Beldum’s single attack (Whether on the ground or in the air), Take Down, which performs identically to Wolf’s fsmash, but each time you successfully hit with it Metagross takes 3%, so this final smash isn’t exactly ideal if you’re already bordering on a percent where you could get killed.
You can press B to switch your control to the next Beldum in sequence with no lag. Your name tag will constantly hover over the Beldum you’re controlling, so it’s difficult to lose track. If one of the Beldums falls off the stage (Most likely due to one of your cpu allies doing something stupid), they’ll respawn, so feel free to pursue your enemies off-stage.
After 15 seconds of playing with the four Beldums, they all hastily hover back to Metagross’ main body and reattach themselves to him, causing Metagross to get up and let out a mighty roar as his power is restored.
Situationals
Rising Attack (Either Side): Vaccum Cyclone
Metagross tucks in his limbs and levitates just off the ground as he rapdily spins in place like a top. He spins around for a full second, dealing one hit of 1% for every tenth of a second. Enemeies within one the distance of DK from Metagross will be pulled towards him in a suction effect strong enough that it is impossible to DI out of it once you are caught in the hits.
Ledge Attack: Split Personality
The back half of Metagross that is not holding onto the ledge suddenly splits off, and Metagross is now two Metangs! The free-floating Metang will rise over the edge and dart fowards at a decent speed. It is incinvable and deals 12% with average knockback to anything it hits. After traveling across half of the platform it's over, it will stop moving as the other half lets go of the edge and does the same attack. Once it reaches the initially attacking half, the Metangs fuse together back into Metagross.
Tripped Attack: Psy Charge
Metagross concentrates as a green aura forms around him over 1 second and then he gets back up. He keeps this aura until his next attack or he loses a stock. His next attack will have infinite priority, even causing disjointed attacks to be brushed aside like nothing.
Taunts
Up Taunt
Metagross turns toward the screen and stomps each leg one time (front left, front right, back left, back right) one at a time saying "Meta Metagross!"
Side Taunt
Metagross splits into two Metangs and they start fighting briefly for no apparent reason before rejoining.
Down Taunt
Metagross falls on its backside and starts flailing its legs around in the air. It manages to pull itself up after a second.
Victory Poses
Up Pose
Metagross appears exhausted from the battle and Steven humorously uses him as as a table as he drinks a cup of SANTA... nah I'm kidding. It's tea.
Side Pose
Metagross is called back into Steven's Pokeball. Steven starts air guitaring randomly.
Down Pose
Metagross splits into two Metangs, both of which start breakdancing as Steven looks in awe.
Aggron is known as the “Iron Armor” Pokemon. It gets its food by digging tunnels through bedrock with its horns made of steel. It is the third and final form of Aron and Lairon. Gameplay-wise, Aggron has a dual typing of Steel and Rock. This causes him to take quadruple damage from fighting and ground type moves, which are so prevalent in competitive play that Aggron is seldom used. A pity, as Aggron as an amazing defense stat combined with a great attack stat and nice move selection to back it up.
STATS
Movement Speed: 2/10
Traction: 8/10 (While he doesn’t have to decelerate much, his tail causes him to fumble around slightly. It still won’t be enough to really be noticeable)
Attack Speed: 3/10 (Pretty much every move has lag on one or both ends of the attack)
Attack Strength: 8/10 (Overall, a power/speed ratio comparable to Ike, though Aggron breaks the mold more often)
Range: 8/10 (Nice reach with his tail and arms, and he has a few attacks that move him around while performing them. While he does have some energy or elemental attacks, these tend to be ranged disjointed hitboxes rather than true projectiles. Take that as you will)
Priority: 7/10 (Mostly good, Aggron doesn’t have to worry too much about clashing with enemy attacks.)
Weight: A little lighter than Bowser. Aggron will stay on the stage for a while.
Jump Strength: 6/10 (His first jump is surprisingly above average)
Second Jump Strength: 5/10
Aerial Mobility: 6/10 (When you have to retreat, it is much better to do it by air than by the ground with Aggron)
Fall Speed: 8/10 (He’s gonna sink like the rock and steel and he’s made of)
Size: Similar in height to Charizard but wider. Aggron’s tail does in fact have a hurtbox.
Sturdy: This is an ability in Pokemon that makes OHKO moves not affect Aggron. He carries a version of this trait over to Brawl. In Brawl, any attacks that deal more than 15% in a single hit will deal .75x knockback against Aggron. This includes charged smashes, making it even harder to send the iron Pokemon off the stage. Of course, most moves that can deal this much damage won’t be seen very often in competitive play, so Aggron won’t be shooting up the tier list with this ability any time soon.
MOVE SET
STANDARD ATTACKS
Standard A: Bucking Bronco
Aggron lowers his head to the ground and then he swings it up like a bull bucking something with its horns, hence the name of the attack. This has below average startup lag and deals 7% with set average vertical knockback, and has below average priority.
Upon the second press of A, Aggron jumps upwards with its horns outstretched. He jumps high enough to hit his side horns against a victim of the first part of the attack, which is essentially the distance of Aggron’s short hop. This is a grab-hitbox that catches opponents on his horns as he falls down with them, dealing 5% as he does so.
When he catches someone on his horns, the victim stays stuck on his horns for half as long as they would remain in a grab. Aggron can move around like normal with the enemy in his horns, but in order to deal anymore damage he will have to press A again to swing them off with his head, dealing 5% and average knockback. This command will replace aerial attacks if Aggron jumps with the enemy on his horns. Aggron cannot perform this part of the move if he does not catch someone on his horns with the second part of the attack.
Forward Tilt: Anger Slash
Aggron does a simple swipe with a claw that has below average startup and end lag, good priority, and deals 2%...lol wut?
Well, you see, every 10% in damage Aggron takes, this move deals 2 more damage the next time he uses this attack. The power-up stops after taking 100% damage, at which point the attack would deal a whopping 22%, though the knockback is always average. Once Aggron performs the move, whether he connects or not, the damage is reset and it has to build up again. Graphics-wise, Aggron will have a more reddish “angry” tint as he performs stronger variations of the attack accompanied with some growling.
Down Tilt: Hot Steam
Aggron harshly blows a plume of steam from his mouth that covers an area the size of a crouching Dedede. The steam is in fact a mildly strong gust of wind that pushes enemies, and Aggron himself is even pushed backwards as far as 1/6 of battlefield. He will go off the edge if possible. There is average startup and end lag to the breath.
Up Tilt: Iron Tail
Aggron looks behind himself as he whips his tail upwards. This has virtually no startup lag, and covers a great area behind Aggron due to the length of his tail. His tail is the only hitbox of the move, and it has decent priority while dealing 12% with average vertical knockback. The tail ends up at an 80 degree upwards angle when this part of the move ends.
After Aggron lifts his tail, his tail will start to shine before Aggron harshly swings it back down. There is average startup lag between the two tail swings. This time the tail has good priority, and it deals 15% with high downwards knockback. The force of the knockback is so great that it implants enemies into the ground with a pitfall effect, even if they are in the air when they are struck by the move, they will be pitfalled when they hit the ground. There is average end lag after this part of the move is over.
Dash Attack: Iron Head
Aggron gets on all fours and quickly skid along the ground as far as ¼ of battlefield while sticking his head straight ahead. All of his horns will be shining brightly as he does this. If he hits someone with the middle horn, they will take 12% and above average knockback, and it has decent priority. The side horns have their own hitbox that deal 10% and average knockback, but have good priority. Low startup lag with average end lag.
Due to the way Aggron is positioned while he performs this attack, other characters can actually ride on top of him. If Aggron doesn’t like these hitchhikers, he can press A to immediately cancel out of his slide as he fiercely swings up his body back into an upright position. Enemies hit by his backside will take 14% and above average knockback, and he has super-armor in his back while he does this. Of course, he is still vulnerable in the front and on his tail, and this variation of the move has above average end lag as Aggron readjusts his balance after such a fierce attack.
SMASH ATTACKS
Forward Smash: Focus Punch
Aggron pulls back its arm and delivers a powerful fiery hook! Now, this move has low startup lag, but in order to actually unleash the attack, you have to charge up all the way. If you don’t, Aggron simply lowers his arm for below average end lag. When you do charge up all the way, Aggron delivers his mighty punch as stated, and it has above average priority. But the best part is the damage; 30% with Falcon Punch knockback. Yikes! However, besides having to charge up all the way to use it, the actual hook has above average end lag as Aggron recovers from the momentum of his punch. Still, this is a nice move for fake-outs when you consider its ability to be a smash attack that can cancel charging.
Down Smash: Metal Burst
Aggron gets down on all fours and roars fiercely. This has low startup lag, and above average end lag, and the roar does…absolutely nothing on first glance.
This is where charging the move comes into play. Aggron can charge this move for up to 3x as long as a normal smash attack, and he has super armor while he charges. When the charge is released, if Aggron has taken damage while he was charging, a silver-colored shockwave of energy will radiate outwards from his body as he roars, taking up an area the size of Bowser before fizzling out. This shockwave is disjointed, and deals 1.5x the total damage he took while charging, but will always deal overall average knockback. Due to the length of time you can stall before releasing the attack, this move is great for countering slower attacks from your opponent, and you could always delay releasing the charge for a few moments if your opponent attempts to power-shield the attack.
Up Smash: Hyper Beam
Aggron looks straight up as white lightning pulsate between all of his horns and energy gathers inside his mouth. After .7 seconds (that’s nearly as much startup lag as a Falcon Punch), Aggron opens his jaws wide as he fires a huge energy beam straight upwards. It is as thick as the beam in Lucario’s Aura Storm, and goes infinitely high, even passing through solid ground. The beam is disjointed and lasts for 2 seconds. It deals 2% for every tenth of a second an enemy is caught in the beam (for a total of 40% if all the hits connect), is impossible to DI out of, and ends with high knockback. There is average end lag as the beam fizzles out and Aggron returns to his basic stance.
Despite being a smash attack, you cannot charge when you input for the beam. However, after firing the beam, Aggron will have a new idle animation where he appears tired. This does not affect anything other than this move, but it gives you an idea as to what you now have to with this move. When you input for this move again, Aggron will start to concentrate as he begins to flash like a normally charging smash attack, with virtually no startup lag to initiate this. If you don’t charge up all the way, Aggron will simply exhale with no other effects but below average end lag. However, if you do charge up all the way, Aggron growls as white lightning pulsates over his entire body for a moment, signifying that he has “recharged”. This animation counts as average end lag, but if he hit out of the animation he is still recharged. Once Aggron is recharged, his idle animation will return to normal and the input for this move will go back to actually firing the hyper beam.
AERIAL ATTACKS
Neutral Aerial: Horn Drill
Aggron rotates his body so that his head is pointing straight down and he starts to spin around like he was doing an upside down Mach Tornado for .6 seconds. During this time his tail is outstretched, making him a VERY tall vertical hitbox. His entire body has average priority and deals up to 6 hits of 2% with the final one dealing above average knockback. There is low startup lag , and below average end lag if it ends in the air.
What happens if Aggron hits the ground while doing it? If he hits a drop-through platform with his horn, Aggron will stop his aerial movement as he drops straight down and actually drills a hole straight through it as wide as he is (or just chip off the side if that’s where he hit the platform), and then instantly end the move for the same end lag. The hole lasts for 5 seconds, and then the platform instantly repairs itself in a cloud of dust. If Aggron hits s solid platform, he will get his horn stuck in the ground and the move will have above average end lag as he pulls it out.
Forward Aerial: Avalanche
Aggron leans back slightly as he opens his jaws and icy energy begins to form inside. He then lurches his head forwards and looks slightly downwards as he spews a stream of icy breath from his mouth at a 40 degrees downwards angle. The stream of ice goes as far as a 65% charged Bowser fire-breath and is disjointed. Aggron fires the ice for 1 second, dealing 1% for every tenth of a second someone is caught in the ice (total of 10%), and it is moderately difficult to DI out of. There is above average startup lag to the move, but low end lag. If Aggron hits the ground before the move finishes, he will abruptly stop firing, making this move difficult to punish even if Aggron does not get to unleash the full attack.
If this is the next move Aggron uses after taking damage, the ice stream will be in a deeper shade of blue, and it will deal 2% each hit (for a total of 20% if all the hits connect). There is no time limit between taking damage and using this move for the bonus to take effect, but if Aggron uses a different move first, the effect will not take place, and Aggron will have to take damage again for another chance to use this special effect. You also cannot take advantage of this effect if you took damage through super-armor such as with Iron Head or Metal Burst. Shielding and dodging will not count against you.
Back Aerial: Stone Edge
Aggron will perform an x-slash with his arms that has infinite non-disjointed priority, below average startup and end lag, and deals 12% with average knockback…
Now, if any of Aggron’s moves are ever outprioritized, you will see a little blue glint in Aggron’s eyes. The glint remains until Aggron performs this move. The slash he performs will have bits of gravel falling off his claws as a graphical effect, and the slash will deal 15% with the same knockback.
If 2 moves of Aggron were outprioritized, he will have a red glint in his eyes. When he performs this move now, after doing the slash, Aggron will immediately lash out his tail as more gravel falls of it. This has nice horizontal range as you’d expect, and it deals 13% with good horizontal knockback and has good priority. However, if he connected with the first hit, they will not be hit by the second. There is below average end lag after the tail whip.
Up Aerial: Earthquake
Aggron stomps downwards with both of his feet. This has average startup and end lag, good priority, and the stomp will deal 14% and above average downwards knockback. ZOMG a UAir that spikes!
If you hit the ground right as Aggron performs the stomp, he will not just auto-cancel the move. The force of the stomp will actually propel Aggron back into the air as high as his first jump, and his midair jump will be reset, allowing Aggron to prolong his aerial game. The strength of the stomp will create an earthquake that shakes the screen slightly and affects the entire platform Aggron landed on. Anybody on that platform when the earthquake occurs will take set average vertical knockback, and the move deals great damage to shields. You can still roll or spotdodge the earthquake for some reason.
Down Aerial: Thunder Wave
Aggron will perform a half-flip through the air as he points straight downwards and his tail is wrapped around his body. Electricity begins to pulsate between Aggron’s horns as he plummets straight down until he hits the ground. Anybody who hits his horns while he falls will take 11% and average knockback, and his horns have good priority.
When Aggron hits the ground, his horns stick into the ground and discharge their electrical current. This creates a small wave of electrical energy to hit quickly radiate as far as ¼ of battlefield on both sides of Aggron, and it is as tall as a white Pikmin. The thunder wave will stop at the edge of platforms, is disjointed, and deals 7% with average knockback. However, the main threat of the electricity is that it creates a shocked effect in enemies hurt by it. Enemies who are shocked have small lightning bolts coursing over their body, and take 1.2x hitstun. This lasts for the rest of their current stock. While Aggron is too slow to really take advantage of this, more offensive teammates can use this for some combo-****. There is low startup lag to the move, but above average end lag as Aggron pulls his horns out from the ground.
SPECIAL MOVES
Neutral Special: Thunder
This is a move that Steven’s Aggron actually knows, via TM. When you input for this move, Aggron begins concentrating as electrical energy gathers in his middle horn before an electrical bolt fire out of it straight ahead. It goes as far as Ganondorf’s legs before separating from the horn and continuing onwards until it hits something, and it moves as fast as Wolf’s blaster shots. When it passes by an opponent on a different vertical level than itself, the bolt will actually bend in a 90 degree angle to aim at the enemy and the bolt will now follow this adjusted path, making it look like an L shape while it follows this new course. The bolt can only bend once. The bolt has above average priority and deals 8% with average knockback. Below average startup and end lag.
If you hold B when you input for this move, Aggron will begin to gather energy in his side horns as well. If you charge in this way for .6 seconds (starting after the initial startup lag), the energy will be fully formed in his side horns, and when you release, Aggron fires a second bolt of lightning straight upwards simultaneously with the regular horizontal bolt. This one has the same properties as the horizontal bolt except its moving vertically and it will bend when it passes by someone on a different horizontal level, essentially making it the inverse of the first bolt. What’s nice about the charging is that you can pre-emptively release the charge for just the first bolt if you wish, and you can also hold the charge as long as you’d like after it finished before releasing B and firing. These two nuances give this move some nice fake-out capabilities on top of its stage controlling function, making this move an integral part of Aggron’s game.
Side Special: Smelling Salt
Aggron leans forwards and does a fierce exhale/snort from his nose, which causes a small puff of white steam to shoot from his nostrils. This steam puff covers an area the size of Meta Knight before disappearing, and is disjointed. Enemies hit by the steam take 8% and average knockback. However, if they are under the shock effect caused by Thunder Wave, the attack deals double damage, though with the same overall knockback, and it will actually remove the shock effect from the enemy. Low startup lag with average end lag.
If this move is performed in the air, it works a bit differently. Rather than exhale from his nose, Aggron will open his mouth and exhale a larger cloud of vapor that ends up taking up an area the size of Bowser before disappearing. This one deals up to 8 hits of 1% each, with the final one dealing below average knockback. Each hit will deal double damage if the enemy is under a shock effect, and the final hit will deal double knockback as well, and once again the enemy will be cured of the shock. There is the same startup and end lag, but now the move lasts longer due to the size the cloud expands to before the move ends.
Up Special: Rock Slide
This move can only be performed in the air. Aggron’s aerial momentum stops as he looks upwards and roars. As he does this, a bunch of rocks fly upwards from the ground underneath him (or from the pit if he is over one) and come together to form a solid platform as wide as Bowser right underneath Aggron’s feet. This takes 1 second, and if Aggron is hit out of the animation the platform still comes together. The platform lasts for 5 seconds, during which time nothing happens with this move input. After the 5 seconds are up, the platform crumbles apart into dust. This is a great recovery since it pretty much returns all of Aggron’s jumps, but it is possible for the enemy to meet you on the platform and knock you off of it, where you would be closer to the blast zone.
Down Special: Stomp / Body Slam
Aggron lifts up one foot before harshly stomping the ground. There is below average startup lag and low end lag to the stomp. You can charge up the stomp by holding B, and Aggron’s foot will glow slightly before stomping to show that he is charging. It takes 1 second to fully charge a stomp and like a smash attack the charge auto-releases upon finishing. The stomp itself barley reaches ahead of Aggron, but it has high priority and deals 16-27% depending on how long you charge, with good knockback even without any charging. When Aggron stomps the ground, he also kicks up dust particles. The cloud of dust particles goes from Mario’s height to twice Bowser’s height vertically depending how long you charge, though it only reaches as far as Olimar’s height sideways no matter how much you charge. The dust particles are disjointed and deal 10% with average knockback.
If you use this move in the air, Aggron will perform a different move, Body Slam! He will stop his aerial momentum for a moment (which equates to average startup lag) spread his limbs and fall belly-first straight down at his regular fall speed (which is already really high to begin with). His entire body is a hit box of high priority that deals 16% and high downwards knockback. There is average end lag when Aggron hits the ground as he gets back up to his feet. Aggron can sweetspot ledges as he’s performing this move.
And now we connect the two! If you press B right as Aggron’s about to hit the ground, he will suddenly stop in midair as he curls into a ball and rolls around in place for a moment, and when he is aligned properly he will stomp onto the ground, striking a pose similar to Ganondorf when he hits the ground from an aerial Wizzerd’s Foot. This is the equivalent of a half-charged Stomp, including the low end lag. Of course, the time it takes for Aggron to roll into position means that the move actually a little longer to finish than just regularly landing from the Body Slam, but the stomp’s own unique properties makes this a viable secondary option and yet another fake-out opportunity for the iron dinosaur.
GRAB AND THROWS
Grab Animation
Aggron reaches fowards with both hand in an animation similar to Bowser's grab. It has mediocre range but decent speed.
Pummel: Curse
Aggron starts charging up as he holds the foe in his grasp, looking up to the sky and letting out a slight roar, pulsing with energy. This does no damage to the foe, but causes the next throw he does will gain 25% more knockback and 3% damage for every second Aggron charges like this. However; after the throw, Aggron’s attack lag will be increased by 30% for 15 seconds.
Aggron won’t get to use the attack bonus at all if the foe breaks out before he throws them, so don’t get too greedy unless the foe is at a high percentage and you’re beefing a throw up for a KO. This is best used for getting powerful enough to KO the foe and then switching to a damage racker, removing the after effect of curse.
Forward Throw: Double Edge
Aggron pushes the foe forwards and quickly headbutts them with all his might in an animation like Bowser’s fsmash. This does a nice 17% and above average knockback, but also deals 15% back to Aggron. This is best used if your percentage is already too high to really care about having additional damage.
Back Throw: Outrage
Aggron roars angrily and stamps his foot in an angry fashion, then swings the foe around behind him and claws them away for 5% and low knockback. A rather pathetic throw and it’s pretty slow to boot…
After doing this throw, Aggron’s idle animation becomes the same as the one when he performs this throw. If he grabs the foe again, he’ll automatically be forced to use this throw again, not even having time for a pummel. The second use has 10% and average knockback, but the third and final use is the big payoff, doing 17% and high knockback. After the third outrage, though, Aggron will become confused the next time he grabs the foe, them having a full 3 seconds to escape the grab before Aggron can do anything. After the fourth grab, Aggron is no longer outraged.
Up Throw: Dynamic Punch
Aggron lets go of the foe with one hand then prepares for a big wind up punch, his fist becoming engulfed in flame slightly, then smacks the foe upwards. This does 12% and above average upward knockback. In addition to the high damage, the foe will have their horizontal movement controls reversed until they hit the ground
Down Throw: Rock Polish
Aggron roars, summoning a rock formation in front of him. He throws the foe onto the rock formation for 4%, then slams onto the foe for an additional 7% and above average vertical knockback.
The rock formation sticks around for 10 seconds after being formed, acting as a wall against projectiles and being invulnerable. If you use your neutral A, Bucking Bronco, against the rock three times, Aggron’s head will sparkle slightly as he “polishes” it against the rock formation. This does nothing. . .Unless you’re under a curse, which will bring you back up to full speed hastily. This allows cursing to be used for potential damage racking in combination with this throw.
If you use your dash attack, Iron Head, against the rock, Aggron’s head will shine slightly as a metal sound effect is heard. This trades Aggron’s Sturdy ability for the Rock Head ability. Having Rock Head removes the large recoil damage of Aggron’s otherwise excellent fthrow, Double Edge, allowing you to use it much more freely.
SITUATIONALS
Lying Down Attack (Either Side): Glimmering Sheen
Aggron’s body suddenly shines brightly for .5 seconds before pulling himself to his feet over .8 seconds. If anybody touches him during this time, they will be dizzied for 1.4 seconds, long enough for Aggron to hit them with a quick attack if he dizzied them right as the move ends. Aggron has super armor during the entire move animation
Ledge Attack Under 100%: Horn Toss
Aggron pulls his head above the edge and then he lurches his head forwards a short distance. If he hits someone with his horn (this counts as a grab), he will swing his head backwards and toss them backwards over the edge for 12% and average knockback. Aggron does not pull himself up to solid ground after performing the move, making this a pretty nifty edgeguarding technique. The primary weakness of the move is that it only really reaches horizontally, so an enemy could simply jump off the stage and hit Aggron from above or behind.
Ledge Attack at 100%: Ground Shake
Aggron harshly slams his tail against the platform. This causes the entire platform to shake for a brief moment, tripping anybody who happens to be on it during that time. Aggron then scrambles to pull himself over the edge. This move happens relatively quickly with little startup lag and below average end lag, but it deals no damage and can be avoided by simply staying off the platform Aggron is holding onto.
Tripped Attack: Tail Slam
Aggron will simply smash his tail behind himself, dealing 14% and average knockback to anybody in his way. Not-so-simply, any characters who try to dodge it through rolling will find themselves pitfalled instead of taking damage.
FINAL SMASH - FISSURE
Upon activating the smash ball, Aggron leaps straight upwards as high as Falco’s first jump, and then he crashes back down onto the stage at a high velocity. If he was over a pit, you just lost a stock, yay! If you were actually over a platform, you’re in for a treat. The platform Aggron lands on will get fiery cracks running along through it, and after 3 seconds (Aggron can move once he hits the platform)…it shatters apart into dust. No matter how big the platform is, it will be removed from play, even if it was a solid platform. This does in fact mean that using this move on Final Destination results in an empty void. The destroyed platform will reform after 10 seconds.
PLAYSTYLE
To a casual player, Aggron would appear to play like a Bowser clone. They have similar body structures, they both tend to have a lot of power. The both have surprisingly good aerial mobility for their size, and both want to play defensively. But see, here’s where the differences start to creep in.
First, unlike Bowser who has average attack speed, Aggron could actually legitimately be called slow. Many of his moves have punishable startup or end lag. And Aggron also has a problem with moving on the ground. Not fun. So if Bowser is garbage tier, then Aggron must be “you’re a scrub for hovering your cursor over him” tier, right?
Not quite. Aggron has one huge advantage over Bowser that helps with his defensive playstyle; he can camp. Thunder is an amazing camping move. Just let loose with a bolt, and even if your opponent jumps over it, they can still be damaged as the bolt turns! Or they could shield it and come closer to being dizzied (and you do NOT want to be dizzied with Aggron on the field). Or they roll away so you can camp some more. Or they roll towards you so that you attack them as the roll ends. Seriously, forget Pit, Aggron is the spam king.
As said, Aggron has no shortage of powerful moves. He has a highly damaging jab combo, and moves like Earthquake and Stomp serve to severely punish enemies for mistakes. Iron Tail and Iron Head are more strong options, and Hyper Beam can completely demolish somebody who botches a recovery. Focus Punch is amazing for punishing a broken shield, and you could occasionally throw it out normally since you can cancel out of the move.
Another major part of Aggron is that he turns his good survivability into a real threat to characters who can’t finish him off quickly. Anger Slash, Metal Burst, Stone Edge, and Avalanche all wield stronger benefits as Aggron takes damage. You’ll probably want to take advantage of Avalanche whenever you take a hit and need to retreat, whereas with Anger Slash you should wait till you and your enemy are both in high percents from your battle then finish them off with a full-powered attack. Stone Edge won’t see a lot of action due to Aggron being a bit of a challenge to outprioritized, but it’s still there.
Aggron’s grab game is weird enough to warrant its own section. Curse is a high-risk/high-reward move that will be your undoing if you cannot KO the enemy with the throw tied to it. If you are good at landing Aggron’s grab, you should stick to Outrage so that you can build up to the powerful third throw. In matches where Aggron’s Sturdy ability won’t be of use, use Rock Polish and get the Rock Head ability asap so you can spam Double Edge.
Overall, Aggron is a character who takes the “tank” archetype to new levels. He wants to barrage his enemy with distanced attacks via thunder, and laugh as his enemy tries to move him even the slightest inch, only for that damage to come around and make Aggron even more powerful. His slowness will prevent him from truly dominating, but the amount of raw options Aggron has for wreaking havoc means that he can land hits when they matter.
EXTRAS
Up Taunt: Aggron stomps the ground angrily. Run for your life!
Side Taunt: Aggron punches his fists together like Ganondorf, but he only does it once. As his fists hit each other, a small shockwave emits from the ground from the raw power. This does not affect gameplay, it just makes your enemy piss himself.
Down Taunt: Aggron lets out a mighty roar. The entire screen shakes slightly from this awesome display of might, but it probably won’t affect a good player.
Win Animation 1: All of the losers are seen running past the screen as Aggron chases them with his head lowered like an angry bull. If one player lost significantly (i.e being 3-stocked in a 2-player game), Aggron will catch them on his horns and fling them over his shoulders before stopping in place and snorting as steam comes out of his nose.
Win Animation 2: Aggron is seen stomping the ground in triumph as the losers clap like normal…Suddenly, Aggron jumps up and stomps the ground with both feet, causing a small earthquake that knocks over all of the losers.
Win Animation 3: Aggron is seen standing with Steven, who pats Aggron on the side and says “Ah, splendid work, Aggron!"
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And with this, the largest joint set in MYM history is finished.
I’d personally like to thank Chris Lionheart, MasterWarlord, SirKibble, Hyper_Ridley and SkylerOcon for their work on their respective parts.
I’d also like to thank you, the reader for reading this whole thing, I really hope you guys enjoyed it.
This is basically to represent MYM as a whole; all of us working together to create awesome stuff.
Enjoy!
~MT
I like the Up B too. And thanks about the mechanic.
(Link)
