SOLAR MAN
INFO
Solar Man comes from the pretty recent game, Mega Man 10. I'm sure you all have heard of it in the chat and whatnot. He worked at a sunlight research lab before succumbing to the Roboenza virus, making him run rampant. Anyhow, Solar Man is considered a fairly difficult, if you're trying to beat him with your basic pea-shooter. However, water defeats him quite quickly unfortunately. Solar Man attacks by shooting his Solar Blaze projectile, a limited-range strike that can hit from behind enemies.
In the game, shooting the miniature sun on his head will make it grow larger, making him more powerful as a result. His attacks get more range, too, and so Solar Man is all-around more menacing. However, hitting him with the Water Shield makes his sun shrink, thus effectively weakening him. This, of course, translates pretty well to an in-Smash mechanic. By the way, Solar Man's artificial sun deals multi-hit contact damage identical to Lucario's Aura Sphere.
Solar Man absolutely needs to make sure his sun is kept up at full charge, otherwise his attacks get weaker. When his attacks get weaker, Solar Man wants to recharge, otherwise he gets hit more, and KOed. If he isn't KOed, he'll have a hard time recovering. Thankfully it's pretty easy to maintain and build a charge, and attacks that deal a special kind of damage (fire, electric, dark, aura) will power up the sun (but still hit Solar Man). Sunny stages actually make him charge up a bit faster. Even then, you really don't want the sun to go out. When that happens, Solar Man is unable to attack. He absolutely must use the recharge move in order to get back in the game. With that being said, let's get into the moveset.
STAT
SIZE ☼ 6/10
Solar Man is bigger than Mario, but he's honestly not that tall.
WEIGHT ☼ 8/10
Solar Man is a robot. He is made of metal. Metal is heavy.
POWER ☼ 6/10
Solar Man at "overcharge" power (that is, to say, externally boosted) has more kill moves than average, but he is better at damaging than KOing.
GROUND SPEED ☼ 3/10
This robot is not very fast. It needs to spend more of its energy doing important things.
AIR SPEED ☼ 6/10
Inexplicably, Solar Man can cover a lot of ground with his jump.
FALLING SPEED ☼ 9/10
He's a robot! This mainly just reduces the appeal of his aerials.
ATTACK SPEED ☼ 8/10
Solar Man has some fast, useful moves, sure, but he does carry a few slow powerful ones.
RANGE ☼ 10/10
Ah, good, a stat that is quite complimentary. Yeah, Solar Man can hit just about anywhere on the stage. Only in a place like Hyrule Temple can someone hide from Solar Man.
PRIORITY ☼ 10/10
Range and priority tend to go hand-in-hand, and this is no exception.
JUMPS ☼ 3/10
Nothing spectacular, though certainly not terrible.
RECOVERY ☼ 7/10
At overcharge, Solar Man has a beautiful recovery, but he won't be at even full charge most of the time, especially when recovering.
SPECIAL
DOWN SPECIAL ☼ CHARGE
Alright, so with Drifblim, his down special was kind of important, sure, but his Side Special could technically be used for the same purpose. Here, though, Solar Man has no other options to recharge his artificial sun. What this move does is somewhat slowly make his mini-sun grow via holding down B. It automatically stops once you let go, so it's quite a bit easier to use than other charge moves.
As a rule, from minimum charge, it takes a lengthy 5 seconds to reach full charge, so about Ike's Eruption is what we're looking at here. Now, if you're using this move with no charge whatsoever (oh no!), it takes a good deal of time for the solar reactor to boot up, so while you can move around during the startup and the charge, it takes 1.5 seconds for the sun to even appear as a strained mechanical sound is heard. Charge affects every move in range and damage, so you'll see that all of the attacks listed will have varied stats in both. On the plus side, at minimum charge, you can still use up any attack, or if it's one that lasts a longer time, it'll work until energy runs out for good.
NEUTRAL SPECIAL ☼ SOLAR BLAZE
This is Solar Man's basic projectile. Basically, he just shoots out a round fiery burst that pauses and then splits in two after a certain distance. The two more wave-like halves always travel more distance than the initial shot, giving this great horizontal range. If it doesn't split, though, the main blast will only be able to hit one target compared to the shockwaves' pass-through properties.
Solar Blaze varies a lot on charge. At minimum charge, this travels a little less than a platform before splitting, each half going a bit more than a platform. At mid-charge, it goes as far as Wolf's blaster, the division going proportionally farther. At overcharge, this is insane. The projectile will go a Final Destination before it splits, each half having INFINITE range! The main projectile does between 5% and 10%, while the blazes each do 7% to 12%.
I feel like I need to explain how the projectile is controlled, though. Tapping B gets these default distances like I mentioned above, but if you hold it down, you can control the burst as it moves forward at the cost of solar energy. Letting go makes the projectile come to a stop and then explode like it would under normal circumstances. Keep in mind that, due to the solar charge depreciating, the blaze power will not be as high as it would be with default distance. This move is capable of KOing at high percents, and is also quite spammable. It's also fairly lenient on solar energy consumption. Don't let that get to your head, you hear?
SIDE SPECIAL ☼ SOLAR BEAM
I swear, I didn't have the Pokémon move in mind when I wrote that. Anyway, if you're familiar with the Sentinel Beam from Halo 2/3, you have a sense of what this move does. Solar Man, from the mini-sun, fires a concentrated beam of heat that can be held constantly. The default range ends the laser at just a Bowser ahead of Solar Man, but you can move that point to any place you want it to go. Keep in mind that this move can not travel through walls.
Right, so this energy beam does fairly standard multi-hit damage, but due to its haphazard knockback direction, it is mostly a nice, sweeping interruptor. Damage will start out quite high for an infinite range move, provided you're at full charge-- about 10% a second, in fact. However, due to its lackluster trapping capabilities, it's degraded to a mere sniping tool in Solar Man's extremely versatile palette of ranged moves and projectiles.
UP SPECIAL ☼ SPEED BURNER
Alright, so this is probably not entirely unexpected, but hey, it makes sense. Solar Man activates his foot jets (Robot Master, standard issue) and, with a little help from his reactor, takes flight. His maneuverability and speed is better than even R.O.B. when he's in the air. The jets work in a similar way, too, though you must hold up AND B to get the upward motion. If done on a full charge and expending all your energy, Solar Man will honestly just soar, but that has a huge cost. As you can see, dawdling around in the air is not in your best interests here. If you're recovering, all you want to focus on is making sure you make it back safely and without hostile edgeguarding.
On the ground, Solar Man's sun will still shrink, but this can be used to your advantage: once you've gotten mastery over your solar charge, you'll know what charge does what knockback and damage, enough to maybe align yourself better. As a little bonus, on the ground, Solar Man creates a sort of barrier of sparse moving fire to fend off enemies with some effectiveness. This barrier can be broken by a strong attack, but any hurtbox that comes in contact with it is knocked back a set distance. Neat.
STANDARD
NEUTRAL ATTACK ☼ FIRE ARM
Alright, so I'll go right out and assume Solar Man has some sort of defoliant projector system on his arms. That's fancy talk for a flamethrower. For this attack, the 'bot will stick out his hands and eject a smoggy, blustery stream of fire that stretches out a full platform in front of him. This does not diminish; rather, Solar Man's energy diminishes at a reasonable rate.
This row of flame deals some nice damage, about par with Solar Beam, actually, so that's one less thing to worry about. While it's not as versatile, this flamethrower is much more adept at keeping foes in its grasp, making this a pretty deadly move. You can even hold the control pad in different directions to influence the stream, much like in Kirby Super Star. Again, like many moves, this is fast and damaging, but absolutely not overpowered in the scheme of things.
FORWARD TILT ☼ HEAT WAVE
Solar Man will reach into his sun for this move, setting his hand alight as he sort of performs a downwards punching motion. This sends forward a projectile similar to the split of Solar Blaze, only much bigger. The expense of this is, besides energy of course, range. This wave (ha ha, clever move name, eh?) flies straight forward about a platform, so theoretically you could do a bit of your flamethrower then directly use this, since it's pretty fast.
Damage runs fairly high as per usual, so it's about 6-12% on this one. However, along with some knockback that can score a KO at any solid percent, there's a bit of a wind effect behind this burst, so if some enemy thinks they can be all sly and avoid this, they'll get pushed back a little, which is just the kind of thing Solar Man likes. Who's better at ranged combat? Don't answer that question.
UPWARD TILT ☼ SUN RAY
You know how, on a sunny day, you can actually see the light coming through the window, gently? This is not like that, at all. Solar Man charges up for a moment (note that this is actually a good deal of starting lag), at which time he can aim the hitbox. During this period, you must hold down A or the charging is negated. After the charge time of a Warlock Punch, his tiny sun flashes as an immense beam of energy comes out of it in the specified direction, going infinitely until it hits an obstacle. The hitbox is around the size of Pikachu's Thunder, so there's a good chance of hitting with the attack.
As you probably expected, this is a powerful, but risky attack. Damage is 8% at minimum charge, and 16% at full charge. It's also a KO move; this will do a foe in as early as 100% under good conditions. The beam does not last too long, however, the duration being barely longer than an air dodge. End lag is not a huge concern here, as Solar Man has options that come out quickly. The main cost of this move is charge level: a single firing of the ray eats up a third of your energy. Please, no spamming. This is one of the moves that really benefits from an overcharge: the maximum energy Solar Man can contain happens to be exactly one third more than full charge, giving this a free shot.
DOWNWARD TILT ☼ GROUND FIRE
Now is as good a time as any to mention that Solar Man's crouch has him bend over forward so that his miniature sun faces forward. Quite handy, that. From there, Solar Man can shoot something directly from that sun: a fairly small spark-like thing that travels along the ground. It's definitely on fire, but it does look like a spark. Whatever the case may be, this thing dashes forward on the floor, ignoring walls and ceilings and just acting like a Hothead, basically.
Unlike that pesky item, it doesn't grow from fire attacks, but it can be reflected. The knockback is also definitely not a kill move, but it is kind of annoying to get hit by it, since it's not quite stunningly weak like ice or something. In fact, the knockback makes it easy to have the low-running fireball hit more than once.The sparks fired from Solar Man's head last about 10 seconds, ample time to go and hit things around the stage. Damage ranges from 3% to 10%. Can easily cause tripping. Takes as much charge as most of his normal attacks.
DASH ATTACK ☼ FLAME SWORD
Solar Man quits running and crosses his arms over each other so that they're behind him for a moment, lighting them on fire. He then juts them out, somewhat forming an "x" shape with his forearms. This launches the fire from his hands a bit forward, in an elongated blaze that looks rather like a sword poking forward. It's got a nice long hitbox (Ganondorf's height) that lasts for a little while before dissipating, the move doing solely forward knockback that's actually quite powerful. Damage ranges from 5% to 16%.
If Solar Man performs this on an edge, he'll activate his jets as he does this, making this even better to use against recovering opponents. A similar quirk to this is that he can also jump and shield out of the attack, increasing its versatility. Jumping does not interrupt it.
SMASH
FORWARD SMASH ☼ EXPLOSION
Have you seen Snake in Brawl-? His Fsmash is ridiculous, and it so happens to look similar to this. Solar Man charges up in a nondescript way; his sun simply gets smaller as you charge. The charging animation is the same for every Smash, though, so you know what that means. Once Solar Man is done charging, or earlier if you'd like, he thrusts out his arm as the area immediately in front of him, well explodes. It looks an Bob-Omb explosion, except a little flashier, but depending on the charge, there can be consecutive explosions following the first.
At full charge, there will be five explosions that can be aimed-- that is, they will all go forward or up or down, or just stay in place at default. Explosions are quite powerful, dealing.... explosive knockback that can kill at 80%. The damage for Smashes is a bit weird. Charging does not increase knockback or damage, but rather quantity and, to an extent, range. It's quite logical; the more solar charge you have, the more you can charge the Smash. This move, however, would be nothing short of broken if it weren't for its cost. An uncharged shot costs a tenth of your energy, while a full charge costs about half.
UPWARD SMASH ☼ PLASMA MORTAR
Solar Man takes an attack more or less directly from his fight-- he only uses this one on Hard Mode, however. He essentially launches Solar Blazes into the air that then fall down across his field, adding another projectile to dodge. In Brawl, these bursts of energy do look a bit like a Solar Blaze when traveling up, but they will not vanish on contact. They travel to the upper blast line very quickly, not quite as fast as Fox's blaster.
After a brief stall, any of the blazes Solar Man fired up now come crashing down, at which time any contact will detonate them into a regular Solar Blaze, with identical properties. As a Smash, however, they get buffed, doing the same damage but knockback that kills at earlier percents. At max solar charge, you have a KO at 170% for the main bomb, while the shockwaves can kill at maybe 150%.
Of course, this is made more complex by the Smash charging system. Basically, charging will increase the size and knockback of the entire mortar shot, along with actually buffing the damage to nearly twice a Solar Blaze shot when fully charged. Size is between Pitfall size and Party Ball size. This move is quite fast and doesn't take up a lot of energy. Now, I didn't have much of a place to mention this earlier but your shots can indeed be aimed-- tilting the control stick left or right while the shot is going up moves it forward or backward by a distance, determined by how hard you tapped the direction. You can make one of these things hit from across Final Destination if you're so inclined. As a final note, the falling blaze, while not a main killer, does sort of do a footstool jump on any enemy underneath it, making this a reliable gimp aid.
DOWNWARD SMASH ☼ CIRCLE BLAZE
The sun atop Solar Man's head ejects two distinct bolts, one on each side, that fire diagonally downward. A moment later, the fireballs erupt into forming a ring around Solar Man, this ring bursting with flame and vigor. That is, to say, it's powerful and lasting. The priority and speed is great, as well. The fire on the ground lasts about five seconds before dying down, making the initial blast the main area of impact: that'll be 15-23% with no Smash charge. I'm no mathematician, so I will assume you can figure out a decent balance of what the fully charged move would be. I do need to explain the knockback, though. It has pretty high scaling up; so low solar charge and/or low Smash charge make this a pretty weak kill move.
Now, since this is a ring, that means conventional dodges are useless, as they will definitely get caught up in the giant circle of fire, which covers a total range of nearly one platform across and one Falco tall. There is a safe spot in the middle, one just big enough for Solar Man to stick around in, plus room for one more. If he leaves, though, the wildfire is just as useful as any other stationary trap. However, if an enemy finds themself in that circle, they're in for a beating. Either they get grabbed by Solar Man, which means they get held in the flame for constant damage, or they're knocked into the fire by another attack, getting them at a pretty high percent. This attack is handy in certain situations, being versatile enough to not be utterly predictable.
AERIAL
NEUTRAL AERIAL ☼ FIRE STORM
Solar Man extends his arms as a flurry of fireballs emanates from his mini-sun. They form a barrier around him, each fireball being more or less Unira size. The barrier, though, only lasts for less than a second before it dies out. That shield of fire does some decent knockback, but it won't be able to KO realistically. Damage ranges from 5% on contact to 10%. This is also pretty laggy on the end.
Now, if you press a direction while this barrier's up, the fireballs won't dissipate when the shield is done. Instead, they'll condense into a single large burst of flame that travels as far as Falco's lasers can, only with a bigger hitbox. What's more, this projectile can now actually KO as much as a thrown Waddle Dee can. It's about the same size, too. Damage is between 7 and 12%. So what's the catch? Well, when Solar Man normally uses this, he loses a good deal of energy, but absorbs the fireballs back so that the net loss is pretty minute. However, once you've fired off the orbiting shield, he doesn't absorb anything back, so this will cost a bit more energy than is optimal. Careful, now.
FORWARD AERIAL ☼ MAGMA BAZOOKA
Oh no, another projectile? Solar Man thrusts both arms forward while they glow briefly. After a very small delay, a flare comes forth at pretty nice speed, going straight forward. The projectile you'll want to avoid; it can do between 7 and 13% with knockback that can actually kill reasonably. True to the namesake of this attack, though, that's not the only way you can use this attack. Unlike Magma Man's weapon, this version requires you to tap this input again to split the shot. Yeah, once you use the FAir again, the bullet splits into three entities, each with a fraction of the original power and a diagonal heading (save the middle one). A hit from any one of these gets you 3-9% and no risk of KO individually.
Be cautious, though, since if you decide to turn your attack into a shotgun too late, there won't be enough room for them to hit. Why? Well, they share the same total range as the original shot. That means that they will travel two platforms in their direction, provided you split them at first. There's only really lag at the beginning of the move, and the bursts are fairly small, but hit hard. That comes at a price, however, since this move costs a fair amount of energy. Luckily, it's quite annoying since it's an aerial that can hit someone with a barrage of powerful magma blasts-- from afar.
BACKWARD AERIAL ☼ LAVA PLUME
Turning around like Marth would, Solar Man again extends both his arms. Instantaneously, a row of dark flame emerges from his hands. This goes out about one platform, the stream of magma being very thin. Anyone who gets hit by this takes several hits, each of 2-5%, before being ejected back a short ways. Now, unlike with most of Solar Man's attacks, gravity has something to say about this move. Once the fire stream is done with the main attack (not long), it plummets to the ground, in attempt to drag something down with it.
It doesn't do a very good job at that, but it still does have very little upward knockback to save people underneath the magma. The falling mass does do multiple hits, but very few, and of the same damage as the initial launch. This is unfortunate, as the slight vertical height loss could be detrimental for any enemy offstage. Solar Man is a bit annoying in this regard; he's a killer edge-guarder. Anyway, after that haphazard explanation, the magma does settle into a pool if it lands on the floor. This pond of lava acts as if was a row of spikes, what with set knockback. Unlike spikes, the damage ranges, from 5% to 15%. Annoying move, can combo into FAir.
UPWARD AERIAL ☼ CORONA
Let's visit the surface of our sun, shall we? It's a hot place, prone to many a phenomenon. One such occurrence is essentially just a huge flare that carries upward into space, forming an arc shape. It looks kind of cool. Right, so that should give you enough of a visual on this attack. Solar Man's sun fizzes out a bit, a momentary shutter in the system, and a few flares appear on the orange sphere. These extend enough to hit pretty much anyone coming in from above him, the hitbox being quite erratic. In fact, you can never be certain exactly what direction you'll be knocked in when you get by this. One thing's certain, though: flares on the top of the sun will always be a good deal higher than the rest.
There's a bit of a suction right before the corona appears, and since the sun is already its own hitbox, opponents will get hit by that before any flare shows up. Knockback is not very strong here, but it is enough not to combo into itself well. Terrible knockback growth, see. Damage is surprisingly high for such a slight disturbance of energy, so you'll see at full charge about 12% again, with 6% more or less being the weakest version.
DOWNWARD AERIAL ☼ SOLAR RAIN
This one's based off one of his attacks in the game; his version of Solar Blaze. Essentially, Solar Man grabs his artificial sun and tosses a piece of it downwards, it going down until it hits something. Now, in order to make this move less boring (i.e. a Solar Blaze clone), this move only looks like Solar Blaze when falling. When the ball hits any solid object, it explodes-- not in the left and right split as you're used to, but all around.
So, what this means is anyone within a Bowser's radius around the blast of this explosion, plus the initial hit, will take 5% to 12%, with pretty nice knockback. Of course, this takes slightly above average charge to pull off, but the attack has an excellent range. Hitting with this is made easier in one regard: Remember how Solar Man has decent air mobility? This move stalls his vertical momentum somewhat, meaning that if you choose, you can jump and move while seconding down a barrage of fiery bombs-- this is very hard to dodge. What's more, the explosion is so large that even spot-dodgers and rollers won't be safe. That effectively makes shielding or running the best strategy to get away from Solar Man. Getting away from him may not be in your best interests though...
GRAB
GRAB ☼ SUCTION
Don't let the name fool you, this is still a pretty standard grab, with good range and a bit of lag. However, if you hold down the input, Solar Man's hands will light up with an intense flame that sucks up air around it-- adding a suction effect to lead into a grab. This costs minor energy, though.
PUMMEL ☼ ABSORB
So, we all know that grabbing in 1v1s can tend to halt the gameplay, just a bit. This time is not to be wasted by Solar Man, so he holds down A to soak up some sort of energy from the grabbed enemy. It restores slower than recharging manually, but hey, it does a bit of damage (3% a second) to make it worthwhile. Nifty.
FORWARD THROW ☼ HEAT SEEKER
So, Solar Man throws his enemy forward with a rather boring animation. As they're still in the air, though, he sends out a rather unpleasant surprise: a large, burning mass of fire that will aggressively home in on the foe until it hits them. It's practically impossible to shake, making shielding it one of your only options apart from reflecting. The fiery blob has pretty good knockback, actually, and the damage is anywhere between 4% and 13% depending on the charge. Rather simple in concept, but potentially lethal; Solar Man has tons of options when the opponent is preoccupied.
BACKWARD THROW ☼ INCENDIARY GRENADE
This Robot Master has a few trick up his sleeve. One of them is this move. Solar Man begins by tossing the enemy back through his sun, dealing 3-7%% initially. The enemy is now sped along by a flaming aura that's only visual for now. The ride's not over yet. After a set point, a bit more than a platform away, the aura explodes in a direction of Solar Man's choosing, dealing significant knockback and 4-8% in whatever heading you feel like. Obviously, this is brilliant to use off the edge, but it has its other uses, such as getting the enemy exactly where you want them to go for maximum damage. This throw is rather slow, and does use up a big chunk of energy, but it's quite the kill move. It also looks really cool.
UPWARD THROW ☼ AIR BOMBER
You know those throws that go up but not with normal knockback? This is one of those. Solar Man tosses the enemy skyward and fires a column of fire under the foe. This sort of pushes from beneath them, forcing them up. They keep getting shoved up, getting hit with continuous damage rather like Piplup's attack, only upward. It's about 8% at low charge, with 16% at maximum. This can potentially KO pretty early if you have high charge, the best possible percent you can kill at being around 100%. Even then, this move uses up a fair amount of energy, but since it preoccupies the foe, it gives Solar Man plenty of time to think.
DOWNWARD THROW ☼ NAPALM
Solar Man has lost any trace of what he once was due to the Roboenza virus. It's safe to say he can be brutal because of this, so he slams down the foe, hard enough so that they land face-down on the floor. Now, he fires a bright substance onto them while they're helpless, then the move ends. This substance deals constant damage of about 4% per second, for four seconds. This is a nice bit of damage on its own, but the napalm also corrodes shields quite efficiently; Solar Man has an easy time breaking shields overall.
Now, remember that DSmash? This is really handy when you throw someone near that, since rolling either towards it from away or out of it from inside will get you smashed upward. That essentially forced the foe to do certain things, so Solar Man can really make hell for the opponent in these situations. Even though this is rather simple as an attack, it's actually pretty useful. Use it, please.
FINALE
FINAL SMASH ☼ SUPERNOVA
I figured a supernova would be a fitting final smash-- after all, what other thing could a sun do as a finale? Anyway, when Solar Man presses B, his sun grows to enormous proportions; we're talking so big that it's difficult not to get hit by it. After it's gotten to about twice a Smart Bomb radius, it remains there, with a blinding glow. Solar Man now has infinite solar energy and all of his attacks are buffed to their strongest form. Yeah, it kind of sounds like one of those mechanic buffers, but it's fitting enough.
Anyway, this artificial sun is extremely damaging upon contact, more so then the smaller version, and it lets off an intense light that makes it difficult to see. It also has a massive suction effect like the lasers of Deoxys and Samus. However, it only lasts fifteen seconds, but when that time is up, something rather frightening happens. The sun, instead of just shrinking or whatever Giga Bowser would do, it explodes with an utterly massive radius; you've got to be as far away from this as possible not to get hit with this. Solar Man is still not invincible during this Final Smash, but it's doubtful that anyone will even think about attacking you. This attack also has the fortune of looking really cool.
PLAYSTYLE
Alright, unlike a few other characters, Solar Man's modus operandi is pretty simple to figure out. As if he's Olimar, he needs to make sure he has the power he needs to be a competent fighter. As such, opponents can really get the jump on him if they're suited for it, such characters being Meta Knight and company. Solar Man does have options, though. Plenty of options. He's actually somewhat overpowered on his own, but his required solar energy really does hold him back.
Some things that you will want to do involve projectiles. Not just those long range attacks that he has so many of, but the actual things that can hit someone from extremely far away. The brilliance of it all is that, while he has a huge array of ranged projectiles, he's virtually immune to reflection. His own attacks will only charge up his sun when aimed back at him. As such, he can actually go on the offensive quite a bit more than your average ranged character.
Solar Man's attacks, though, aren't offensive by nature, so you'll have to get creative. His grab and throws are all quite useful; take the FThrow for example. It essentially pressures the opponent into avoiding the seeking blast, opening the door to a barrage of flame. His BThrow does not involve that same pressure scenario, instead going for straight up utility. The ability to choose where your foe ends up is really an advantage to Solar Man. He can hit people from anywhere, remember, so it's only a matter of aiming.
His UThrow is a simple spacer, but it also hides KO power and combo ability: Up Smash, much? The DThrow really shines when used with the Down Smash; a wall of fire really hampers the whole rolling and shielding game. Speaking of Smashes, Solar Man does have a decent KO game. Aside from his plethora of damaging options, his FSmash is quite the killer, as well as his UTilt and FAir.
I won't go into the standards section so much now: They're really just his main method of attack, providing simple means of damaging, spacing, and control. Solar Man's aerial game is rather nice, though, especially with the DAir being able to create an inferno for the foe to have to avoid. He's exceptionally gifted at keeping people on their feet, since essentially his long range game is like Zelda's on crack. There's even a defense element with the USpec and NAir.
Playing against Solar Man requires a cool head. I know he's not weak to Chill Man, in fact it's the opposite, but in all seriousness, he's quite the tricky foe. If you're trying to approach Solar Man, it's remarkably easy to get overwhelmed by his sheer tenacity in blocking your path to him and then blowing you back away. As such, he doesn't break the overall flow of character tiers, with Meta Knight being able to break Solar Man's defense and Ganondorf having to grinscowl and bear it. That being said, Solar Man's inherent defensive offense makes the opponent's counter a solid offensive defense. Got it memorized?
