Toad
As one of the most recurring faces of the Mario world and Nintendo in general, THE Toad has been clamoring to be more than just a part of Peach's menagerie since Super Smash Bros. Melee. As such, my inspiration for his moves come from a evolution of his Super Mario Bros. 2 USA style with nods to the suits he (and the Mario Bros.) used in both of the New! Super Mario Bros. games and Super Mario 3D Land/World. The mixture of his superior lifting speed, sprinting ability & unreal upper body strength make him a prime candidate for the one type of fighter that the Smash roster, as diverse as it is, has always needed; the judo/grappler.
A Button: Jab/Jab Combo: Press the A Button once to jab. Toad jabs his arm out for an open palm type strike. Pressing the button again will follow up with a similar strike from the other arm. The last strike is an upward strike using the bottom of his palm to lightly "pop" his opponent upward.
Up Tilt: Toad does a headbutt that launches upward for juggles.
Forward Tilt: Tilt the control stick forward and press A to have Toad do an open palm jab with a slightly longer reach, greater knock back, and somewhat higher damage than the standard jabs.
Down Tilt: Toad slinks down and pokes his foot outward (think Dedede's down tilt). Has a long active duration and can cause trips.
Forward Smash: Tanooki's Tail: Toad slaps the opponent in front of himself with his tail.
Down Smash: Statue Stomp: Toad does a short hop into the air while in Tanooki suit form before slamming down as a statue generating a shock wave similar to Charizard's down smash.
Up Smash: Tanooki's Tail Upward: Toad performs a flip an swats a character upward with his tail in a manner similar to Fox's up smash.
Nair: Toad does a spin with arms extended similar to Peach's nair. This version does multiple hits however.
Uair: Toad headbutts a character further upward.
Fair: Toad playfully slaps his hands downwards on an opponent as if he were playing Leapfrog for a spike.
Bair: ???
Dair: Toad comes straight downward spinning out of the air similar to the spinning drill ability of the Propeller Suit from NSMBWii. Can bounce off of an opponent's head when it connects similar to P:M Zero Suit Samus' stomps.
Grab: Toad grabs and looks at his opponent awkwardly ("Gee, should I have done that?")
Up throw: Toad lays back and juggles the opponent with his feet before kicking them straight upward.
Back throw: Toad throws the opponent under and behind himself.
Forward throw: Toad lifts them over his head complete with the SMB2USA sound clip. Toad can move with them in hand and is actually slightly faster now but falls like a rock when attempting a jump. Players can break free of this however. When tossed, the SMB2USA sound clip for a tossed item plays.
Down throw: Toad throws them flat on the ground before jumping on top and away from them. This grounds them in front of him.
Standard B: Freeze Ball: The only projectile move in his arsenal, this move derives itself from New! Super Mario Bros. Wii. Toad shoots a single bouncing ball of ice from his palm. It bounces only once before melting away. It hits slightly harder that Mario & Luigi's fireballs and has a slight chance of temporarily freezing the opponent. The rate of fire is much lower that the Mario Bros. however. (less than half of Mario's in vanilla Brawl).
Forward B: Cat Pounce! (Reversal): When holding the control stick forward and pressing B, Toad dons the attributes of the Cat Suit before grabbing the opponent in front of himself swinging them under and hurling them overhead and forward in a lightning quick motion. This move also allows him to take control of an oncoming opponent's approach as Toad skillfully snatches them and hurls them back in the direction they approached. When timed right and sweet spotted, it can override the priority of an oncoming enemy attack, leading to some amazing grapple plays. Hurled opponents can also be used as heavy projectiles against others.
You can influence the angle at which the character will be thrown briefly by holding B before the final throw. Toad will hold the character for a quick instance until the angle is lined up, or the instance is over, at which he'll throw the character straight forward horizontal to the stage.
Tapping the control stick forward and pressing B changes the nature of this move into a more aggressive horizontal lunge forward where
Toad jumps to about Mario height vertically in an attempt to bring his opponent down to the ground. After this, he then rolls and flings his opponent forward. It can also be used in midair for horizontal recovery or a suplex similar to Kirby's forward throw. Very useful for "Ganoncide" like trickery.
Up B: Tornado Toss: Using a propeller (similar to that of the propeller suit in NSMBWii) stored in his trademarked hat, Toad takes a mighty whirling jump straight upward into the air, snatching up any opponents nearby or within his whirlwind and upon reaching the apex of his jump, tosses them straight downward into the ground or off stage. (This can be Meteor Cancelled however.) After the jump, Toad will spin with his arms outward and float in the direction pressed for recovery.
Down B: "Droopy" Counter: Anyone who has watched the old school "Droopy The Dog" cartoons knows the drill with this one. Whenever an opponent strikes Toad with a close range attack after he assumes his defensive position, he will quickly reach out and grab his opponent and slam them into the ground behind him. For every rounded up 10% of damage the attack does, Toad will alternate slamming the offending opponent on the ground behind or in front of himself. After the last of these slams, he'll let go and the momentum shoots his opponent into the air. The only downside to this maneuver is that Toad, while he takes no knock back damage, will always take half the damage of the opponent's attack, so be careful with it! The move is also useless against projectile attacks.
Final Smash - Grab 'n' Go!: Toad turns super (dunno how this would be represented though) and picks up an extra burst of strength and agility in this Warioman like Final Smash. As he dashes about, he can pick up players he passes by pressing B and carry them on his head while moving at the same speed a la Super Mario Bros. 2 USA. He can also hurl them with unbelievable amounts of force by pressing B yet again. Toad will then jump a fair height and depending on the direction the control stick is tilted, he will toss them in said direction, with explosive results. You can also press down on the control stick and B when he isn't carrying anything to have him pluck either a Mega Veggie, POW Block, or Super Bombs (all larger than usual) out of the ground.
Mega Veggies have high knock back & do OK damage but typically only hit one character at a time, POW blocks do no damage but cause all characters on the ground to lose their footing for a second, and Super Bombs have massive a blast radius, deal heavy damage and cause tremendous knock back (or up), but are very rare to pull up.
Pros
+ Hits hard; moves fast.
+ Small form is hard to hit.
+ OK to good recovery.
+ Has monstrous OoS options
+ Final Smash is decent.
Cons
- Normals and tilts have a very small range
- Fast faller with low height jumps makes him easy to knock out and gimp.
- Most of his KOs come from his B special tosses and throws
- COMPLETELY vulnerable during his recoveries.
Concept combos:
Shield > Tornado Toss
Jab > Jab > Jab > Up Tilt > Tornado Toss
Counter > Up tilt > Up tilt > Cat Pounce (Tilt) > Wavedash > Jump > Cat Pounce (Smash B) for Toadcide
(Moderate damage) Fair > L Cancel > Tornado Toss > (if opponent doesn't tech or techs in place) dair [Foot] > dair [FOOT] > dair [FOOT DIVE]
Potential Taunts
- Pulls a key out of the ground and looks at it with shock before a Phanto mask swoops over his head and spooks him enough to make him drop it.
- Pulls up a tiny turnip & turns to the crowd mimicking it's expression.
- Pulls up a pixellated mushroom from SMB2 & lies back against it.
- Pulls up a potion bottle & summons a gag Sub-con door. Steps through it and has it fall over as he goes through it.
- Hat slides down his head, covering his face leading to him shivering in a frightened manner until he fixes it.
Potential Alts: Captain Toad, Toadsworth
If there's an issue regarding modeling all of this, you could get away with using the barest minimum necessary to convey what power Toad is using (cat ears and paws, tanooki suit ears and tail, propeller out of his hat for propeller suit). Olimar makes a good base for his height but at the same time, Diddy's side B is also a good starting point for the Cat Pounce shenanigans.
I don't blame anyone for feeling like the character would be pushing it or feeling as though "Toads" aren't distinctive enough for the role of playable character, but I would love it if someone was open minded and inspired enough to make something like this happen should the opportunity arise. Plus it'd be hilarious seeing this little guy power lift Bowser like nothing.