(Relatively) Thorough Labbing of Inhale-Reflecting

[williamsga555]

Hey all, I've been testing Inhale's reflecting properties (haven't seen anywhere detailing these findings yet, so apologies if I've missed them somewhere) to get a better idea of how it works. Namely, is there a limit/threshold, is there a projectile type he can't inhale, and do any inhaled attacks behave strangely? Results are compiled below of things that don't work. If I listed everything that did as well, this would take even longer than it already has and sleep beckons me. Apologies for lack of true thoroughness.

1. From what I can tell, there does not appear to be a threshold. Even going back-and-forth with a fallen tree from Villager (including back-and-forth with Villager's Pocket), he never failed to inhale. Seems like it truly works similarly to pocket: if it's used on time, it will work.

2. Here is a list of "projectiles" he cannot inhale-reflect:

• Rolling Wario Bike (thrown can be inhaled)
• Luigi Zair (was curious because of the detaching plunger, but no, cannot be inhaled in any capacity)
• Bombs laying on the ground from any version of Link (he will swallow instead. Z-dropped, thrown, and hit bombs from all three Links can be inhale-reflected)
• Grenades laying on the ground (he will swallow instead. Z-dropped grenades can be inhale-reflected before coming to rest)
• Cypher (he will swallow instead)
• C4 (doesn't matter if in mid-air or planted on the ground, he cannot inhale it in any capacity)
• Grounded Banana (dropped, thrown, or freshly-pulled can be inhaled though)
• Luma Shot* (see "interesting interactions" below)
• Starbits** (you technically do inhale and reflect, but only one at a time, so without max spacing you will get interrupted)
• Bullet Climax** (you technically do inhale and reflect the first bullet, but the following shots are always too quick and interrupt you)
• Bullet Arts
• Inkling Jab (apparently not a projectile? Assumed it was but I'm a dum-dum)
• Auto-Reticle** (you techincally do inhale and reflect the first shot, but the following appear to always interrupt)
• AOE Explosions (Explosive Flame, Din's Fire, PK Flash, PK Freeze)
• Phantom Slash (Any charge level)
• Needles (You technically do inhale-reflect the first needle, but will always be interrupted with more than one used)

From what I can tell, he can inhale+reflect any other projectile from the cast. This includes Snake's box from taunting, Robin's discarded tomes, Diddy Kong's flying barrels, etc. Very possible that I missed something, but I did what I could to comb through each character.

3. Here is a list of interesting interactions from inhale:

• Inhaling stationary hydrant resets the water. In other words, if hydrant shoots both waves of water, and you inhale it, D3 will replace it and it will fire two more waves of water as if it were brand new
• Inhaling Luma shot prevents Luma from actually contacting you. In other words, you can't inhale Luma, but it can't hit you and can't go through you. It's like you're holding shield, but with no risk of shield damage or pushback. Very odd.
• Inhaling Pikmin toss is like Kirby's version of Pikmin toss. In other words, all pikmin become "solid" like Purples when relaunched, and importantly, die as soon as they land or hit the enemy.
• Inhaling Pikmin smash attacks has him swallow the Pikmin. Really not sure why as he reflects all other smash projectiles (ex: MegaMan fsmash), but not these. Instead does the lengthy inhaled-item animation.
• "Grounded" Banana cannot be inhaled at all, it seems. If Diddy pulls banana and it lands on the ground, it can't be inhaled from this state.
• Inhaled fruit retain their properties (ex: bell still stuns).
• Inhaled fruit retain their flight trajectories EXCEPT for Galaxian and Bell, which fly in a straight line unaffected by gravity. Not sure why just those two. Galaxian is hilarious because it still lasts as long as it normally does, which blocks PAC-MAN out of charging a new fruit for far longer than usual
• Inhaled Missiles (Samus/Dark Samus) lose their homing upon inhale
• Inhaled Bombs (Samus/Dark Samus) appear to lose their contact-detonation property
• Can blows up immediately after hitting a surface, regardless of how many previous hits it took
• Inhaling a cannonball K.Rool has reflected (the diagonal default angle), it is returned with a pure opposite angle: diagonal downwards. Same for upwards shot→straight downards.
• Inhaling Lloyd Trap (Isabelle's) makes the gyroid fly slightly diagonal downward
• Burst Grenade: Spits out the grenade without it exploding. If it hits, it passes through the opponent uninterrupted. It appears characters cannot pick the grenade up and she is prevented from spawning another one until the dormant grenade is detonated. She can detonate the grenade by hitting it, but the explosion affects her. It does not appear to despawn at any point, so it needs to be detonated by hit if she wants to use it again. Dedede cannot detonate the grenade, it ignores his hitboxes. Very bizarre.

Also, from my counting he appears to spit the projectiles out on Frame 12, but this needs to be verified.

Hopefully this was useful and/or interesting, now I must sleeeeep.

 

[TKOWL]

Hello, I just posted a similar research thread on r/smashbros, and I would love some extra research on the topic. There are strange projectiles interactions like Bullet Seed and detached Rocketbarrels that can either spit out nothing or a very tiny hitbox, I could never get them super consistent in training when testing them.

 

[williamsga555]

Nice, you found a good amount more than I did when I tested (like, I was never able to inhale PK Flash at all, for instance, nor Snake's fsmash). The only ones I've found missing from your list (off the top of my head, anyway) are Game & Watch's up air and fair, both of which Dedede does reflect.

Also interesting to note that you were able to inhale Wild Gunman's bullet. I wonder why I was unable to in training? I'll have to go test it again to see what I was doing wrong, but I'll update the main post to remove that from the list.

Rocketbarrels were super annoying to do, but I was able to get them to spit out straight horizontally once. Bullet Seed I recall spitting out, but I can't remember the trajectory and I didn't think of setting it up to check damage or distance.

 

[Toady]

Figure this is a good place to put this, though it has to do with Dedede himself, not opponents.

The short gordo toss to inhale is 100% guaranteed to catch without interruption. This also goes for jumping straight up and down after tossing. Great for mix ups right now since people definitely aren’t used to it. You can also do this and turn around. It looks like it clips behind him but he’ll still inhale it and shoot it out the opposite way. I’ve found the short toss to be the most versatile thus far thanks to the new inhale interaction.