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Ridley deserves better

Perfect patricia

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A.Why is his recovery so bad? For a character with wings you think he will have a recovery like pit but nope. He only gets 2 jumps which makes no sense at all he should at least get 3 or 4 & his up b can’t be angled diagonally so if he’s off stage most of the time he’s screwed why does king k rool have a better recovery than a character with wings?

B. His neutral b is a disappointment. Out of all projectiles his is one of the worst. It takes a while to charge it and can be easily jumped over,shielded,and reflected. And it’s knockback is pitiful. It literally won’t even kill somebody in sudden death. What’s the point of using this move?

C. And finally his down b is probably one of the worst moves in the game. I remember everyone seen the trailer thought this move will be op but realized it’s dog****. It’s only good when you hit somebody in the incredibly small and hard sweet spot and it has tons of startup time and end lag. I don’t know if you’re forced to do a normal getup or you can roll if you get hit by it but it’s still no excuse on how bad this move is.

My suggestions for some buffs will be make him have 3 or 4 jumps and allow his up b to be angled. Make his neutral b have some knockback and can actually kill or something. And make his down b faster to punish targets with it. (Sorry for bad English)
 
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Erimir

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Plasma Breath is definitely not the best projectile in the game, but it can gimp certain characters quite easily (has worked for me on Sonic, the Belmonts, Chrom, etc.). And with some characters (or at lower percents) you might not actually get the gimp, but you might make them eat a bunch of fireballs before they can get back on stage, racking up significant damage. K Rool, for example, if he's recovering from far enough out, might have to eat a full charge of fireballs. His recovery is really good so you won't gimp him, but challenging his recovery from above is really hard in the first place, so spitting fireballs at him instead of getting hit by his helicopter blades is not so bad.

It is less useful in neutral because it's slow. But it's hardly useless, and it deals a good bit of damage if they eat a full charge.
 

Uffe

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It would be better if he had at least three jumps, and then his fourth jump being his up special. His down aerial should be better at spiking, as well. I've killed myself a couple of times and lost a match because I went for his down aerial, and instead of spiking, it launched my opponent off to the side and I fell to my death. This shouldn't be happening. I wish you could slightly tilt Ridley's Plasma Breath that way people couldn't just easily jump over it. Your best option is probably just going off stage with his neutral aerial to push your opponent further back. Or figure out which part of the stage to stand at so the Plasma Breath rolls off the edge of the stage.
 

Marmotbro

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Hold on there. His recovery is bad to balance out his killing power, like most heavies.

His neutral B is great, what are you saying? It is one of the best things to use to gimp opponents. Get the offstage, then just spam it, and you will get a kill more often then you think you should. Also good for overwhelming zoners who think a fun game consists of them sitting on one end of the stage and spamming projectiles.
Yeah downB sucks. But a lot of characters have inconsistent gimmicky moves (:ultganondorf::ultkingdedede::ultkirby::ultjigglypuff::ultgnw::ultfalcon::ultlittlemac:), that's something you should expect.
 

Phosphophyllite

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Ridley would be an offstage monster if he had better jumps, he can already do some really easy gimping with Nair and Fair, so he really doesn't need a reason to be better offstage. His recovery isn't even bad, it's just linear so you have to mix up your return to the stage like many other characters.

On top of that, neutral B is still a projectile, even the worst projectile is still a means of making the opponent rethink their approach to you. I've seen Ridley players just tossing out one ball because it's the fastest option and it's still some means of forcing the opponent to change their plans, especially for characters who are better on the ground than in the air.

The down special is bad, but that's just par for the course. Plenty characters have "bad" moves that are more suited for casual play than competitive 1v1 environments, that's just smash.

This kind of thinking is why people think Ridley is bad in the first place, just because he doesn't have some crazy stuff at his disposal everyone focuses on his negatives. K Rool is the opposite, everyone glosses over his negatives because they gush about his recovery or his projectile game without thinking about the flaws. You gotta focus on what he's good at, and when it comes to his other aspects, you think about how to use those effectively rather than just writing them off as bad or useless.
 

Christian_CAO

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yeah it is pretty weird that characters with wings have an almost pitiful number of limited jumps while the puffballs who wiggle their stub arms get the most jumps in the game. His recovery is indeed stupid. Nothing should be that difficult to angle. Seems poorly coded.
 

TriforceBun

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His recovery isn't as bad as you're making it out to be. For starters, he does actually get three jumps (plus his Up-B), one more than most characters. Also, don't neglect using his side special as a recovery option, as it works great when you're launched into either of the top corners. I'd actually argue that his recovery is better than average, as he can potentially use four successive moves--two mid-air jumps, his side special, and his up special--to control where he's going while recovering. Not counting directional air dodge.

Plasma Breath works pretty well as a pressure tool, and especially as an edgeguarding weapon. I've been on the receiving end of it several times while recovering and it's pretty brutal, particularly with some of the chunkier characters like Simon or Ike.

Down special is pretty situational, but I don't think it's as hard to land as you're making it sound. I think it's one of those moves that has more use in a free-for-all than 1v1 though.

It was tough for me to get Wii Fit and Ness into Elite Smash, but for some reason, people really had trouble dealing with my Ridley to the point where I was surprised when he got in (I don't think I'm particularly great with him). Being a heavyweight grants a lot of nice advantages, such as being able to absorb more damage and causing early KOs due to their power.
 
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Luigifan18

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I find it hilarious that everyone complaining about Plasma Breath isn't mentioning its built-in drawback (hit Ridley while he's charging it for massive damage, making it a very bad idea for contesting opposing projectile spam like the space animals' lasers).
 

meleebrawler

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I find it hilarious that everyone complaining about Plasma Breath isn't mentioning its built-in drawback (hit Ridley while he's charging it for massive damage, making it a very bad idea for contesting opposing projectile spam like the space animals' lasers).
This is only reliable if your projectiles are really fast though. Otherwise he can just jump over them and charge in the air to rain them down.
 

SuperMasterHand

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Sigh, people always complain !
I wanted Ridley very badly, and I'm very happy about his moveset
It took me severals hours but I now like his playstyle as much as I liked the playstyle of my Sm4sh main (Luigi)
Against slow characters (like Ganondorf) neutral B and down B are very effective and not so impossible to perform (not to say his Side B is absolute gold)
And yes his recovery sucks, but that's for balance, Sakurai said himself he didn't want Ridley playable in the first place because he knew he had to sacrifice a part of his personality (the way he flies) to make it not OP, so take it, accept it, we got the best balanced Ridley we could IMO
 

Arthur97

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The only complaint I really have is that he should have had the pogo tail attack.

And down special isn't that good for FFAs. You try landing a precision move in that chaos.
 

Erimir

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I find it hilarious that everyone complaining about Plasma Breath isn't mentioning its built-in drawback (hit Ridley while he's charging it for massive damage, making it a very bad idea for contesting opposing projectile spam like the space animals' lasers).
Yeah, don't go for Plasma Breath as your opening move against Sheik, unless you want a 20 damage needle...
 

Sudz

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Ridley is currently my best character according to GSP. His projectile is dope and his recovery is actually very good, just know that you're not supposed to use it like fire fox and position yourself better.

His down-b is absolutely the illest **** on the planet getting hard reads with that thing is huge and it has definitely won me matches before.

I hope they change nothing about him for at least the next few months to see how the meta develops, but he feels great so far
 

Ridley_Prime

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Ridley would be an offstage monster if he had better jumps, he can already do some really easy gimping with Nair and Fair, so he really doesn't need a reason to be better offstage. His recovery isn't even bad, it's just linear so you have to mix up your return to the stage like many other characters.

On top of that, neutral B is still a projectile, even the worst projectile is still a means of making the opponent rethink their approach to you. I've seen Ridley players just tossing out one ball because it's the fastest option and it's still some means of forcing the opponent to change their plans, especially for characters who are better on the ground than in the air.

The down special is bad, but that's just par for the course. Plenty characters have "bad" moves that are more suited for casual play than competitive 1v1 environments, that's just smash.

This kind of thinking is why people think Ridley is bad in the first place, just because he doesn't have some crazy stuff at his disposal everyone focuses on his negatives. K Rool is the opposite, everyone glosses over his negatives because they gush about his recovery or his projectile game without thinking about the flaws. You gotta focus on what he's good at, and when it comes to his other aspects, you think about how to use those effectively rather than just writing them off as bad or useless.
/thread. Thank you.

And since we're still moaning and groaning about the recovery, this recent found was made that I posted in the moveset data thread earlier, but not everyone goes there I guess.


Between that and just getting good with your reverse up B, recovery's quite salvageable.

Fireballs are mostly for edgeguarding, yadaydada, and down B is actually proving to be an effective punishment tool and not as situational as some were thinking early on, like using midair to punish some edgeguarders, countering characters' jabs after shielding, and such... See moveset data thread and other places that showcase its usefulness, instead of going all "It's not blatantly broken like it appeared to be at E3, so it sucks". (Not directed so much at you Phosphophyllite, but just people in general)

Definitely agree though with another post here that they could make d-air a bit more spike friendly. Guess I just gotta learn my placement/spacing with that. :ohwell:
 
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ADYBE

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I think ridley is more like a ground to air punish character, because his approaching tools are not that great compared to others offensive characters, like pikachu, his projectile is slow, the endlag on the sibe-b is punishable, down-b is for hard read and up-b demand to know how and when to use it. His ground moves are punish or combo starters, ftilt can deal a good amount of damages with the tips, you already know for uptilt and dtilt, his fsmash is powerful but slow, so a punish move, dsmash and upsmash are anti-ground and anti-air tools (Ridley foot is invincible during upsmash).
So, all I wanted to say is that you should play Ridley more defensive, even if in the Metroid series he just attacks you without thinkings.
 

Reila

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Maybe the problem is not Ridley, but your approach to playing him.

Maybe he does deserve better. However, that is irrelevant considering they will not change his kit. Maybe numbers at most.

A special attack doesn't need to have constant usage. Personally I am fine with his neutral B being used mostly for edge guarding. It is basically what I use the Inkling's down B (the splat bomb) for most of the time anyways, so maybe I am biased. Try playing Ridley as a tilt/aerials/smash attacks oriented fighter instead of one that relies heavily on specials such as... Duck Hunt, maybe? Or zones in general.

Just enjoy him and try to do the best you can with the tools you were given. I say this as someone who played stuff like Bowser Jr in Smash 4, and has Pichu as a for fun pocket pick. So I am used to play fighters who are actually actively bad unlike Ellen Ridley.
 
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FunAtParties

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I agree he deserves better at least from a conceptual standpoint.

Everyone ******* about how ridiculous it was that Charizard had 3 jumps, but apparently it's not a big deal anymore. Ridley is a massive space dragon who seamlessly flies everywhere, his air speed should be higher, he should be floatier, and he should have more jumps ESPECIALLY if you're gonna make his up b so limited. I know Smash isn't canon, but like for real Ridley has no business having a bad to mediocre recovery.

The design makes terrible use of his long-ass appendages. His tail is massive, but it's barely utilized in his kit, and it's shrunk down massively. As a large character, he is combo food, he needs options to take away space or else the character's design is going to be build on spamming attacks that cover all sides of him which is boring and still too risky. Seeing his projectile is useless in neutral, and his tail is so small, Ridley, one of the biggest characters in the game, is forced to work in tight spaces, and if it wasn't for his nair he'd be completely ****ed. This playstyle is boring imo.

In my opinion, Ridley should have been a heavy that is designed to zone and create space. He should be a terrifying presence who can use his wings to create windboxes that literally blow the opponent back, and deliver damage effectively from a distance, with the risk of plenty of cooldown time forcing the player to stress spacing as part of their game. He should have a strong recovery, he should never have an issue of getting back to the stage. His main weakness should be being THE biggest hurtbox in game (bigger than he is now), and not being heavy enough to make his survival unfair. He should be a character that operates poorly in tight spaces, with the contradiction of having his strongest onstage kill options only work at close range; making his main source of kills offstage, reads, or well planned tech chase set-ups. Ridley should be an extremely different character from the rest of the cast imo, Ult's design feels like a weak culmination of a couple characters already here. Of all the newcomers, I was excited for Ridley the most, his kit is also easily the least fun, and most disappointing one to play with imo.
 
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Gleam

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Everyone ******* about how ridiculous it was that Charizard had 3 jumps, but apparently it's not a big deal anymore. Ridley is a massive space dragon who seamlessly flies everywhere, his air speed should be higher, he should be floatier, and he should have more jumps ESPECIALLY if you're gonna make his up b so limited. I know Smash isn't canon, but like for real Ridley has no business having a bad to mediocre recovery.
Ridley has 3 jumps a Side-B and an Up-B and all of it allows him to get back on stage easily. Distance has never been a problem for Ridley's recovery but if you don't use all the tools at his disposal you're only limiting yourself. Up-B alone has a surprising amount of distance to it. It's vertical motion can already reach Final Destination from the very bottom of the blast zone. When it comes to recovery, Ridley has never had a problem with distance and can just as easily survive in the 150% to even 200% on a particularly good day.

His weakness in Up-B, besides just being relatively weird in code is the fact that it's heavily telegraph. At the same time though the actual attack contains super armor and is nearly impossible to contest once the attack comes.


As a large character, he is combo food, he needs options to take away space or else the character's design is going to be build on spamming attacks that cover all sides of him which is boring and still too risky. Seeing his projectile is useless in neutral, and his tail is so small, Ridley, one of the biggest characters in the game, is forced to work in tight spaces, and if it wasn't for his nair he'd be completely ****ed. This playstyle is boring imo.
And that there is the problem. Not only are you and so many people underestimating Ridley's moves or not using all the tools to your benefit, but you're simply not using Ridley in the way he was designed.

Jab, F-Tilt and D-Tilt already prove a decent amount of spacing for Ridley, are distinctively fast and have high priority.
F-air and N-air are both quick, also have high priority and have combo setups.
Plasma Breath has excellent use in edge guarding and regardless, a projectile is still a projectile.
Down-B is situational but has a good usage in the use of baiting and is surprisingly fast.
Side-B is one of the best grabs in the game, giving Ridley completely control of the stage and getting opponents off.

Ridley should not be treated as a heavy but instead closer to the likes of a swordsman with decent range and high priority. His great mobility, fast/high priority attacks, decent combos and overall powerful moves damage wise means that even though Ridley's kill options on stage are limited, he has a surprising number of ways to rack up damage.

But Ridley doesn't shine from having on-stage kill moves. He shines in his edgeguarding and offstage gameplay. His tools were designed to get people off the stage and to keep them off. Any character who doesn't have at least an average recovery and/or decent priority are going to have a very hard time if Ridley gets them off. They're now in his zone and with extremely fast, powerful and high priority moves like F-air and N-air at his disposal, that's going to mean some pretty mean things to some people.

Ridley can practically kill Marth/Lucina at just 80% with a good double short-hop F-air combo off the edge of final destination.
That same combo+percentage can take out Dr. Mario because of his poor recovery options.
Ganondorf can potentially be taken out off stage as low as 50%
Because Little Mac's recovery is so poor, Ridley can take him out as low as 40% and even 30% at times with a good offstage combo.


In the end Ridley is someone whose excels at edgeguarding and offstage gameplay. Anyone who doesn't have have a decent recovery, something to deal with Ridley's high priorities or a decent air game of their own are doomed. Meanwhile those who do have good recoveries, priority, decent air game and combo potential will prove much more nefarious for the Space Pirate.

People like Ganondorf, Doctor Mario, Little Mac, Ike, Chrom and Incineroar are going to have a more difficult time with Ridley's style as they lack the recovery and/or offstage air game to deal with his skills.

People like Bayonetta, Mewtwo, Diddy, Rosalina and Sheik meanwhile will prove much harder for Ridley. They've got enough decent recovery, air game, offstage game and combo potential to give the dragon a hell of a fight.

All said and done, unless something with patches occurs, Ridley's probably going to end up around Mid Tier. He's got enough skills that he can easily deal with a lot of character who would be considered low or bottom tier but his lack of being able to deal with effective combos and relatively gimpable recovery means he probably won't be able to see much of the high or top tier levels.

But you got to know what makes him work first and when I see people saying "N-air" is his only good move or people complain that his extremely situational Skewer doesn't hit often, it's clear that some people have no idea what actually makes Ridley work and not work.
 

verysleepywolf

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When people learn how to use up b correctly we'll be hearing a different tune. Carries him up to the edge straight from the freakin' depths of hell, and people need balls to try edge-guarding it because of the move's kill power. The backwards angle has that slight rise which is perfect for retreating after dealing an edge-guard with f air. It can punish reckless behavior on the ground or in triplats if the Ridley player is smart and doesn't spam the move.

Fact of the matter is that Ridley's not an accessible character. He takes work. If you can't use technical characters than Ridley is not for you. This honestly feels right, his addition to the roster is for seasoned veterans of the SSB series and people that love a challenge. After getting Ridley to Elite I still feel like there's so much to learn, but he's currently my highest GSP character so he unexpectedly became my main. I knew I wanted to use him regardless of his moveset, but he actually seems to be an at least decent character in the right hands. Not terrible like people are saying.
 

ToTs

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I've played every character and Ridley just works for me.(Coming from Falco in Sm4sh) Nair OoS is great. The move is just great in general. Neutral B is slow, but I've found plenty uses for it in neutral. Multiple jumps helps with making the opponent whiff easier. Side B is great. Down B I just recently started using, you get that free damage, then you just read his get up option. If opponent is at the ledge Down smash is almost free. I'm just rambling lol I just dont see why everyone thinks hes so terrible. GGK? Lol
 

Iwan

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Really, really strongly disagree with people who say Ridley's neutral B is bad. lol.

Super solid for neutral stage with distance, for ledge guarding/gimping. Free damage. You can't throw it out ALL the time like you can with some other character's projectiles, but it's definitely not "bad". Factor in that it does kind of dumb damage, too.

As for recovery? It's good. People didn't realize it's only 4 directions at first. It isn't Fox's Up B...but with 3 jumps and that sort of vertical and horizontal distance? It's a totally fine recovery. It's hit box is huge and it kills at decent percentages, too, so a lot of the time when the opponent wants to be brave they just eat a K.O.

Toolkit? I don't know. I think he's great. As others have mentioned, Ridley has a very bad disadvantage state, but a VERY good advantage state. Trela doesn't beat Awestin's Ness at a 177 person showing for 1st place with a "bad toolkit". Ridley is good - it's hard right now to tell how good, but looking at the tournament placing thread up to this point, Ridley is showing up and showing out pretty consistently for a character that some are claiming is "bad".
 

Dcas

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Seems like you are playing ridley wrong, sorry to say it.

Ridley seems like the most agile heavyweight out there, his recovery game is actually very decent if not good, you cant gimp ridley if you recover very low unless you are mk, pikachu or something like that, his wings have invincibility on their tips. The angles are actually very useful and you can go DEEP when edgeguarding since the up b angled backwards covers a huge area.

His neutral b is excelent, it basically shuts down the enemy to shield or jump over you and since ridley is so fast he can get a free punish out of it.

The only thing i really agree is his down b, that move is garbage in its current state, id rather have a a move that let us get out of pressure but besides that ridleys kit is very good, he can adapt and deal with almost every kind of gameplan, the only MU im having a problem are with fast and small characters, such as pika, pichu, squirtle and particulary fox.
 
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Aetheri

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Ridley's down B is actually not that hard to land considering how much damage it does.

I've caught people off-guard with it a heck of a lot more than I should have. And very rarely do I hit the sourspot with it if it connects.

Also his recovery isn't even that bad, especially if you take a moment to understand how it works, which literally took me a moment to figure it out.
 
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Crystanium

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I have to agree. I've tried Ridley and things seemed fine. Then I lost badly against quick or even hard-hitting characters. I feel that Ridley is the worst big body character. I've given up on him, sadly.
 

Ridley_Prime

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How accustomed are you to bait and punish type characters? If rushdown, zoning, or something is more your thing, then yeah, Ridley may not be for you, and that's okay.

Or maybe you weren't using n-air enough when approaching and got bodied? I don't know, but with the tournament results he's been getting as of late, he can't be all that bad.
 
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Fell God

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Honestly I'm the opposite, I thought Ridley was going to be terrible before the game came out, but it seems like the team has avoided the past pitfalls of large heavyweights this time around, not a single newcomer feels weighed down by any of their gimmicks and they certainly don't feel like they're contenders for bottom tier (unlike some various slow characters with awful normals that may have debuted in the past). Ridley could actually end up being high tier potentially, he really has a lot going for him! Amazing recovery, supreme edgeguarding, the cheesiest gimping tool in the game, one of the best command grabs (second to Alolan Whip), fantastic speed, and tons of killing power. And to top it off, he only has two moves that aren't great: Skewer which is really only for low% shield break punishes and style, and down air because stall-then-falls are the worst type of move in the game, and even then these two still have their uses, situational as they may be. Some characters in this game feel strictly outclassed by others with similar playstyles, but Ridley is definitely not one of them.
 

Reila

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It might be a Little Mac 2.0 case, where people play the fighter not the way they are supposed to be played (optimally) anyway and end up frustrated in the process. I think it is what happening to me and Inkling, too. I keep trying to make them work in a way they might not be supposed to work.

Maybe try to change your approach to Ridley and see if the results improve.
 

Iwan

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Ridley was in another Grand Finals this past week. Think it's time to put the "Ridley deserves better" talk to rest. His placements speak for themselves so far.
 

faderpotater

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I’m so hype anytime I see a ridley at the top of a tourney. Anyone who wants to see how crazy he can be should look up a european tourney called valhalla 2. Someone who had only ever played online previously made it to winners grand finals.
 

Ridley_Prime

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Ridley was in another Grand Finals this past week. Think it's time to put the "Ridley deserves better" talk to rest. His placements speak for themselves so far.
B-b-but Ridley’s bad because reddit said so!
 

Ryu Myuutsu

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I find it hilarious that everyone complaining about Plasma Breath isn't mentioning its built-in drawback (hit Ridley while he's charging it for massive damage, making it a very bad idea for contesting opposing projectile spam like the space animals' lasers).
Honestly, this kind of topic complains about his Neutral B for all the wrong reasons, but considering the person who created the topic. Aside from not mentioning said drawback, OP also neglects the downside that it takes a while to fire a fully charged Plasma Breath. And calling it the worst projectile because it lacks KO potential and can be easily jumped, shielded or reflected, like almost EVERY other projectile in the game??

Despite that, it's hardly the worse projectile in the game. People here have already mentioned its potential uses for disrupting and gimping off stage.

I dislike this scrub mentality that has been hitting SmashBoards as of late. New people are so unwilling to explore their options and develop counter play against playstyles they have trouble against.
 

Reila

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No need to call others scrubs just because they are unsatisfied with Ridley.
 

meleebrawler

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3DS FC
2535-3888-1548
Better to be slept on than to be over-popular. I like the element of surprise when I murder my opponents.
Getting bodied by Bayo at E3 was all according to plan. He's always been good at getting people to underestimate him, hasn't he?
 
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Erimir

Smash Lord
Joined
Nov 24, 2001
Messages
1,732
Location
DC
3DS FC
3823-8583-9137
I don't find that I get hit during the charge for Plasma Breath all that often. I mean, you need to be careful against Sheik or someone with a fast projectile like that, but some of the characters like that are also not the greatest to use it in neutral anyway (Fox has a reflector, Sheik and Fox are fast and can go over it anyway). You can still get a lot of mileage out of Plasma Breath against Fox when he's recovering, on the other hand, and you're not very worried about the downside then.

Also worth noting that the downside of Plasma Breath isn't always horrible... if you get hit with a kill move or something that does more than 20 damage... you instead take 20 damage and no knockback.
 

FooltheFlames

needs hugs~<3
Joined
Oct 27, 2008
Messages
951
Location
Ashley's Haunted Mansion!
Uhhh... wut? ._.
How about Ashley deserves better?
Geno deserves better?
Waluigi deserves better?
Dixie Kong deserves better?
Issac deserves better?

You are sounding entirely ungrateful here my dude...
And to keep things on track here, ever heard of the player VREYVUS ??? He is doing wonders with this character! He made it to the grand finals in a high profile tournament somewhere in Europe i think. Only losing to Gultony's dangerous Wario (who has basically been the best player in the world with Wario since brawl)

Fast forward to 7:17 if you'd like to see how to combo into his down special and then react with a kill from it.
His down special does NOT suck!!
 

Idon

Smash Legend
Joined
May 24, 2018
Messages
17,614
Location
Waxing Moon Ritual
NNID
Miyamoto Iori
Switch FC
SW-4826-9581-3305
Uhhh... wut? ._.
How about Ashley deserves better?
Geno deserves better?
Waluigi deserves better?
Dixie Kong deserves better?
Issac deserves better?

You are sounding entirely ungrateful here my dude...
And to keep things on track here, ever heard of the player VREYVUS ??? He is doing wonders with this character! He made it to the grand finals in a high profile tournament somewhere in Europe i think. Only losing to Gultony's dangerous Wario (who has basically been the best player in the world with Wario since brawl)

Fast forward to 7:17 if you'd like to see how to combo into his down special and then react with a kill from it.
His down special does NOT suck!!
That's not a combo, that's more him reading the tech.
 

Ridley_Prime

Proteus Geoform
Joined
Sep 18, 2007
Messages
8,631
NNID
AlphaWarDragon87
3DS FC
0774-4845-6886
Switch FC
SW-7888-8563-5773
I don't find that I get hit during the charge for Plasma Breath all that often. I mean, you need to be careful against Sheik or someone with a fast projectile like that, but some of the characters like that are also not the greatest to use it in neutral anyway (Fox has a reflector, Sheik and Fox are fast and can go over it anyway). You can still get a lot of mileage out of Plasma Breath against Fox when he's recovering, on the other hand, and you're not very worried about the downside then.

Also worth noting that the downside of Plasma Breath isn't always horrible... if you get hit with a kill move or something that does more than 20 damage... you instead take 20 damage and no knockback.
That appears to be the case even from super powerful moves like Warlock Punch (takes set damage from plasma breath being interrupted while charging instead of knockback), so I guess it can unintentionally be a lifesaver at times.

It’s good too at least that his fireballs dont go that far a range to begin with (just far enough to serve their purpose with edgeguarding or someone whose a little further away), so when they get reflected they kinda just fizzle out.
 

ps_

Banned via Warnings
Joined
Nov 1, 2018
Messages
113
Location
Teufort, New Mexico
Ridley is such a **** character it's pathetic. It's painfully obvious that he was built around his side-B (because Sakurai "invented" it, back in Brawl) so every other move has to suffer as a result. You have a slow, blatantly-telegraphed attack that drags the opponent to the edge and great base stats, so why do you any of your other attacks need to be good, right?

He's praised by people who play him for two minutes in the darkest trenches of bottom-level laggy online, where you can win with literally any character if you know how to shorthop, tap A and recognize patterns. Neutral air is fine to create a temporary no-go zone around yourself but it's terrible for approach, as is forward air because half the cast has a faster, farther, longer lasting and/or harder hitting version of it, usually relating to a sword. The rest of his kit isn't worth mentioning and everyone knows it, which is why you only ever see those 2 moves praised.

Combine slow, poor attacks with a massive hitbox + no recovery and Ridley's match-ups are ****ing grim. You're not going to have many options against the characters most people unanimously agree are great: Yoshi, Peach, Snake, Ness, Link, Inkling, et cetera. Even the lower dregs of A-tier, like Falco or Jigglypuff, will be able to effortlessly stock you if they get even a moment of advantage. This is because those characters aren't half-baked gimmick picks, they have a range of options and they aren't fourteen feet tall.

Unless someone figures out a truly broken bug to make Ridley competitive he's going to sit in bottom-tier. People may not realize it yet (most pros haven't sat and tried to win with him; M2K did and his opinion resembles mine), but by the end of this game's lifespan it's going to become obvious how bad he really is.
 

The Event Mask

Smash Cadet
Joined
Aug 20, 2018
Messages
35
Ridley is such a **** character it's pathetic. It's painfully obvious that he was built around his side-B (because Sakurai "invented" it, back in Brawl) so every other move has to suffer as a result. You have a slow, blatantly-telegraphed attack that drags the opponent to the edge and great base stats, so why do you any of your other attacks need to be good, right?

He's praised by people who play him for two minutes in the darkest trenches of bottom-level laggy online, where you can win with literally any character if you know how to shorthop, tap A and recognize patterns. Neutral air is fine to create a temporary no-go zone around yourself but it's terrible for approach, as is forward air because half the cast has a faster, farther, longer lasting and/or harder hitting version of it, usually relating to a sword. The rest of his kit isn't worth mentioning and everyone knows it, which is why you only ever see those 2 moves praised.

Combine slow, poor attacks with a massive hitbox + no recovery and Ridley's match-ups are ****ing grim. You're not going to have many options against the characters most people unanimously agree are great: Yoshi, Peach, Snake, Ness, Link, Inkling, et cetera. Even the lower dregs of A-tier, like Falco or Jigglypuff, will be able to effortlessly stock you if they get even a moment of advantage. This is because those characters aren't half-baked gimmick picks, they have a range of options and they aren't fourteen feet tall.

Unless someone figures out a truly broken bug to make Ridley competitive he's going to sit in bottom-tier. People may not realize it yet (most pros haven't sat and tried to win with him; M2K did and his opinion resembles mine), but by the end of this game's lifespan it's going to become obvious how bad he really is.
Ok I really don't know why you continue to play the character then. You complained about how bad he was in your own thread and your still complaining about him here. Stop playing the character then, other people are finding success with him. As you said, he'll always be a bad character to you, so it might be time to choose a new main.
 
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