Palutena Bow
| Palutena's Arrow | |
|---|---|
 Pit charging Palutena's Arrow in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U. | |
| User | Pit Dark Pit (Silver Bow) |
| Universe | Kid Icarus |
| Article on Icaruspedia | Palutena's Arrow |
Palutena's Arrow (パルテナアロー, Palutena Arrow), known as Palutena's Bow (パルテナの神弓, Palutena's God Bow) in Super Smash Bros. 4, is Pit's neutral special move.
Overview
Pit will pull his bow string back, and fire it when the button is released. The arrow does 5% uncharged and up to 11% charged. The player can change the direction the arrow will go while holding it; backwards, forwards, and upwards. Pit's arrows move much more quickly than other character's arrows, and can be controlled in midair. He is not able to hold his drawn bow indefinitely in normal use; however, if the player keeps changing the direction the arrow will be released, he can hold onto it until the player stops (when he will lose the arrow, unlike Link and Toon Link).
Palutena's Arrows can actually be curved around in a full circle if controlled properly and thus avoid going off screen. Also, if two of Palutena's Arrows collide, they will cancel each other out.
Starting at 294%, a fully charged arrow can KO a middleweight such as Mario - making it deadly in Super Sudden Death - and an uncharged arrow can KO at 562%.
This is one of the few Special moves that can perform a 180˚ and 360˚ reversal, by holding away from the direction the player is facing while charging an arrow. This does not affect attack power.
In Smash 4, the move functions the same, although the range of Pit's arrows have been drastically reduced, no longer able to curve in a full circle on large maps and only traveling almost the length of Final Destination before fading into sparkles. However, the arrows still maintain their incredible accuracy, making the distance nerf negligible. Fully charged, Pit's arrows travel much further, almost the length of two Final Destinations. However, the arrows disappear when it reaches the blast zone, removing techniques and mindgames that involves with the blast zone (such as Arrow Rain).
Silver Bow
Dark Pit's variant of the move, which instead uses the Silver Bow (神弓シルバーリップ, God Bow Silver Lip), has him fire a dark arrow. Silver Bow does not have as long a range as its counterpart and cannot be curved as much, but it does 2% more damage when fully charged. Its range can be increased by fully charging it, similar to Pit's version.
Customization
Special Move customization was introduced in Super Smash Bros. 4. Both variants of the move have the same customizations.
- Piercing Bow: Shots take longer to charge and cannot be controlled in the air, but they can pierce through opponents. They are also stronger: damage rises by 3-6% for Pit and 5-8% for Dark Pit.
- Guiding Bow: Shots are weaker and slower (down by 1-2% for Pit and .5-1% for Dark Pit), but they can be more easily controlled.
- In Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, this variation is a Challenge unlock for Dark Pit, only obtainable by using Dark Pit to get a score of at least 25 in Rival Smash.
Piercing Bow being used in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS
Guiding Bow being used in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS
Description from the Brawl Instruction Booklet
Change the angle of fire and trajectory of your ethereal arrows once you've drawn the bow.
Description from the Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS Foldout
Fire a guidable arrow. You can also point the bow up.
Palutena's Bow
The Bow of Light, also known as the Sacred Bow of Palutena, is Pit's weapon of choice. The bow splits into two blades, which Pit can wield. Before Kid Icarus Uprising, Pit's bow did not have the ability to split into two blades. This is explained in the Subspace Emissary.
Trophy information
Super Smash Bros. Brawl
- Palutena's Bow
The bow Pit got from Palutena after the Medusa incident. As a standard bow, it's capable of firing arrows of light that can change direction. It can also be split to form two short swords--Pit holds one sword in his right hand in a standard grip and one in his left in a reverse grip. He may hold them like this so he can shift between bow and swords without losing a beat.
Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS
- Palutena Bow
A bow crafted by the goddess Palutena herself. It is said that one night, as Palutena was caring for this bow, the moon's light formed a beam and fell upon it, blessing it with power. A legendary weapon like this requires skill and training to wield effectively.
A bow crafted by the goddess Palutena herself. She worked diligently on it, and as she finished, the moon's rays focused into one great moonbeam that shone down onto the bow. Naturally, a legendary weapon like this requires great skill and a lot of training to wield effectively.
Origin
Palutena's Arrow didn't appear in a Kid Icarus game prior to Super Smash Bros. Brawl (though it does appear in the later game Kid Icarus: Uprising as the Palutena Bow, which bases much of its aesthetic on designs which debuted or appeared in Brawl), but in the original games, Pit used a bow as his trademark weapon. The move appears to be based on the Arrow of Light, one of the three Sacred Treasures used to defeat Medusa. Normally, Pit fired regular arrows.
The Silver Bow appears in Kid Icarus: Uprising as a usable weapon. It is always Dark Pit's weapon as a non-playable character starting with the final boss fight against him in Chapter 6.
Gallery
Pit's bow in Brawl.
Pit and Link using their bows alongside each other.
Challenge board unlock image for Guiding Bow.
Mewtwo dodges Dark Pit's arrow.
Trivia
- The trophy is the only one that is not a Final Smash, Subspace Emissary enemy, item, or alloy to have Super Smash Bros. Brawl on its game list.
- The first time that this item is seen in the Kid Icarus universe is in Kid Icarus: Uprising, where it was dubbed "Palutena Bow".
- This is the only special move Pit keeps in Super Smash Bros. 4 from Brawl.
- Normally, Pit has golden rings hovering around his wrist. When he uses this move, the rings slide onto the bow while charging before returning to his wrists when he fires.
- In Brawl, if Pit has the arrow on the screen after he is KO'd, he can continue to control it in unlimited time. An example can be seen here: [1].
- If Kirby copies Silver Bow and uses the move at the end of his forward, back, or up throw, he will float in the air until he stops charging the move. This was fixed in version 1.0.5 for the 3DS.
- In Kid Icarus: Uprising, the Silver Bow fires green bolts of light, but in SSB4 it fires black and purple colored arrows, possibly to be in line with Dark Pit's "dark" motif and to be an antithesis to Pit's light-colored arrows.
- In a similar line to CPU Luigi players spamming Fireballs upon using Negative Zone, higher-leveled CPU Pit players will immediately fire a Palutena's Arrow after throwing an enemy. They do not aim these arrows either, making it possible that this is just a programming error.
