King K. Rool (SSBU)/Down aerial

King K. Rool down aerial hitbox visualization

Overview

A hitbox visual of King K. Rool's down aerial against the ledge. This allows K. Rool to get easy 2-frames, possibly even KOing characters with a meteor smash.

K. Rool does a flip before stomping downwards. Down aerial's clean hit is a relatively weak meteor smash, and it is overall his weakest aerial after neutral air. A lingering late hit lends it some use as a sex kick of sorts, but the hitbox is thin and the move as a whole is a bit slow, often making it difficult for K. Rool players to use. However, the payoff for landing it is immense.

Down aerial is K. Rool's best confirm into grab once forward aerial launches too far with tumble, up until down aerial's early hit sends too high off the ground, usually post-tumble. This allows for absurd damage in a short space of time, with down aerial dealing 15% alone and K. Rool's grab game allowing for many different routes to deal damage. Usually, a low-landed down aerial can lead to at least 45% in damage.

Down aerial is capable of locking opponents until it sends into tumble as well, which occurs at around 50%. The sourspot will also lock until around 15%. These allow for K. Rool to get very high damage output from his lock combos, usually ending with dash attack, or if the player isn't confident, forward tilt. Locks are often set up by neutral attack or forward aerial, or very rarely low percentage Crownerang. While forward tilt can set these up, the hit advantage is almost never enough to justify attempting to do so. Hitting opponents with another down aerial as they get up can be used for further combo extension.

Down aerial's most powerful utility comes as a hard punish for players not mashing fast enough out of down throw or down tilt. This is because it is possible to store its meteor smashes in buried states for around 40-50%, allowing K. Rool to get incredible combos. Down tilt virtually guarantees down aerial confirms from around 70%, allowing for forward smash. It's also very helpful as an out of shield option through SHFF, which is one of the few options King K. Rool has that can be seen as reliable.

Down aerial's hitbox is large vertically, extending past the feet, thus making it disjointed. As the hitbox reaches well below the ledge, this makes it very good for 2-framing, or even nailing opponents before their ledge grab. The high number of active frames makes this even easier. If used from stage, even if it fails, there is usually enough time to get a neutral aerial ledgetrap off. In a similar vein, down aerial hits below platforms, allowing it to be used to stave off platform pressure and even combo from around 80%.

Naturally this large hitbox also makes it easy to end stocks with meteor smashes offstage. However, the FAF is very high, meaning a fast fall down aerial offstage will lead to an SD. The meteor smash has low base knockback, meaning it isn't safe on hit off stage until it sends into tumble; it is recommended to wait until around 80% to start doing it properly. The late hit is also very good for edgeguarding, sending outward, and the sweetspot on the hip has 20 more base knockback than the feet, scoring a KO reasonably early.

However, down aerial has significant drawbacks. The hitbox lacks horizontal range, making it difficult to use in neutral or even advantage. The move is unsafe on shield with 14 frames of landing lag. It doesn't autocancel out of a short hop and is quite laggy both on startup (frame 14) and on endlag (a very large FAF of 62). As a result, it is also very unsafe on whiff despite the Belly Super Armor backing it up, with it essentially being a free grab for the opponent once the hitbox has terminated. As a result, down aerial is usually used for whiff punishing or bury combo extensions.

Hitboxes

ID	Part	Rehit rate	Damage	SD	Angle	Angle type	BK	KS	FKV	Set weight	Radius	Bone	Offset			H×	SDI×	T%	Clang	Rebound	Effect	Type	G	A	Sound	Direct	Hit bits	Hit part	Blockable	Reflectable	Absorbable	Flinchless	No GFX	Heedless
Clean hit
0	0	0	12.0%	0		Standard	10	90	0		7.0	top	0.0	-1.5	0.5	1.0×	1.0×	0%							Kick		All	All
1	0	0	12.0%	0		Standard	10	90	0		8.5	top	0.0	-6.5	0.0	1.0×	1.0×	0%							Kick		All	All
Late hit
0	0	0	9.0%	0		Standard	40	100	0		6.5	top	0.0	-1.5	0.5	1.0×	1.0×	0%							Kick		All	All
1	0	0	9.0%	0		Standard	20	100	0		7.0	top	0.0	-6.5	0.5	1.0×	1.0×	0%							Kick		All	All

Timing

Attack

Initial autocancel	1-3
Belly Super Armor	14-25
Clean hit	14-15
Late hit	16-21
Ending autocancel	40-
Interruptible	62
Animation length	70

Landing lag

Interruptible	15
Animation length	23

Legend (1 square = 1 frame)

Lag time

Hitbox

Hitbox change

Vulnerable

Autocancel

Armour

Interruptible

Trivia

• Similarly to King K. Rool's back aerial, the move's scripts have a line for terminating intangibility on frame 18, but without any line for starting it. This implies it was intended to grant intangibility of some sort (such as on King K. Rool's legs to create disjoint) at some point in development, but ended up being scrapped.

King K. Rool's moveset

Neutral attack (1 · 2 · 3) · Forward tilt · Up tilt · Down tilt · Dash attack · Forward smash · Up smash · Down smash
Neutral aerial · Forward aerial · Back aerial · Up aerial · Down aerial
Grab · Pummel · Forward throw · Back throw · Up throw · Down throw
Forward roll · Back roll · Spot dodge · Air dodge · Techs
Floor attack (front) · Floor getups (front) · Floor attack (back) · Floor getups (back) · Floor attack (trip) · Floor getups (trip)
Edge attack · Edge getups
Neutral special · Side special · Up special · Down special · Final Smash