R.O.B. (SSB4)/Up throw

Hitbox visualization showing R.O.B.'s up throw.

Overview

R.O.B. hovers up briefly and then piledrives the opponent. It deals 12% damage, among the highest damage output for a throw, with 80 degree vertical knockback, and possesses high knockback scaling for a throw, KOing around 160% at ground level before rage. Its KOing ability is boosted farther by R.O.B.'s ability to land on soft platforms above him that he passes while performing the move. The platforms he can land on from below in the legal competitive stages are the two middle platforms of Battlefield and Miiverse, the two middle platforms of Dream Land, the floating platform of Smashville, any of the platforms on Lylat Cruise, the medium height platforms on Town and City, and the small tree on the right side of Duck Hunt. Using up throw below these platforms improves its KO percentage by about 20-30%. Its power to KO effectively anywhere on the stage, and its KOing ability being substantially improved under most platforms, makes it one of the most effective KO throws in the game and gives R.O.B. an effective stock cap. It also compliments R.O.B.'s Beep Boop 50/50 well, as it will KO at percentages not that long after Beep Boop is guaranteed escapable, meaning opponents don't have long after getting out of the Beep Boop's threat range until up throw will just KO them out of a grab anyway. And being under platforms of course shrinks the gap between the Beep Boop 50/50 no longer working and up throw KOing, if not eliminating it altogether.

At 0% to low-mid damages, the move is additionally a very effective setup throw. Compared to down throw, it deals 2% more damage, and its lower knockback at these low percentages plus its slightly more diagonal angle allows for more various followups besides up aerial. Most notably, it can combo into up smash at very low damages for a grab combo that deals 27% damage fresh, though DIing out makes this followup not true or limits the damage range it will work at. DI heavily influences which followups work, with DI in allowing up tilt to work at low damages, and up aerial to work up to mid-high damages, while DIing out heavily limits the range up aerial will connect, while increasing the range that forward aerial will connect. Additionally, DIing out at very low damages and getting hit by forward aerial can lead to R.O.B. getting a regrab for farther damage, and at low-mid to mid damages, can lead into a second forward aerial or R.O.B. getting a followup into Gyro. Overall R.O.B.'s up throw combos are a bit more damaging and varied than his down throw combos, while using them also has the secondary effect of keeping his down throw and potentially up aerial fresher for slightly more damaging Beep Boops at higher damages, and by the time up throw can start KOing, it will be refreshed for its full KOing capabilities.

R.O.B,'s up throw also has one more niche use as a very situational sacrificial KO; when R.O.B. descends while performing the move, he'll keep going with the opponent in tow until he hits a platform, so if there's no platform underneath him, he'll keep going until he hits the bottom blast line, KOing him and his opponent. Since R.O.B. of course needs to be grounded on a platform to grab and initiate an up throw, this cannot happen under normal circumstances, but when R.O.B. is performing his up throw, should a platform underneath R.O.B. cease to exist with no other platform beneath him or should he be pushed offstage without the move being interrupted, he'll plummet to the bottom blast line. The scenarios that can cause this on legal stages in competitive play is Whispy blowing R.O.B. off the stage during up throw on Dream Land, R.O.B. grabbing an opponent on Smashville's platform while it's over the offstage area and then it moving away when R.O.B. is performing an up throw, a similar scenario happening on Town and City's platforms, and R.O.B. getting a grab on the very edge of Lylat Cruise while the stage then tilts in a way during up throw that causes R.O.B. to miss the stage on his descent. In doubles play, windboxes from another character's move can push R.O.B. offstage during his up throw, most notably F.L.U.D.D.. An important note about using up throw as a suicide KO move is that R.O.B. will always be KO'd before the opponent, so if both him and his opponent are on their last stock, he'll always lose the match, and in tournament play, it's uncommon nowadays for tournaments to run the Suicide rule, and even rarer for them to extend the rule beyond Flying Slam and Flame Choke.

Update history

In the earliest versions of the game, R.O.B.'s up throw was even more powerful, being the second strongest KO throw in the game after Ness' back throw and the strongest up throw. In version 1.0.4, the initial version of Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, it could KO opponents at ground level around 140% before rage, while it still possessed its ability to land on platforms, meaning even heavier characters could potentially get KO'd below 100% by up throw with rage. This also meant that the gap between Beep Boop working and up throw KOing was almost or entirely nonexistent. The balance patch that came with version 1.0.6 reduced up throw's base knockback and knockback scaling values, moreso its base knockback, making it KO about 20-25% later. While R.O.B. players consider the decreased KO power as outweighing it, this wasn't a pure nerf however, as the base knockback reduction gave R.O.B. access to a new setup throw at lower damages whereas up throw's base knockback was too powerful to combo at all before, that leads into throw combos that deal more damage than R.O.B.'s down throw combos and are more varied, as covered previously.

1.0.6

Up throw deals less knockback (70 (base), 72 (scaling) → 60/70). While this grants it combo potential at low percentages, this more significantly hinders its KO potential.