Poison Breath

Poison Breath (, Poison Breath) is 's side special move.

Overview
The move is an auto-charge special; using the move once will make Piranha Plant charge up poison until it is hit, it charge-cancels the move, or reaches full charge (indicated by purple clouds coming out of the bottom of its pot or pipe). The longer the move is charged, the larger and more damaging the poison cloud will be. Piranha Plant turns yellow with red polka-dots, purple teeth and green lips when charging and when blowing the cloud. Despite the move being a poison-based attack, it does not inflict the poison status effect, instead dealing darkness element damage.

The attack itself involves Piranha Plant blowing a purple cloud of poison directly in front of itself that slowly moves forward before dissipating. This attack also has a windbox, although it generally does nothing of note. Opponents within the cloud are dealt multiple looping hits that have no hitstun, but inflict damage very rapidly, with the uncharged move dealing up to 30% damage over its entire duration and the fully charged move dealing upwards of 50%. This allows for both powerful shield pressure (likely into shield breaks if the opponent hesitates) and massive damage on dazed opponents.

Since opponents will likely simply move out of the cloud or try to avoid it altogether, the move is ideally used either as an area denial tool (especially during ledgetrapping) or as the immediate prelude to a grab to hold the opponent inside the cloud. The cloud is also opaque and obscures everything within it, which can also allow for mindgames, such as Piranha Plant hiding within the cloud to charge a smash attack or Long-Stem Strike.

Origin
This move is based on the, an enemy in the Paper Mario series. Most notably, the Putrid Piranha's design matches with the color scheme of Piranha Plant when using this move. When encountered, Putrid Piranhas spit poison which deals damage to Mario or his allies and subsequently poisons them.

The Putrid Piranha is also referenced in Palutena's Guidance when performed for Piranha Plant, in addition to other types of Piranha Plants.

Trivia

 * Poison Breath is the only side special move that acts as an auto-charge.
 * When Pocketed by either or, a fully-charged Poison Breath will deal a gargantuan amount of damage per hit, allowing a single cloud to rack up around 250% of total damage.