King K. Rool (SSBU)

King K. Rool Comes Aboard! King K. Rool (, King K. Rool) is a playable character in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. He was announced as a newcomer during the August 8th, 2018 Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Direct alongside, , , and. King K. Rool is classified as Fighter #67.

Much like, , and , Ultimate forgoes King K. Rool's voice actor , in favor of realistic animal vocals.

King K. Rool is currently ranked 74th out of 82 on the Ultimate tier list, near the top of D+ tier. Typical for a super-heavyweight character, King K. Rool possesses a wide arsenal of very powerful, hard hitting attacks, with many of them also having great range. King K. Rool also boasts some of the best endurance in the game - he is the second heaviest character behind, which in combination of his unique character-specific perk, Belly Super Armor, high falling speed, and a very long-distanced recovery thanks to Propellerpack, allows him to survive to ludicrously high percentages and utilize rage very well, especially with his aforementioned powerful attacks.

In addition, King K. Rool has a unique and rather versatile moveset. Some of his attacks, such as his neutral attack, up tilt, up smash and up aerial, all have disproportionately quick startup in comparison to other super-heavyweight characters. King K. Rool also has two projectiles, Blunderbuss and Crownerang, with the former also functioning as a command grab and the latter having damage-based armor, while his down special, Gut Check, functions as a both counter and reflector. These moves alongside Belly Super Armor grant K. Rool unique anti-zoning tools atypical for his weight class. King K. Rool has interesting utility with many of his normals as well - down tilt can bury his opponents, neutral aerial is an excellent landing - and edgeguarding tool thanks to Belly Super Armor and long-lasting, lingering hitbox, forward aerial has a combination of great power, reach and safety due to relatively low landing lag, up aerial gives a slight vertical momentum and is disproportionately powerful, and back aerial is a very powerful meteor smash. Finally, King K. Rool has an excellent grab game, with all of his grabs having very far reach, with arguably one of the best set of throws in the game, with two of them having great KO potential (up and back throws), a burying throw that can setup for KOs (down throw), and one with combo potential at low percentages (forward throw).

However, for his many strengths, King K. Rool has extremely glaring weaknesses. His tall, rotund hurtbox is among the largest in the game, which combined with his gargantuan weight and high falling speed makes King K. Rool arguably the easiest character in the game to combo. King K. Rool's mobility also leaves a lot to be desired - while his initial dash speed is above average, his actual run speed is poor, and his air speed is also below average. While King K. Rool has relatively fast startup on many of his attacks, some of them (down tilt, forward smash, down smash and back air) are nevertheless very slow, and almost all of his attacks suffer from an universal flaw - extreme ending lag. Because of the latter, King K. Rool is very suspectible to being whiff punished, while having very few attacks that are safe on shield. The ending lag issue is especially prominent with King K. Rool's aerials - all of his aerials other than his neutral aerial, suffer from disproportionately high ending lag, with all of them having total duration of at least 54 frames. This somewhat restricts King K. Rool's air game, as most of his aerials are very punishable if not performed right before landing.

Many of King K. Rool's own unique attributes have significant flaws attached to them. Belly Super Armor only protects his belly and can break akin to a shield break if it takes too much damage. Similarly, Gut Check only protects King K. Rool's belly, making his head and back vulnerable. While Propellerpack grants him a long-ranged recovery, it is slow, very linear, and only protects King K. Rool from above, making his recovery predictable and very exploitable. Crownerang's armor does not protect against strong attacks or grabs, and the crown can also be picked up as an item by other characters. King K. Rool also has very lackluster out of shield options - while his up smash is fast, the initial hit only hits above K. Rool and is very punishable, while his second fastest option, neutral aerial, has a short range, especially behind him. This is further made worse by the fact that King K. Rool is forced to shield relatively often due to his massive hurtbox and below-average mobility. Finally, because of his massive size and limited ledge options, King K. Rool is very susceptible at being ledgetrapped.

While King K. Rool is a fairly popular character in lower level and casual play, his high-level representation is quite limited due to his significant flaws and a small playerbase. However, thanks to efforts of dedicated players such as, , and most notably, , and significant buffs via game updates, King K. Rool has nevertheless gathered a couple of decent results during Ultimate's lifespan, in spite of his aforementioned issues and low placement on the tier list.

How to unlock
Complete one of the following: With the exception of the third method, King K. Rool must then be defeated on Jungle Japes. In World of Light, he is fought on Pirate Ship.
 * Play VS. matches, with King K. Rool being the 16th character to be unlocked.
 * Clear with  or anyone in his unlock tree, being the 1st character unlocked.
 * Have King K. Rool join the player's party in World of Light.

Attributes
King K. Rool is a character that ostensibly fits the mold of a super heavyweight, being the 2nd heaviest character in the game behind and possessing a large array of powerful attacks with long range, but with below-average mobility; while his falling speed and gravity are noticeably above average, his traction and jumping force are average at best, and he also has the 20th slowest air speed, the 17th slowest walking speed, the 13th slowest dashing speed, and the 8th slowest air acceleration in the game.

Despite this, King K. Rool's initial dash has above-average speed, which gives him a great dash dance and foxtrot, the latter of which partially alleviates his sluggish grounded mobility. However, he has some characteristics that notably set him apart from his heavyweight peers; he has a wide variety of versatile moves, access to two conventional projectiles, a long-distanced recovery, and other valuable techniques that aid his playstyle in regard to focusing on punishing mistakes and zoning against horizontal approaches.

King K. Rool's greatest strength is the immense utility of his moveset. Though many of his attacks are typical of super-heavyweights, he also has attacks that exchange brute strength (though most of them are still powerful) for unique attributes that contribute to his punish-focused playstyle. This is best shown through his character-specific perk, Belly Super Armor: attacks with this property gain short periods of this super armor, which can block incoming attacks during their duration. This mechanic gives him an advantage that allows him to win more exchanges than he would normally. Additionally, it affects a large amount of his moves, granting more safety on moves such as his and  to break through projectiles or difficult to punish attacks. As a result, Belly Super Armor heavily helps his approach and general disadvantage.

Alongside the utility of his Belly Super Armor, King K. Rool has effective grounded attacks. His has good range and high speed, making it reliable as a quick get-off-me option. It is also tied with, , and 's neutral attacks as the third most damaging non-infinite neutral attack in the game, and leads into a tech situation at low to mid percentages. His tilts are very effective; for example, comes out very quickly, deals respectable damage and knockback during its initial frames, and has enough range to hit platforms above K. Rool while also being slightly disjointed due to his punching arm being intangible for its duration. This can also be used to anti-air or prevent approaches from characters such as and. It is also the most reliable move out of, becoming a true combo from around 120% and reliably KOing most characters at such percents if near the ledge.

can bury grounded opponents or KO airborne ones, making it a potent punishment option. It also works at the ledge as a ledgehang punish or 2-frame option, and has a large shockwave hitbox that notably extends its range. His aforementioned forward tilt grants him Belly Super Armor as early as frame 5, has excellent range, can be angled up or down (with latter capable of being used as a ledge hang punish or 2-frame option), and is among the most powerful of its kind. Finally, his dash attack is also equipped with Belly Super Armor, has fast startup, a long-lasting, large hitbox, and is exceptionally strong, being a very potent, powerful burst option that can go through variety of attacks.

All of his smash attacks are incredibly powerful, and coupled with their unique traits and the belly armor on his up and down smashes, allow for very effective punishment. deals heavy knockback regardless of where it hits, especially if angled upwards. It also confirms out of a down tilt bury at 70%, KOing the opponent provided they are not too far from the ledge. functions as a quick anti-air, is extremely strong for its speed, and also has a small meteor smash hitbox in addition to a third hitbox that punishes grounded foes. However, only the first is really useful as the other two are weak and largely ineffectual. deals massive shield damage and lifts K. Rool's entire body off the stage from frame 4, allowing it to dodge most ground-hugging moves and makes it his best hard punish option considering its immense strength. Overall, his smash attacks are all formidable for hard punishes. Both up and down smash are equipped with Belly Super Armor, which is especially useful in the case of down smash as it allows it to punish more attacks than similar moves such as and Incineroar's respective down smashes could.

His aerials are also fairly unique in their utility. grants the longest duration of belly armor in K. Rool's moveset, making it a reliable combo breaker or landing tool to prevent juggling. Neutral aerial also has very low landing lag, allowing it to combo into moves such as neutral attack, up tilt, dash grab, and dash attack, the latter in particular being a KO confirm at certain percentages. The move's long-lasting, lingering hitbox and Belly Super Armor makes it a very effective edgeguarding tool, as it can negate a variety of recovery moves and gimp most opponents with ease. King K. Rool's is arguably his best move overall, being a cornerstone for his neutral game. It has amazing range, hits exceptionally hard, and because of its low landing lag, it is safe on shield and is his best combo starter at low percentages. This gives the move a extreme utility as a neutral tool, KO move, combo starter, decent air-to-air option against some characters, as a potent albeit situational edgeguard option, for catching jumps and even as an occasional punish out of his burying moves. Forward aerial also deals non-tumble hitstun at 0%, allowing him to confirm into a grab.

is a very unorthodox move with a surprisingly high amount of utility. It has quick start-up, a very long-lasting hitbox, and excellent KO power, while also working as a good platform movement out of a short hop. This is most effective when platforms are low, such as on ; it can also be used as a situational third jump while recovering, stalling K. Rool in the air while allowing it to potentially cancel out projectiles thrown at him. Because of the Belly Super Armor, long-lasting hitbox and the fact that K. Rool does not perform the slight jump while in hitstun, it can be used as a situational combo breaker. and are meteor smashes, with the former coming out relatively fast and being a potent combo starter and 2-frame punish, and while the latter is very slow, it is also one of the strongest meteor smashes in the game. King K. Rool's back aerial also creates a wall of hitboxes behind him as a sourspot (which is also extremely powerful and can KO as early as 75%) covers his entire arm. His up and down aerials utilize belly armor, but their utility is situational due to their hitboxes being separated from K. Rool's belly. His neutral, forward, and back aerials are also relatively safe on shield, which is unusual for a super-heavyweight character. All in all, each of King K. Rool's aerials possess respectable utility and are overall considered to be his best moves.

His special moves have a wide array of uses as well, with several efficient projectiles; the Blunderbuss is useful for edgeguarding purposes (such as forcing a situation where the opponent has to recover low, allowing for a down aerial) and throws out a Kannonball that can be sucked back in and aimed in a few directions. The Blunderbuss can also act as a command grab, sucking in opponents and shooting them out in different directions, with the forward reshoot in particular sporting very high knockback. The suction of the Blunderbuss is an effective ledge-trapping tool, especially on stages with platforms. Since K. Rool can drop through platforms while still having slight control over his movement, he can limit the opponent's options to effectively escape the ledge.

The vacuum animation can also be delayed and is very quick to come out if a Kannonball is in play, allowing King K. Rool to easily mix up the timings. Crownerang is a very versatile tool that covers a large distance and grants him damage-based armor throughout the majority of its duration, and the late hit can set up combos or even straight up confirm kills into numerous moves. It has high priority that beats out most projectiles, and the armor allows K. Rool to tank numerous attacks, making the move very threatening in some matchups. The pick-up animation also has some ways to be canceled, which can be adapted into the player's gameplan.

Furthermore, King K. Rool has immense durability: between his extreme weight, above-average falling speed, his Belly Super Armor on various moves, and his heavy armor on Crownerang, King K. Rool has some of, if not the best longevity in the game; it is not uncommon for him to sustain more than 200% damage. Additionally, his up special move, Propellerpack, travels a remarkable distance for a heavyweight and is infamously hard to intercept vertically due to its respectably disjointed hitbox. This can be used to poke opponents on the ledge, then jump up with a forward or up aerial to regain advantage. It can also situationally be used to catch opponents near the ceiling to steal a stock, most notably on high recovery routes.

King K. Rool also has one of the best grab games among the entire cast. Each of his grabs have very long ranges and 3 active frames, while his throws boast a mix of high damage outputs and/or respecttable utility. King K. Rool's is almost identical to Incineroar's equivalent throw aesthetically, but is somewhat different mechanically: it involves him jumping toward the upper blast zone quickly and, as a result, can result in him landing on a platform after he descends. It is the most damaging throw in the entire game, dealing almost 20% if the 1v1 multiplier is enabled, making it a very effective damage racking tool. It also leaves the opponent in a juggling situation. It is also one of the strongest up throws in the game, and with help of platforms it can KO even earlier. King K. Rool's is a similarly powerful throw with fantastic KO potential near the ledge, which becomes even more potent with rage. It also sends the opponent at a semi-spike angle, setting up for potentially deadly edgeguards even when it fails to KO.

At higher percentages, King K. Rool's notorious can lead into various mixups with tilts, up smash or aerials depending on the opponent's mash speed. Most notably, he can create a 50/50 situation at around 80%-100% with the throw - up smash covers mashing, allowing him to hit the opponent before they mash out and net a KO, or if they decide not to mash, forward smash will KO them. In addition to this, dash attack or up tilt are reliable options at higher percentages, allowing K. Rool to straight up KO with the throw starting from 120%-140%. does decent damage, can help put an opponent offstage and in a disadvantageous position, and leads into a dash attack for a true combo until around 20%. Once this is out of range, it is great for setting up edgeguards. With all of this, K. Rool is always able to deal significant damage if he lands a grab, and is able to KO with his throws earlier than almost every character in the game to the point where he gets a huge chunk of his KOs with his grabs. All of this is made even more effective with his excellent grab range; combined with his effective initial dash, this can allow for a string of grabs that strongly deters shielding.

King K. Rool has access to a large amount of advanced techniques. These techniques assist with movement, mixups, and even enable combos. As a result, he is a rather technical fighter that can be rewarding to a player looking for a simple character with a high learning curve. They are all somewhat practical and reward creative use, allowing players to build interesting playstyles of their own. This makes him easily accessed at a low level, while still being usable on a higher level of play. As long as the player is aware of the options that the design of these techs provide, King K. Rool will reward them for it.

However, King K. Rool's numerous advantages are also met with several glaring and exploitable weaknesses. His below-average mobility spells trouble for him in certain matchups, and can make him easier to zone. Blunderbuss Kannonballs are slow to set up, and while they can occupy space well, fast characters can easily ignore it if they are even remotely close to him. Crownerang is also slow and can backfire very hard when missed, since the crown is a fairly powerful item that opponents can use to rack up damage very quickly. Gut Check is generally inferior to other counterattacks due to having a hitbox only on his stomach, while having significantly higher endlag than most reflectors (around 30 frames if it fails), making it unreliable. This endlag makes it almost meaningless against some projectiles, such as.

King K. Rool's extreme weight, very large hurtbox, and above-average falling speed make him extremely vulnerable to combos, and while his Belly Super Armor can help alleviate this, it's not completely foolproof: if K. Rool takes 36.02% of total damage to his armor over a short period of time, he will suffer a pseudo-shield break and be rendered immobile until his belly armor recovers. It also replenishes only 0.3% per second, making abuse quite difficult. Its limited HP punishes abuse of this mechanic if used frequently. Although it is hard to break in most matchups, it is certainly possible especially against other heavyweights with strong attacks, such as Bowser and.

However, its effectiveness varies depending on whether clashing against his attacks is actually worthwhile. The HP system of Belly Armor makes it quite exploitable and can occasionally act as a liability for survival, forcing him to rely more on non-armored moves when it's about to break. Additionally, due to their brief duration, his belly armor attacks are more reliable on quick, single-hit moves than long, multi-hitting attacks. The utility of Belly Super Armor as a combo breaker is also limited by its relative slowness to come out, being active from frame 6 on neutral and up aerial. K. Rool's other options to escape combos in the air are similarly limited; his air dodge is slower than most of the cast, starting at frame 4, and Gut Check, which also makes him intangible at frame 4 and can heavily punish reckless opponents, is in turn very vulnerable to staggered pressure, especially when used carelessly.

Though a lot of King K. Rool's moves have decent start-up, especially for a super heavyweight, an equal amount of them suffer from very high ending lag, which means that King K. Rool gets easily punished if he fails to connect his attacks. Despite the wide array of tools he has at his disposal, he lacks many moves that can simply be thrown out quickly, as many of his attacks are punishable or force him to use up his belly armor. This ironically makes his approach ineffective despite the sheer amount of different, fast attacks he has; few of his attacks can maintain pressure without being exploited, and the lag can make moves like forward tilt a neutral reset at best. King K. Rool is also vulnerable to being pressured and rushed down due to a poor out-of-shield game; his up smash cannot be used out of shield in most matchups, as the headbutt (which comes out on frame 6) only hits directly above him, while the later plank hitboxes are weak and slow to come out.

King K. Rool's neutral aerial, his fastest and most reliable out of shield option, has poor range, especially behind him. As a result, K. Rool is particularly vulnerable to characters that can cross-up his shield easily, since he effectively has no option to punish this kind of approach and has to resort to retreating or jumping away. Finally, even his amazing grab game has some flaws: forward throw is unable to KO at realistic percentages, up throw requires platforms to KO effectively and is too laggy to have true followups, back throw loses a lot of its KO power if used center-stage due to its low knockback growth, and down throw's extensive mixups and KO confirms more often than not require reads to be effective. It is also affected by the bounce glitch, which adds even more inconsistency to the move.

Additionally, King K. Rool's air game can overall be seen as mediocre. Although his aerials are generally very potent moves and have interesting attributes, including two meteor smashes and armor on some of them, all of these moves (apart from his neutral aerial) suffer from one fatal flaw—very high ending lag in the air—making many of them somewhat situational, and forcing K. Rool to land with the moves to minimize the ending lag in the air. His down aerial's meteor smash hitbox only lasts for two frames and the move itself has high ending lag, making the potential punishes off of it very situational. His up aerial has extreme ending lag (the highest of any aerial in the game), preventing King K. Rool from acting even after a jump (though platforms can alleviate this), making it somewhat risky to use high up in the air. While his back aerial is very strong and has a lingering hitbox, it has very high start-up lag, which makes it easy to stuff out especially with its lack of armor or intangibility, and it additionally has a very weak sourspot, making it somewhat inconsistent.

Additionally, none of King K. Rool's aerials autocancel in a short hop. His forward and back aerials require a full hop double jump to autocancel, while up aerial does not autocancel without being very high up. The high ending lag of his aerials makes fast-falling them offstage extremely risky, as it is possible to self-destruct before even getting a chance to recover, which depletes edgeguarding options. Due to the high overall lag of his aerials, K. Rool is unable to juggle for extended periods of time, and his aerial game is mostly constrained to a reactive playstyle. K. Rool's slow aerial mobility further hampers his aerial capacity, and his massive hurtbox makes him a very easy target if in the air, giving him a limited air game, making his playstyle generally more grounded.

Crownerang, while a very strong move on its own, is flawed in many ways. If an opponent picks up the crown after it has been thrown, it leaves him without one of his best tools. The crown can actually be used to edgeguard against Propellerpack, or it can be thrown up to keep it from respawning. It is also very possible for opponents to combo with the crown, or pick it up again after throwing it, with very little counterplay available. The player must adopt an entirely different playstyle while the crown is on the field, or else risk losing a stock. As the pick-up animation takes 17 frames to complete, this also means that it can interrupt crucial combos, leading to the opponent getting away and resetting to neutral. While this is alleviated slightly through tech, it does not help a lot.

King K. Rool's recovery, while effective in theory, is very exploitable by the majority of the roster. Propellerpack is very linear, and a knowledgeable player can edgeguard him for long periods of time. It is immensely slow, and moving around with it reduces the vertical speed and leaves strong momentum, which can lead to a self-destruct if not accounted for. The hitbox does not cover him horizontally at all, and as he cannot cancel the animation, he always has to commit to it. He is usually forced to recover low, which is extremely dangerous due to how many characters have their own unique ways to beat out Propellerpack. Characters such as and  have moves (Ptooie and  respectively in this case) that can also counteract the vertical hitbox.

Propellerpack also leaves him very vulnerable to stage spikes, though LSI greatly alleviates this and allows him to tech to unreasonable percentages. The move can be angled to try and prevent this, though K. Rool usually will not recover without taking a large amount of damage. K. Rool also has very few ledge options; his only unique one is forward aerial, which requires frame-perfect precision to ledgesnap. Other than this, his ledge options are very limited—even Crownerang is too laggy to be used from the ledge reliably—and thus many characters can keep him there for a long time before finally KOing him.

All in all, King K. Rool has a somewhat hard time compensating his heavy drawbacks, even though his strengths are also very potent. King K. Rool is an extremely resilient character that excels at keeping opponents out while punishing mistakes extremely hard. He enjoys playing a unique bait-and-switch playstyle, being a zoner that can switch to aggression whenever there is an opening and net a substantial punish. His damage output cannot be understated, with him often either getting a stock or leaving an opponent at KO percents. This ability to force reactions from his foe makes him unlike any other character in the cast, and creativity rewards the player with a decently versatile character.

However, just like how he capitalizes heavily on mistakes and confusion, King K. Rool's own openings can be heavily punished as well, requiring him to play patiently. To use the full potential of his moveset, the player needs to balance their gameplay between zoning and up and personal aggression. For while K. Rool does have the advantage of switching between safe distancing via Crownerang and the Blunderbuss or pressuring lighter characters with his strong melee attacks, he does not perform well enough to use one strategy alone.

Historically, K. Rool's competitive reception has generally been very negative, though it has somewhat fluctuated over time. Early on, he was considered to be a potential high tier or even top tier character, as well as "broken" (especially by casual players), it did not take too long for many top professionals to consider King K. Rool as one of the worst characters in the game due to his severe, heavily exploitable downsides. In Japan, his reputation was even worse, with many top professional players there universally ranking him as the single worst character in the game. This is reflected in his tournament results, as they are very limited in North America and Japan (in latter, practically completely nonexistent outside of online tournaments), especially on the national level.

However, thanks to dedicated players like and, King K. Rool's results in Australia and Europe respectively are significantly better. Ben Gold in particular managed to win, the biggest Ultimate major so far in Australia. Although his competitive viability still remains questionable and many players still view him as a low tier or even bottom tier character, the plehtora of significant buffs he received from game updates has made numerous top professional players question whether K. Rool really is as bad as previously thought. Some of them even believe that he might be a mid tier character instead of a low tier or bottom tier character as previously thought. However, how much these buffs have actually affected his viability remains to be seen.

Update history
King K. Rool received a mix of buffs, nerfs and glitch fixes via game updates, but was significantly buffed overall. In response to his early metagame perceptions, update 2.0.0 shortened Blunderbuss' vacuum duration and decreased the horizontal range of Propellerpack's hitbox, the latter of which would previously hit opponents on the edge from noticeably far away. The most notable change, however, was to down throw: its bury duration's scaling was changed to be less effective at low percentages, but more effective at high percentages. While the former two are direct nerfs, they did not significantly impact his playstyle. While originally considered to be a significant nerf, King K. Rool proved to benefit from the change to his down throw, as the popularization of forward throw to dash attack made the early percentage usage obsolete, and the higher scaling allowed for down throw to up tilt to be a reliable KO confirm beginning around 130%.

After his metagame relevance dropped, outside of a nerf to Crownerang's shield damage, King K. Rool received his first buffs in updates 3.0.0 and 3.1.0. The most notable among these was the ending lag reduction to up aerial, making it far safer to use offstage and even more reliable for recovery thanks to it functioning as a pseudo-double jump. Forward aerial's hitbox priority would also be tweaked, making the higher-damage hitboxes connect reliably and thus drastically improve K. Rool's combo game. This would be the first of numerous buffs to the move, which would turn it from a mediocre move to among the best in K. Rool's kit.

Update 6.0.0 would rework Blunderbuss, reducing its lag and increasing the KO power of Kannonballs. A new searchbox would be added specifically for vacuuming Kannonballs, drastically improving the consistency of reshooting them and making it reliable off-stage. K. Rool's aerials all received significant improvements as well; neutral aerial's landing lag was reduced to 9, allowing dash to be buffered consistently and making it easy to combo from, forward aerial's damage was buffed to the point it is -5 on shield, and up aerial's hitbox activity and KO potential was monumentally improved. These changes, coupled with continued tweaks to Gut Check, revolutionized K. Rool's game plan and gave him some much-needed identity.

After a minor buff to his shield in update 7.0.0, subsequent updates granted King K. Rool several useful buffs. In update 8.0.0, Belly Super Armor and Crownerang both received damage threshold increases, allowing him to force his way through many situations, notably improving his disadvantage state. Crownerang's buff was of particular note, significantly improving its utility in numerous game states, saving him from edge traps, juggling, or edge-guard situations. Back throw and up smash's changes improved his ability to KO from stray hits as well, with back throw in particular even gimping opponents on its own due to the new knockback angle, making it an option to respect when edge trapping K. Rool.

After many -related bugs being fixed, K. Rool's KO potential was amped up even more in update 13.0.0. Up throw received a knockback growth buff that put it on par with ' which, considering its ability to take K. Rool to higher platforms, made it significantly more imposing. Up tilt's damage output received a buff that made it more reliable out of down throw, whereas previously it was middling and mostly outclassed by dash attack, which is 3 frames slower. Finally, forward smash gained slightly more range and an extra active frame, now being slightly easier to land and hitting edge-hanging opponents more reliably.

Overall, King K. Rool fares significantly better than he did at the launch of Ultimate: his neutral game has improved drastically, he has far more reliable KO options, and his disadvantage state has been considerably reworked. Numerous top professionals, such as, , , and , have acknowledged his significant turnaround, which has been reflected by players such as , , and achieving considerable success partially because of his buffs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Moveset
For a gallery of King K. Rool's hitboxes, see here.
 * K. Rool has a large and tall hurtbox while standing, walking, and jumping. However, he dashes on all four limbs, akin to real-life alligators and crocodiles, which makes his hurtbox significantly shorter.
 * Certain belly-based moves in King K. Rool's moveset (forward tilt, dash attack, up smash, down smash, neutral aerial, up aerial, down aerial, and side taunt) activate health-based super armor around his belly, known as Belly Super Armor. Each of the listed moves has this out for varying frames. However, taking damage with these moves cracks it, with K. Rool getting dazed upon it breaking completely after sustaining too much damage. The armor has 18.01 HP, but since the incoming damage is split 50/50 between K. Rool and his belly, it is practically 36.02 HP. It regenerates at 0.08 HP every 16 frames (about 0.3 HP per second). Attacks that hit K. Rool's belly super armor make a loud, distinct clanging sound as an audio cue, with a fixed 16 frames of hitlag. It is also possible to estimate the damage it has taken, with small cracks appearing at 11.5 HP (where 23% would break it) and large cracks appearing at 5.02 HP (where 10.04% would break it).

On-screen appearance

 * Descends from the sky with his arms crossed before chuckling. His pose is based on how he appears in , while his descent is a reference to Donkey Kong Country.

Taunts

 * Up taunt: Viciously bites forward four times. It is similar to 's side taunt.
 * Side taunt: Slaps his belly once in amusement. Despite being a taunt, it uses K. Rool's Belly Super Armor during the frames before he slaps his belly.
 * Down taunt: Performs a shiko, a powerful stomp in sumo that functions as both an exercise and a pre-bout ritual to ward off evil spirits.

Idle poses

 * Angrily bites the air.
 * Slaps his belly twice and gloats.

Crowd cheer
 

Victory poses

 * Left: Shifts his eyes left and right before ending with a triumphant pose.
 * Up: Flips his cape around before ending in a pose similar to his official artwork.
 * Right: Belly flops on-screen and rebounds with a backflip, before landing on his feet and slapping his belly with his tongue sticking out.

Most historically significant players
See also: Category:King K. Rool players (SSBU)


 * - The best King K. Rool player in the world during the early metagame before switching to and then ultimately becoming inactive. Placed 1st at, 5th at , 17th at both  and , and 25th at  with wins over players such as , , and . Currently ranked 7th on the Australian Power Rankings.
 * - The best King K. Rool player in Japan. Placed 3rd at, 5th at , and 7th at with wins over players such as , , and . Currently ranked 5th on the Tohoku Power Rankings.
 * - The best King K. Rool player in the world. Placed 1st at, 5th at , 7th at , 13th at , and 17th at with wins over players such as , , and . He is also considered the best King K. Rool player online, placing 2nd at both  and 5th at . Currently ranked 17th on the Wi-Fi Warrior Rank v7.
 * - The best King K. Rool player in Germany, and one of the best in Europe, but is currently inactive. Placed 5th at both and  as well as 7th at  with wins over players such as, , and.
 * - One of the best King K. Rool players in the United States prior to dropping him. Placed 9th at Sweet Spot 5, 33rd at both and  with wins over players such as  and . Currently ranked 10th on the current Kansas City Power Rankings..

Tier placement and history
Upon Ultimates's release, many players noted King K. Rool's numerous strengths that were never seen before on a super-heavyweight character, namely his two projectiles, unique Belly Super Armor mechanic, a down throw that — in theory — leads to very early kill confirms, good startup on many moves, and a very long-ranged recovery. This, coupled with the inherent strengths of being a super-heavyweight, had top professionals speculating that King K. Rool could be high- or even top-tier on release. Additionally, less experienced players struggled mightily against him, with some calling him "broken". In the first few weeks of the game's release, King K. Rool picked up multiple strong early tournament results, primarily in the US, such as placing 9th at,  placing 13th at , and  placing 4th at.

However, it quickly became apparent that King K. Rool was not nearly as good as players thought, as he has some of the nastiest downsides in the game to counter his strengths. Compounding this, King K. Rool received nerfs in update 2.0.0 that made his already negative perception even worse, despite being largely irrelevant in retrospect. Because of these factors, almost every top professional saw him as one of the worst characters in the game within months, which was especially notorious among the Japanese top players, many of whom considered him to be the single-worst character in the game. He was simply too inconsistent to be seen as a viable pick in the high-power metagame that Ultimate's cast brought to the table.

King K. Rool later received a small number of helpful buffs in update 3.0.0 in 2019, although they were not significant enough to address his significant flaws, and his competitive reputation remained poor. Nevertheless, it improved his representation, with getting a win against  during  and placing 3rd, which was the first glimmer of hope for K. Rool in spite of his then-bottom tier perception. While still typically ranked very low, players such as, , and began to earn cosmopolitan results that made people question King K. Rool's reputation as a low tier character. This was especially evident when Ben Gold managed to win, an Australian B-tier tournament, with King K. Rool as his solo main. While still revied rather lowly by top players, 2019 proved to be a decent year for the Kremling King, with players like and  arguing that he could be mid-tier.

Ben Gold would continue achieving astounding results at PGR-level events well into 2020, such as 17th at, which was the event to truly bring King K. Rool's low-tier status into question. During this period, western players began connecting with the Japanese playerbase, where they learned some of King K. Rool's more nuanced gameplay lines, and as resources continued to improve, the skill floor for King K. Rool began to increase as well. Thus, by the time Ben Gold dropped King K. Rool, carried the torch, going on to on to place 13th at. Additionally, Raphy, a German player, placed 5th at. While Ben Gold dropped the character, his, Raphy, and KirbyKid's success solo maining King K. Rool from 2020 through 2022, along with repeated significant buffs in hand, led to further conversations about King K. Rool's viability. went as far as to say that King K. Rool is a high-mid-tier character, and some Japanese players — such as, who considered him to be the worst character in the game — stated that K. Rool might be a lot more threatening.

More recently, many of King K. Rool's top players have either decreased in tournament attendance or moved towards different characters. Many of his buffs, while accentuating his strengths, failed to answer many of his weaknesses, such as a poor out of shield game and lack of non-committal anti-airs. With multiple periods of competitive viability, his staying power at top level can be called questionable, with him fading in and out of top cut lists over months. King K. Rool's true viability is hotly contested, with some arguing his national-level top cut placements prove his potential, while others will call it a fluke. Regardless, with a lack of top level representation in 2023, in addition to his inherent flaws and inconsistent top level results, King K. Rool ranks 74th on the first and current tier list, near the top of the low tier.

: Super Heavyweight Class
King K. Rool's opponents are among the heaviest characters in the game. The name of the route uses boxing terminology, referencing his boxing-themed final boss fight in . The boss of his route is Galleom, who is the heaviest boss in the game. On an extended note, Galleom's hulking proportions and posture are similar to 's (King K. Rool's arch-nemesis), and his name is spelled similarly to "Galleon", which can be a reference to  (the song associated with King K. Rool).

Credits roll after completing Classic Mode. Completing it as King K. Rool has  accompany the credits.

Role in World of Light
King K. Rool was among the fighters that were summoned to fight against the army of Master Hands.

During the opening cutscene, King K. Rool was present on the cliffside when Galeem unleashed his beams of light. He was vaporized offscreen and placed under Galeem's imprisonment along with the other fighters, excluding.

King K. Rool was one of the many fighters that fell under Dharkon's control upon Galeem's first defeat. He can be found on a ship in the Mysterious Dimension sub-area, guarded by the spirit of fellow pirate, Risky Boots. To reach his location, the player must first defeat the Scarfy spirit, which is one of the right answers to a quiz question of which spirit Kirby cannot inhale. Then, the player must defeat the spirit of Trevor C. Belmont, the right answer to a quiz question of which spirit assisted Alucard in defeating Dracula.

Spirits
King K. Rool's fighter spirit can be obtained by completing. It is also available periodically for purchase in the shop for 300 Gold, but only after King K. Rool has been unlocked. Unlocking King K. Rool in World of Light allows the player to preview the first spirit below in the Spirit List under the name "???". As a fighter spirit, it cannot be used in Spirit Battles and is purely aesthetic. His fighter spirit has an alternate version that replaces it with his artwork in Ultimate.

Additionally, he makes an appearance as a few primary spirits under his alter-egos from the Donkey Kong Country series.

In Spirit Battles
Conditions in italic aren't listed on the Spirit Battle preview screen.

Trivia

 * Ultimate marks King K. Rool's first major video game appearance in over a decade, last appearing in , released in 2008.
 * King K. Rool is one of five Ultimate newcomers that were previously Mii Costumes in Super Smash Bros. 4, alongside, , , and.
 * According to Masahiro Sakurai, King K. Rool's inclusion in Ultimate was a result of his popularity in the Super Smash Bros. Fighter Ballot.
 * As a result of K. Rool's inclusion, fans of the character issued a thank you letter to Masahiro Sakurai and Nintendo of America for including him as a fighter. The letter was signed by fans, and Nintendo of America even wrote back to the fans, expressing gratitude towards them for the fan letter.
 * King K. Rool is the second fighter whose back aerial meteor smashes opponents, with the first being.
 * King K. Rool is also the second fighter who has a smash attack (his up smash) that is able to meteor smash, with the first being 's down smash.
 * King K. Rool is the second fighter to have both a counterattack and a reflector in his default moveset, with the first being.
 * King K. Rool is the only fighter to have a taunt that utilizes armor.
 * Pausing and zooming in on and around King K. Rool during his side taunt reveals a gap between his scales and his belly armor.
 * If King K. Rool gets caught by a grab that uses a unique animation on capturing characters (Flame Choke, Snake's grab, etc.) while using his forward smash, the boxing glove will remain on his hand until he gets released.
 * King K. Rool's animation when using the Home-Run Bat's forward smash utilizes a one-handed swing, similar to his batting stance in Mario Super Sluggers.
 * In the Canadian French version, the name tag and voice clip from the announcer on the victory screen is slightly different from the one used on the character select screen, instead featuring a noticeable translation of "the" (le Roi K. Rool).
 * King K. Rool's description from the North American amiibo website is based on his NTSC trophy description from SSB4.