Inhale (King Dedede)

Inhale (, Suction) is King Dedede's neutral special move.

Overview
The attack is similar to Kirby's in appearance, but with slightly increased range and no copying ability. By pressing the special move button, Dedede will begin to inhale the air in front of him, creating a vortex. He will continue to inhale as long as the button is held down. If a character comes near him, they will automatically be sucked inside of him and will be trapped in his stomach.

When swallowed, Dedede's belly enlarges to hold the victim, which hinders his mobility, disables dashing, and makes him only able to perform ground jumps. He also becomes monumentally more resistant to knockback scaling until Inhale ends, although oddly his vulnerability to base knockback remains unchanged. This can make King Dedede considerably harder to KO. For example, 's forward smash with Arsène active doesn't KO on the edge of Battlefield until 377.5% (with DI towards the stage). As a result, Inhale can be used as a niche survival measure in free for all or team battles. Dedede can spit the character back out when the attack button is pressed, unless they break free. Unlike Kirby, if the inhaled opponent is stagnant for whatever reason, Dedede will automatically spit them out after a short period of time. King Dedede also has 25 frames of invincibility after he inhales someone, with this being treated as grab invulnerability. If King Dedede is hit with a strong attack, Inhale will cancel while both characters are knocked back.

During Inhale, King Dedede becomes far slower, with an inability to dash and slower walk speed. His jumpsquat also becomes 15 frames as of Ultimate, with no action being able to be taken until then. His landing lag and air speed also substantially increase. While his fall speed is increased, it is very difficult for King Dedede to maneuver around while Inhale's grab is active. Due to this, it is very possible for a character to out-maneuver Dedede and exploit his compromised state. To offset this, it also isn't difficult to a character to hit the inhaled opponent as well as Dedede himself. As a result, in team battle situations, this can be exploited.

Other similarities to Kirby's Inhale include the ability to eat items, though unlike Kirby, he cannot recover damage from doing so. He can also perform a form of sacrificial KO, sometimes known as "Dededecide" or "Regicide." The Dededecide is more effective than the Kirbycide is in Brawl, as King Dedede is able to fast-fall while using the move, unlike Kirby. King Dedede also has a considerably higher falling speed than Kirby, even without fast-falling. As with Kirby, King Dedede is unable to inhale enemies in Super Smash Bros. Brawl's Adventure Mode: The Subspace Emissary.

To compensate for not being able to copy abilities, Dedede's Inhale does more damage than Kirby's Inhale and lets him inhale projectiles. This attack does 12% when the opponent is exhaled (14.4% in 1v1 battles). Also, if the character-projectile hits someone, it does 9% to 20% to that person depending on the inhaled opponent; the heavier the inhaled opponent is, the higher the amount of damage it does. The projectile also deals more vertical knockback to opponents compared to when Kirby exhales the opponents, and is very capable of scoring a KO.

In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Dedede's Inhale will spit out projectiles rather than swallow, acting as a reflector. This includes the Gordos thrown by Gordo Throw, letting him quickly reflect them back if they're hit by or strike an opponent. It is also possible to set up Gordos for an Inhale, such as angling the swing up to put them into range. Unlike Kirby's Inhale, Dedede's Inhale fires back the projectile in its original form rather than as a star.

Spitting characters
In Brawl, spitting out a character will send them a fixed distance and last 30 frames. In Smash 4 and Ultimate, the duration (and in turn distance) follows the equation, where t is the target's damage and the result is capped at 60 frames (1 second). Compared to Kirby's Inhale, Dedede's holds the character for longer at the same percent. Unlike Kirby's, the speed of Dedede's star is not affected by his or the target's damage, always starting at a speed of 3.15 units per frame (faster than Kirby's at 2.8), decreasing by 0.05 per frame, and releasing when below 0.1 (Kirby's releases sooner at 0.4)&mdash;due to the higher speed, the star never reaches the 0.1 threshold as it would take 63 frames to reach, which exceeds the 60 frame cap. The duration can be reduced by button mashing, decreasing by 12 frames per stick input or 21.6 with button inputs. As a result of these differences, Dedede spitting out characters is safer at high damage but is unable to send high damage targets at high speeds towards the blast zone.

Just like Kirby's Inhale, the damage dealt by a spit character is loosely based on their weight. Both characters' Inhales deal the same damage in this respect.

As a copy ability
Kirby can use this to perform the obscure "Kirkirkircide". Kirby is noticeably less bloated after inhaling someone compared to both his normal Inhale and Dedede's Inhale.

Customization
Special Move customization was added in Super Smash Bros. 4. These are the variations:


 * 1) Inhale: Default.
 * 2) Dedede Storm: A cyclone from King Dedede's mouth that pulls foes in, hits repeatedly, and launches upward. However, he doesn't have the ability to suck up anyone.
 * 3) Taste Test: Inhale opponents faster and instantly spit them out as stars. This means that Dedede can't move or turn around after inhaling enemies, but to compensate, the spit will deal 12% damage.

Glitches
Dedede's Inhale (and Kirby's copied Inhale) has several glitches, most of which are visual.

In Brawl, when Inhale is used on a mine from 's down smash, the explosion will go off continuously until it hits someone, Snake plants another mine, or Dedede stops Inhaling. When used on in the middle of a Quick Draw, Ike will hit Dedede but continue past, often to his death. However, this is probably due to the vacuum effect created by the Inhale.

In Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS, if King Dedede inhales another King Dedede, his feet will detach from his body.

In Ultimate, there was a visual glitch that forced King Dedede to permanently show his "pained" expression for the entire match. It involved using Inhale to grab a fighter who is holding a Bob-omb, and waiting for the bomb to explode within King Dedede. This glitch was removed as of version 2.0.0.

Another glitch occurs when something interrupts King Dedede right before he is able to move with his victim inhaled; this will cause the inhaled fighter to get temporarily tethered within King Dedede until he performs Dede-Rush.

Origin
In nearly every Kirby game with King Dedede in it, King Dedede has shown the ability to Inhale, like Kirby. Unlike Kirby's Inhale, King Dedede cannot absorb an ability. The attack has remained mostly the same throughout the Kirby series, with the exception of , where King Dedede is able to inhale large amounts of air and spit it back at Kirby as a very powerful projectile. The Smash Bros. series are the only games where King Dedede can use his Inhale ability as a playable character, but he is able to use a similar move called in .

Trivia

 * If viewing a character while they are in King Dedede's mouth but not quite in his stomach, one can see that the character's head and torso are dramatically decreased in size if the camera is angled right. This can also be seen with Kirby's Inhale, Wario's Chomp, and the vacuum portion of King K. Rool's Blunderbuss, and is done so the opponent's upper half doesn't clip back out of Dedede.
 * Coincidentally, the moves that share this property are all neutral special moves.