Thunder (Robin)

Thunder (, Thunder) is Robin's neutral special move.

Overview
This is an auto-chargeable special move that fires a long ranged electric projectile. Like most moves of its nature, the move will automatically charge once the special button is tapped, and pressing the button will fire it during the said period. Also during said charging period, the move's charge can be stored by shielding or rolling (the latter done by tapping left or right). In midair, charging can be canceled with an air dodge. Any stored charge is lost if Robin flinches from a hit while charging or is KO'd.

Charging or using this move changes Robin's active tome to Thunder. The tome has a limited amount of durability, which is expended when the attack is released, and when depleted, the tome is automatically discarded. The discarded tome acts as a projectile that will damage opponents as it falls, and can be caught and thrown like an item. After it breaks, a cooldown of 12 seconds passes before the tome is replaced and Thunder can be used again.

If Kirby copies this move and exhausts the Thunder tome that he acquires from inhaling Robin, the copy ability is discarded (with Kirby immediately losing Robin's "hair" hat alongside the effects used when discarding a copy ability through taunting) when the last projectile it produced disappears.

Trying to use the move while the tome is broken before its replacement will have Robin perform the animation for the cast, but only a small puff of smoke will come out with no effect whatsoever.

Stages
Thunder has 4 different stages, each with different projectile properties, damage, and knockback. Depending on what stage the attack is, the durability points used varies. A total of 20 durability points can be used before the tome breaks. When Elthunder is charged, the tome will flash yellow. When Arcthunder is charged, the tome will glow red. When Thoron is charged, Robin will put the tome away and launch the attack when B is pressed again.

All stages of the move can miss smaller characters while they are crouching, as they travel a distance above the floor. Robin is not prohibited from using higher stages of the spell than the remaining durability of his tome.

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


 * 1) Thunder: Default.
 * 2) Thunder+: The move has a longer charge time to reach Thoron, taking five seconds. Each stage is stronger and larger than the standard variation, but the magic itself uses up more durability points than normal. Visually, Robin erupts small shockwaves (as opposed to a dusty wind effect from behind with the default version) while charging.
 * 3. Speed Thunder: Takes two seconds to reach Thoron. Each spell deals different amounts of damage than the original variant, travels faster, is smaller in size, and deals less knockback. The Speed Thunder tome uses the same amount of durability points as the standard variation. When the tome is discarded, it takes ten seconds for the tome to respawn.

Origin
magic is one of the most commonly recurring types of offensive in the Fire Emblem series, and is one of the five categories of offensive magic, along with, , , and. Thunder magic is commonly grouped with fire and wind into the collective school of magic, or the magic of nature.

In Fire Emblem, each class is restricted in what weapons they can use by how proficient they are in that weapon type. In many games, the anima magic categories organize their spells into a series of stages, with each spell being more powerful than the last and requiring more to use, and the thunder spells used by Robin in Smash are taken from these stages. While Fire Emblem does not have a charging mechanic for spells like Smash does for Thunder, it could be taken as a reference to weapon experience.


 * is the most basic thunder tome, and appears in every game in the Fire Emblem series. Its ball-of-lightning appearance in Smash comes from .
 * was introduced in  and is one of the "El-" tomes, the second stage of anima magic, along with Elwind. Its ball-of-lightning appearance is original to Smash, since it has always been a bolt of lightning in Fire Emblem.
 * was introduced in . It is one of the "Arc-" tomes, the third stage of anima magic, along with Arcfire. The spell's X shape in Smash resembles how Fire Emblem shows it as many bolts of lightning converging on one target.
 * , the fourth and final stage of standard thunder spells, was introduced in the original Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light. Most Fire Emblem games portray it as a fast-moving lightning beam, like in Smash.

In Fire Emblem Awakening, Robin's starting inventory in the main game features a Thunder tome, and begins the Premonition chapter at the beginning of the game with a Thoron tome. In , Thoron is a special weapon which can only be used by Robin as bonus amiibo content.

Trivia

 * Occasionally, if Robin short hops before beginning a Thunder charge, a second charge sound will begin playing and stack over the first charging sound the moment he lands. This is likely a glitch with no functional effect.
 * When Robin discards a completely different broken tome with a fully charged Thunder, his hand will act as though it is still holding something despite there being nothing in it; the lightning spark effects for the charge indication will still appear in this case.
 * Thunder's charge speed is completely unaffected by the Timer's slowdown effect. This allows for Robin to fully charge the move in situations where it would typically take too long, such as while offstage.
 * With a speed of 7 units/frame and a max duration of 92 frames, Thoron is able to travel up to 644 units, roughly the distance from the right wall of The Great Cave Offensive to the left camera border or 4 units more than the distance between the left and right blast lines of Temple.
 * The cover of the tome in Robin's hand changes as he charges the move from one stage to the next; as in Fire Emblem, the advanced stages of the Thunder attack are produced by different tomes.
 * Despite employing different named moves, Robin's neutral special is simply named after its first stage in the Move List. This is unlike other moves with similar behaviors such as Sephiroth's Flare / Megaflare / Gigaflare or Hero's Frizz / Frizzle / Kafrizz.
 * In Ultimate:
 * If Kirby attempts to use the tome after depleting it, he will gesture to use it and create a puff of smoke like Robin, but Kirby's tome will cycle through each tome (Thunder, Arcfire, Elwind, Nosferatu) every frame.
 * After Robin uses Thoron, he will become immune to tripping from attacks that don't use the slip effect (such as 's uncharged Wario Waft or Banana Peels), even if the attack has a 100% trip chance (e.g. ). The only way to re-enable tripping is to respawn.
 * Thoron is one of the few non-Final Smash moves that cannot cause Finish Zoom in non-stamina matches.