Ridley (SSBU): Difference between revisions
→Attributes: Adjusted some of the finer details to suit the better competitive perspective of Ridley and the buffs of Patch 4.0, namely the better recovery.
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While Ridley has amazing strengths, he also has some weaknesses. Ridley has the largest hurtbox out of all characters, combined with his heavy weight and fast falling speed makes him very easy to combo, juggle, and hit in general, and while Ridley's frame data is decent, especially for a heavyweight, he is nevertheless rather easy to [[punishment|punish]] due to some of his best attacks having noticeable ending lag. Ridley's moveset is so focused on accumulating damage, netting kills, and sustaining advantage that he lacks tools to prevent these very things from happening to him. Because of this, Ridley's disadvantage state is not only torturous to endure, but easy to slip into. Failure to overwhelm or control aggression will be a death sentence. His options against projectile users and zoning is rather limited, despite having zoning tools and a projectile himself; Plasma Breath is laggy and its projectiles travel slowly, while the move also possesses a hurtbox on Ridley's mouth that damages and stuns him if he is hit there, and even if said recoil prevents knockback, it can easily open up opportunities for more attacks against him that would end a stock. This trick also has virtually no beneficial use outside surprising unfamiliar opponents or emergency situations during kill percent. Ridley's disjointed moves are capable of beating out projectiles, and he has a few moves that boast enough range to challenge zoners, but these options usually require a great deal of effort to execute right compared to what they're challenging, and can quickly lead to Ridley being cornered into a worse situation. This is further expressed with how tricky it is to land with Ridley despite being a fast faller, as even his versatile neutral aerial has difficulty covering directly below him. Overall, Ridley's vulnerabilities give him difficulty against characters with better frame data and/or edge-guarding/pressuring tools. | While Ridley has amazing strengths, he also has some weaknesses. Ridley has the largest hurtbox out of all characters, combined with his heavy weight and fast falling speed makes him very easy to combo, juggle, and hit in general, and while Ridley's frame data is decent, especially for a heavyweight, he is nevertheless rather easy to [[punishment|punish]] due to some of his best attacks having noticeable ending lag. Ridley's moveset is so focused on accumulating damage, netting kills, and sustaining advantage that he lacks tools to prevent these very things from happening to him. Because of this, Ridley's disadvantage state is not only torturous to endure, but easy to slip into. Failure to overwhelm or control aggression will be a death sentence. His options against projectile users and zoning is rather limited, despite having zoning tools and a projectile himself; Plasma Breath is laggy and its projectiles travel slowly, while the move also possesses a hurtbox on Ridley's mouth that damages and stuns him if he is hit there, and even if said recoil prevents knockback, it can easily open up opportunities for more attacks against him that would end a stock. This trick also has virtually no beneficial use outside surprising unfamiliar opponents or emergency situations during kill percent. Ridley's disjointed moves are capable of beating out projectiles, and he has a few moves that boast enough range to challenge zoners, but these options usually require a great deal of effort to execute right compared to what they're challenging, and can quickly lead to Ridley being cornered into a worse situation. This is further expressed with how tricky it is to land with Ridley despite being a fast faller, as even his versatile neutral aerial has difficulty covering directly below him. Overall, Ridley's vulnerabilities give him difficulty against characters with better frame data and/or edge-guarding/pressuring tools. | ||
Another weakness, while not as significant as his susceptibility to combos and projectile pressure, is his laggy and predictable [[recovery]]; despite Ridley having average air speed, two midair jumps, and two useful recovery options being Space Pirate Rush and Wing Blitz, these can be easily intercepted by keeping Ridley offstage. Both of his recovery specials also have high startup and Wing Blitz, despite its impressive distance, has only four angled travel routes, which means that Ridley has to properly get into a good position to recover, which gives the opponent more than enough time to react. While Wing Blitz has some minor defenses while active, that being invulnerability around the spiked tips of his wings along with dealing heavy knockback and damage with contact, his actual, vulnerable body can be quite easy to aim for. This is doubly worse when a character has disjointed attacks, as they can safely challenge the move at any state of it's animation and so much as scraping Ridley himself would beat it. | Another weakness, while not as significant as his susceptibility to combos and projectile pressure, is his laggy and predictable [[recovery]]; despite Ridley having average air speed, two midair jumps, and two useful recovery options being Space Pirate Rush and Wing Blitz, these can be easily intercepted by keeping Ridley offstage. Both of his recovery specials also have high startup and Wing Blitz, despite its impressive distance, has only four angled travel routes, which means that Ridley has to properly get into a good position to recover, which gives the opponent more than enough time to react. While Wing Blitz has some minor defenses while active, that being invulnerability around the spiked tips of his wings along with dealing heavy knockback and damage with contact, his actual, vulnerable body can be quite easy to aim for. This is doubly worse when a character has disjointed attacks, as they can safely challenge the move at any state of it's animation and so much as scraping Ridley himself would beat it. Patch 4.0, however, helped address Wing Blitz's flaws by allowing Ridley to recover further away and execute the move faster, which made edge-guarding Ridley much more of a task than before. | ||
While not a significant downside, a noticeable flaw of Ridley's kit is his limited uses from getting a grab. Ridley's grab range is somewhat short for his size to begin with, and a character like him can greatly suffer from whiffing it. While down throw functions as a strong and reliable combo tool from low to mid percents, and at very high percentages (around 150%) is capable of KOing middleweights, none of Ridley's other throws provide much usage beyond repositioning the opponent. Forward and back throws don't KO at reasonable percentages, even with ideal positioning, and aren't particularly strong. Up throw, while being his most damaging throw and a passable kill throw with low ceiling stages, is best as a mediocre set up for Ridley's juggles. Even Ridley's down throw doesn't combo into entirely unique strings, as his down tilt can service some of the same use while being much safer to execute, though down-throw into forward tilt is a noteworthy string by itself and can lead into some of Ridley's most dangerous combos. The existence of [[Space Pirate Rush]] can also invalidate what reward his normal grab can attain, especially at high percents. Overall, Ridley's grab game is almost entirely centralized by his down throw's (admittedly impressive) utility, with his other throws being situational at best and a complete waste of risky effort at worst. | While not a significant downside, a noticeable flaw of Ridley's kit is his limited uses from getting a grab. Ridley's grab range is somewhat short for his size to begin with, and a character like him can greatly suffer from whiffing it. While down throw functions as a strong and reliable combo tool from low to mid percents, and at very high percentages (around 150%) is capable of KOing middleweights, none of Ridley's other throws provide much usage beyond repositioning the opponent. Forward and back throws don't KO at reasonable percentages, even with ideal positioning, and aren't particularly strong. Up throw, while being his most damaging throw and a passable kill throw with low ceiling stages, is best as a mediocre set up for Ridley's juggles. Even Ridley's down throw doesn't combo into entirely unique strings, as his down tilt can service some of the same use while being much safer to execute, though down-throw into forward tilt is a noteworthy string by itself and can lead into some of Ridley's most dangerous combos and frame traps. The existence of [[Space Pirate Rush]] can also invalidate what reward his normal grab can attain, especially at high percents. Overall, Ridley's grab game is almost entirely centralized by his down throw's (admittedly impressive) utility, with his other throws being situational at best and a complete waste of risky effort at worst. | ||
An often ignored but critical flaw to Ridley is how drastically his moves vary in quality, which can lead to Ridley becoming quite predictable to even the most unaware player. While Ridley has plenty of amazing moves, other moves have significant flaws. These can range from absurd blindspots (up tilt | An often ignored but critical flaw to Ridley is how drastically his moves vary in quality, which can lead to Ridley becoming quite predictable to even the most unaware player. While Ridley has plenty of amazing moves, other moves have significant flaws. These can range from absurd blindspots (up tilt), overly strict (Skewer), to being overall unreliable (down aerial). On the other side of spectrum, some of Ridley's moves like neutral aerial and Plasma Breath are so favorable that it becomes very easy to over centralize on their use. Ridley is a character that finds the most success in being unpredictable, which can be impossible when a player subconsciously checks off using so many moves. | ||
Lastly, Ridley's overall endurance and survivability, despite being a heavyweight, is rather poor for said weight category. While he is considered a heavyweight fighter, he is somewhat notorious for being KO'd rather easily despite this. When combining his previous flaw of being unable to escape combos effectively and struggle with recovering under pressure, he is one of the most affected characters by large combo strings, and is rather easy to finish off. As a result, while his survivability isn't as poor as other lighter characters, it is unimpressive for a heavyweight of his size. | Lastly, Ridley's overall endurance and survivability, despite being a heavyweight, is rather poor for said weight category. While he is considered a heavyweight fighter, he is somewhat notorious for being KO'd rather easily despite this. When combining his previous flaw of being unable to escape combos effectively and struggle with recovering under pressure, he is one of the most affected characters by large combo strings, and is rather easy to finish off. As a result, while his survivability isn't as poor as other lighter characters, it is unimpressive for a heavyweight of his size. | ||
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Overall, Ridley has excellent damage, pressure, and edge-guarding potential with a broad arsenal of powerful moves and tools to gain and sustain advantage, but has to be constantly aware of when and how to use them within the context of his constantly shifting playstyle to take full advantage of them (as moves like Plasma Breath can be fantastic or horrendous given his position), and prevent the opponent from capitalizing on his own susceptibilities. Ridley's moveset being heavily lopsided towards raw damage and killing means that Ridley can easily make comebacks or greatly widen his lead with minimal set up should an opponent budge an inch or make a single error in considering Ridley's approach. However, his lack of defensive options and vulnerability means that one wrong move from Ridley himself can devastate him worse than almost every other character. Ridley is a character with a surprising amount of tools and playstyles, but this also means Ridley has an enormous amount of opportunities to make a mistake, which can lead to Ridley seeming much weaker than he is initially. If Ridley plays recklessly or even predictably, he will be punished easily with a slew of combos, face walls of projectiles, and general pressure he isn't built to handle, and these situations can crop up often if Ridley fails to both utilize his many tools correctly and vary between them. | Overall, Ridley has excellent damage, pressure, and edge-guarding potential with a broad arsenal of powerful moves and tools to gain and sustain advantage, but has to be constantly aware of when and how to use them within the context of his constantly shifting playstyle to take full advantage of them (as moves like Plasma Breath can be fantastic or horrendous given his position), and prevent the opponent from capitalizing on his own susceptibilities. Ridley's moveset being heavily lopsided towards raw damage and killing means that Ridley can easily make comebacks or greatly widen his lead with minimal set up should an opponent budge an inch or make a single error in considering Ridley's approach. However, his lack of defensive options and vulnerability means that one wrong move from Ridley himself can devastate him worse than almost every other character. Ridley is a character with a surprising amount of tools and playstyles, but this also means Ridley has an enormous amount of opportunities to make a mistake, which can lead to Ridley seeming much weaker than he is initially. If Ridley plays recklessly or even predictably, he will be punished easily with a slew of combos, face walls of projectiles, and general pressure he isn't built to handle, and these situations can crop up often if Ridley fails to both utilize his many tools correctly and vary between them. | ||
Ridley's competitive potential is subject for debate. Many professional players like {{Sm|ZeRo}} are considering him a lower mid tier character that is worse than the majority of the roster for his susceptibility to combos, lack of | Ridley's competitive potential is subject for debate. Many professional players like {{Sm|ZeRo}} are considering him a lower mid tier character that is worse than the majority of the roster for his susceptibility to combos, lack of characters he can counterplay, and general difficulties in survival. Others like {{Sm|Leffen}}, {{Sm|Dabuz}}, and {{Sm|ESAM}} argue, however, that he's surprisingly impressive in high level play thanks to the sheer effectiveness of his overall advantage state, ludicrous benefits from playing unpredictable, and his relatively high DPS that complements his many kill moves. This can be further expressed by his tournament presence, where Ridley is a relatively unpopular pick, yet displays very respectable results wherever he does show, with {{Sm|Trela}}'s Ridley even winning gold at multiple tournaments and {{Sm|Tweek}}'s Ridley finding similar success. Because of this and Patch 4.0's helpful buffs to his inconsistencies and recovery, Ridley is considered a viable character, but to whether or not he's good enough to find major success or remain a middling character that simply can't break out into higher fame is unknown. In casual fields, Ridley is notorious for how exploitable his weaknesses are and the many pitfalls that beginners can fall into, especially with poor routing of Wing Blitz leading to awkward and anti-climatic finishes, proving him to be a character with a high learning curve for his size class. | ||
==Update History== | ==Update History== | ||