Ridley (SSBU)

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Ridley, unsurprisingly for being a large character with powerful attacks, is a [[weight|heavyweight]] character, although he weighs much less than a super heavyweight despite his similar size. However, his attributes compared to other archetypal heavyweights are noticeably different, as Ridley has overall excellent mobility in the 10th fastest [[dash]]ing speed, average [[air speed]], the 16th fastest [[falling speed]], average [[gravity]], and average frame data, compounded with a long-distanced recovery. His varied moves allow him to play as a zoning, rushdown, or a pressure-based character.

Ridley's most defining trait is his dominant air game. Boasting overall quick, powerful, and long-ranged aerials, having two midair jumps, and decent air mobility give him overall excellent air pressure potential. Thanks to his additional jump, relatively low gravity and relatively high fast fall speed, he has superb vertical flexibility, and can use additional jumps or surprise fastfalls to fake out and punish his opponents with his far-reaching aerials. His [[neutral aerial]], due to having low all-around lag, good range, and average knockback, is a good comboing, spacing, and [[edgeguarding]] tool, while also being fast enough to break out of certain combos if positioned correctly. [[Forward aerial]], while having merely average power, has very high damage output when all hits are sweetspotted, and is infamous for effectively performing a [[wall of pain]] at low percentages, especially due to Ridley's aforementioned two midair jumps. [[Back aerial]] is quick, long-ranged and has very high damage and knockback, which makes it a deadly edgeguarding tool and can KO especially early offstage. [[Up aerial]] is a good juggling move with quick startup and good KO potential when sweetspotted, but it has moderately linear hitboxes. Lastly, [[down aerial]] is a stall-and-fall that powerfully [[meteor smash|meteor smashes]] opponents when sweetspotted, and can potentially be recovered from if initiated slightly above the ground. Even when sourspotted, it has high KO potential~~. Overall, Ridley has many options to rack up damage in the air, and has easy ways to set up into them~~.

Ridley's most defining trait is his dominant air game. Boasting overall quick, powerful, and long-ranged aerials, having two midair jumps, and decent air mobility give him overall excellent air pressure potential. Thanks to his additional jump, relatively low gravity and relatively high fast fall speed, he has superb vertical flexibility, and can use additional jumps or surprise fastfalls to fake out and punish his opponents with his far-reaching aerials. His [[neutral aerial]], due to having low all-around lag, good range, and average knockback, is a good comboing, spacing, and [[edgeguarding]] tool, while also being fast enough to break out of certain combos if positioned correctly. [[Forward aerial]], while having merely average power, has very high damage output when all hits are sweetspotted, and is infamous for effectively performing a [[wall of pain]] at low percentages, especially due to Ridley's aforementioned two midair jumps. [[Back aerial]] is quick, long-ranged and has very high damage and knockback, which makes it a deadly edgeguarding tool and can KO especially early offstage. [[Up aerial]] is a good juggling move with quick startup and good KO potential when sweetspotted, but it has moderately linear hitboxes. Lastly, [[down aerial]] is a stall-and-fall that powerfully [[meteor smash|meteor smashes]] opponents when sweetspotted, and can potentially be recovered from if initiated slightly above the ground. Even when sourspotted, it has high KO potential.

Ridley also has an abundance of powerful moves like his fellow heavyweights, which leads into one of his other primary strengths; his edgeguarding ability. His aforementioned potential in the air gives him huge offstage presence, and many of his attacks have great KO potential. His aforementioned forward aerial boasts great wall of pain potential with enough reach and a long enough duration to effectively gimp most recovering opponents. Ridley also has easy ways to set up edgeguards; his down tilt and down throw are both very reliable combo starters that launch at favorable angles, and he has plenty of other attacks that have high horizontal knockback, such as forward tilt and dash attack. ~~Overall~~, Ridley poses a huge threat ~~when his opponent~~ is ~~offstage~~, as making the right plays will give the opponent little to no chance to come back, which gives him among the best edgeguarding abilities in the game.

Ridley also has an abundance of powerful moves like his fellow heavyweights, which leads into one of his other primary strengths; his edgeguarding ability. His aforementioned potential in the air gives him huge offstage presence, and many of his attacks have great KO potential. His aforementioned forward aerial boasts great wall of pain potential with enough reach and a long enough duration to effectively gimp most recovering opponents. Ridley also has easy ways to set up edgeguards; his down tilt and down throw are both very reliable combo starters that launch at favorable angles, and he has plenty of other attacks that have high horizontal knockback, such as forward tilt and dash attack. As a result, Ridley poses a huge threat once he is in an advantage state, as making the right plays will give the opponent little to no chance to come back, which gives him among the best edgeguarding abilities in the game.

Another noteworthy aspect of Ridley are his smash attacks, which all have their exclusive advantages. Forward smash has slow startup and short range, though is one of the strongest of its kind in both damage and knockback, and is just fast enough to punish whiffs, landings, or be a situational follow-up option, like being a follow-up to a late hit of a landing neutral aerial. Down smash has noticeable start up and less extreme raw power, but has very large range and is one of his few moves to make use of the invulnerable parts of Ridley's wings. Down smash also has a unique attribute in that Ridley hops very high during the start up, which can completely dodge attacks with low aim and sometimes those with center aim, making it especially effective in fields like punishing a get up attack or punishing grab whiffs. It is also a notoriously effective punishment option after a successful Skewer sweetspot, as the short hop itself can cover most get-up options. Finally, Ridley's up smash is his fastest smash attack and, while not having the sheer power of the other two, is his least situational as it can be a very effective anti-air and can make landing a severe issue for an opponent, and still boasts above average raw power. Overall, each of Ridley's smash attacks boasts the typical great power of a heavyweight, but all come with different attributes to make each one useful in the field.

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Additionally, his special moveset offers interesting options. [[Plasma Breath]] is a chargeable projectile move that fires small, bouncing balls of fire, and when fully charged, it can deal substantial damage if it hits with every projectile. These traits make it a useful edgeguarding, damage-racking, combo-starting, and gimping tool. The recoil of Plasma Breath can even serve as a niche defensive option due to Ridley not suffering any knockback from it, especially when offstage. [[Space Pirate Rush]] is a command grab with some unique perks; it can be cancelled into a throw at any time that puts both Ridley and the opponent into the air. This allows for easy gimps offstage as Ridley can drag opponents closer to a blast zone, potentially leaving them too far to recover. Onstage, when performed from one ledge to another, deals substantial damage and launches opponents offstage when Ridley reaches the edge of a floor, with the launch being capable of KOing at high percentages. [[Wing Blitz]] is Ridley's primary recovery move that can be aimed in four directions, and has impressive offensive potential. The up, forward, and back inputs all have high KO potential, and the down input meteor smashes opponents, with all variants having the ability to snap the ledge during the move, making it a risky, yet rewarding edgeguarding tool. Lastly, [[Skewer]] is a "high risk, high reward" punishment move that, when sweetspotted, deals extremely high damage and crumples enemies, where Ridley can then read an opponent's reaction to put them in a dangerous position.

Another one of Ridley's ~~best~~ attributes is his range, courtesy of his very large frame. Many of Ridley's moves have large, disjointed hitboxes, some even eclipsing sword users like Marth and Ike. Ridley also has a surprising lack of sourspots across his toolkit, with examples like his down smash being the only "hopping" down smash to have a consistently powerful hitbox with no sourspot. Ridley's disjoints can even challenge and beat out incoming projectiles when timed right, and can even break him out of disadvantage. This is all on top of the aforementioned projectile he has, and plays into what makes Ridley a strangely varied fighter. Ridley has the tools to gradually poke and pressure from a fair distance away, but also aggressively punish whiffs or what would be normally inconsequential slip ups.

Another one of Ridley's most notable attributes is his range, courtesy of his very large frame. Many of Ridley's moves have large, disjointed hitboxes, some even eclipsing sword users like Marth and Ike. Ridley also has a surprising lack of sourspots across his toolkit, with examples like his down smash being the only "hopping" down smash to have a consistently powerful hitbox with no sourspot. Ridley's disjoints can even challenge and beat out incoming projectiles when timed right, and can even break him out of disadvantage. This is all on top of the aforementioned projectile he has, and plays into what makes Ridley a strangely varied fighter for his weight and size. Ridley has the tools to gradually poke and pressure from a fair distance away, but also aggressively punish whiffs or what would be normally inconsequential slip ups. Because of this, he has a formidable and variable punish game.

Lastly, Ridley is a character with a surprisingly dangerous combo game and an oppressive advantage state, and those unaware of Ridley's danger factor can find themselves being quickly and heavily overwhelmed and/or find it difficult to get in. Down throw, up tilt, down tilt, neutral ~~air~~, and Plasma Breath can lead into various strings and combos that can rack up huge damage with only a few hits, with some even leading to easy kill moves (such as Plasma Breath ~~-> Dash~~ attack, or late hit ~~Nair -> Forward Smash~~). Due to the disjointed hitboxes on his tail and wings, this gives him an impressive amount of defense even while on the offense. ~~Overall, this~~ allows Ridley to pile up damage very quickly and also makes it risky for opponents to regain the advantage, as Ridley's ability to start combos and break a defense even while in a disadvantage forces the opponent to be cautious and aware of Ridley's options.

Lastly, Ridley is a character with a surprisingly dangerous combo game and an oppressive advantage state, and those unaware of Ridley's danger factor can find themselves being quickly and heavily overwhelmed and/or find it difficult to get in. Down throw, up tilt, down tilt, neutral aerial, and Plasma Breath can lead into various strings and combos that can rack up huge damage with only a few hits, with some even leading to easy kill moves (such as Plasma Breath to dash attack, or late hit neutral aerial to forward smash). Due to the disjointed hitboxes on his tail and wings, this gives him an impressive amount of defense even while on the offense. This allows Ridley to pile up damage very quickly and also makes it risky for opponents to regain the advantage, as Ridley's ability to start combos and break a defense even while in a disadvantage forces the opponent to be cautious and aware of Ridley's options.

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. 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.

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 some of Wing Blitz's flaws by allowing Ridley to recover further away and execute the move faster, which made edge-guarding Ridley a bit 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 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.

While not a significant downside, a noticeable flaw of Ridley's kit is his little reward 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, making them only suitable for positioning. 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), 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.

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 Ridley, unsurprisingly for being a large character with powerful attacks, is a [[weight|heavyweight]] character, although he weighs much less than a super heavyweight despite his similar size. However, his attributes compared to other archetypal heavyweights are noticeably different, as Ridley has overall excellent mobility in the 10th fastest [[dash]]ing speed, average [[air speed]], the 16th fastest [[falling speed]], average [[gravity]], and average frame data, compounded with a long-distanced recovery. His varied moves allow him to play as a zoning, rushdown, or a pressure-based character.
-Ridley's most defining trait is his dominant air game. Boasting overall quick, powerful, and long-ranged aerials, having two midair jumps, and decent air mobility give him overall excellent air pressure potential. Thanks to his additional jump, relatively low gravity and relatively high fast fall speed, he has superb vertical flexibility, and can use additional jumps or surprise fastfalls to fake out and punish his opponents with his far-reaching aerials. His [[neutral aerial]], due to having low all-around lag, good range, and average knockback, is a good comboing, spacing, and [[edgeguarding]] tool, while also being fast enough to break out of certain combos if positioned correctly. [[Forward aerial]], while having merely average power, has very high damage output when all hits are sweetspotted, and is infamous for effectively performing a [[wall of pain]] at low percentages, especially due to Ridley's aforementioned two midair jumps. [[Back aerial]] is quick, long-ranged and has very high damage and knockback, which makes it a deadly edgeguarding tool and can KO especially early offstage. [[Up aerial]] is a good juggling move with quick startup and good KO potential when sweetspotted, but it has moderately linear hitboxes. Lastly, [[down aerial]] is a stall-and-fall that powerfully [[meteor smash|meteor smashes]] opponents when sweetspotted, and can potentially be recovered from if initiated slightly above the ground. Even when sourspotted, it has high KO potential. Overall, Ridley has many options to rack up damage in the air, and has easy ways to set up into them.
+Ridley's most defining trait is his dominant air game. Boasting overall quick, powerful, and long-ranged aerials, having two midair jumps, and decent air mobility give him overall excellent air pressure potential. Thanks to his additional jump, relatively low gravity and relatively high fast fall speed, he has superb vertical flexibility, and can use additional jumps or surprise fastfalls to fake out and punish his opponents with his far-reaching aerials. His [[neutral aerial]], due to having low all-around lag, good range, and average knockback, is a good comboing, spacing, and [[edgeguarding]] tool, while also being fast enough to break out of certain combos if positioned correctly. [[Forward aerial]], while having merely average power, has very high damage output when all hits are sweetspotted, and is infamous for effectively performing a [[wall of pain]] at low percentages, especially due to Ridley's aforementioned two midair jumps. [[Back aerial]] is quick, long-ranged and has very high damage and knockback, which makes it a deadly edgeguarding tool and can KO especially early offstage. [[Up aerial]] is a good juggling move with quick startup and good KO potential when sweetspotted, but it has moderately linear hitboxes. Lastly, [[down aerial]] is a stall-and-fall that powerfully [[meteor smash|meteor smashes]] opponents when sweetspotted, and can potentially be recovered from if initiated slightly above the ground. Even when sourspotted, it has high KO potential.
-Ridley also has an abundance of powerful moves like his fellow heavyweights, which leads into one of his other primary strengths; his edgeguarding ability. His aforementioned potential in the air gives him huge offstage presence, and many of his attacks have great KO potential. His aforementioned forward aerial boasts great wall of pain potential with enough reach and a long enough duration to effectively gimp most recovering opponents. Ridley also has easy ways to set up edgeguards; his down tilt and down throw are both very reliable combo starters that launch at favorable angles, and he has plenty of other attacks that have high horizontal knockback, such as forward tilt and dash attack. Overall, Ridley poses a huge threat when his opponent is offstage, as making the right plays will give the opponent little to no chance to come back, which gives him among the best edgeguarding abilities in the game.
+Ridley also has an abundance of powerful moves like his fellow heavyweights, which leads into one of his other primary strengths; his edgeguarding ability. His aforementioned potential in the air gives him huge offstage presence, and many of his attacks have great KO potential. His aforementioned forward aerial boasts great wall of pain potential with enough reach and a long enough duration to effectively gimp most recovering opponents. Ridley also has easy ways to set up edgeguards; his down tilt and down throw are both very reliable combo starters that launch at favorable angles, and he has plenty of other attacks that have high horizontal knockback, such as forward tilt and dash attack. As a result, Ridley poses a huge threat once he is in an advantage state, as making the right plays will give the opponent little to no chance to come back, which gives him among the best edgeguarding abilities in the game.
 Another noteworthy aspect of Ridley are his smash attacks, which all have their exclusive advantages. Forward smash has slow startup and short range, though is one of the strongest of its kind in both damage and knockback, and is just fast enough to punish whiffs, landings, or be a situational follow-up option, like being a follow-up to a late hit of a landing neutral aerial. Down smash has noticeable start up and less extreme raw power, but has very large range and is one of his few moves to make use of the invulnerable parts of Ridley's wings. Down smash also has a unique attribute in that Ridley hops very high during the start up, which can completely dodge attacks with low aim and sometimes those with center aim, making it especially effective in fields like punishing a get up attack or punishing grab whiffs. It is also a notoriously effective punishment option after a successful Skewer sweetspot, as the short hop itself can cover most get-up options. Finally, Ridley's up smash is his fastest smash attack and, while not having the sheer power of the other two, is his least situational as it can be a very effective anti-air and can make landing a severe issue for an opponent, and still boasts above average raw power. Overall, each of Ridley's smash attacks boasts the typical great power of a heavyweight, but all come with different attributes to make each one useful in the field.
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 Additionally, his special moveset offers interesting options. [[Plasma Breath]] is a chargeable projectile move that fires small, bouncing balls of fire, and when fully charged, it can deal substantial damage if it hits with every projectile. These traits make it a useful edgeguarding, damage-racking, combo-starting, and gimping tool. The recoil of Plasma Breath can even serve as a niche defensive option due to Ridley not suffering any knockback from it, especially when offstage. [[Space Pirate Rush]] is a command grab with some unique perks; it can be cancelled into a throw at any time that puts both Ridley and the opponent into the air. This allows for easy gimps offstage as Ridley can drag opponents closer to a blast zone, potentially leaving them too far to recover. Onstage, when performed from one ledge to another, deals substantial damage and launches opponents offstage when Ridley reaches the edge of a floor, with the launch being capable of KOing at high percentages. [[Wing Blitz]] is Ridley's primary recovery move that can be aimed in four directions, and has impressive offensive potential. The up, forward, and back inputs all have high KO potential, and the down input meteor smashes opponents, with all variants having the ability to snap the ledge during the move, making it a risky, yet rewarding edgeguarding tool. Lastly, [[Skewer]] is a "high risk, high reward" punishment move that, when sweetspotted, deals extremely high damage and crumples enemies, where Ridley can then read an opponent's reaction to put them in a dangerous position.
-Another one of Ridley's best attributes is his range, courtesy of his very large frame. Many of Ridley's moves have large, disjointed hitboxes, some even eclipsing sword users like Marth and Ike. Ridley also has a surprising lack of sourspots across his toolkit, with examples like his down smash being the only "hopping" down smash to have a consistently powerful hitbox with no sourspot. Ridley's disjoints can even challenge and beat out incoming projectiles when timed right, and can even break him out of disadvantage. This is all on top of the aforementioned projectile he has, and plays into what makes Ridley a strangely varied fighter. Ridley has the tools to gradually poke and pressure from a fair distance away, but also aggressively punish whiffs or what would be normally inconsequential slip ups.
+Another one of Ridley's most notable attributes is his range, courtesy of his very large frame. Many of Ridley's moves have large, disjointed hitboxes, some even eclipsing sword users like Marth and Ike. Ridley also has a surprising lack of sourspots across his toolkit, with examples like his down smash being the only "hopping" down smash to have a consistently powerful hitbox with no sourspot. Ridley's disjoints can even challenge and beat out incoming projectiles when timed right, and can even break him out of disadvantage. This is all on top of the aforementioned projectile he has, and plays into what makes Ridley a strangely varied fighter for his weight and size. Ridley has the tools to gradually poke and pressure from a fair distance away, but also aggressively punish whiffs or what would be normally inconsequential slip ups. Because of this, he has a formidable and variable punish game.
-Lastly, Ridley is a character with a surprisingly dangerous combo game and an oppressive advantage state, and those unaware of Ridley's danger factor can find themselves being quickly and heavily overwhelmed and/or find it difficult to get in. Down throw, up tilt, down tilt, neutral air, and Plasma Breath can lead into various strings and combos that can rack up huge damage with only a few hits, with some even leading to easy kill moves (such as Plasma Breath -> Dash attack, or late hit Nair -> Forward Smash). Due to the disjointed hitboxes on his tail and wings, this gives him an impressive amount of defense even while on the offense. Overall, this allows Ridley to pile up damage very quickly and also makes it risky for opponents to regain the advantage, as Ridley's ability to start combos and break a defense even while in a disadvantage forces the opponent to be cautious and aware of Ridley's options.
+Lastly, Ridley is a character with a surprisingly dangerous combo game and an oppressive advantage state, and those unaware of Ridley's danger factor can find themselves being quickly and heavily overwhelmed and/or find it difficult to get in. Down throw, up tilt, down tilt, neutral aerial, and Plasma Breath can lead into various strings and combos that can rack up huge damage with only a few hits, with some even leading to easy kill moves (such as Plasma Breath to dash attack, or late hit neutral aerial to forward smash). Due to the disjointed hitboxes on his tail and wings, this gives him an impressive amount of defense even while on the offense. This allows Ridley to pile up damage very quickly and also makes it risky for opponents to regain the advantage, as Ridley's ability to start combos and break a defense even while in a disadvantage forces the opponent to be cautious and aware of Ridley's options.
 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. 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.
+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 some of Wing Blitz's flaws by allowing Ridley to recover further away and execute the move faster, which made edge-guarding Ridley a bit 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 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.
+While not a significant downside, a noticeable flaw of Ridley's kit is his little reward 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, making them only suitable for positioning. 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), 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.