Ridley (SSBU)

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While Ridley has amazing strengths, he also has some critical and easy-to-exploit weaknesses. The most notable of them is his size; Ridley has among the largest, most awkward hurtboxes out of the cast, which combined with his heavy weight and fast falling speed makes him very easy to combo, juggle, and hit in general. On top of that, his lower weight compared to characters of a similar size also negatively affects his survivability, as he is often at a considerably higher risk of dying much earlier from being in disadvantage than other heavy characters due his mixture of very large size and only moderately heavy weight. While Ridley's frame data is rather poor, although good for a heavyweight, he has below average startup and above average ending lag overall on his toolkit, so he lacks a tool fast enough to break combos effectively; this makes him one of the most affected characters by average combo strings, and he is rather easy to finish off. Quite literally any character can defeat Ridley with basic edgeguarding tools and Ridley being out of his comfortable recovery position. Ridley’s options against projectile users and zoning are virtually nonexistent despite having a projectile himself; Plasma Breath is laggy, its projectiles travel slowly, and are useless against more powerful projectiles, and the move's recoil property on Ridley's mouth can easily open up opportunities for more attacks against him that would end a stock, even if said recoil would prevent knockback especially on emergency situations like being at KO percent. Ridley's disjointed moves are seldom capable of beating out projectiles, and he has few moves that boast enough range to challenge zoners, and these options usually require a great deal of effort to execute right compared to what they're challenging, which can quickly lead to Ridley being cornered into a worse situation. All of this is further worsened with how tricky it can be to land with Ridley, despite being a fast-faller.

Adding to the above is Ridley's recovery, which is still exploitable despite its long distance. Both of his recovery specials, Space Pirate Rush and Wing Blitz, have high startup and the latter, despite its appearance and its impressive distance, has only four angled travel routes, which means that Ridley has to properly get into a good position to recover, giving the opponent more than enough time to react. While Wing Blitz has some minor defenses while active, that being invulnerability on the spiked tips of his wings along with dealing heavy knockback on contact, it does not have a charging hitbox while his body remains vulnerable throughout the move, so it can be quite easy to aim for with prediction. This is worse when a character has a counterattack or heavily disjointed attacks, as they can safely challenge the move at any stage of its animation, though certain stages can allow Ridley to evade being countered by aiming Wing Blitz toward the stage and bouncing up to the ledge from impact. Without his midair jumps, Ridley can also have a lot of trouble recovering from below, and any low-sending attack like a [[semi-spike]] can put Ridley into an unrecoverable position. Because of this, offstage Ridley usually is forced to use his extra jumps as emergency jumps when he's in a disadvantage, which while valuable, is noticeably less useful than other multi-jumpers. As a result, Ridley's overall endurance is poor for a large heavyweight, and while his survivability isn't as poor as other lighter characters, it is unimpressive for a heavyweight and for his size. His smash attacks themselves also lack a bit, considering how many of Ridley's attacks are similar to that of super-heavyweights. The forward smash, while powerful has painfully slow startup and considerable end lag, while also being shorter than it ought to be. When compared to say those of Donkey Kong or Bowser, the fire explosion has less damage despite being as slow (slower even than Donkey Kong's forward smash) and with much less reach. His down smash also packs less of a punch than it should, considering that it is the slowest of all the three new stall-and-crush down smashes. King K. Rool has the best down smash due to it being in the top 3 strongest of its kind and the great Super Belley Armor, it can even stun opponents with a small shockwave if they hit the sourspots. Incineroar's while not as strong, still does hefty damage and sends foes flying, and is the fastest of the three. Ridley's only perk with his down smash is the area it covers, as his wings extend to crush opponents. However, Ridley's best smash attack, [[up smash]], does not have any noticeable weaknesses. It does great coverage both in terms of reach and defending Ridley in an up kick arc. It has a fast startup, respectable damage, and good kill power.

Adding to the above is Ridley's recovery, which is still exploitable despite its long distance. Both of his recovery specials, Space Pirate Rush and Wing Blitz, have high startup and the latter, despite its appearance and its impressive distance, has only four angled travel routes, which means that Ridley has to properly get into a good position to recover, giving the opponent more than enough time to react. While Wing Blitz has some minor defenses while active, that being invulnerability on the spiked tips of his wings along with dealing heavy knockback on contact, it does not have a charging hitbox while his body remains vulnerable throughout the move, so it can be quite easy to aim for with prediction. This is worse when a character has a counterattack or heavily disjointed attacks, as they can safely challenge the move at any stage of its animation, though certain stages can allow Ridley to evade being countered by aiming Wing Blitz toward the stage and bouncing up to the ledge from impact. Without his midair jumps, Ridley can also have a lot of trouble recovering from below, and any low-sending attack like a [[semi-spike]] can put Ridley into an unrecoverable position. Because of this, offstage Ridley usually is forced to use his extra jumps as emergency jumps when he's in a disadvantage, which while valuable, is noticeably less useful than other multi-jumpers. As a result, Ridley's overall endurance is poor for a large heavyweight, and while his survivability isn't as poor as other lighter characters, it is unimpressive for a heavyweight and for his size.

Another 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 he has plenty of amazing moves, some of them still have significant flaws; these can range from slow startup (Plasma Breath and down smash), to absurd blindspots (up tilt and sometimes up smash), overly situational and/or strict (Skewer), or being overall unreliable (down aerial). On the other side of the spectrum, some of Ridley's moves like neutral aerial, up smash, down tilt, and depending on the match-up, the aforementioned Plasma Breath is so favorable that it becomes easy to over-centralize on their use. Ridley is a character that finds the most success in being unpredictable, which can be difficult when a player subconsciously checks off using so many moves. This, combined with his aforementioned trouble at dealing with fast and/or zoning characters, and with recovering under pressure, makes Ridley one of the most susceptible characters to pressure, as Ridley's disadvantage state makes him easy to overwhelm, and failure to overwhelm or control aggression could force him to take heavy damage or even be KOed outright.

Ridley (SSBU): Difference between revisions

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 While Ridley has amazing strengths, he also has some critical and easy-to-exploit weaknesses. The most notable of them is his size; Ridley has among the largest, most awkward hurtboxes out of the cast, which combined with his heavy weight and fast falling speed makes him very easy to combo, juggle, and hit in general. On top of that, his lower weight compared to characters of a similar size also negatively affects his survivability, as he is often at a considerably higher risk of dying much earlier from being in disadvantage than other heavy characters due his mixture of very large size and only moderately heavy weight. While Ridley's frame data is rather poor, although good for a heavyweight, he has below average startup and above average ending lag overall on his toolkit, so he lacks a tool fast enough to break combos effectively; this makes him one of the most affected characters by average combo strings, and he is rather easy to finish off. Quite literally any character can defeat Ridley with basic edgeguarding tools and Ridley being out of his comfortable recovery position. Ridley’s options against projectile users and zoning are virtually nonexistent despite having a projectile himself; Plasma Breath is laggy, its projectiles travel slowly, and are useless against more powerful projectiles, and the move's recoil property on Ridley's mouth can easily open up opportunities for more attacks against him that would end a stock, even if said recoil would prevent knockback especially on emergency situations like being at KO percent. Ridley's disjointed moves are seldom capable of beating out projectiles, and he has few moves that boast enough range to challenge zoners, and these options usually require a great deal of effort to execute right compared to what they're challenging, which can quickly lead to Ridley being cornered into a worse situation. All of this is further worsened with how tricky it can be to land with Ridley, despite being a fast-faller.
-Adding to the above is Ridley's recovery, which is still exploitable despite its long distance. Both of his recovery specials, Space Pirate Rush and Wing Blitz, have high startup and the latter, despite its appearance and its impressive distance, has only four angled travel routes, which means that Ridley has to properly get into a good position to recover, giving the opponent more than enough time to react. While Wing Blitz has some minor defenses while active, that being invulnerability on the spiked tips of his wings along with dealing heavy knockback on contact, it does not have a charging hitbox while his body remains vulnerable throughout the move, so it can be quite easy to aim for with prediction. This is worse when a character has a counterattack or heavily disjointed attacks, as they can safely challenge the move at any stage of its animation, though certain stages can allow Ridley to evade being countered by aiming Wing Blitz toward the stage and bouncing up to the ledge from impact. Without his midair jumps, Ridley can also have a lot of trouble recovering from below, and any low-sending attack like a [[semi-spike]] can put Ridley into an unrecoverable position. Because of this, offstage Ridley usually is forced to use his extra jumps as emergency jumps when he's in a disadvantage, which while valuable, is noticeably less useful than other multi-jumpers. As a result, Ridley's overall endurance is poor for a large heavyweight, and while his survivability isn't as poor as other lighter characters, it is unimpressive for a heavyweight and for his size. His smash attacks themselves also lack a bit, considering how many of Ridley's attacks are similar to that of super-heavyweights. The forward smash, while powerful has painfully slow startup and considerable end lag, while also being shorter than it ought to be. When compared to say those of Donkey Kong or Bowser, the fire explosion has less damage despite being as slow (slower even than Donkey Kong's forward smash) and with much less reach. His down smash also packs less of a punch than it should, considering that it is the slowest of all the three new stall-and-crush down smashes. King K. Rool has the best down smash due to it being in the top 3 strongest of its kind and the great Super Belley Armor, it can even stun opponents with a small shockwave if they hit the sourspots. Incineroar's while not as strong, still does hefty damage and sends foes flying, and is the fastest of the three. Ridley's only perk with his down smash is the area it covers, as his wings extend to crush opponents. However, Ridley's best smash attack, [[up smash]], does not have any noticeable weaknesses. It does great coverage both in terms of reach and defending Ridley in an up kick arc. It has a fast startup, respectable damage, and good kill power.
+Adding to the above is Ridley's recovery, which is still exploitable despite its long distance. Both of his recovery specials, Space Pirate Rush and Wing Blitz, have high startup and the latter, despite its appearance and its impressive distance, has only four angled travel routes, which means that Ridley has to properly get into a good position to recover, giving the opponent more than enough time to react. While Wing Blitz has some minor defenses while active, that being invulnerability on the spiked tips of his wings along with dealing heavy knockback on contact, it does not have a charging hitbox while his body remains vulnerable throughout the move, so it can be quite easy to aim for with prediction. This is worse when a character has a counterattack or heavily disjointed attacks, as they can safely challenge the move at any stage of its animation, though certain stages can allow Ridley to evade being countered by aiming Wing Blitz toward the stage and bouncing up to the ledge from impact. Without his midair jumps, Ridley can also have a lot of trouble recovering from below, and any low-sending attack like a [[semi-spike]] can put Ridley into an unrecoverable position. Because of this, offstage Ridley usually is forced to use his extra jumps as emergency jumps when he's in a disadvantage, which while valuable, is noticeably less useful than other multi-jumpers. As a result, Ridley's overall endurance is poor for a large heavyweight, and while his survivability isn't as poor as other lighter characters, it is unimpressive for a heavyweight and for his size.
 Another 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 he has plenty of amazing moves, some of them still have significant flaws; these can range from slow startup (Plasma Breath and down smash), to absurd blindspots (up tilt and sometimes up smash), overly situational and/or strict (Skewer), or being overall unreliable (down aerial). On the other side of the spectrum, some of Ridley's moves like neutral aerial, up smash, down tilt, and depending on the match-up, the aforementioned Plasma Breath is so favorable that it becomes easy to over-centralize on their use. Ridley is a character that finds the most success in being unpredictable, which can be difficult when a player subconsciously checks off using so many moves. This, combined with his aforementioned trouble at dealing with fast and/or zoning characters, and with recovering under pressure, makes Ridley one of the most susceptible characters to pressure, as Ridley's disadvantage state makes him easy to overwhelm, and failure to overwhelm or control aggression could force him to take heavy damage or even be KOed outright.