Palutena (SSB4)
| Palutena in Super Smash Bros. 4 | |
|---|---|
 
| |
| Universe | Kid Icarus |
| Availability | Starter |
| Final Smash | Black Hole Laser |
| “ | Palutena Alights! | ” |
| —Introduction Tagline | ||
Palutena (パルテナ, Palutena) is a character from the Kid Icarus series. She was confirmed as a playable fighter alongside the Mii Fighters and Pac-Man in Super Smash Bros. 4 during E3 2014 on June 10th, 2014. As the Goddess of Light, she fights using powers she granted Pit (and other angels in the multiplayer) in Kid Icarus: Uprising.
She is voiced in Japanese by Aya Hisakawa (who reprises her role from Uprising) and in English by Brandy Kopp, the latter replacing Ali Hillis due to availability conflicts.
Attributes
Palutena's characteristics are unique, and defy archtypes set up by characters such as Mewtwo, Zelda and Rosalina. She is tall, she has a great walking speed, a very fast dashing speed, high traction, below average weight, falling speed and air speed, high gravity, high jump force and is tied for the highest air acceleration. These characteristics give Palutena amazing ground movement, great ground-to-air transitioning, a decent perfect pivot, and allow her to quickly change direction in mid-air. However, they also make her very susceptible to juggling, and while her weight isn't that low, her high gravity makes her susceptible to vertical knockback.
Palutena's greatest strength is, arguably, her solid aerial game. All of her aerial moves have good utility, fast start-up, and in some cases, low landing lag (excluding neutral and up air). Her neutral air is a useful damage racking move, dealing 11%, and a decent protection move, coming out on frame 5. Her up air is her most gimmicky aerial move, having the strongest knockback while lacking range, having 24 frames of landing lag, and being interruptible before it can even autocancel. Her down air, while it only lasts one frame, it has no sourspot, making it an easy-to-use meteor smash, as well as a relatively safe out of shield option. Her forward and back air, however, are her most useful aerials. Forward air has the longest range of her aerial moves and the least landing lag, as well as completely autocancelling in a SHFF. Her back air is her most damaging one, dealing 12%, and having invincibility frames during start-up and as long as the hitbox is out. However, most of her aerial moves have high ending lag in proportion to their power and range, meaning they must be spaced accordingly.
Her grab game is also very capable. She has one of the longest, non-tether grab ranges in the game. Her pummel is one of the best as it is fairly damaging and decently fast, being a great move to rack up damage. Her back throw, while being a rather weak KO throw, having an easily DIed launch angle (the Sakurai angle) and, ironically, the lowest base knockback of all her throws, it is nevertheless highly damaging, dealing 10%, and a great way to send the opponent offstage and set up an edgeguard. Her forward throw has high base knockback, deals a good 9% damage, and while it has very low knockback scaling, it is even better than her back throw at setting up edgeguards, as well as an almost infallible trigger if Autoreticle is used. Her most versatile throw, however, is her down throw. Posessing the right amount of base knockback and extremely low knockback scaling, it can combo into almost any aerial move, the exception being down air, and perhaps an up smash if the player can read the opponent's reaction. It can even combo at KO percentages into up air.
Despite these advantages, Palutena is hindered significantly by her grounded moveset, which is infamously known for its very poor frame data, being a major issue that sets her apart from other characters of her weight. Even though her moves come out relatively quickly, and her smash attacks have a quick charge release, all of her grounded moves (except jab and down tilt) have disproportionately high ending lag. Her forward and up tilt, as well as her dash attack, have more than 25 frames of ending lag, and all of her smash attacks have more than 40. This makes her missed attacks heavily susceptible to punishment, even if the opponent is a good distace away from her, making it crucial for her to never miss a single ground move, or rely solely on her jab and down tilt. If she fails, she may be sent in the air, where she is at mercy of almost any kind of juggle. Due to this, she suffers from notable KO problems, despite her smash attacks and up tilt possesing high knockback scaling. The exceptions to this rule are admittedly her only safe grounded moves. Her jab, while it comes out very slowly, on frame 8, and the finisher having noticeable ending lag, it can be a very reliable damage racker, especially if one takes into account its high interruptibility, allowing for an easy jab cancel. Her down tilt is highly interruptible, having only 16 frames of true ending lag, making it a good spacing and dodge punishing tool, and her least punishable ground move. Her dash attack, while being very unsafe on shield, it has actual KO power, as well as the same kind of invincibility her back air does.
On top of this, Palutena's default special moveset is also infamously poor, possibly being the worst set among the cast, along with Mewtwo. Even though her Autoreticle has homing capabilities, the same can't be said about its projectiles, as they move only towards the fixed reticle, and on top of being incredibly sluggish, each one deals very slightly less than 3%, giving them abysmal priority. Reflect Barrier, while having an unblockable hitbox, a push effect and being a long lasting reflector, it does not cover her entirely, and does not move along with her in mid-air, making it the worst reflector in the game. Warp, while being extremely quick and allowing a safe recovery and swift repositioning, it has absolutely no hitboxes, leaving her wide open to attacks before and after she moves. Lastly, even though her Counter has a high damage multiplier, it comes out slower than any other counterattack (except for Toad), has low KO power, a sourspot (the only one to do so), less range and more ending lag than most other counters (only Lucario's is slower), making it the worst counter.
All of these traits make Palutena a frail, though defensively-minded character, as without punishing, her offensive options are severely lacking, moreso than most other characters. She relies on shielding attacks at close range and turtling for a good portion of the match until an opening can be found, due to her bad grounded moveset, lack of approach options and overall sluggish moveset.
Due to her bad special moveset, Palutena benefits from custom moves more than any other character. Super Speed allows her to move faster than even Sonic's Spin Charge, and since it can be jump-cancelled into any aerial move and up smash, or straight into a dash attack, it is considered to have immense utility, making up for its predictability. Lightweight amplifies her movement speed and jump force, to the point where she dashes faster than Sonic, and jumps almost as high as Falco. This move gives her 15 seconds of drastically improved offstage game, a quicker and safer recovery, blinding ground speed, and an even more capable combo game. As a recoil, this move nearly doubles damage taken, and after expiration of the move, Palutena moves slower for 5 seconds, with her damage vulnerability and jump force returning to their original values. These two moves alone allow for tons of mix-ups, mindgames, combos and edgeguards.
Her other custom moves have notable advantages, but are held back by their easily exploitable weaknesses. Explosive Flame is a more reliable damage racker than Autoreticle, but it is a pinpoint explosion with limited range, and is just as sluggish. Patch 1.1.1 also nerfed it so the last hit is no longer unblockable. Heavenly Light, outside of being an invaluable healing move for Ness, Lucas and the Mii Gunner in doubles, is useless, as it will never land on any opponent that isn't stunned in singles. Angelic Missile is a good recovery move and a potent edgeguarding option, thanks to its high base knockback, but it has high start-up lag, suprisingly low knockback scaling and a linear path, making it easy to intercept. Jump Glide gives extreme horizontal distance and allows for safe approaches, but it leaves her defenseless, and has the same fatal flaw Wings of Icarus used to have: if, for any reason, Palutena flinches during the move, she cannot use it again if she doesn't touch solid ground, which may lead to an inevitable KO. Rocket Jump, other than having a meteor smash hitbox below her, is inferior to both Warp and Jump Glide in every way. Lastly, Celestial Firework has intangibility during start-up and is a good anti-air move in general, but it is hard to hit with, and delivers unimpressive knockback.
With customs off, Palutena is considered to be a bottom tier character (and sometimes the worst character in the game), due to her bad grounded game, significant lag issues and nearly useless special moves. Many smashers use her as a secondary or counterpick, and typically fail to achieve notable tournament success with her. However, with customs on, she is considered to be a solid choice, being at the upper parts of the mid tier. This is because of Super Speed and Lightweight concealing her most prominent weaknesses, with smashers such as AeroLink having proved this. Among the competitive community, however, there exists speculation on whether Palutena should be given the ability to always have the choice to use her custom specials, even if customs are otherwise banned.
Update history
Game updates have seen Palutena has received a mix of buffs and nerfs starting in update 1.0.4. The range on her attacks and neutral game are slightly better than before, but the lag problems on her moveset still linger, she has lost some of the utility she had in her large pivot grab and some of the gimmicks on her specials moveset have been removed. However, while her buffs outweighted her nerfs until 1.1.0, the many changes on the shield mechanics in 1.1.0 and 1.1.1 have seriously (albeit indirectly) harmed her indirectly, moreso than any other character: her attacks are less safe on shield due to their low hitlag, high ending lag and the fact hitlag modifiers also apply to shielding characters, making her easier to punish out of shield. The significant increase to shieldstun on attacks also makes shielding less safe for her to find an opening, due her reliance on it and the lack of a proper out of shield game as her out of shield options are slow, with only her forward tilt slightly benefitting from these changes at all. Overall, Palutena has been nerfed, and while she isn't notably affected with customs turned on, her previous buffs do not compensate for the nerfs she has received, making her without custom moves less, if any, viable.
