Belly Super Armor

This article is in need of additional images. The editor who added this tag suggests: image of bellyblock in action If you have a good image for this article, upload it here.

King K. Rool using his Belly Super Armor in his dash attack to block Little Mac's Jolt Haymaker.

File:KRoolDashAttackBSA.gif

King K. Rool Dash Attack Hitbox Visual, with Belly Super Armor displayed as a grey sphere.

Belly Super Armor (referred by the Techniques menu as Belly Power) is King K. Rool’s fighter ability. During attacks where his belly sticks out, his gold-plated stomach armor grants a special form of super armor.

Despite King K. Rool always wearing this piece of armor, Belly Super Armor is not active when idle or during attacks that do not involve King K. Rool expanding his stomach. As such, it is never active unless he executes certain attacks, such as his forward tilt. While the Belly Super Armor is inactive, it will not take damage and K. Rool will be hit as normal, although it will still restore HP. Attacks that hit K. Rool's Belly Super Armor make a loud, distinct clanging sound as an audio cue. If K. Rool's armor blocks an attack that triggers a Special Zoom, the attack will be blocked as normal, but the zoom still occurs.

When an attack is blocked by Belly Super Armor, there is a minimum 16 frames of hitlag. As a result, it is possible for options such as fast falling through it. K. Rool's neutral aerial often uses this against multihits to aid landing. If Belly Super Armor is broken, there is a universal 1.8x hitlag multiplier as well.

Belly Super Armor has its own hurtbox, centered on his waist and jutting out slightly. As a result, this can be taken as a hurtbox extension. Due to this, K. Rool's armor can be attacked when K. Rool himself usually would not be. This adds a degree of protection against longer lasting hitboxes, but multihits and short ranged hitboxes typically become better against it due to this as well.

Belly Super Armor's HP System

The armor has 14.01 HP, but since the incoming damage is split 50/50 between K. Rool and his belly, it is effectively 28.02 HP (often referred to by % in this case by the K. Rool playerbase to differentiate). Belly Super Armor regenerates 0.08 HP every frame, or 0.3 HP per second. As a result, it takes 4 seconds to recover 1.12 HP, in a more easy-to-scale format. Overall, it will take 47 seconds to recover all of Belly Super Armor's HP. Managing armor's health is pivotal in being successful with King K. Rool.

While Belly Super Armor is very powerful, it is a double-edged sword. If his armor takes enough damage, the camera will Special Zoom on King K. Rool as he is flung into the air on the spot and will become temporarily dizzy, similar to a shield break. If his armor is broken in midair, King K. Rool will slowly descend until he lands on a platform or stage base. This means he can potentially be KO'd by having his armor break off-stage or if he's pushed off during the descent, akin to a shield break. As with shields and other forms of armor, Belly Super Armor cannot block unblockable attacks or grabs, such as Terry's Buster Wolf becoming a grab upon the first hit connecting. If the armor is broken and then K. Rool is hit, the armor will restore at full HP again, unlike shields which restore at half health.

Unlike other forms of armor that use damage for thresholds in Ultimate, Belly Super Armor does not scale in 1v1 battles, remaining at 14.01 HP. As a result, it cannot withstand some moves in 1v1 matches, such as Falcon Punch, that it could otherwise. This is worsened by the stale-move negation mechanics strengthening fresh moves by 1.05x, allowing moves that deal as low as 22.5% at base to break armor in 1v1 if they come out fresh. Armor is also affected by other damage multipliers such as Monado Arts, Revenge and Ink, making the armor deceptively easy to break for some characters.

Due to the armor's active frames, it is also possible to destroy it through counters. However, forward tilt and down smash are impervious to this due to their armor specifically being out before the hitbox. Joker's Tetrakarn and other K. Rool's Gut Checks are particularly notorious for instant armor breaks due to their high multipliers, instantly breaking dash attack and up smash's armor on hit. Shulk's Vision with Buster can also break these, along with early up aerial.

Belly Super Armor's Crack Stages

Unlike most forms of armor, K. Rool's belly armor actually reduces the damage K. Rool takes from attacks, cutting the damage in half. To do this, it splits the damage between itself and K. Rool. However, as with shields, King K. Rool's Belly Super Armor can only withstand a certain amount of damage: the amount of damage it has taken is roughly visible as a crack in his belly. Small cracks appear when the armor has 11.5 HP left, and large cracks appearing when it has 6.1 HP left. Thus, a K. Rool player can use this as a way to manage the armor during a match.

14.01 HP	11.5 HP	6.1 HP

List of attacks that have Belly Super Armor

Move	Notes	Frames active
Forward tilt	Before the clap. Due to being a tilt that can be angled, the armor hurtbox can shift to block different attacks. Most notably, low angled forward tilt can block ledge attacks.	5-11
Up smash	Before the plank, when he hops	6-19
Down smash	After the jump, before he lands	8-21
Dash attack	When he leaps forward, extending his belly	7-28
Neutral Air	When his stomach expands	6-30
Down Air	After the stomp	14-25
Up Air	While he rises for the headbutt	6-20
Side taunt	Right before he pats his belly	9-20

Trivia

• The Techniques menu does not list King K. Rool's up air, down air, and side taunt as moves possessing Belly Super Armor. Interestingly it does list Gut Check which, as a counterattack, does not utilize armor at all.
  • Parameters reveal that using Gut Check was meant to have K. Rool take Belly Super Armor damage at some point during development, with a specific damage multiplier. However, this multiplier is 0, making it not occur at all. His scripts also request for damage to the Belly Super Armor, but they do not occur. It can be theorized that the clanging sound during Gut Check comes from this feature.
• Contrary to popular belief, Crownerang does not use Belly Super Armor. Instead, it has damage-based (aka "Heavy") armor against anything that does equal to or less than 6% damage, or 7.2% in 1v1 due to damage-based armor scaling. While his Super Belly Armor is not involved (and thus is not damaged), King K. Rool receives the full amount of any damage that was armored as with normal damage-based armor.
• Oddly, Belly Super Armor does not regenerate health in Training Mode. Although patch 2.0.1 fixed it, an unknown later patch caused the issue again. As of 6.1.0, the issue has been fixed completely.
• Even if Ink isn't directly on King K. Rool's armor, it can still be used to boost damage dealt to it.