Ridley (SSBU)/Down special

Hitbox visualization showing Ridley's down special, Skewer.

Overview

Ridley pulls his tail back and winds up for a bit before violently stabbing with it. The move is high-risk, high reward, with the sweetspot causing the opponent to crumple if it lands, as well as dealing massive damage, with 45% from the first stab, and then followed up with an extra 10% when he retracts his tail. The attack also ignores Super Armor. The high damage output and crumple allow Ridley to deliver a devastating punish upon landing with the attacks sweetspot.

However, the move, being a high-risk, high reward move has many issues. By far the most notable issue is the sweetspot allows the opponent to act a bit before Ridley can, meaning that Ridley will often need to read the opponents getup option to get a meaningful follow up. The sweetspot also only is active for an extremely narrow window, and only sweetspots at the center of his tail barb, meaning the positioning to land this attack is narrow, with the dealing pitiful damage and being rather useless and dangerous to connect with. Additionally the move deals negligible shield damage, meaning a opponent can shield the attack upon seeing it coming. The move is also classified as a grab, meaning reads off of throws are completely useless when trying to land the attack. Finally, the move is slow, taking a half-second for the sweetspot to come out, meaning it can be easily dodged outside of hard reads. However, due to it's marginally faster startup compared to other powerful and slow moves, such as Warlock Punch, Ridley can sometimes force the attack to land via tech chasing the opponent.

Overall, Skewer rarely sees use in professional settings due to the extreme risk and commitment that comes with using it. However, it does occasionally see use in hard read and tech chase situations, albeit rarely.

Update history

8.0.0

• The tipper hitbox deals more damage (40% → 45%).
• The tipper no longer triggers a Special Zoom nor crumples opponents with grab immunity. This significantly worsens a hard read into the move from Ridley's down throw at low percents, which is now unsafe on hit, and removes the infamous Skewer bury infinite in doubles matches.

Hitboxes

ID	Part	Rehit rate	Damage	SD	Angle	Angle type	BK	KS	FKV	Set weight	Radius	Bone	Offset			H×	SDI×	T%	Clang	Rebound	Effect	Type	G	A	Sound	Direct	Hit bits	Hit part	Blockable	Reflectable	Absorbable	Flinchless	No GFX	Heedless	Shieldstun
0	0	0	45.0%	-37		Standard	0	100	20		2.1	top	3.0	7.0	24.5	0.0×	1.0×	0%							None		All	All							—
1	0	0	45.0%	-37		Standard	50	30	0		2.1	top	3.0	7.0	24.5	0.6×	1.0×	0%							Slash		All	All							x0.2
2	0	0	5.0%	0		Standard	30	50	0		2.2	top	0.0	7.0	8.0	1.0×	1.0×	0%							Slash		All	All							x0.2

Kind	ID	Damage	Angle	Angle type	BK	KS	FKV	H×	Effect	Type	Sound
Throw	0	10.0%		Forward	0	100	150	2.0×			None

Timing

Early hit	30
Late hit	31
Throw	76
Earliest interruptable (sourspot/miss)	68
Earliest interruptable (sweetspot)	127

Sourspot/miss

Sweetspot

Sweetspot

Legend (1 square = 1 frame)

Lag time

Hitbox

Hitbox change

Vulnerable

Invincible

Throw point

Ridley's moveset

Neutral attack (1 · 2 · 3 · inf) · Forward tilt · Up tilt · Down tilt · Dash attack · Forward smash · Up smash · Down smash
Neutral aerial · Forward aerial · Back aerial · Up aerial · Down aerial
Grab · Pummel · Forward throw · Back throw · Up throw · Down throw
Floor attack (front) · Floor attack (back) · Floor attack (trip) · Edge attack
Neutral special · Side special · Up special · Down special · Final Smash