Piranha Plant (SSBU)/Back aerial

Hitbox visualization showing Piranha Plant's back aerial.

Overview

Piranha Plant shoots flame behind itself. A very slow move in startup, endlag and landing lag, it possesses by far the highest kill potential of its aerials, barring the spike from down aerial offstage, and is also its most disjointed aerial. At very early percents, it has minor combo potential into turnaround grabs, dash grabs, or can send the opponent into tumble for a jablock or tech chase. Back aerial also works as an edgeguarding tool, due to the disjoint and power, although it has a very slow FAF of 62; over a second of lag from the entire move. This makes it a guaranteed SD if the move is fastfalled offstage from low enough, immensely hampering its usage as an edgeguard tool. Thus, back aerial is moreso used for hard reads or covering high recoveries where Piranha Plant is able to land. It also is able to break shields that are damaged enough, thanks to its unexpectedly high damage for one of Piranha Plant's aerials.

While back aerial's endlag makes it quite committal to use, it works well enough as a punish tool from the air, and when combined with jump fake outs, can make it very deadly against whiffs. The large hitbox also makes it very good as an air-to-air, especially against characters with low attack range, and when spaced, can be safe on shield. This makes back aerial a good move to use when opponents least expect it, and can net early kills as a result especially from the ledge.