Ridley (SSBU)/Down special

Hitbox visualization showing Ridley's down special, Skewer.

OverviewEdit

Ridley pulls his tail back and winds up for a moment before violently stabbing forward with it. The move is high-risk, high reward option, with the sweetspot causing the opponent to crumple if it lands, as well as dealing massive damage, with 45% from the first stab 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 a successful hit with the attack's sweetspot.

Though powerful, the move is slow and difficult to land, which makes it easy to avoid without a hard read. The hitboxes take a half-second to come out, and the sweetspot is only active for one frame and only covers the center of Ridley's tail barb, requiring rather precise positioning to land. The sourspot deals pitiful damage in comparison, and is rather useless and often punishable. Additionally, a notable issue with the attack is that the sweetspot allows the opponent to act slightly earlier than Ridley, meaning that Ridley will often need to read the opponent's getup option to get a meaningful follow up afterwards.

The attack deals negligible shield damage even when sweetspotted, meaning an opponent can shield the attack with little penalty. The move is also classified as a grab, meaning it is impossible to follow up with this move from a throw, due to regrab immunity. However, the move has marginally faster startup compared to other powerful and slow moves, such as Warlock Punch, and Ridley can sometimes land the attack by successfully tech chasing the opponent. However, Up smash competes heavily with Skewer for tech chases on platforms thanks to it covering every tech option, being easier to set up, and leaving Ridley in a much better position if it misses. Because of this, in professional settings, Ridley players almost always opt to use Up Smash below the platform instead, despite Skewers higher damage output.

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, although even in that scenario, it is outclassed by Up Smash.

Update historyEdit

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.

HitboxesEdit

ID	Damage	SD	Angle type	BK	KS	FKV	Radius	Bone	Offset			H×	SDI×	T%	Sound	Hit bits	Hit part	Shieldstun
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	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	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