fromundaman
Henshin a go-go Baby!
Learn to Suck: A Guide to Inhale
I. Introduction
II. General Facts
III. When do I Inhale?
IV. I’ve inhaled… Now what?
V. The Great Question: Spit or Swallow? (Or neither?) [And Conclusion]
VI. Other Cool and Miscellaneous Info
Part I: Introduction:
Fellow Kirby players, I’m sure many of you, having opened this thread uniquely due to its title, are thinking ‘lulz @ inhale’ while wondering why in the world anyone would bother writing a guide to a single move, especially one which many of you seem to consider only useful for Kirbicides. Well, I’m not of the same opinion.
Inhale, Kirby’s trademark ability, seems to be his most underrated move, and I hope, with this guide, to enlighten at least a few of you on its uses.
You may wonder who I think I am to be writing a guide on anything, as I lack the reputation/tourney results of better Kirby players, but I think I am probably one of the most knowledgeable Kirbies when it comes to this move, probably since I’m more or less the only one who actually cares about it.
Warning: This is a GIGANORMOUS wall of text. It’s so long that I had to invent a word to describe its size.
Also, for the acronymly challenged, here’s a list of the acronyms I use:
FS= Footstool
AD= airdodge
DJ= Double Jump
FF= fast fall
D3= King Dedede
G&W= Game and Watch
ICs= Ice Climbers
Part II: General Facts
This is the boring part of every guide where we act like you don’t know anything about your character and show you a picture of the move’s hitbox, tell you how much damage it does, and tell of its properties. Sadly for you guys, this one is no exception. Please don’t take it as an insult to your intelligence when I explain the difference between starshotting and copying, as well as their respective damages/hitboxes (though I do go more in depth than most of you guys probably have, so you’re more than likely to learn something from this section anyway.). Feel free to skip this section if you already know all there is to know about these two.
Here we have the move in question:
[Picture of inhale with a colored hitbox coming soon!]
Inhale counts as a grab that has two different attacks/throws (they aren’t really throws, but I don’t really know what to classify them as, since they aren’t really real attacks either…) to it: starshot or copy. Also, it has invulnerability frames at some point while you’re inhaling an opponent, though I’m not entirely sure when.
On another note, Kirby’s inhale also outprioritizes D3’s, which is funny considering that in his games, Kirby can’t inhale D3 but D3 inhales Kirby.
Starshot will propel your enemy out of your mouth as a star, effectively turning him/her into a short range projectile (the range depends on your opponent’s weight. Also, if they mash buttons, they can get out of the starshot faster and cover less distance, though the run the risk of buffering an attack.), as well as tacking on an extra 10% to the initial target when fresh (5% if fully decayed). In team matches and FFAs, using the enemies as projectiles can be very useful, though keep in mind that the damage and knockback that the enemies getting hit by the star receive depends on the weight of the inhaled unit (list of damages and perhaps even kill percents will come in a later update.).
Also, if perfectly spaced, when you starshot someone into another character, if the star hits them right at the end of the starshot, the starshotted unit takes an extra 1% (Woopedeedoo… I know. I was serious when I said I’ve looked into this move more than other people. Maybe I need to get a life?)
Lastly, contrary to what some people seem to think, Kirby’s Starshot deals the same damage as D3’s, the only difference being that D3’s and D3 Kirby’s inhale range is better. Aquiring D3’s inhale doesn’t affect your inhale’s priority for some reason however, and therefore your inhale will still always beat D3’s.
Copy, on the other hand, deals only 6%, and only has a tiny hitbox that deals 6% to enemies touching Kirby from behind (Yes, I know how wrong that sounds…). This hitbox can kill, though strangely enough, if the enemy who gets hit by the back hitbox DIs towards Kirby, the knockback is reduced by a lot since they take another hit which is much weaker than the first. What’s stranger is that, when this happens, it is the character that got inhaled, not the one who gets sent flying/hit twice, who takes an extra 6% (I bet none of you knew about that! Not that it’s very helpful…). This hitbox also kills at the same time as starshotting does, provided the opponent doesn’t DI towards Kirby.
Anyway, as the name suggests, copy allows you to take an opponent’s neutral B power and create your own ‘Kirbified’ version of it, which is really the only reason to use copy. Keep in mind that this will replace your inhale, probably because having two moves mapped to one button wouldn’t be very convenient.
Part III: When do I Inhale?
This part is one of the reasons I made this guide in the first place. First and foremost, I want to make one thing clear: while I do find many uses to this move, and a lot of times to use it, this move is by no means spammable, and is actually quite situational, though much less so than people seem to make it sound. To make it simple, you probably won’t get more than a dozen inhales off in a match (And I know all the Kirby players reading this are probably thinking that I’m either playing scrubs or taking potent drugs, or perhaps both, to think I can even get that many off, but I solemnly swear to you guys that Kirby cannot beer cancel, and as such, I remain a sober player.), but in a lot of cases you should be able to get a fair number of them in unless you’re against a character who heavily outspaces you. I’m not saying that you’re doing it wrong if you don’t get that many inhales in, but there should be a fair number of opportunities for inhale in most matches, though spotting those can be tough, and taking advantage of them even moreso.
Anyway, enough rambling; here’s a list of times when you can use inhale, in order of how useful it is in said situation as well as how likely you are to actually get it:
-Punishing bad spacing: This is by far the most useful way to use inhale in my opinion. Against characters and/or players with bad spacing, inhale can be a godsend, as if it hits, it will either negate the knockback from the attack due to grab armor (which starts as the enemy first starts the tumbling animation from getting sucked in, or perhaps right before the animation starts. I’ll try to test it sometime and edit this.) , or negate the opponent’s attack completely, depending on the enemy’s spacing. On top of that, this is really pretty easy to land, especially if you SH inhale (causing a moving inhale, which is essentially a moving grab with huge range but more startup lag), due to inhale’s impressive range (to give you an idea, unless perfectly spaced, it will inhale MK out of his Fair. It also inhales Snake out of a perfectly spaced Dtilt (sorry, the other tilts hit if well spaced.).). Using this move to punish bad spacing may also scare/mess with your opponent a bit after the third or fourth time it happens.
-Intercepting recoveries: I've been doing this more and more recently, and it seems inhales are much easier to land offstage on recovering opponents, especially because they never seem to expect it, and oftentimes it will pull them out of their UpBs. On top of that, inhale breaks at that point can set up for some interesting gimps, since they won't regain their jumps (and sometimes won't regain their triple jumps either... I'm looking at you Snake!).
-Mindgames!: Well, this is part of why this move is so situational: the best way to land this move is to mindgame the opponent into it. The only reason this is second on my list is because it doesn’t seem as useful as punishing bad spacing (I feel like I’ve typed ‘bad spacing’ a hundred times already…). While mindgames tend to differ from player to player, here are a few good ways to mindgame your opponent into an inhale (they work for me anyway):
1) After a Dthrow: After a Dthrow a lot of players will airdodge expecting a Utilt (or maybe it’s just the people I play, since I do Dthrow>Utilt>shieldgrab>repeat a lot), which allows us time to start inhale and drops them straight into it.
2) SH reverse buffered inhale: A lot of us like to do empty SHs with our back to the enemy, usually when playing defensive or when retreating, to try and trick the opponent into thinking we’ll Bair, which in turn leads the enemy to either rushing in to punish what they thought was going to be a Bair or playing more cautiously. However, no one ever seems to expect a reverse buffered inhale (or aerial hammer for that matter), which makes them viable.
3) Jumping into the ****: I know that many of you are familiar with the phrase “Don’t jump into the ****”. With inhale, however, jumping into the **** [occasionally] can be a good thing. What I mean is that by doing a SH inhale towards the enemy at a time when you KNOW the enemy is planning to attack, you can throw off their spacing and get an inhale off. Don’t get me wrong, you shouldn’t be jumping into the **** because I just said it’s a good mindgame, as it only occasionally works. Do it too often, and like anything else, it will get too predictable and punished, and since this is REALLY easy to punish due to the fact that you are approaching your enemy during your startup lag, more than once-twice per match is probably too much.
4) I already gave you 3, figure some out for yourselves! Mess around with inhale during friendlies and see what works for you, then come back here and share it with me/other Kirbies.
-Against certain characters who can’t really do much about it: I seriously almost typed ‘against Ganon’ here (I know I was one of the ones who argued in Ganon’s favor the most during the matchup discussion, but I hadn’t really realized how much inhale ***** Ganon at that time. Seriously, I consider it almost spammable in that matchup.), but to be fair, there are quite a few more characters who have a tough time beating inhale. Here’s a list of characters *I* believe have trouble getting around inhale (Please correct me on the ones I have wrong, as most of these are speculation, with only the first four being based on experience I have had with the matchups. I pretty much listed them by how sure I am of this.), mainly due to their hurtboxes being almost as big as their hitboxes:
-Ganon
-CF
-Jigglypuff
-Sonic (While he has the speed to punish during inhale’s startup lag, he has so few moves that can actually get around/through it that if you use it sparingly, it should hit most of the time.)
-Squirtle
-Charizard
-Bowser
-Mario
-Luigi
-ICs (Not that I’d get near enough to inhale these guys most of the time.)
Now I know most of these guys are low tier characters who you probably won’t see in serious matches, but hey, every bit helps, right?
Part IV: I’ve inhaled… Now what?
So now that you’ve managed to get the opponent in your mouth, how do you proceed from here? Sadly, there is no universally good choice, and often what you do depends on the situation as well as your opponent’s character and how good you are with that character’s power. In this section I’ll cover some mindgames and techniques that revolve around starshot/copy, display Asdioh’s list of characters who can hit you after a successful copy, and talk about the wonder of inhale breaks, as well as what you can do out of them and to whom (though probably not in this order.).
To start, let’s give some more credit to Asdioh for his list of characters who can hit us out of copy, because that guy just loves attention. If you’re not sure on whether or not you want to starshot or copy an opponent, take a look at this list and see if said opponent can punish it. I will say I find some of these moves to be worth the punishment, though some just aren’t, and if your opponent knows how to punish you for a successful copy, then it ay be a bad idea to grab their power.
Anyway, here’s the list:
Thanks for the info Asdioh!
Next, let’s talk about some of the tricks you can do with inhale (mainly starshot.). As everyone seems to know, there are no guaranteed follow-ups to starshot or copy. In fact, nothing is even close to guaranteed. HOWEVER, it is very much possible to get a follow-up, especially since no one ever seems to expect one. On most characters, unless they do a DJ or AD after a copy (both of which are kind of ******** choices in most scenarios), they can be hit with a SH Bair if you jump as soon as you can. Most people won’t expect it the first time around and be hit. What’s even better is if you do it again later in the match, they are bound to either DJ or AD, expecting another Bair, which puts them in a very bad position if you DON’T Dair (unless they have multiple jumps, in which case jumping is safe.). On the second copy, you can wait to see how they react. If they AD, that’s a free Fsmash or even maybe grounded hammer. If they DJ, then you can just follow them and shieldgrab whatever they do as they land.
Now for follow-ups to starshot. Unlike copy, Starshot will send them a fair distance from Kirby, which can make following up difficult. However, as with copy follow-ups, few people expect you to even attempt a follow-up, which in turn can allow you to land one, especially on heavy characters as they travel less distance. On characters that travel a short distance due to their weight or good button mashing, you can get a Fair or Uair off on them (again, not guaranteed. They can AD or DJ, same as before, and that AD can sometimes be punished by a hyphen smash.). I’ve also occasionally been able to connect a hyphen smash (not character dependent), but yeah, that one rarely seems to hit. Finally, I am really surprised and don’t really understand why, but SH inhale seems to work a lot more often than it should as a starshot follow-up on heavies.
Also, you remember that list of characters that can punish a copy? Well, we can make that work for us too. Whether you copy or starshot, your opponent has very little time to buffer their punishing aerial, and don’t really have time to figure out if you copied or starshotted. Thanks to this, characters with desirable powers are more likely to try to punish a copy on instinct and those with less desirable powers less likely. Of those characters that usually do, the ones with obvious copy punishing options (Like TL or Lucario) will be the most likely to attempt it (Do you see where I’m getting at?). On these characters, a starshot will often make them buffer an aerial, screwing them up and give them unnecessary lag, which can then be punished. With a few mindgames however, we can also trick characters who don’t usually attempt to punish copy into attempting it, then punish their lag. Take G&W for example. His power, in that matchup, is very bad, and not often taken, hence why most G&W’s won’t even think of trying to key you if you copy. However, by absorbing him at least once, you can probably trick him into trying to Dair you on the next occasion when you inhale, at which point you can starshot and punish.
Now you’re probably wondering how I can advise inhaling again after having already taken a power (or maybe you aren’t.). Well, getting a power knocked out of you is ridiculously easy, especially against characters with wind and water effects (not sure why those make you lose powers so often), and failing that, your Dtaunt is a quick, effective, and annoying (to the enemy) way to lose a power. Of course, if you Dtaunt right after taking a power, your mindgame probably won’t work, since the opponent is bound to ask themselves why you took the power in the first place if you didn’t want it. All in all, losing it to the opponent works best for mindgames, but if that doesn’t seem to be happening, Dtaunt works well.
Starshot can also be an invaluable asset offstage. As it stands now, if you ever get an inhale offstage, people are bound to think that you’re going for a Kirbicide (which no, I’m not going to cover in this guide because come on, everyone already knows about those, and I’m pretty sure they’re in other guides.), or trying to starshot them under the stage (which is a very good option, especially on certain stages. Generally speaking, if you starshot them under an angled ceiling, it’s harder for them to recover and more likely to result in a death. Also, a lot of people tend to try to double jump right away in an attempt to recover when you do this, and their jumps gets canceled by the ceiling right above them, resulting in a death.) and start mashing buttons like crazy to escape. This can actually be a great thing to us, as if we starshot them while they mash buttons, they are bound to buffer an aerial of some sort, which can either be punished, or, if it’s incredibly laggy, like Ike’s more or less every aerial, then you can just watch them plummet to their death. Few things are funnier than seeing an MK accidentally buffer a SL in the wrong direction.
Finally, we have inhale breaks. Those of you who aren’t in the backroom might be wondering why in the hell I would even mention this, as how can having an enemy escape an inhale ever be a good thing? Well friends, there are some fun and interesting things that can happen out of an inhale break, which we shall now talk about (Also, none of what I’m about to mention works for D3’s inhale breaks or inhale breaks with D3’s power.).
On certain characters, Kirby can get a footstool on his opponents when they break out of inhale in the air, provided that Kirby is not moving in a horizontal direction and that the opponent DIs a certain way. This is quite simply amazing since it means that some characters simply cannot avoid dying if they get inhaled then brought offstage (they get FSed if they try to break out, or risk buffering an aerial if we starshot them, which on certain characters will kill them no matter what they buffer, or they get Kirbicided). Of course, a meager footstool won’t kill them by itself unless you managed to fall pretty close to the blastzones. However, I have also found that on every character, we can follow a footstool with a FF Dair which itself can be followed up by another footstool (FS>FF Dair>FS will kill on every legal stage by the way, unless there is a floor of some kind in the way.).
I have compiled a list of all the characters that this does and doesn’t work on, along with which way they have to DI, though more testing is required for this, as I have not had time to test every character (nor do I think I ned to, as for some characters it is pretty obvious what happens.). Anyway… enough rambling. here’s the list:
Characters that I KNOW FS Kirby:
-MK
-DK (Yeah, I know, this one surprised me too)
-Mario
-Luigi
-Peach (though she can be FSed if she doesn't try to FS us.)
-Kirby (the inhaled Kirby seems to get the footstool)
-Olimar (Awww... it was too good to be true.)
-Samus
Characters that get FSd unless they DI away from Kirby (which, in most cases, is away from the stage as well.):
-Fox
-Falco (he can avoid being FSed if he doesn't DI and mashes jump. If he doesn't mash jump, or DIs towards the stage (AKA tries to recover), he gets FSed.)
-Wolf (He gets FSed unless he DIs away from Kirby. If Kirby has his back to the stage, then Wolf would have to DI away from the stage, and as a result cannot recover.)
-Shiek
-Ganon (Same as Wolf)
-ZSS (She can also DownB or UpB to avoid being FSed, but she doesn't recover either way, unless maybe if she is within UpB range of the stage. She is also one of the easiest to inhale gay since it is so easy to inhale her out of her recovery, since, as good as it is, it's very easy to predict her trajectory.)
-Bowser (His hurtbox is kind of weird though, so you actually have to start trying to FS earlier than it looks like you should.)
-Snake (Mash jump. If he doesn't DI away, it will result in a footstool. If he does DI away, he can't Bomb jump. Since that counts as a grab release, inhale breaks don't give back his cypher either. Basically, he gets screwed. Also, you need to be moving forward very slightly while he's in your mouth to get the FS.)
-Ike (I remember testing him, but didn't record the results, so I don't remember exactly how you have to DI to get the FS, but if I remember correctly, you had to move forward slightly before he breaks out, then the only way he can avoid the footstool is to DI away, which leaves him unable to recover.)
Characters that either FS Kirby or neither one gets FSd:
-Lucario
-TL (almost certain he FSs us)
-Diddy
-Yoshi (Someone, I think it was Viper, has also told me that Yoshi FSs Kirby, so I’m pretty sure this one is correct, though I haven’t personally tested it.)
-Marth (I’m pretty much certain this ****er FSs us… as if he didn’t have enough on us already…)
-G&W (Same as Marth)
-Ness
-Lucas
-Luigi
-Peach
-Wario
-Zelda
-ROB (He only FSs us if we try to chase him for the FS. otherwise, neither gets a FS.)
-Pit
-ICs
-Jigglypuff
-Squirtle
-Ivysaur (see Olimar)
-Mewtwo (Don’t feel bad. He’s so broken he FSs everyone out of a FS, and he can even get a Dtilt on you out of it somehow. He’s just that broken.)
Characters that I think can be FSd if you follow DI:
-Pikachu
-Sonic (see above)
-D3 (He can escape by doing his UpB.)
-Link
-CF (Maybe? Having a hard time figuring this one out.)
-Charizard (See above)
Part V: The Great Question: Spit or Swallow? (or neither?) [And conclusion]
Well my brave readers, I congratulate you on reaching this point. All that’s left now is to end this guide with the great question: should you spit or swallow? That answer, my friends, depends entirely on the situation and the people involved. Do you like how it tastes? Are you comfortable swallowing? Are you… Oops… umm… wrong guide…
Anyway, if you want to know when to starshot or copy, the best way to find out is to look at what you can do out of both (this guide should have given you quite a few pointers on that already), what that character can do to you for copying his/her ability, and how useful the power is (There is a discussion on Kirby copy abilities here: http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=222800 ). Also, some stages lend themselves to starshot or certain copy powers more than others, so take that into consideration as well (there’s a stage discussion thread where that sort of stuff should be getting mentioned here: http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=221595 ). Finally, keep in mind the character you’re facing and their options for dealing with that power (Metaknight’s tornado, for example, as good as it seems, is pretty much useless against Metaknight, and unfortunately, he kind of needs to be there for you to get it. Basically, it’s atrociously bad in singles and only decent in doubles. This question tends to get addressed for each character in the character matchup thread, found here: http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=195032 ).
Well, that’s it for this guide. I hope it helped you all out and that you had the time and patience to read through it (I had the patience to write/proofread it after all!). Failing that, I at least hope you enjoyed what little you might have read and that you not flame this thread…
No wait, I lied, here's another section:
Other cool and Miscellaneous info
I had a lot of things to put into this section, but unfortunately, I seem to have forgotten a lot of them when I came to edit this, so I guess I'll come back and edit this section a lot.
Here are some cool things I've found with inhale:
-Since Inhale is a grab, that makes inhale breaks a grab release. So what, you ask? Well, that means if we inhale a Snake out of his cypher, he doesn't get it back, and since we can footstool him out of an inhale break unless he DIs away (in which case his horizontal momentum prevents him from bomb jumping), we can effectively gimp him to hell.
-Even better still, you know how if you grab Sonic out of his UpB he goes into the tumbling animation when he grab breaks (provided you don't pummel). Well, it does it for inhale breaks too, and inhale is MUCH easier to grab him out of UpB with than a normal grab is, so when he has to recover like that, stand at the edge, inhale as he UpBs, and watch him break out and fall to his doom. This probably warrants a taunt.
-Snake is not the only one who's recovery gets destroyed by inhale. Intercepting recoveries can be devastating, and since the opponent won't get their jumps back from an inhale break, sometimes just DIing away from the stage so that they can't recover via triple jump can be very effective. It also works well against characters with multiple jumps, since for some reason most of them seem to think they will get their jumps back after the inhale and far too far down to recover before figuring it out. Finally, characters with tethers can be very easily brought out of tether range then either let them break out of inhale or starshot them (Keep in mind starshot makes the opponent rise after they break out of the star.).
-Speaking of gaying people's recoveries with inhale, ZSS, another supposedly ungimpable character, gets ***** pretty hard if you intercept her recovery with inhale. Inhale can pull her out of her DownB as soon as the invincibility frames disappear (either because she's trying to kick or normally), and if you do pull her out of it, an inhale break>ledgehog will kill her. Otherwise, you can just do an inhale break>footstool>Dair>footstool for the kill.
-At certain percents, you can Dair>inhale and/or Dair>jablock>inhale (By certain percents, I mean when they bounce.). Now this can be useful for times when your opponent is at too low a percent to actually die from a Fsmash, but can be gayed via inhale break>footstools. For example, the other day I killed a ZSS at 60-70% by doing Dair onstage near the edge>inhale>walk offstage>FS>edgehog.
-Starshotting characters with walljumps on the wing of Corneriamakes them buffer a wall jump. Not sure if this is useful, but it might give you time to punish. (debunked) Big characters also grab the top edge of the wing.
-Starshotting people into the cars on PTAD is too good!
-There's some sort of glitch that I've only seen once and not been able to reproduce where Kirby can inhale people directly under him and a little behind him through the right platform on Lylat Cruise. I don't think this is useful but I thought I might as well mention it.
-I'm sure most everyone knows it, but on Jungle Japes, if you try to Kirbycide by jumping in the water, the opponent will appear on the left of Kirby and die first. If you do it in the right place, you can even make it so they die (since they appear closer to the blastzones) while you recover.
-Inhale glitch w/ Pikmin: I'm not sure why this happens, but inhale is capable of reducing Olimar's max Pikmin count by 1 per stock. The way it works is that, if Olimar Fsmashes you while you are inhaling, the Pikmin will kind of just fly into your mouth and disappear (I don't remember if you take damage or not, though I think you did.). Now normally, he could just pull another one right back out, but with my testing partner we've found that from time to time, the pikmin actually disappears for good, and cannot be used again. Basically what this means is that Olimar's max Pikmin count would go from 6 to 5 until he dies. I plan on testing this more in depth when I get my copy of Brawl back, but it seems to be linked to the color of the Pikmin (whites were the ones that didn't reappear most of the time), and only seems to happen once per stock.
Also, this ONLY works with his Fsmash for some reason.
-By the way, in case you didn't know, inhale can pull MK out of his tornado and SL (when he's in the air for SL, obviously).
-Since inhale is a windbox, it has the same weird properties other windboxes have of stopping all momentum and causing people to tumble, unable to do anything until the hit the ground. However, since Kirby's windbox pulls people into his 'grab box' if you will, it makes doing this for horizontal knockback difficult.
That being said, it is still possible when an enemy is knocked up towards you (though I believe you have to be on the ground), and can be very useful for gimping on stages with floors you can go through and hazards (like Brinstar, PTAD and Norfair), since you can stand on the ground above them as they are getting hit by the hazard and inhale, making them fall uncontrollably until they hit the ground, which, since there is none, means they just die (they go through the hazards and take damage but no knockback).
This also works on stages with floors you can go through against Snake's bomb jump, since that also counts as knockback, and can be an easy way to gimp him on such stages.
Ummm... That's all I remember for now, though I am testing a few other things, and I know I had some others to mention.
I. Introduction
II. General Facts
III. When do I Inhale?
IV. I’ve inhaled… Now what?
V. The Great Question: Spit or Swallow? (Or neither?) [And Conclusion]
VI. Other Cool and Miscellaneous Info
Part I: Introduction:
Fellow Kirby players, I’m sure many of you, having opened this thread uniquely due to its title, are thinking ‘lulz @ inhale’ while wondering why in the world anyone would bother writing a guide to a single move, especially one which many of you seem to consider only useful for Kirbicides. Well, I’m not of the same opinion.
Inhale, Kirby’s trademark ability, seems to be his most underrated move, and I hope, with this guide, to enlighten at least a few of you on its uses.
You may wonder who I think I am to be writing a guide on anything, as I lack the reputation/tourney results of better Kirby players, but I think I am probably one of the most knowledgeable Kirbies when it comes to this move, probably since I’m more or less the only one who actually cares about it.
Warning: This is a GIGANORMOUS wall of text. It’s so long that I had to invent a word to describe its size.
Also, for the acronymly challenged, here’s a list of the acronyms I use:
FS= Footstool
AD= airdodge
DJ= Double Jump
FF= fast fall
D3= King Dedede
G&W= Game and Watch
ICs= Ice Climbers
Part II: General Facts
This is the boring part of every guide where we act like you don’t know anything about your character and show you a picture of the move’s hitbox, tell you how much damage it does, and tell of its properties. Sadly for you guys, this one is no exception. Please don’t take it as an insult to your intelligence when I explain the difference between starshotting and copying, as well as their respective damages/hitboxes (though I do go more in depth than most of you guys probably have, so you’re more than likely to learn something from this section anyway.). Feel free to skip this section if you already know all there is to know about these two.
Here we have the move in question:
[Picture of inhale with a colored hitbox coming soon!]
Inhale counts as a grab that has two different attacks/throws (they aren’t really throws, but I don’t really know what to classify them as, since they aren’t really real attacks either…) to it: starshot or copy. Also, it has invulnerability frames at some point while you’re inhaling an opponent, though I’m not entirely sure when.
On another note, Kirby’s inhale also outprioritizes D3’s, which is funny considering that in his games, Kirby can’t inhale D3 but D3 inhales Kirby.
Starshot will propel your enemy out of your mouth as a star, effectively turning him/her into a short range projectile (the range depends on your opponent’s weight. Also, if they mash buttons, they can get out of the starshot faster and cover less distance, though the run the risk of buffering an attack.), as well as tacking on an extra 10% to the initial target when fresh (5% if fully decayed). In team matches and FFAs, using the enemies as projectiles can be very useful, though keep in mind that the damage and knockback that the enemies getting hit by the star receive depends on the weight of the inhaled unit (list of damages and perhaps even kill percents will come in a later update.).
Also, if perfectly spaced, when you starshot someone into another character, if the star hits them right at the end of the starshot, the starshotted unit takes an extra 1% (Woopedeedoo… I know. I was serious when I said I’ve looked into this move more than other people. Maybe I need to get a life?)
Lastly, contrary to what some people seem to think, Kirby’s Starshot deals the same damage as D3’s, the only difference being that D3’s and D3 Kirby’s inhale range is better. Aquiring D3’s inhale doesn’t affect your inhale’s priority for some reason however, and therefore your inhale will still always beat D3’s.
Copy, on the other hand, deals only 6%, and only has a tiny hitbox that deals 6% to enemies touching Kirby from behind (Yes, I know how wrong that sounds…). This hitbox can kill, though strangely enough, if the enemy who gets hit by the back hitbox DIs towards Kirby, the knockback is reduced by a lot since they take another hit which is much weaker than the first. What’s stranger is that, when this happens, it is the character that got inhaled, not the one who gets sent flying/hit twice, who takes an extra 6% (I bet none of you knew about that! Not that it’s very helpful…). This hitbox also kills at the same time as starshotting does, provided the opponent doesn’t DI towards Kirby.
Anyway, as the name suggests, copy allows you to take an opponent’s neutral B power and create your own ‘Kirbified’ version of it, which is really the only reason to use copy. Keep in mind that this will replace your inhale, probably because having two moves mapped to one button wouldn’t be very convenient.
Part III: When do I Inhale?
This part is one of the reasons I made this guide in the first place. First and foremost, I want to make one thing clear: while I do find many uses to this move, and a lot of times to use it, this move is by no means spammable, and is actually quite situational, though much less so than people seem to make it sound. To make it simple, you probably won’t get more than a dozen inhales off in a match (And I know all the Kirby players reading this are probably thinking that I’m either playing scrubs or taking potent drugs, or perhaps both, to think I can even get that many off, but I solemnly swear to you guys that Kirby cannot beer cancel, and as such, I remain a sober player.), but in a lot of cases you should be able to get a fair number of them in unless you’re against a character who heavily outspaces you. I’m not saying that you’re doing it wrong if you don’t get that many inhales in, but there should be a fair number of opportunities for inhale in most matches, though spotting those can be tough, and taking advantage of them even moreso.
Anyway, enough rambling; here’s a list of times when you can use inhale, in order of how useful it is in said situation as well as how likely you are to actually get it:
-Punishing bad spacing: This is by far the most useful way to use inhale in my opinion. Against characters and/or players with bad spacing, inhale can be a godsend, as if it hits, it will either negate the knockback from the attack due to grab armor (which starts as the enemy first starts the tumbling animation from getting sucked in, or perhaps right before the animation starts. I’ll try to test it sometime and edit this.) , or negate the opponent’s attack completely, depending on the enemy’s spacing. On top of that, this is really pretty easy to land, especially if you SH inhale (causing a moving inhale, which is essentially a moving grab with huge range but more startup lag), due to inhale’s impressive range (to give you an idea, unless perfectly spaced, it will inhale MK out of his Fair. It also inhales Snake out of a perfectly spaced Dtilt (sorry, the other tilts hit if well spaced.).). Using this move to punish bad spacing may also scare/mess with your opponent a bit after the third or fourth time it happens.
-Intercepting recoveries: I've been doing this more and more recently, and it seems inhales are much easier to land offstage on recovering opponents, especially because they never seem to expect it, and oftentimes it will pull them out of their UpBs. On top of that, inhale breaks at that point can set up for some interesting gimps, since they won't regain their jumps (and sometimes won't regain their triple jumps either... I'm looking at you Snake!).
-Mindgames!: Well, this is part of why this move is so situational: the best way to land this move is to mindgame the opponent into it. The only reason this is second on my list is because it doesn’t seem as useful as punishing bad spacing (I feel like I’ve typed ‘bad spacing’ a hundred times already…). While mindgames tend to differ from player to player, here are a few good ways to mindgame your opponent into an inhale (they work for me anyway):
1) After a Dthrow: After a Dthrow a lot of players will airdodge expecting a Utilt (or maybe it’s just the people I play, since I do Dthrow>Utilt>shieldgrab>repeat a lot), which allows us time to start inhale and drops them straight into it.
2) SH reverse buffered inhale: A lot of us like to do empty SHs with our back to the enemy, usually when playing defensive or when retreating, to try and trick the opponent into thinking we’ll Bair, which in turn leads the enemy to either rushing in to punish what they thought was going to be a Bair or playing more cautiously. However, no one ever seems to expect a reverse buffered inhale (or aerial hammer for that matter), which makes them viable.
3) Jumping into the ****: I know that many of you are familiar with the phrase “Don’t jump into the ****”. With inhale, however, jumping into the **** [occasionally] can be a good thing. What I mean is that by doing a SH inhale towards the enemy at a time when you KNOW the enemy is planning to attack, you can throw off their spacing and get an inhale off. Don’t get me wrong, you shouldn’t be jumping into the **** because I just said it’s a good mindgame, as it only occasionally works. Do it too often, and like anything else, it will get too predictable and punished, and since this is REALLY easy to punish due to the fact that you are approaching your enemy during your startup lag, more than once-twice per match is probably too much.
4) I already gave you 3, figure some out for yourselves! Mess around with inhale during friendlies and see what works for you, then come back here and share it with me/other Kirbies.
-Against certain characters who can’t really do much about it: I seriously almost typed ‘against Ganon’ here (I know I was one of the ones who argued in Ganon’s favor the most during the matchup discussion, but I hadn’t really realized how much inhale ***** Ganon at that time. Seriously, I consider it almost spammable in that matchup.), but to be fair, there are quite a few more characters who have a tough time beating inhale. Here’s a list of characters *I* believe have trouble getting around inhale (Please correct me on the ones I have wrong, as most of these are speculation, with only the first four being based on experience I have had with the matchups. I pretty much listed them by how sure I am of this.), mainly due to their hurtboxes being almost as big as their hitboxes:
-Ganon
-CF
-Jigglypuff
-Sonic (While he has the speed to punish during inhale’s startup lag, he has so few moves that can actually get around/through it that if you use it sparingly, it should hit most of the time.)
-Squirtle
-Charizard
-Bowser
-Mario
-Luigi
-ICs (Not that I’d get near enough to inhale these guys most of the time.)
Now I know most of these guys are low tier characters who you probably won’t see in serious matches, but hey, every bit helps, right?
Part IV: I’ve inhaled… Now what?
So now that you’ve managed to get the opponent in your mouth, how do you proceed from here? Sadly, there is no universally good choice, and often what you do depends on the situation as well as your opponent’s character and how good you are with that character’s power. In this section I’ll cover some mindgames and techniques that revolve around starshot/copy, display Asdioh’s list of characters who can hit you after a successful copy, and talk about the wonder of inhale breaks, as well as what you can do out of them and to whom (though probably not in this order.).
To start, let’s give some more credit to Asdioh for his list of characters who can hit us out of copy, because that guy just loves attention. If you’re not sure on whether or not you want to starshot or copy an opponent, take a look at this list and see if said opponent can punish it. I will say I find some of these moves to be worth the punishment, though some just aren’t, and if your opponent knows how to punish you for a successful copy, then it ay be a bad idea to grab their power.
Anyway, here’s the list:
Thanks for the info Asdioh!
Next, let’s talk about some of the tricks you can do with inhale (mainly starshot.). As everyone seems to know, there are no guaranteed follow-ups to starshot or copy. In fact, nothing is even close to guaranteed. HOWEVER, it is very much possible to get a follow-up, especially since no one ever seems to expect one. On most characters, unless they do a DJ or AD after a copy (both of which are kind of ******** choices in most scenarios), they can be hit with a SH Bair if you jump as soon as you can. Most people won’t expect it the first time around and be hit. What’s even better is if you do it again later in the match, they are bound to either DJ or AD, expecting another Bair, which puts them in a very bad position if you DON’T Dair (unless they have multiple jumps, in which case jumping is safe.). On the second copy, you can wait to see how they react. If they AD, that’s a free Fsmash or even maybe grounded hammer. If they DJ, then you can just follow them and shieldgrab whatever they do as they land.
Now for follow-ups to starshot. Unlike copy, Starshot will send them a fair distance from Kirby, which can make following up difficult. However, as with copy follow-ups, few people expect you to even attempt a follow-up, which in turn can allow you to land one, especially on heavy characters as they travel less distance. On characters that travel a short distance due to their weight or good button mashing, you can get a Fair or Uair off on them (again, not guaranteed. They can AD or DJ, same as before, and that AD can sometimes be punished by a hyphen smash.). I’ve also occasionally been able to connect a hyphen smash (not character dependent), but yeah, that one rarely seems to hit. Finally, I am really surprised and don’t really understand why, but SH inhale seems to work a lot more often than it should as a starshot follow-up on heavies.
Also, you remember that list of characters that can punish a copy? Well, we can make that work for us too. Whether you copy or starshot, your opponent has very little time to buffer their punishing aerial, and don’t really have time to figure out if you copied or starshotted. Thanks to this, characters with desirable powers are more likely to try to punish a copy on instinct and those with less desirable powers less likely. Of those characters that usually do, the ones with obvious copy punishing options (Like TL or Lucario) will be the most likely to attempt it (Do you see where I’m getting at?). On these characters, a starshot will often make them buffer an aerial, screwing them up and give them unnecessary lag, which can then be punished. With a few mindgames however, we can also trick characters who don’t usually attempt to punish copy into attempting it, then punish their lag. Take G&W for example. His power, in that matchup, is very bad, and not often taken, hence why most G&W’s won’t even think of trying to key you if you copy. However, by absorbing him at least once, you can probably trick him into trying to Dair you on the next occasion when you inhale, at which point you can starshot and punish.
Now you’re probably wondering how I can advise inhaling again after having already taken a power (or maybe you aren’t.). Well, getting a power knocked out of you is ridiculously easy, especially against characters with wind and water effects (not sure why those make you lose powers so often), and failing that, your Dtaunt is a quick, effective, and annoying (to the enemy) way to lose a power. Of course, if you Dtaunt right after taking a power, your mindgame probably won’t work, since the opponent is bound to ask themselves why you took the power in the first place if you didn’t want it. All in all, losing it to the opponent works best for mindgames, but if that doesn’t seem to be happening, Dtaunt works well.
Starshot can also be an invaluable asset offstage. As it stands now, if you ever get an inhale offstage, people are bound to think that you’re going for a Kirbicide (which no, I’m not going to cover in this guide because come on, everyone already knows about those, and I’m pretty sure they’re in other guides.), or trying to starshot them under the stage (which is a very good option, especially on certain stages. Generally speaking, if you starshot them under an angled ceiling, it’s harder for them to recover and more likely to result in a death. Also, a lot of people tend to try to double jump right away in an attempt to recover when you do this, and their jumps gets canceled by the ceiling right above them, resulting in a death.) and start mashing buttons like crazy to escape. This can actually be a great thing to us, as if we starshot them while they mash buttons, they are bound to buffer an aerial of some sort, which can either be punished, or, if it’s incredibly laggy, like Ike’s more or less every aerial, then you can just watch them plummet to their death. Few things are funnier than seeing an MK accidentally buffer a SL in the wrong direction.
Finally, we have inhale breaks. Those of you who aren’t in the backroom might be wondering why in the hell I would even mention this, as how can having an enemy escape an inhale ever be a good thing? Well friends, there are some fun and interesting things that can happen out of an inhale break, which we shall now talk about (Also, none of what I’m about to mention works for D3’s inhale breaks or inhale breaks with D3’s power.).
On certain characters, Kirby can get a footstool on his opponents when they break out of inhale in the air, provided that Kirby is not moving in a horizontal direction and that the opponent DIs a certain way. This is quite simply amazing since it means that some characters simply cannot avoid dying if they get inhaled then brought offstage (they get FSed if they try to break out, or risk buffering an aerial if we starshot them, which on certain characters will kill them no matter what they buffer, or they get Kirbicided). Of course, a meager footstool won’t kill them by itself unless you managed to fall pretty close to the blastzones. However, I have also found that on every character, we can follow a footstool with a FF Dair which itself can be followed up by another footstool (FS>FF Dair>FS will kill on every legal stage by the way, unless there is a floor of some kind in the way.).
I have compiled a list of all the characters that this does and doesn’t work on, along with which way they have to DI, though more testing is required for this, as I have not had time to test every character (nor do I think I ned to, as for some characters it is pretty obvious what happens.). Anyway… enough rambling. here’s the list:
Characters that I KNOW FS Kirby:
-MK
-DK (Yeah, I know, this one surprised me too)
-Mario
-Luigi
-Peach (though she can be FSed if she doesn't try to FS us.)
-Kirby (the inhaled Kirby seems to get the footstool)
-Olimar (Awww... it was too good to be true.)
-Samus
Characters that get FSd unless they DI away from Kirby (which, in most cases, is away from the stage as well.):
-Fox
-Falco (he can avoid being FSed if he doesn't DI and mashes jump. If he doesn't mash jump, or DIs towards the stage (AKA tries to recover), he gets FSed.)
-Wolf (He gets FSed unless he DIs away from Kirby. If Kirby has his back to the stage, then Wolf would have to DI away from the stage, and as a result cannot recover.)
-Shiek
-Ganon (Same as Wolf)
-ZSS (She can also DownB or UpB to avoid being FSed, but she doesn't recover either way, unless maybe if she is within UpB range of the stage. She is also one of the easiest to inhale gay since it is so easy to inhale her out of her recovery, since, as good as it is, it's very easy to predict her trajectory.)
-Bowser (His hurtbox is kind of weird though, so you actually have to start trying to FS earlier than it looks like you should.)
-Snake (Mash jump. If he doesn't DI away, it will result in a footstool. If he does DI away, he can't Bomb jump. Since that counts as a grab release, inhale breaks don't give back his cypher either. Basically, he gets screwed. Also, you need to be moving forward very slightly while he's in your mouth to get the FS.)
-Ike (I remember testing him, but didn't record the results, so I don't remember exactly how you have to DI to get the FS, but if I remember correctly, you had to move forward slightly before he breaks out, then the only way he can avoid the footstool is to DI away, which leaves him unable to recover.)
Characters that either FS Kirby or neither one gets FSd:
-Lucario
-TL (almost certain he FSs us)
-Diddy
-Yoshi (Someone, I think it was Viper, has also told me that Yoshi FSs Kirby, so I’m pretty sure this one is correct, though I haven’t personally tested it.)
-Marth (I’m pretty much certain this ****er FSs us… as if he didn’t have enough on us already…)
-G&W (Same as Marth)
-Ness
-Lucas
-Luigi
-Peach
-Wario
-Zelda
-ROB (He only FSs us if we try to chase him for the FS. otherwise, neither gets a FS.)
-Pit
-ICs
-Jigglypuff
-Squirtle
-Ivysaur (see Olimar)
-Mewtwo (Don’t feel bad. He’s so broken he FSs everyone out of a FS, and he can even get a Dtilt on you out of it somehow. He’s just that broken.)
Characters that I think can be FSd if you follow DI:
-Pikachu
-Sonic (see above)
-D3 (He can escape by doing his UpB.)
-Link
-CF (Maybe? Having a hard time figuring this one out.)
-Charizard (See above)
Part V: The Great Question: Spit or Swallow? (or neither?) [And conclusion]
Well my brave readers, I congratulate you on reaching this point. All that’s left now is to end this guide with the great question: should you spit or swallow? That answer, my friends, depends entirely on the situation and the people involved. Do you like how it tastes? Are you comfortable swallowing? Are you… Oops… umm… wrong guide…
Anyway, if you want to know when to starshot or copy, the best way to find out is to look at what you can do out of both (this guide should have given you quite a few pointers on that already), what that character can do to you for copying his/her ability, and how useful the power is (There is a discussion on Kirby copy abilities here: http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=222800 ). Also, some stages lend themselves to starshot or certain copy powers more than others, so take that into consideration as well (there’s a stage discussion thread where that sort of stuff should be getting mentioned here: http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=221595 ). Finally, keep in mind the character you’re facing and their options for dealing with that power (Metaknight’s tornado, for example, as good as it seems, is pretty much useless against Metaknight, and unfortunately, he kind of needs to be there for you to get it. Basically, it’s atrociously bad in singles and only decent in doubles. This question tends to get addressed for each character in the character matchup thread, found here: http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=195032 ).
Well, that’s it for this guide. I hope it helped you all out and that you had the time and patience to read through it (I had the patience to write/proofread it after all!). Failing that, I at least hope you enjoyed what little you might have read and that you not flame this thread…
No wait, I lied, here's another section:
Other cool and Miscellaneous info
I had a lot of things to put into this section, but unfortunately, I seem to have forgotten a lot of them when I came to edit this, so I guess I'll come back and edit this section a lot.
Here are some cool things I've found with inhale:
-Since Inhale is a grab, that makes inhale breaks a grab release. So what, you ask? Well, that means if we inhale a Snake out of his cypher, he doesn't get it back, and since we can footstool him out of an inhale break unless he DIs away (in which case his horizontal momentum prevents him from bomb jumping), we can effectively gimp him to hell.
-Even better still, you know how if you grab Sonic out of his UpB he goes into the tumbling animation when he grab breaks (provided you don't pummel). Well, it does it for inhale breaks too, and inhale is MUCH easier to grab him out of UpB with than a normal grab is, so when he has to recover like that, stand at the edge, inhale as he UpBs, and watch him break out and fall to his doom. This probably warrants a taunt.
-Snake is not the only one who's recovery gets destroyed by inhale. Intercepting recoveries can be devastating, and since the opponent won't get their jumps back from an inhale break, sometimes just DIing away from the stage so that they can't recover via triple jump can be very effective. It also works well against characters with multiple jumps, since for some reason most of them seem to think they will get their jumps back after the inhale and far too far down to recover before figuring it out. Finally, characters with tethers can be very easily brought out of tether range then either let them break out of inhale or starshot them (Keep in mind starshot makes the opponent rise after they break out of the star.).
-Speaking of gaying people's recoveries with inhale, ZSS, another supposedly ungimpable character, gets ***** pretty hard if you intercept her recovery with inhale. Inhale can pull her out of her DownB as soon as the invincibility frames disappear (either because she's trying to kick or normally), and if you do pull her out of it, an inhale break>ledgehog will kill her. Otherwise, you can just do an inhale break>footstool>Dair>footstool for the kill.
-At certain percents, you can Dair>inhale and/or Dair>jablock>inhale (By certain percents, I mean when they bounce.). Now this can be useful for times when your opponent is at too low a percent to actually die from a Fsmash, but can be gayed via inhale break>footstools. For example, the other day I killed a ZSS at 60-70% by doing Dair onstage near the edge>inhale>walk offstage>FS>edgehog.
-Starshotting characters with walljumps on the wing of Corneria
-Starshotting people into the cars on PTAD is too good!
-There's some sort of glitch that I've only seen once and not been able to reproduce where Kirby can inhale people directly under him and a little behind him through the right platform on Lylat Cruise. I don't think this is useful but I thought I might as well mention it.
-I'm sure most everyone knows it, but on Jungle Japes, if you try to Kirbycide by jumping in the water, the opponent will appear on the left of Kirby and die first. If you do it in the right place, you can even make it so they die (since they appear closer to the blastzones) while you recover.
-Inhale glitch w/ Pikmin: I'm not sure why this happens, but inhale is capable of reducing Olimar's max Pikmin count by 1 per stock. The way it works is that, if Olimar Fsmashes you while you are inhaling, the Pikmin will kind of just fly into your mouth and disappear (I don't remember if you take damage or not, though I think you did.). Now normally, he could just pull another one right back out, but with my testing partner we've found that from time to time, the pikmin actually disappears for good, and cannot be used again. Basically what this means is that Olimar's max Pikmin count would go from 6 to 5 until he dies. I plan on testing this more in depth when I get my copy of Brawl back, but it seems to be linked to the color of the Pikmin (whites were the ones that didn't reappear most of the time), and only seems to happen once per stock.
Also, this ONLY works with his Fsmash for some reason.
-By the way, in case you didn't know, inhale can pull MK out of his tornado and SL (when he's in the air for SL, obviously).
-Since inhale is a windbox, it has the same weird properties other windboxes have of stopping all momentum and causing people to tumble, unable to do anything until the hit the ground. However, since Kirby's windbox pulls people into his 'grab box' if you will, it makes doing this for horizontal knockback difficult.
That being said, it is still possible when an enemy is knocked up towards you (though I believe you have to be on the ground), and can be very useful for gimping on stages with floors you can go through and hazards (like Brinstar, PTAD and Norfair), since you can stand on the ground above them as they are getting hit by the hazard and inhale, making them fall uncontrollably until they hit the ground, which, since there is none, means they just die (they go through the hazards and take damage but no knockback).
This also works on stages with floors you can go through against Snake's bomb jump, since that also counts as knockback, and can be an easy way to gimp him on such stages.
Ummm... That's all I remember for now, though I am testing a few other things, and I know I had some others to mention.
.
, and hammer. You seem pretty good at some of it so maybe you should do it ?