In this Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Ridley Guide, we will guide you on how to play if you choose Ridley as your character of choice in a fight. We will highlight all the moves that are specific to Ridley, plus his defending moves, special moves and his final smash. In addition, this guide will also give you a better understanding of his moves, for if you find yourself fighting against Ridley.

This guide will focus on Ridley’s attacks like neutral attacks, special attacks, and grounded attacks. We will also detailed the amount of damage each attack deals to an opponent. In the end, we will finish off with what his final smash looks like and what it does to your foe.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Ridley Guide

Below we have listed all the attacks that are specific and special to Ridley. Refer to each attack for a better understanding of how Ridley combats in the stage.

Introduction

Ridley is a heavyweight but highly mobile brawler in the game. He can flutter his wings to stay airborne and has a variety of aerial attacks to devastate opponents of all kinds. He is a very difficult fighter to edge guard with because of his dash and grab attacks.

Ridley also specializes in forcing out mistakes by opponents with his Plasma Breath or with his other chargeable projectile attacks that lure enemies in range.

Grounded Attacks

This section of the guide contains all the grounded attacks that Ridley can perform while on the stage.

Neutral Attacks

Ridley has three quick Neutral attacks that are a simple left, right and then left slash that deals 2, 1.5, 5 damage. The third neutral attack knocks enemy away.

Ridley also has a Rapid Neutral Attack that deals 0.7xN, 2 where he whips his tail in a rapid fire piercing machine. Hold the attack button to continuously pierce your victim in this attack. After you release the attack button, the final tail launch knocks enemies away.

Defensive Attacks

Ridley has two Defensive Attacks, the first is the Ledge attack that deals 10 damage, while the Wake-up attack deals 7 damage.

Dash Attack

Ridley’s dash attack deals 12 damage, where he flies and lunges with a bite that hits the opponent can launches them away. The dash attack has a slow start up speed, so it is quite difficult to implement in your game, especially when Ridley is good with projectiles and not a close ranged attacks.

Smashes

Ridley has three smash attacks.

Side Smash

This attack deals 20 damage, where Ridley produces a powerful burst of flame from his mouth, that blasts enemies away.

This attack has a long start up time, but rewards successful hits with incredible knockback and damage.

Up Smash

This attack deals 17 damage, where Ridley performs a somersault kick that shapes above his head. This can be an effective surprise attack if you can catch your victim off guard. The attack lacks in speed and seems lackluster compared to your Up Tilt and Neutral air attacks.

Down Smash

This attack deals 16 damage, where Ridley pounds the ground and sends a small shockwave knocking enemies nearby. This attack deals a lot of damage and has a lot of range around Ridley.

Down Smash works great if you want to knockout higher percentage opponents that are caught off-guard by this attack.

Tilts

Ridley has three Tilt Attacks.

Side Tilt

This attack deals 13 damage, where Ridley thrusts his tail into the enemy. If he successfully stabs the foe with the pointy end of his tail, they take much more damage and knockback.

Side tilt angled up and side tilt angled down can be used to minutely alter the attack, although it’s important to note that non-angled side tilt has a slight horizontal range advantage

Up Tilt

This attack deals 9 damage, where Ridley performs a vertical wing swipe, reaching far above him with an attack area that covers his rear and front. Up tilt has a deceptive effective range and quick start-up.

Visually, the attack begins behind Ridley, but the hit effect impacts almost instantaneously all around him. Although its main strength is in its anti-air property, you can use up tilt in almost any ground-to-ground and ground-to-air situation, thanks to its speed and generous hitbox.

Down Tilt

This attack deals 9 damage, where Ridley delivers a low-profile tail swing in front of him, sweeping enemies off their feet while crouching and minimizing his size vulnerability.

While this attack looks like a sweep attack, its hit effect area covers a sizable horizontal block in front and can be treated like a relatively fast general-purpose side attack. It deals much less damage than side tilt, so you’re sacrificing damage for a more generous horizontal hitbox and a low-profile attack animation.

Grabs

Ridley has 5 Grab Attacks. His first grab deals 1.6 damage. The Front and Back throw deal 9 and 11 damage respectively. The Up throw deals 12 damage, while the down Throw deals 7 damage.

Ridley’s grab attack is a quick tail stab. His up throw puts the foe in a combo-able air state where you can potentially follow up with extra juggle damage. His forward and back throws are almost identical, except back throw deals a bit more damage.

Aerial Attacks

This section of the guide will cover all the Aerial attacks that Ridley has.

Neutral Air Attack

This attack deals 12 damage, where Ridley produces a somersault backflip in the air that knocks enemies nearby. This is a great attack because of its low lag where you can perform two attacks in one jump.

Forward Air Attack

This attack deals 5, 5, 7 damage, where Ridley produces a triple tail strike that blasts victims to long range. This is a fast attack, but it has no range as it only stabs the are very close to Ridley in front.

This attack is only good if you want a quick option to deter enemies that have got to close to Ridley.

Back Air Attack

This attack deals 15 damage, where Ridley performs an aerial backswing kick that deals heavy damage, and blasts any opponent creeping from behind. This is a great attack for a high damage air to air combat. While you wont find yourself using this attack a lot, it does deal the most damage out of all the air attacks.

Up Air Attack

This attack deals 12 damage, where Ridley thrusts his wings in the air and pops any enemy above him. This attack sets you up for multiple combos to follow up when you connect it deep.

You can follow this attack with a forward air attack, or if you are lucky you can time in two forward attacks as a combo.

Down Air Attack

This attack deals 14 damage, where Ridley descends from any altitude with a double foot stomp that devastates enemies below him.

This attack can offer you combo opportunities if you angle it right, landing just around the front of the opponents head, to pop the victim up, and follow up with a neutral attack combo.

Special Moves

Ridley has 4 special moves. All of them are detailed below.

Neutral Special – Plasma Breath

This attack deals 5.5 damage, where Ridley spits out up to five bouncing plasma balls. The longer he readies the attack, the more plasma balls he spits. While this is an exceptionally powerful projectile attack, it has a glaring weakness: while Ridley is charging up, his mouth area becomes a weak point. If he’s struck in the mouth while charging Plasma Breath, his mouth explodes and he takes massive damage.

Extreme caution should be used before committing to throwing out Plasma Breath. Be wary of your surroundings, especially in free-for-all matches. Make sure you have enough space to charge this attack. Otherwise, this move should be used sparingly, particularly against aggressive high-speed fighters like Zero Suit Samus.

Side Special – Special Pirate Rush

This attack deals 4, 2xN, 7 damage. In this attack, Ridley smashes the opponent in the ground and then drags them along the floor until they either escape or when Ridley decides to them into the air.

Air Space Pirate Rush can be used defensively in certain situations. As an air move, it can provide an extra horizontal burst of movement to keep you airborne. For instance, if you get flung off over a ledge, you can save your Wing Blitz and instead use Space Pirate Rush to stay airborne, use your wing-flap triple jumps to gain extra altitude, then use Wing Blitz to traverse the air to where you want to land.

Up Special – Wing Blitz

This attack deals 18 (up), 16 (side), 15 (down) damage, where Ridley gathers energy and them boosts himself into air with a powerful force. From the air you can chose any direction you want to charge towards.

This attack is best for anything really, where you can attack from below, or above on a platform with a launching skyward attack, or you can hit opponents with a side attack where Ridley charges horizontally.

Down Special – Skewer

This attack deals 40 damage. This attack deals massive amounts of damage where Ridley stabs his sharp tail forward. If the tip of the tail hits the target flush, it deals critical damage and totally destroys opponents.

Skewer is relatively difficult to hit against agile enemies. Non-critical hits deal only 5 damage, so you should almost always aim to hit with the pointy end if you’re going for this high-damage, high-risk attack. This attack should be reserved for punishing laggy moves, not routinely used as a poking tool.

Final Smash – Plasma Scream

Flies forward, tackles anyone in his way, then hurls them onto Samus’ Gunship. After the sequence he fires a devastating ray that can hit up to two opponents. Enemies with 100% damage are instantly knocked out.

For other characters, check out our Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Characters Guide.

Read more Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Guides.

This concludes our Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Ridley Guide. If you want to add anything to this guide, feel free to use the comments section below.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Ridley Guide – How to Play, Attack Moves

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Ridley Guide

Introduction