Kudgel, Junahu Robotnik

[color=red][size=3][b]AOSTH ROBOTNIK 06[/color][/size][/b]

This is presented as a serious set and is trying to hide all of the sketchy circumstances of the set’s creation so it will get a comment as a serious set. I consider it mostly Junahu’s set, but if David helped come up with some of the ideas so be it. All David is confirmed to have done is mask the set as an all encompassing Robotnik instead of 06 Eggman.

And dear lord does it fail as an all encompassing Robotnik set. The decision to have him fight without a mech alone is baffling, ignoring the set’s contents and comes from the fact that it’s 06 Eggman. Robotnik isn’t caught dead without a mech when in actual combat, hiding himself behind legions of robots and coming out into combat when he’s ready. Here, he doesn’t just not have a mech, he attacks physically, something he has never done outside of AOSTH. A lot. Some of the hitboxes are meant to be more commanding in nature, but they’re used as melee hitboxes none the less. Him having melee hitboxes is 100% fine, but do it with tech, if you please. This is disgustingly OOC. The idea is that you’re trying to make the hitboxes comical, most obvious with the dashing attack that is humiliating poor Robotnik, which has absolutely zero place on an all encompassing Robotnik moveset. Maybe it’s meant to mock Sonic 06, but the only kind of thing it’s really going in with flavor wise is AOSTH. The references to “Robuttnik” thrown into the writing style by David do not help this notion.

The minions do not port over very well at all in the forced transition from 06 Eggman to all encompassing Robotnik. Most obvious is Crabmeat on dsmash, the generic small crab robot gaining all sorts of strange high tech upgrades that are only used by the more sophisticated model in 06. The others don’t exactly feel natural either, though.

Time Eater is a pretty damn big technology syndrome thing, and contrasts with the incredibly jokey nature of the set’s characterization strongly. He used the time portal in one game, yet he apparently gets the right to use that and not any of the other more countless iconic things he does. The actual function of it is very lockdowny as DM stated, and you somehow do not manage to create flow when you have a time portal of all things floating around in the moveset.

Having so many commanding moves is very bad when there are so few minions, and commanding them doesn’t seem all that useful anyway. Dedicating an entire special to a command is outright heinous on a character like Robotnik, and then you have the balls to put in commands on melee attacks with the utilt and bair to show just how useless the Side Special is. I also have grown to despise these sorts of moves with melee attacks that also double as commands, as you now cannot use these attacks as melee without arbitrarily issuing commands you may or may not want. That is infinitely more unintuitive than having multiple traps/commands on the same input.

One input grab-games are dead and revolting on sight in this day and age. Most obvious showcase of the set having apparently been made in 3 hours. These sorts of grabs have no reason to eat up 6 inputs and not be placed on something like a Special or a Smash instead. How’s about, say, overwriting that completely useless Side Special, or that OOC OP Neutral Special?

It’s just really, really painful to see the potential of the character not only squandered so carelessly, but for you to crap all over the character with heavy Sonic 06 and AOSTH influence that makes me hate this set just as much as I do.

KUDGEL


Statistics

Kudgel is a boss from Donkey Kong Country 2, removed from the Gameboy port for various unknown reasons. He’s a gigantic gray brute of a Kremling with a giant club, apparently being quite the experienced combatant given his eye patch. The more known Klubba NPC is a recolor of this boss, having gone rogue from K. Rool, while Kudgel remains loyal to the Kremling Krew. Kudgel attacks mostly by stomping the ground and causing earthquakes. Some believe this prevented him from being in the Gameboy port of the game due to limitations, but in black and white Kudgel would be completely indistinguishable from his recolored brother.

In Smash Brothers, Kudgel is about as large and heavy as the biggest guns already in Brawl. He’s tall as Ganon and while not quite as wide as Bowser, he’s still wide enough that in combination with his height he’s the biggest character in the game. He’s almost the heaviest, outweighing Donkey Kong, but still a tad lighter than the Koopa King. His only particularly unique statistic is his first jump, which goes up as high as Falco’s (The best first jump) very quickly, though his second jump is simply average. He has very fast air movement, again much like Bowser, but like Bowser’s it’s not as smooth to control as the likes of Wario and Jigglypuff. Either way, Kudgel definitely gets a lot more mileage out of his time in the air than Bowser, even with his high falling speed, yet again comparable to Bowser. On the ground, Kudgel is faster than the likes of Dedede and Ganondorf, but that’s about it.

 Specials

Down Special – TNT Barrel
Kudgel takes out a TNT barrel with his free arm and either places it on the ground on its side with a regular input, or actually chucks and rolls it forwards with a smashed input. If rolled, the barrel will roll forwards 1.5 platforms before coming to a stop, assuming no slopes on the terrain. If the barrel comes into contact with anything it can damage, it explodes in a Wario sized explosion dealing 20% and diagonally vertical knockback that KOs at 95%. Kudgel can be hit by these explosions, but the barrels do not explode on contact with disjointed hitboxes and are capable of taking knockback. Most of Kudgel’s melee arsenal is disjointed attacks with his club, and combined with the fact that the barrels take knockback (Heavy as Marth at 50%), can easily knock the barrels back at enemies. When the barrel is just sitting with no momentum, characters can pick it up and throw it as far as Kudgel initially does, though only characters with 9 or above in both weight and size can move at a regular speed while carrying them, otherwise moving very slowly.

Neutral Special – Barrel Cannon
Kudgel takes out a barrel cannon, seen outside of the DK series in Smash Bros on the various Kongo Jungle stages and even in Melee as an item. Once created, the barrel cannon will move 1.5 platforms forwards at the speed of Luigi’s dash before moving back to the location it was created at the same speed before repeating the movement pattern in an infinite loop. By default, the cannon points up, but for every full circuit the cannon make it will change so that it points in the opposite direction, constantly swapping between pointing up and down.

Contact with the barrel cannon will have the character go inside of it. Characters can stay inside for a full second before being forced to get launched out, which is usually (But not always) enough time for the cannon to switch the direction it’s firing objects out of itself. The knockback is unsurprisingly comparable to the N64 Kongo Jungle barrel cannon. Foes can destroy the barrel cannon, but it has 13 HP, meaning if they have no disjointed attacks/projectiles they have to deal 13 damage in a single hit to destroy it without getting absorbed into it. That said, it’s easy enough to destroy when Kudgel himself is in it, enabling foes to gimp him, given he enters helpless if he is inside a barrel cannon when it gets destroyed. Items, most notably in Kudgel’s case TNT barrels, can be sent into and shot out of barrel cannons, in which case they are shot out at the soonest possible point.

Kudgel can only have out one barrel cannon at a time, creating a new one causing the old one to fade away like an item in 5 seconds (Still usable during that time). He can only create one per trip to the air, and he must wait 2 seconds after entering a barrel cannon before it will let him enter it again, largely to prevent him from hiding under the stage with it. These cannons do not refresh jumps and recovery moves.

Side Special – Shockwave
Kudgel holds his club with both hands and lifts it over his head. At this point, the move can be charged for a while before Kudgel slams down in a non-storable charge, able to charge for up to 2 seconds. The move itself is actually very quick when it goes off, as Kudgel slams the ground in front of him mightily with his club. Foes hit by the club take 12-50% and knockback that KOs at 150-50%. Indeed, this is the kind of absurd power needed to make a move laggier than Warlock Punch viable at full charge.

This move generates a shockwave when used on the ground, the meat of what you’ll be actually using charged versions of the move for. It creates something of a bump in the stage rather than a generic shockwave graphic. The bump extends up to a Ganondorf at full charge, a Kirby at minimum. This bump travels at Mario’s dashing speed, and gets shorter and shorter as it goes before turning into nothing. At minimum, it goes half the distance of Final Destination, while at max it goes 3x Final Destination’s width, enabling it to loop around most stages for a second go. This shockwave deals 11% and knockback that KOs at 140% on contact, and the fact it’s solid terrain means it can’t be dodged. As such, this can override some enemy projectiles when charged, but uncharged most enemies can just shorthop and fire projectiles over it, some characters not even needing to do the jump. This is also only when the shockwave is immediately formed, given it gets shorter and shorter as it goes. Falco’s fairly free to spam his god-awful lasers.

TNT barrels will not take the knockback from this shockwave, instead getting rolled along for the ride. This move will not do any terraforming graphics on paper thin platforms, and will just create an artificial single shockwave graphic that is set at a height that is half of Kirby’s until it expires. These tiny shockwaves deal 5 hits of 1% and tiny dragging knockback per second. For a more advanced technique, you can fastfall through a platform but time the pound of the move to slam the platform after Kudgel’s through the platform but before he reaches the ground, causing Kudgel to smack the platform to cause a shockwave on it while being defensively placed underneath it.

Up Special – Gargantuan Leap
Kudgel hunches down before doing an absolutely gargantuan leap, going off the top of the screen at Sonic’s dash speed. He comes down on top of the nearest foe just as fast .2 seconds after he goes off the top of the screen, dealing 25% and a spike 1.25X as strong as Ganon’s dair. If he lands on top of an enemy, he will jump off of them with the mighty stomp he does, otherwise going all the way to the ground/bottom blast zone to kill himself. Kudgel cannot DI whatsoever during this attack, but is superarmored/anti-grab armored for the entire duration. Kudgel can cancel the move as he comes down, but only after he reaches where the target foe’s vertical position was when he used the move. With multiple enemies, this move will prioritize the nearest one who is specifically on the stage.

Foes are largely required to come off-stage to gimp Kudgel, and given his weight just waiting to KO him outright is fairly annoying. Kudgel has a secondary recovery move even when foes do come off-stage in his Neutral B, but if he just goes into a barrel cannon while the foe is right in front of him it’s not going to end well, causing a rather frantic bout of aerial combat between Kudgel and the foe.

When Kudgel lands on the ground with this move, he causes an earthshaking effect across the entirety of the platform he lands upon. This earthshaking effect lasts on the whole platform for a full second, dealing 16% and vertical knockback that KOs at 135%. Earthshaking hitboxes are quite potent in knocking around TNT barrels, knocking the barrels up to hit enemies who are attempting to avoid said earthshaking hitboxes. The ending lag when Kudgel lands on the ground is bad, though this earthshaking covers it and extends a bit beyond said ending lag. None the less, foes will typically not allow Kudgel to land on the ground when he uses this move.

 Smashes

Down Smash – Massive Stomp
Kudgel starts doing what any earthshaker does best, stomping the ground. He lifts up his foot a large distance into the air, leaning back, before stomping the ground, dealing 25-43% and knockback that KOs at 90-60%. An earthshaking hitbox is of course created from this, dealing 10% and vertical knockback that KOs at 150%. The earthshaking hitbox reaches out 1.5-3.5 platforms to either side of Kudgel and lasts .85-2 seconds based off charge. This move is laggy, and while the Up Special is quicker to come out and preferable in some situations when you know the foe can’t get off-stage, this is the far more reliable move for generating earthshaking given the foe cannot so directly screw it up.

Forward Smash – Ground Pound
Kudgel smashes the ground in front of himself with his club three times, each hit doing 10-15% and every single hit causing enemies to be pitfalled. Due to this move doing no knockback of any kind, Kudgel is allowed to continue clubbing at enemies without knocking them out of their pitfalled status, much like the stomping of the Waluigi assist trophy. What’s more, any earthshaking going on will not knock enemies out of their pitfalled status, them taking the damage of whatever earthshaking is in effect once every half second they are pitfalled without any knockback. This move’s ending lag is long enough to make it difficult to actually make use of the fact that the enemy is pitfalled, though not really long enough to be an issue if you whiff the attack. The move’s long duration is the problem if you whiff, leaving you very open to punishment.

Foes standing on the actual ground during earthshaking obviously cannot be pitfalled due to being knocked into the air, but this move does deal knockback to enemies standing in the air already, knocking them to the ground forcefully with Ganon dair power. Given the huge range of just about any move involving Kudgel’s club, it’s a fairly sizable hitbox.

Up Smash – Strongman
Kudgel holds his club over his head by the handle with a single hand, and grabs the giant end of the club with his other hand and bends it back. This is the charging animation of the smash, causing his club to become solid during this time, though anybody who stands on it will be dealt 4% (No flinching) per half second due to all of the sharp nails on Kudgel’s club. Upon releasing the charge, Kudgel lets go of the big portion of the club with a catapult-esque sound effect, causing it to snap not just back into place but up towards the handle portion of the club, hitting anybody who was standing on the club. This deals 23-36% and knockback that KOs at 140-100%. Not only is this a good anti-air move in general, but if you catch a foe intending to dair you from above, they’ll be stuck in landing lag as they collapse awkwardly onto the club, giving you time to further charge the usmash!

The angle of the knockback varies based off where the foe gets hit. If foes were not standing on the big portion of the club and were to the side of it as it bashes into them, the knockback they take is purely horizontal. If they get hit by the big club as it goes up/were standing on it, they’ll instead takes diagonal knockback, the exact angle varying based off where exactly they were standing. Note also that in the charging animation where Kudgel bends the club back, it makes the solid club sloped terrain, causing TNT barrels to roll down the club when they land on it. You can choose when specifically to let go of the usmash charge to choose what trajectory you’d like to launch the barrel as it slides down along the club.

 Aerials

Neutral Aerial – Suplex
Kudgel turns to face the screen and attempts to grab the foe. If successful, he will get the foe into position for a suplex, rising into the air a bit like Zangief’s piledriver, before falling at a slightly more accelerated pace towards the ground to suplex them into the ground. The move is generally comparable to Bowser’s Side B, most notably in the rising part, though Kudgel has more of a handicap in his favor in terms of control on the move in exchange for more ending lag than Bowser’s. The move deals 18% and knockback that KOs at 140% if Kudgel makes contact with the ground as the foe bounces off at a diagonal angle. If the ground was earthshaking when Kudgel suplexed the enemy into it, they will take the damage of it in addition to this move’s damage but the knockback of this move only.

If Kudgel suplexes a foe into a barrel cannon, they both will go inside it with the foe taking 18%. Kudgel then has the usual second to fire both himself and the foe out of the cannon, the foe with the first press of A, and himself with the second. From here, he can set up just about anything he wants.
He can fire both himself and the foe into the air for further juggling
Fire both at the ground to hit the foe into earthshaking while Kudgel’s ready to use grounded anti-air
Himself in the air and the foe on the ground so Kudgel can dair the ground to further prolong the earthshaking as the foe gets knocked up, then go to number 2
Himself in the air and the foe on the ground, then get ready to spike them back down after they get hit by earthshaking with a spike or this move again
The foe in the air and himself on the ground, a more direct method of going to number 2
Used off-stage when you force the foe to come off-stage to gimp you, the move obviously functions as a standard issue suicide KO. You’ll rarely be able to direct yourself when you want to suicide KO, though. Instead of suicide KOing, this can actually be used to –save- your life, by grabbing onto the foe and making your way back to the stage during the rising portion. Foes will almost always opt to DI back towards the stage, meaning them gaining control isn’t a problem for that either. If you’ve created a barrel cannon to try to help you recover, you can also attempt to suplex the foe into that to turn the gimping attempt around entirely, firing them towards the bottom and yourself up.

Forward Aerial – Smack Down
Kudgel lifts his club over his head with a single hand before sweeping it down in an arc in front of him lazily, so lazily that he spins himself to go horizontal instead of up-right in mid-air with the force of the swing. This move is a spike strong as Ganon’s dair, dealing 15%, with no real set-backs. The move is quick to start-up, the main problem simply being the actual process of the swing itself is fairly slow. This means the move has a degree of starting lag if you want to hit an enemy in front of you, or, god forbid, underneath you. The arc starts above Kudgel, meaning the move is by far as its best when hitting enemies above you. It lets you hit enemies fleeing earthshaking to the air right into what they were trying to avoid, or enemies knocked up into the air by said shaking earth back into it.

Back Aerial –Swing
Kudgel swings his club behind him in a relatively fast move, though less range than his usual club swings due to only halfway turning around. The move deals 8% and knockback that KOs at 160%. It’s notable for the fact that it’s his only aerial attack that does horizontal knockback, even counting his Specials. Horizontal knockback lets Kudgel actually knock enemies off-stage and into barrel cannons. Perhaps even more importantly, this attack that does horizontal knockback is a club attack, enabling Kudgel to club explosive barrels knocked into the air into enemies. Kind of an important thing for Kudgel to have here.

Up Aerial – Feeding Frenzy
Kudgel chomps upwards, dealing 9% and vertical knockback that KOs at 145% in an incredibly spammable attack that makes for fantastic juggling. Because it’s not good enough at juggling, if you use this move with a foe directly a Kirby width above Kudgel, he’ll stall in the air briefly as he goes up a Kirby width. What makes great juggling so powerful on Kudgel especially is ideally, enemies are horrified to land on the ground to escape the juggling thanks to earthshaking/the threat of it starting. While this move will undoubtedly be the one that suffers the most from stale moves, if you juggle the foe high enough you can reach their vertical position with Up Special before going for a KO with further uair spam while you’re bordering the top blast zone. If they’re high enough, you can sometimes go down so quickly after you pass the foe with Up Special that you hit them on the way down as you come out of your dodge. Failing that, you can always cancel the Up Special and hit them with a uair as they come out of their –second- dodge for a KO off the top.

Down Aerial – Kremling Krash
Kudgel stalls for as long as Bowser’s Down B as he goes horizontal in mid-air, then does a huge body slam stall then fall. Kudgel goes at Captain Falcon’s dashing speed initially, but quickly accelerates by a third every quarter second he falls with no cap. He deals 20% and a spike 1.5 as strong as Ganon’s dair as he falls. When Kudgel hits the ground, he creates an earthshaking hitbox that’s as wide 1 platform wide per Ganondorf Kudgel fell and lasts for half a second per Ganondorf. The earthshaking hitbox deals 8% and knockback that KOs at 160% at minimum, though deals 2% more and KOs 10% earlier for every Ganon Kudgel falls. If Kudgel went high enough from juggling/Up Special, he can get something really threatening and long lasting going. Even if the earthshaking that’s currently going doesn’t last the whole juggling session, you can use this move to beat the foe back to the ground to renew the effect. Of course the landing lag of the move is bad, so if you’re not creating it when you know the foe will be hit by the earthshaking it’s probably a bad idea.

 Standards

Neutral Attack – Primal Rage
Kudgel savagely stomps down with his feet in place in a fury. This creates a small shockwave of a hitbox very comparable to DK’s Down Special in both size and power. The move serves as a great launcher, something Kudgel can sorely use when he doesn’t have earthshaking (god forbid) and a foe is in his face, but he wants to make use of his juggling/anti-air game anyway. It also enables you to more casually launch up a TNT barrel without committing to setting up full earthshaking, again more in the context of an immediate fight. Even if you do have the full ability to set up a full platform’s worth of earthshaking, this can be useful to launch up a single barrel to desynch it, so that all the barrels aren’t constantly going up and down at the same heights.

Dashing Attack – Leaps and Bounds
Kudgel does a running leap forwards, going forwards about two thirds of a platform. His body is a hitbox as he hurdles through the air, dealing 10% and knockback that KOs at 160%. When Kudgel lands, he creates an earthshaking hitbox centered around his position that lasts for three quarters of a second, dealing 8% and vertical knockback that KOs at 170%. This is useful for approaching, and 5% flinch resistance on Kudgel throughout the move’s duration makes it a bit harder to casually knock him out of the move with a projectile. While the ending lag isn’t especially long, the fact the move is so telegraphed makes it a lot more painful to suffer through. The earthshaking helps to cover the ending lag by a good deal though, needless to say.

The big appeal of the move is more on stages with platforms. Not only does the lack of range not matter on the move when you need to get a small platform to shake, Kudgel will end the move very early as he jumps up to the platform, removing a lot of the telegraph and making the move a good deal more viable. Kudgel will want to be hopping around from platform to platform with the move to leave earthshaking in his wake on legal stages with platforms, as foes will typically tend to flee to the “safe” platforms when he makes the main platform shake.

Forward Tilt – Drag
Kudgel extends out his club fully in front of him and places the end of it on the ground. He then proceeds to rake in the club towards his body, dealing 5 hits of 3% and set dragging knockback to bring foes right up next to him. This is helpful in landing Kudgel’s low range grab, though it doesn’t combo into it sadly. The move is very useful to catch people rolling, though a few small hits isn’t necessarily all that worth it. If you drag around a TNT barrel, though, you can potentially catch somebody intending to roll past it. Just make sure you aim it so that they collide with the barrel a ways away from you, before you finish the ftilt, or else you’ll get hit too. Foes generally do not like the idea of a trade like this either, so you can move around the barrel a lot as a sort of close quarters defense. Foes can’t just casually detonate the barrel due to your club being in the way, dragging it back.

Up Tilt – Hoist
Kudgel holds onto the handle of his club with both hands as he turns to face the screen, then hoists it up as far as it can go. During the hoisting, the top of the club deals 15% and knockback that KOs at 135% as it goes up, very good, though actually hitting with the top is very specific given Kudgel is already very tall, even with the move being quite fast. The sides of the club are still hitboxes, though, dealing 6% and knockback away from the club that KOs at 175%.

The anti-air of the initial hitbox is fairly obvious in use, though you can still hit foes plenty with the sides of the club, using it as a sort of “wall”. Generally, this is something you want to use to catch enemies fleeing over your head, whether they be trying to reach an area of the stage without earthshaking/the edge, or just to catch enemies recovering high on their way back to the stage. It also gets a lot of use on stages with platforms, as enemies can’t just fastfall past the club down to hit you due to the platform in the way. It serves as a good response to enemies attempting to hide on platforms away from the earthshaking on the main stage.

Down Tilt – Low Sweep
Kudgel, from his crouch, sweeps his club quickly along the ground in a fluent spammable motion, dealing 8% and knockback that KOs at 170%. This is Kudgel’s best poking move, given it’s the fastest one that uses the full range of Kudgel’s club, having slightly less range but being more powerful than Dedede’s ftilt. This is one of your easiest moves to respond to rolling TNT barrels with, and while the knockback isn’t perfectly vertical from this move, being somewhat angled, it leans enough on the vertical side that the move serves as a very quick and easy launcher to start up juggling without needing to hit with earthshaking.

A better use still for the move is as an edgeguard, as the move spikes foes powerfully as Ike’s dtilt if they’re in the air. Using this on foes humping the ledge is very potent, and Kudgel will more regularly find enemies hiding on the ledge against him than most characters due to foes attempting to flee his earthshaking hitboxes. If spamming the dtilt along the edge is somehow not enough, send a shockwave to go over the ledge before doing so to force even the likes of Meta Knight to come up and fight.

 Grab-Game

Grab – Crush
Kudgel’s grab is actually quite bad as he lazily lurches out a single hand while holding onto his club with the other, on par with Ganondorf’s abominable grab. Ganondorf’s grab has worse range than Marth’s and Ike’s, and is still fairly slow. Not to say it’s impossible to hit with, as all Brawl grabs are fairly fast, but it’s terrible comparatively. After grabbing the foe, Kudgel’s grab stance is very unique, though, in that he throws the foe to the ground in prone, stands on top of them, and crouches down.

If earthshaking is taking place while Kudgel is in the grab stance, the foe will take the damage and the knockback of the earthshaking as Kudgel sits on top of them. Kudgel’s weight is added to the foe’s for the knockback they take here, and if the foe has less falling speed than Kudgel they will fall as fast as him as long as they’re in the grab. None of this interrupts the grab. At low percents, Kudgel can weigh the foe down with nothing but his grab as they fall back down onto the ground to be hit by the earthshaking again and again, though at low percentages they can also escape the grab sooner before getting too damage racked. This mechanic also enables Kudgel to use throws in the air. In addition, if a foe grab escapes on the ground, they’ll be stuck in prone. If Kudgel and a foe enter a barrel cannon with this, it functions the same as in the nair, but Kudgel won’t deal a free 16% to the foe.

Pummel – Scrape
Kudgel scrapes his club over the foe he’s standing on top of, hitting them with the stray nails and thorns embedded in the club. A very laggy 4% pummel, but you can attempt to get a single one off if you’re sitting on top of a foe for earthshaking damage anyway.

Forward Throw – Slide
Kudgel stands up from his crouching position and steps one of his feet off of the foe while keeping his other foot firmly placed on their back. Kudgel then slides the foe forwards with the foot, dealing them 16 hits of 1% and flinching as they slide forwards with knockback that KOs at 165%. The foe may not get up until they finish their knockback due to the flinching hits. The farther they travel, the more time you have to generate an earthshaking hitbox as a follow-up to the move as well as garner free set-up. So long as they stay on the platform, it really doesn’t matter how far they slide away. It’s a fairly bad throw to use when close to and facing the edge, though, as if the foe slides off the edge they may not take all 16 of the flinching hits, having to slide against the ground for those, as well as coming out of prone and being immune to earthshaking for obvious reasons.

If the throw is used in the air, foes will take diagonally downwards knockback until making contact with the ground, at which point they’ll enter ground and start taking sliding damage. If they never hit the ground, though, this can function as a KO move if you use it at the edge. In the least, it can force the foe to grab the ledge, enabling you to make use of your on-stage edeguarding.

Up Throw – Deathroll
Kudgel grabs the foe with his chompers and thrashes about with them on the ground, rolling around in prone with them. This deals 3 hits of 4% over the course of the move, you able to move Kudgel and the foe around at Ganon’s dashing speed for one second or until Kudgel voluntarily ends it with a button press. During the duration of the throw, you’re still both perfectly vulnerable to the earthshaking, not interrupting it. At the end of the deathroll, Kudgel flings the foe directly up out of his teeth with knockback that KOs at 150%. This is Kudgel’s best KO throw, and since it does vertical knockback can knock foes towards the top blast zone sooner if he is juggled up by earthshaking. The positioning of the throw, coupled with the vertical knockback, also enables Kudgel to get under and throw a foe up into a barrel cannon. He can even get past TNT barrels to do that with this throw, with or without earthshaking to help him get around them, by rolling past a TNT barrel quickly in-between one of the 3 chomping hits.

Down Throw – Ascension
Kudgel leaps off of the foe sitting under him, dealing 13% and footstooling the foe. If they were already on the ground, this just gives them some very brief lag before they may act out of prone. Meanwhile, Kudgel gets propelled upwards 1.35X the height of his first jump by the move as he kicks off the foe. In tandem with getting juggled up by earthshaking, this lets Kudgel get up very high into the air for a dair or to place a barrel cannon far higher than he normally could. Very high barrel cannons mean that if the foe chooses to shoot themselves up out of them, they KO themselves if they’re at a high enough percent, forcing them to shoot themselves back down into earthshaking. If you enter the barrel cannon with them via grab/nair somehow, you can also get a guaranteed KO on them by shooting them upwards out of this barrel cannon. If you can’t get all that high yet, having a low down cannon can also obviously help you get higher to make another one.

Between this and the fthrow when no earthshaking’s going on, fthrow to dsmash is generally the safer one that will ensure you get some kind of earthshaking off without getting punished. If they slide far enough you can even combo that throw into earthshaking. Dthrow to dair will usually work, but it will never combo and you can potentially even get punished at the end after landing on the ground. That said, dthrow to dair will generally produce longer lasting earthshaking.

Back Throw – Explosive Toss
Kudgel carelessly tosses the foe behind him, dealing 6% on contact with the ground and putting them in prone assuming the throw was used on the ground. After this, Kudgel takes out and throws a TNT barrel on top of the foe. The foe is free to move before the TNT barrel hits them, though if they were on the ground in prone this obviously takes away the option they have to get up from prone directly, forcing them to roll left or right. If used against the edge, resulting in you throwing the foe off-stage, the foe has to awkwardly recover around the barrel, resulting in some potential easy edgeguarding with dtilt/Side Special. The throw is also plenty useful even if you have no earthshaking and know the foe can easily avoid the barrel, due to the simple fact that it lets you get out one for free.

If you throw the foe onto the shaking ground, this can potentially combo into the barrel Kudgel throws on top of the foe afterwards due to the extra stun they will take. This only combos at low percents, though, where the foe will take small enough knockback to not be above where the barrel will be thrown. Higher percents this is still certainly an interesting option with earthshaking regardless, though, as a TNT barrel will be getting shot up right after the foe. It’s fairly safe to assume it won’t hit, but you get a free TNT barrel in addition to some extra pressure on the foe.

Final Smash
Kudgel hoists his club over his shoulder as he holds onto the handle with both hands, essentially using it as a baseball bat as he swings it forwards. It’s a standard one hit super strong final smash, dealing 40% and knockback that KOs at 60%. As a club attack, this can still knock TNT barrels away, sending them flying at double Sonic’s dash speed with 1.5X as much power as the Final Smash.

 Playstyle Summary

Kudgel’s playstyle’s very obviously revolves around his earthshaking. With the ground being shook, foes will obviously be avoiding the ground as best they can, letting Kudgel do easy juggling or simply spike foes into the shaking ground. Constantly trying to knock the foe into the earthshaking of course works great, but it’s also just as useful as something to affect the foe’s behavior, making them more vulnerable to other attacks due to having to avoid the earthshaking. The strongest use of his TNT barrels is to chase foes up into the air as the earth shakes due to them getting bounced off. Barrel Cannons of course help out with this, not only by being static traps that are constantly in the air, but extending the vertical range/air time of TNT barrels. As far as setting up earthshaking in the first place, the main way to do it is to knock the foe off the ground, whether it be upwards or off the stage, to buy time to make the earth shake. Once it starts shaking, it’s generally a lot easier to keep it shaking by chasing foes into the air only to dair down to the ground upon their fleeing from you.

Kudgel can of course KO off the top fine, and knocking a foe into a high up barrel cannon can be a great way to net an early KO. A nastier KO method Kudgel has though is simply by gimping. While Kudgel doesn’t have much to contribute by hopping off-stage after the foe, he can stay put just fine. Launching some TNT barrels at the foe can serve as a good on-stage deterrent, particularly if launched at interesting trajectories with clubbing attacks. Foes intending to recover over Kudgel to the stage will have to deal with his utilt, and if they go for such a high recovery route they’ll almost always land onto the ground to get hit by earthshaking. The place the foe would ideally like to stay is the ledge, but Kudgel’s great at guarding it with his dtilt and Side B. While his fair spike wouldn’t really be all that much alone, it’s great stacked on top of everything else. While you’ll rarely actually kill people this way, you can damage them a lot as they make their way past you, ideally, leading into the more standard phases of your game. You can also bait foes into going off-stage simply by getting knocked off yourself, given Kudgel’s versatile recovery options, or simply causing earthshaking. Some foes will sometimes be so scared of it they’ll hide off on the ledge voluntarily when it pops up.

Not only does Kudgel benefit from the foe taking knockback of almost any kind, he can even combo if he wants. Granted, with only his melee moves you’d be hard pressed to, it’s reliant on set-ups. Uthrow is amongst your most obvious moves for actually taking advantage of them, allowing you to space yourself around to knock the foe into barrel cannons and TNT, all the while damaging them with earthshaking during the throw’s duration. Kudgel has no cap on the amount of barrels he can have out, it’s only limited by his skill ceiling and how much risk he’s willing to take, given they can hurt him. For some more obvious stuff, though, you can potentially fair spike a foe into the earthshaking ground twice if you’re remotely high up and the foe has the appropriate %. Smack them down into the ground for it to bump them back into you, then take another whack at it. The grab during earthshaking is also very specific in its effectiveness based off the percentage of the foe, so you do have to get something of a feel for the foe’s weight to pull off some of Kudgel’s tricks. Kudgel can take advantage of just about anything he does to the foe with some sort of “follow up”, whether or not it’s a direct hit afterwards or just merely a chance for set-up. What exactly is done can come down to player preference and Kudgel’s need to adapt to the match-up.