pepper jack, not the cheese

"Hope you brought an appetite, because tonight on the menu, we's servin' YOU!"
Chef Pepper Jack

"Serve you, as in cook you as a dinner, not serve you as in present the food to you. I can see how that would be confusin’."
JAM WITH ME!

Chef Pepper Jack is a major antagonist in the Skylanders series. Yes, he has a giant chili pepper for a head, and his entire hand is a bell pepper. He is the Fire element member of the Doom Raiders, one of the evillest groups of villains in the entirety of Skylands. The Chef acts as a demolitions expert, using a variety of food-themed bombs that he literally cooks up. He also owns a massive airship, creatively called the Chef Zeppelin, that the Doom Raiders used as transportation. Being a chef, he’s also there for his cooking skills.

But he wasn’t always an explosives-crazy chef with an aerial weapon of destruction. In fact, he used to be the most famous chef in all of Skylands, until he discovered a book of evil cooking recipes. He used this evil book to create his explosive foods, and then turned his restaurant business into a massive criminal empire. Flying the Chef Zeppelin over a village, he would demand that they hand over all the money they had, or else he would bombard them with spicy pepper bombs.

Alongside all the other Doom Raiders, he was locked up in Cloudcracker Prison, until being freed by Kaos. Pepper Jack doesn’t get to do much in Skylanders Trap Team, being the third main boss encounter (Or second if you want to get technical, which I do), and not really having any impact on the plot. He was locked away again during said boss fight. Alongside fellow Doom Raiders Dreamcatcher and The Gulper, he decided to remain locked up over becoming a Skylander, and as such did not appear in Skylanders Imaginators. He does show up in the TV show Skylanders Academy, however. While is still a lackey to their leader, the Golden Queen, he gets to do a lot more by virtue of it being a well-written TV show, and not a rushed video game.

And if you didn’t expect him to talk with a Cajun accent, then you probably should have expected it.

"ANYWAY! Let's SPICE THINGS UP-AH!"

Spicy Stats
Weight – 108
Walk Speed – 0.9
Run Speed – 1.4
Air Speed – 1
Fall Speed – 1.6

Chef Pepps, doesn’t have much in the way of outstanding stats. He is a fairly standard heavyweight, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing considering his overall playstyle. He can take a hit, isn’t very fast, and isn’t that great in the air either. None of these level on outright bad stats. Pepper Jack is rather stocky and chunky, being around as wide as bowser, and only slightly taller than Wario, though the tip of his head extends up much higher than Wario. His jumps are mediocre at best, and not really worth much more than that. Overall, a fairly standard heavyweight character.

More interestingly of note is his massive egg-whisk weapon thing. Due to Smash’s nature in character animations, Pepper Jack is holding it slightly behind him, and at an upwards angle. This isn’t actually a part of hurtbox, since he’s just holding it, but it is one of the largest held weapons in Smash, being around Pepper Jack’s height by itself, and lifted off the ground thanks to it being held.

Spicy Specials
Neutral Special – Pepper Popper
Pepper Jack pulls out a large bell pepper from his backpack, which he grips in his bell pepper shaped hand. As you might expect, Pepper Jack tosses it forwards like a grenade, where it flies in an arc. This actually behaves exactly the same as Snake’s grenade attack, the main difference with the actual pepper bomb being that its much larger, around the size of a capsule, but a bit wider. It behaves on the same physics as the grenade as well, adjusted for the newer size, of course, and is even on the same timer, 3 seconds. And yes, Pepps can aim it fairly well.

The first difference between these two moves is fairly simple. Because of the bell pepper’s increased size, it deals 5% damage by default, though still with weak knockback. The second big change is when the pepper actually explodes. It will first create a standard explosion, 1/3rd the size of a Bob-Omb explosion, but dealing 20% damage upon hit, with knockback that can KO at 150%. This makes it fairly powerful, but a second before the pepper explodes, it will start blinking yellow, making it obvious when its about to explode. Its increased size and more obvious color make it more noticeable as well compared to Snake’s.

However, once it actually explodes, the pepper will leave behind a Battlefield Platform sized puddle of lava. This isn’t an obstacle, as characters can walk through it without taking knockback, though they will take 2% damage every fifth frame they remain inside of it. These puddles last for a very long time, 5 seconds to be exact, and are pretty central to Pepper Jack’s pressuring playstyle. Also, if an opponent takes knockback that lands them in a puddle of lava, they WILL take knockback in the opposite direction they came from, alongside 4% damage. The knockback is weak, but it is definitely a fun maneuver to pull off.

To make this worse for the opponents, Pepper Jack can have three of these lava puddles on stage at a time. If three are out and Pepper Jack has a bomb that’s ready to explode, then it will explode without any issue, but won’t leave behind a puddle – Though considering the timer on the bomb, this isn’t something that’s likely to happen. Like with Snake, Pepper Jack has a number of different speeds and angles he can throw the grenade at, which acts exactly the same, complete with the little intricacies involved. However, he also has a special aspect to it, that being his ability to throw multiple peppers at once.

Pepper Jack can hold the pepper poppers for as long as he wants, pulling out an extra pepper to throw every 1.5 seconds its held. This caps at three, however. These peppers will be thrown at different angles, no matter how the attacked is aimed or what speed is used, though the angles are variable depending on those aspects. However, Pepper Jack has even more tricks involving his grenades that he can pull off.

This second trick is essential to Pepper Jack’s gameplan. If you quickly double tap the special attack button, Pepper Jack will instead pull the pepper out, and then pop it into his maw! Afterwards he’ll let out a burp, and usually say a one-liner about how hot the pepper was, in a fairly laggy animation. With this, Pepps will gain a faint flaming aura around himself. This is his Heat mechanic, of which the peppers are one of the few ways of getting.

With added Heat, Pepper Jack will gain additional bonuses to his flame/explosive based attacks, as well as some slight buffs. He can have a total of three Heat stacks, each increasing his ground movement speed by 0.1, and his air speed by 0.05, meaning that the Chef can boost his speeds to far faster levels. At three stacks, Pepps will gain a much larger flaming aura around himself, though this still barely stretches past his model. This will deal a passive 1% every fifth frame to anyone near Pepper Jack. There is a catch to these bonuses, though. The Heat runs on a timer, with each heat only lasting for ten seconds each, resulting in 30 seconds of total heat depending on what level its on. Once the ten second threshold happens, Pepper Jack will drop down to a previous level, losing the bonuses in the process.

Pepper Jack will need to keep constantly stuffing his maw with peppers if he wants to keep these bonuses, but due to the laggy animation, this can leave him open to some bad punishment. Pepps has a lot of ways of keeping his opponents away, however, so a well played Pepper Jack will usually have at least some Heat on him at all times. If an opponent hits Pepper Jack before he eats the pepper, then he will drop it, and then act as a normal pepper bomb from then on. Pepper Jack shouldn’t get too overzealous with his pepper popping, as attempting to eat one at a full 3 stacks will cause him to take 15% damage automatically, and not refill the timer. The lag will be the same, but the animation will now have Pepper Jack clutching his mouth and shaking his head in pain as he lets out a grunt of pain.

So now that we’ve gone over the Heat mechanic, what are the bonuses that the Pepper Poppers get? Its fairly simple, at one and two stacks, Pepper Jack will automatically pull out 2-3 extra peppers depending on the Heat level, without any needed charging. With multiple peppers, Pepper Jack will still only pop one into his mouth when eating them. At a full three Heat stacks, the peppers will catch fire and deal 7% on contact, though without any knockback increase. The puddles they explode into will also last slightly longer, 7 seconds now, and will be marked by looking a bit magma-ier than usual.

Of final note, Pepper Jack can pull out either a red, yellow, or green pepper, with no real significance between the three. Just an aesthetics thing.

Side Special – Southern Hot-Spit-Ality
Pepper Jack takes a deep breath, before firing out a burst of flame from his mouth. The flame quickly turns into a medium sized projectile that flies forwards, acting like a combination between Mario’s fireball and a standard missile from Samus. It has an overall similar hitbox compared to the fireball, and flies at the same speed as a missile. It can only fly forwards three Battlefield Platforms and deals 8% damage with weak knockback that can KO at 200% but has a good amount of hit stun. Pepper Jack can only shoot one of these out at a time, but its speed and average range make it an overall useful projectile, if not spammable. But of course, the Chef has something more cooking in the kitchen. The start-up lag is similar to the fireball as well, but the end lag is significantly worse, though not by much.

If you didn’t expect the fire-based move to be affected by heat, then you were woefully incorrect. In fact, SSpec has some of the more drastic changes when heat is involved. At one level of heat, the size and damage of the fireball will simply be increased. Its now more the size of Mario’s Fire Orb custom special, though unlike that it still acts the same, though there are more buffs. IT now travels 4 Battlefield Platforms and deals 10% damage with knockback that’s capable of KOing at 170%. This is mostly just a straight upgrade to the normal version of the special, but the time limited nature of it makes it a bit rarer to use, especially considering we have two more variants to cover.

At two Heat Stacks, the actual fireball remains the same, but there is now an added function to the attack. While a simple tap will result in Pepper Jack firing the fireball, holding the special attack button will now cause him to spit out a constant stream of fire from his mouth. This isn’t as long as Bowser’s flame breath (For now), reaching out maybe halfway, but also aiming directly in front of Pepper Jack, rather than downwards. This stream acts like Bowser’s flame breath otherwise, only slightly weaker, dealing only 1% rapidly to whoever is trapped in it. You might think the lack of range is a problem, but Pepps is completely capable of moving, and even jumping, while using this attack. Thanks to the speed increase by the Heat stacks, this turns what could be a fairly generic flame breath into something formidable.

At a full three stacks, not much changes, aside from a few buffs. The flame now reaches out the full amount of Bowser’s flame breath, but again, pointing out directly in front of Pepper Jack, giving him even more range. The attack now deals rapid 2% damage hits rather than 1%. If you can’t tell, this is one of Pepper Jack’s main chase attacks, and can easily act as a threat, or actively used to chase opponents around and deal constant damage to them. However, the timer is always a problem, as the flame breath will downgrade in real time as Pepper Jack loses his Heat. Once the first two heats are lost, it will simply cancel the move out into the endlag. This still gives Pepper Jack a good twenty seconds of potential chase, and while it can wrack up a pretty amazing amount of damage, its knockback is weak, and you’ll be left open for punishment if you get to zealous in chasing your foes around.