nabbit or habit

Nabbit
Steals the Spotlight!

Nabbit is a rather peculiar enemy found in the Mario franchise. His name basically says everything, he’s a rabbit who likes to nab things. Nabbit. First showing up in New Super Mario Bros. U as one of the game’s few actual new elements, he functionally replaces the toad rescue missions from NSMB Wii as a little side distraction to earn more power-ups while playing through previous stages. Nabbit was just a strange mechanic that nobody really paid mind to. Until he became playable!

In the DLC expansion for NSMBU, New Super Luigi U, Nabbit replaces Mario as the fourth playable character, making him the first playable enemy in a mainline Mario game. In NSLU, Nabbit is completely invincible to everything except pits, and doesn’t gain new abilities by getting power-ups, instead he stashes them away and refunds them at the end of each level for more 1-ups. He’s a very unique character in a very hard game, and his reveal definitely gained him more than a few fans.

Despite this, Nabbit hasn’t shown up very much as a playable character. He was playable in Mario Golf: World Tour, and in Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Games… but only during the 100-meter dash event, because that game locked all its best characters to single events. Nabbit has only made a few fleeting cameos from then on, despite having the qualities of a mainstay enemy, with his largest being his role in Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam, where catching him at certain points would reward the player with new Bros. Attacks. The final chase has you both fighting against and WITH Nabbit inside Bowser’s castle.

That’s another interesting thing about Nabbit, he despite being an enemy, he isn’t affiliated with Bowser in any way, as demonstrated by him being able to defeat him in NSLU, and by how he was just considered a thief by other enemies in Paper Jam. Even stranger is that Nabbit’s hideout in NSMBU is not only just a secret area you can get to, its also the records house, meaning that Nabbit isn’t just a thief, but also a stalker. Creepy.

Also he showed up in smash 4 or whatever

Stats
Weight – 75
Walk Speed – 1.2
Run Speed – 3
Air Speed – 0.7
Fall Speed – 1.25
Model wise, Nabbit retains how he looks in Smash 4, being exactly the same size there, meaning you can just look up how big he is if you want to see. To put it into more specific specifics, he’s around the size of Mario, slightly shorter without the ears. Hitbox wise, the most notable thing is that his bag also counts as a part of his hurtbox, while he’s not using it, at least.

Nabbit, fitting of a thief, is one of the lightest characters in the game, barely edging out of balloonweight but still being slightly lighter than Game & Watch. He’s also the second fastest character while running, nearly being able to catch up to Sonic! He did work very hard on that 100-meter dash, after all. His walk speed is fairly average. He’s also a fairly good jumper, being a kinda-sorta rabbit. His jumps are both above average.

The last thing to note is that most of Nabbit’s stats, for SOME reason, mirror Luigi’s meaning he is very floaty and has very bad traction. The best way to describe him is, well, weak. He has a lot of bad attributes, and even his ridiculous speed isn’t that great considering how jank Sonic can be. Luckily, Nabbit is a clever little rabbity thing, and he knows just how to handle situations like this.

Oh Yeah, Nabbit also has a special Shield where he hops into his bag. It behaves almost exactly like Yoshi’s egg shield, but with a slightly squatter, slightly less egg-shaped hitbox. It prevents poking and basically has all of the Yoshi shield’s upsides and downsides.

Specials
Neutral Special – Nabbed It
Nabbit quickly swipes in front of himself with his free hand, creating a small flash at the midpoint of the swipe. This is very fast, and acts as a very, very weak hitbox that deals 2% damage and is very unsafe on hit. You basically need to be melding with an opponent’s model in order to hit with it. But hitting with the swipe isn’t really what you’re supposed to do. When the attack is used on the hurtbox of an item, projectile, or even structure, Nabbit will quickly stuff it into his bag.

This works functionally identically to Villager’s pocket, so that doesn’t really need explaining. Use it on a thing, he takes it. The difference is that Nabbit can steal up to three objects at a time, which he can save for a later move. Each item will increase the size of his bag by a bit, with it being nearly as large as Nabbit himself at three items. Because of this size increase, Nabbit gains a bit of a boost to his weight with each item, specifically by 5 units, putting him at a very, uh, “solid” 90 weight units. This doesn’t affect the rest of his stats, not even his jumps, but it does affect some of his other moves.

Basically, any attack that uses Nabbit’s bag will gain a plus 1% damage boost for each item that Nabbit has in his bag. You ever hit someone with a bag full of stuff? It hurts! Anyway, this move has a major downside of not really having anything to do other than steal things, since it doesn’t even function like Pocket and release the items when full. The attack acts as normal when used again with a full bag. If Nabbit tries to steal another item, he’ll manage it, but the first item collected will be erased from his cache, most likely falling into the void of his Bag of Holding. Kind of what you’d expect from a guy like him.

Anything Nabbit steals will not be considered “on stage” while it is in his bag, meaning that characters heavily reliant on limited summons won’t have to deal with having their sets nerfed. Nabbit isn’t a space overlord after all, he’s just a rabbit. Oddly enough, if Nabbit tries to steal a limited structure, mostly ones that are limited to one on stage at a time, the previous one he collected will be erased an instantly replaced with the one he previous collected. Strange, even his bag follows the one-per-stage rule. This doesn’t affect projectiles that can have duplicates, like Pikmin, however.  As mentioned before, Nabbit can use these items a bit later down the line, so we’ll cover what happens when he inevitable puts these objects back on stage when we get there.

Up Special – Bag-O-Whirl
Nabbit quickly spins his bag around in a circle, in classic lazy Sakurai recovery animation style. This behaves mostly like Donkey Kong’s USpec, letting Nabbit glide across the stage in short bursts in order to hit opponents. This deals 10% damage on contact at the bag’s base size, with rather average knockback for this sort of thing. In the air, Nabbit will instantly rise up a fairly decent amount, letting it fall squarely into the “mediocre” tier of recovery. However, Nabbit follows this up with something a bit different.
He throws his bag!?

Shockingly, Nabbit gets rid of his bag by throwing it in the direction that he was facing while jumping. The bag will act as a pseudo-projectile similar to some of Zero Suit Samus’ attacks, meaning that it can’t be reflected. As a projectile, the bag will deal a hefty 10% damage, same as it does while Nabbit is going up. The bag will usually travel a decent distance, about the length of one of Fox’s SSpecs, but retaining momentum to take it a little farther. If the bag hits the ground, Nabbit will disappear in a puff of smoke, and the reappear next to the bag.

The bag is fast, meaning that if it lands on the stage, it will most likely help Nabbit recover. The big downside is that there’s some hefty endlag as Nabbit heaves the bag back onto his shoulder. Of course, that isn’t much of an issue since the bag functions as almost an auto-recovery if used well, right. About that…

This is the first instance of Nabbit’s bag being a bit of an… issue. Depending on how many items Nabbit has stored in his bag, the less he will travel upwards, and the less his bag will fly forwards. The upwards spin is the one least effected, as it cuts off small chunks of the rise that are definitely noticeable. The bag throw is what’s mostly affected, as having three items in your bag will cause it to travel half the distance it normally would.

This turns Nabbit into a bit of a resource management character, as you will need to keep track of how many items you have in your bag, and if you’re ready to get rid of any of them at higher percentages. Remember, Nabbit is light no matter how much stuff is packed into his satchel, and a potential powerful projectile or item you picked up early in the stock might be the difference between winning or losing. Keeping his opponents on their toes and keeping your distance is one of Nabbit’s signature styles.

Side Special – Seeing Double
Upon pressing the button, Nabbit will run forward (Its one of his best skills, you know), leaving a small poof of purple smoke once he starts up. Or… maybe when he uses it, he stands still and there’s a poof of purple smoke? And sometimes there are two of him now!? What in the world is going on with this attack? Well, hold on just a second there.

At the start of the attack, Nabbit has a few choices to make that will cause the whole move to change. On a simple tap, Nabbit will create a body double of himself that will run forward, leaving the normal Nabbit invisible for a brief time This invisibility lasts either 3 seconds, or until the invisible Nabbit decides to attack. This body double, after running forward 1.5 Battlefield Platforms, will suddenly turn into a level 5 AI that’s incapable of attacking and can only jump and move, and will die if he takes 20% damage.

This has very obvious mind-game applications, but we still aren’t done here. If Nabbit smashes the input, he will actually become the Nabbit that runs forward, leaving an invisible fake behind that follows the same invisible rules. Normal Nabbit will be forced to run forward the same distance before he can move about freely, after which the double will most likely reappear. Both of these variations look exactly the same compared to each other, meaning that opponents will need to keep their eye out for the one minor difference between the two: bag size.

Both Nabbits will have different bag sizes. Playable Nabbit will obviously have the bag size that he started with, but the copy will either have one level below it, or one level above it in the case of Nabbit having no items in his bag. While this seems like it would be obvious, in the heat of the moment it can be incredibly difficult for opponents to tell which Nabbit is which. And that’s not even the end of it, there’s still more variations that Nabbit can pull off.

By holding the button, Nabbit will instead run forward and become invisible, leaving a visible copy standing where he started. This can also be done vice versa by quickly holding the button and then tapping again quickly. The attack has enough starting lag to make this not-obnoxious to pull off, but still a bit difficult. This variant of the move can be used for even more potential mind-games but can also be used to help get out of sticky situations. Of important note is that the copy Nabbit will always wait 1.5 seconds before it starts moving about from the spot it was created. If you’re attempting to confuse the opponent, its best to stay still for just a tiny bit.

While this is far, far from an effective combat tool, it does help with Nabbit’s MO of staying away from the opponent and hopefully pelting them with powerful projectiles. Of course, an opponent well versed in Nabbit’s tricks could easily see right through it, but the amount of variations here is enough to give even other Nabbit players pause while using them.

Down Special – Return Package
The move you’ve all been waiting for. Nabbit reaches into his bag for a brief amount of start-up lag, and then quickly pulls out the previous item he had snatched, throwing the item forward almost the instant he pulls it out. Projectiles behave as they normally would, but they will have a 1.5x modifier attached to them, making it weaker than Villager’s pocket by quite a bit. But Nabbit DOES get to store more items in return, so it balances out.

On items, unlike with Villager, Nabbit will instantly throw the item no matter what, even items that activate transformations upon collection like Super Leaves or Mushrooms. The throw behaves just like a normal item throw. This isn’t particularly effective, but in some cases casually throwing a Poison Mushroom could be a funny trick to play on opponents. The obvious main use here, item wise, is to collect items like Freezies and Cuccos that will activate on hit, as this move can make for a great shock attack.

Nabbit can’t throw everything out all at once, though. He needs to wait 50 frames after before he can toss another item. There is basically no endlag on this attack, however, meaning that he won’t be made helpless or punishable. Nabbit’s too smart to stand around like that in the middle of a fight. Basically, you can’t just throw out a Deku Seed followed by two of Samus’ missiles instantly, you’ll have to plan a bit better than that.

Of course, sometimes Nabbit doesn’t have anything in his bag. Yes, while this is upsetting, it isn’t a reason to lose hope, as Nabbit has one more trick up his sleeves. When the attack is used with nothing in the bag, Nabbit will take a bit longer to reach into his bag, but still manages to pull something out… a huge spiked ball! Nabbit will toss it to the ground, where it will roll like a barrel for a few seconds before stopping. After 5 seconds of standing still, the ball will vanish, but can be knocked around by attacks from either you or your opponent.

This spiked ball is the size of a barrel as well but will deal a whopping 20% damage and knockback that can KO at sub-100% to anyone it hits… including Nabbit himself. Once Nabbit has thrown the ball, his bag will look a bit limper than usual, meaning he can’t use the spiked ball again until the previous one vanishes. This won’t affect his weight, and he can steal projectiles and items to get it back up to normal again, just keep it in mind.

The spiked ball, as implied above, has a slower start-up animation, taking roughly double the time of a normal throw to perform. It also has some bad endlag as Nabbit wipes his brow, exhausted from exerting so much strength on such a heavy item. This makes the spiked ball very punishable and considering Nabbit will have his base weight when this is used, that’s not a good thing.

Generally, the spiked ball is a last resort, you’ll probably want to actively avoid using it unless you absolutely need something to throw at the opponent. The spiked ball is also the one thing that Villager can pocket that Nabbit cannot, since he just has more spiked balls in that bag anyway… somehow.

This move, overall, has most of the same benefits that Pocket has, but with a few extra downsides and a few extra upsides. Nabbit will generally want to focus on stealing projectiles, since items most likely won’t be around, but even that depends on the matchup. Nabbit is especially good at fighting players who rely on their projectile attacks too much.

Standards
Jab – Pickpocket Poke
Nabbit quickly jabs forward with his free hand, in one of the fastest jabs in the game. The jab takes barely any time to perform, meaning that Nabbit can throw it out several times per second if mashed well enough. In exchange for this speed, its also incredibly weak, only dealing 1.5% damage every strike, but it also has a pretty abysmal range to it thanks to Nabbit’s stubby arms.

What is definitely good about this is that Nabbit can easily jab-lock the opponent for a short time at low percents. From 0%, Nabbit can easily get in 5-6 hits, though this obviously becomes less and less feasible at far higher percentages. It’s overall not exactly a good move, but early in the match it can be used to rack up some decent damage and throwing it out will generally never hurt thanks to its speed. There is minor endlag to it, but not enough to get in the way of the rest of its speed.