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BEAT THE BLACK KNIGHT

http://www.ipdb.org/images/311/image-11.jpg

The Black Knight is the mascot for the 1989 Williams Electronics pinball games Black Knight and Black Knight 2000. He acts as an antagonist that looms over the player as they attempt to defeat him by getting the highest score possible. Not much is known about him, but at some point between the two games he somehow gained advanced technological resources, including a dual-sided lightning lance, a decade before that Maul guy showed up. This set uses his design from the art of Black Knight 2000, and is more specifically based around the mechanics from that game.

If you feel like you've heard about this before, then you might remember the game's incredible soundtrack, which has been referenced many places over the internet.

(HA HA HA HA)

Stats
Weight - 107
Walk Speed - 1.19
Run Speed - 1.5
Air Speed - 0.88
Fall Speed - 1.65

The Black Knight is similar to Ike and Link stat-wise, behaving as a mix of them with several aspects. He's a heavyweight with decent land speed and some pretty terrible aerial mobility. In essence, he's a standard armored character with slightly better ground speed than you would expect. The Black Knight is also very tall, around as tall as Ganondorf, if not a bit taller thanks to the feather in his helmet poking up slightly farther. This isn't a part of his hurtbox, so he's functionally slightly shorter than the lord of evil. He stands as wide as Ike does, a bit further if his flowing cape is counted, but this also isn't part of his hurtbox. His jumps are mediocre, befitting his stats. The Black Knight also has a shield, not shown in the image above. Its actually shaped like the above image, actually, though with the game's title, the Blacck Knight Himself, and those two bits on the left and right removed. This shield protects him from projectiles, much like Link's shield, but this actually plays into his playstyle fairly well. We'll be getting to that later.

Specials
Neutral Special - Electro-Ball Launch
The Black Knight juts its lightning lance forwards, firing out a ball of electricity out of it. This opening part acts as a hitbox that directly combos into the electro-ball projectile, which is actively something you'll not want to do, but we should cover it anyway. The thrust is fast, and reaches out decently far (The lance has a significant size increase from how its shown on the artwork, more resembling the size of an actual lance), but only deals 2% damage with almost no knockback, which is what lets it combo into the Electro-Ball. Without the Electro-Ball, the move would be unsafe on hit, and even then the hitbox ends slightly before the ball itself comes out. This is blatantly something you should never use unless you're incredibly desperate.

The Electro-Ball is the main star of this move. On launch, the ball will fly out at some pretty shockingly fast speeds. Its actually one of the fastest projectiles in the game, comparable to the speed of a fully charged Super Scope shot. It also has a pretty massive range of around a full Final Destination, and is fairly large by itself, around the size of a mid-charged Charge Shot. All these aspects make this an incredibly powerful projectile... except for its actual damage. It only deals 3%, with weak knockback that basically only JUST makes the opening hitbox safe. Obviously this kind of thing is insanely good to have on you... but the Black Knight is also hampered by only being able to have 3 of them out at once, limiting how spammable it is.

This is still the Black Knight's signature attack, which means its still very important to everything else in the set. See, the Electro-Ball has a property to it that acts as potentially both a help and a hindrance. This property is that it cannot deal shield damage, and will instead bounce off and continue on. This also applies to walls and the ground, but shields are the most important part right now. No shield damage on a projectile, or on most moves, may seem like an issue, but this is where the real might of the Black Knight comes in. With every bounce, whether it be against a shield, wall, or the ground, the Electro-Ball will gain 1% more damage to its total damage, capping out at 15 bounces with 18% damage. Knockback increases too, with the move at maximum being able to kill at 60%. This is shown by the electricity of the ball growing more and more intense, though its actual size does not change. Also, after each bounce, the Electro-Ball's range will reset.

The way the Electro-Ball will bounce is generally in a realistic way - radial on shields, angular on walls and the ground. However, there is one exception to this rule, that being the Black Knight himself. Or more specifically, his shield. And not his orb shield, his shield shield. If the Electro-Ball hits his shield in any way, it will instantly bounce off straight from the Black Knight, ignoring any angles it had come in on. This turns it into an incredibly controllable projectile, especially when it's fully charged. This only works on the Black Knight's shield, with Link's shield having more realistic bounce. Also, though this might be obvious, by the Electro-Ball cannot deal damage to the Knight. But all this raises another issue. How exactly is the Black Knight supposed to use this to his advantage?

Obviously the opponent won't just shield against the ball and give you free bounces (Though in some cases that is a good counter-play), and Black Knight is slow enough that there's zero chance he'll pass the ball after he fires it. Well, there is a lot more to it, but on a base level, there's enough for the Black Knight to take advantage of. This will generally pressure opponents, and in a lot of cases it turns into whether or not to shield the ball. Shielding it can lead to Black Knight doing more with it and protecting the opponent in the short term, but is the 3% really worth it in the long run? If the opponent is adamant on blocking, then this can lead to some funny tennis matches!


Down Special - Double Knights
Crackling with electricity, the Black Knight creates two energy clones from his body, both slowly phasing out of his body on both sides, roughly a half Battlefield Platform away from him. The clones are rendered in an eye-searingly 80's neon red, and resemble wireframes. The only exception to this is their shields, which are FULL neon yellow, contrastingly. This opening part is a hitbox, though it requires opponents to practically be touching the Black Knight to activate. On hit, it will deal 5% damage, which launches opponents back just enough to make this safe. This is a relatively slow attack, taking 3/4ths of a second to fully pull off, but has very little ending lag. Once pulled off, this proves to be one of Black Knight's most useful techniques.

The two clones are functionally identical to the Black Knight in every way - they even exactly mirror his movements as he walks around, and are even immune to gravity if the real Knight is standing next to an edge. They aren't solid, however, and opponents can jump through them to prevent very easy ledge hogging. They have shields as well, which act like normal, minus them bouncing the ball off in a straight line. The only thing these clones won't do is shield and attack.

And that's shielding as in the orb shield. They can definitely shield the Black Knight from hits, as they have a rather mediocre 30% HP. It isn't much, but its enough for what they have to do. So, if these clones don't attack, what exactly is their purpose? Well, Black Knight can give them purpose by inputting Down Special again. On input, the Black Knight will let out a laugh, and then shout out "HERE!" in his classic gravelly voice. This doesn't do anything at the moment, but it is an indicator of whats to come. That only happens when Black Knight doesn't input anything, you see.

By inputting left or right during the laughing animation, Black Knight can direct the clones into doing something. The animation depends on which way he is facing, but forward will have him point his lance forward, while backwards will have him point his shield out behind him as he turns around slightly. In both instances, he will shout "GO!". At this command, the clone knight chosen via the direction will dash forwards... and then duck down, shield pointing out. Hm. They will specifically run around a Battlefield Platform away from where they were, and if they were floating in midair, instantly be affected by gravity. They aren't a hitbox during this, so no easy off-stage screwing.

There are a few more extra controls to this. By inputting up, down, or the opposite direction that was originally inputted, they can perform a few things. First, holding the opposite direction will simply have the knight turn around once it reaches its destination. Up and down, however, will cause the knights to aim their shields diagonally up or down, the inputs for which one should be obvious. With one of the knights gone, the other will continue to follow the Black Knight until he is sent off. For more precise placement, this attack can be used in the air, causing the knight to instead drop down and duck rather than run forward. The running is still useful, as they can act as projectile walls. A basic input, with a knight away from Black Knight, will cause the clone to vanish and then appear in its original position, in case you need to fix any positioning errors. They will still retain any damage taken.

So what does this positioning even matter? It matters a whole lot, but only when there's an Electro-Ball in the field. If a ball hits one of the clone knights, it will be absorbed into them, and then shot out in the direction their shield is facing! This counts as an additional bounce as well, making it especially good for firing an Electro-Ball directly into! This allows for far more advanced uses of the Electro-Ball, especially combined with more aspects of the set that we'll get to eventually. As an example with what we have so far, and opponent could shield bounce a ball, launch it into one clone, who fires it out to the next clone, who fires it towards the real Black Knight, who uses his shield to fire it directly back at the opponent. Pretty impressive stuff, huh?

The main difficulty with the mechanic is the clone's low HP, and potential disruptions that the opponent could cause to carefully thought out setups. Though its very easy to improvise something in the case of those disruptions.


Up Special - Magna-Save
The Black Knight pulls his limbs inward, much like that one Ganondorf taunt, as red electricity starts to surround him. He then thrusts his limbs out, again, like that taunt, as he lets out a deep evil laugh. As he laughs, the Knight will start to float upwards. This is acts as a decent recovery, as it takes the Black Knight upwards about two Ganondorfs at a relatively decent speed. This is still slow compared to a lot of other recoveries, however. The Black Knight is also capable of moving to the left and right at his walk speed, allowing for more precise movements. Activating this in the air halts all of the Knight's momentum. The attack has some particularly bad end lag, where the Knight remains in his limbs out pose as electricity surrounds him for a few frames, which we'll get to in a moment.

The electricity surrounding the Black Knight acts as a small hitbox, being only slightly larger than the Down Special's, but it does have a weak suction effect on it. If an opponent is sucked in, they will be dealt 10% damage over the course of the move, until they're sent flying at the very end. This is decently strong knockback, but is unfortunately radial, meaning that when it ends the opponent will be flung in the direction they were sucked in. This is still strong, KOing at 110%, but this also makes it much harder to KO off the top blast zone, though it definitely is still possible to do. During the end lag, the hitbox is deactivated, and the Black Knight is fully capable of being hit.

Like the last two moves, this has a lot of interplay with the Electro-Balls. This bit of interaction specifically happens once the Knight enters his endlag. While the suction effect is weak on opponents, its far stronger on any Electro-Balls that might happen to be on stage when used. No matter where they are, the projectiles will be sucked towards the Black Knight, ignoring their range limit while still acting as hitboxes. The balls will head directly for the Black Knight, no matter where he is on the stage, and even go through solid platforms in order to reach him. This gives it a shockingly large range, and the damage that's accumulated on the Electro-Balls will remain. The balls will always make it to the Black Knight before the endlag is over, increasing in speed if they have to. This, however, leads to a bit more that the move can do.

When the Electro-Balls reach the Knight, he will absorb them into his body, which gives the attack even more endlag, unfortunately. However, once the lag has ended, the Black Knight will enter his freefall, now visibly glowing with red energy. Once he lands, not much will change, only his Neutral Special. Depending on how many Electro-Balls the Black Knight absorbed, three at max, obviously, his NSpec will now shoot out that many at once in a fan-shaped pattern (Or straight like normal if he only had one). This resets their travel distance, but NOT their damage. This allows the Knight to save his Electro-Balls whenever he wants, and then prepare for a new strategy. This is incredibly useful for getting things back in order after a play goes wrong, without wasting too much time.

Of course, the Black Knight will still lose the balls if he gets KOed after a Magna-Save, meaning that he needs to learn how to take his losses for maximum gain. Finally, there's what happens when the Knight uses his Up Special while having the balls. It will behave mostly like normal, except for the last part of the hitbox. Depending on the direction that is held before this, which is 12 different directions, the Black Knight will fire the balls out in that direction. They will still be in a fan-shaped pattern, spreading out as they travel, but this can be an incredibly powerful maneuver - albeit a highly telegraphed one. The endlag when using this will, unfortunately, be slightly worse than normal.

Down Special - Drawbridge
The Black Knight stomps his foot on the ground, either grunting menacingly or shouting "BEGONE!" as he does so. As he stomps his foot, a neon purple slab of energy spring up from the ground in front of him. Ir is shaped like a drawbridge, so that's what we'll be calling it from now on. The drawbridge will start off horizontally aligned, before springing up. The drawbridge stands slightly less tall than the Knight himself once it has been sprung, is nearly as thin as a board, and acts as a solid wall. It also acts as a hitbox as it springs up, dealing 5% damage and weak knockback to whoever stands on it. Its a relatively fast hitbox, meaning that it can be used as an effective "get away" move. As a final note on its summoning, the space between where the Black Knight is and the drawbridge is is equal to how tall it is vertically.

Once summoned, the drawbridge will remain on the stage for an indefinite period. It has a stamina of 20%, but also has the unique property of only being able to be damaged by physical attacks. Why is this, you might ask? Well, if a projectile hits the drawbridge, it will instead bounce off, while also knocking the drawbridge down flat again. This can affect any projectile, and makes it so that the projectile can hurt anybody. This also applies to the Knight's own Electro-Balls, but with the bonus of him not being hurt by them after they bounce off. There's some physics built into it as well, as the reflective properties exist while the drawbridge is springing up as well. Proper timing can help knock the projectiles up at different angles.

That isn't all there is to the drawbridge and the Electro-Balls, however. See, this behaves differently compared to other things that the projectiles can bounce off of. If a drawbridge hits an Electro-Ball while its springing up, it will turn the ball purple, and cause it to fly forward faster than before around twice as fast. In addition to this, this gives the ball an extra 5% damage on top of whatever its stacked already, and now letting it KO at 50% if it reaches max damage. The unfortunate side effect of this is that the ball can no longer bounce, and will vanish once it hits anything else. On the plus side, it can deal shield damage now! This is part of the Knight's endgame, as its highly risky and highly rewarding if enough damage has been gathered.

When a drawbridge is down, it will remain that way until the move is used again. This will cause it to spring up, and reactivate the original hitbox. If the drawbridge is already up, the Knight can use it again to summon a second one on the stage. He can also summon another one while the first drawbridge is down by holding the button down. Black Knight can only have two on stage at a time, and attempting to create any more will erase the earliest one created. The move can technically be inputted in the air, but it will not do anything besides create a small, weak hitbox as the Knight kicks downwards. This only deals 2% and doesn't have any noticeable properties. However, its fast enough to be used out of shorthop, and if used right before the Black Knight hits the ground, he will create a drawbridge (Or not if one is already out).

This is very obviously a great tool for the Black Knight, as it allows him to both protect himself, and bounce his Electro-Balls around, and gives him a finish line for his matches. Its best to use drawbridges wisely, as a wrong move can severely hinder the Black Knight.

Standards
Jab - Lightning Combo
As one might expect, the Black Knight's jab has him using his lightning lance for a fairly basic combo attack. For the animation, he'll start by slicing with the forward most edge of the blade, followed by a sweep with the other end, and then ends it by quickly slamming it down to the ground. This is a rather standard three-hit combo, with the first two hits having the range of average sword attacks. The final hit has a bit more coverage to it, as it covers above the Black Knight slightly, as well as having a bit more range than the previous two hits. The attack is rather fast, slightly faster than most swordsman characters, though there is a noticeable amount of lag between the second and third hits. It also has mediocre endlag, mostly bad for a jab, however.

Hitbox wise,these three attacks are decent. As mentioned, they have the reach of an average sword-based attack, making them decent at actually hitting things. The first hit deals 2% damage, the second hit deals another 2%, and the final deals 4%. The last hit is fairly strong for a Jab, KOing at 140%. There is an extra property, something shared by a lot of the Knight's moves, where the last hit is capable of bouncing the Electro-Ball. In most cases this just acts as a redirection tool, and does not increase the ball's damage. If the Black Knight hits with it, then the ball will be shot forward.

Forward Tilt - Neon Spinner
The Black Knight thrusts his lance out and spins it around quickly. This move, while having a quick start-up, lasts a while. The lance will spin around for a good few frames, and while this doesn't technically act as endlag due to the hitbox being active during most of it, the delay can be troublesome to deal with. In fact, the actual endlag isn't even that bad. The attack has great range to it, essentially a basic sword hitbox but extended to a full circular hitbox. Despite the move being a bit sluggish, its still very easy to hit with.

On hit, the lance will deal 8% damage and radial knockback that tends to KO from 120-135% depending on the area that was hit. Its quick start-up makes it a good "get away" move in places, but obviously has the downside of leaving the Knight open from his back for a while. The attack can be dash cancelled, meaning that this isn't that bad, but it requires some precise timing to fully pull off. Finally, this also acts as a hitbox that can interact with an Electro-Ball. On hit, it will act like it does with a normal opponent, knocking the ball back whichever way it came flying in. This can lead to some fun self-tennis matches at odd angles, but the Knight will obviously still have problems relating to the attack's speed.

Up Tilt - Electro-Popper
At the start of the animation, the Black Knight points his lightning lance down at the ground, and then follows up with a quick lash upwards. There is a bit of lag at the start, delaying the actual hitbox for a few frames. The actual hitbox moves quickly, but the delay can make it harder to hit with. This acts as a pop, knocking the opponent upwards and into the air. It deals a respectable 9% damage, with knockback that can KO at 180%. Its one of the Knight's best ways of getting opponents into the air, which is something he'll want to do considering his main gameplan with the Electro-Ball.

This attack only hits in front of the Black Knight, however, not covering his vulnerable side. The delay at the start can be easily punishable, meaning that the Knight will need to find good times to use it, rather than just spamming it and trying to get opponents in the air. It also has a fairly obvious interaction with the Electro-Ball itself. Much like with the opponent, hitting the ball with the attack will send it straight up into the air, for easy re-directional purposes.

Down Tilt - Lightning Stopper
From his crouching animation, the Black Knight thrusts his lightning lance forwards, and then quickly follows up by thrusting it backwards. Because of this, the attack covers both sides of the Knight when used, though it will always go forward first. The thrust is a rather fast hitbox, but has less range than any of the Knight's other Standards because of it. It will only reach about 2/3rds of the way of his lance's normal reach before he decides to thrust it backwards, where the same thing happens. This is an effective attack thanks to its speed, however.

The lance is also a weak attack, however, dealing 6% damage and very light knockback. Its an incredibly small amount, but its still safe on hit. It effectively acts as a "stopper" for the Knight. This follows with its interaction with the Electro-Ball. If he hits it with the attack, then the ball will stop in mid-air (Or rather, it will bounce slightly upwards due to it needing to be close to the ground in order to hit). The ball will remained stopped for a second and a half, during which the Black Knight has a chance to use another attack to knock it in a more desired location. The ball retains its hitbox during this, however, meaning that opponents are very likely to take the hit if the ball doesn't have a lot of damage stacked.

Dash Attack - Lane Strike
From his dashing animation, the Black Knight leaps into the air and thrusts his lance forward. This actually slower than it sounds, and halts all of the Knight's momentum once he leaps up. He puts all that force into the strike, causing a burst of lightning to shoot out from the lance as he thrusts. The attack has the same general reach as previously mentioned, roughly the same length as a usual sword attack. However, this is slightly boosted by the burst of energy at the end, increasing it by a slight distance. It doesn't last for the whole of the attack, only coming out at the very end for a few frames.

The leap at the start of the move doesn't carry the Black Knight forward as much as you would expect, only by a slight amount. The hitbox becomes active at the very end of this however, meaning that the jump isn't useless. On contact, the lance will deal 8-11% damage depending on if it hits with the lance itself or the electric boost, respectively. The knockback changes as well, with the lance only KOing at 160%, while the boost can KO at 145%. The boost functionally acts as a sweetspot, but there's a bit more to it. Like other moves, this can interact with the Electro-Ball. Hitting the ball with the boost specifically will cause it to boost forward at 1.5x its normal speed until it hits something else. Upon hitting another object, the ball will return to its base speed. Hitting the ball with the lance will simply cause it to fly forward if it was hit while at another angle.

Smashes
Forward Smash - Thunder Flipper
The Black Knight jabs his lightning lance into the ground slightly in front of him at the start of the animation, and then starts to charge the move as he prepares to pull it out. On the move's actual release, the Knight will swing the lance upwards until its directly above his head. This is an incredibly fast motion, and is one of the Knight's fastest attacks, let alone the fastest of his Smashes. It has the reach noted on most other attacks, which when combined with the speed can make it a very powerful attack. The attack's hitbox consists of a near half-circle directly in front of the Black Knight, giving it good coverage as well.

The attack is more powerful than you would expect, dealing out 13-19% damage depending on the charge, and knockback that can KO at 130%. Depending on where the attack hits the opponent, it will either knock them backwards, or upwards. The main downside of the attack actually comes from the starting animation, where the Knight jabs his lance into the ground. This is a very laggy part of the animation, and in turn makes the move a bit more telegraphed before its use. Despite the Knight forcefully jabbing it, there is no hitbox either. The endlag is fairly bad as well, but not enough to be terribly punishable.

Like with the other attacks mentioned so far, this can interact with the Electro-Ball. Specifically, it acts like you would expect from its name, behaving a bit like a flipper and bouncing/increasing the ball's speed whenever it hits. This is done with physics almost exactly like with an actual pinball flipper, but has the caveat of only being able to knock Electro-Balls in upwards-diagonal directions. The speed the ball is launched at depends on where it hits on the lance's hitbox as well, bouncing it at normal speeds if it hits near the center, and 1.5x speed if it hits the lance's tip.

Up Smash


Down Smash - Translight Blast
The Black Knight turns to face the screen and raises his lance up, one end pointing up above him and the other pointing to the ground. Energy starts to build up in his lance as he charges it. Finally, he stabs his lance into the ground, releasing the energy that was built up as a large electrical burst around him. This is a rather slow attack, mainly during the actual hitbox portion, which lingers for a good while and keeps the Knight from moving for that time. The hitbox itself covers entirely around the Black Knight in a circle, giving it good close range coverage.

This is a powerful move, dealing 17-24% damage depending on the charge, and can KO at 140-110%. The attack unfortunately has a lot of endlag to it, as the Knight will have to pull his lance up from the ground, and then swishes his cape, sometimes letting out a laugh. This ending lag, combined with the attack's already long length, can make this painful to whiff, and incredibly easy to punish. If an Electro-Ball comes in contact with the blast while its active, then it will simply fly back in the exact same direction it was originally coming from, acting as a pure reflector.