Everyone ******* about how ridiculous it was that Charizard had 3 jumps, but apparently it's not a big deal anymore. Ridley is a massive space dragon who seamlessly flies everywhere, his air speed should be higher, he should be floatier, and he should have more jumps ESPECIALLY if you're gonna make his up b so limited. I know Smash isn't canon, but like for real Ridley has no business having a bad to mediocre recovery.
Ridley has 3 jumps a Side-B and an Up-B and all of it allows him to get back on stage easily. Distance has never been a problem for Ridley's recovery but if you don't use all the tools at his disposal you're only limiting yourself. Up-B alone has a surprising amount of distance to it. It's vertical motion can already reach Final Destination from the very bottom of the blast zone. When it comes to recovery, Ridley has never had a problem with distance and can just as easily survive in the 150% to even 200% on a particularly good day.
His weakness in Up-B, besides just being relatively weird in code is the fact that it's heavily telegraph. At the same time though the actual attack contains super armor and is nearly impossible to contest once the attack comes.
As a large character, he is combo food, he needs options to take away space or else the character's design is going to be build on spamming attacks that cover all sides of him which is boring and still too risky. Seeing his projectile is useless in neutral, and his tail is so small, Ridley, one of the biggest characters in the game, is forced to work in tight spaces, and if it wasn't for his nair he'd be completely ****ed. This playstyle is boring imo.
And that there is the problem. Not only are you and so many people underestimating Ridley's moves or not using all the tools to your benefit, but you're simply not using Ridley in the way he was designed.
Jab, F-Tilt and D-Tilt already prove a decent amount of spacing for Ridley, are distinctively fast and have high priority.
F-air and N-air are both quick, also have high priority and have combo setups.
Plasma Breath has excellent use in edge guarding and regardless, a projectile is still a projectile.
Down-B is situational but has a good usage in the use of baiting and is surprisingly fast.
Side-B is one of the best grabs in the game, giving Ridley completely control of the stage and getting opponents off.
Ridley should not be treated as a heavy but instead closer to the likes of a swordsman with decent range and high priority. His great mobility, fast/high priority attacks, decent combos and overall powerful moves damage wise means that even though Ridley's kill options on stage are limited, he has a surprising number of ways to rack up damage.
But Ridley doesn't shine from having on-stage kill moves. He shines in his edgeguarding and offstage gameplay. His tools were designed to get people off the stage and to keep them off. Any character who doesn't have at least an average recovery and/or decent priority are going to have a very hard time if Ridley gets them off. They're now in his zone and with extremely fast, powerful and high priority moves like F-air and N-air at his disposal, that's going to mean some pretty mean things to some people.
Ridley can practically kill Marth/Lucina at just 80% with a good double short-hop F-air combo off the edge of final destination.
That same combo+percentage can take out Dr. Mario because of his poor recovery options.
Ganondorf can potentially be taken out off stage as low as 50%
Because Little Mac's recovery is so poor, Ridley can take him out as low as 40% and even 30% at times with a good offstage combo.
In the end Ridley is someone whose excels at edgeguarding and offstage gameplay. Anyone who doesn't have have a decent recovery, something to deal with Ridley's high priorities or a decent air game of their own are doomed. Meanwhile those who do have good recoveries, priority, decent air game and combo potential will prove much more nefarious for the Space Pirate.
People like Ganondorf, Doctor Mario, Little Mac, Ike, Chrom and Incineroar are going to have a more difficult time with Ridley's style as they lack the recovery and/or offstage air game to deal with his skills.
People like Bayonetta, Mewtwo, Diddy, Rosalina and Sheik meanwhile will prove much harder for Ridley. They've got enough decent recovery, air game, offstage game and combo potential to give the dragon a hell of a fight.
All said and done, unless something with patches occurs, Ridley's probably going to end up around Mid Tier. He's got enough skills that he can easily deal with a lot of character who would be considered low or bottom tier but his lack of being able to deal with effective combos and relatively gimpable recovery means he probably won't be able to see much of the high or top tier levels.
But you got to know what makes him work first and when I see people saying "N-air" is his only good move or people complain that his extremely situational Skewer doesn't hit often, it's clear that some people have no idea what actually makes Ridley work and not work.
