Lab 5

This stage is home to Barry the Chopper, guardian of the lab. This stage is a scroller, which doesn’t exactly mean all that much in this game system seeing there’s no blast zones. If you get “left behind”, you’ll drop off one end and appear on the other. The stage moves at a snail’s pace and double Final Destination’s length is always on camera when the stage is actually scrolling, allowing traps and stage alterations to still have plenty of time for use. In addition, traps stay where they were when the stage comes around again and any arbitrary limits on how many of something you can make are removed, meaning the second trip around is biased in favor of these characters if anything. The depth of the stage is 2.5X Kimblee’s height. The ceiling is rather awkwardly low, only 5X Kimblee’s height, making it very awkward to fight aerially in this stage.

The first phase of the stage has various chimeras coming out to attack you from behind their prison bars in many varieties, though all are rather generic. Two of them come out every 12 seconds and the fast ones have little stamina and the ones that are annoyingly to kill are easy to dodge, meaning they’re pretty easily dismissed if you don’t want to make use of them. They’re perfectly capable of being turned into zombies, blown up, or knocked forwards as a projectile to use on foes. . .

After 30 seconds of scrolling, a trap springs anybody who insists on staying behind forwards with large knockback, though no damage. Once inside this Final-Destination sized room the door closes and locks, turning the stage into a standard closed in arena. Slicer comes from the background and attacks. He has a more varied moveset then the generic enemies, though all the moves are stolen from Barry and Alphonse so it’s not much to get excited about. In any case, the stage stays here forever until you manage. Slicer has infinite stamina, though after dealing 50 damage his helmet falls off and his body runs off to get it. If you hit his helmet with any attack, the body commits suicide and the stage moves on.  Characters who rely heavily on stage alterations will want to try to keep Slicer alive so they can stay here and abuse their tricks while their opponents will try to kill him off. Of particular note is that Slicer has no form of recovery whatsoever, meaning that it’s easy for Sloth Alpha and Kimblee to just casually toss him in a pit and not worry about him.

After killing Slicer, the door at the opposite side of the arena opens and the stage resumes scrolling for the first phase of the stage to repeat. After 30 more seconds, you’ll be forced and trapped into another room, though this one is double Final Destination’s size and has a bunch of prisoners running about like chickens with their heads cut off, 10 in all, easy fodder for everybody to use for whatever. Seems there’s a jail break going on. . .In the middle of the stage there’s a gigantic transmutation circle quadruple Sloth Alpha’s width.

Tucker in his mutated form from the anime is in the background here, grabbing anybody he overlaps with (Including the tons of prisoners) and then proceeds to drag them to the transmutation circle, where he quickly transmutes anybody on the circle into philosopher’s stones. This is an instant kill, yes, but the only scenario where he’ll actually get you is if you’re at a high percentage and close to the circle already, as otherwise it’s all too easy to escape. Even in that scenario, a simple spot dodge is all it takes to avoid the transmutation. Anyway, philosopher’s stones function like consumable items in brawl, except you can chow down on the same piece a good 10 times or so. This heals homunculi for 5 stamina a pop and buffs the moves of other characters by 7 damage for 5 seconds, extra chowing down increasing the duration. Again, Kimblee and Sloth Alpha can trap the prisoners in holes so Tucker can’t transmute them to make this phase last forever, but foes can just kill the prisoners to make it move on too.

The next and final phase of the stage is another actual scrolling part. Gone are the chimeras, and instead are several (Indestructible) traps that push/knock you towards the right. What are they pushing you into? A giant rotating spiked roller of doom, of course. Contact with it does 50% and knocks you forward with ridiculously large knockback, killing people who have 100 stamina left. The scrolling speed of the stage dramatically increases during this phase as the roller chases you, though this only lasts 15 seconds. This is the one time where stage alterations are entirely out of the question making this a very difficult time for Sloth with his slow movement. With Kimblee’s dashing attacks, though, he really couldn’t care less.

After this phase, you’re back with Slicer again and the stage recycles. The very first scrolling part with the chimeras doesn’t show up again, seeing it still appears after Slicer anyway. Overall, the stage’s balance shifts dramatically in which characters it favors as it goes, though it is rather biased for Kimblee. . .

Youswell Coal Mine

This is the closest thing Sloth Alpha gets to a home stage what with the large theme of digging going on. This stage is fairly thin, only the width of Final Destination, but it’s huge in vertical size, being as tall as the Bridge of Eldin is wide. In addition, the vertical size of the stage can be further increased by the insanely large depth of the stage, 10X Kimblee’s height. All the room to dig you could ever want. The stage is entirely boxed in with walls on the sides and a ceiling. There’s several rocky drop-through platforms sticking out from the wall in the background to use so that you can actually climb up the stage’s massive height, all roughly the size of Battlefield Platforms. The platforms have a rather awkward layout, all being titled at various angles. . .

The destructible objects of the stage are boulders. They function identically to Sloth Alpha’s boulders in that they’re invulnerable and can be pushed around, though the thing is the platforms are set-up so that it’s like a pinball machine of sorts. Once you kick a boulder off the platform, it’ll roll all the way down to the bottom, becoming more and more powerful as it goes. Some of these boulders are sturdy and indestructible like Sloth’s while others have 40 stamina.

Definitely a fitting stage for Sloth Alpha gameplay wise. There’s no shortage of indestructible boulders for Sloth to bind himself to, he has no need to create any of his own. While this might sound incredibly broken, pushing Sloth’s boulder off the edge of a platform will cause him to get dragged along with it to the bottom, being dragged along with it like a hulking rag-doll, taking damage as he bumps into stuff. If you kick a boulder he’s bound to off a platform on the top of the stage, he’ll take a good 25%. . .But what’s keeping Sloth from just hiding out in the bottom where he has nowhere to fall? Well, whenever he binds himself to a boulder it gets a 15 second timer, just like ones he created, and there aren’t any boulders down there to start, so he’ll have to send one down. Any indestructible boulders destroyed in this manner respawn 45 seconds later in their default position.

Kimblee hates the ridiculously large amount of ground, as it takes him forever to make a hole go down far enough to open up a bottom blast zone. The indestructible boulders also prove to be annoying to him. . .The one saving grace is the regular boulders, as he can turn them into time bombs and send them down. If anybody can abuse the pinball set-up of the stage, it’s him, and he can abuse the superarmor on his Up B to blast up through any boulder foes try to drop on him.

Risembool Graveyard

While not directly shown, this stage is meant to represent the periods where the Elrics constantly went back to the grave of their mother. . .Hence this is Sloth Beta’s home stage. It’s set at night to be a rather stereotypical spooky atmosphere.

The stage is 1.5X Final Destination’s length and has a depth (Room to dig) of 4X Kimblee’s height. The stage has lots of various scattered tombstones as the main destructible objects. They’re rather small and as such you won’t get damaged for being sent flying through them. They only have a measly 10 stamina anyway. . .Destroying the tombstones, however, opens up a Sloth alpha sized chunk of ground under them to play around in. However; before said character can go take a nap in one he’ll have to get rid of the corpse in the grave, as they take up an annoying amount of space. Any attack will dispose of them. More notably, though, is that if Envy tries to create a zombie next to one of these corpses, the corpse will turn into one instead of Envy having to create one, meaning Envy takes no damage from creating it.

The stage has a single giant dead tree on the left side of the arena with a massive 150 stamina which is solid. While there’s no tree on the right side, the tree on the left prevents you from walking off the right and appearing on the left until it’s destroyed. This tree is an excellent spot for Sloth Alpha to slumber in due to how bulky it is as well as a great object to bind himself to. Once it’s destroyed, though, he’ll find the pathetically weak tombstones to be terrible anchors for his chains.

Kimblee has somewhat of a mixed bag with this stage. While he has a lot of holes to open up and abuse, the fact that the holes are so small prevents them from being that useful. Still, they give him a nice head-start on making his holes. On the other hand, the only object Kimblee can blow up here is the giant tree on the left, the tombstones being too small to grab. The fact Kimblee can destroy the 150 stamina tree in one hit with fthrow is definitely a plus, though. . .The main thing Kimblee dislikes about the stage is that foes can open up their own holes, though and easily hide from his radiation, taking away one of his best methods of forcing approach.

KIMBLEE

Zolf J. Kimblee, the Crimson Alchemist, was the main one who responsible for destroying the Ishballans in the Civil War long ago. While others were horrified of all the slaughter of the innocent people, Kimblee couldn’t get enough of it. He enjoyed it so much it was unhealthy, much less considering what he was doing. . .He was given a Philosopher’s Stone to carry out the task, but after he wiped out the Ishballan race the army demanded it back. Rather then complying, Kimblee simply blew them all up, being the sadistic psychopath he is. He was seized and imprisoned by the military for his crimes, though Envy witnessed the whole thing. Considering Envy was the one who’d started the whole war in the first place by posing as a military officer and shooting an Ishballan child, he made a good note of Kimblee. . .The time would come when he’d need to unleash a mad dog like him.

In SoA, Kimblee’s the definition of glass cannon. He’s both fast and powerful, capable of even killing foes with full stamina! However; many of Kimblee’s moves do damage to himself, and 170 stamina isn’t a lot to gamble with. . .

B MOVES

Neutral B: Suicide Bombing

Kimblee performs some alchemy on himself for nothing to seemingly happen. . .But then 10 seconds later. . .He explodes. He himself. An explosion doesn’t appear over him, -he- explodes. Fun for the whole family! Needless to say this instantly kills Kimblee. . .The explosion is triple Sloth alpha’s size, deals 35%, ridiculously large knockback, and KOs foes with 100 stamina left. While that might sound scarily powerful, you die no matter what, so it’s far from ideal. Very little lag. Keep in mind that you win if you kill a foe via suicide when you both only have one stock. . .

Side B: Particle Blast

Kimblee creates a single blast a bit bigger then Kirby in front of himself with little lag, dealing 7%, below average knockback, and killing foes at 10% stamina. The explosion causes some particles of the ground to be blown into the air. These do nothing, but if you use this attack a second time before the particles fall back down to the ground, they’ll be blasted forwards a Battlefield platform. These don’t have hitboxes, but they’re solid walls and push foes forwards along with them, making them good for spacing. If used in the air, no particles are created.

Up B: Blast Off

Kimblee brings his hands underneath himself, then creates an explosion underneath himself that blasts himself upwards triple his own height. The disjointed blast is roughly the size of Sloth Alpha and does 15%, good sideways (unfortunately not downwards) knockback, and kills foes with 35 stamina left. While this has surprisingly very little lag for it’s power, the attack deals 7% to Kimblee due to him being so close to the blast, and if he’s at 0 stamina he’ll die from using it. This can be used for limited stalling, but Kimblee doesn’t have much stamina to waste. Just be glad the attack has superarmor on it for the whole duration.

Down B: Delayed Blast

Kimblee laglessly claps his hands. After 2 seconds,  a blast Wario’s size appears triple Kimblee’s height below where he activated the move. This won’t appear underground (Outside pits created by Kimblee and other characters), obviously, the minimum height being the ground floor. The blast does 10% and kills people with 20 stamina, and is perfectly capable of hurting Kimblee. The more important thing, though, is the knockback. If you get caught in the upper half of the explosion, the knockback’s upward, and visa versa. If someone wants to take the upward knockback from the attack, they’ll be at a large gamble seeing both forms of knockback are so severe.

Dashing B: Boosting Through

Kimblee claps as he continues to run forwards, not interrupting his dash. A small Kirby-sized explosion appears a decent bit in front of him a bit after he uses the attack, dealing only 5% but awkwardly high forward knockback. If Kimblee continues to run after he uses the attack, he’ll be in the exact positioning of where the blast is when it appears, causing him to skyrocket forward at Sonic’s dashing speed for the next couple seconds. His body’s a high (But jointed, and jointed priority sucks) priority hitbox that deals 12%, decent knockback, and kills foes with 17 stamina left. Nice approach. Just beware you don’t splat yourself into a wall/destructible object or else you’ll take a good bit of damage. If you somehow manage to hit a foe with the cute little blast rather then your body, they won’t fly forwards like you do when you get hit by the blast unless they were dashing.

A MOVES

Neutral A: Bomb Propeller

Kimblee brings his hands forward and unleashes a single cute little blast Kirby’s size that deals 3% and flinching. As you can well guess, Kimblee is more then capable of spamming this. Well, that’s an understatement. He can use it 5 times in a single second if he spams it enough, and this is incredibly difficult to DI out of. Unfortunately, with the fifth blast and beyond Kimblee starts propelling himself backwards from the force of the blast, meaning your chain will get cut off short. This can be prevented by using this with your back to a wall. . .

If you keep on spamming away, Kimblee will go faster and faster. By the 12^th use he’s going as fast as Sonic, though with the 15^th and beyond Kimblee will start taking 1% every time he uses the move, killing himself if he has no stamina.

Side A: Roundhouse Kick

Kimblee extends out his legs forward, then does a backflip. His legs are a average priority hitbox all the while that deal 8% and average knockback away from the legs. Very fast move. This can be spammed well in the air and the start lag of the move is cut-off if you chain this into itself. You can also determine which way Kimblee first swings his legs by inputting the move as a fair or bair.

Of course, this only works all that well in the air. . .If used on the ground, Kimblee has awkward landing lag as the move gets cut short. If used so that Kimblee’s legs go off a ledge (Or more importantly one of his pits), though, the landing lag is cut and the hitbox is extended a few frames as his legs clash against the ledge, still doing their downward knockback.

Up A: Bomb Dropping

Kimblee snaps his fingers with below average lag, causing a Kirby-sized blast to appear above where the foe was when he used the move. This small blast does a surprisingly meaty 12% and spikes foes downwards, killing foes with 22 stamina left. Unfortunately will never hit foes most of the time, seeing it harmlessly goes over their head if they don’t jump. You have to do something to make them go upwards so that they fall prey to this move. . .

Down A: Stomp

Oh god. A dtilt by Warlord labeled Stomp?!? Thankfully, this isn’t an alternate grab, just being a generic fast attack that does 6%, low set knockback, and never kills. One of Kimblee’s very few jointed attacks, terrible priority.

In the air, this move resembles a much more infamous move that’s also a stomp – Ganon’s dair. It’s just as fast and powerful as said move, and kills foes with 25% stamina left. While this might sound like a bad move for a game without gimping, Kimblee’s the exception. . .

Dashing A: Bomb Sprint

From his dashing with both his arms flailing behind him, Kimblee immediately lets out a small disjointed explosion behind himself half his size that does 9%, below average knockback, and can kill foes with 5 stamina left. More importantly, this propels Kimblee forward half of Battlefield immediately and doubles his dashing speed. His dashing speed quickly goes back to normal if he continues to dash, taking 2 seconds to complete. Kimblee has superarmor as he firsts get propelled forward, making this both a great approach and retreat. Unfortunately it deals 5% to him and will kill him if used at 0 stamina. . .

A SMASHES

A Forward Smash: Rapid Fire

Kimblee brings out his arms behind himself as he charges, then does a sweeping motion with them, creating a tiny explosion in front of himself half Kirby’s size that does 1% and tiny set backwards knockback. However; another explosion appears behind that one instantly, and another behind that, and so on. 15 blasts are created by default, and you can increase it to 23 via charging. If you get hit by one, you’re guaranteed to get hit by all of the ones after it. This lasts a good .60 seconds to a full second based off how many blasts they’re caught in and spaces the foe away a good 1-1.75 Battlefield platforms away. Below average start-up lag. It’s difficult to follow this up, as the mass tiny explosions will also hurt Kimblee.

A Up Smash: Homing Blast

Kimblee claps with average lag, creating a square shaped blast double the size of a max stage builder block over where the foe is. This deals a nice 16-26%, good-great knockback, and kills foes with 45-65 stamina left. Unfortunately, the blast is capable of damaging Kimblee and the move has bad ending lag, meaning that the foe can just run up to Kimblee to make him get caught in the blast. The foe can casually shield or dodge the blast while Kimblee’s helpless to avoid it due to the end lag. Due to potential backfiring, this makes the move horrible at close range, though it’s a decent option at long range as an anti-defensive move.

A Down Smash: Hell Raiser

Kimblee braces himself as he charges, then surges alchemical power to blow up the ground underneath him in an area as wide as Sloth Alpha and as deep as he is tall to double his height based on charge. There’s no hitbox unless somebody’s underground (Such as a slumbering Sloth Alpha), in which case they get spiked to the bottom of the hole Kimblee’s created and take 17%, getting killed with as much as 40 stamina left. He can also choose to use an opened up area made by another character, such as Sloth Alpha’s holes, though once he has his two spots picked he can’t make more unless the holes somehow get filled up, so choose wisely.

While Kimblee can only have two specific holes he’s opened up, he can keep making these two holes as deep as he wants. What’s the point? If you dig deep enough, you can open up a blast zone off the bottom of the screen. Considering Kimblee’s Up B is essentially an infinite recovery and is impossible to gimp, the foe will find it difficult to use this against you. You, on the other hand, are an exceptional gimper. . .

B SMASHES

B Side Smash: Rock Blast

Kimblee brings up a rock from the ground, blasting up his height from the ground. It can be anywhere from half Kirby’s size to slightly bigger then Sloth alpha. Anyway, once you bring the rock up, it’s a hitbox as it blasts up and as it goes down, and Kimblee can’t move until it hits the ground. At max charge, the boulder does 14%, good knockback, and kills foes with 35 stamina left. However; Kimblee isn’t idly standing by doing nothing. . .If you press B again, a small explosion will occur underneath the rock to blast it up Kimblee’s height again, albeit decreasing the size of the boulder. You can tilt the control stick when you perform the blast for slight horizontal control over it. You can keep blasting away at the boulder as much as you like with no lag to move it around very quickly, but the smaller it gets the weaker it gets, and you’ll eventually blow it up entirely. Kimblee can come out of this stance early by pressing any button other then B, letting the rock drop. This move has no start lag at all, but requires a good bit of charging to be useful.

The rock will stay put as an obstacle once you’re done blasting it around, though only for 5 seconds. It can be pushed around like one of Sloth Alpha’s boulders, though it’s not a hitbox as it moves or anything so there’s little point. The one part of this that’s notable, though, is that if you fully charge the move the boulder will be big enough to block one of you’re a Down Smash holes, not fall down it. This can trap a foe as they fall to their doom, though the massive charging makes it difficult to pull off. Even then, the foe can just hit it from below to try to knock it away and get out. Still, standing on top of a giant rock trapping a foe in a pit and spamming Down B and Up A is very tempting. . .

B Up Smash: Homing Blasts

Kimblee claps in an identical fashion to his A Up Smash. This creates two blasts identical to the one created in said move, but rather appearing over the foe they appear on either side of them. If they just continue running forward thinking it’s the other move, they’ll get caught in it. Both this and the other usmash are rather mediocre on their own, but in combination they can make the foe rather clueless as to what to do when you perform the animation.

B Down Smash: Radiation

Kimblee starts charging up a blast over his head, then unleashes it onto the ground. This has no hitbox. . .At all. But the blast creates radiation that slowly spreads out from where you used the move, faster based off how long you charge. If you fully charge it, the entire stage’ll be covered in 20 seconds. If not at all, 40.

Now then, radiation does a constant damage of 1% per second to everyone, including Kimblee. You could always just get ahead and make some radiation then run, but Kimblee’s main methods of moving quickly, his A dashing attack and up B, require him to damage himself. The way you can tactically use this, though, is underground. Radiation won’t spread to the pits you make, thus you can hide in them. This forces the foe to approach into them, which is exactly what you want. . .

GRABS AND THROWS

Neutral Grab – Suicide Landing:

Nothing particularly notable about the grab outside the zair. . .Which still functions the same. What’s the point then? The fact that you can grab in the air. You still have to wait to get to the ground before you can pummel/throw them, but they can’t button mash out until then either, and Kimblee controls all of the aerial DI. This gives you an easy way for suicide KOs in the traditional Brawl sense as you take the foe down with you to your doom from a deep pit from A Dsmash. . .

Forward Grab – Bomber Grasp:

Kimblee extends out his arms a pitiful distance (Ganondorf’s grab) and claps. This creates an explosion the size of Gluttony half a Battlefield platform in front of him. The blast does 5% and causes weak set knockback forward towards Kimblee, tripping foes. Kimblee keeps his hands held out after clapping them, and during this time they’re a grab hitbox. This is a great grab at a range and gets a free bit of bonus damage, but is highly punishable due to the duration and is near useless at close range. This is pretty much the only thing you can follow up A Fsmash with, though you’ll only get in 7-9 hits due to interrupting it.

Up Grab – Explosive Geyser:

Kimblee puts his hands to the ground and transmutes the ground with little lag. This causes the piece of ground Kimblee’s standing on to skyrocket up as tall as he is quickly, Kimblee raising his hands upwards as them briefly becoming a grab hitbox. After the slab of terrain reaches it’s peak, it plops back down. Aside from giving Kimblee extra reach for his anti-air grab, this has a second grab hitbox as the ground falls back down into place. If anyone’s standing under it, they’ll be squashed under it and take 5% instantly. Kimblee can’t perform any throws from here, but he’s free to do other things while the foe’s trapped, forced to button mash out. He can go work on a pit or set a timer on a destructible object. . .Or use his A Dsmash on the foe for them to be hit by the actual hitbox of it. Your call. Unfortunately, this grab is somewhat laggy, though the secondary grab can’t be countered, grab counters just blocking it.

Down Grab – Suction Grab:

Kimblee kneels over and brings his hands to the ground, causing a suction effect towards himself as he holds his hands out, them being a grab hitbox. Kimblee can hold this as long as he wants, though the suction effect is only very low to the ground and Kimblee’s arms barely reach out very far at all. Coupled with the lag, this is rather unfavorable.

If used next to a ledge, though, Kimblee aims downwards over it, the suction pulling foes up to Kimblee. If used in a narrow pit from Kimblee’s A Dsmash, foes won’t have anywhere to go to avoid the suction. They can just wait at the bottom of the pit, though if you make it deep enough to create a blast zone this eliminates the problem. There isn’t enough space to go around Kimblee’s hands as foes come out of the pit, making it impossible to dodge.

Pummel – Transmutation Circle:

Kimblee starts drawing a transmutation circle on the foe, which is required for him to perform any of his throws on them outside his dthrow. It takes a good 2 seconds to complete, but Kimblee can resume where he left off when he next grabs the foe should they escape the grab before he’s done. Also, Kimblee can grab destructible objects and perform his throws on them just like a character. . .

Forward Throw – Time Bomb:

Kimblee snaps his fingers, causing the transmutation circle to vanish in a flash. Nothing seems to happen for a good 10 seconds. . .At which point an explosion triple the foe’s size occurs, dealing 25%, huge knockback, and can kill them when they still have 85 stamina left! Kimblee implanted a bomb in their body, it seems. . .Of course, this can still be dodged (Somehow), and the actual explosion is telegraphed a good second in advance. Furthermore, the explosion is perfectly capable of damaging Kimblee. In addition to having the foe use this against you, this means you can’t just casually grab the foe to prevent them from dodging the blast, as you’ll be caught in it too. Your A Fsmash, on the other hand, can occupy them for a decent period as they’re trapped in the stun from the mass hits of it. This is also the main throw you’ll want to use on destructible objects, turning them into traps.

Back Throw – Apocalypse:

Kimblee simply unleashes a large blast on the foe immediately, dealing 18%, great knockback, and killing foes with 40 stamina left. Unfortunately this deals 5% to Kimblee and kills him if he has no stamina, preventing this from beating out the Penguin King’s bthrow by a good 3%.

Up Throw – Slow Burner:

Kimblee claps his hands, causing a tiny explosion that deals 1% and flinching. Epic, no? Every 4 seconds, though, another explosion just like the first occurs on the foe. And it never goes away. Ever. These individual explosions can be dodged with little problem, seeing they’re telegraphed a good second in advance before they go off, but they’re very distracting and will make the foe twitchy, constantly dodging about awkwardly. This serves as a good distraction to your actual attacks and works particularly well in combination with a Time Bomb, seeing the warning for this cute little explosion and the gigantic explosion are telegraphed identically. Unfortunately, the flinch of the small explosions can help foes recover out of your pits and can knock them out of your grab, which makes getting an fthrow off very difficult due to the annoyingly long amount of time it takes to make a Transmutation Circle. . .Though on the other hand it’s easier to get in a neutral grab due to how much the foe is rolling.

Down Throw – Kick:

Generic attack if ya ever saw one, eh? This is the throw you use if the foe has too much stamina to complete a transmutation circle on them before they escape the grab, or if you just need a quick throw in general. Very fast, 9%, average knockback, never kills.

The throw is different entirely if you grabbed the foe with a down grab as Kimblee lets loose a blast right on his hands where he’s holding the foe, dealing 5% to them and pathetic knockback that never kills. . .And 5% to himself to boot. This can kill either of you if you have no stamina left. Quite pathetic, but if used over a ledge it deals downward knockback, sending the foe back down into the pit you grabbed them from. . .Chain grab anyone? If you get ahead in stamina and get somebody in a pit, it’s over. You can chain grab them to death. Unfortunately, as this move stales Kimblee’s self damage doesn’t decrease, meaning you’ll be taking more damage then you’re dealing. . .This requires a significant lead to work well (Which is difficult to get, Kimblee’s damage racking and stamina are bad) or if both you and the foe are very low on stamina. Further limiting this is the fact you’ll be exposed to any radiation you have up while the foe’s perfectly safe from it due to constantly being thrown into the pit.

PLAYSTYLE

While Kimblee has no shortage of ways to kill his opponents, nearly all of them rely on his A Down Smash holes, either to KO with it directly or to use it to rack up damage so he can either kill them normally or go for a suicide KO. Making time for the set-up is far from difficult. Use either of your dashing attacks to make some space then open it up.

The biggest obstacle is getting the foe to come to the hole. Thankfully Kimblee has several attacks that hit the foe no matter where they are he can use to approach such as his usmashes and his Up A. If they insist on just dodging them and playing defensively, though, Kimblee can just unleash some radiation and hide in his hole, using the previously mentioned attacks. While Kimblee prefers to be on top of the hole with the foe inside it, your jab is an extremely nice damage racker when both you and the foe are in a hole, and it’s plenty easy for you to get out of it anyway. Other methods include pushing them in with you’re a Fsmash, B Side or using an aerial neutral grab. From there, you can chain grab, use your utilt, trap them in the pit entirely with a giant boulder, the works. Kimblee generally wants one of his holes to not reach to the bottom blast zone so he can hide in it and force approaches while his other one he’ll want to go all the way for gimping purposes.

That’s just one method of KOing, though. Once you’ve got your damage racked up, you no longer have to be so very reliant on your holes. Your fthrow is now a prime option that can KO very early. You’ll want to get a uthrow in on the opponent before you go for it to make it more awkward for them to dodge, as well as spamming both usmashes on them all day to give them too many things to dodge to pay the big bomb much attention. Just make sure you get the hell out of there if they try to use it against you with one of your dashing attacks.
If things start to look bleak or you manage to get a KO, it’s time to start thinking about a suicide KO. If you’re in the lead, you’ll generally want to go for a aerial neutral grab seeing a Neutral B will just damage them due to them not being in kill range. If you’re losing, though, Neutral B is just what you need for a come-back. It’s near impossible for foes to get away from you thanks to your dashing attacks, and by this time you should already have a uthrow up to make them very twitchy, easy prey for a grounded neutral grab. Should you manage to grab them, their fate is sealed. Just be wary of the foe trying to kill you before you explode rather then running. . .

Just be sure to vary your playstyle enough and not overuse the holes to avoid becoming too predictable. While his pits are already somewhat of an indirect trap, turning destructible objects into time bombs and pushing foes into them with A Fsmash/B Side is a nice way to vary things up. In addition to mixing the different aspects of Kimblee’s game together, keep the pressure up with your uthrow and usmashes to keep the foe on their toes, dodging about like a crazed monkey on crack. So long as the foe’s distracted they’ll have a hard time seeing what’s up next in your bag of tricks.

SLOTH ALPHA

Sloth Alpha was created long, long before Sloth Beta. He was tasked with creating a tunnel around the region of Amestris, but the fact that he never finished it due to laziness despite hundreds of years passing leaved the other homunculi to wonder he was dead. Because of this, Sloth Beta was made. . .She wasn’t particularly Slothful or powerful, but she was but a temporary replacement until Sloth Alpha would return. Dante severely doubted the single strongest homunculus would die so easily. . .

In Sins of Alchemy, Sloth Alpha is an unlockable character. He is unlocked by either getting to him in the Story Mode, playing 600 vs. Matches, or beating Arcade Mode on Intense difficulty and no continues with Sloth Beta. With the exception of the Story Mode, you must defeat Sloth Alpha in a one on one match to unlock him. . .

Sloth Alpha has the most stamina of anyone in the game, having an unmatched 250. Unfortunately foes will also find him the easiest person to damage rack. . .Though his boulders for the most part negate that.

LAZINESS

Sloth isn’t named after the sin of laziness for nothing, unlike his anime counterpart. Sloth suffers from a far more severe version of Pokemon Trainer’s stamina (It’s 1.5X as bad to be precise), but unlike PT’s Pokemon Sloth doesn’t have anybody to switch out to while he rests, thus he has to find time in the middle of battle to do so. Standing perfectly still is the most basic means of doing so, causing his energy to regenerate 1.5X as fast as it normally degenerates, but taking a nap with your neutral b is the main way you’ll be replenishing your stamina, as you regenerate 5X as fast as you normally degenerate when asleep.

A ATTACKS

Neutral A – Chain Whip

Sloth raises up his arm upon the first press of A, his arm being a htibox with average range and priority that does 7%, bad knockback, and only kills foes with 6 stamina left. Upon the second press of A, Sloth quickly moves his arm back down into it’s initial position for the same properties. This has below average lag.

Sloth isn’t aiming to hit with his arm, though, he’s using the chain on his arm as a flail. The end of the chain on the arm he jerked around will raise up and then slam down to deal 13%, decent knockback, and potential to kill foes with 28 stamina left. The chain is disjointed, but doesn’t reach out all that far from Sloth. . .

Side A – Chain Toss

Sloth moves his arm back as if preparing for a wind up punch, then hurls it forward. This causes Sloth’s chain to fly it’s full length forward, Sloth making use of it’s range. The chain reaches two thirds of Final Destination away from Sloth with disjointed priority and does 15%, decently good knockback, and kills foes with 35 stamina left. This has average lag.

However, once you throw out the chain, Sloth doesn’t pull it back in. He’ll drag it along as he moves about. If you use your neutral A during this time, the end of the chain will be the part that raises up and slams down. This the main reason you’ll be wanting to throw out your chain. Using your Side A with your chain already out will cause Sloth to pull it back in, having no hitbox and average lag. This means you can’t use the Side A on it’s own all that well due to having to “reload” it, so you’ll mainly want to throw out your chain when left alone then rely on the neutral A.

Up A – Chain Clash

Sloth thrusts his arms upwards like DK does when charging his A Down Smash. His arms aren’t hitboxes for this move, but this causes his chains to swing up over his head. The range is dependent on whether Sloth has sent out his chains with his Side A and Side B or not, the chains potentially able to go very high into the sky if they’re both extended out. The main part of the chains only deal 5-10% with mediocre knockback that only kills foes with 0 stamina, but where the ends clap together deals 20% and great vertical knockback that kills foes with 50 stamina left.

Keep in mind that if the chains aren’t either both extended out or both unextended, then the ends won’t clash together, thus creating no deadly hitbox. You’ll generally want the chains unextended for this move simply due to foes being unlikely to be so insanely high. This move has high starting lag and above average ending lag.

Down A – Swirling Pain

Sloth flings both his arms forward for above average range and little starting lag, though bad ending lag. This deals 12% and kills foes with 20 stamina left, though it does an awkward type of set knockback. The foe travels the distance of a Battlefield platform while spinning around rapidly, dizzy, over the course of a second. Sloth is unfortunately unable to take advantage of this due to the terrible ending lag of the move. This is only worth mentioning due to how quickly it first comes out in comparison to Sloth’s other moves. Beyond that, the move is disgusting.

B ATTACKS

Neutral B – Slack Off

Sloth goes into a pose similar to Dedede’s crouch and falls asleep with little lag. From here, there’s absolutely nothing you can do, but you regenerate your stamina incredibly quickly, making this a vital tool in Sloth’s arsenal. This means you’ll be wanting to slack off whenever you have a free moment. When the foe’s respawning is an obvious time, but another one is when they’re just off stage, seeing Sloth can’t gimp to save his life anyway. You can come in and out of slumbering with below average lag, so don’t be afraid to use it, but if your foe will soon be up in your face again it’d be a better idea to just stand still and not be greedy. Being put to sleep by outside means will regenerate your stamina just as if you manually went to sleep.

Side B – Bound in Chains

Sloth jerks one of his arms forward to hurl forward one of his chains just as far as in his Side A, two thirds the length of Final Destination. This has nearly identical properties to the Side A.

The chain can latch onto destructible objects. If you bind your chain to a destructible object like this, then you can’t be knocked away further then the length of the chain from where you bound yourself. Foes can get around this by destroying the destructible object you’re bound down to and break you loose, but otherwise you’re impossible to KO.

Sloth’s Side B has him launch his right arm forward while his Side A has him launch his left arm forward. This allows you to control the two chains bound to Sloth’s arms separately, meaning you can be bound down at two separate places, as well as have two separate places where you can flail your chains with your neutral A.

Up B – Jumpchain

Sloth spins his chains around himself rapidly in a motion as if he were playing jumprope with it in the air. If he’s on the ground, he –literally- plays jumprope with it. Both chains must be extended out the same length for this move to work, or else Sloth will simply do generic upward flailing when he performs this move.

If the chains are both unextended, then the move has below average lag on both ends and the chain is a hitbox that deals 12%, decent knockback, and kills foes with 25 stamina left. This can be used to stall in the air pretty well, drastically slowing Sloth’s momentum.

If both the chains are both extended out, Sloth does the same spinning motion and the chain does the same damage/knockback, but since the chain is so much farther out, the hitbox around Sloth is very large, creating a protective barrier around Sloth. It’s pretty much impossible to get past the disjointed hitbox to Sloth if you’re outside it, but if you’re already inside the chains you can easily punish him. Good for spacing/blocking projectiles, just beware the landing lag.

Down B – Boulder Smash

This is nothing whatsoever like Charizard’s Side B, so remove any notions of that idea immediately. Sloth lifts a massive boulder up out of the ground, and then carries it around slowly until you press B again to throw it. This works just like when a character is carrying Bonsly in terms of how slow Sloth moves and the arc the boulder’s thrown in, though other characters besides Sloth aren’t strong enough to budge the boulder. The boulder is double Kirby’s size, and deals 1.5X the damage and knockback of Bonsly when thrown. It can kill foes with 80 stamina left, though hitting with the tossing of the boulder is laughable. You can also press A to casually put the boulder down for weak set knockback and 5% without throwing it.

While this is incredibly powerful, the move is too laggy to really use all that well. Thankfully though, there’s little lag in taking out the rock and setting it down, so you can use it as a decent means of approach, the boulder blocking projectiles or pretty much any attacks from the front as you slowly come toward your foe.

If you latch onto the boulder with a chain via Side A/Side B, you’ll be unable to go farther then the distance of the chain from it. . .and be unable to be knocked away farther from the boulder then the distance of the chain. While this may sound like just an alternative to latching onto platform edges, foes can’t break the chain bindings to the boulder, unlike platform edges, keeping you securely chained in place. They can attack the boulder to move it, though the boulder has Metal Mario’s weight and infinite stamina. This isn’t nearly as bad as it’d be in Brawl seeing there’s no edges to throw it off of. Unfortunately, knockback isn’t nearly as much of a concern here as it is in Smash Bros, so to compensate this prevents Sloth from being KOd. So long as he’s bound to a boulder, he won’t die. Period.

While Sloth isn’t strong enough to use the boulder as a flail on the end of his chain with only one attached, if you fasten both chains onto the boulder he’ll be able to use it as a deadly ball and chain and move about freely, albeit at half his already sluggish movement speed and he falls twice as fast when he’s at the maximum distance of his chain and pulling the boulder along with him. Using your neutral A, bair, or A Down Smash with the boulder attached to the end of your chains gives you a massive deadly hitbox on the end. Whatever you do with the boulder though, keep in mind that the moment you set it down or throw it, it’ll vanish in 15 seconds.

A SMASHES

A Side Smash – Behemoth’s Tomb

Sloth rips out a chunk of the ground from where he’s standing, then smashes it forward. The chunk of ground is as long as Sloth is tall. This is slightly laggier then Ike’s A Side Smash. It has disjointed priority and deals 26%-34, good knockback, and kills foes with 50-70 stamina left.

After successfully finishing the move, the land that Sloth ripped up out of the ground will stay where Sloth slammed it down, leaving a hole as long as Sloth is tall and as deep as Mario is tall, and also leaves the ground which Sloth ripped out in front of the hole, significantly altering the stage layout. Needless to say, this can’t be used on platforms that aren’t as deep as Mario’s height, such as the paper thin platforms of Battlefield.

Now, here’s where the stage altering begins to serve a purpose. If you’re in the hole you created when Sloth goes to take a nap, Sloth will pull over the ground he ripped out over himself to form a sort of tomb as he goes to sleep, burying himself within the stage as he slumbers. This makes him completely impervious to all damage, and he bursts up out of the ground once his nap time is up with little lag, though he refuses to stay underground for more then 5 seconds due to lack of air. You’ll generally want to open up a tomb and always retreat back to it when your time starts ticking down.

Be warned, though. Characters with moves that can go inside the stage like Gluttony’s Side A Smash or the various alchemists who can alter the stage layout can dig up Sloth from his tomb, so beware these match ups. You may only have one tomb at a time.

 If you place a boulder from your down B inside the pit, the boulder will be firmly secured in the ground and foes will be unable to move it at all. More importantly, this also resets the duration of the boulder.

If used next to a destructible object larger then Sloth, Sloth will rip out a chunk of the object and use it as the weapon. If the object is large enough to accommodate him (Like a tree), Sloth can then use the interior of the object as a resting place. It’s much faster to do this then opening up the ground, though keep in mind the destructible object is destructible. . .

A Up Smash – Chain Swing

Sloth thrusts his arms upwards and his chains and his chains along with him, just like in his Up A. In fact, the entire move seems identical to the Up A at first, but the chain is a weak hitbox that does 1-2% and the part where the chains clash together does no damage, but has a grab hitbox, and if they’re hit by it Sloth hastily reels the chains back in to get the foe in his regular grab. This move looks like it starts up slow like the Up A, but in the middle of the animation it suddenly speeds up, having half the lag on both ends. This gives the two moves decent mindgame potential when used together.

So an upward grab? That’s it? Well, if your chains are unextended and you stand under a drop through platform when you use this move, the chains will latch onto it, and Sloth will then proceed to swing around the platform, rapidly going above and under it as he swings. Contact with Sloth as he spins about like this does 27-39% %, good knockback and kills foes with 30-50 stamina left. Sloth has super armor during the move. He has to keep spinning like this for at least 3 seconds, after which he can press A to casually come down.

On long drop through platforms, such as the one on Smashville, Sloth can move back and forth along the platform as he spins around it at a decent speed. This can give him massive stage control on stages such as that, but if he keeps spinning around the same platform for 6 seconds, he’ll cause it to crash into the ground from his weight and give himself abysmal ending lag. The fallen platform stays in the background and never comes back on it’s own, but if Sloth comes in front of it and uses his A Up Smash, he’ll lift it back up into position with high lag, repairing it. The earlier given example of the Smashville drop through platform is absolutely ideal to use this on due to how the platform moves back and forth. To use this on drop through platforms below you, you can input a A Down Smash right after inputting the A Up Smash to cause Sloth to aim downwards instead of upwards.

A Down Smash – Steel Whirlwind

Sloth strikes a T pose as he extends out his arms, then starts spinning around rapidly. Sloth’s body is a decent priority hitbox that does 23-34 hits of 1% and flinching with the last hit doing decent knockback that kills foes with 15-30 stamina left. Very little lag, but a ridiculously long duration that begs for enemies to come from above and pound you.

But why would the foe have to do that instead of hitting you normally? Well, if your chains are thrown out with your Side A/Side B, they’ll spin around with Sloth in a circle of death. The chains do the same damage as Sloth, but all in one hit, and the knockback is vertical. This kills foes with 30-50 stamina left based off charge.

While this move is infinitely more appealing to use if you’ve thrown your chains out in the distance to give the move truly absurd range, if either of your chains are out they’ll tangle around Sloth as he rapidly spins them around, the range of the attack slowly decreasing over the long duration, causing him to be completely bound by his own chains by the end of the attack. He falls over in the direction he was facing after the attack is finished laggily (Ready to use a stomach rising attack), and he can’t use any other attacks (Besides rising attacks) until he throws his chains back out again with his Side A and Side B to free himself.

B SMASHES

B Side Smash – Titan Rush

With very little beginning lag, Sloth goes just barely under the length of Battlefield, turning into a blur as he does so. How the hell does Sloth move so d*mn fast? Sloth is very surprisingly the fastest homunculus, he’s simply too lazy to use it. He uses all his speed in one burst in this move. . .Any foes who get hit by Sloth as he zips by at a blinding speed take 17% and great knockback. It can kill foes with as much as 50-75 stamina left! This move is beastly.

Sloth will be exhausted and begin napping and refuse to get up for 3 seconds(Though he has super armor during this forced sleeping and no lag upon getting up, so a foe can’t just fully charge a smash on him). During this forced sleeping, Sloth won’t regain any stamina.

B Up Smash – Death Leap

 This move is extremely comparable to Dedede’s Up B, but Sloth only goes half as high as the floaty penguin king before crashing back down and doesn’t create stars at his sides when he lands, the move having worse ending lag then Dedede’s Up B to boot. In return, Sloth has super armor for the entire move and doesn’t have to cancel it to grab ledges, and his body is a hitbox that does upward knockback as he ascends in addition to as he descends. Increasing the charge of the move makes Sloth potentially go as high as the penguin King’s Up B. This move kills foes with as much as 20 stamina left.

Despite not needing to cancel the move to grab ledges, Sloth is still able to. What purpose does this serve? When Sloth lands on the ground, he slams into it with such force that his feet get ingrained in the stage. Sloth is unable to move like this, though on the plus side he has superarmor and can’t be KOd. Canceling the move prevents this from happening. Sloth’s feet will be knocked out of the ground if he takes 30%, though he can come out of it earlier if he so desires by using his Up B again to leap up out of the ground.

B Down Smash – Dig

Sloth starts digging downwards. The move has a hitbox as it’s charging as ground gets shoved to either side of Sloth, though they’re rather small projectiles with little range that just do 6% and flinching. What this does is that it makes pits like the Side A smash, but they’ll only be big enough for you to sleep in if you build two right next to each other, in which case it’ll count for one of your pits you’re allowed to make. This isn’t any faster of a way to build them and this has a weak hitbox, so what’s the point? The longer you “charge” the move, the further down Sloth digs (The furthest down you can go in a single charge is double Ganon’s height), and you can dig much deeper then you can with your other moves. More then for creating new pits, use this to make existing pits deeper. How does this help you? It makes it much more difficult for foes with moves that go underground to get to you while you sleep, and it also makes foes trapped underground longer when you use your bthrow on them. You can also make a more narrow pit and send a foe into it, then drop your boulder on top of them as they have nowhere to run from it. Considering that narrow pits don’t count towards your main total (Though you can only have two regular pits and two narrow ones), you’re free to do this and make tombs for resting. Just be careful you don’t make the pit too deep in case you should expose a bottom blast zone, in which case you’ll find yourself very easily gimped.

GRABS AND THROWS

Grabs – Normal

Sloth has a run of the mill collection of grabs. The standard neutral grab that can catch foes who roll, the standard heavyweight ranged forward grab, the anti air upward grab. . .Nothing special really.

Down Grab – Stomp Sloth’s down grab is the obligatory Warlordian stomp as Sloth holds the foe down with his foot. The range is worse then the forward grab, but it’s a bit quicker. How is this one remotely important? Well, this grab gives Sloth a “zair” of sorts. If used in the air, it’s a stupidly slow but powerful spike (Which is useless due to gimping) that does 21%. More importantly, if you hit the ground with the move, it creates a tomb like those in Sloth’s A Side Smash, giving you an alternative means of creating them. In addition, you can have one hole each from Sloth’s down grab and A Side Smash, allowing you to make two holes instead of just one.

Pummel – Doze Off

Sloth suddenly falls asleep standing while he holds the foe, regaining his stamina at 3X the rate it normally degenerates. While this isn’t as fast as he normally regenerates when sleeping, it’s a very safe sleep. Pressing the pummel input a second time causes you to wake up and be able to throw the victim.

It’s good to get in a bit of sleep before you throw the foe, but it’s unlikely you’ll be able to get in anything worthwhile and still manage to get in a throw until higher percents. Don’t get too greedy with this or you’ll lose your free throw.

Forward Throw – Chain Throw

Sloth ties the end of the chain around the foe then throws out the chain in his Side A, the foe taking the same damage as in the move. If the chain from Sloth’s Side A (Not his Side B) has already been thrown out, Sloth has to pull in the chain before he performs the throw, during which time the foe can easily escape.

After the throw is complete, Sloth and the foe will be bound together by the chain, unable to move farther then the distance of the chain from each other. If Sloth uses his Side A to reel back in the chain, he’ll cause the foe to trip as he causes them to come back in, in a perfect position to be regrabbed for a chain throw! If you try to just use this throw again, though, Sloth will untie the chain that bounds him and the foe together. . .There goes the potential chain throw. Ah well. It still sets you up to use another throw, at least.

If you don’t use the fthrow again, the foe automatically breaks loose from the opposite end of the chain after 15 seconds. In addition to the obvious use of this throw for combos, this prevents foes from running away from you. If they insist on getting too close, though, you can always just use a casual ftilt to send them out. Keeping the foe chained is a great way to keep them in check.

Oh god, there’s more, just for one throw? Sorry, sorry, just bear with it a little longer. . .Anyway, if you go to try to pick up a boulder you’ve created when you’re bound together with your foe, Sloth will take off the chain from his arm and tie it to the boulder. This robs you of your Side A until you get the chain back, but the foe is stuck to the boulder while you can move about freely, albeit they can still attack it to move it. . .Unless you put it in a pit from your A Side Smash/down grab. If used properly, this gives you plenty of time to rest in peace. You can also bind foes to destructible objects in which case the foe can’t move the boulder around, but they can always destroy the object.

To get your chain back, simply press A next to the end of the chain once the foe has escaped from it. If the foe manages to knock the boulder off the stage and it still has the chain attached, don’t worry. It’ll respawn around your arm in 10 seconds.

Back Throw – Gravedigger

Sloth smacks the foe into the ground behind him for 7%, leaving the foe in their downed state. This is relatively fast, but that’s all that’s notable about it. at first glance.

That’s all to the throw, unless you use it in a hole dug with Sloth’s A Side Smash/down grab, in which case Sloth will hastily pull the ground over the foe to fill in the hole to trap them in the tomb. The foe is stuck inside for a full 5 seconds, and there’s nothing button mashing can do to help them. While this does no extra damage then normal, it allows Sloth plenty of time to take a nap, set up his chains, or dig another tomb.

Up Throw – Spine Breaker

Sloth lifts the foe above his head and lets out a mighty roar as he tries to snap the foe in half. While he probably would be able to do this to some of the lighter characters, Smash censors this visually delightful feast from occurring. This deals 10% to the foe and causes the foe to fall down onto the ground in pain afterwards. This throw’s damage output is –okay-, but Wario’s fthrow and Bowser’s dthrow do 12%, so it’s far from spectacular.

What makes this throw one of Sloth’s best, though, is the fact that he breaks the foe’s spine in his attempt to rip them in half, a cracking noise like Snake’s pummel (Though more exaggerated) heard when he does this throw. This prevents the foe from crouching (And thus they can’t use their Down Inputs), jumping higher then a short hop, double jumping, and most importantly prevents them from turning around. This lasts 10 seconds. This is any slow hulk’s dream, being able to bring down a foe to their level and make them easy to approach. So long as you stay behind the foe, there’s really not all that much they can do to you besides short hopped bairs, seeing they can’t turn around.

Oh, and remember that horrible Down A? When the uthrow is taken into account, it’s actually a decent addition to Sloth’s arsenal. If the foe has a broken spine when you use the Down A on them, it’ll deal double damage to them due to it rapidly forcing them to turn around for a very impressive 24%, though keep in mind this’ll be just what the foe needs to get their spine back into shape, so use the Down A right when it’d heal automatically anyway.

When Sloth grabs somebody with an Up Grab, he holds them above his head already, significantly decreasing the lag of this throw and increasing the damage by 5%.

Down Throw – Body Slam

Sloth releases the foe, then quickly jumps up and body slams them. . .Ouch. This deals 14%, good knockback, and kills foes with 40 stamina left. In addition to being Sloth’s only throw for actually KOing his victims (Which it’s pretty d*mn good at), this also creates a pit like the ones from his A Side Smash and down grab where he body slammed the foe. It counts as one created by the A Side Smash by default, though if there’s already one created by the A Side Smash it’ll count for the down grab. If he already has two pits out, no pit will be created.

OVERALL PLAYSTYLE

Early on in the match, you’ll want to get in a grab and break the foe’s back with a uthrow, then stay behind them and set up your two pits via A Side Smash/down grab. These pits never go away via normal means until you sleep in them, and few foes have the capability to remove them themselves. You want your pits up as soon as possible. If your foe is giving you a particularly annoying time with their bairs while their spine is broken, extend out your chains and make yourself some space with your uair, then proceed to finish making your pits. Once the foe’s back is about to heal, quickly go Down A them for some quick damage.

This is the most awkward phase of Sloth’s game, just racking up general damage. Aside from the uthrow/Down A combo, other possibilities include dashing attack to spammed rising attacks, but for the most part you’ll be forced to use just a few powerful hits to get up the foe’s damage. It’s perfectly normal for Sloth to get extremely behind in the damage count here, don’t worry. He doesn’t need to rack the percents that high anyway.

As you fight, you’ll generally want to keep at a distance and stand still as much as possible. Save your pits for sleeping tombs for when your stamina gets low, and try to use them after landing a hit to ensure you don’t get attacked as you go into the pit. Always try to keep at least one pit in reserve, though. If you use your last one, try to make another ASAP. You don’t want to have no tomb to go back to when your stamina is in the red.

While Sloth can get comboed to all hell due to weight and size, he makes up for it by being able to chain himself to the stage and boulders. He’ll never take any bonus damage from walls or destructable objects or what have you. While chaining yourself to a destructible object is only a temporary solution, if you put a boulder in a pit and chain yourself to it you’re invincible. Your B Up Smash is a quicker option for this when you cement your feet in the ground, but provides less freedom due to restricting your movement. Once you get yourself to a high percentage, your first priority should always be to bound down to –something-. If you can manage to do that, it doesn’t matter how high your percentage gets, you’ll just simply never go down. Foes who focus on taking chances to get your damage all the higher will do little to stop you when they should be focusing on preventing yourself from being bound to the stage.

KOing the foe obviously isn’t a problem once their stamina is remotely low, but it can be tough which option to choose among your many absurdly powerful moves. It’s really no contest, though. The B Side Smash is without a doubt your best option. . .Assuming you don’t whiff it. However; there are ways of getting around it. If you make a pit on one end of the stage and use your B Side Smash facing towards it from the other end, Sloth will end his mad dash in the pit and go to sleep safe and sound inside it. Thus you have a all powerful move with no start lag or penalty for missing, albeit it requires set up and is somewhat predictable once you get into position for it.

So overall, ignore your damage percentage as it climbs ever higher and just stay bound to the stage as best you can, only coming out from your bindings to take naps if absolutely necessary. It’s safer to just stand in place, and seeing Sloth fights at a range so well you have little reason to budge from your well fortified position anyway. Just keep in mind much of Sloth’s lifespan takes place when he has 0 stamina as he lives on due to being chained to something or other, and that without it he won’t be around any longer then those who have less stamina then him.