Ravio Moveset

Moveset collaborations have a pretty cool quirk to them: you’ll often end up creating a blog for a character that you wouldn’t have considered otherwise. Take Ravio, for instance: I liked Link Between Worlds, and Ravio is one of the most loveable characters from that game (even with my general villain favoritism) but I wasn’t rushing out of the gate to make a moveset on him.

But here we are now, ANOTHER moveset hopefully on the Featured page since we clearly don’t have enough. Seriously, I know how easy it is to make one when you’re newer to the app and are looking for little bit ridiculous how many are being made. I’m also aware that movesets are pretty much all I do so I might be hypocritical by saying this, but you guys could probably tone it down a little.

uh, now that i’ve insulted others for making movesets, how about you continue reading mine? haha thanks don’t forget to subscribe and hit that bell

RAVIO

General Outlook

Ravio is a coward through and through; he doesn’t like conflict, and would prefer to stay in the sidelines. But in the case where he has to fight, he can pull all the stops and go in hard… once he’s good and ready.

My version of Ravio in Smash would be a modification of how the Links play, with the same ranged gameplay and hard-hitting close attacks, but with a focus on utility and raw power rather than being a jack-of-all-trades. As you’d expect, you want to have your ranged tools out on the field as often as possible, but instead of being regular moving hitboxes, they each fill a specific role and cover a specific set of options, requiring you to use them at the right time and in the right places. And you also have a rather unique method of mobility, which we’ll see later…

The goal here is to lock off the opponent’s options by covering as many of them at once; when they’re trying to land or get out of disadvantage, your ranged game can be just as deadly as your close-quarters hits. If they get in your space, you’re going to have to book it out of there without throwing anything back since your options are generally too slow to contest, but it’s not too hard for you to escape bad situations and reapply the pressure like nothing happened.

Stats:

Size/Weight

Ravio’s about the same size as LBW/LttP Link… but idk how big they are. Assuming they’re essentially child-sized, I’d put him as slightly taller than Young Link, not including the ears (which won’t have hurtboxes).

He’ll also be heavier than his “counterpart” above due to the equipment he carries, probably around 92 (same weight as Villager/Wolf/Icies/Lucario).

Speed:

Cowards are great runners; as such, I can easily picture Ravio with fast movement, probably with Roy’s run speed (top 12), Mario’s air speed (top 12 again), and Donkey Kong’s run speed (top 10).

He’d fall at an average speed though, probably matching Marcina’s fall speeds (very close to middle ground).

Jumps:

If you have a good running speed, you should probably have good legs for jumping. With the traditional 2 jumps, I could see his ground jump heights being the same as DK’s (great), while his air jump is equivalent to Mario’s (good).

MOVESET

Grounded Attacks:

Jab:

Ravio sharply knees forward (6%). Short ranged, but very quick and sets up quite a few combos. Kills around 230%. (Comes out on Frame 5, hitbox lasts for 2 frames, first active frame is Frame 26)

Eh, coming up with a Jab was mildly difficult. This is mainly just function over personality, as being right up close with Ravio at the wrong time is a bad idea, regardless of how otherwise unlike him it is to knee somebody. My apologies if it doesn’t fit.

Forward Tilt:

Ravio swings his hammer in an uppercut-like fashion (think Brawl Dedede F-Air, 16%). VERY good range for an F-Tilt (not long like Shulk F-Smash, but large like a rectangle), kind of good for setting up one or two combos around 0% due to launching the victim mostly upwards, but it’s primarily used for killing or spacing. Kills around 160%. (Comes out on Frame 13, hitbox lasts for 4 frames, first active frame is Frame 42)

I’m not directly making his moveset based on Hyrule Warriors, but there is some inspiration from it, primarily his use of a hammer for most attacks and one specific attack that’ll show up later. Otherwise, his gameplay doesn’t revolve around that iteration of him.

Up Tilt:

Ravio holds the hammer sideways with both hands and thrusts it upwards in a volleyball serving motion (13% sweetspot, 4% sourspot). Due to the hammer head acting as a sweetspot, hitting someone behind you acts as a mediocre finishing blow while the hilt in front of you acts as a combo/juggling tool. Sweetspot kills around 170%, sourspot won’t kill until unreasonable percentages. (Comes out on Frame 11, hitbox lasts for 5 frames, first active frame is Frame 37)

totally haven’t used this move before

original oc do not steal

Down Tilt:

Ravio performs a sweeping kick (8%). Guaranteed trip 100% of the time, good for forcing an opponent to do something on the spot. Unable to kill. (Comes out on Frame 7, hitbox lasts for 2 frames, first active frame is Frame 35)

I like the concept of Ganondorf’s Side B/Snake’s Down Throw being moves that force the opponent onto the ground on command, and I feel like we could use some more. So how about we retailor an otherwise lame sweeping kick into a move that does that?

Forward Smash:

Ravio points the Ice Rod forwards, creating a stalagmite of ice a fair distance away from himself (19-26%). The move’s hitbox is so disted that you can’t hit anyone directly in front of you, with the hitbox only appearing ~1/7th of FD away from you, but in exchange it’s a lethal mixup tool for finishing opponents off with style. The stalagmite is roughly the same size as Bowser Junior. Kills between 100-70%. (Comes out on Frame 19, hitbox lasts for 4 frames, first active frame is Frame 50)

This definitely acts like an Explosive Flame that hits once without taking the spot of a Special, while still (hopefully) fitting into your kit well. I actually had a bit of trouble with figuring out which slot this move would take since it needs to be paired with close-range power hits, but this should be good.

Up Smash:

Ravio leans back while holding the hammer, far enough to almost rest the hammer head behind him, before overhead smashing it into the ground (22-30%). Similar to Dedede’s F-Smash, but weaker/shorter in exchange for being faster and hitting opponents behind you. Kills between 80-50%. (Comes out on Frame 31, hitbox lasts for 6 frames, first active frame is Frame 63)

Hope this isn’t unsatisfying for you guys.

Down Smash:

Ravio plants the Ice Rod onto the ground, creating an icy stalagmite on each side of himself (15-21%). Quickest finisher in your arsenal and is definitely a move your opponents should worry about. Kills between 120-90%. (Comes out on Frame 15, hitbox lasts for 5 frames, first active frame is Frame 54)

The hitbox size and the speed this move comes out in is nothing to scoff at, so while the endlag is long enough to discourage you from overusing this, this is still a ridiculous finisher that you can abuse pretty hard.

Dash Attack:

Ravio hops very slightly upwards and performs a cartoonish skid with his heels, coming to a stop pretty quickly (10% initial kick, 4% lingering hitbox). A decent “get off me” tool at point blank range (especially when doing an instant dash attack), while the later hit is fantastic for setting up a followup at most percentages. Kick kills around 165%, don’t use the slide to kill. (Kick comes out on Frame 8 and lasts for 2 frames, slide comes out on Frame 10 and lasts for 7 frames, first active frame is Frame 39)

I’m surprised I haven’t used this idea before, it’s something that I’m mildly proud of and would fit a couple of my previous characters really well.

Aerials/Throws:

Neutral Air:

Ravio extends a knee forwards and holds it there (5%). Launches normally against grounded opponents, but sends aerial opponents at a very weird diagonally downwards angle, doesn’t have much power but is a great combo tool at lower percentages and works as a FANTASTIC edgeguard tool. Kills around 250% onstage, 190% offstage. (Comes out on Frame 6 and lasts for 28 frames, first active frame is Frame 47. Doesn’t autocancel, has 5 frames of landing lag.)

don’t ask me why i have this gif on my phone

Forward Air:

Ravio swipes the Ice Rod downwards/in front of him, sort of like Sheik’s F-Air (9%). The range is pretty good for how fast it comes out, use this for spacing or for threatening an approach. Kills around 210%. (Comes out on Frame 8, hitbox lasts for 4 frames, first active frame is Frame 37. Autocancels on shorthop, has 11 frames of landing lag.)

I’m trying to make sure I don’t come up with useless crap that isn’t too similar to other used attacks without forcing myself to come up with new/unique attacks every single time, but that can be rather difficult.

Back Air:

Ravio swings his hammer behind himself (14%). Basically just Smash 4 Dedede’s B-Air, but if the hitbox matched the animation. Kills around 145%. (Comes out on Frame 17, hitbox lasts for 5 frames, first active frame is Frame 40. Autocancels, has 13 frames of landing lag.)

It’s probably just due to the timing since the hitbox hasn’t changed, but I have a significantly harder time landing Ultimate Dedede’s B-Air than I do with 4’s. I can’t complain about it since I’ll get used to it eventually and the move has been entirely buffed from the previous game, but it’s still kind of irritating.

Up Air:

Ravio swipes his hammer upwards (12%). Generic swipe similar to Ike’s/Icies’, great as a finisher. Kills around 160%. (Comes out on Frame 13, hitbox lasts for 5 frames, first active frame is Frame 39. Autocancels, has 17 frames of landing lag.)

I tried, there isn’t really anything unique that I can give him without having it stray too far from his regular kit.

Down Air:

Ravio spins his hammer beneath him, almost exactly like Brawl Dedede’s (5 hits of 2%, 4% finisher, 14% total). Absolutely amazing at pressuring shields from a jump, and the last hit spikes so it’s a pretty lethal gimping tool. Final hit kills around 170% onstage, 55% offstage. (Multi-hit starts on Frame 10 and essentially lasts for 10 frames, finisher comes out on Frame 21 and lasts for 3 frames, first active frame is Frame 48. Doesn’t autocancel, has 11 frames of landing lag.)

Yes, I’ve taken a lot from Dedede for the standards in this moveset. But at the same time, they work really well, and this move in particular isn’t a generic swipe like the other moves. It should hopefully balance itself out.

Grab:

Nothing special.

Pummel:

Ravio steps on the opponent’s foot (1.5%). Decently quick, not the best pummel but pretty good.

Forward Throw:

Ravio casually chucks the opponent forwards (4%). A very good combo tool at lower percentages, don’t use it to kill though.

Back Throw:

A good ol’ suplex (10%). Launches at the standard angle, kills around 160%.

Up Throw:

Ravio underhand tosses the opponent straight upwards (3%). Like F-Throw, but sets up different followups and has combos that work at later percentages. Don’t use this to kill.

Down Throw:

Ravio freezes the opponent with the Ice Rod before slapping them away with his hammer (14%). Launches at the standard angle, kills around 180%.

Specials:

Neutral Special: Big Bomb

Ravio spawns a Kirby-sized bomb in front of him before whacking it forwards with his hammer (16% hammer hit, 15% bomb). Depending on how long you held the button, the bomb will travel further or shorter (tapping sends it about a Samus roll ahead, holding sends it about half of FD forwards). However, affecting the bomb’s distance doesn’t change the animation of the attack, so sending a bomb far doesn’t make the move slower or faster. The bomb always explodes around the same time it’d hit the ground if you were standing on a platform, so unless you catch someone in the explosion itself, you can’t snipe opponents beneath you.

The move has two hitboxes; the hammer and the bomb. The hammer hit takes a while to come out, but in a pinch it can act like a Smash Attack that you can initiate in the air. However, the bomb projectile has a hitbox that always sends the opponent sideways and towards you with set knockback, guaranteeing a followup with pretty much anything that isn’t Up or Forward Smash if successfully landed. It can be reflected and used against you to combo yourself, but that’s just how it is. Bomb never really kills unless you do something really cheeky close to the blast zone, hammer kills around 130%. (Hammer hit comes out on Frame 36 and lasts for 4 frames, bomb hitbox comes out on Frame 37 and lasts for 20 frames, first active frame is Frame 50)

This is almost directly pulled from Hyrule Warriors, but I think it works really well here. It’s a bomb attack that ISN’T similar to the Links’ versions while still fulfilling a similar and very useful purpose. The long startup means that you can’t really rely on this often, but it’s a powerful and flashy ranged finisher when the opponent is ready to die.

Side Special: Magical Bracelet

Ravio steps into the background like in a spotdodge while his wrist flashes a bright purple, turning him into a 2D painting. In this form, he rushes directly forwards (or backwards if you inputted Side B in the opposite direction), completely intangible while ignoring gravity and not losing any ground. Pressing B again will immediately cancel the move, turning you back to normal without much vulnerability. Normally, you can use this move for up to 2 seconds straight (which would send you the entire distance across FD), but the more/longer you use this move, the shorter the maximum duration becomes AND the longer turning back to normal leaves you open, eventually preventing you from travelling in painting form for longer than 30 frames and leaving you quite open. As the internal meter grows shorter, Painting!Ravio will begin to flash a bright purple, with the flashes becoming rapid as you get close to running out, and the initial wrist flash growing dimmer to indicate the meter as well. The internal meter takes 12 seconds to fully charge, burning energy faster than it recharges at a 6:1 ratio. (Intangibility begins on Frame 2 and lasts until Frame 123 at the absolute latest. Upon cancelling, first active frame is 7 frames after pressing B a second time at the earliest, while empty meter will leave you open for 45 frames.)

In the draft, Ravio was supposed to have a magic meter like Link does in LBW, but I forgot to include it at the beginning of the blog and balanced Neutral B without incorporating it. And since Up/Down B don’t really need it to be balanced, this move was slightly repurposed to work without a constant meter.

The original version is pretty similar to this one, but it burned his universal meter instead of its own invisible one and didn’t have the downside of increased endlag as the charge grew lower. However, prolonged use would hamper the use of your other Specials, so you couldn’t use it too much. I’m more of a fan of this version overall since I think it fits him better and this set of downsides probably affects him more than the previous one (you’ll see why later).

But for this version itself, this is exclusively a mixup/escape option since it doesn’t do much else except sort of help recovery. It’s extremely important to make sure you don’t get predictable with this since you are rather predictable and easy to punish if you step out at the wrong time, but when used properly it’s a free escape from not-true combos and a damn good pressure tool due to the mobility/potentially low endlag it offers. Use it well without abusing it.

Up Special: Tornado Rod

Ravio whips out the Tornado Rod and whisks himself upwards, creating a wide-ish tornado around himself (multiple hits of 1%, up to 9% total). The best thing about the move is the recovery aspect; you go really high (slightly less than Super Dedede Jump high) and have a large multi-hit hitbox surrounding you throughout, AND it’s really fast. You can’t really move left or right until the move ends, but the vertical height and safety of use easily makes up for that. Along with that, the move ends with a really strong windbox, so if somebody gets caught in the gale offstage, they’re probably dead unless they’ve saved their jump and have a really good Up B. Windbox doesn’t really follow standard knockback and won’t kill. (Multi-hit starts on Frame 9 and essentially lasts for 27 frames, puts you into helpless fall on Frame 40)

It’s the obvious and generic pick… but what else could I use? This just works. Really well.

Down Special: Sand Rod:

Ravio pulls out the Sand Rod and creates a small cube of sand at his feet (about as tall as a crouching Kirby). Normally, the block stays stationary and acts as a small hazard for opponents; nothing happens if they walk, roll, or jump over it, and they can’t hit it, but if they touch it while in their run animation, they’ll take 2% and trip. Along with this, if Ravio uses the move again, he’ll perform a little kick, which acts as a really shitty hitbox but will also boot the cube around as a mediocre projectile and allow him to reposition it (3% kick, 5% block projectile). Reflecting the block while it’s a projectile will allow you to damage Ravio if he’s close enough, but once it lands it’s back to acting as his. Due to the Down B input turning into a kick while the block is out, you can only have 1 block out at a time and have to wait until the previous one respawns to make a new one. Cubes will automatically despawn if they’re kicked offstage or are on the ground for a total of 10 seconds (kicking them around pauses the timer until they land, but doesn’t reset it). Projectile kills around 260%. (Block initially generated on Frame 12, first active frame is Frame 32. Kick hitbox comes out on Frame 8 and lasts for 2 frames, block projectile comes out on the same frame and lasts until it lands, usually 14 frames, FAF is Frame 37)

I was supposed to use a variation of this move for a different and VERY SPECIAL moveset, but I never gain the motivation to properly sit down and finish it so it’ll just stay there until I properly realize that I want to post them. Until then, I can afford to use this idea at least once.

The thing about this move is that the projectile and kick parts of the move are not good, but that’s not why I included this move. The one thing that it does is prevent your opponents from running through a certain area… and that’s huge. I can’t describe everything here, but it can REALLY mess with their gameplan and force them to hesitate while charging you from the ground, and if they approach from the air, then it makes them easier to predict since they’ll be in the air more often if that’s how they’re dealing with it. Combined with the rest of Ravio’s threatening tools, it might be enough to make the opponent mess up a little easier and sneak in a win.

Final Smash:

…idk. It’d probably be a generic “X beats the living daylights out of their victims”, but I’m not sure what would fit him. If you have any ideas, please suggest them.

i kind of rely on my specials/detail/personality to make my blogs stand out anyways, so it’s not like the competitively obsolete final smash matters that much, it’s not like it’s necessary, right?

Extra Animations:

Entrance:

A magical, distorted crack appears in the background as Ravio steps out and prepares for battle.

Idle Animations:

-Ravio nervously looks back and forth for a moment.

-Ravio scratches his head.

Taunts:

Up: -Ravio enthusiastically as his pet… “bird” flies around him in glee.

Side: -Ravio gives his legs a quick stretch, after all he needs them to run.

Down: -Ravio gives a dramatic bow before hopping right back upwards.

Victory Animations:

-Ravio trips while running in, and barely catches his precious bag full of Rupees before it lands.

-Ravio laughs while twirling around in celebration, before awkwardly shuffling away offscreen once he realizes he has an audience.

-Ravio hammers a sign displaying his shop’s name (in the Hyrulean style, can’t read it easily) into the ground, giving the camera a thumbs up.

Farewell:

I’m going to take a proper break from making formal movesets, not an “I procrastinated for too long so I haven’t posted in 2 weeks” break but instead I’ll try posting other things and use my casual style more often. I’m still going to do these in the future, but I recently had a moment where I thought to myself “I want to work on this other project, but I can’t until this moveset is done”, and I’m taking it as a pretty significant sign that I should change something up.

I’ve got that sequel of my blog about video game music as my next project (which will probably get posted way too soon after this one since it’s something I’m excited to work on), and a couple of other things that I’d like to do, while my next couple of movesets/the event blog that I finished a few weeks ago will be rather informal and will follow the same formula as my Selkie/Booette movesets, not using frame data or going too far into detail over the standard moves that probably no one ever cares about.

But as always, I hope you guys like my stuff, since it’s practically the only thing I ever do and I have to be good at something. If you have something you want to say, nobody’s stopping you from slapping it right down there in the comment section. And as I always end my blogs, I wish you all a wonderful day.

Or night. Time zones can be weird.