If you’ve taken a look at our tier list, you might notice that Ridley is considered high-tier in competitive amiibo training. It wasn’t always this way, though; in the early days of the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate metagame, trainers really struggled with this character. Fortunately, within a few short months, the community got Ridley all figured out, and he’s emerged as a dominant force in high-level tournament brackets. If you’d like to read more about Ridley’s metagame history, you can do so over at his wiki page. Otherwise, let’s jump right into today’s training!

Special thanks to Luckman for contributing Ridley’s training information!

Spirits

Ridley’s a real beast, especially when given a Spirit team. If you want to equip your FP with stats and bonuses, do so before you start training it — ideally, you’d give it its full Spirit setup at Level 1 and then fight against it using a Spirit team of your own. If your Ridley amiibo is already Level 50, you can still give it Spirits; just be prepared to play a few training matches afterward to brush up its skills. If you’re interested, we’ve also got an in-depth Spirits guide you can make use of! In the meantime, here are some builds that work well on Ridley:

• Banned bonuses: As you might expect, the game’s strongest Spirit effects (Super Armor and Armor Knight) work excellently on Ridley. If you decide to use Armor Knight, use Trade-Off Ability ↑ to fill the empty slot. A well-trained Ridley FP using this setup is truly a force to be reckoned with — especially in Battle Arenas or unrestricted Spirits tournaments.
• Tournament-legal bonuses: Most Spirits tourneys are restricted, meaning they follow our ban list and don’t allow Super Armor or Armor Knight. In this case, you can use any combination of Physical Attack ↑, Critical-Health Stats ↑, Trade-Off Ability ↑, Air Attack ↑, Air Defense ↑, and Shield Damage ↑. You could also try a setup including Critical Healing & Metal and Critical Immunity!
• Raid Boss bonuses: If you’d rather train a Raid Boss, we’ve got a section on that down below! The best setup for a Raid Boss Ridley would be Physical Attack ↑, Move Speed ↑, and Landing Lag ↓.

You can choose to either keep Ridley’s stat points balanced (2100 / 2100) or invest in additional strength (2500 / 1700). Make sure the FP’s Spirit-type is Neutral before you start training it — we don’t want it at a disadvantage in Spirit-type matchups later on.

Competitive Training

While training Ridley, you are going to want to stay grounded as often as possible — except to go off-stage. Ridley’s recovery isn’t always reliable, but his aerials are incredibly strong, and they’re ultimately too good to pass up! As always, keep dashing, taunting, and charged smash attacks to an absolute minimum. Here’s a complete list of moves that you should teach your FP to use:

• Space Pirate Rush is a powerful command grab that drags its victim across the stage. Use this move from a distance to approach your FP, and do your best to only use it while grounded. Space Pirate Rush beats shields, which competitive FPs are taught to make use of quite often. That’s why this move is so effective!
• Down tilt is a downward tail attack that serves as Ridley’s primary combo starter. At low-to-mid percentages, a down tilt can combo into a short-hopped forward air. You can also use neutral air afterward, but forward air should take priority in this case.
• Up smash is one of the strongest aerial punishes in the game. It’s kind of like Fox’s, but with extra strength. Whenever your FP is above you, attack it with an up smash. In fact, continue attacking it with repeated up smashes until the FP lands or is KO’d.
• Neutral air is Ridley’s primary landing option. It can also be used off-stage to great effect! As mentioned earlier, forward air can be used after a down tilt to rack on additional damage. It’s also effective as an edgeguard thanks to its multiple hits and high power. Back air, however, might just be Ridley’s best edgeguarding move — it’s extremely powerful and somewhat fast. When your FP is trying to recover, drop off the ledge and smack it with a back air.
• Ridley’s grab can be mixed in as well. When grabbing your FP, simply throw it towards the nearest ledge. Down throw can combo into a forward air, but the FP will learn this on its own by the time it reaches Level 43.
• Forward tilt should be used at close range to create space between you and your FP. Up tilt can be used as a weak anti-air that combos into itself and eventually up smash.
• Plasma Breath at the edge gimps Ness at any percent. Unfortunately, Ridley FPs trained to use Plasma Breath too often will miss out on their off-stage aerials — which work better against almost every other fighter. You could walk up to the ledge and use a fully-charged Plasma Breath very infrequently, but generally speaking, you’ll want to focus on leaving the stage and using aerial attacks instead.

There are a whole bunch of moves that just aren’t worth using on Ridley, so it’s time to list them all off: forward smash, down air, up air, Wing Blitz, Skewer, and neutral attack. Overall, Ridley’s playstyle should be mostly grounded; he should approach with Space Pirate Rush whenever possible, and when he is close to his opponent he can use a forward tilt, a grab, or a down tilt. When his opponent is aerial, he should use an up smash or up tilt. Mimic this playstyle as best you can and your FP should turn out really strong!

Raid Boss Training

You’ll get the best possible results if you play as Ridley while training your Ridley FP. Leveling up amiibo takes a long time, so feel free to turn your FP’s learning off once it reaches Level 30 (give or take a few levels). Then you can send it on a Journey or have it fight another FP in the background until it finishes leveling up. If you want to know more about how amiibo learn, check out our general training guide before you continue. Just to be clear, since you’re raising a Raid Boss, you’re free to dash and jump as often as you’d like. Now then, here’s a full list of attacks you should focus on:

• Forward tilt is your main close-range damage racker. Forward tilt is strong and has an above-average range. It can also be angled to potentially catch your FP as it lands. Down tilt can also be used to combo into a forward or neutral air.
• Use some grabs! Down throw can combo into a forward or neutral air just like down tilt. Up throw can create opportunities for up air juggles, and back throw can KO at about 150% near the ledge. Use all of these throws during training.
• Neutral air is Ridley’s best landing option. Forward air can be used to land, and back air can be used out of a short hop or full hop to great effect. All of these moves can be used off-stage as well, but edgeguarding humans is risky for Raid Bosses — whose recovery patterns are consistently predictable.
• Up tilt and up smash are best used as anti-airs. Up smash also works out of shield, and is incredibly powerful — especially when used while standing on a platform.
• Space Pirate Rush, forward smash, and down smash can also see a small bit of usage.

Other than Space Pirate Rush, you shouldn’t utilize any of Ridley’s special moves as offensive tools. Don’t use Plasma Breath, Wing Blitz, or Skewer; in fact, the only appropriate use of Wing Blitz is for recovery. As a general note, Ridley cannot learn to purposefully KO himself with Space Pirate Rush, nor can he learn to consistently use his notorious down throw into Skewer combo at low percentages. Keep that in mind!

Wrap-Up

True to his status as a heavyweight fighter, Ridley is ranked among the strongest fighters in competitive amiibo training. He can still be a bit finicky to train, so if you have any trouble, you’re welcome to join our Discord server. We can try to help you fix him up if you need it! If you want to learn how to enter tournaments, check out our helpful guide! We also appreciate donations and Patreon subscribers to help keep the site up and running. Until next time — happy training!

If you would like to read more amiibo training guides, please follow this link.

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