Piranha Plant (Super Smash Bros. Ultimate)

This article is about Piranha Plant's appearance in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. For other uses, see Piranha Plant.

Piranha Plant
Universe	Mario
Availability	Downloadable
Final Smash	Petey Piranha

Piranha Plant is a playable fighter in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. It was confirmed as a DLC fighter on November 1st, 2018.

It could be received as a free bonus after registering the game by January 31, 2019, but was available on January 29, and released for purchase on February 1st.

Attributes

Strengths

• Ptooie is a projectile which has great priority, high damage output, good frame data and amazing ledge-trapping potential.
• Down B gives Piranha Plant the longest range for melee attacks. It also gives him stun armor.
• Multiple moves capable of striking opponents above Piranha Plant.
• Side Special deals insane amounts of damage, making it an excellent punishing tool for stunned and paralyzed opponents. Another method would be grabbing them and keeping them within the cloud. Another strategy some use is to use the cloud to prevent the opponent seeing a charged move, like a Down B or a Side Smash.
• Side Special also has no knockback, like Fox's Laser. This means that you can deal damage without knocking the opponent out of the move or out of sleeping, burying, and dizziness.
• Excellent recovery, which has a hitbox and can easily K.O. off the upper blast line if executed correctly.
• Down aerial can meteor smash.
• Automatically counters attempts to footstool it.
• Up Smash, Up Air and Ptooie are good at catching landings.
• Up Throw is a kill throw.
• Side B and Down B do very good shield damage.
• Up Special goes pretty far, both horizontally and vertically.

Weaknesses

• Slow walking and running speed.
• Attacks are somewhat slow and predictable.
• Poison Breath counts as a projectile, meaning it can be pocketed, absorbed and reflected.
• All projectiles are generally slow and easy to avoid.
• Low damage output without use of specials.
• Slow and laggy aerials. The down aerial is hard to get the meteor smash with, especially for new players.
• When Down B is fully charged and released, the neck is exposed and can be hit. Meteor Smashes also apply to the entire neck, which increases risk when using offstage.
• Poor approach options.
• Recovery can be punished rather easily.

Summary

Piranha Plant is a character that specializes in catching landings, keeping you at a distance, edgeguarding, and ledgetrapping. However, he can have trouble actually getting in due to his poor range outside of his projectiles. He has trouble getting out of combos since most of his moves are too slow. Since he is one of the heaviest fighters in the game, getting comboed is even more troublesome. His options when stuck in said combo are quite slim: air-dodge, neutral aerial, down aerial, and, in some cases, neutral special. His neutral consists of mostly Ptooies, Poison Clouds, grabs, Side Tilts, and Neutral Airs, as these are decently quick moves or keep the opponent at bay. His recovery is among the farthest in the game, both vertically and horizontally. But, it doesn't make him invincible or trip up those who try to edge-guard you. Piranha Plant's head hitbox remains active the entire move, which means someone could easily attack you on your way to the ledge.

Moveset

• Neutral Attack: A leaf jab, followed by a leaf swipe, followed by a headbutt. This jab launches opponents as a low angle, which can set up for a follow-up move. Alternatively, the leaf swipes can be followed by a flurry of bites, similar to Corrin's flurry attack.
• Forward Tilt: A bite. Pressing the attack button a second time will have Piranha Plant follow up with a second bite. Comes out rather quick and can fake out an opponent into thinking you'll do the second hit. It resembles the attack a Piranha Plant performs in Super Mario 64 after waking up.
• Up Tilt: Flails its head upwards. Small hitbox, but does decent damage. Can combo into itself at low percents.
• Down Tilt: A leaf swipe.
• Dash Attack: A pot-first lunge. Lots of end lag, but good launch power. The hit-box stays active the entire dive, which is useful when trying to punish an opponent really quick. Makes a good move when in a pinch.

Smash Attacks

• Forward Smash: Transforms into a Spiky Piranha Plant from Super Mario Galaxy 2 and headbutts.
• Up Smash: Lunges upward and bites. Appears to have two hitboxes. This smash attack makes his head intangible during the attack, which means it'll be harder to get punished for using it. Small fighters like Olimar or Pichu might not be hit by this if not close enough.
• Down Smash: Sweeps its pot around itself. First in the back, then in the front. The second hit is stronger than the first.

Aerial Attacks

• Neutral Aerial: Spins rapidly with its leaves extended, similar to Ivysaur's neutral aerial. Hits multiple times.
• Forward Aerial: Swings its pot upwards.
• Back Aerial: Turns around and spits out fire, akin to a Fire Piranha Plant. Good launch power, but isn't very quick, like Mii Gunners.
• Up Aerial: An upward headbutt. Comes out rather quick.
• Down Air: A pot stomp. A Meteor Smash with quick startup compared to other Meteor Smashes, but has a small hitbox. The meteor effect is active at the beginning of the move rather than at the end, unlike most other Meteor Smashes.

Grabs and Throws

• Grab: Reaches out with a leaf. The grab has pretty low range, much like Pichu or Kirby, but is tied for the fastest in the game at 6 frames.
• Pummel: Bites the opponent.
• Forward Throw: Headbutts the opponent forward.
• Back Throw: Chomps the opponent and flings them backwards.
• Up Throw: Tosses the opponent upward as it bites them. This throw is his most powerful and will KO most fighters at high percents.
• Down Throw: Throws the opponent on the ground and bites them twice.

Special	Name	Description
Neutral Special	Ptooie	Spits out a metal spike ball, and blows air upwards. The ball can then be blown to the left or right. Only one can be active at once. Based on the Ptooie enemy introduced in Super Mario Bros. 3.
Side Special	Poison Breath	Spits out a cloud of poison in front of it, dealing damage with seemingly no knockback or flinching. Piranha Plant changes its color to match the Putrid Piranha enemy from the Paper Mario series when executed.
Up Special	Piranhacopter	Spins its leaves, propelling it upwards like a helicopter. Based on the Jumping Piranha Plants from Super Mario World.
Down Special	Long-Stem Strike	Retreats into its pot and pauses briefly before stretching out to bite an opponent. The pot can be tilted in order to aim the attack. It possesses a form of armor while inside the pot, shrugging off various attacks. Likely a reference to Elasto-Piranhas or Stalking Piranha Plants.
Final Smash	Petey Piranha	Summons Petey Piranha, who stomps around the stage with his cages from his boss fight in The Subspace Emissary. Opponents that get too close will get trapped in the cages.

On-Screen Appearance

• Rises straight up out of its pot, making a Warp Pipe noise as it does so.

Taunts

• Up Taunt: Rises up out of its pot, using the same animation and sound effects as its entrance animation.
• Side Taunt: Bites the air around it multiple times, similar to one of Bowser's taunts.
• Down Taunt: Spins around and strikes a pose with a grin.

Victory Poses

• Hangs down on the ceiling, posing for the camera.
• Mario runs towards Piranha Plant's pot, only for Piranha Plant to pop out of the pot and bite Mario, sending him flying, before smiling.
• Bites the air around it three times, before smiling.

Palette Swaps

Gallery

All 8 Piranha Plant palette swaps.

piranha plant trying to eat wario.

Piranha Plant forward smashing Mario

Videos

70- Piranha Plant – Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

Trivia

• Piranha Plant is the only DLC character in Ultimate:
  • To not have a special code name in the game's files; it is referred to as "packun", its Japanese name (Packun Flower)
  • To be free (albeit for a limited time to those who pre-purchased the game)
  • To have a showcase video on the official website
  • Who shares a victory fanfare with base game characters (Bowser and Bowser Jr. in this case)
  • To have their own Palutena's Guidance, presumably due to being developed alongside the base roster
  • To not have a unique animated reveal trailer; instead it is made entirely within engine.
• Piranha Plant is the first DLC character in Ultimate:
  • To not have a fully cinematic Final Smash, the second being Pyra and Mythra (Super Smash Bros. Ultimate).
  • To be from an already represented franchise, with Byleth, Sephiroth, and Pyra following.
• Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is actually the first game ever to have Piranha Plant as a playable character (although Petey Piranha is playable in the Mario spinoffs). It is also the first Super Smash Bros. fighter to be a mob.
• The Smash Piranha Plant makes references and shares the traits of multiple Piranha Plant subspecies.
  • This is one of the few depictions of a normal Piranha Plant having feet. Most depictions of the Piranha Plant are implied to be rooted to the ground, their pipe or their flower pot. The Ptooie, Stalking Piranha Plant and Elasto-Piranha Plant actually do have feet: but it's unconfirmed if they are identical to regular Piranha Plants or if they are subspecies. Ptooies and Stalking Piranha Plants are also not depicted with a flower pot: although the Elasto-Piranha Plant does have a warp pipe that it wears as pants and can still walk with its feet.
    • Ptooies also puff spike balls into the air in a manner similar to the Smash Piranha Plant.
  • Piranha Plant changes its coloration into that of a Putrid Piranha when using its poison attacks.
  • Piranha Plant's extremely elastic neck is possibly a reference to the Stalking Piranha Plant, the Piranha Creeper or the Elasto-Piranha Plant.
  • Piranha Plant's up special is a reference to the Jumping Piranha Plant from Super Mario World: which can also use its leaves to hover.
  • Each of Piranha Plant's 7 alternate skins are a reference to Piranha Plant subspecies. [1]
    • The 1985 Piranha Plant skin has the classical green Warp Pipe. Half of these skins have a warp pipe instead of a pot: and these pipes use a completely different model as the pot (most noticeably missing the holes that the pot has).
    • The 6th color in the pallete swaps most likely references the Dry Piranha Plant from the New Super Mario Bros. series, which is a skeletal version of the famous plant. This subspecies has questioned a few as to if all Piranha Plants have bones(besides teeth, of course).
    • The 7th color is most likely a reference to the Piranha Creeper from Super Mario 3D World. This plant is known to have thorns, be bright purple, and stretch to great lengths to reach Mario. It is one of the few plant subspecies with thorns and to be represented in Smash, with the other being the Spiky Piranha Plant from Super Mario Galaxy.
• Originally in Update 2.0.0, if the player tried to play as Piranha Plant in All-Star Mode, the save data of the game could get corrupted. However it could be fixed through the Save Data Cloud Back Up functionality included with the Nintendo Switch Online Membership. This was patched in a later update.