General

Hitlag

Abilities such as Burning, Smash, Parasol, Tornado, Fighter, and most importantly, Wheel, experience hitlag when moving through enemies. Hitlag can be reduced by dodging and avoiding enemies, deactivating your ability right before hitting an enemy, or even adjusting your initial position when starting your ability in some cases. In cases like Smash, using your ability as close to the floor as possible to cancel it early also helps. Each hit causes you to pause 3 frames, with up to 2-4 hits per enemy on average. This means for every enemy you hit with these abilities, you lose a bit of time.

Speed Summary

("Speed" meaning moving from point A to point B under ideal circumstances, not the actual max speed value.)

Abilities roughly in order of horizontal speed:

  1. Wheel
  2. Parasol
  3. Missile
  4. Burning
  5. Fighter
  6. Tornado
  7. UFO
  8. Normal

Abilities in order of ascending speed:

  1. Missile
  2. UFO
  3. Cupid
  4. Normal

Abilities in order of descending speed:

  1. Stone/Smash
  2. Sword/Smash
  3. Fighter
  4. Missile
  5. Normal

Wheel

Recoil

When you activate wheel, you will briefly be sent backwards. One way to mitigate this is by activating Wheel on the ground and not in the air, since the ground has more friction. You can also stop your recoil using a wall placed behind yourself.

Wheel Jump

If you jump right before activating Wheel, you will perform a Wheel Jump. Unlike a normal jump while using Wheel, a Wheel Jump gives you the full height of a normal jump while still activating Wheel.

Invincibility

Wheel is invincible unless you are activating the ability or turning. Therefore when fighting bosses, only turn when outside of their hitbox.

Turning Around

If you need to deactivate Wheel and go the opposite direction, make sure to deactivate Wheel while turning around to cancel the turning around animation and instantly start moving the opposite way. This also helps preventing you from skidding on the ground.

Missile

Directional Speed

Diagonal speed preserves the max speed of both directions, so long as you have both directions held. Missile will continue to go at max speed in your last held direction, regardless if it's still pressed. This means that you can simply tap when moving in a straight line, but when moving diagonally you need to have both directions pressed. This applies to optimal turning as well.

Missile happens to be slightly faster moving downwards with a speed of 690 compared to your base falling speed of 640, excluding recoil.

Missile's upward speed isn't faster than your jumping speed, so make sure to jump before activating Missile for upwards movement.

Drift

Missile's major difficulty is in managing its wide drifting. In order to mitigate drift, counter it by holding the opposite direction for several frames. This is especially crucial when making 90° turns, where you need to completely halt your movement before going in a new direction.

Recoil & Knockback

When activating Missile, Kirby will recoil backwards before he starts moving forward. You can press the opposite direction of your intended direction when activating Missile to reverse this initial recoil and save a little bit of time.

Missile recoil
 

The knockback from blowing up with Missile produces significantly more recoil. Before exiting Missile, reverse your direction until you fully start moving the other way, then press A or B and then your original direction to fully launch yourself the right way using the Missile's knockback.

Missile Knockback
 

When moving upwards, you can also use this knockback to redirect your Missile exit and launch yourself sideways almost instantly.

Bomb Blocks

When moving through bomb blocks, tap back for atleast one frame after hitting the bomb block before resuming your main direction. You move at the same speed as the clearing of the barrier blocks, so as long as you don't move diagonally you shouldn't hit anything.

Ceiling Clip

You will explode on the ceiling if you attempt to drift out of a ceiling clip.

Version Difference

On the Japanese version compared to the other versions, Missile's direct hit causes 6 damage instead of 2, and for indirect hits 2 damage instead of 1.

Parasol

Passive Hitbox

Parasol has a passive hitbox that deals damage even when the ability is not in use. This hitbox is better than using the attack for a few reasons. Unlike the attack, the passive hitbox has no wind-up time, and doesn't slow you down. The hitbox is more maneuverable as well. The passive hitbox deals 4 damage per hit, while the attack randomly alternates between 4 and 1 damage per hit. This means the passive hitbox is faster than attacking for fighting bosses. The only downside is that the passive hitbox has far less horizontal range, meaning it's risky to use during bosses.

Momentum Preservation

If you let go of all directional buttons right before you press A to blow up, you will preserve your horizontal speed. When gliding with Parasol, it applies a flat boost of 308 to your speed, before slowing down significantly after 8 frames. Thus, when you float immediately after a glide with Parasol with your direction buttons released, the amount of momentum preserved is significantly amplified compared to simply jumping. Since gliding applies a flat boost and not a set value, you can stack your momentum preservation indefinitely with every subsequent float. You will start gliding faster if you aren't moving upwards when you puff.

Thus, in order to move quickly with Parasol: jump, glide, let go and float as soon as your glide boosts you, puff as soon as possible while trying not to move too high, then repeat the process without pressing anymore directional buttons. If you do this too slowly, you'll need to repress left or right after a puff to fuel your glide, and if you go too low you need to float for longer.

Parasol movement
 

However, this movement is difficult to pull off. A more reliable method is to hold the directional button up until the float every time, and float for longer. The most basic way to move with Parasol is to substitute the float after the glide with an attack instead, or simply float to the ground.

This momentum can also be preserved with an attack, however you lose speed faster and need to wait for your attack to stop.

Descending

Parasol has the downside of being hard to descend with. The simplest way to do so is to dive, however you need to control your dives so that you don't accidentally bounce off of any hitboxes. Alternatively, attacking also works.

UFO

Diagonal Movement

Unlike Missile, moving diagonally actually decreases your individual directional speed from 512 to 416. As a result, you want to avoid diagonal movement whenever possible. There are a few things you can use to support this:

  • Slopes: Move into slopes whenever possible. They will automatically push you in the additional direction without sacrificing your movement speed. Make sure to tap down when moving horizontally into downwards slopes to avoid getting stuck at the very bottom.
  • Ceiling Clips: By clipping into a ceiling, then moving down and getting pushed out, you save a tiny bit of vertical movement.
  • Floor Nudges: Similar to Ceiling clips, you can get slightly displaced vertically when moving into a floor from lower than its surface. This is especially true moving into the bottom of upwards slopes.

Fighter

Movement

The fastest way to move horizontally is to press B without dashing, and vertically by pressing down B.

Cancel Platform Collision

If you dive while ducking through a platform, you can dive straight through any other 2-way platforms.

Force Blast Combo

If you briefly hold B during a combo attack after mashing B, you can instantly release a Force Blast after the second or third attack.

Mega Force Blast

Your Force Blast becomes more powerful if you're on 1 hp.

Other Abilities

Burning

Unlike Wheel, you are immediately active after a bonk. This lets you gain height, skip the long unwind animation, or instantly entering doors next to walls using bonks.

Throw

Invincible when holding something.

Sword

Final cutter preserves your momentum, meaning you can Up B off ledges as well as turn around if needed.

Fire

Can be tilted in all directions, including backwards and diagonal. This is important when aiming at bomb blocks.

Ice

Will not slide on ice.

Hammer

When using neutral or aerial B, the Hammer appears behind you before going to your front. Therefore, use these attacks backwards whenever speed or multiple hits are needed.

For bosses, there is a 3-pixel range right next to the boss where the wind up hitbox deals damage. In addition, this sweet spot can be used to set up double-hits using Up B.

Stone

Cancelling your ability a few tiles above the floor allows you to reach the floor with your movement unlocked, while avoiding the jump off the floor that occurs if you cancel stone on the ground.

Holding left or right ensures that Stone preserves your momentum before it drops. On the other hand, releasing both left and right ensures that all your momentum is cancelled and you drop straight down.

Stone mechanics
 

Moveset Data

All Blade element attacks, plus Master, can cut string platforms. All Fire element attacks, plus Crash, can light fused cannons.

Ability Attack/Input Damage (~max hits per attack) Element Use underwater Break star block Break metal block Pound stump Shake screen Penetrate walls?
Normal Inhale Normal
Normal Star Bullet 10 Normal
Normal Double Star 18 Normal
Normal Slide 2 Normal
Normal Puff 2 Normal
Normal Water Gun 2 Normal
Normal Dive 2 Normal
Normal Tumble 2 Normal
Normal Contact 1 Normal
Fire - 5 Fire
Spark - 3 Electric
Cutter - 4 Blade
Sword B 6 Blade
Sword B×3 (“Chopping Sword”) 1(×7) Blade
Sword B, after Chopping Sword 6 Blade
Sword Up B (ascending) 2(×2) Blade
Sword Up B (descending) 6(×2) Blade
Sword Up B (wave) 2 Normal
Sword Down B/A 4 Blade
Fighter B 1(×3) Normal
Fighter B 2 Normal
Fighter B 1(×5) Normal
Fighter Held B 2 Normal
Fighter Fully held B 4 Normal
Fighter Held B on 1 hp 6(×2) Normal
Fighter Side B or B (aerial) 2(×3) Normal
Fighter Dash B 3 Normal
Fighter Up B (hitbox) 2(×4) Normal
Fighter Up B (onset) 1 Normal
Fighter Down B (aerial) 4 Normal
Laser - 2 Fire
Cupid B 3 Blade
Cupid Fully held B 5 + 3 + 3 Blade
Ice - 4 Ice
Hammer B 5(×2) Normal
Hammer B (aerial) 5(×2) Normal
Hammer Dash B 2(×6) Normal
Hammer Up B (hitbox) 25(×2) Normal, Fire
Hammer Up B (onset) 2(×2) Normal, Fire
Parasol Hitbox 4 Normal
Parasol B 1 Normal
Magic Meta Knight 4 + 4 + 22 Blade
Magic Food or 1-up -
Wheel - 2 Normal
Cook - -
Burning - 2 Normal, Fire
Beam - 3(×3) Electric
Stone Hitbox 10 Normal ~
Stone Shockwave 4 Normal ~
Smash B 1(×2) Normal
Smash B (aerial) 2(×6) Normal
Smash Side B 10(×2) Normal
Smash Side B (aerial) 9(×3) Normal
Smash Up B (ascending) 2(×2) Blade
Smash Up B (descending) 6(×2) Blade
Smash Up B (wave) 2 Normal
Smash Down B (hitbox) 10 Normal ~
Smash Down B (shockwave) 4 Normal ~
Tornado - 2 Normal
Crash - 29 Normal
Bomb Small explosion 5 Fire
Bomb Medium explosion 2 Fire
Bomb Large explosion 1 Fire
Missile Small explosion 6/4 Normal ~
Missile Large explosion 2/1 Normal ~
Throw Inhale -
Throw Hitbox and throw 12 Normal ~
UFO B 4 Electric
UFO Briefly hold B 4 Fire
UFO Hold B 10 Fire
UFO Fully hold B 18 Normal, Fire
Master B 8 Fire
Master B 1(×6) Fire
Master B 8 Fire
Master Hold B 8 Fire
Master Dash B 3(×7) Fire
Master Up B 8 Fire
Master Up B after slide (ascending) 2 Fire
Master Up B after slide (descending) 6 Fire
Master Up B after slide (wave) 2 Fire
Master Down B 2(×4) Fire
Master Down B (aerial) 4(×2) Fire
Any Candy 7 Normal
Any Cannon 28 ?

[1]

  1. Data referenced from Hoshize