Rayman (SSF2)

Rayman is a newcomer starter character in Super Smash Flash 2. His reveal was shown during the livestream of the third day at Super Smash Con 2018. His appearance is based on his design in the game Rayman Origins. His moveset consists of moves from throughout many games in the Rayman series, and retains his voice-clips from the same series. Unlike his traditional appearance from previous patches of the game and Super Smash Con 2018, where Rayman mostly made an available appearance as an unlockable character, he makes an available appearance as a starter instead in Super Smash Flash 2.

Rayman is currently placed at 9th of S tier on the current tier list, which was his best placement in the game, a noticeable big leap from 38th of C tier. Rayman has strong KO moves in his smash attacks, all aerials, up throw and down throw, and down aerial being able to spike opponents, and Helicopter, as well as for his potentially strong special moves, Vortex and Plum, and has long range in most of his attacks thanks to his limbless trait and unique properties of his bodyparts. His relatively slow falling speed allows him to break out of juggles, and combined with Helicopter, he has one of the best horizontal recoveries in the game, which can be extended with a Plum to make it one of the best vertical recoveries in the game. His range, combined with his Lockjaw. which can be used as a tether grab, and Vortex, also make him a great edgeguarder. Due to his long-lasting aerials with lingering hitboxes, along with Plum that grants him a midair jump since it acts as a helpful platform, this helps in Rayman's great edgeguarding tactic in the wall of pain.

However, Rayman possesses a few notable weaknesses. Rayman's floatiness, combined with being tied with and  for being a medium-light character, makes it easy to KO him vertically. While his levitating body-parts give him long range, they do not have disjointed hitboxes and extend his hurtboxes, much like 's attacks, and his vertical recovery is very poor without a Plum, as Helicopter barely gives him vertical distance and just slows down his descent. Landing the sweetspot with his aerials are mostly difficult, and most of his moves also tend to have blindspots on certain points.

Rayman has a small playerbase, but an overall effective presentation in online tournaments. The only notable competitive player of Rayman is Dog, who is currently active and actively uses him, alongside, in tournaments. Though his weaknesses are apparent, his significant strengths drastically outnumber his aforementioned weaknesses, which most likely makes him a top-tier character and prevents him from being a low-tier character.

Attributes
Rayman is a speedy, yet floaty medium-lightweight and very combo-oriented character who, true by his playstyle, is a fairly unorthdox character in terms of his fighting playstyles; a character who focuses fighting with bodyparts with unique properties. He has a fast dashing speed and air speed, and a high jumping height, while his falling and walking speeds are slow to compensate. He also possesses a crawling ability; like characters such as and

Overall, Rayman is a specificly unorthdox character with his limbs and head levitating around his body. This trait gives Rayman his staple asset: an extremely long melee range both in the ground and in the air. His jab's range, for example, is arguably one of the longest in the game, even outspacing 's infinite-hit finisher. He also has very fast frame-data with his tilts, jab, up special, and aerials. His down aerial sends a flurry of punches to knock opponents downward, making it a very frustrating combo move for opponents to deal with. These traits grant him a naturally strong combo game and strong spacing abilities. Due to having a limbless trait, most of his attacks have outranged and somewhat-disjointed hitboxes, in a similar vein to and.

Rayman has a decent grab and throw game, with a combo throw in his up throw, down throw, and back throw, and his forward throw and back throws are very useful for setting up edgeguards (with forward throw having slight combo potential at low percents). Up throw and down throw are strong combo starters and can follow up into neutral aerial or up aerial for high KO potential at high precents, and forward throw and especially back throw have great followup-potential; following into forward aerial, back aerial or down aerial. While all of his throws combo into aerials or smash attacks for KO confirms. His forward, up and down throws are also Rayman's strongest throws, being able to kill most characters at around 100%, and while his grab does have a long range, it is also laggy; judging by the long ending lag and moderate startup lag.

Rayman has good KO power in his smash attacks, throws, tilts and aerials, with his tilts and aerials also fast for their decent power. Rayman also has a great neutral game, with his down special, the plum, and his side special, Vortex, a tornado projectile, being able to trap opponents in, allowing Rayman followup-potential and punish or even KO with one of his smash attacks or aerials.

Rayman's edgeguarding game is among the best in the game. Due to his sheer melee range, all of his aerials, tilts, especially smash attacks, and even his jab combo can all be used to safely edgeguard the opponent on-stage or off-stage. His neutral air, forward air, back air, and down air are notable for having lingering hitboxes, while also being somewhat powerful. Furthermore, his neutral special and side special, though laggy, can be used to set traps or launch an aerial throw to follow up with any aerial move. Rayman's down aerial is notorious for quickly launching a flurry of punches downwards, dragging opponents down with him as well. This move, when used for edgeguarding, is very difficult to punish and can be used to score early KOs.

One of his unique moves is his down special, Plum, which grants him a giant plum. The giant plum acts as both a platform and a projectile that moves when it is attacked, allowing Rayman to move the plum while stand on it by attacking with tilts or smash attacks. These properties make the giant plum a very useful tool in a number of situations. The plum can act as a stage control tool and an advanced combo tool. Furthermore, the plum can be an incredible recovery tool, theoretically granting a lot of vertical height if used properly. It can also simply be used for an emergency platform off-stage, which grants Rayman back his midair jump.

However, while Rayman possesses these numerous type of positive traits, Rayman does possess a few noticeable weaknesses. Many of his attacks (related to up tilt) contain blindspots, as they stretch out his hands without hitboxes in between the hands and body. This leads to situations where his hitboxes possess awkward placements. For example; his up tilt will not cause damage nor knockback if Rayman tries to utilize it on a small opponent at adjacent range.

Rayman's second notable weakness is his lack of disjointed hitboxes in a few of his attacks. Because most of his moves involve stretching his limbs and levitating them away from his body, in a similar vein to, this means, with a few exceptions, that every time Rayman attacks, his hurtboxes also extend. This makes him very vulnerable to characters with projectile-heavy playstyles, such as, , and , and somewhat vulnerable to characters with disjointed hitboxes like , , and.

His third weakness is his situational recovery. In theory, he has a strong vertical and horizontal recovery due to his plum. However, should Rayman lose his Purple Plum, his recovering options are limited to his midair jump and his up special, which grant negligible vertical height; such traits make his recovery very easy to gimp, but can make his recovery extremely hard to gimp if the plum is utilized. Additionally, the plum can be used against him. Similarly to how projectiles are reflected, the plum can attack Rayman when striked by an opponent, which subsequently can knock him off and away from the stage if he is standing on it. As such, Rayman players need to take precautions in order to maximize his recovery.

All in all, Rayman is described as a very powerful all-rounder (and is viewed to be the most potent all-rounder in the game), a character who possesses reliable KO attacks and potent offense, as well as not possessing major weaknesses, and he can can do very well in both offensive and defensive play, due to his outranged attacks with somewhat disjointed hitboxes, a powerful arsenal of great-ranged smash attacks and aerials, and potent special attacks, as well as for possessing a powerful combo, juggling and edgeguarding game, and high damage output, as well as for high KO potential, alongside his outranged and long-lasting hitboxes, high shield pressure, and strong air game backed by an excellent recovery via the plum, making Rayman one of the most powerful characters throughout the game, as players either consider him high-tier or top-tier.

Changes from Super Smash Con 2018-Beta 1.3
Shortly after Rayman's release in the third day of Super Smash Con 2018, Rayman has some of the most noticeable changes in th game. Due to his blindspots, hurtboxes, recoveries, hitboxes and unique properties of his body-parts, Rayman had undergone a massive plethora of pros and cons, arguably the most out of any unlockable character in the game. Rayman's hurtboxes contained separation, disallowing Rayman to take damage nor knockback if an opponent touches any of his phantom limbs. Rayman also possesses disjointed hitboxes around his moveset, giving him depictive range. Rayman's limblessness grants him a staple asset: an extremely long melee range both in the ground and in the air. His jab's range, for example, is arguably one of the longest in the game, even outspacing 's infinite-hit finisher. He also has very fast frame-data with his tilts, jab, up special, and aerials. His down aerial, a multi-hit move, sends a flurry of punches to knock the opponents downward to the lower blast zone, making it a very frustrating combo move for opponents to deal with. These traits grant him a naturally strong combo game and strong spacing abilities.

Rayman's grab and throw game is also among superior; even beating 's. His forward throw, up throw and down throw are Rayman's strongest throws (all of which are able to KO reliably under 100%), and he has an easy combo throw in his up, back and down throws. His forward throw and back throws are very useful for setting up edgeguards (with forward throw having slight combo potential at low percents), due to their high knockback scale. His up throw and down throw are strong combo starters and can follow up into neutral aerial or up aerial for high KO potential at high precents, and forward throw and especially back throw have great followup-potential; following into forward aerial, back aerial or down aerial. Lastly, all of his throws easily combo into aerials or smash attacks for KO confirms.

Rayman's formidable edgeguarding game is among the best in the game while being extremely hard to gimp himself due to his fantastic infinite recovery option. Due to his sheer melee range, all of his aerials that can auto-cancel in a short hop, tilts, especially smash attacks, and even his jab combo have utility to safely edgeguard the opponent on-stage or off-stage. His neutral air, forward air, back air, and down air are notable for possessing lingering hitboxes, while also being somewhat powerful. Furthermore, his neutral special and side special, though laggy, have utility to set traps or launch an aerial throw to follow up with any aerial move. Rayman's down aerial is notorious for quickly launching a flurry of punches downwards, dragging opponents down with him as well. This move, when used for edgeguarding, is very difficult to punish and can be used to score early KOs, with the last hit being a powerful spike.

Lastly, his down special, Purple Plum, is Rayman's most unique move in his playstyle, which grants him a giant plum. It functions similar to 's Fire Hydrant, albeit with much greater endurance on-stage. The giant plum acts as both a platform and a projectile that moves when it is attacked, allowing Rayman to move the plum while stand on it by attacking with tilts or smash attacks. These properties make the giant plum a very useful tool in a number of situations; such as edgeguarding, anti-airing or zoning. It also helps in Rayman's notorious edgeguarding tactic in the wall of pain. The plum can function as a stage-controlling, anti-air or zoning tool and an advanced combo tool. Furthermore, the plum can be an incredible recovery tool, theoretically granting a lot of vertical height if utilized properly. It can also simply be used for an emergency platform off-stage, which grants Rayman back his midair jump.

However, Rayman had recieved notable nerfs - his blindspots have been retained. Most of his attacks throughout his moveset contain blindspots, as they stretch out Rayman's hands without hitboxes in between the hands and body. This leads to situations where his hitboxes possess awkward placements. For example; his up tilt will not cause damage nor knockback if Rayman tries to utilize it on a small opponent (such as ) at adjacent range. His second notable nerf is toned up. He lacks possessing disjointed hitboxes in a few of his attacks. Because most of his moves involve stretching his limbs and levitating them away from his body, in a similar vein to, this means, with a few exceptions, that every time Rayman attacks, his hurtboxes also extend. This makes him very vulnerable to characters with projectile-heavy playstyles, such as, , and , and somewhat vulnerable to characters with disjointed hitboxes like , , and. However, the intangibility on his limbs he attacks completely outnumber this paticular type of flaw.

His fantastic recovery is overall situational. In theory, he has a strong vertical and horizontal recovery due to his plum. However, should Rayman lose his Purple Plum, his recovering options are limited to his midair jump and his up special, Helicopter Hair, which grant negligible vertical height; such traits make his recovery very easy to gimp, but can make his recovery extremely hard to gimp if the plum is utilized. Additionally, the plum can be used against him. Similarly to how projectiles are reflected, the plum can attack Rayman when striked by an opponent, which subsequently can knock him off and away from the stage if he is standing on it.

In the end, Rayman's notable flaws are signifcantlly outnumbered by his multiple strengths. Therefore, Rayman is currently ranked as the third-best character in the game and is significally considered to be ranked as the absolute best character in the game; thanks to his severe strengths and pros that are enough to outweigh the aformentioned cons and bugs from previous patches of the game, and his incarnation in v1.3 is widely agreed to be his best iteration of all updates in the game, and will potentially become even more better from later patches of the game. Because of this, Rayman is ranked by every players to be the absolute best character in all of Super Smash Flash 2. Below is a list of the major changes done in v1.1-1.3.

In competitive play
Rayman is considered to be a central top-tier character in competitive play, although he is one of the most disliked characters in competitive play; due to having a reputation for being one of the most frustrating characters to deal with due to his extremely high KO potential, several strong long-ranged attacks with disjointed and lingering hitboxes, powerful low-laggy and long-ranged smash attacks, an incredible recovery, a very strong juggling and combo game, as well as for a strong edgeguarding game and among the best grab and throw game, a strong presence off-stage, and high damage output, which makes him very difficult to punish and allows him to deal large damage and close out stocks quickly in a short amount of time.

Notable players

 * Dog

Tier placement history
Rayman had first made a unfortunate placement in 38th of C+ tier from the previous tier list, placing him at the third-top of low mid-tier (only after and ), which is his lowest placement throughout the game. Rayman then made a noticeable leap to 7th of A+ tier, placing him at the top of high-tier. Afterwards, Rayman rose to becoming 3rd of SS tier, ranking him as the third-best character in the game, which is his greatest placement throughout the game.