Assist – Rafiki

Rafiki

With little fanfare, Rafiki leaps out, being slightly less tall than Marth and slightly more wide, due to his hunched over state. Rafiki travels around the stage at a leisurely walk, following around opponents without directly interfering…yet. If an opponent begins attacking the summoner within a platform’s distance, Rafiki will suddenly stop and begin bouncing around in place, chanting crazily. It goes without saying the opponent finds this quite an annoyance; if they try attacking while Rafiki is distracting them, right in their face, they’ll find that their moves have half their regular priority while dealing half damage and knockback. In addition, if the foe is foolish enough to attack Rafiki himself, he’ll go on a murderous rampage, unleashing some crushing martial arts moves that would make Bruce Lee green with envy. These deal from 13-17%, with knockback KOing around 120%. In order to trigger either of these effects, the summoner will want to stay close to Rafiki at all times.

Of course, Rafiki’s not about to disappear if the characters manage to escape his slow pace. He extracts a turtle shell and slides it along the ground at opponents, with it acting like a regular Koopa shell item, with the exception of it tripping opponents it knocks against. When this occurs, the shell shatters, revealing a puddle of red paint Rafiki stored in there for his wall paintings. Should the foe attempt to stand up in the paint, they’ll slip again, while if they attempt to roll, they’ll slide in that direction, falling into prone in the process. Regardless, Rafiki does a great deal to ensure he can keep up, throwing up to three shells out at once to keep his foe on their toes. He appears semi-regularly as an Assist character.