Gfyuki

Snake's down special has him placing C4 on the ground that he can detonate by doing his down special again. I have seen it be placed on enemies before, and I have done it myself, but I can not do it consistently. Sometimes I will place it accidentally on an enemy while other times I will try to and not succeed.

The wiki says that you just need to be near to them to do it, but I feel that there is more to it, at least to doing it consistently.

I've got bad news for you: you have to be really close to someone to be able to place C4 on them. How close, you ask? It looks like it actually depends on the opponent's hurtbox--meaning the smaller the character, the closer you'll have to be.

On the training stage with the opponent centered on 0, the furthest I could be was 7 "units"¹ for Pichu (one of the smallest in the game):

but 12.5 "units" from Ridley (one of the largest):

These distances also differ when Pichu/Ridley were facing the other way, making me think that this is indeed based on hurtbox size.

So your problem is likely that you're simply not close enough.

But if your opponent lets you get that close and gave you time to do something like your down-special (which will take 9 frames to plant the sticky), you're almost better off doing something like forward-tilt/up-tilt/grab which all come out faster or even forward-smash which is only 2 frames slower.

So the only time it would really be worth it to stick them would be if either you're trying to have fun and do something stylish or if you can't hit them with a move because they're shielding².

As such, I'd say the most opportune time to use this would be after you've conditioned them to shield when you approach. This way, you can use whatever approach you've been, but mix up the attack for a run up sticky.

Minor trivia I learned while experimenting

• Dropping a C4 from above will always make it stick to the floor. Even if you drop it directly over the opponent (much to my dismay--this was going to be my suggestion if it worked).




• If a character is "stuck" with the C4 and they pass another character, the C4 will transfer to the new character, even if this character is Snake himself! So be careful after you stick someone or when you detonate, you may be killing yourself! However, after a short window (I estimated about 20 frames), the C4 can be passed again. So even if it gets passed back onto you, you could try to stick it to the opponent again by getting close to them.




• The C4 will fall off of the character after a certain amount of time, so if it gets transferred back to you, don't fret. You'll just need to wait for it to fall off.




• Shielding can change the size of the opponent's hurtbox, so the "stick range" may change slightly if they're shielding--either way, I'd suggest playing safe and getting as close as you can.




• Pichu puts her ears back when shielding to fit into the shield and it's the most adorable thing.

^{1. I'm calling each of the smallest squares a "unit" here.}

^{2. There's also some edge cases like a shield break. You could stick them, do a forward smash and then detonate as they're still flying (or wait a second to bait the dodge and then detonate). Point is there are probably some other edge cases too, but those listed up there are the two I think you'll run into most often.}

The easiest way to stick C4 on an enemy is after performing a down grab -- aka, Snake's sleeper hold. This works more reliably at high percentages as the down throw "stunlock" animation plays out a little longer and opponents have to mash harder to get out.