Compiled Priority List

I think someone, quite possible even myself, should start a priority list. The list should have attacks broken up into catagories like: Ground attacks, Aerials, and Projectiles so we, the smash community can get a general consensus on the priority of each attack. Anyone interested in making the list (helping included) or the idea?

This would be quite the help but with a project this amboitious it might be hard to find people willing to help.

I think we could start with only Olimar's move set. If word catches wind then it's quite possible other boards will come up with lists of their own. I'm atleast sure that I can make one for Olimar.

purple dair < Falcon nair

D:D:D:

OliUair>G&WDair

I'd be willing to chip in all priority info I know. Unfortunately I don't have a Wii otherwise I'd sit and figure out a lot of this. Maybe if a couple different people are willing to take on certain moves/characters/whatever, yeah i dont know. but yeah, Oli Uair. woo.

Read The Physics of Attacks of Attacks thread. (<---- link)

Priority for ground attacks and specials is based on the damage they would deal. If it's within 10%, then the attacks will clank. Otherwise, the stronger wins.

As far as anyone knows, aerials are not subject this priority calculation; it's just a matter of whether or not the hitbox overlaps your hurtbox. Disjointed hitboxes tend to give the appearance of high priority, because they'll be the first to poke into the opponent's hurtbox.

Olimar's aerials are rather unique, in that the Pikmin can clank against other aerials; you'll notice a little blue-grey "clank bubble". This is atypical behaviour. I believe it implies that Pikmin are treated in some way as projectiles.

Also, note that grabs, heavy/super/faux-super armor, and the different projectiles,lasers,etc. have an impact on perceived priority.

Also, this list will need to be for each of the 5 pikmin.
The clanking behavior is because the pikmin have hit points. If say.. you fair with a white against Marth's fair, the white will die in Olimar's hand.

This is like DanGR's KO percent project which had too many variables to actually make some sort of guide on it. This might be a little more manageable but there are still too many variables and information to consider. Such as what BlackWaltzX mentioned, you would have to test every characters move with every Pikmin with every other characters move.

In fact if you take a minute to think about you'll realize exactly how much information will have to be included in this.

Anyway sorry for being the bearer of bad news =\

I'd recommend starting off with a shorthand list. This would contain the most used moves of characters. Luigi's nair (!!!!), snake's up smash, marth's air attacks and everything else..

BlackWaltzX said:

Also, this list will need to be for each of the 5 pikmin.
The clanking behavior is because the pikmin have hit points. If say.. you fair with a white against Marth's fair, the white will die in Olimar's hand.

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Actually, I was testing Olimar's fair vs other aerials and ground attacks, and apparently, the clanking "protects" the pikmin and keeps it from getting hurt assuming the pikmin still has a hitbox(at the start-up and cool-down the pikmin is vulnerable). Also, pikmin vs GROUND attacks will cause clanking, Oli's fair vs Kirby's jab causes a clank, but Olimar's fair continues, while Kirby's jab is stopped, like it had clanked with another ground attack.

Ah, I never researched it much.. if at all. I just know I'll do fairs and whatnot and they sometimes die mid-attack.

XienZo said:

Actually, I was testing Olimar's fair vs other aerials and ground attacks, and apparently, the clanking "protects" the pikmin and keeps it from getting hurt assuming the pikmin still has a hitbox(at the start-up and cool-down the pikmin is vulnerable). Also, pikmin vs GROUND attacks will cause clanking, Oli's fair vs Kirby's jab causes a clank, but Olimar's fair continues, while Kirby's jab is stopped, like it had clanked with another ground attack.

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That's very interesting. I'm trying to figure out all of Brawl's priority system (which hardly exists, really, as attacks don't have "priority" per se, as I tried to explain above). But I know nothing about Olimar. So each Pikmin has an HP counter, and they're sometimes vulnerable to attack? Is Olimar's Fair a multi-hit move? When it clanks with Kirby's jab and the Fair "continues", does it damage the Kirby, or has Kirby cancelled its ability to damage it? (That happens sometimes, like if you cancel Link's grounded up-B with a shield or jab, you become impervious to the rest of the attack!)

Sorry for all the questions... any help about Olimar's craziness is appreciated

I think we'd first need to classify his Pikmin as projectile or not.

I didn't test it at a range where the fair could hit kirby; I was doing in in super slow speed(where C-stick only work 1/4 times...), I had to operate 2 contollers, and I used kirby so I could clearly see where the hitboxes are. I might test it later, but when I used Oli's fair vs's another Olimar's nair(a multi hit as we all know) the pikmin would first have a clash thing with the nair Olimar (but didn't damage him even though he was in range), both animations continued, unlike ground clashes where both attacks stop, and the pikmin got damaged when the fair Olimar started to pull the pikmin away, but it was still inside the nair Olimar's hitbox.

However, on about the original scenario on Olimar vs Kirby, I believe the fair CANNOT hit kirby, due to this weird hitbox mechanism I found. When a specific hitbox hits a specific hurtbox, and the hitbox is lingering (over 1 frame long) but not multi-hit, the hurtbox is immune to that hitbox and ONLY that hitbox for a few frames. In other words, if you got hit by Lucario's FSmash, which let say, lasts 30 frames and does 20 damage, you would get hit on the first frame, enter hitlag and hitstun while being immune to the remaining 29 frames of Lucario's FSmash, so you would only get 20 damage, while if the mechanic didn't exist, you'd be in constant hitlag for 30 frames taking 20 damage per frame, for a total of 600 damage. Which is bad.
The easiest way to see this is to go to stage builder, put spikes, and then immediately above it, put a few blocks. When you hit the spikes, you'll bounce off the blocks above you, and then land back on the spikes, but since the spikes's hitbox would be disabled for a few frames, you'll see your character knocked down on the spikes, not in any hitlag. After a few more frames, when the spike's hitbox refreshes, you'll enter hitlag.

Its a bit off topic, but it might help with any confusion you might get while testing.

But if you want Olimar craziness, I'll tell you a special trick he can do. The previously mentioned hitbox disabling mechanic works even if you're hit in Super Armor. That means that in a constant hitbox, like stage builder spikes or a super sonic, the first hit can be super armored, and the second hit won't happen for a few frames. Its only for a second or so, but if a char has an insanely fast super armor, you can super armor every hit indefinently. Which means you can stand on spikes or eat super sonic forever without getting knocked back. Ahem, of course, that only applies to characters with insanely fast spammable SA's, and its not like Olimar has any of those, right? coughWACcough

XienZo said:

when I used Oli's fair vs's another Olimar's nair(a multi hit as we all know) the pikmin would first have a clash thing with the nair Olimar (but didn't damage him even though he was in range), both animations continued, unlike ground clashes where both attacks stop, and the pikmin got damaged when the fair Olimar started to pull the pikmin away, but it was still inside the nair Olimar's hitbox.

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When the Fair hit the Nair, are you sure the Fair was overlapping Oli's hurtbox, and not just his hitbox? On that note, I'm not sure where Oli's hurtbox is on his Nair, but I'm guessing it's pretty deep into his belly, if he even has one :o

But you sort of answer my question, with your Kirby example:

XienZo said:

However, on about the original scenario on Olimar vs Kirby, I believe the fair CANNOT hit kirby, due to this weird hitbox mechanism I found. When a specific hitbox hits a specific hurtbox, and the hitbox is lingering (over 1 frame long) but not multi-hit, the hurtbox is immune to that hitbox and ONLY that hitbox for a few frames.

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Yes. This is why I asked you if the Fair would actually hurt the Kirby if it kept going. It's the same as in the Link example I'd brought up; if you clash an attack with Link's standing up-B (or are hit by it, or shield it), then you are made invincible to it for the rest of the attack I hadn't thought about the explanation for this, but you're absolutely right.

So based on this, here is my current wholistic theory of attack clashing, hitbox cancelling, and attack interruption. Please point out any exceptions or errors!

• Every character, and almost every projectile, has a hurtbox. Although it sometimes disappears ("invincibility frames").
  
• Attacks (and most projectiles) have a hitbox. On every frame, they have an assigned amount of damage they would cause to an adversary.
  
  
• If a hitbox overlaps an enemy hurtbox, on any frame, the hurtbox character (or projectile) takes the damage. They might be interrupted from an attack, they might enter hitlag, they might do a number of things, or they might not.
  
  
  Clashing:
• When two enemy hitboxes overlap, they each do a check to see if they should be cancelled. If the damage they would cause is within 10% of the enemy hitbox, then it "clashes", and a blue-grey "clash bubble" appears.
  
  
• When a hitbox has clashed against an enemy hitbox, the enemy (be it a player or a projectile) is now made impervious to this hitbox! I call this "hitbox cancelling". A hitbox can be cancelled by clashing against an opponent hitbox, or by hitting a shield (notice how a "clash bubble" appears every time you shield an attack!), or by simply hitting an enemy. All this means is that you can't get hit from an attack you've already shielded, clashed, or that's already hit you.
  
  
• Just because you've cancelled a hitbox, doesn't mean it won't hurt anyone else that jumps in its way .
  
  
• Aerials do not perform the damage-based "priority" check, to see if they clash. An aerial hitbox can overlap any other hitbox, without caring at all. Some specials (and perhaps most ground attacks, I'm not sure!) can clash against aerials, so that their hitbox is canceled from the aerial-user, but the aerial itself will not be hitbox-cancelled. So the only way to hitbox-cancel an aerial is to shield it, or get hit by the attack. Except...
  
  
• There are exceptions! Olimar's aerials involve the swinging of Pikmin, which are living projectiles; they have their own hurtbox and HP meter, attack hitbox, etc. This means Olimar's aerials can clash against opponent hitboxes (even other aerials), in which they'll be hitbox-canceled and so lose their offensive ability against that opponent. Luckily, Olimar's aerials are fast and disjointed, giving them the appearance of "high priority" despite this natural disadvantage.
  
  
• Note the implications, that clashing is a one-way operation. Where there's a clash, it can mean either that one attack clashed against the other, or that they both clashed against each other.
  
  
  Interrupting:
• Some attack hitboxes will be interrupted by a clash with an offending hitbox; that is, the player's attack will retreat into a neutral (standing) state. This can happen to most ground attacks (like in a true jab-vs-jab clash), with notable exceptions in characters with projectile-type smashes like Snake and Ness (Yo-yo).
  
  
• Specials tend to refuse interruption, but will continue through the motions even after the attack hitbox has been cancelled. An easy example is Link's standing up-B; shield or jab it, and you're impervious through the rest of his long spinning attack.
  
  
• I do not know of any aerials that can be clash-interrupted. Although Olimar's aerials can clash, Olimar will continue through the motion of the attack regardless; even if the Pikmin gets killed during the attack. Although I need more extensive testing to really verify this.
  
  
• The interruptability of attacks has some relation to heavy-armor, super-armor, faux-super-armor, etc...

There are definitely things I'm not sure about in the above, so if you have counterexamples to anything I'd love to hear it!

Also, I think a "clash bubble" appears when one attack dominates another. Suppose Sonic does a jab against Ike's Fsmash (heh), and the hitboxes overlap before any hurtbox gets in the way. I think a "clash bubble" will appear, indicating that Sonic's jab clashed, however Ike's Fsmash does not clash, and continues the smack the poor hedgehog. I suspect this happens (can't test it now; can someone verify?), which could establish a more concise theory of clashing: that a non-aerial hitbox will always clash, with a "clash bubble", when it comes into contact with an enemy hitbox that would deal more damage. Next, the clashing hitbox checks if the enemy hitbox is above its interruption threshold, which is 10% for most ground attacks, more if the attack has "heavy armor", and infinity for "super armor" (the attack is uninterruptible). Makes sense, right?

XienZo said:

The easiest way to see this is to go to stage builder, put spikes, and then immediately above it, put a few blocks. When you hit the spikes, you'll bounce off the blocks above you, and then land back on the spikes, but since the spikes's hitbox would be disabled for a few frames, you'll see your character knocked down on the spikes, not in any hitlag. After a few more frames, when the spike's hitbox refreshes, you'll enter hitlag.

Click to expand...

That's a neat way to play with this! "Hitbox cancelling" as I call it. I wonder, what it is that resets the spikes so they'll hurt you? Is there some fixed number of frames, after which a hitbox becomes dangerous again? Would that number be constant across all attacks in the game?

An alternative possibility, is that once you've hitbox-cancelled an attack, it's done for the entire lifespan of the hitbox. And Spikes are special, in that every second or so they reactivate their hitbox. Just a guess.

With the Olimar WAC though something confused me. Say there was an attack that lasts longer than Olimar's super Armor.
Okay to put it in simple forms this is not fact i'm just throwing in random numbers. Say Olimar's Super Armor on the whistle lasts 12 frames.You're hit with an attack that lasts 14. If Olimar whistled the first part of the blast and whistled right after that would you take as much knockback(or any at all) as you would if you were hit with the first frames of the attack.

Also out of all of Olimar'saerial attacks I think Uair would have the most priority. It's disjointed, a multi hit attack , and usually doesn't clank because of the fact that it is a multi hit attack.

on the complete compiled list of priority we should do some of our aerials against osme bad matchups with some characters's aerials that we know have prority over most of our ground moves. Peach's Dair, Yoshi's Bair, Marth's Fair, R.O.B.'s Nair. I dunno it seems that those moves would be good places to start.

protoman10 said:

With the Olimar WAC though something confused me. Say there was an attack that lasts longer than Olimar's super Armor.
Okay to put it in simple forms this is not fact i'm just throwing in random numbers. Say Olimar's Super Armor on the whistle lasts 12 frames.You're hit with an attack that lasts 14. If Olimar whistled the first part of the blast and whistled right after that would you take as much damage(or any at all) as you did if you were hit with the first frames of the attack.

Click to expand...

I might be missing something, but if Olimar's whistle just gives him super-armor, then he always takes damage from incoming attacks. If their hitbox gets on him, whether or not he's in super-armor, he takes damage. The only question is whether or not he's able to stay in super-armor between whistles, so that he never takes knockback from an offending hitbox; this I don't know.

Actually, if it's a single-hit attack that hits him while he's in super-armor, then he should have hitbox-cancelled the attack, which means it won't cause any additional damage or knockback once he comes out of the super-armor frames. So he will be protected from the knockback of the attack.

However, I'm not sure if he has vulnerability (to knockback) between uses of his whistle.

protoman10 said:

Also out of all of Olimar;saerial attacks I think Uair would have the most priority. It's disjointed, a multi hit attack , and usually doesn't clank because of the fact that it is a multi hit attack.

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*sigh......* You're right that his Up-air has the most perceived priority, for those reasons you state. But there's nothing "high priority" about it; it just has nice properties that will tend to win out in battles. But you can't say it beats other attacks, because it all just depends on the timing and spacing of them.

Also, it does clank against other attacks, but you're right that since it's multi-hit, and the hits all come out really fast, the clanking doesn't really matter (except that it gives the enemy extra time to SDI away, I think).

I still advocate that we do not try to make a "priority list" for Olimar, for these reasons.

Priority lists would be hard to make for any character, more so for Olimar with the inclusion of the Pikmin. Might as well ditch the idea right now so as to avoid further disappointment

protoman10 said:

With the Olimar WAC though something confused me. Say there was an attack that lasts longer than Olimar's super Armor.
Okay to put it in simple forms this is not fact i'm just throwing in random numbers. Say Olimar's Super Armor on the whistle lasts 12 frames.You're hit with an attack that lasts 14. If Olimar whistled the first part of the blast and whistled right after that would you take as much knockback(or any at all) as you would if you were hit with the first frames of the attack.

Click to expand...

The WAC acts as a shield, but takes damage. Long-lasting attacks such as shiek's, yoshi's, and luigi's nair are canceled after they hit the SA. Multihit attacks such as GaW turtle will hit Olimar multiple times though. does that clear it up?

Edit:

infzy said:

That's very interesting. I'm trying to figure out all of Brawl's priority system (which hardly exists, really, as attacks don't have "priority" per se, as I tried to explain above). But I know nothing about Olimar. So each Pikmin has an HP counter, and they're sometimes vulnerable to attack? Is Olimar's Fair a multi-hit move? When it clanks with Kirby's jab and the Fair "continues", does it damage the Kirby, or has Kirby cancelled its ability to damage it? (That happens sometimes, like if you cancel Link's grounded up-B with a shield or jab, you become impervious to the rest of the attack!)

Sorry for all the questions... any help about Olimar's craziness is appreciated

Click to expand...

Olimar's fair isn't multihit, BUT it does come out slightly from above-which might be the reason it "went through" kirby's jab. I don't think it did. I think it went OVER it maybe?

Excellence said:

I think we'd first need to classify his Pikmin as projectile or not.

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All of Olimar's pikmin attacks are treated as projectiles-with a hitbox and a hurtbox.

Edit 2:VVVVVVVVVVV

yeah...post count doesn't matter. I wish it didn't show. >_> Tenki's got almost as many.

OT: DanGR, you joined in April, and you have almost 2000 posts!?

holy freaking crap!

Uair has soo much priority it can out prioritize kirbys stone form but then it just hits you anyways so..

DanGR said:

Olimar's fair isn't multihit, BUT it does come out slightly from above-which might be the reason it "went through" kirby's jab. I don't think it did. I think it went OVER it maybe?

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The situation in question is where Olimar's Fair clashes against Kirby's jab; that is, the hitboxes overlap before either attack reaches a hurtbox. Then, Olimar's Fair will no longer be able to hurt Kirby! Although, Olimar will continue swinging the Pikmin through the attack animation, since aerials cannot be interrupted. Kirby's jab, on the other hand, should be interrupted, so Kirby will quickly return to his netural (standing) state. Not that Kirby's jabs have much lag anyway :-)

That's my whole theory on what happens in that interaction, anyway, and until shown otherwise...

DanGR said:

All of Olimar's pikmin attacks are treated as projectiles-with a hitbox and a hurtbox.

Click to expand...

In that sense they are projectiles, but in another sense they are not, since they cannot be reflected. (except with Oli's side-B) So there's something categorically different here. Like projectiles with super-armor

As far as I can tell, the Pikmin attacks are in the same category as Ness' Yo-Yo, and ZSS's Fsmash. They can clash against aerials, and their animation is not interrupted by a clash. This might be the same way that (most?) Specials are treated, but I haven't studied Specials enough to say.

Pokerface said:

Uair has soo much priority it can out prioritize kirbys stone form but then it just hits you anyways so..

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Lol.... well then the Uair isn't really outprioritizing Kirby's stone, then, is it? In what sense do you mean that the Uair has priority in this situation?

The upair can hold the stone in a 'stunlock' and if you move the way you were going, you can dodge the stone completely. Same goes for whatever else falls down hard on you.

Most specials which are basicially regular attacks stop when clanking IIRC. I know 3 of Falcon's "regular" specials (over, neutral, down) should clank with the same attack.

@Protoman:
In that situation, according to my observations, you'd get hit, recieve damage but not knockback, and will NOT get hit twice, because the 14 frame attack has to "refresh" in order to hit you again. This "refreshing" takes roughly 60 frames or so, for the attack to be able to hit you again. To help clear it up, if you got hit by a lingering hitbox, bounced against a wall, and reentered the hitbox, you would only get the hitbox and damage of only the first hit, because the hitbox did not refresh. For that to happen, the attack has to have at least 60 frames of lingering hitbox. The only time you'll ever see that long of a hitbox is spikes(the pointy kinds) and random Final Smashes, so you'll never see it in competitive smash. Unless you want to hide in Norfair lava or something.

I think Olimar's Pikmin are always considered projectiles. Take Purple Pikmin, when throw at Samus' chargeshot I think it has the 'clank' appearance, but it doesn't die since it's a projectile with an actual health value. I'm guessing that they can clash with anything that cannot kill them on contact. This may be why when thrown against something like Ganondorf's Warlock Punch they simply die and fail to stop the attack.

Purple Pikmin act weird. I was randomly fighting a CPU snake the other day, he took out the guided missle, and I threw a purple. The purple slowly went through the missle, and both came out of the exchange intact. I'm guessing the purple's hitbox, when thrown, is slightly bigger than the hurtbox. Like, just a pixel or two, but slightly bigger.

Also, Olimar's up-B has like the highest priority out of Olimar's moves, since its the only thing that can beat meta's tornado except perhaps the disjointed hitbox on d-tilt.

i dunno. itd be difficult being as how ud have to take all the pikmins into affect for the list. they all have different priorities. or most of them anyways

Hmm, your hitbox information is very useful Infzy.

To Excellence: I'd love to help, but I don't even have Brawl to start with...BUT I know something about Olimar's WORM!

Razor Leaf>Worm>Angel Ring

Fox's D-Air>>Olimar's U-Smash

BlackWaltzX said:

The upair can hold the stone in a 'stunlock' and if you move the way you were going, you can dodge the stone completely. Same goes for whatever else falls down hard on you.

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That's a hilarious way to abuse your pikmin as a hitlag shield Olimar's so awesome.

XienZo said:

Most specials which are basicially regular attacks stop when clanking IIRC. I know 3 of Falcon's "regular" specials (over, neutral, down) should clank with the same attack.

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Hmm, you're right, and also C.Falcon shows that some specials can go through the same old 10% damage-based-priority check. Ex. Falcon Kick will clash and be interrupted by a jab. However, Falcon Punch will cause Falcon Kick to clash and interrupt, while the Falcon Punch will continue punching and hit the kicking Falcon, so it did not clash or interrupt. It totally outprioritizes it. (Stales Moves might be able to change this though.)

I don't know how general these properties are for Specials.

Excellence said:

I think Olimar's Pikmin are always considered projectiles. Take Purple Pikmin, when throw at Samus' chargeshot I think it has the 'clank' appearance, but it doesn't die since it's a projectile with an actual health value.

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I think Pikmin are certainly projectiles when thrown; they can even be reflected (hmm, do they hurt Olimar when this happens?). I'm still not exactly sure how Pikmin work in some circumstances when they're used in ground-attacks and aerials, although it sure is peculiar