SCOTU
Smash Hero
Priority
Priority is what determines if any one attack will beat out, lose out, trade with, or clank with another attack. The player closest to player 1 has the most priority, although the instances where this matters is extremely limited. There are two types of priority: Intrinsic Priority and Implied Priority.
Intrinsic Priority
Intrinsic Priority is what the developers added for ground and special attacks that directly compares which attack has more priority. If one attack has more intrinsic priority than another attack, the first will beat out the second, completely overriding it. If the two attacks have similar intrinsic priority, then the two attacks will clash, causing both characters to return to their default state. This only applies to ground/ special attacks, and only when two hitboxes from these type of attacks collide. The amount of Intrinsic Priority that an attack has is just the amount of % it would deal. If two hitboxes connect and one of them would deal more than 10% than the other, then that attack overwrites the other. If they are 10% or less apart, then they will clash.
On the Intrinsic Priority of Aerials: Aerials can only clash with Specials and some unusual ground normals (i.e. Ness' usmash). Hitboxes of aerials that come out upon landing (i.e. the landing hit of the Game & Watch bair) clash as if they were ground normals.
Implied Priority
Implied Priority is a function of how far the hitbox of an attack extends past the hurtbox of the character performing the attack (aka, the level of disjointedness - I'll get back to disjointedness in a moment - of an attack). This mainly applies to aerial attacks' interactions with other (including other aerial) hitboxes. When two moves that don't clash have hitboxes that overlap, the priority isn't determined then (since they won't clash). In this type of collision, the "winner" is determined by whose hitbox overlaps the other's hurtbox first. The farther separated your hitbox is from your hurtbox, the more likely you are to hit them out of their attack and less likely to trade/ get hit out of your attack.
Note: The term Disjointed is kind of a misnomer. As often used by common users of the word, a move can either be disjointed, or not disjointed. However, that is pretty much a false analysis of the term, since there is no such non-relative definition of the term. Disjointedness is a term that describes the level of how much a hitbox extends past a hurtbox, not just if it does or not (i.e. it's a spectrum).
Projectile Priority
First, to define a projectile: A projectile attack is any attack that user does not undergo hiltag when the attack connects, but the possessor of the hurtbox being hit does (some projectiles will also undergo hitlag).
Grab Priority
An interesting thing about the priority of grabs: When a grab connects on the same frame as an attack, they "trade". This type of trade results in the grabber taking the full damage of the attack, but no knockback, and grabbing the person.
Video by Magus: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeuXNw5P3G4
Phases of Being Hit
Once an attack connects, each character will go through several phases. The person who's attack connects goes through hitlag and then resumes with the attack's animation. The person getting hit goes through hitlag, hitstun and then tumble.
Hitlag
This phase starts when the hitbox connects with their hurtbox, and ends when the other character is sent flying. During this phase, both characters are in a "freeze frame" state, with the hitbox still active. This is very noticeable in this game, especially on attacks such as Zelda's death kicks. There are several notes to make here. First, if the attack causing the hitlag is a projectile, the projectile may undergo hitlag instead of the character who fired the projectile (the projectile's owner never undergoes hitlag for a projectile attack). Also, if time is slowed for one character but not the other, the person who's time is slowed will last in this phase significantly longer than the other.
There is a special type of Hitlag known as "Cinematic Hitlag", in which the hitlag lasts for longer than an attack of that strength normally would and the hittee cannot SDI during this type of hitlag.
Note: You cannot tech during hitlag (even if you SDI toward a surface). This rules out edgeteching as a means to survive an attack while being hit. All techs
Hitstun
Hitstun starts directly after hitlag. The person being hit undergoes this phase, and during it, can take no action of their own except teching. If a character is hit out of hitstun, this is called a true combo, and will register as consecutive hits in training mode.
Note: You can cancel hitstun by air dodging far quicker than you could normally jump out of the hitstun.
Tumble
Tumble is a phase that frequently (attack/ weight/ % dependent) follows hitstun. During this time your character can break tumble by doing any of the following: performing an aerail attack, performing a special attack, air dodging, "air teching" aka "wiggling" (rapidly pressing the control stick back and forth), teching (if you hit a wall/ the ground).
Meteor Stun
Meteors have drastically changed since Melee. First, you can meteor cancel with both a double jump or an up-b, just as you could in melee. However, there is a certain window in which you can meteor cancel (as opposed to starting right after hitlag). If you meteor cancel with a jump BUTTON too soon, you won't be able to meteor cancel. However, this does not apply to up-bs or tap jumps: one can mash up-b (or up) starting when they're hit and expect an early meteor cancel.
Directional Influence
Directional Influence (abbrv. DI) is one of the most important techniques to master.
Normal DI
Normal DI is a method of altering your trajectory after being hit using input from the control stick. Note: Normal DI DOES NOT affect how fast/ how much knockback you receive, it merely changes the direction you are sent. The goal of this DI is to change the direction an attack sends you to make it less lethal. Because you are only changing the direction you are sent, DI makes the most impact when done perpendicular to the base knockback of an attack. For instance, if you would be hit by an attack that sends straight upwards, the most pronounced DI would be straight to the side. Note that in that situation, you're decreasing your chance of dying off the top by bending your trajectory away from the upward death zone. For attacks that would send you off the stage in a manner to kill you, try DIing upward so you are sent less to the side, and more upward.
DI also helps to prevent combos. If you DI away from your opponent's weak attacks, they'll have a harder time following their attacks up.
DI is a difficult aspect of the game to master. It can keep you alive longer, it can keep you from getting comboed, and moreover, good DI makes you significantly better overall.
Normal DI is checked for on the last frame of hitlag only on the control stick.
Smash DI
Smash DI (aka SDI) is something significantly different from normal DI. During hitlag (if you're being hit), if you input one of the 8 most cardinal directions on the control stick, you will get an instantaneous change in position in the direction you input. This is good for escaping multiple hit attacks such as MK's neutral/ Side B attacks, fox's uair, many of Lucas' attacks, etc... Note: In order to SDI with the C-stick (set to smash/ special), you must return the C-stick to center before any additional SDI inputs will register, unlike the ability of the control stick to SDI while rolling it back and forth.
Note: You cannot SDI in any downward direction if you were hit while you were in the ground, even if you SDIed Upward first.
Automatic Smash DI
Automatic Smash DI, or ASDI, also gives you an instantaneous change in position, like SDI. There are several differences between SDI and ASDI, however. First, the length of an ASDI is significantly less than an SDI (approximately half as long). Also, unlike SDI, you do not need to press a direction during hitlag, you merely need to be holding that direction (on either the control stick or the cstick) when the hitlag ends. This is mainly used for escaping multihit attacks such as ROB's dsmash.
Attack Power Decay
This game "punishes" the repeated use of the same attack by decreasing BOTH the DAMAGE and KNOCKBACK a move does.
Attack Queue
The game keeps track of this by having an "Attack Queue" where it remembers the last 9 attacks that you landed on your opponent. If your attacks are getting weaker than you would like, just hit with several other attacks, and then your other moves will soon be back to full strength.
Decay Amount
A multiplier is applied to both the launch speed and damage dealt by an attack that depends on where in the attack queue that move already appears.
The following image (by ColinJF) shows how the different positions in the attack queue affect the decay multiplier.
The leftmost spot indicates the most recent attack in the queue and the rightmost spot indicates the least recent attack in the queue.
To find the decay multiplier, simply add up all of the values indicated for the given attack spot and subtract that from 1.
Attack Decay for Some Characters/ Attacks (By AlphaZealot)
Launch Speed
For an in depth thread on this refer to:Brawl Mechanics: Damage & Knockback Formulae, by ColinJF and Amazing Ampharos
Types of Knockback
Normal: These attacks have different knockback depending on which character is being hit and what percent they are at when hit.
Fixed Knockback: These attacks will always deal the same knockback to a given character, regardless of percent.
Set Knockback: These attacks will always deal the same knockback, regardless of character and percent.
Launch Speed Formula
Every Attack has 3 (or 4) constants associated with it that determine how much launch speed the attack wields.
These constants are
Every Character being hit has two constants that affect the launch speed they receive
The launch speed equation is a two step equation.
1st step:
If the attack has an non-zero growth (g) (i.e. it's not fixed nor set knockback):
k = b + d * g / r
If the attack has fixed or set knockback:
k = b + v * r (set knockback attacks have v = 0)
where d is the damage the hittee is at after the attack
2nd step:
if k > 2550:
Launch Speed = k + (a - 1) * c
if k < 2550:
Launch Speed = k
There are additional multipliers that can be applied for Aura, "super effective"/ "not very effective", Fast Brawl, Slow Brawl, and if the hittee was charging a smash. Please refer to ColinJF and Amazing Ampharos' article for additional information.
Unfriendly Momentum
Escaping Aerial Hitstun
Different actions break out of hitsun at different times. The order for these is First the Air dodge, then an aerial, then a special, then a double jump.
Ideally, the fastest way to regain control out of aerial hitsun is usually to do your characters least duration attack. Regardless that the air dodge will break out first, a fast aerial will almost always end before an air dodge would.
Vid by Kizzu-Kun
Fast Falling
Once you've regained control after breaking out of hitstun, if dying over the top is a concern, you can fast fall (even on the way up) to rapidly slow how fast you rise vertically.
Momentum Canceling Specials
If you still have unfriendly momentum when you break out or regain control, using almost every (normally) momentum stopping special attack will result in that special actually giving you're unfriendly momentum a boost. This makes something like Fox's shine one of the worst things you can do for survival.
However, for whatever reason, several momentum stopping specials do not adhere to this mechanic, and actually will stop your momentum (including vertical). These specials are Mr. Game & Watch's Bucket (down-b), Donkey Kong's Up-b, and Yoshi's Side-B. The most effective way to use one of these momentum stopping specials to prevent death is to break out of hitstun with that character's shortest lasting aerial attack, and then use their momentum stopping special to halt all momentum.
Vid by Infzy
Special Thanks
Ankoku
Bowyer
Jman
AlphaZealot
Simna Ibn Sind
ColinJF
Amazing Ampharos
Kizzu-Kun
Infzy
I hope this helps, and I intend to add more to this when I/ others discover it.
Priority is what determines if any one attack will beat out, lose out, trade with, or clank with another attack. The player closest to player 1 has the most priority, although the instances where this matters is extremely limited. There are two types of priority: Intrinsic Priority and Implied Priority.
Intrinsic Priority
Intrinsic Priority is what the developers added for ground and special attacks that directly compares which attack has more priority. If one attack has more intrinsic priority than another attack, the first will beat out the second, completely overriding it. If the two attacks have similar intrinsic priority, then the two attacks will clash, causing both characters to return to their default state. This only applies to ground/ special attacks, and only when two hitboxes from these type of attacks collide. The amount of Intrinsic Priority that an attack has is just the amount of % it would deal. If two hitboxes connect and one of them would deal more than 10% than the other, then that attack overwrites the other. If they are 10% or less apart, then they will clash.
On the Intrinsic Priority of Aerials: Aerials can only clash with Specials and some unusual ground normals (i.e. Ness' usmash). Hitboxes of aerials that come out upon landing (i.e. the landing hit of the Game & Watch bair) clash as if they were ground normals.
Implied Priority
Implied Priority is a function of how far the hitbox of an attack extends past the hurtbox of the character performing the attack (aka, the level of disjointedness - I'll get back to disjointedness in a moment - of an attack). This mainly applies to aerial attacks' interactions with other (including other aerial) hitboxes. When two moves that don't clash have hitboxes that overlap, the priority isn't determined then (since they won't clash). In this type of collision, the "winner" is determined by whose hitbox overlaps the other's hurtbox first. The farther separated your hitbox is from your hurtbox, the more likely you are to hit them out of their attack and less likely to trade/ get hit out of your attack.
Note: The term Disjointed is kind of a misnomer. As often used by common users of the word, a move can either be disjointed, or not disjointed. However, that is pretty much a false analysis of the term, since there is no such non-relative definition of the term. Disjointedness is a term that describes the level of how much a hitbox extends past a hurtbox, not just if it does or not (i.e. it's a spectrum).
Projectile Priority
First, to define a projectile: A projectile attack is any attack that user does not undergo hiltag when the attack connects, but the possessor of the hurtbox being hit does (some projectiles will also undergo hitlag).
^Thanks to Simna ibn Sind
Grab Priority
An interesting thing about the priority of grabs: When a grab connects on the same frame as an attack, they "trade". This type of trade results in the grabber taking the full damage of the attack, but no knockback, and grabbing the person.
Video by Magus: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeuXNw5P3G4
Phases of Being Hit
Once an attack connects, each character will go through several phases. The person who's attack connects goes through hitlag and then resumes with the attack's animation. The person getting hit goes through hitlag, hitstun and then tumble.
Hitlag
This phase starts when the hitbox connects with their hurtbox, and ends when the other character is sent flying. During this phase, both characters are in a "freeze frame" state, with the hitbox still active. This is very noticeable in this game, especially on attacks such as Zelda's death kicks. There are several notes to make here. First, if the attack causing the hitlag is a projectile, the projectile may undergo hitlag instead of the character who fired the projectile (the projectile's owner never undergoes hitlag for a projectile attack). Also, if time is slowed for one character but not the other, the person who's time is slowed will last in this phase significantly longer than the other.
There is a special type of Hitlag known as "Cinematic Hitlag", in which the hitlag lasts for longer than an attack of that strength normally would and the hittee cannot SDI during this type of hitlag.
Note: You cannot tech during hitlag (even if you SDI toward a surface). This rules out edgeteching as a means to survive an attack while being hit. All techs
Hitstun
Hitstun starts directly after hitlag. The person being hit undergoes this phase, and during it, can take no action of their own except teching. If a character is hit out of hitstun, this is called a true combo, and will register as consecutive hits in training mode.
Note: You can cancel hitstun by air dodging far quicker than you could normally jump out of the hitstun.
Tumble
Tumble is a phase that frequently (attack/ weight/ % dependent) follows hitstun. During this time your character can break tumble by doing any of the following: performing an aerail attack, performing a special attack, air dodging, "air teching" aka "wiggling" (rapidly pressing the control stick back and forth), teching (if you hit a wall/ the ground).
Meteor Stun
Meteors have drastically changed since Melee. First, you can meteor cancel with both a double jump or an up-b, just as you could in melee. However, there is a certain window in which you can meteor cancel (as opposed to starting right after hitlag). If you meteor cancel with a jump BUTTON too soon, you won't be able to meteor cancel. However, this does not apply to up-bs or tap jumps: one can mash up-b (or up) starting when they're hit and expect an early meteor cancel.
Directional Influence
Directional Influence (abbrv. DI) is one of the most important techniques to master.
Normal DI
Normal DI is a method of altering your trajectory after being hit using input from the control stick. Note: Normal DI DOES NOT affect how fast/ how much knockback you receive, it merely changes the direction you are sent. The goal of this DI is to change the direction an attack sends you to make it less lethal. Because you are only changing the direction you are sent, DI makes the most impact when done perpendicular to the base knockback of an attack. For instance, if you would be hit by an attack that sends straight upwards, the most pronounced DI would be straight to the side. Note that in that situation, you're decreasing your chance of dying off the top by bending your trajectory away from the upward death zone. For attacks that would send you off the stage in a manner to kill you, try DIing upward so you are sent less to the side, and more upward.
DI also helps to prevent combos. If you DI away from your opponent's weak attacks, they'll have a harder time following their attacks up.
DI is a difficult aspect of the game to master. It can keep you alive longer, it can keep you from getting comboed, and moreover, good DI makes you significantly better overall.
Normal DI is checked for on the last frame of hitlag only on the control stick.
Smash DI
Smash DI (aka SDI) is something significantly different from normal DI. During hitlag (if you're being hit), if you input one of the 8 most cardinal directions on the control stick, you will get an instantaneous change in position in the direction you input. This is good for escaping multiple hit attacks such as MK's neutral/ Side B attacks, fox's uair, many of Lucas' attacks, etc... Note: In order to SDI with the C-stick (set to smash/ special), you must return the C-stick to center before any additional SDI inputs will register, unlike the ability of the control stick to SDI while rolling it back and forth.
Note: You cannot SDI in any downward direction if you were hit while you were in the ground, even if you SDIed Upward first.
Automatic Smash DI
Automatic Smash DI, or ASDI, also gives you an instantaneous change in position, like SDI. There are several differences between SDI and ASDI, however. First, the length of an ASDI is significantly less than an SDI (approximately half as long). Also, unlike SDI, you do not need to press a direction during hitlag, you merely need to be holding that direction (on either the control stick or the cstick) when the hitlag ends. This is mainly used for escaping multihit attacks such as ROB's dsmash.
Attack Power Decay
This game "punishes" the repeated use of the same attack by decreasing BOTH the DAMAGE and KNOCKBACK a move does.
Attack Queue
The game keeps track of this by having an "Attack Queue" where it remembers the last 9 attacks that you landed on your opponent. If your attacks are getting weaker than you would like, just hit with several other attacks, and then your other moves will soon be back to full strength.
Decay Amount
A multiplier is applied to both the launch speed and damage dealt by an attack that depends on where in the attack queue that move already appears.
The following image (by ColinJF) shows how the different positions in the attack queue affect the decay multiplier.
The leftmost spot indicates the most recent attack in the queue and the rightmost spot indicates the least recent attack in the queue.
To find the decay multiplier, simply add up all of the values indicated for the given attack spot and subtract that from 1.
Attack Decay for Some Characters/ Attacks (By AlphaZealot)
Launch Speed
For an in depth thread on this refer to:Brawl Mechanics: Damage & Knockback Formulae, by ColinJF and Amazing Ampharos
Types of Knockback
Normal: These attacks have different knockback depending on which character is being hit and what percent they are at when hit.
Fixed Knockback: These attacks will always deal the same knockback to a given character, regardless of percent.
Set Knockback: These attacks will always deal the same knockback, regardless of character and percent.
Launch Speed Formula
Every Attack has 3 (or 4) constants associated with it that determine how much launch speed the attack wields.
These constants are
- the Base Launch Speed (b)
- the Launch Speed Growth (g) -- An attack with fixed launch speed has a g = 0
- the Vertical Strength (c) -- only applicable on attacks with at least moderate knockback; c is negative if and only if the attack is a meteor smash
- (only applicable to fixed knockback attacks)the Fixed Variance (v) -- This determines how fixed knockback attacks affect different characters.
Every Character being hit has two constants that affect the launch speed they receive
- Launch Resistance (r)
- Vertical Acceleration (a)
The launch speed equation is a two step equation.
1st step:
If the attack has an non-zero growth (g) (i.e. it's not fixed nor set knockback):
k = b + d * g / r
If the attack has fixed or set knockback:
k = b + v * r (set knockback attacks have v = 0)
where d is the damage the hittee is at after the attack
2nd step:
if k > 2550:
Launch Speed = k + (a - 1) * c
if k < 2550:
Launch Speed = k
There are additional multipliers that can be applied for Aura, "super effective"/ "not very effective", Fast Brawl, Slow Brawl, and if the hittee was charging a smash. Please refer to ColinJF and Amazing Ampharos' article for additional information.
Unfriendly Momentum
Escaping Aerial Hitstun
Different actions break out of hitsun at different times. The order for these is First the Air dodge, then an aerial, then a special, then a double jump.
Ideally, the fastest way to regain control out of aerial hitsun is usually to do your characters least duration attack. Regardless that the air dodge will break out first, a fast aerial will almost always end before an air dodge would.
Vid by Kizzu-Kun
Fast Falling
Once you've regained control after breaking out of hitstun, if dying over the top is a concern, you can fast fall (even on the way up) to rapidly slow how fast you rise vertically.
Momentum Canceling Specials
If you still have unfriendly momentum when you break out or regain control, using almost every (normally) momentum stopping special attack will result in that special actually giving you're unfriendly momentum a boost. This makes something like Fox's shine one of the worst things you can do for survival.
However, for whatever reason, several momentum stopping specials do not adhere to this mechanic, and actually will stop your momentum (including vertical). These specials are Mr. Game & Watch's Bucket (down-b), Donkey Kong's Up-b, and Yoshi's Side-B. The most effective way to use one of these momentum stopping specials to prevent death is to break out of hitstun with that character's shortest lasting aerial attack, and then use their momentum stopping special to halt all momentum.
Vid by Infzy
Special Thanks
Ankoku
Bowyer
Jman
AlphaZealot
Simna Ibn Sind
ColinJF
Amazing Ampharos
Kizzu-Kun
Infzy
I hope this helps, and I intend to add more to this when I/ others discover it.
