• Welcome to Smashboards, the world's largest Super Smash Brothers community! Over 250,000 Smash Bros. fans from around the world have come to discuss these great games in over 19 million posts!

    You are currently viewing our boards as a visitor. Click here to sign up right now and start on your path in the Smash community!

Horizontal Aerial Movement Speed List

Status
Not open for further replies.

3GOD

Smash Ace
Joined
Jul 23, 2006
Messages
745
Location
Athens, GA
I was interested in knowing which characters had the "best" aerial movement. Particularly, who is the fastest in the air horizontally? I ran two different tests with very similar results.

For the first test, I made a custom stage (Large) with blocks along the bottom (18 blocks) and platforms all the way up the left side creating a sort of "landing strip." I then had each character (one by one) go to the right edge of the top platform and held right to see how far each character got (how many blocks he/she traveled horizontally) and how much time it took. For each of these, I captured the video and analyzed it to estimate how many "blocks" he/she traveled and get the amount of time. These estimates were a little rough since it's hard to say exactly what fraction of a block has been traveled when the character lands. I wanted another test to get more accurate results.

For the second test, I altered my custom stage such that the "landing strip" only had 6 blocks with a wall of blocks on the right of the 6th block. I made each character teeter at the edge of the top platform and recorded the time (via video capture/analysis) it took for that character to travel from the edge of the platform to the wall. I had to make one exception for this test; King Dedede has such slow movement that I had to shorten the strip to 5 blocks in order to make him hit the wall before he hit the ground (I wanted to avoid jumping in these tests). The results of this test were generally VERY close to my first test results, so I think that both results are pretty good with the 2nd probably being a little better.

Anyway, I can describe these tests in more detail later if people desire it, but I believe the 2nd test gives fairly accurate results. I've sorted them from fastest in the air (Yoshi) to slowest in the air (King Dedede), and I've included their average horizontal air speed (in "blocks per second").

Character - Horizontal Air Speed

"S Class"
Yoshi - 4.04
Jigglypuff - 3.87
Wario - 3.71
Wolf - 3.63
Captain Falcon - 3.63

"A Class"
Sonic - 3.36
Donkey Kong - 3.36
Lucas - 3.30
Bowser - 3.30
Squirtle - 3.27
Mr. Game & Watch - 3.24
Marth - 3.24

"B Class"
Zero Suit Samus - 3.13
Charizard - 3.07
Zelda - 3.02
Samus - 2.97
Lucario - 2.95
Ness - 2.92
Mario - 2.92

"C Class"
Snake - 2.88
Toon Link - 2.83
Ike - 2.83
Pikachu - 2.74
Peach - 2.74
R.O.B. - 2.70
Pit - 2.70
Fox - 2.70
Falco - 2.70

"D Class"
Ganondorf - 2.62
Kirby - 2.59
Sheik - 2.57
Olimar - 2.55
Diddy Kong - 2.50
Link - 2.45

"F Class"
Meta Knight - 2.35
Ivysaur - 2.32
Ice Climbers - 2.32
Luigi - 2.29
King Dedede - 2.10

This list does NOT take into account things like gliding, B-moves, or aerials (ROB's Bair for instance) that may affect horizontal air speed.

What does this mean? How does this affect the game?

Well for many characters in the lowest class of air speed, they cannot approach very well from the air simply because they are too slow. If you choose a character with a good defensive ground game (Donkey Kong for instance - though not vs. Dedede obviously), you can really limit their approach options on the ground and take advantage of their slow movement if they attempt an aerial approach.

Certainly, this is not the only aspect of any given match, but it is an important factor to consider. If you know that your opponent is slow in the air, how can you use that to your advantage? Likewise, if you know your opponent is fast in the air, how should you adapt your play style for that particular match?

Also, one must consider that this only refers to horizontal air speed. Characters like Jigglypuff have great movement side to side, but feel like a slug vertically. On the other hand, Dedede moves very slowly side-to-side, but his vertical movement is pretty decent.
 

Browny

Smash Hater
Joined
Mar 22, 2008
Messages
10,416
Location
Video Games
wow, diddy sure is surprising.

also how wolf is a lot faster than fox and falco. good to see sonics right up there :)

nice work :>
 

rason110290

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Sep 4, 2005
Messages
116
I do think that Jigglypuff should have the highest Aerial Movement. The amount of nerfs to just about every smash and aerial attack is just ridiculous. All of them are slower and have (what seem to be) smaller hitboxes.
 

Looper

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Jan 12, 2008
Messages
222
this is really helpful, thank you for taking the time and putting the effort into getting us these results!
 

henrytran

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Apr 6, 2008
Messages
97
Location
San Francisco
Great test and information. Good work OP.

I wonder if you could do a test like this for fast falling? I kept my eye out on the boards for it, but I never came across it; search didn't help because I didn't really know what to call it either.
 

Adapt

Smash Lord
Joined
May 7, 2008
Messages
1,489
Location
NS, Canada
I thought on the Dojo it had said that Jiggs had the highest horizontal aerial speed
 

A2ZOMG

Smash Legend
Joined
Oct 13, 2007
Messages
12,542
Location
RPV, California
NNID
A2ZOMG
Switch FC
SW 8400 1713 9427
HOHOHO, looks like Meta Knight is so slow, and Bowser is so fast!

Quite surprising really.
 

3GOD

Smash Ace
Joined
Jul 23, 2006
Messages
745
Location
Athens, GA
I thought on the Dojo it had said that Jiggs had the highest horizontal aerial speed
I don't remember reading that, but if so then the Dojo is mistaken. Jigglypuff can travel the farthest distance of anyone from a given height due to her fast horizontal speed and slow vertical (falling) speed. Yoshi falls a little faster, but he covers a set distance (6 blocks in my test) faster than Jigglypuff.

Interesting to me in this test is how the results compare with the feel of the game. For instance, Wario is 3rd fastest, but to me he "feels" faster (not faster necessarily but more controlled) than Jigglypuff and Yoshi. I think this is because he may have a better acceleration/deceleration rate, or it may simply be that he's in a "butter zone" for speed that gives him good speed and good control. In other words, Yoshi/Jigglypuff may be a little too fast for their own good. If an object is traveling at higher speed, it takes more time to change direction (given a fixed deceleration rate) than an object moving at a lower speed.

I have been trying to think of a way to measure "air control" or acceleration/deceleration to see if there is any difference among the characters. It could be different acceleration, or the "butter zone" effect I mentioned, or maybe just the different falling speeds, but I definitely feel like Wolf, Wario, and G&W have better control than Yoshi and Jigglypuff. Perhaps their (wolf, wario, G&W) aerial attacks being good also give the illusion of better control.
 

Vro

Smash Lord
Joined
Jul 3, 2007
Messages
1,661
Location
Chicago
Remember that his information fails to account multiple jumps, attacks, or additional inputs of any sort. This is a good basis for which characters move around what speeds horizontally, but this is only that. Real players will approach differently, with varied heights, coming from dashes or stand still jumps.

Good information, I hope this can come to good use.

edit: Rason, please edit your sig so that all threads you post in don't have to involve horizontal scrolling.
 

Doval

Smash Lord
Joined
May 16, 2005
Messages
1,028
Location
Puerto Rico
Nice. I had done my own tests a couple of weeks back, they agree quite nicely with yours. If you don't mind, I'll post them here. Not trying to take over your thread or anything, but it would help validate both our results.

And yeah, this is just max speed, it's pretty clear that Jigglypuff, Squirtle and Wario can turn on a dime and thus have better control over their air game, while Snake probably has the worst acceleration rate in the game (have you ever tried doing a forward jump and then trying to get him to go backwards at max speed? It ain't pretty.)

To measure acceleration, you could freefall a character in a neutral state and measure the time it takes to go from 0 horizontal movement to max horizontal movement. The problem is that there are no visual cues, so it'd be really friggin hard to tell precisely when the character reached that point.

So here's my list.
Fighter Ratio Speed (b/s)
Yoshi 1.418 3.907
Jigglypuff 1.343 3.7
Wario 1.327 3.657
Wolf 1.285 3.541
Captain Falcon 1.243 3.424
Sonic 1.186 3.267
Donkey Kong 1.17 3.223
Squirtle 1.142 3.145
Mr. Game & Watch 1.14 3.142
Lucas 1.135 3.126
Zero Suit Samus 1.107 3.05
Marth 1.107 3.049
Bowser 1.101 3.033
Zelda 1.078 2.969
Samus 1.052 2.899
Charizard 1.045 2.879
Lucario 1.026 2.828
Ness 1.024 2.822
Toon Link 1.011 2.785
Snake 1.001 2.759
Mario 1 2.755
Ike 0.977 2.691
Pikachu 0.968 2.668
Peach 0.962 2.649
Falco 0.961 2.648
R.O.B. 0.952 2.623
Fox 0.948 2.612
Pit 0.944 2.602
Ganondorf 0.92 2.535
Kirby 0.908 2.502
Sheik 0.903 2.488
Olimar 0.88 2.424
Diddy Kong 0.871 2.399
Link 0.87 2.397
Ice Climbers 0.816 2.249
Meta Knight 0.808 2.225
Ivysaur 0.801 2.207
Luigi 0.789 2.174
King Dedede 0.699 1.925

Pulled straight out of Excel so sorry about the formatting. We have almost exactly the same list, with only a few discrepancies here and there, and the speed measurements we got agree well. One thing I notice is that my speed measurements seem consistently lower than yours by about 0.1 blocks/sec. Probably has to do with how we measured it? I made my characters travel a longer distance 9 blocks before running into a wall. I also tried to account for the character's model - for example, some characters only "hit" the wall when half of the model is overlapping with it, so I started the timer when the appropriate parts of the character model were past the edge of my starting platform (this is probably the main cause of differences in the list.) Jumps were involved, but they don't affect horizontal speed at all as long as you're still holding forward (this is easy to test with two of the same character), and I made sure to use the necessary jumps before hitting the wall.

You can disregard the ratio, it's just the ratio of that character's horizontal speed to Mario's.

By the way, I also did very accurate falling speed tests and added the falling speed and horizontal speed as vectors to obtain the falling angle. Would anyone be interested in me posting the falling angle list?
 

1HKO

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Apr 19, 2008
Messages
124
Location
You stalker, you make me sick!
I do think that Jigglypuff should have the highest Aerial Movement. The amount of nerfs to just about every smash and aerial attack is just ridiculous. All of them are slower and have (what seem to be) smaller hitboxes.
Actually Uair has a bigger hitbox and dair>rest is common now. And with stutter stepping f-smash is incredibly long ranged.
 

Adapt

Smash Lord
Joined
May 7, 2008
Messages
1,489
Location
NS, Canada
On top of the ability to jump five consecutive times in the air, Jigglypuff’s midair acceleration and top speed are in a class by themselves, making Jigglypuff the ultimate midair brawler.
from the Dojo

I would say that "in a class by themselves" would mean fastest... apparently not
 

Vro

Smash Lord
Joined
Jul 3, 2007
Messages
1,661
Location
Chicago
Doval, what haven't you tested? And it's interesting that Mario has the "neutral" horizontal movement speed. What the average joe.
 

Doval

Smash Lord
Joined
May 16, 2005
Messages
1,028
Location
Puerto Rico
from the Dojo

I would say that "in a class by themselves" would mean fastest... apparently not
Jigglypuff's Acceleration AND Top Speed ARE in a class of their own. Anyone can tell she can turn on a dime, something only Wario and Squirtle can truly rival her at. Only Yoshi is above her in terms of top speed. She also has the lowest falling speed, lowest falling angle, as a multi-jumper she can "reset" her falling speed with a jump every time she starts to accelerate downwards, and she's got the Pound for traveling insane horizontal AND vertical distances.

Though her attacks have been nerfed in terms of priority, it's hard to argue that Jigglypuff has the most rounded combination of aerial traits in the game.
Doval, what haven't you tested?
Lots of things, lol. Acceleration, the relationship between knockback and stun time, shield reduction for attacks (can be measured if you have a recording device by finding by how much the time you can hold your shield was decreased after shielding a certain hit.) There are still many things to test, and some of them sure ain't pretty.

As for Mario, he's always assumed to be the "average" for most purposes. He's traditionally always been assumed to be the average weight, the average for jumping height and recovery, the average for running and air speeds, etc. That doesn't mean he's dead in the middle between the highest and the lowest in each category, though.
 

3GOD

Smash Ace
Joined
Jul 23, 2006
Messages
745
Location
Athens, GA
Nice. I had done my own tests a couple of weeks back, they agree quite nicely with yours. If you don't mind, I'll post them here. Not trying to take over your thread or anything, but it would help validate both our results.

And yeah, this is just max speed, it's pretty clear that Jigglypuff, Squirtle and Wario can turn on a dime and thus have better control over their air game, while Snake probably has the worst acceleration rate in the game (have you ever tried doing a forward jump and then trying to get him to go backwards at max speed? It ain't pretty.)

To measure acceleration, you could freefall a character in a neutral state and measure the time it takes to go from 0 horizontal movement to max horizontal movement. The problem is that there are no visual cues, so it'd be really friggin hard to tell precisely when the character reached that point.
I don't mind since, as you said, it validates both of our results. In general, the trend or "classes" of our tests agree. I can definitely see a difference between Snake's acceleration and Wario for instance. Even comparing Snake to some characters nearby him on the list (Peach and Pit for instance), you can see the difference in acceleration.

One thing I've considered using to test acceleration is comparing the speed measured from 1 block of travel with the speed measured from 2 blocks of travel, but I think this will not work since the characters seem to reach top speed almost instantly in most case. In other words, if there is a change in velocity from block 1 to block 2, this change would be the acceleration, but I honestly doubt there is any change in speed after 1 block.

Pulled straight out of Excel so sorry about the formatting. We have almost exactly the same list, with only a few discrepancies here and there, and the speed measurements we got agree well. One thing I notice is that my speed measurements seem consistently lower than yours by about 0.1 blocks/sec. Probably has to do with how we measured it? I made my characters travel a longer distance 9 blocks before running into a wall. I also tried to account for the character's model - for example, some characters only "hit" the wall when half of the model is overlapping with it, so I started the timer when the appropriate parts of the character model were past the edge of my starting platform (this is probably the main cause of differences in the list.) Jumps were involved, but they don't affect horizontal speed at all as long as you're still holding forward (this is easy to test with two of the same character), and I made sure to use the necessary jumps before hitting the wall.
Yeah, I know what you mean about the character model working differently at the wall. My idea was to eliminate the human factor as much as possible, which is why I did the 2nd test the way I did. I think the difference is insignificant since the general trend is kept. Thanks for the confirmation...I'm going to think about good ways to measure acceleration...
 

Doval

Smash Lord
Joined
May 16, 2005
Messages
1,028
Location
Puerto Rico
3GOD, I just had an idea.

Two of the same character, one really long fall (preferably a Large Stage Editor stage with platforms on the very top of the grid.) Drop both of them through the platform. Accelerate one of them to the max speed. Then, measure the time it takes to accelerate the one with 0 horizontal speed to when you notice they keep the same distance between them. This gives a much better visual cue than watching the character on its own and hoping you notice when it stopped accelerating.

After that, it's simple math. Average Acceleration = Change in Velocity/Time = Max Speed/Time.
 

Prax

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Nov 5, 2007
Messages
417
Location
Lynnwood, Washington
*sigh* Why must Meta Knight be so slow in the air? He would be even more god tier if he had an at least average air movement speed.
 

Gindler

Smash Champion
Joined
Feb 26, 2008
Messages
2,442
Location
Orlando (UCF)
Wooo Yoshi pwned the list. Ha, but yeah I think everyone already knew Yoshi had the highest top speed but jiggs is just so maneuverable in the air it's ridiculous.

Oh and Doval, after yoshi's second jump he falls alot slower cause he holds his arms out to slow him down, I've actually hung under jigglypuff's after doing this and falling slower than them, not sure if they were fast falling as when jiggz does that it is so slow as well. You can test that falling speed if you like or not i was just throwing it out there.
 

Foxy

Smash Master
Joined
Jul 28, 2007
Messages
3,900
Location
Raleigh, North Carolina
I think that your tests of horizontal speed don't accurately reflect horizontal air movement of the characters, as running speed is a factor here.

For example, Captain Falcon has terrible horizontal air movement (compared to Jigglypuff, Wario, etc.) but he has one of the fastest dashes. In your test, from what I understand, you run off of a platform, which means that the initial air speed will be affected by running speed, hence why Captain Falcon is S-Rank here.

Just noting this for people who misinterpret it to be a direct comparison of aerial DI movement.

NOTE: It is possible that your tests actually had no influence from running speeds. It sounds like you actually ran off of the platform at the very edge, which could mean that only air movement was accounted for. Just acknowledging that I could be wrong here.
 

3GOD

Smash Ace
Joined
Jul 23, 2006
Messages
745
Location
Athens, GA
I think that your tests of horizontal speed don't accurately reflect horizontal air movement of the characters, as running speed is a factor here.

For example, Captain Falcon has terrible horizontal air movement (compared to Jigglypuff, Wario, etc.) but he has one of the fastest dashes. In your test, from what I understand, you run off of a platform, which means that the initial air speed will be affected by running speed, hence why Captain Falcon is S-Rank here.

Just noting this for people who misinterpret it to be a direct comparison of aerial DI movement.

NOTE: It is possible that your tests actually had no influence from running speeds. It sounds like you actually ran off of the platform at the very edge, which could mean that only air movement was accounted for. Just acknowledging that I could be wrong here.
Actually, I'm pretty sure it's been shown before that your horizontal air speed is in no way connected to whether your were running at the time. In other words, you can move just as fast in the air from standing still as you can from a full speed run. This is why it appears that Captain Falcon has poor air movement (Sonic too). He runs at blistering speed, and his aerial movement is slow in comparison.

Also, I've begun trying to test acceleration as Doval mentioned, but it's VERY tough to do...maybe there is an easier way.
 

Doval

Smash Lord
Joined
May 16, 2005
Messages
1,028
Location
Puerto Rico
Oh and Doval, after yoshi's second jump he falls alot slower cause he holds his arms out to slow him down, I've actually hung under jigglypuff's after doing this and falling slower than them, not sure if they were fast falling as when jiggz does that it is so slow as well. You can test that falling speed if you like or not i was just throwing it out there.
Even if this is so (I don't know, I've never checked), the point is that his horizontal movement is unaffected by using a jump, so they can be used for testing over longer distances. EDIT: Just checked, Yoshi does NOT fall slower after his second jump.

And no, like 3GOD said, running doesn't affect jumping speed (though I believe in Melee they did, as there was a tremendous difference between Fox's horizontal movement during his first jump, and his mid-air jump.) I've checked several times. The only impact running has is that your character will continue to slide during the start-up of the jump, and that if you do a neutral jump your character will start the jump with some forward speed (but this speed will never exceed the character's max air speed.)

Sorry to hear even with my method it's still tough, 3GOD. I can't think of any better way right now, but if something pops into my head I'll let you know.
 

House M.D.

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Aug 22, 2007
Messages
136
Location
New Haven/Bryn Mawr
thanks for doing this research.

note that the overall decrease in aerial speed is not entirely related to the decrease in speed. in melee you could move aerially as fast as you could run, but this is not the case in brawl (you slow down when you jump). this makes approaching with aerials harder.
 

TheStig

Smash Lord
Joined
Feb 10, 2008
Messages
1,260
Location
Gotham City
you know that you're going to have to make a hiliarious video of all of the characters going racing the air like the guy with the ground speed video.
 

wazgood

Smash Ace
Joined
Jun 4, 2007
Messages
653
Location
at ur moms house lololololo
i might just be overthinking things, but does this test take fall speed into account?
fast fallers will spend less time in the air --> less time to DI horizontally --> not land as far on the strip
however, they may still move faster than a floaty character
 

3GOD

Smash Ace
Joined
Jul 23, 2006
Messages
745
Location
Athens, GA
i might just be overthinking things, but does this test take fall speed into account?
fast fallers will spend less time in the air --> less time to DI horizontally --> not land as far on the strip
however, they may still move faster than a floaty character
If you read the information for my second set of tests, you'll see that they all traveled the same horizontal distance in this test. Rate = Distance/Time

Also, horizontal components of speed can be investigated independently of vertical components. Fall speed is irrelevant to horizontal air speed.
 

Wander

Smash Journeyman
Joined
May 26, 2008
Messages
461
Location
Southeast
Hmm...interesting. At least Marth is pretty high up...shame about MK and Luigi though, but it's not hard to pick up on their sluggishness in the air.
 

DanGR

BRoomer
BRoomer
Joined
Apr 10, 2008
Messages
6,860
it's very interesting to see DDD and bowser in opposite classes. Anyone care to do a vertical test? I bet lucario wins.
 

Browny

Smash Hater
Joined
Mar 22, 2008
Messages
10,416
Location
Video Games
vertical air movement would be so hard

youve got characters like Yoshis, who is impossible to calculate since it changes to rapidly during the jump and Sonic who is the fastest by a mile, but can it be considered the same?

although i suspect ZSS would be near top
 

kamekasu

Smash Ace
Joined
Dec 31, 2007
Messages
504
Location
Walnut Creek, CA
Well for many characters in the lowest class of air speed, they cannot approach very well from the air simply because they are too slow.
That's not true. What affect's aerial approach is not horizontal movement but the speed at which aerials come out. It's not difficult to dash -> SH -> aerial when you're right in front of them. That requires almost no horizontal movement. Notice how MK, who has arguable the best aerial game of all characters, is in F Class.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom