Important Hurtbox Shifting & Instant Momentum Cancel

[vyQ]

Video about everything below:

So this is what we found out after researching every character!

By inputting a forward aerial or a jump you can shift your hurtbox away from the blastbox to survive longer. Below you can see the spreadsheet of all characters.

With some special moves you can cancel/reduce your momentum. We didn't test all specials, only that we thought had a chance of canceling momentum. So if you find out about a special that can cancel momentum and we missed, let us know.

Character| F-Air | Jump | Special Move
Mario | 0 | 2 | -
Luigi | 0 | 0 | -
Peach | 0 | 0 | -
Bowser | 0 | 3 | -
Yoshi | -1 | 1 | -
Rosalina | 0 | 1 | -
Bowser Jr. | 0 | 3 | -
Wario | 1 | 1 | -
Donkey Kong | -1 | 2 | 2 (Up-B)
Diddy Kong | 0 | 1 | -
Mr. Game & Watch | 0 | 0 | -
Little Mac | 1 | 4 | 4 (Side-B)
Link | 0 | 2 | -
Zelda | 1 | 1 | -
Sheik | 1 | 1 | 3 (Down-B)
Ganondorf | 0 | 2 | -
Toon Link | 0 | 1 | -
Samus | 0 | 0 | -
Zero Suit Samus | -1 | 1 | 3 (Down-B)
Pit | 0 | 0 | -
Palutena | 1 | 1 | -
Marth | 2 | 2 | 2 (Up-B)
Ike | 0 | 2 | -
Robin | 0 | 2 | -
Duckhunt Duo | 1 | 1 | -
Kirby | -1 | 0 | -
King Dedede | -1 | -2 | -
Metaknight | -1 | 0 | -
Fox | 0 | 0 | -
Falco | 0 | 0 | -
Pikachu | -1 | 1 | -
Charizard | 0 | 2 | -
Lucario | 1 | 2 | -
Jigglypuff | 1 | 1 | -
Greninja | -1 | 1 | -
Rob | 0 | 0 | -
Ness | 0 | 1 | -
Captain Falcon | 0 | 2 | -
Villager | 0 | 1 | 3 (Side-B)
Olimar | 0 | 0 | -
Wii Fit Trainer | 0 | 1 | -
Shulk | 0 | 2 | -
Dr. Mario | 1 | 2 | -
Dark Pit | 0 | 1 | -
Lucina | 2 | 2 | 2 (Up-B)
Pac-Man | 1 | 2 | -
Megaman | 0 | 1 | -
Sonic | 2 | 2 | -
Mewtwo | 2 | 2 | 1 (Side-B)
Lucas | -1 | 1 | -
Roy | 0 | 2 | 1 (Up-B)
Ryu | 0 | 3 | 3 (Side-B)
Mii-Brawler | 0 | 2 | 3 (Up-B/Down-B)
Mii-Swordfighter | 0 | 2 | -
Mii-Gunner | 0 | 1 | -

​

Pictures:

Jump

Forward Air

 

[vyQ]

I had the numbers coloured green and red.. but smashboards totally glitched out, maybe I'll fix it at some point.

 

[Wild Man]

I didn't test it but I would guess Mii Gunners fair kills you earlier since it pushes you back. wierd. Another thing to note is a momentum thing that kinda follows the same rules as Shieks extended vanish, if you get launched and use Fox's shine right out of hitstun it'll kill you earlier, especially off the top. I think its the same with Zeldas neutral b too. There may be a way to abuse it like you can with extended vanish tho

 

[vyQ]

I didn't test it but I would guess Mii Gunners fair kills you earlier since it pushes you back. wierd. Another thing to note is a momentum thing that kinda follows the same rules as Shieks extended vanish, if you get launched and use Fox's shine right out of hitstun it'll kill you earlier, especially off the top. I think its the same with Zeldas neutral b too. There may be a way to abuse it like you can with extended vanish tho

We tested all the F-Airs and we also thought mii gunner would be negative but it wasn't :o

 

[Pazx]

Small inconsistency:

Top DK is in a spiralling animation, bottom DK is not. It's been shown that the differing animations can affect what percentage a character dies at, I believe this is likely due to altering the characters hurtbox. This happens with your palutena example (2/3 videos show spiralling), your split screen megaman example (both die however, so it doesn't really matter), your robin jumping example, Sheik fair example, Wario fair example, DK fair example, Diddy Side-b, etc. Not to discredit your work, but that is a significant inconsistency that may have affected your results, and to make sure they're accurate all tests should have been done either with or without the spiral animation.

 

[Lpow12]

Video about everything below:

So this is what we found out after researching every character!

By inputting a forward aerial or a jump you can shift your hurtbox away from the blastbox to survive longer. Below you can see the spreadsheet of all characters.

With some special moves you can cancel/reduce your momentum. We didn't test all specials, only that we thought had a chance of canceling momentum. So if you find out about a special that can cancel momentum and we missed, let us know.

Character| F-Air | Jump | Special Move

Mario​

|

0​

|

2​

|

-
Luigi​

|

0​

|

0​

|

-
Peach​

|

0​

|

0​

|

-
Bowser​

|

0​

|

3​

|

-
Yoshi​

|

-1​

|

1​

|

-
Rosalina​

|

0​

|

1​

|

-
Bowser Jr.​

|

0​

|

3​

|

-
Wario​

|

1​

|

1​

|

-
Donkey Kong​

|

-1​

|

2​

|

2 (Up-B)
Diddy Kong​

|

0​

|

1​

|

-
Mr. Game & Watch​

|

0​

|

0​

|

-
Little Mac​

|

1​

|

4​

|

4 (Side-B)
Link​

|

0​

|

2​

|

-
Zelda​

|

1​

|

1​

|

-
Sheik​

|

1​

|

1​

|

3 (Down-B)
Ganondorf​

|

0​

|

2​

|

-
Toon Link​

|

0​

|

1​

|

-
Samus​

|

0​

|

0​

|

-
Zero Suit Samus​

|

-1​

|

1​

|

3 (Down-B)
Pit​

|

0​

|

1​

|

-
Palutena​

|

1​

|

1​

|

-
Marth​

|

2​

|

2​

|

2 (Up-B)
Ike​

|

0​

|

2​

|

-
Robin​

|

0​

|

2​

|

-
Duckhunt Duo​

|

1​

|

1​

|

-
Kirby​

|

-1​

|

0​

|

-
King Dedede​

|

-1​

|

-2​

|

-
Metaknight​

|

-1​

|

0​

|

-
Fox​

|

0​

|

0​

|

-
Falco​

|

0​

|

0​

|

-
Pikachu​

|

-1​

|

1​

|

-
Charizard​

|

0​

|

2​

|

-
Lucario​

|

1​

|

2​

|

-
Jigglypuff​

|

1​

|

1​

|

-
Greninja​

|

-1​

|

1​

|

-
Rob​

|

0​

|

0​

|

-
Ness​

|

0​

|

1​

|

-
Captain Falcon​

|

0​

|

2​

|

-
Villager​

|

0​

|

1​

|

3 (Side-B)
Olimar​

|

0​

|

0​

|

-
Wii Fit Trainer​

|

0​

|

1​

|

-
Shulk​

|

0​

|

2​

|

-
Dr. Mario​

|

1​

|

2​

|

-
Dark Pit​

|

0​

|

1​

|

-
Lucina​

|

2​

|

2​

|

2 (Up-B)
Pac-Man​

|

1​

|

2​

|

-
Megaman​

|

0​

|

1​

|

-
Sonic​

|

2​

|

2​

|

-
Mewtwo​

|

2​

|

2​

|

1 (Side-B)
Lucas​

|

-1​

|

1​

|

-
Roy​

|

0​

|

2​

|

1 (Up-B)
Ryu​

|

0​

|

3​

|

3 (Side-B)
Mii-Brawler​

|

0​

|

2​

|

3 (Up-B) / 3 (Down-B)
Mii-Swordfighter​

|

0​

|

2​

|

-
Mii-Gunner​

|

0​

|

1​

|

-​

Pictures:

Jump

Forward Air

Would robs back air help since it sends him away from the direstion it goes?

I didn't test it but I would guess Mii Gunners fair kills you earlier since it pushes you back. wierd. Another thing to note is a momentum thing that kinda follows the same rules as Shieks extended vanish, if you get launched and use Fox's shine right out of hitstun it'll kill you earlier, especially off the top. I think its the same with Zeldas neutral b too. There may be a way to abuse it like you can with extended vanish tho

 

[DanGR]

vyQ Which down-special is the listed "down-b" for Mii Brawler? I'm guessing feint jump?

 

[Mizzy Moe]

nice now my sonic will live longer to terrorize people >:D

 

[Vinylic.]

Good Job! I can see why I've been living a bit longer with jigglypuff by jumping, but I didn't know fair can help as well.

 

[Slice~]

Small inconsistency:

Top DK is in a spiralling animation, bottom DK is not. It's been shown that the differing animations can affect what percentage a character dies at, I believe this is likely due to altering the characters hurtbox. This happens with your palutena example (2/3 videos show spiralling), your split screen megaman example (both die however, so it doesn't really matter), your robin jumping example, Sheik fair example, Wario fair example, DK fair example, Diddy Side-b, etc. Not to discredit your work, but that is a significant inconsistency that may have affected your results, and to make sure they're accurate all tests should have been done either with or without the spiral animation.

These are just the videos we recorded without specifically looking at the animation.
The testing itself has been way more strict and we tried every scenario multiple times.

Also, since this specific animation gets canceled by the moves we tried, it gets reset into normal anyways.
So even if the characters hurtbox gets shifted at first, his positioning most likely won't. (might need some research).

 

[Hyper]

Warios bike doesn't cancel momentum like it used to anymore?

 

[Sonnance]

Does Marth's DB1 not help at all?

 

[NotAnAdmin]

We Falco's don't get any cool tricks....
Back to DI'ing everything I guess

 

[Dr. Tuen]

Woo, ZSS! Cool research! I tested an interesting combination of moves a while back. It turns out that air dodges are one of the fastest actions a player can take out of getting hit. Air dodges can only be interrupted be zair.

So I tried air dodge to zair to see if it yielded stronger player DI during the zair animation.

It didn't.

But I figured that would be an interesting, though small, contribution to this work.

 

[LifeCarrier]

Could you test Lucario's dair? I have the impression that this move is one of the few to truly cancel momentum.

Thanks a lot for all your research this is quite a nice finding!

 

[vyQ]

vyQ Which down-special is the listed "down-b" for Mii Brawler? I'm guessing feint jump?

It's the one that's like ZSS Down-B. I think you got it right with feint jump. We totally forgot to add which moves we took :'D

Could you test Lucario's dair? I have the impression that this move is one of the few to truly cancel momentum.

Thanks a lot for all your research this is quite a nice finding!

Unfortunately it doesn't help :/ We tried it

Does Marth's DB1 not help at all?

You mean marth's Down-B? We didn't really test that iirc, but I'm not seeing why it should work tbh^^

Warios bike doesn't cancel momentum like it used to anymore?

Unfortunately not.. I guess the startup is too slow :/

 

[Masonomace]

I mentioned this in the video's youtube comments, but Shulk's +2 from using his doublejump can be extended to +3 to +4 if you cycle to Monado Jump during hitstun. And yes you can also deactivate your current art & cycle to Jump during hitstun. As long as your Jump art activates before you're able to act with doublejumping, you'll use Monado Jump's doublejump to survive lightly longer.

The custom arts Decisive Jump & Hyper Jump could potentially raise the percent a bit higher since you do have improved air mobility, but I personally haven't tested it to confirm this being true. Decisive Jump activates ~1.5 seconds whereas Monado Jump & Hyper Jump activate ~.75 of a second, so in order to use Decisive Jump, you'd have to be artless & then cycle to Decisive Jump asap hoping it actvivates before trying to expend your doublejump.

 

[Koiba]

Wouldn't and have the same numbers?

 

[Pikabunz]

These are just the videos we recorded without specifically looking at the animation.
The testing itself has been way more strict and we tried every scenario multiple times.

Also, since this specific animation gets canceled by the moves we tried, it gets reset into normal anyways.
So even if the characters hurtbox gets shifted at first, his positioning most likely won't. (might need some research).

The knockback animation does matter even if you use an aerial. Try this with Sonic at 130% using Luigi's bthrow on the edge of Omega Battlefield in training mode. If Sonic does the spinning animation during his knockback, it will always kill him even though his fair comes out. If he does his other animation, he'll always survive.

Another thing you guys should look into is what aerials to use against moves like Sonic, Ness, Villager, and TLink's bthrow. Their bthrow, and some other characters I don't remember, send you out with your back facing the stage. Because of this, you will have to use a different aerial, such as bair, to momentum shift. Pikachu using bair to momentum shift is the best example of this as it makes him survive significantly longer against these type of throws.

One last thing I want to mention is that momentum shifting affects vertical survivalbility as well. This doesn't have as much as an impact as momentum shifting for horizontal survivalbility, but it's still something to look into. I know some character's air dodges help them survive 1% longer, but it can kill them 1% earlier.

 

[koken]

Awesome! Thank you so much for your research :D.

By the way ... another thing that Olimar doesn't get any benefit .

 

[Valamway]

What about special moves that can be Wavebounced very quickly, or that have weird momentum effects when b-reveresed directly from hitstun?

I'm think specially of Love Jumping and Phantom Bouncing for Zelda, but I know a lot of other characters have examples.

 

[Slice~]

Stuff...

Ah, good to know, thanks man!

Yeah, there are several other scenarios like You've mentioned: different aerials, vertical knockback, certain special moves, ...
Our main goal was, to show that this actually exists and demonstrate what FAir and DJ do in this context.
Checking out every single move within the game on every character might take days of constantly testing and recording it.

We showed that it exists, now it's the character boards time to fill up our list!

edit:

What about special moves that can be Wavebounced very quickly, or that have weird momentum effects when b-reveresed directly from hitstun?

I'm think specially of Love Jumping and Phantom Bouncing for Zelda, but I know a lot of other characters have examples.

Thought about that too, but I believe that we didn't test it (vyQ and cFive are the lab rats).
If it helps, it would be really hard to pull of though, since You can't really buffer a wavebounce or B Reversal.
You'd have to time it almost perfectly after exiting hitstun.

edit: hmm, it might not be THAT hard... Gotta test it...

 

[NickRiddle]

The only thing that I think should also be tested is when people bthrow you at the edge, you're turned around.
Bairs//fairs that might help in that situation? Pretty sure Gunner will live longer from kill bthrows if he fairs, and maybe some bairs will help this as well.

Also, uairs/dairs don't help at all?

 

[Valamway]

It would be really hard to pull of though, since you can't really buffer a wavebounce or B Reversal.

Is that because this game doesn't have the same buffer system as Brawl?
I've heard stuff about that before, that Brawl had a multi-step buffer system or something, but I've never been clear on the exact differences.

 

[Kofu]

The knockback animation does matter even if you use an aerial. Try this with Sonic at 130% using Luigi's bthrow on the edge of Omega Battlefield in training mode. If Sonic does the spinning animation during his knockback, it will always kill him even though his fair comes out. If he does his other animation, he'll always survive.

Another thing you guys should look into is what aerials to use against moves like Sonic, Ness, Villager, and TLink's bthrow. Their bthrow, and some other characters I don't remember, send you out with your back facing the stage. Because of this, you will have to use a different aerial, such as bair, to momentum shift. Pikachu using bair to momentum shift is the best example of this as it makes him survive significantly longer against these type of throws.

One last thing I want to mention is that momentum shifting affects vertical survivalbility as well. This doesn't have as much as an impact as momentum shifting for horizontal survivalbility, but it's still something to look into. I know some character's air dodges help them survive 1% longer, but it can kill them 1% earlier.

This is probably the issue I ran into when testing Sonic's BThrow percents, huh. Do you know what causes the different animations?

 

[Pixel_]

You mean marth's Down-B? We didn't really test that iirc, but I'm not seeing why it should work tbh^^

No, DB is Dancing Blade, or Side-B. It seems to slow momentum so it seems probable.

 

[JimmyTheCaterpillar]

So to survive as Dedede you don't do anything?? Wow. Uh, ok. I never thought that was hurting me. Super happy to know now!!

 

[Luigi player]

Warios bike doesn't cancel momentum like it used to anymore?

Warios bike was almost all the time bad to use in Brawl to momentumcancel since it pushed you further away at the startup. I'm not entirely sure how it is in Smash4, but it was only good in Brawl when you had huuuuge knockback and a lot of room where you could do it before going too far off so that there's still time for the startup-push and then you cancel momentum completely.

Is that because this game doesn't have the same buffer system as Brawl?
I've heard stuff about that before, that Brawl had a multi-step buffer system or something, but I've never been clear on the exact differences.

Yep, makes sense, right? You'd have to input that perfectly after hitstun ends, which is way too difficult to estimate and even if you do know the exact time it's still like impossible to pull off at the right timing.
The once in a blue moon you get it right is probably not worth it dying all the other times when you might've lived by just doublejumping or whatever.

 

[ミスティック Speed]

More testing should be done with dairs and uairs.
Bairs? Not so much, considering the majority extend the hurtbox in a undesirable direction.

 

[Ghostbone]

If smash 4 is anything like Brawl, b-reversing doesn't reverse your momentum from knocback, so you'd get literally no benefit from it in terms of survival.

 

[jmjb]

the lava wall test works under the assumption that just one part of a characters body needs to touch the blast zone, do we know this is correct? if their entire body needs to enter the blast zone then something like extending a characters body would keep you alive longer. which may be why using many FAirs seems to extend life.

hm, if it goes by hurtbox, what if a move had no hurtbox temporarily, could you go deep into the blast zone and not die til the move ended?

if jumping helps extend the vector, then using up B should add to this as well. since Yoshi has a bad FAir for survival using his up b could help too, since he can use it repeatedly.

beefysmashdoods is the best YouTube smash channel hands down, keep it up guys!

 

[Thor]

The knockback animation does matter even if you use an aerial. Try this with Sonic at 130% using Luigi's bthrow on the edge of Omega Battlefield in training mode. If Sonic does the spinning animation during his knockback, it will always kill him even though his fair comes out. If he does his other animation, he'll always survive.

Another thing you guys should look into is what aerials to use against moves like Sonic, Ness, Villager, and TLink's bthrow. Their bthrow, and some other characters I don't remember, send you out with your back facing the stage. Because of this, you will have to use a different aerial, such as bair, to momentum shift. Pikachu using bair to momentum shift is the best example of this as it makes him survive significantly longer against these type of throws.

One last thing I want to mention is that momentum shifting affects vertical survivalbility as well. This doesn't have as much as an impact as momentum shifting for horizontal survivalbility, but it's still something to look into. I know some character's air dodges help them survive 1% longer, but it can kill them 1% earlier.

I swear in a post somewhere else you stated that you found that doing nothing or using bair [when facing away from the level] was Pikachu's best option... but I suppose this data means we should jump if we're not super high up [in danger of jumping off the top] and facing the stage and use bair if we're facing away from the stage then?

 

[cFive]

The only thing that I think should also be tested is when people bthrow you at the edge, you're turned around.
Bairs//fairs that might help in that situation? Pretty sure Gunner will live longer from kill bthrows if he fairs, and maybe some bairs will help this as well.

Also, uairs/dairs don't help at all?

other aireals could also help but if so, only a few dairs/uairs, we didnt test them..
same for the backthrows.. im pretty sure some bairs could help.. jumping would probably be the safe bet!

 

[Myougi]

I talked about this with a couple of others on Anther's ladder last night and the general consensus is that the technique is not super useful. That being said, it does have it's places where it can help, but they are relatively limited.

One thing worth noting is that the technique should seriously be renamed.
Hurtboxes have nothing to do with environmental collisions or blastzones whatsoever.

Hurtboxes (Well, technically hurtbubbles.) are the vulnerable body parts of a character that can be hit. These do not come into play when dealing with blastzones.

Environmental Collision Diamonds (Usually referred to as environmental collision boxes, or ECBs) are used for detection of collisions with walls, floors and ceilings, and for pushing other characters over. On every fame in the game a character's ECB is refreshed. The height of the ECB diamond’s top point corresponds to the height of the highest ECB bone (usually the neck) and the width is determined by the current outermost ECB bones (usually the shoulders). These come into play when dealing with blastzones.

(Melee footage since it's the only stuff I could find, but ECBs are in every Smash game - including Smash 4.)

Each character has a set of ECBs, each with a different function. I won't get into the details since Kadano posted a video on his channel that sums all of it up pretty well. If you look at the above GIF (Thanks Achilles), you'll notice Fox only dies when his ECB passes the left blastline (yellow). Hurtboxes do not come into play here.

That being said, using some moves (like aerials) changes the size of a character's ECB, and thus can prevent them from dying in certain scenarios.

 

[Zareidriel]

I would kill for a Smash 4 debug mode.

 

[Slice~]

I would kill for a Smash 4 debug mode.

Soon!
Apparently the WiiU got hacked recently.
#believe

 

[YoHeKing]

http://smashboards.com/threads/reseting-yoshis-launch-momentum-new-method.399016/

Yoshis side B is probably the best momentum cancel in the game. Ive tested it on many custom stages and regular stages. You can even cancel the momentum of getting hit by lava at 999% if Yoshi slides off the platform on the custom stage (which makes him able to get out of hitstun while at the speed he was launched) and I tested this with many things but Yoshis side B seems like the only one who cancels momentum to 0 on frame 1 while his side B actually shrinks his hitbox. You can test yourself but make sure you use the right method.

Also man is smashboards laggy on my phone...

 

[Planty]

Rosalina's Down-b slows (not stops) her momentum when used in neutral or at any point where you're not hit. Can this be used to survive longer?

 

[Yikarur]

Each character has a set of ECBs, each with a different function. I won't get into the details since Kadano posted a video on his channel that sums all of it up pretty well. If you look at the above GIF (Thanks Achilles), you'll notice Fox only dies when his ECB passes the left blastline (yellow). Hurtboxes do not come into play here.

This is not the case for Smash 4. in Smash 4 it's hurtbox/something of you touching the blastzone = KO.
I've done multiple tests on this and I'm pretty sure.

 

[Myougi]

This is not the case for Smash 4. in Smash 4 it's hurtbox/something of you touching the blastzone = KO.
I've done multiple tests on this and I'm pretty sure.

That's not true. Like I said, hurtboxes not come into play when dealing with blastzones at all. The ECB handles all environmental collisions, which include blastzones.

I couldn't really find a great example from the video, but there's a part in the video when Marth hugs a lava wall. ECBs come into play here, not hurtboxes. Although the back of Marth's legs are essentially going though the lava, but since the ECB doesn't meet with the wall, he's not damaged. Just like blastzones, lava collision is determined by a character's ECB. You can see this around 3:16 seconds in.

Edit: Also! As far as I'm aware (judging by the similar file structure, engine mechanics, and most importantly data mining), Smash 4 runs on Brawl's Havok engine albeit heavily modified. Just like other Smash games, Brawl still uses ECBs. One thing to note about Brawl though is since the game doesn't have a left-over debug mode, seeing various character's ECBs (or rather, finding ways of representing them) requires extraneous means. The PMDT was able to show this off in Magus' debug mode since Project M 3.5. GIF below.