Question about priority!

[Dr. Krumm]

Not sure if this should be in the melee general discussion, if this is out of place, I apologize.

Anyway!

A Ganondorf and a Fox faces each other and both uses their forward-tilts, the difference is that since Ganondorfs tilt reaches further, he hits while Fox does not. However! The two hit-boxes overlap, the difference being that Ganondorf actually hit his target.

Will the attacks cancel each other out since the two hit--boxes collide? Or will Fox take damage since he was hit?

 

[Varist]

They clank. As in cancel each other out.

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

But, if you do the same sort of thing in the air you result in both fox and ganon taking a hit. There is no such thing as priority in the air. Only amount of disjoint.

 

[Xyzz]

When two groundmove-hitboxes collide, the game looks at the damage difference between the two moves. If there is a substantial difference (I want to say 7%, but I'm not sure whether my memory is accurate), the move that does more damage will win (e.g. you can beat fox's jab with a warlock punch). Else they will clank, which basically means the pacifistic solution of nobody getting hurt. (There's some formula to get the recovery time in frames for either participant, but well... who cares).
You don't have to hit the opponents hurtboxes at all here, just having one of your hitboxes hit one of theirs is fine.

In the air, hitbox collision isn't really tested, the only interesting thing is whether a hitbox and the hurtbox of an opponent overlap, resulting in a hit. If a hitbox of that opponent reaches into a hurtbox of the attacker as well, we get a trade. Refer to the frame data threads in the character boards to see the level of disjoint (how much further hitboxes extend compared to the character's hurtboxes... e.g. Puff's bair has a line of hitboxes extending much further than what the visuals would suggest, and there's no hurtbox in sight anywhere either).

 

[Rath420]

Well put Xyzz, although now I am curious just how much the difference needs to be to go through a weaker attack

 

[Bones0]

But, if you do the same sort of thing in the air you result in both fox and ganon taking a hit. There is no such thing as priority in the air. Only amount of disjoint.

Priority and disjointedness are the same thing.

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

Priority and disjointedness are the same thing.

You can set-up two of the same ground attacks to overlap with the opponent's hurtbox and the move's hitbox to occur at the same frame. When this happens both characters do not take knockback or damage. Instead the game prioritizes the overlapping of the hitboxes rather than the hitbox over the hurtbox. Therefore, the moves clank.

Another good example would be Marth's Ftilt and Falco's Utilt. Suppose falco faces away from marth. Marth faces Falco. Marth Ftilts and Falco utilts. They are positioned such that Falco's Utilt would hit ftilt hitbox and marth at the same time. Low and behold the moves are completely different, but end up clanking with each other. Both marth and falco take some about of stun time to recover.

On the opposite end, Falcon can set-up a falcon smash (lol fail puns) while fox does a jab. Both are positioned and timed such that both hitboxes and hurtboxes overlap at the same frame. Fox clanks and his knocked out of the duration of his jab. Falcon on the other hand is not phased by the jab at all and keeps following through with his Fsmash hitting Fox. In this case, falcon's fsmash out-prioritized fox's jab.

Aerials on the other hand do not fit this ground scheme of priority. If two hitboxes and hurtboxes overlap, then both characters receive knockback and damage. Therefore, in the air the only thing that matters is how disjointed your move is versus the other character during an active hitbox.

Some things are weird like specials and items. Marths' SideB on the ground does not follow the typical ground move priority scheme.

So, disjoint and priority are not the same thing in all aspects of melee.

 

[Bones0]

I know how move clanking works. I have just never heard anyone refer to that as priority (though I can see how it makes sense). Using the term priority for disjointedness in addition to clanking is just really confusing because disjointedness affects clanks (even if two moves do the same percent, they won't clank unless they are spaced properly).

 

[Kadano]

“Priority” is just an umbrella term used by people who don’t want to differentiate and delve into Melee’s actual mechanics. The ssbwiki article is fairly accurate, I hope to include clanking information there soon: http://www.ssbwiki.com/Priority

 

[rpotts]

I agree, I don't really like using the term priority when talking about clanking. I generally hear less experienced players use blanket statements like "Falco's uptilt out-prioritizes Fox's dair" or something to that effect. Not only is it misleading, but it just isn't true in all cases. I generally reply with something like, "There is no priority, only range," and then delve into hitboxes and hurtboxes, disjointedness, stale move negation, strong/weak hitboxes etc if it seems appropriate.

Also, even though certain moves deal enough damage to not clank with weak moves, like your Falcon fsmash > Fox jab example, those examples aren't always true because of spacing, stale moves, weak hitboxes, sweet/sour spot etc.

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

“Priority” is just an umbrella term used by people who don’t want to differentiate and delve into Melee’s actual mechanics. The ssbwiki article is fairly accurate, I hope to include clanking information there soon: http://www.ssbwiki.com/Priority

I tend to see it as having different intentions upon what area of smash you are discussing. As rpotts says with Falco's Utilt vs Fox's Dair I believe it would not be incorrect to use the term priority here if one has in the back of their mind the idea that Falco wins the confrontation due to disjoint. The idea of out-prioritizing in English describes the situation quite well. Whether or not someone understands why Falco wins the contest is a different matter. If someone asks why does it get out-prioritized you make the statement of assuming good timing on Falco's part and that the disjoint on Utilt is much larger than Dair for Dair to ever hit Falco.

Random tangent. I like how it has Fox/Falco sideB as transcendent on that page. I have had Marth's sword (and others) get canceled by that move's hitbox way too many times during edgeguard attempts.

I agree, I don't really like using the term priority when talking about clanking. I generally hear less experienced players use blanket statements like "Falco's uptilt out-prioritizes Fox's dair" or something to that effect. Not only is it misleading, but it just isn't true in all cases. I generally reply with something like, "There is no priority, only range," and then delve into hitboxes and hurtboxes, disjointedness, stale move negation, strong/weak hitboxes etc if it seems appropriate.

Also, even though certain moves deal enough damage to not clank with weak moves, like your Falcon fsmash > Fox jab example, those examples aren't always true because of spacing, stale moves, weak hitboxes, sweet/sour spot etc.

Well, when talking about priority I can only see one piece of context in which priority matters and that is directly contesting two hitboxes against each other. Its quite true that timing and angle defines how two characters interactions, but I think people do not care about that when looking for priority. Would you say Fox's jab has priority over falcon's fsmash due to speed?

As Kadano's link sort of hints at is that many things in that article are the direct overlapping (contesting I was mentioning) of two hitboxes. This disregards timing since when discussing priority one only cares about when the two hitboxes occur at the same time. Anytime I have come across people who are fully aware of the mechanics I see priority discussed in the ways pertaining to much of that link Kadano posted. Primarily a move's percentage(grounded, aerial, item, special) and disjointedness.

lol Nomenclature of smash bros.

 

[Kadano]

Ssbwiki does have errors, but the article still gets most things right. What's stopping you from correcting the side-B mistake? (I just did it, though)

If Fox is in front of Falco when the hitboxes come out, he will hit Falco without getting hit by utilt. To say "utilt out-prioritizes dair" would give readers the false impression that there was a distinct priority amount for attacks that made move spacing irrelevant.

This whole priority thing makes just as little sense as stating that Marth's dsmash was "stronger" than his fsmash.