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 the same intrinsic priority, then the two attacks will clank, 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.
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 of an attack). This mainly applies to aerail attacks' interactions with other (including other aerial) hitboxes. Since aerial attacks don't have intrinsic priority, when a hitbox from an aerial overlaps another hitbox, the priority is not determined then (i.e. Aerials cannot clank). 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.
Grab Prioiry
An interesting thing about the priority of grabs: When a grab connects on the same frame as an attack done by the grabber, 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:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeuXNw5P3G4Phases 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 thier 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 noticable 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 undergoes hitlag instead of the character who fired the projectile. 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.
Note: You cannot tech during hitlag (even if you SDI toward a surface). This rules out edgeteching.
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. This is most effective when trying to survive a strong hit because if you air dodge immediately, the air dodge will be done, and you can double jump sooner than you would normally have been able to double jump.
Tumble
Tumble is a phase that frequently (attack/ weight/ % dependant) 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 with a jump. If you perform a jump w/ a jump button too soon, you won't be able to meteor cancel. However, this does not apply to up-bs and jumps with the control stick: one can mash up-b (or jump w/ the control stick) 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 recive, 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 leathal. 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.
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, many Melee players would be familiar with, is NOT IN THIS GAME.
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 (although it may be 10 -- best I can tell it's only 9 though) 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 move has a base damage and Knockback. It then counts the number of times that move is in the attack queue, and has an exponential decay that it applies to the strength. The current formula I have found seems to be pretty accurate:
damage dealt = [94.424e^(-0.0991x)] * (base damage)
where x is the # of times that move is in the attack queue.
The earlier in the queue this attack is, the less it impacts the decay, although the earliest it can be in the queue makes less than a 10% difference than if it were the last attack landed.
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Fri 6 Jun 2008 - 0:59
