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Angling

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Angling is the term used to describe the ability for a character to alter the direction of a forward tilt or forward smash. For example, angling a punch attack up will generally cause the character to punch diagonally upwards instead of straight forward, while angling it down will tend to cause the character to punch diagonally downwards. Additionally, most attacks will deal slightly different damage when angled, with attacks typically dealing 1-2% more damage when angled up, and 1% less damage when angled down (though some attacks deviate from this). On the whole, attacks can only be angled if they are a straight punch, kick, or similar strike; attacks that cover vertical ground (such as an overhead sword slash) have no purpose for angling.

Angling attacks downwards can aid in striking short or crouching characters such as Pikachu or Kirby in cases where the regular attack would miss just overhead, but most attacks deal slightly less damage when angled down as mentioned previously. Angling upwards is useful for intercepting aerial characters and often comes with the aforementioned slight damage bonus, but the aforementioned short characters will be even more able to avoid it. Angling can also help with edgeguarding; Ganondorf's and Falco's forward tilts in Melee are prime examples of forward tilts that are more useful at guarding the area around the edge when angled down.

To angle a forward tilt, a player just has to hold the control stick diagonally up or down when inputting the tilt. Angling forward smashes however works differently, and depends on the game. In Melee, angling smash attacks was more difficult; players had to hold the direction of the C-Stick or Control Stick at a precise angle between forward and diagonally while inputting the forward smash (which the GameCube Controller's control sticks had no indentation for, making it even more difficult). Holding the sticks diagonally up/diagonally down would cause an up smash/down smash input instead of an angled forward smash (unlike with tilts). In Brawl, players can angle forward smashes by holding up/down immediately after initiating it (or while charging the smash), making it significantly easier and simpler to do, and it has been confirmed this mechanic of angling smashes will be retained in Smash 4.

Attacks that can be angled generally have three possible angles: up, side (or neutral), and down. In Smash 64, some attacks have up to 5 angles.

Characters that can angle their attacks

Examples of moves with notable angling properties

  • In Brawl, if Luigi angles his forward smash upwards, it has additional IASA frames, making it more difficult to punish. The move also does higher damage (and therefore knockback), making the move's already very strong knockback scaling especially immense.
  • In Brawl, when Luigi's forward tilt is angled downward, it deals no knockback at all.
  • In Smash 4, Little Mac's forward smash becomes different types of attacks when angled; no angle is a straight punch, up angled is an uppercut, and down angled is a body hook. The body hook is implied to deal the most damage with the least knockback of the three variations, while no other information about the functioning of the other two are known at this time.
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