Spot dodge

Mario's sidestepping animation in Melee.

Link sidestepping Fox's Blaster in Melee

Zero Suit Samus sidestepping Snake's Remote Missile in Brawl

Sidestepping (also known as sidestep dodging, spot dodging, ground dodging, dodging, or EscapeN by Brawl's internal character files) is a maneuver in Melee, Brawl and Smash 4 that renders the character invincible for a split-second. Functionally similar to an air dodge, it is performed by pressing down while shielding, and can be employed to evade any and all harm of short duration. It is perhaps most useful in dodging projectiles and items along with quickly counter-attacking foes during the ending lag of their missed attack.

Sidestepping is the shortest and fastest of the three dodges (roll, sidestep, and air), and the only one where the player effectively remains stationary.

Though the sidestep animation shows the character leaning into the back or foreground, the invincibility frames gained allows the character to dodge all attacks, including those that come from the foreground or background, such as the lava wave in Norfair. The character's leaning position after the intangibility ends can also result in evading attacks due to the three-dimensional nature of hitboxes, most notably King Dedede being significantly outside the playing plane for most of his sidestep's ending lag.

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Spot dodge frame list in Brawl

The numbers before the "/" are the invincibility frames of the spot dodge, and the number after the "/" is the total number of frames taken to perform the spot dodge.

2-20 / 22

• Link
• Pikachu
• Falco
• Yoshi
• Toon Link

2-20 / 24

• Marth

2-20 / 25

• Mario
• Samus
• Zero Suit Samus
• Kirby
• Fox
• Mr. Game & Watch
• Luigi
• Diddy Kong
• Zelda
• Sheik
• Pit
• Meta Knight
• Squirtle
• Ivysaur
• Charizard
• Ike
• Snake
• Peach
• Ganondorf (moves back slightly)
• Ice Climbers
• Wolf
• Lucario
• Ness
• Sonic
• Wario
• R.O.B.
• Captain Falcon
• Lucas

3-20 / 25

• Olimar

3-16 / 25

• Jigglypuff

2-20 / 27

• King Dedede (Moves significantly back on the Z-axis, to where he's intangible to most attacks for all but 1 frame in his sidestep. Attacks need to have wide hitboxes that reach far into the Z-axis, or hit low enough to hit Dedede's foot that sticks out, to hit him during his vulnerable frames in his sidestep).

2-23 / 30

• Donkey Kong

3-24 / 32

• Bowser