Intangibility

Kirby successfully avoiding a Teal Coupe in Onett with his sidestep.

Intangibility is a state in which characters will not be hit by attacks. This is different from invincibility because, instead of attacks' damage and knockback simply being canceled, it won't hit at all. For example, a projectile will travel right through them. Intangibility is often attributed to dodges, techs, edge-grabbing, get-up attacks and animations, and certain body parts during certain moves. Since the character is not hit, a long-lasting attack (or very short intangibility time) may still hit the character once it ends.

Intangibility's negative aspect is that on the Planet Zebes, Brinstar, and Norfair stages, characters will fall straight through the stage's lower hazard rather than sustaining damage and bouncing back up, possibly causing an otherwise preventable KO. They may occasionally also be KO'd if they are standing on the track on Mute City (SSBM), Port Town Aero Dive or Mute City SNES. In Smash 4, Master Giant's "glowing hands" attack also completely ignores any form of intangibility as well as invincibility (including respawn).

In Super Smash Bros. Melee's debug menu, intangibility is displayed by affected hurtboxes changing from their usual yellow color to a blue color during the intangibility period. A similar feature is present in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate's Training Mode via an invincibility toggle, which causes intangible parts of characters to acquire a blue tint.

Examples

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• Marth's Counter, only 1 frame.
• Roy's Counter, only 1 frame.
• Fox's Fox Illusion, only 1 frame.
• Fox's Reflector, first attack frame.
• Falco's Falco Phantasm, only 1 frame.
• Falco's legs during his down smash. First 6 frames.
• Falco's head (excluding his beak) during his up smash. First 10 frames.
• Wolf's Reflector. First 6 frames.
• Mario's head during his up smash.
• Luigi's head during his up smash.
• Dr. Mario's head during his up smash.
• Mario's Super Jump Punch, frames 3—6.
• Luigi's Super Jump Punch, frames 5—8.
• Dr. Mario's Super Jump Punch, frame 3.
• Zero Suit Samus's Flip Jump, only 1 frame.
• Marth's Dolphin Slash, first 5 frames (5th frame is also hit frame).
• Mr. Game & Watch's Fire, frame 9 until frame 13.
• Kirby's up tilt (foot) and up smash, only his feet.
• Sonic's up smash before the hitbox comes out.
• Pikachu's Thunder, beginning frames when Thunder strikes Pikachu.
• Zelda's Farore's Wind right before she teleports.
• Sheik's Vanish right before she teleports.
• Lucario's Double Team, during all the counter frames as well as the counter attack. Since it has true invincibility frames, it can protect Lucario from Final Smashes unlike other counters (though it still can't counter them).
• Jigglypuff's Rest, for approximately 20 frames in Smash 64, exactly 26 frames in Melee, and exactly 27 frames in Brawl and Smash 4 after it's used, while its eyes are closing. This covers the hitbox entirely, but is of little use due to the move's extreme ending lag. It can however, protect Jigglypuff form moves like Shulk's Vision as moves like this come out during Jigglypuff's intangibility frames.
• Villager's Pocket, frames 5-23 (begins just before the hitbox for absorbing projectiles opens).
• Little Mac's Jolt Haymaker, for the first few frames when he starts to leap (grounded version only).
• Shulk's Monado Arts, frames 1-14 if he stays idle and doesn't interrupt his pose while shouting the Art. Otherwise, acting immediately out of the pose on the 6th frame still grants intangibility on frames 1-5.
• Pac-Man's head during his up tilt, during frames 6-10.
• Mega Man's Mega Upper, during frames 5-7.
• Wii Fit Trainer's Tree, being Up Smash, during frames 12-15.
• Rosalina's head during her up smash, frames 7–16.
• All Final Smashes contain intangibility frames at one point during the move, if not for the entire final smash.