Mario (SSB4)

Mario in Super Smash Bros. 4
Universe	Mario
Other playable appearances	in SSB in Melee in Brawl in Ultimate
Availability	Starter
Final Smash	Mario Finale
Tier	A (9)

Mario (マリオ, Mario) is a playable character in Super Smash Bros. 4. He was confirmed on June 11th, 2013 during the E3 2013 Nintendo Direct. He was also one of the main subjects of the Developer's Direct for Super Smash Bros. later during E3 2013. He was among the first wave of amiibo figurines for Smash 4. Charles Martinet's portrayal of Mario from Super Smash Bros. Brawl was repurposed for Smash 4.

Mario is ranked 9th out of 54 characters on the tier list, in the A tier. This is a huge improvement from his 31st out of 38 ranking in Brawl, where he stood at the top of the F tier, and his best placement in the series. Mario's biggest selling point is his frame data, which not only allows him to overwhelm most foes in close combat, but also makes for a strong and flexible combo game that can rack up damage quickly in spite of Mario's low damage output. Additionally, Mario's transition into Smash 4's faster-paced engine was among the cast's best, offering numerous direct buffs, restoring his great combo game, and giving him an easier time with taking stocks. Mario also has an impressive grab game, effective out of shield options, versatile specials, and a very low learning curve, making him easy to use effectively.

Despite improving significantly from Brawl, Mario retains several weaknesses. His moves have unimpressive and jointed range, and he cannot effectively outcamp other characters, giving him trouble against characters such as Marth and Cloud. Mario also lacks consistent KO options, as few of his moves have significant launch power, and his kill confirms are reliant on cooperative DI and rage.

Nevertheless, Mario has among the highest representation in tournaments, and has achieved excellent results at top-level play, owing to players like Ally, ANTi, and Ron.

Attributes

Like in the majority of his games and spin-offs, Mario is intended to be a balanced character in terms of attributes, possessing average walking, dashing and falling speeds, air acceleration, gravity and weight. However, he also has high air speed and jumping force, but low traction. These balanced stats do not give Mario the edge when it comes to overall movement, but they nevertheless make him adept at most situations where a key attribute is needed to gain the advantage, which, when combined with his very quick frame data, grants Mario a very effective neutral game. As a result, despite his attributes implying a jack-of-all-trades type of character, Mario is more of a rushdown character in practice.

Thanks to his incredibly quick attack speed, Mario shines in close-quarters combat, as few other characters like Sheik and Meta Knight are a match for this speed. His fast attack speed allows him to consistently apply pressure to the opponent, and he's capable of quickly racking up damage once he gets the momentum, which is easy to do on characters that cannot match his attack speed without getting heavily punished for it, such as Palutena. Excluding his forward smash, forward aerial, and special moves, all of Mario's moves have fast startup and low ending and landing lag (the latter in the case of his aerial attacks). All of his grounded moves are prime examples of his quick frame data: his neutral attack is his fastest move and an overall effective way to rack up damage, along with handy combo capabilities, while his up and down tilts are very effective combo starters that can help rack up plenty of damage, and the former easily chains into itself at low percentages, as well as being hard to escape. All of his smash attacks are excellent KO options, as they can reliably KO at high percentages without being endlag-heavy; his forward smash has the highest power of all of his smash attacks when sweetspotted, down smash is a semi-spike, making it useful for forcing opponents offstage, and up smash is very hard to punish due to its speed, power and the fact it grants intangibility on his head.

Mario's aerial attacks are also very useful in many cases. His neutral aerial is a sex kick that can be useful in edgeguarding or for breaking combos. His back aerial has the longest reach and the highest knockback of Mario's aerial moves, allowing it to space effectively and reliably KO offstage. The up aerial's extremely quick startup, vertical launch angle, and lack of sourspots let it combo into itself or other moves, on top of letting it easily break combos and set up the aforementioned. The down aerial is a great anti-juggling move that can also KO if used near the top blast line. It also benefits from frame cancelling, as its moderate landing lag is reduced, allowing for potential follow-ups. Finally, Mario's forward aerial is a meteor smash with high base knockback for one, making it great for gimping all but the farthest reaching of recoveries.

His special moveset is highly varied and has plenty of uses. Fireball is a projectile with decently long range. It can be useful in the neutral game or in edgeguarding, thanks to its disruptive knockback, along with very useful chances to disrupt direct approaches. Super Jump Punch travels in a controllable diagonal direction and grants moderate distance, making it good at recovery. It also has intangibility upon startup, allowing it to be used out of shield very effectively. Due to its extremely quick startup, it is also a useful combo finisher, especially near the blast line. On the other hand, Cape reverses opponents, with the induced disorientation often being enough to allow a free hit or efficiently gimp a recovery, which aids in edgeguarding opponents. It is also a powerful reflector, making it highly useful in matchups against projectile-heavy characters, such as Mega Man. F.L.U.D.D. is a mechanism that shoots water, pushing opponents away, which compliments his Cape. Though situational, it can occasionally be used to give Mario some breathing space. As a result of his Cape, F.L.U.D.D., and his fast aerials, Mario also boasts a versatile edgeguarding game.

Another valuable strength of Mario is his grab game. Even though his grab reach is only average, his grabs are among the fastest in the game, and his pummel, while moderately slow, can rack up some damage before throwing the opponent. His forward and up throws have the same overall use: they send the opponent to a disadvantageous position, where Mario can capitalize on their mistake. His back throw is by far his strongest throw and can reliably KO below 150% near the ledge on any character, and even earlier with rage. Finally, his down throw is a notorious combo starter. It can repeatedly lead to up tilts at low percentages, or down tilts to regrab on fast fallers or heavyweights and rack up at least 20% in the process. Alternatively, it can lead to neutral attack, forward tilt, down tilt, up smash, and down smash at low percentages, as well as neutral aerial, up aerial, down aerial, and Super Jump Punch at medium percentages. Finally, and due to the favorable angles his moves send at, his tremendously quick frame data and his extensive amount of combo starters, Mario's combo ability is among the most reliable in the game, and it is also worth noting that seven of Mario's moves can lock (forward tilt, neutral attack's first two hits, Fireball, down aerial's landing hit, and neutral, forward and back aerial (the neutral and back aerials being usually effective when sourspotted, though a majority of them are only usable at low percents). This makes it almost always imperative for Mario's opponent to tech all attacks at low percentages when needed, otherwise Mario can capitalize on the opportunity, and tack on unavoidable massive damage in the process.

Despite Mario's numerous strengths, he is not flawless. Most characters can outperform him in various areas: notable examples include Bayonetta having a more versatile combo ability, Sonic having better mobility, Donkey Kong having higher power right off the bat, and Cloud having larger reach. In particular, the latter two are his main weaknesses: his KOing ability is largely inconsistent, with very few guaranteed KO set-ups, and all of them are hard to confirm. While much of his moveset can get the job done, there is a noticeable gap in power between his strongest moves and his other ones, with this meaning he'll usually have to rely on his sweetspotted forward smash, up smash, down smash's back hit, or back throw to score kills if he fails to secure an early kill, which are all compounded by the poor reach of his attacks. As such, he cannot afford to get predictable, especially with the existence of stale-move negation. His lack of reach also prevents him from fighting at a safe distance and consistently forces him to approach characters. This leads to having some difficulty against characters with large or disjointed reach, though fortunately, these types of characters tend to have significantly slower startups on their attacks than Mario, meaning that this tends to be the least of his worries.

Lastly, his recovery is rather limited. He has fast air speed, a high jump, and a very fast and safe up special in Super Jump Punch. However, Super Jump Punch does not travel a very long distance and is fairly linear, making it easy to predict. His other options are unreliable, as Cape and F.L.U.D.D. each travel very little momentum and are extremely easy to edgeguard, F.L.U.D.D. being useful only to substitute for his air speed, and Cape only to guard break edgeguarders or wait them out. This necessitates that Mario returns to the stage quickly and does so with his double jump saved, as a single opening offstage may be fatal for him. Nevertheless, Mario's recovery provides serviceable distance, but caution must be exercised when offstage, especially when he doesn’t have a double jump on him.

Mario's custom moves define the fundamentals of customization, with all of them following an "X over Y" pattern. Fast Fireball deals less damage and barely causes flinching, but covers more range at a much faster pace and can further improve his already above-average camping abilities as well as disrupt most attacks. Fire Orb has less range and is much slower, but deals repeated damage and lingers after being shot, allowing for potential follow-ups. Shocking Cape is electric and has actual KO power, but cannot stall in the air as much as its other variants or reflect projectiles. Gust Cape pushes opponents away, especially at point-blank range, but it deals less damage and possesses more ending lag. Super Jump grants almost twice as much distance, but is unable to hit opponents. Explosive Punch deals high flame damage, but travels a short distance in a fixed direction. Scalding F.L.U.D.D. hits multiple times and can disrupt an opponent's approach better, but is not as useful in edgeguarding and has less reach. High-Pressure F.L.U.D.D. takes much longer to charge, but its push effect is greatly amplified.

Overall, Mario has many clear strengths and very few glaring weaknesses. Despite being intended as a jack-of-all-trades character, his very quick speed overall and largely reliable combo ability allow him to get the edge easily against most characters, as it is hard to escape from him once he gets to combo the opponent, while being easy for him to escape and regain the advantage. However, because of his low range, Mario must almost always fight in close quarters. Mario has to be very careful offstage as well, in spite of his viable edgeguarding game, as a single vent in his defenses can cause him to be unable to recover.

Nevertheless, Mario's favorable attributes give him numerous advantages. Because of this, he has one of, if not the, lowest technical learning curves in the game, which has secured him high representation in all levels of play, with high-level professionals such as Ally and ANTi achieving a slew of strong tournament results.

Changes from Super Smash Bros. Brawl

In Super Smash Bros Brawl, Mario was regarded as an unviable low tier, as while he had very solid frame data, decent edgeguarding, an effective projectile and a powerful and versatile tool in the form of his Cape, he also suffered from having poor range, limited/difficult to land KO moves and a poor recovery, which was very linear, did not cover much distance, and could be easily edge hogged. As a result, Mario struggled against the majority of the cast, and despite the developer's intention to design him as a beginner-friendly all-rounder, he still ended up being an unpopular choice due to his poor relative strength compared to the rest of the cast.

Likely as a result of this, Mario has received a fair share of buffs and nerfs in Super Smash Bros. 4, but has been significantly buffed overall, to the point of not only being the most buffed character in the transition between Brawl and Super Smash Bros 4, but also arguably the most buffed character in any transition in the entire series.

Mario's mobility is overall better, especially in the air, with his jumps and up special being higher and his air speed being much higher, which, along with his faster air dodge and the removal of edge hogging, significantly improves his recovery.

Mario is overall more capable of comboing and KOing both due to universal changes and changes to some of his moves. Mario's forward and up smashes, which were already his main KO moves, have been made stronger. The changes to hitstun canceling and directional influence have significantly improved Mario's combo potential, and two of his moves have been altered to further enforce this. Mario's down throw has significantly reduced base knockback, which has made it a much better combo tool at low percents, while still being a much more reliable combo tool at higher percents due to the changes to hitstun canceling/DI. Mario's grabs are also faster and have more range, making it easier for him to start his powerful grab game.

Mario's up aerial now launches opponents vertically like its Smash 64 counterpart, which has made Mario's already decent juggling potential much more potent, especially with the aforementioned changes to hitstun canceling/DI. The move can very easily chain into itself and lead to a Super Jump Punch, making it a very powerful juggling tool. Mario's forward aerial is also noticeably more effective. Not only is the move stronger and naturally benefits from the removal of meteor canceling, but it can also be comboed into due to the aforementioned changes to hitstun canceling/DI, as well as his altered down throw/up aerial.

Mario also greatly benefits from the introduction of rage, as not only does it allow him to KO earlier, as well as allowing his combos to work sooner, but it also enables him to KO opponents at insanely low percents with his Super Jump Punch, which, when combined with the lower ceiling changes of Smash 4, gives him a cheesy KO option which can occasionally allow Mario to score vertical KOs at disproportionately early percents. Mario's solid weight also means that he is capable of building up a decent amount of rage before getting KO'd.

Despite the plethora of buffs, Mario has received some nerfs. His damage output has now been decreased noticeably, even relative to the rest of the cast, now being average. This makes it harder for Mario to rack up damage, although his more consistent combo game somewhat alleviates this. This also means that quite a few of Mario's more situational KO moves (such as the front hit of his down smash, his neutral aerial, and his back throw) are weaker than they were before, meaning that Mario still has to rely on landing a forward or an up smash to secure a KO if he does not score an early KO from an edgeguard, Super Jump Punch or Ladder Combo. Mario's frame data, while still solid, is also worse, with multiple moves having increased ending lag as well as some moves having shorter hitbox durations.

Mario's Fireballs and Cape have also seen some nerfs. Fireballs, while travelling further, are laggier and weaker, making them a worse camping tool overall. Cape's reflection period has been reduced, and the removal of edge momentum shifting has hindered Cape more than almost any other special, as it significantly hinders its edgeguarding and approach potential. Even before edge momentum shifting was removed in patch 1.0.8, Cape did not gain as much momentum when used off an edge. Cape is also hindered by some of the game’s universal changes, such as the removal of edge hogging and the speeding up of air dodges. However, Mario still overall benefits from these changes.

Mario's traction is also lower, which hinders his ability to punish out of shield despite still possessing excellent out-of-shield options. Mario can also no longer use a pivoted forward smash to make it cover a lot more distance, which considerably hinders Mario's ability to whiff-punish moves while being on the ground.

Overall, Mario's strengths are much more pronounced and effective, and while he still has poor range and inconsistent KO potential outside of his smash attacks, his recovery is significantly better, and the universal changes to Smash 4 have greatly benefitted him overall. The universal changes have allowed Mario to have a very consistent and powerful combo game, while also greatly aiding his recovery and his KO potential to the point where he can occasionally score extremely early KOs. Mario also benefits from the fact that the majority of characters who gave him a hard time in Brawl have been nerfed, which, along with numerous characters having reduced range and/or weaker projectile games, as well as the removal of chain grabbing, has allowed Mario's improved combo game to shine even further relative to the rest of the cast, while his poor range has become less of an issue. Mario overall did not change much throughout Smash 4's wave of updates, always being a highly solid character throughout the game's lifespan.

As a result of these changes, combined with Mario being a rather simple and effective character to use for beginners and high-level players alike, Mario has become a much more viable character than he was in Brawl.

Aesthetics

• Due to the aesthetic used in Smash 4, Mario's overall color scheme is more vibrant. His overalls have less accentuated seams and also lose the back pockets used previously in Melee and Brawl. Mario, however, keeps his proportions from Brawl.
• Mario has a new blue alternate costume. His hat and overalls are now cyan, while his shirt is now pink. These changes make it based on Mario's attire on Mario Bros.' Japanese box art. Additionally, Mario's yellow alternate costume has been slightly updated. The "M" on his cap is now green instead of blue. Lastly, Mario has received two new alternate costumes. The first is based on his appearances in Family Computer Golf: U.S. Course and NES Open Tournament Golf, while the second is based on Waluigi.
• The sounds Mario's up taunt makes are now identical to the sounds heard when powering up and getting hit or using a pipe, respectively, in Super Mario Bros.
• Mario's chest now faces the foreground regardless of whether he's facing left or right, mirroring his animations.
• Mario's dash attack while holding an item has slightly changed. He now holds the item with one hand instead of two.
• Mario is much more expressive. For example, his irises now shrink whenever he is hit, and he also appears surprised in several instances, such as when grabbed, pummeled, and/or launched. He also opens his mouth when using Fireball this time around.
• Mario's previously unused damage yells from Brawl's Sound Test are now heard when taking high knockback.

Attributes

• Mario dashes faster (1.5 → 1.6). His initial dash speed was also equally increased (1.5 → 1.6). This makes it easier for him to approach his opponents.
• Mario‘s air speed is significantly faster (0.94 → 1.15), going from the 19th fastest out of 39 characters to the 9th fastest out of 58. This noticeably improves his aerial combo game and recovery.
• Mario's air acceleration is slightly lower (0.09 → 0.08).
• Like most other characters returning from Brawl, Mario falls much faster (1.28 → 1.5). He also falls faster relative to the cast, going from having the 28th fastest falling speed out of 38 characters to having the 31st fastest out of 58. As a result, he is no longer considered to be floaty. This makes him less susceptible to vertical KOs, and it also noticeably improves his ground-to-air transitioning, but in turn, it makes him more susceptible to combos.
  • His fast-falling speed is significantly faster (1.792 → 2.4). This makes him much less susceptible to juggling.
• Mario's gravity is higher (0.075 → 0.08715). This further increases his susceptibility to combos, but improves his aerial mobility and, when combined with his much faster falling speed, allows him to land more safely.
• Mario jumps significantly higher despite his increased gravity (31.755375 → 36.331814), going from the 25th highest out of 39 characters to the 13th highest out of 58.
• Mario's traction has been significantly decreased (0.06 → 0.045), going from being tied for the 11th highest out of 38 characters to being tied for the 6th lowest out of 55, which makes it harder for him to punish out of shield.
• Rolls have less ending lag (FAF 33 → 30).
• Rolls have a shorter duration (frames 4-19 → 4-16).
• Air dodge has less startup lag (frame 4 → 3) and ending lag (FAF 50 → 33).
• Air dodge has a shorter duration (frames 4-29 → 3-27).
• Spot dodge has a shorter duration (frames 2-20 → 2-17) and has more ending lag (FAF 26 → 27).
• The changes to hitstun canceling and directional influence greatly improve Mario's combo potential.
• The removal of chain grabbing significantly improves Mario's endurance against certain characters.
• The removal of edge hogging, combined with Mario’s faster air speed and air dodge, drastically improves his recovery, remedying one of his main weaknesses from the previous game.

Ground attacks

• Neutral attack:
  • The first two hits of neutral deal less damage (3% → 2.5% (hit 1), 2% → 1.5% (hit 2)), resulting in all three hits dealing less damage overall (9% → 8%).
  • All three hits have more ending lag (FAF 16 (hit 1)/19 (hit 2)/30 (hit 3) → 20/22/34).
  • The third hit has a shorter duration (frames 7-10 → 7-8).
  • The third hit deals less knockback (30 (base)/95 (scaling) → 45/80).
• Forward tilt:
  • Forward tilt deals less damage (8% → 7%) and the down-angled version no longer has higher base knockback (13 → 8).
    • However, this allows it to lock for longer.
  • It has a shorter duration (frames 5-7 → 5-6).
  • It has more ending lag (FAF 25 → 31).
• Up tilt:
  • Up tilt has a new animation. Mario no longer smiles during the move, and he has a more elaborate landing animation after performing the up tilt.
  • It deals less damage (7% → 5.5%) hindering its KO potential.
    • However, this drastically increases its comboing and juggling ability, being able to chain into itself more reliably at lower percents while now having much more combo potential at higher percents due to the changes to hitstun canceling/DI.
• Down tilt:
  • Down tilt has less ending lag (FAF 35 → 28).
  • It has increased base knockback (20 → 35). When combined with the previous change, this makes down tilt much safer on hit (no longer being dangerously punishable right up until higher percents), and it grants the move combo potential.
    • As a result of these changes, down tilt has gone from a completely useless and dangerous move, to a decent combo starter, which can be useful in certain situations.
  • It no longer has a hitbox on Mario's body.
• Dash attack:
  • Dash attack deals less damage (9% (clean)/7% (late) → 8%/6%).
  • It has more favorable hitbox placements, giving it more range and no longer having a blindspot on Mario's feet.
  • It deals more knockback (70 (base)/50 (scaling) (clean), 45/30 (late) → 100/43 (both)) and both its clean and late hits have consistent angles (110°/80° → 60° (clean), 120°/70° → 110° (late)).
  • The changes to hitstun canceling grant the late hit follow-ups when combined with the move's higher base knockback.
• Forward smash:
  • Forward smash deals more damage when angled down (13% (arm)/16% (fire) → 14.42%/17.51%).
  • It has more knockback scaling, especially on its sweetspot (90 (sweetspot)/100 (sourspot) → 99/103).
  • The sourspot uses a single extended hitbox that covers less horizontal distance, rather than having two sourspots, making the sweetspot easier to land.
    • However, this gives the move less range behind Mario.
  • The sourspot can no longer send opponents behind Mario.
  • It deals less damage when angled up (15% (arm)/18% (fire) → 14.7%/17.85%).
  • Mario no longer lunges farther when performing a pivoted forward smash, decreasing its range. This considerably hinders forward smash's whiff-punish potential.
• Up smash:
  • Up smash has slightly more knockback scaling (90 → 94) improving its KO potential.
  • It has a shorter duration as well as decreased intangibility (frames 9-14 → 9-12), reducing its range in front of Mario despite its altered animation.
• Down smash:
  • Both hits of down smash deal more knockback (40 (base)/73 (scaling) (front), 35/75 (back) → 30/100), improving the back hit's KO potential.
  • Both hits are now semi-spikes (361° → 32° (front)/30° (back)), significantly improving their edgeguarding ability; especially the back hit.
  • The front hit deals much less damage (15% → 10%), hindering its KO potential despite its increased knockback/altered angle.
  • It has more ending lag (FAF 38 → 44).

Aerial attacks

• Neutral aerial:
  • The changes to hitstun canceling significantly improve its combo potential.
  • Neutral aerial's clean hit deals less damage (10% → 8%) without compensation on knockback, removing its already lacking KO potential.
• Forward aerial:
  • Forward aerial's clean hit deals more damage (13% → 14%) and has increased knockback (20 base/75 scaling → 32/78). When combined with the removal of meteor canceling, this significantly improves its edgeguarding potential.
  • The clean hit has a longer duration with the late hit's duration being compensated (frames 17-19 (clean)/20-21 (late) → 17-20/21), making it easier to land.
  • The changes to hitstun canceling make it significantly easier to combo into, now being a potential follow-up out of a down throw at certain percents.
• Back aerial:
  • Back aerial is more effective to use for a wall of pain due to Mario's much faster air speed, higher jumps, and the changes to hitstun canceling. The increased shieldstun also improves its utility as a spacing option against shields despite its increased landing lag.
  • Its clean hit deals more knockback (10 (base)/95 (scaling) → 12/106), marginally improving its KO potential despite its reduced damage.
  • Its clean hit deals less damage (12% → 10.5%).
  • It has a shorter duration (frames 6-8 (clean)/9-13 (late) → 6-7/8-10 (late)).
  • It has more landing lag (10 frames → 12).
• Up aerial:
  • Up aerial now launches opponents vertically (45° → 75°), similar to its Smash 64 counterpart. When combined with the changes to hitstun canceling/DI, this makes it a much better combo move and allows it to KO more reliably near the upper blast line, especially if it leads into Super Jump Punch.
    • However, its new angle does remove the edgeguarding potential it previously had.
  • The hitbox on Mario's foot is positioned higher (Y-offset: 2.2 → 3.8), increasing its range.
  • It deals less damage (11% → 7%) without full compensation on its knockback (9 (base)/100 (scaling) → 10/135), slightly hindering his KO potential.
    • However, this also further improves his combo potential.
  • It has a shorter duration (frames 4-9 → 4-8).
  • It has more ending lag (FAF 30 → 32).
  • It auto-cancels later (frame 16 → 18).
  • It has more landing lag (10 frames → 12).
• Down aerial:
  • Down aerial has decreased SDI multipliers (1.5× (hits 1-5)/1× (final hit) → 0.8×), which, along with the weakening of SDI, makes it significantly harder to escape.
  • The final hit deals less damage (7% → 5%), with its knockback scaling being compensated (80 → 100).
  • The speeding up of air dodges now allows most fighters to air dodge to escape the final hit of down aerial, unless Mario has enough rage.

Throws/other attacks

• Grabs:
  • Mario now grabs with one hand as opposed to two. He still uses both hands during his pummel, however.
  • All of Mario's grabs have slightly increased range, particularly dash grab (z offset: 8.4 (standing)/9 (dash)/-14 (pivot) → z stretch: 8.7/10.6/14.7). Dash grab also has a larger grabbox (2.5u → 2.6u).
  • Dash and pivot grabs have less startup lag (frame 12 → 8 (dash), frame 11 → 9 (pivot)).
  • All grabs have less ending lag (FAF 30 (standing)/40 (dash)/36 (pivot) → 29/36/34).
  • Standing and pivot grabs have slightly smaller grabboxes (3.36u (standing)/3.5u (pivot) → 3.3u (both)).
    • Additionally, pivot grab does not extend as far behind Mario, due to now only consisting of one grabbox.
• All throws deal less damage (9% → 8% (forward), 12% → 11% (back), 8% → 7% (up), 6% → 5% (down)). This makes his forward and back throws less effective for KOing, despite the latter having slightly more knockback scaling.
• Pummel:
  • Pummel deals more damage (3% → 3.25%).
• Back throw:
  • Back throw deals less damage (12% → 11%).
  • Back throw's knockback scaling has been slightly increased (63 → 66), although this does not fully compensate for its lower damage.
  • It has less ending lag (FAF 67 → 60).
  • The collateral hit has increased knockback (20 (base), 100 (scaling) → 100/70).
  • The collateral hit has much more startup lag with a shorter duration (frames 1-43 → 13-39).
• Up throw:
  • Up throw's lower damage combined with the changes to hitstun canceling improves its combo potential at low to mid percents.
• Down throw:
  • Down throw has much less base knockback (75 → 40), which, coupled with its lower damage output, makes it much better for starting combos, most notably into a string of up tilts at low percents. The changes to hitstun canceling also significantly improve its combo potential beyond low percents.
  • Down throw has a more horizontal angle (80° → 68°) with more knockback scaling (50 → 90). This makes ground attack follow-ups less reliable at higher percentages, but instead allows it to combo more effectively into aerial attacks.
• Floor attack:
  • Floor attacks deal more damage (6% → 7%) and shield damage (1 → 8) per hit, with minimally compensated knockback scaling (50 → 48).
  • Their angles have been altered (361° → 48°) making them weaker despite their increased knockback.
  • They have less startup (frame 19 (front)/20 (back) → 16/19) and ending lag (FAF 50 → 46).
• Edge attack:
  • Edge attack no longer has set knockback (110 (set)/100 (scaling) → 90 (base)/20 (scaling)).
  • Edge attack deals consistent damage (8% (legs)/6% (body) → 7%).
  • Edge attack has increased intangibility (frames 1-20 → 1-21).

Special moves

• Fireball:
  • Fireballs have greater velocity when they touch the ground (0.8 → 1.4), and they have a greater bounce velocity multiplier (0.75 → 0.97), allowing them to cover more distance on the ground.
  • When a Fireball hits a foe, the sound effect when an enemy is defeated in Super Mario Bros. plays. Fireballs also look more realistic, with smoke and ashes coming out of the flames. The same applies to the Mario Finale.
  • Fireballs have much more gravity (0.036 → 0.1). This means that when they are used above the ground, they now drop down at a steep vertical angle rather than gradually falling at a more diagonal angle.
    • This can allow Mario to hit low recovering opponents, or linear recoveries easier. It also makes full hop Fireball a viable approach/fade back option at close range.
    • However, this gives the fireballs much less horizontal range in the air, hindering their ability to be used as a long-range camping and edgeguarding tool.
  • Fireballs now bounce at a fixed height regardless of how far they fell before bouncing, reducing their blindspot on short opponents but making them worse at hitting airborne opponents off a bounce.
  • Fireballs have altered knockback (30 (base)/25 (scaling) → 35/20 (clean), 22/20 → 28/15 (mid), 11/15 → 22/10 (late)).
  • It has more startup (frame 14 → 17) and ending lag (FAF 44 → 53), hindering its camping potential.
    • As a result, Fireball can no longer effectively auto-cancel in a short hop.
  • Late fireballs deal less damage (5% → 4%).
  • Fireballs have a shorter maximum duration (74 frames → 69).
  • Fireballs have a smaller hitbox (2.4u (clean)/2.2u (mid)/2u (late) → 2u/1.8u/1.6u).
• Cape:
  • Aerial Cape deals more damage (6% → 7%).
  • Its far hitbox has been positioned further out (z offset: 9 → 9.7), giving it more range).
  • It no longer gives certain characters their recovery moves back.