Palutena (SSBU)

Palutena in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Universe	Kid Icarus
Other playable appearance	in SSB4
Availability	Unlockable
Final Smash	Black Hole Laser
Tier	A+ (16)

Palutena (パルテナ, Palutena) is a playable character in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. She was officially revealed on June 12th, 2018 alongside fellow Kid Icarus representatives Pit and Dark Pit, as well as the rest of the veterans. Palutena is classified as Fighter #54.

Brandy Kopp and Aya Hisakawa reprise their roles as the voice of Palutena in the English and Japanese versions of the game. In addition to their portrayals being re-purposed from Super Smash Bros. 4, they also provide new Palutena's Guidance conversations for every veteran not present in SSB4, the downloadable fighters of SSB4, the base roster newcomers of Ultimate, and Piranha Plant.

Palutena is ranked 16th out of 82 on the current tier list, placing her near the top of the A+ tier. This is a drastic improvement over her 44th out of 54 placement in SSB4, and makes her the highest-ranked veteran from Smash 4. Palutena is one of the most improved veterans from the transition to Smash 4 and Ultimate due to the engine of Ultimate complementing her unique strengths. Her aerials are a core part of her neutral due to her high aerial mobility and their effective traits: they both start and extend combos, most notably with her neutral aerial, which is commonly considered one of the best moves in the game due to its overall utility for starting combos, comboing into itself, high active frames and KOing at very high percents. Her back air is great for retreating and mid-range combat due to the invincibility of the shield and priority, while up air is an amazing disjointed multi-hit that functions as a juggle tool and KO option. Her grab game is also impressive due to its above-average reach and her decent set of throws. Overall, this results in her having one of the best advantage states in the game. Her specials also have seen noteworthy improvements: Autoreticle is useful for interrupting midrange approaches or recoveries, Explosive Flame is effective for general zoning and for halting approaches, Warp makes her difficult to edgeguard consistently, and her Reflect Barrier functions as a simultaneous counterattack and reflector that enhances her already strong defense.

Despite these many strengths, Palutena is not without her flaws. While she wields an excellent air game, her ground game is below average in comparison, having slow and unsafe tilts alongside committal smash attacks. She also has trouble securing stocks at high percents due to her KO moves being fairly predictable (Explosive Flame) or easily staled due to overuse (back aerial). Palutena's main combo starters are also unsafe on shield and thus forces her to mix up her gameplan and neutral. Finally, her recovery is completely reliant on Warp, which has no active hitbox and can be consistently two frame punished.

Overall, Palutena is a simple but effective character at all levels of play, with well-rounded abilities and few overwhelming weaknesses. She has often been considered a top-tier contender since the release of the game, and has been one of the most popular characters in competitive play, with results spearheaded by Nairo in the early metagame and a multitude of other Palutena players since, including Jagaimo, Lui$, and Raflow.

How to unlock

Complete one of the following:

• Play VS. matches, with Palutena being the last character to be unlocked.
• Clear Classic Mode with Kirby or any character in his unlock tree, being the last character unlocked after Lucas.
• Have Palutena join the player's party in World of Light.

Palutena must then be defeated on Palutena's Temple (the Ω form is used in World of Light).

Attributes

Palutena is a tall middleweight. Her walking speed, dashing speed, air acceleration, and gravity are above-average; her air acceleration, in particular, is the 5th highest in the game. Palutena also has relatively high jumps, although her traction and falling speed are both merely average, while her air speed is below-average. Thanks to her attributes, Palutena's overall mobility is excellent, even though her aerial mobility is a bit slower than her grounded mobility.

Palutena has a dynamic, well-rounded moveset. She has both excellent combo potential and solid zoning tools, allowing her to be effective both offensively and defensively. Her staff counts as a disjointed hitbox, and she has two projectiles in her moveset as part of her special moves, meaning she can apply safe pressure from a distance and force approaching opponents off her. Her projectiles are unique in that they are completely unconventional. Her aerial-based moveset, speed, and versatility mean she can easily overwhelm opponents and quickly rack up damage.

Palutena's ground attacks are generally the weakest part of her moveset, but they can be useful. Her neutral attack possesses decent range, whereas her neutral infinite is a reliable damage-racking option that can also function as a situational KO option at very high percentages while near the edge. Palutena's dash attack is very fast, grants her partial invincibility, and its clean hitbox enables it to function as a situational KO option at very high percentages. Her tilt attacks are somewhat situational due to their lagginess, but have their own individual perks. Forward tilt has long-lasting hitboxes that enable it to intercept approaches and floor recoveries, while its second hit is strong enough to KO at very high percentages while near the edge. Down tilt is a useful 2 frame punish that semi-spikes grounded opponents and launches aerial opponents vertically, thus enabling Palutena to edgeguard reliably afterward. Lastly, up tilt has the fastest startup among her tilts, it can initiate aerial pressure, and it is even a serviceable KO option at very high percentages.

Palutena's grounded offense is further supplemented by her strong grab game: her grabs are quick and have respectable ranges, while each of her throws varies from being decent to useful. Palutena's down throw is a reliable combo starter, since it can combo into each of her aerials, and even has KO confirms at high percentages. Her back throw is her strongest throw, being capable of KOing at around 130% while near the edge. Palutena's forward and up throws are much less useful in comparison, but have their own perks regardless. Forward throw has a KO confirm into Explosive Flame at high percentages, whereas up throw is decent for launching opponents into the air to initiate aerial pressure safely.

Palutena's smash attacks are very strong KO options thanks to their considerable power and very long ranges. Up smash has a very long-lasting hitbox and covers a lot of vertical range directly in front of Palutena; it can be used to KO opponents in the air and even intercept air dodges due to how long the hitbox lasts. Her forward and down smashes are similar, both in their damage output and the fact that they have a wind effect to move opponents away from Palutena if they are just outside of the move’s hitbox.

The strongest part of Palutena's moveset, however, is her air game. Her aerial attacks are each useful regarding comboing or KOing; despite each of her aerials having rather high ending lag, they compensate for this by having very low landing lag and generous autocancel windows, making them very safe on shield. Her neutral aerial is a very fast and safe move, being Palutena's best combo tool by far as it combos into her other aerial attacks (including itself) until fairly high percentages, while also having KO potential at very high percentages. Her up aerial is an extremely good juggling tool capable of KOing while near the top blast zone at around 100% (even on heavyweights), with its fairly large, long-lasting hitbox making it difficult to avoid. Her back aerial, like her dash attack, grants invincibility on Palutena's shield. It has the strongest knockback of any of her aerials, making it one of Palutena's best KO options, especially when used as a reverse aerial rushed follow up from down throw. Her forward aerial, while not quite as strong, is a good combo finisher that is also useful for edgeguarding and can even KO at very high percentages near the horizontal blast zones. Although down aerial is generally considered to be Palutena's least useful aerial, it is a guaranteed meteor smash against airborne opponents.

Additionally, Palutena's special moves are each useful, most prominently for zoning. Explosive Flame, formerly one of her custom moves in Super Smash Bros. 4, is her side special attack and is useful at forcing opponents into the air, as well as for securing KOs while near the upper blast zone at higher percentages. Palutena's neutral special attack, Autoreticle, is not quite as useful as Explosive Flame, yet it is another projectile that can apply long-ranged pressure safely and rack up damage. Her up special move, Warp, is useful for achieving a more favorable stage position; when coupled with its invincibility frames and Palutena's high jumps, Warp is an extremely useful recovery tool. Palutena's down special move, unlike in SSB4, consists of 2 moves: Counter activates against melee attacks, whereas Reflect Barrier activates against reflectable projectiles at either close range or from a distance. Lastly, several of Palutena's moves, such as her tilt attacks and aerial attacks, inflict additional shield damage; as a result, Palutena can pressure opponents consistently and reliably, especially since her forward and back aerials can autocancel with a short hop fast fall.

Despite having considerable strengths, Palutena also has many noticeable weaknesses. Her most glaring problem is her mediocre ground game: barring her dash attack, the remainder of her grounded attacks come out on frame 8 or later, and almost all of her moves either have high startup (smash attacks and down tilt), punishable ending lag (forward, back and down aerials and smash attacks), long durations (her tilt attacks), or all three (forward tilt and special moves). Although Palutena's overall frame data is quite faster than it was in SSB4, she can still be rendered very vulnerable if her attacks miss or if the opponent evades and/or blocks them.

Although some of Palutena's moves have the potential to KO at reasonable percentages, she can still struggle to score KOs due to her options being either somewhat risky or situational. Her smash attacks are very punishable due to their high overall lag, which offsets their impressive power. Explosive Flame and, to a lesser extent, back aerial are also easily punishable if whiffed due to their ending lag. Up aerial relies on Palutena being underneath her opponent. Furthermore, while Palutena's recovery is decent in its distance, Warp leaves her helpless and lacks a hitbox to protect her; when combined with the fact that Palutena is a tall character, her recovery can be exploited easily by opponents who know how to intercept Warp.

Despite this, Palutena is generally considered at worst a high-tier character due to her versatility, well-roundedness, and relatively easy combo game. Her lack of overwhelming weaknesses means that there are few opponents she struggles against.

Changes from Super Smash Bros. 4

Palutena was previously a lower-tiered character in SSB4 due to a myriad of factors, such as terrible frame data in relation to power and weight (which also resulted in a deficient grounded game), a predictable offensive game with few reliable options, general trouble at KOing, poor disadvantage state, and an infamously dysergic special moveset. Being designed with character customization in mind, custom special moves were able to improve her strengths vastly, but they required character customization to be turned on to be able to use them, unlike the Mii Fighters, resulting in the inability to use them in regular gameplay and limiting her to her default special moveset. Most likely due to the removal of custom moves and her previous poor reputation, Palutena has been significantly rebalanced to work without custom moves during her transition from SSB4 to Ultimate. However, while initially considered to be dramatically buffed during the game's release, game updates have given her some noticeable nerfs that have reduced her viability. Regardless, Palutena is still considered to be significantly buffed overall.

Palutena's most notable improvements are indirect, as she benefits from the gameplay changes to the engine to a far greater degree than most of the cast. The universal increases to mobility have not only improved her already high run speed, but particularly give her much faster air and falling speeds compared to SSB4 (though the former is still below-average), improving her air-to-ground transitioning. The reduced landing lag in all aerials further improves her already impressive aerial game, heightening their spacing and combo potential. The increased shieldstun on attacks makes Palutena's own moves much safer on shield, while the changes to perfect shielding now allow Palutena to more easily retaliate against opposing attacks, while not reducing her own moves' safety on shield due to the aforementioned higher shieldstun and her moves' multi-hit nature, making them risky to perfect shield. The weakening of rage improves Palutena's endurance and now allows her to take advantage of it much easier. The changes to air dodges have significantly improved her juggling and edgeguarding potential, combined with her respectable aerial moves, and the reintroduction of directional air dodging now lets her use one to escape pressure or slightly extend her recovery. Finally, the changes to the Sakurai angle to be lower, while being a buff shared widely around the cast, have turned her back throw into a highly effective KO throw.

In terms of direct changes, Palutena has also received several notable improvements. Some of her standard moves have seen hitbox increases, which increase her melee range and make attacks using her staff much more reliable at connecting. Her sluggish ground moves have been sped up, with her forward and up tilts having faster startup, and almost all of her moves (aside from up and down tilts) receiving less ending lag. Down tilt, particularly, has much better 2 framing potential thanks to its longer range and duration, and sends at a more favorable angle for combos when hitting aerial opponents. Her smash attacks have had their utility further increased; up smash lasts significantly longer, while forward and down smash possess increased power as well as stronger, more reliable windboxes, which, combined with their lower ending lag, make them harder to punish at long range.

Her already capable aerial moveset was also improved. Neutral aerial now always sends in the direction Palutena is facing and deals less knockback; in combination with the reductions to landing lag, this turns the move into a fearsome combo starter and general all-purpose attack. Forward, up, and down aerials deal more damage, with both the former and latter, as well as back aerial, dealing more knockback. Down aerial also lasts for an additional frame, no longer being one of the worst meteor smashes in the game.

Palutena's special moveset has also undergone several drastic enhancements, putting it in line with the rest of the cast. Autoreticle's detection lasts significantly longer, and each projectile has faster startup, deals more damage, and travels faster. Counter and Reflect Barrier have been merged into one move; the former activates when blocking a physical attack, while the latter activates to reflect projectiles. As a whole, the move has a faster startup, lasts longer, and has less ending lag in all aspects; individually, Counter has slightly more knockback (though it remains the weakest counterattack knockback-wise), while Reflect Barrier activates immediately and has a much higher damage multiplier, no longer being the weakest reflector in the game. In place of Reflect Barrier, Palutena's side special is now Explosive Flame; in addition to giving Palutena an additional move, the move has less ending lag, deals more damage and knockback, and can be summoned at two distances, increasing its versatility.

However, while receiving far more buffs, Palutena has also seen some notable nerfs that have changed her playstyle, most notably to her neutral attack and grabs. The former can no longer jab cancel due to its angle being homogenized to connect into the infinite, removing many of its guaranteed set-ups into other moves, such as dash attack, grab, and some of her aerials. For the latter, despite pivot grab's longer range, both standing and dash grab possess less range (especially the former), and all grabs share the same increased startup and ending lag as with the rest of the cast. Her down throw is also less advantageous due to the changes to hitlag on it. She has slightly more knockback, reducing its advantage and combo potential beyond low percents despite its reduced ending lag and more favourable angle. The universal slowdown of shield grabs only exacerbates this, further weakening Palutena's out of shield and grab games, the former of which was the crux of her defense in SSB4. Moreover, her dash attack and back aerial's invincibility frames no longer cover her entire body after startup, instead only covering her arm, making both attacks less effective at contesting approaches.

While she has seen mostly benefits from the revamped game physics, a few changes have also hurt Palutena. Aside from the universal nerfs to grabs, the introduction of dash-canceling is overall detrimental to her, as it allows many characters to pressure her more effectively, while her grounded moves are still slow compared to her aerial moves. The smaller edge sweetspots render Warp much easier to intercept and 2-frame, which, combined with her less floaty air physics and the changes to air dodges, makes her easier to edgeguard. Most egregiously, however, the removal of custom moves means she is no longer able to utilize them to her advantage to improve her special moveset.

In the end, Palutena's buffs have exponentially improved her predictable, inconsistent offense, and her improved aerial mobility, and the revamped gameplay mechanics allow her to take advantage of her streamlined moveset while compensating for most of her nerfs. She now possesses reliable options for most kinds of situations, allowing her to adapt to many kinds of playstyles depending on the opponent. However, her weaker grabs have weakened her defense, and her survivability is slightly lower, which forces her to adapt to opponents' options through a more offensive playstyle. She also retains some of her weaknesses from SSB4, such as slow grounded attacks, trouble at KOing the opponent, predictable out of shield game, somewhat linear approach, and a mediocre disadvantage state, especially offstage. Game updates have also handed Palutena some impactful nerfs, including the aforementioned nerf to her grab; combined with various characters gaining buffs through said updates, the introduction of DLC characters, and general metagame optimizations, her overall viability is slightly worse than at launch. All in all, however, Palutena is drastically better in Ultimate than she was in SSB4, being one of the most buffed characters among the returning cast, and a fairly strong choice in competitive play.

Aesthetics

• As with all veterans returning from Super Smash Bros. 4, Palutena's model has a more subdued color scheme, now more closely resembling her appearance in Kid Icarus: Uprising. Her chiton and armor feature simple detailing, and her face appears more realistic and expressive.
• Palutena's sidestep now causes a visible warping effect when she disappears.
• Palutena is more emotive as she now smiles consistently rather than frowning.
• Palutena's skirt now has independent physics.
• Palutena's shielding animation is slightly altered.
• The golden doors in Palutena's on-screen appearance now disappear without the transparency effects.

Attributes

• Like all characters, Palutena's jumpsquat animation takes 3 frames to complete (down from 5).
• Palutena walks slightly faster (1.21 → 1.271).
• Palutena runs faster (1.888 → 2.077).
  • Her initial dash speed is much faster (1.5 → 2.035).
• Palutena's air speed is slightly faster (0.91 → 1).
• Palutena's max additional air acceleration is higher (0.1 → 0.105).
• Palutena's falling speed and fast falling speed are higher (1.4 → 1.55 and 2.24 → 2.48 respectively).
• Palutena's gravity is higher (0.105 → 0.12). In combination with her faster falling speed, this improves her vertical mobility, while not affecting her vertical endurance due to gravity no longer affecting vertical knockback between 70 and 110 degrees.
• Forward roll has less ending lag (FAF 31 → 30).
• Forward roll grants less intangibility (frames 4-17 → 4-15).
• Back roll has more startup with less intangibility (frames 4-17 → 5-16), and more ending lag (FAF 31 → 35).
• Spot dodge has less ending lag (FAF 28 → 26).
• Spot dodge grants less intangibility (frames 3-18 → 3-17).
• Air dodge grants more intangibility (frames 3-28 → 3-30).
• Air dodge has significantly more ending lag (FAF 34 → 50).
• Palutena's traction is higher (0.068 → 0.106).

Ground attacks

• Neutral attack:
  • The first hit has an altered animation. Palutena swings her staff downwards instead of jabbing it forward.
  • The first hit and neutral infinite's finisher have less ending lag (FAF 26 → 25 (hit 1), 43 → 40 (finisher)).
  • The first hit transitions into the neutral infinite faster (frame 15 → 11).
  • The first hit has altered angles to keep opponents closer to Palutena (80° → 361°/180°), and has gained a hitstun modifier of 4, allowing it to lock opponents and connect better into the infinite.
  • The infinite has a lower hitlag multiplier (1.2× → 0.5×) and SDI multiplier (1× → 0.4×), a different launch angle to keep grounded opponents closer to Palutena (60°/110° → 361°), and a much larger hitbox (3.5 → 6u). This allows it to connect much more effectively, and rack up more damage overall despite each hit dealing slightly less damage (0.8% → 0.6%).
  • The first hit has a shorter hitbox duration (frames 8-10 → 8-9).
  • The first hit deals less knockback (30 base/60 scaling → 25/20 base/20 scaling), removing its guaranteed jab cancel setups from Smash 4, despite its lower ending lag and additional hitstun.
  • The first hit has a higher hitlag multiplier (0.5× → 1.6×).
  • The infinite has gained a shieldstun multiplier of 7×. This allows it to lock opponents into their shields between each hit, and thus pressure them more effectively, but also allows them to cancel shieldstun and punish Palutena more easily if they shield 10 hits or more.
• Forward tilt and up tilt have flashier motion effects.
• Forward tilt:
  • Forward tilt has less startup (frame 17, 25 → 14, 24).
  • The move has a shorter hitbox duration by one frame (frames 17-24/25-39 → 14-23/24-35), but has less ending lag (FAF 68 → 60).
  • The first hit no longer has a sourspot (6%/4% → 6%), and the second hit deals higher, consistent damage (6%/4% → 7%), as well as more knockback (43 base/100 scaling → 78/80), increasing its damage as well as making it consistent (8%-12% → 13%), and allowing it to KO at around 130% near the edge.
  • The first hit has different angles and knockback that now also vary depending on the frame on which they hit (48° → 90°/45° (early), 285°/100° (mid), 20°/85° (late)), set knockback (43 base/65 scaling → 25/45 set/100 scaling, 25/40/100, 35/30/100). It is now weight-independent, has a lower hitlag multiplier (1× → 0.8×), and can no longer be SDIed (1× → 0×). These changes allow it to connect much more reliably into the second hit, regardless of the opponent's percent.
  • The lower staff hitbox is larger for the first hit (2.8u → 3u), and both hitboxes are larger for the second hit (4.1u/2.8u (upper/lower) → 4.8u/3.9u).
  • Palutena's right arm is now intangible for the full duration of the hitboxes.
  • The second hit launches at a slightly different angle (361° → 40°). Compared to Smash 4, it sends opponents higher at low percents, but sends aerial opponents lower at high percents.
• Up tilt:
  • Up tilt has less startup lag (frame 10 → 8) and a shorter total duration (FAF 68 → 56).
  • It has lower hitlag multipliers (1× → 0.5× (looping hits), 2× → 1.5× (last hit)), and the looping hits have a faster rehit rate (5 → 3), causing the move to execute noticeably faster.
  • The lower looping hit now has higher priority than the upper hit. The lower looping hit uses an altered angle (366° → 130°) with higher set knockback (30 → 50). This improves its consistency on grounded opponents due to no longer sending away from Palutena (80° → 130°).
  • The looping portion has a shorter duration (frames 10-38 (looping hits)/40-41 (last hit) → 8-22/24-25). This increases the move's ending lag by four frames, as its total duration was not fully compensated.
    • Despite its faster rehit rate, it hits five times instead of six before the last hit. However, the looping hits deal more damage (1.2% → 1.4%), and alongside the last hit's increased damage, the move's total output is still higher (9.7% → 11.5%).
  • The last hit deals higher, consistent damage (2.5%/1.5% → 4.5%), with knockback not fully compensated (60 base/195 scaling → 75/136), slightly improving its KO potential.
  • All hitboxes are positioned farther upward (Y offset: 16/18/13 → 18/20/15 (looping), 19/13 → 23/17 (final)). This improves its vertical range, but causes it to have a blindspot and makes it harder to hit opponents on the ground.
• Down tilt:
  • Down tilt has a longer hitbox duration (frames 14-24 → 14-27), making it even more effective for 2 frame punishes.
  • It launches grounded opponents at a lower angle (361° → 35°), improving its edgeguarding and KO abilities near the edge. It also launches aerial opponents at a higher angle (70° → 75°), improving its combo potential when used to catch landings and hit ledge-hanging opponents.
  • The aerial hitboxes now have identical size and range with the grounded hitboxes, no longer being smaller.
  • In addition to the hitboxes attached to the staff, there are now static hitboxes, improving its range and making it less strict to the staff's spinning animation.
• Dash attack:
  • Palutena gains invincibility later and with less coverage (frames 4-15 (head/torso/both arms) → frames 5-6 (head/torso), 5-16 (left arm)).
  • It deals more damage (9% → 11% (clean), 5% → 7% (late)), although with its knockback fully compensated (70 base/90 scaling → 71/76 (clean), 60/70 → 61/56 (late)).
  • It causes Palutena's shield to glow, indicating its hitbox.
  • Dash attack has significantly less ending lag (FAF 52 → 41).
• Forward smash:
  • The hitboxes have a longer duration (frame 18-19 → 18-20), with the windboxes having a shorter duration instead (frames 20-31 → 21-31).
  • The hitboxes have slightly more knockback scaling (97/96 (clean/late) → 100/102), while the windboxes have more set knockback (40/26 (clean/late) → 60/35), improving the move's KO and gimping potential.
  • Forward smash has less ending lag (FAF 67 → 64).
• Up smash:
  • It has a longer hitbox duration (frames 18-26 → 18-29) and a new late hit (frames 30-35), now lasting twice as long as before. This improves its ability to punish dodges and landings.
  • The mid and high hitboxes deal more knockback (55 base/85 scaling → 58/89 (mid), 55/87 → 62/92 (high)) and are larger (2.5u → 2.8u).
  • It uses a magic effect instead of a normal one.
  • Up smash has less ending lag (FAF 68 → 64).
• Down smash:
  • The clean hit has more base knockback (40 → 52), improving its KO potential.
  • Its hitboxes are larger (2.5u → 3.7u (clean), 4u → 6u (late), 8u → 9u (windboxes)). The clean hit extends marginally farther (z-offset 7 to -7 → 7.3 to -7.3).
  • The clean hit is positioned marginally higher (y-offset 9 → 9.2). The late hits are positioned lower (y-offset 6/6 (late/windbox) → 4/4), improving their ability to hit below ledge.
  • The windbox has more horizontal range (Z offset: 22u → 24u), more set knockback (30 → 55) and a longer duration (frames 20-27 → 20-29), making them more effective for disrupting opponents.
  • The clean hit has a higher hitlag multiplier (1× → 1.4×), while the late hit has a lower multiplier (1× → 0.85×).
  • Down smash has less ending lag (FAF 72 → 69).

Aerial attacks

• All aerials have less landing lag (20 frames → 12 (neutral), 12 → 9 (forward), 16 → 10 (back), 24 → 14 (up), 18 → 11 (down).
• Neutral aerial:
  • The beginning of the animation is slightly different. Palutena now spins her staff by knocking the lower part of it instead of letting it spin on its own.
  • Neutral aerial has lower hitlag multipliers (1× → 0.5× (looping hits), 2× → 1.5× (last hit)), and the looping hits have a faster rehit rate (5 → 4), causing the move to execute noticeably faster.
  • It has larger hitboxes (3.4u → 4.2u (looping hits), 11u → 11.5u (last hit)), improving its utility for approaching.
    • However, the last hit has a smaller hitbox against aerial opponents (11.5u → 9.8u).
  • The looping hits use different knockback on aerial vs. grounded opponents.
    • On aerial opponents, between frames 5 and 23, the looping hits now have scalable knockback (20 (set)/100 (scaling) → 0 (base)/100 (scaling)). At lower percents, this leaves them weaker and negative on hit when landing, but at high percents gives them drag-down potential, with the frame advantage being better the higher Palutena's rage and the lower the opponent's weight.
    • On grounded opponents, between frames 5 and 23, the hitstun is higher due to higher set knockback (20 → 65). The staff's bottom hitbox on frames 5-6 has even higher set knockback (80) and can send lighter opponents into tumble. In combination with the move's reduced landing lag, this allows combos from a single hit on grounded opponents. The follow-ups depend on the opponent's weight, with even up smash being possible in some cases, though up tilt is the most reliable follow-up.
    • On frames 24-27, all the looping hits still use set knockback and are effectively unchanged from Smash 4 due to a new hitstun modifier (-13) negating the higher set knockback (20 → 65), leaving them unsuitable for any drag-down or single-hit combos.
  • Due to the looping hits' faster rehit rate, the move hits seven times instead of six. However, its damage values have been redistributed (1.7% (hits 1-5) → 1.4% (hits 1-6), 5% → 5.1% (last hit)), leaving its total damage unchanged.
  • The last hit comes out faster (frame 31 → 29).
    • However, the move's total duration remains unchanged, increasing its ending lag.
  • The last hit always sends opponents in the direction Palutena is facing. Combined with her faster dash speed and the move's lower landing lag, this allows it to combo into itself several times at low percents, greatly improving her damage racking ability.
  • The last hit deals less knockback (30 base/180 scaling → 35/155). While this improves its combo potential at low percents, it more drastically hinders its KO potential at high percents.
• Forward aerial:
  • Forward aerial deals more damage (9% → 10%) with no compensation on knockback, improving its KO potential near the edge.
• Back aerial:
  • Palutena gains invincibility later, with a shorter duration and with less coverage (frames 3-10 (head/torso/both arms) → frame 7 (head/torso), 7-10 (left arm).
  • Back aerial's sourspot has been removed, reducing the move's range inside Palutena, though almost negligibly.
    • However, the loss of the sourspot means that it's now strong the entire way through.
  • It has slightly more knockback scaling (92 → 95), improving its KO potential.
  • It causes Palutena's shield to glow, indicating its hitbox.
• Up aerial:
  • The move has more startup, with the looping hits having a shorter duration (frames 8-23 → 10-22).
  • The looping hits have a lower hitlag multiplier (0.8× → 0.6×) and a faster rehit rate (5 → 3). As a result, the move executes noticeably faster, and hits six times instead of five, increasing its total damage (9% → 10%).
  • The last hit comes out faster (frame 25 → 24). However, this is compensated by the multi-hits of up aerial having a shorter duration meaning the amount of startup remains the same.
    • However, the move's total duration remains unchanged, increasing its ending lag.
  • The side hits of the launching hit send much more vertically (65° → 88°), now having an identical angle to the center hit and removing their vulnerability to LSI. This improves the move's combo and KO potential.
  • Up aerial auto-cancels significantly earlier (frame 64 → 42), doing so in a full hop.
• Down aerial:
  • Down aerial has a longer hitbox duration (frame 10 → 10-11).
  • It deals more damage (9% → 11%) with no compensation on knockback, making it a stronger meteor smash.
  • The meteor hitbox is slightly larger (4u → 4.2u), with its lower reach compensated (y-stretch -5.2 → -5).

Throws and other attacks

• Palutena's animation when holding a Super Scope or Gust Bellows has been altered, as she now holds the item in a manner similar to a rifle.
• Grabs:
  • Pivot grab has more range (Z2 offset: -17.4u → -18.9u).
  • All grabs have more ending lag (FAF 32 → 40 (standing), 40 → 48 (dash), 40 → 43 (pivot)).
  • Standing and dash grab have less range, especially the former (Z2 offset: 11.4u → 9.4u (standing), 13.7u → 13.1u (dash)).
  • Dash and pivot grabs have more startup (frame 9 → 10 (dash), 10 → 11 (pivot)).
• Pummel:
  • Pummel deals more hitlag (5 frames → 14), but has significantly less startup (frame 8 → 1) and ending lag (FAF 23 → 7), shortening its duration.
  • It deals much less damage (3.1% → 1.3%).
  • Palutena pummels the opponent by holding her staff vertically instead of horizontally.
• Back throw:
  • Due to the Sakurai angle being lower against aerial opponents in Ultimate (45° → 38°), back throw KOs more effectively near edges.
• Down throw:
  • Down throw triggers a hitlag effect on both Palutena and the opponent for 7 frames prior to release, rather than inflicting 5 frames of hitlag on the opponent upon release, and has more knockback scaling (25 → 30). This worsens its combo potential beyond low percents.
    • However, it has less ending lag to compensate (FAF 50 → 46), and launches at a slightly higher angle (70° → 73°), which combined with Palutena's faster jumpsquat and jump speed slightly improves its combo potential at low percents.
• Edge attack:
  • Edge attack deals more damage (7% → 9%).

Special moves

• Autoreticle:
  • Autoreticle's shots are generated faster (frame 29/35/41 → 25/31/37).
  • The shots deals more damage (2.9% → 3.5%) and knockback (20 base/42 scaling → 40/41), making them more effective for disrupting approaches. The changes n