Peach (SSB4)/Down smash

Hitbox visualization showing Peach's down smash.

Overview

Peach does an anticlockwise spin on her left leg and utilizes the edge of her dress like a blade, slashing whoever gets caught in it.

The multihits consist of three hitboxes: one located at the center of Peach's dress and two located on the edges of Peach's dress. The multihits will hit opponents up to 4 times before the final launcher hit. The center hitbox deals 2% damage with weak, fixed knockback that launches opponents away from Peach. The edge hitboxes deal 3% damage with weaker, fixed knockback that drag opponents towards Peach. While the multihits are capable of dealing up to 12% damage if the edge hitboxes land on each hit, this rarely happens as the less damaging center hitbox takes priority over the edge hitboxes. The multihits will typically deal 9-11% depending on where the opponent was positioned when Peach uses her down smash.

The launcher hit consists of a single, extended hitbox that covers the entirety of Peach's dress. It deals 3% damage with moderate, horizontal knockback. The base knockback of the launcher is fairly strong, sending most opponents into tumble at 0%, assuming all the multihits connect. However, its knockback scaling is weak for a smash attack, being one of the weakest down smashes in the game in terms of knockback.

The main strength of Peach's down smash is its incredibly fast startup (6 frames), being faster than all of her tilt attacks. In addition to the fast startup, it also attacks on both sides of Peach simultaneously. This allows her down smash to act as a quick out of shield option that can deal with cross-ups. Another strength of Peach's down smash is the amount of active frames it has. This allows her down smash to catch an opponent's spot dodge and rolls, even if they are perfectly timed. Lastly, the low hitbox placement and fairly high damage enables Peach's down smash to shield poke.

However, Peach's down smash has several notable weaknesses. It has a fair amount of endlag (27 frames), making the move unsafe on shield and on whiff. Several characters can drop their shield after the final hit and punish with a smash attack. It also has very low knockback for a smash attack, to the point that even a fully charged down smash will KO later than her forward aerial at the edges of a stage. The weak knockback becomes even more problematic when taking into account the long hitlag of the launcher hit, providing opponents a significant amount of time to input survival DI.

Hitboxes

ID	Part	Damage	SD	Angle	BK	KS	FKV	Radius	Bone	Offset			SDIx	H×	T%	Clang	Rebound	Type	Effect	G	A	Sound	Direct	Stretch
Hits 1-4 (loop)
0	0	2%	0		0	100	30	2.5	0	-2.5	2.0	0.0	1.0x	1.0x	0%							Slash		2.5	2.0	0.0
1	0	3%	0		0	100	20	3.2	0	-2.5	2.0	7.5	1.0x	1.0x	0%							Slash		2.5	2.0	7.5
2	0	3%	0		0	100	20	3.2	0	-2.5	2.0	-7.5	1.0x	1.0x	0%							Slash		2.5	2.0	-7.5
Final hit
0	0	3%	0		40	180	0	4.3	0	0.0	1.6	7.5	1.0x	3.0x	0%							Slash		0.0	1.6	-7.5

Timing

Charges between	2-3
Hits 1-4	6-7, 11-12, 16-17, 21-22
Hit 5	26-27
Interruptible	55
Animation length	69

Legend (1 square = 1 frame)

Lag time

Charge interval

Hitbox

Interruptible

Peach's moveset

Neutral attack (1 · 2) · Forward tilt · Up tilt · Down tilt · Dash attack · Forward smash · Up smash · Down smash
Neutral aerial · Forward aerial · Back aerial · Up aerial · Down aerial
Grab · Pummel · Forward throw · Back throw · Up throw · Down throw
Forward roll · Back roll · Spot dodge · Air dodge · Techs
Floor attack (front) · Floor getups (front) · Floor attack (back) · Floor getups (back) · Floor attack (trip) · Floor getups (trip)
Edge attack · Edge getups
Neutral special (def · c1 · c2) · Side special (def · c1 · c2) · Up special (def · c1 · c2) · Down special (def · c1 · c2) · Final Smash