Item throw



An item throw or item toss is an action where a character throws the item they are holding, usually dealing damage in the process. This is performed by pressing a grab button (or alternatively, pressing both a shield and attack button), or simply an attack button if holding a standard throwable item. Depending on the control stick's tilt angle and timing, items can be tossed in multiple directions with varying strengths.

Directions and strength
Items can be tossed in up to four directions — forward, back, up, or down — by tilting the control stick in the appropriate direction and pressing the grab or attack button (depending on the item type). Akin to dash attacks and smash attacks, characters can also throw items while dashing, ending the dash in the process, or tap the control stick in one of the four directions when pressing the button to throw the item with more strength. The latter is usually known as a smash throw, and is denoted by a short flash alongside the character vocalising.

If the grab button is simply pressed without a directional input, the fighter lightly tosses the item behind them on the ground, or simply drops it and makes it fall straight down if in the air. This is known as an item drop, or Z-drop for the aerial version, due to the Z button being the default grab button on the GameCube controller. Z-drops are notorious for not possessing any ending lag, making them extremely useful for combos with items, and the basis of bat dropping. While Z-drops can be performed with any throwable item, grounded item drops can only be done with certain items; others are simply thrown forward.

Heavy items, such as Barrels and Crates, can also be thrown in up to four directions and with a "smash" strength, but cannot be dash thrown, since characters are incapable of dashing while carrying them. They also cannot be Z-dropped, even by Donkey Kong, who is capable of carrying heavy items in midair.

List of droppable items on the ground

 * All battering items (Beam Sword, Death's Scythe, Fan, Fire Bar, Home-Run Bat, Killing Edge, Lip's Stick, Ore Club, Parasol, and Star Rod)
 * All shooting items (Banana Gun, Cracker Launcher, Drill, Fire Flower, Gust Bellows, Rage Blaster, Ramblin' Evil Mushroom, Ray Gun, Staff, Steel Diver, and Super Scope)
 * Bomber
 * Special Flag
 * Robin automatically discards tomes or the Levin Sword akin to a grounded item drop when they run out of durability, though they cannot be dropped on the ground after they are picked up.

Item throw damage
Unlike characters' attacks, in all Super Smash Bros. games, the damage dealt by thrown items takes into account not only by the base damage coded in their hitboxes, but the speed at which they impact the target. This speed is initially determined by the item's toss strength, which is different for each kind of item throw and each character; heavier characters have greater toss strengths, and smash throws further increase it.

After the item is thrown, its speed is modified by physics, usually causing it to deal slightly more damage as it first accelerates in the thrown direction, then gradually decay in damage until it stops moving. As a result, damage from thrown items is highly volatile and difficult for players to determine precisely. The damage determined by this mechanism is also fully considered for the item's knockback calculation, giving smash throws a remarkable increase in KO power.

Formula
In Smash 64, the damage formula for thrown items is, with d being the item's base damage. If the item is dropped instead of thrown, the base damage is halved. Later games use a similar formula, though with altered factors due to the difference in speed units.

From Melee onward, the formula is, where speed is initially equal to a value depending on the kind of item throw used, multiplied by the character's item toss strength. For a grounded item drop, the base damage is halved, except in Brawl. In Melee only, the result of  also cannot be lower than 1%. The attributes for each type of item throw are the following:

Smash item throws can be performed in midair in all games, though they only increase the item's toss strength (and resulting damage) in Smash 64 and Ultimate.

For example, a Capsule's base damage is 8% (assuming it doesn't explode), so if it hits as early as possible and is thrown forward by a character with standard toss strength (such as Mario in Melee and Brawl, or Cloud from Smash 4 onward), it deals 15.4% with a normal throw, and 18.52% with a smash throw. With a Home-Run Bat, which has a base damage of 12% when thrown, these damage values become 19.4% and 22.52%, respectively, making it considerably stronger. In the case of a grounded item drop, following the same other conditions, the Home-Run Bat deals 11.9% in Melee, Smash 4, and Ultimate, due to its base damage being halved, and 17.9% in Brawl.

Compared to other item throws, an aerial item drop (Z-drop) simply releases the item with no initial speed; therefore, hitting with a Z-drop as early as possible always causes damage equal to the item's base damage minus the 0.4 modifier, and it is unaffected by characters' specific toss strengths, with the item instead gaining more strength as it accelerates downward by gravity. Following the previous examples, a Capsule and Home-Run Bat hitting on the first frame of a Z-drop deal 7.6% and 11.6% damage, respectively.

Worth noting is this formula is only used for an item's throw portion; for example, a Motion-Sensor Bomb or POW Block uses it when thrown at an opponent, but not for its subsequent detonation. In Smash 4 and Ultimate, item hitboxes that use this formula have their knockback multiplied by 0.8×, so while stronger throws still provide a significant increase in knockback dealt, thrown items are weaker relative to other attacks of their power. For example, a smash thrown Home-Run Bat can KO middleweight characters from center stage at around 70% in Melee and Brawl, but fails to do so until around 100% in Smash 4 and Ultimate. This knockback multiplier does not apply to any character-generated items (such as Peach's Vegetables), nor explosive hitboxes; for example, a Capsule uses it for its standard collision hitbox, but not its possible explosion, while a Bob-omb ignores it altogether.

Items with unique damage factors
Certain items use different factors for their throw damage formula, as well as additional multipliers for throw speed, giving them less of an increase relative to their base damage. This is prominently used for items produced by characters, such as Peach's Vegetables or the different Links' s, preventing them from being too powerful compared to other projectiles.

Worth noting is that from Brawl onward, throw speed multipliers possess various quirks. Instead of only applying once to the item throw speed as a whole, they apply twice to the horizontal speed component, and once to the vertical component. Because of this, for up and down throws, they work as usual, but for forward, back, and dash throws, the resulting throw speed follows a more complex formula of, where t is the initial throw speed, a is the throw angle, and m is the throw speed multiplier. For example, for a character with a weight of 100, a Fire Flower deals 9.11% damage with a tilt up throw, and 11.21% with a smash up throw, which correspond with the respective toss strengths (3.1 and 4.1) being multiplied once by 0.7×; however, with a tilt and smash forward throw, it deals 6.5884% and 8.0512% damage (respectively), for a considerably larger decrease. Additionally, in Brawl and Smash 4, throw speed multipliers do not apply until the second frame after an item is thrown, causing items that use them to deal noticeably more damage at point-blank range, and otherwise lose speed abruptly after the first frame. This is presumably due to a glitch, and was fixed in Ultimate.

Additionally, in Smash 4 and Ultimate, certain items have their horizontal throw speed capped to a certain value, giving stronger item throws less of a damage increase over weaker ones. For example, Bob-ombs have a horizontal speed cap of 3, so a smash forward throw only deals around 1.7% more than a tilt forward throw. In Ultimate, this further extends to all items' falling speeds, which limit their vertical speed when thrown downward, unlike in previous games, where down throw speeds could surpass it; this causes most items to deal the same damage with their tilt and smash down throw.

Items that deal fixed damage
A few items ignore the item throw damage formula altogether, and always use their base damage regardless of their throw speed or the item throw type:
 * (deals more damage in steady increments each time it is caught and rethrown)
 * Green Shell in Smash 4 and Ultimate (deals different damage when thrown and when sliding on the ground)
 * Pyukumuku
 * Smart Bomb
 * Spiny Shell
 * Bowser Jr.'s Mechakoopa
 * In Melee, Link and Young Link's s use the formula for their first hit on impact, but not the explosion's subsequent hits. In Brawl and Smash 4, Link and Toon Link's Bombs ignore the formula for a direct hit, but not if they explode on impact with a surface.
 * Mega Man's Metal Blade
 * Pac-Man's Bonus Fruit
 * Villager's wood chip from Timber
 * Birdo's eggs
 * Fruit in Tortimer Island

Character item toss strengths
Each character has a specific item toss strength coded, which is another factor for thrown items' speed in the damage formula. In Melee and Brawl, most characters have a standard item toss strength of 1×. The exceptions to this are, , , , and , who have an item toss strength of 0.9×, and (but not ), who has a toss strength of 0.8×.

In Smash 4 and Ultimate, item toss strengths are much more distinct for each character. While they remain a specifically coded value, they are correlated to weight, matching the result of the formula, which gives heavier characters stronger item throws. For example, Bowser in Smash 4 has a weight of 130 with an item toss strength of 1.1×, so he initially deals 16.18% damage when normally throwing a Capsule forward; in Ultimate, his weight and item toss strength are increased to 135 and 1.11667×, respectively, so he deals 16.31% damage in this same situation. Conversely, Zelda in both games has a weight of 85 with an item toss strength of 0.95×, so she deals 15.01% damage in this situation.

Additionally, a few characters deal less damage with their item throws than their speed would otherwise indicate. In Melee only, items thrown by and  have their base damage reduced by 0.9×, whereas in Melee, Smash 4, and Ultimate, items thrown by Jigglypuff have their base damage reduced by 0.95×. It is unknown why Jigglypuff is the only character to have reduced damage for item throws in later games.

Frame data
Each character has slightly different startup and ending lag frames when throwing items. These differ for each kind of throw, but not between normal and smash throws of the same kind.

In Smash 4 and Ultimate
Total frames and aerial throw data only apply to Smash 4. Ultimate only carries over grounded throw data, and gives every character 24 total frames for their forward and back throws, 23 for their up throw and grounded item drop, 19 for their down throw, and 29 for their dash throw.