Sword of the Creator


 * This article is about the special move. For the sword itself, see the list of swords.

Sword of the Creator (, Demon Sword Sword of God) is Byleth's up special move in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

Overview
When the move is used, Byleth extends the Sword of the Creator in its whip form, reaching up above him. The sword's tip can grab opponents, causing Byleth to pull himself up to them, then leap off them, much like a footstool jump. This stomp behaves as a throw that changes depending on the opponent's damage percentage when it takes place; initially, it launches them above and behind Byleth with moderate knockback, but if they have at least 50% damage (or at most 50% of their starting HP in Stamina mode), it meteor smashes them instead. The meteor smash has low base knockback, but high knockback scaling, and cannot be teched. When used on the ground, there is an additional hitbox in front of Byleth that launches into the grab.

In addition to the stomp's variable properties with the opponent's percent, its damage output is higher the more extended the Sword of the Creator is upon grabbing an opponent (in other terms, the farther away they are grabbed from Byleth). This is coded as a minimum of 6.5%, and can increase up to 13% at the longest possible distance, which fully affects knockback dealt by it. However, as the Sword of the Creator always extends at least some distance upon grabbing an opponent, the stomp's minimum possible damage in normal gameplay is around 7.8%. When using the move on the ground and launching an adjacent opponent into the grab, the stomp can deal damage roughly from 9.2% to 10.8%, changing depending on the opponent's size (larger characters are displaced farther when grabbed, and thus take more damage).

The Sword of the Creator's tip behaves as a hit grab, so it cannot affect shielding opponents, akin to Fishing Rod, Grappling Hook and Buster Wolf. In terms of recovery, the move is quite effective; not only does it work as a tether recovery with long range, but it also allows Byleth to latch onto a wall, pulling him up to it and jumping off it up to a maximum of 3 times. The tether can only grab the ledge 3 times, after which it will simply bounce off the ledge. This ledge grab limit is independent of the wall jump limit. The tether is unable to grab the ledge for 1 second after Byleth lets go of it, while still being capable of grabbing opponents or the wall. This means that Byleth can drop down from the ledge and immediately perform the move to always get the grab version. This allows Byleth to edgeguard from positions where the tether would normally snap to the ledge, as well as mix up the opponent with unexpected movement options.

The animation of the footstool has only one frame of ending lag, which can allow for combos into Areadbhar, all aerials, or his Final Smash at percents below 50%, and his aerials at much higher percentages.

Origin
Alongside Areadbhar, and Failnaught, the Sword of the Creator is one of the 14 in Three Houses, regalia weapons forged from the bones and hearts of the holy Nabateans by the unruly Agarthans. In this case, the Sword of the Creator was forged from the remains of Sothis. It was originally owned by, the King of Liberation, who fought against Seiros and was killed in the encounter. The sword was taken back by Seiros and sealed away. One millennium later, Archbishop Rhea assigned Byleth to fend off an army led by the Western Church, who raided Seiros' tomb. They managed to unseal the Sword of the Creator from its hiding place and Byleth was able to utilize its power upon picking it up. After the battle, Rhea decided to entrust the sword to Byleth, which they keep for the remainder of the game. In a confrontation with "those who slither in the dark", Byleth got trapped in a dark void by, and Sothis merged with Byleth to unlock the full power of the sword and free themselves.

The Sword of the Creator is a weapon that lets the user attack from 1-2 range. While the Sword of the Creator is in Byleth's possession, it grants them the combat art, which adds some of the user's Magic to their damage output and is effective against dragon units. It can be wielded by other units as well, but they will not have access to Ruptured Heaven, and the sword itself will become much heavier and lose its ranged capabilities when used by anyone other than Byleth.

This move’s properties resemble the combat art, a sword attack that deals extra damage to flying units.

Trivia

 * It is noted that against below 15%, when buffering neutral aerial, Byleth can cause a near-inescapable ladder string that can easily result in a KO, akin to that of 's ladder combos in Smash 4. If performed above 15%, it will start to spike on the footstool.
 * can escape the footstool portion of this move by holding the Special Attack button.
 * This is the first tether move since Melee that can be used on solid walls.
 * This is one of three tether recovery up specials that was not introduced in Brawl, the other two being Grappling Hook and ARM Hook.
 * This is the second special move in the series to incorporate a footstool jump in its execution. The first special move to do this is Zero Suit Samus's Flip Jump.