Lightning Bolt

The Lightning Bolt (, Thunder) is an item from the  series. that appears in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Super Smash Bros. 4, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

Origin
The Lightning Bolt made its debut in  and serves as the logo for the. It can only be used by racers who are in or near last place. When used, it summons lightning to strike the other racers, causing them to simultaneously spin out of control and shrink in size. Shrunken racers have lowered top speed and can be easily knocked around or even flattened when getting run over. Since , the length of the shrinking time depends on what place each opponent was in when the item was used, with those at the back returning to their normal size instantly for much longer.

As an item
The Lightning Bolt debuted as a status item in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. When used, it will shrink every other fighter to tiny size, similar to the effect of the Poison Mushroom, reducing their attack power to 0.7x, making them lighter, and increase the amount of knockback that they take. However, it can backfire as well, shrinking the fighter who picked it up or causing the other fighters to become giant, similar to the effect of the Super Mushroom, causing them to grow to 2.4x their normal size, and their direct attacks will deal 1.84x their normal damage.

In Special Smash, these effects stack with Mega/Mini modes. Touching a Super Mushroom or Poison Mushroom will cancel the Lightning Bolt's effects.

Unlike most other items, the Lightning Bolt requires a character to simply make contact with it in order to activate its effect. Any character affected by knockback while being struck by the Lightning Bolt is still affected by knockback after the shrinking/growth effect occurs, similar to the occurrence with the Super Mushroom and Poison Mushroom.

In Brawl, if a character uses the Lightning Bolt on or  and either character Transforms, this glitch makes the size of the Lightning Bolt user permanent until either Zelda or Sheik gets KO'd or picks up another size-changing item. This glitch does not occur for, , or.

Damage multipliers
The table below displays the damage multipliers that are used whenever players are turned tiny or giant by the Lightning Bolt. These values primarily apply to Super Smash Bros. 4 and Ultimate.

In Super Smash Bros. 4
The Lightning Bolt trophy appears in both versions. In, it is part of the Super Mario Kart.

Spirit
While the Lightning Bolt itself doesn't appear as a spirit, its backfire effect appears as an ability on the Max Brass support spirit. The ability activates when the player is above 85% damage or below 35% health, but only once per match.

Trivia

 * The Lightning Bolt is the only item that doesn't spawn normally on two different stages: The Great Cave Offensive and Garden of Hope.
 * Although being mini reduces one's ability to recover, certain up specials which are affected by a fighter's gravity stat will actually go higher as a result of the reduced gravity applied by being tiny.
 * The largest a character can be under normal circumstances is in Mega Smash, after lightning backfires. In this state, all size-altering effects are at their strongest, including character voices and sound effects being even deeper than collecting a Super Mushroom in Mega Smash, or after lightning backfires in a normal match.
 * Prior to Ultimate, the largest a character can be under special circumstances is in Classic Mode during a Giant battle after lightning backfires on a Giant CPU.
 * This could be visually amplified even further with Mario’s size-altering taunt prior to Ultimate; during Classic Mode if a player faces against Giant Mario who gets a lightning backfire and KOs the player or another CPU he can still use his up-taunt which will also stack with the Giant status and lightning backfire.
 * In Brawl, Pikmin Throw uniquely won't change pitch upon growing or shrinking.
 * In SSB4, although Pikmin grow and shrink with Olimar, the pitch of Pikmin depends on what size they were when plucked, and this pitch persists even after further size changes.
 * If a character grows while getting struck by Lightning during Mini Smash, the character's pitch will sound normal, despite their current size still being slightly smaller than default.