Weight

Not to be confused with falling speed or gravity.

Weight is a measure of how far a character can be knocked back horizontally by an attack, if all other factors (such as damage) are constant. Weight is the main factor in the amount of knockback a character receives, although it is not the only one - gravity also has a small part.

Overview

Weight's main purpose is the determination of how difficult it it to send a character flying. In this sense, it is usually considered an advantage for a character to be heavy, as knockback is the main metric of winning games. In addition, as many throws are slower to execute on heavier targets, heavier characters have more time to properly react to throws and DI correctly. This can also affect the practicality of throw combos; Mr. Game & Watch's down throw-to-down smash combo is much easier to escape for heavier characters, while the Ice Climbers's infinite chaingrabs are more difficult to perfom on heavyweights.

Being a lighter character has its advantages, though. Weight-sensitive platforms such as those of Mushroom Kingdom and Rainbow Cruise fall slower with less weight on board, making them safer to use for lighter characters. Many combos are less effective on lighter characters, with their higher received knockback making it easier to escape - two notorious examples are Fox's waveshine combos in Melee and King Dedede's chaingrabs in Brawl, with characters lighter than 87 units taking enough knockback to fall down and be ineligible for the proper continuation.

In general, heavy characters tend to have stronger attacks, larger range, worse recovery, bigger hurtboxes, higher falling speed, and slower movement, with light characters possessing weaker attacks, shorter range, better recovery, smaller hurtboxes, slower falling speed, and faster movement. However, this is a very loose correlation that many characters defy in some way - Samus is heavy but slow-falling, Wario is heavy but small and highly maneuverable, Zelda is medium-light with slow and strong attacks, and Fox is very light with very high falling speed and lackluster recovery.

Super Smash Bros. weight values

These values are for the Japanese and North American versions of the game. It is unknown whether the PAL values are the same.

These values use a different scale than the later games - heavier characters have lower numbers. For comparison purposes, the equivalent value in the newer system is also listed.

Rank	Character	Weight (coded)	Weight (comparison)
1	Donkey Kong	0.84 (JPN) 0.83 (NTSC)	138.095 140.964
2	Samus	0.92	117.391
3	Yoshi	0.93	115.054
4-5	Link	0.96	108.333
4-5	Captain Falcon	0.96	108.333
6-8	Mario	1	100.000
6-8	Luigi	1	100.000
6-8	Fox	1	100.000
9	Ness	1.1	81.818
10	Pikachu	1.16	72.414
11	Kirby	1.19	68.067
12	Jigglypuff	1.3	53.846

Super Smash Bros. Melee weight values

Following are the characters in Super Smash Bros. Melee, ranked in order of heaviest to lightest. The Metal Box multiplies a character's base weight by 3, the Super Mushroom by 8/5ths, and the Poison Mushroom by 5/8ths.

Rank	Character	Weight (NTSC)	Weight (PAL)
n/a	Giga Bowser	140	140
1	Bowser	117	118
2	Donkey Kong	114	114
3 (NTSC) 4 (PAL)	Samus	110	110
4 (NTSC) 5 (PAL)	Ganondorf	109	109
5 (NTSC) 3 (PAL)	Yoshi	108	111
6-7	C. Falcon	104	104
6-7	Link	104	104
8-10 (NTSC) 8-9 (PAL)	Dr. Mario	100	100
8-10 (NTSC) 8-9 (PAL)	Luigi	100	100
8-10 (NTSC) 10 (PAL)	Mario	100	98
11	Ness	94	94
12-14	Peach	90	90
12-14	Sheik	90	90
12-14	Zelda	90	90
15	Ice Climbers	88	88
16 (NTSC) 16-19 (PAL)	Marth	87	85
17-19 (NTSC) 16-19 (PAL)	Mewtwo	85	85
17-19 (NTSC) 16-19 (PAL)	Roy	85	85
17-19 (NTSC) 16-19 (PAL)	Young Link	85	85
20-21	Falco	80	80
20-21	Pikachu	80	80
22 (NTSC) 23 (PAL)	Fox	75	73
23 (NTSC) 22 (PAL)	Kirby	70	74
24-25	Jigglypuff	60	60
24-25	Mr. Game & Watch	60	60
26	Pichu	55	55

Super Smash Bros. Brawl weight values

Here is the order of characters' weights in Super Smash Bros. Brawl

Rank	Character	Weight
1	Bowser	120
2	Donkey Kong	116
3	Snake	113
4	King Dedede	112
5	Charizard	110
6	Ganondorf	109
7	Samus	108
8-9	Yoshi	107
8-9	Wario	107
10	R.O.B.	106
11	Ike	105
12-13	Captain Falcon	104
12-13	Link	104
14	Wolf	102
15-16	Lucario	100
15-16	Ivysaur	100
17	Mario	98
18	Luigi	97
19	Sonic	95
20-22	Ness	94
20-22	Lucas	94
20-22	Pit	94
23	Diddy Kong	93
24-25	Ice Climbers	92
24-25	Toon Link	92
26	Peach	90
27	Marth	87
28-29	Sheik	85
28-29	Zelda	85
30-31	Falco	82
30-31	Olimar	82
32	Zero Suit Samus	81
33	Fox	80
34-35	Meta Knight	79
34-35	Pikachu	79
36	Kirby	78
37-38	Mr. Game & Watch	75
37-38	Squirtle	75
39	Jigglypuff	68

Notes

• According to Super Smash Bros. Melee's Blue Smash Trophy of him, Mario's mass is the standard upon which other Smash fighters are measured. While this is true in NTSC Melee (having a weight of 100), the PAL version drops Mario's weight to a slightly-below-standard 98.
• In Brawl, the Fighting Alloys all have a weight of 98 (the same as Mario in Brawl), even though they are modelled after characters of differing weights. In SSB and Melee, the Fighting Polygons and Fighting Wire Frames (respectively) all have a weight of 100 (the same as Mario in SSB and Melee), even though they're modelled after varying characters.
• In Brawl, Giga Bowser and Wario-Man are programmed to have weights of 400 and 130 respectively; however they cannot be knocked back, so their weight only has an effect on certain stage elements (such as Rainbow Cruise's see-saw platforms).
• In every game, Captain Falcon has shared the same weight with Link; however, in SSB's (NTSC version) and Melee, Falcon sustains slightly less knockback than Link, while in Brawl, he sustains slightly more.

References

• Brawl weight and falling speed calculations and explanation
• Brawl weight list and falling speed calculations
• Some character's weight with DI