Grab: Difference between revisions

An important property of grabs is that they cannot be [[shield]]ed, completely ignoring a foe's shield and grabbing them out of it; in comparison to other [[unblockable attack]]s, grabs are available to the entirety of the cast in all ''Smash'' games, preventing foes from overusing their shields against any character. This, along with grabs' generally fast startup, their ability to easily [[Shield grab|punish out of shield]], and most throws allowing the player to execute diverse [[combo]]s and [[chaingrab|chain]]s, causes them to be used very prominently in competitive play, constituting the [[neutral game]] of characters as a triangle in which grabs beat shields, but are beaten by attacks as they are outranged by them. Grabs also ignore moves that conceptually block attacks, such as those that provide [[launch resistance]] and most [[counterattack]]s, though they do not work against foes [[Floor recovery|knocked down]] on the floor. In ''Smash 4'', characters also gain invulnerability to grabs for 60 frames after being released from them, preventing chaingrabs and [[team wobble]]s.

Grab hitboxes react very interestingly throughout the ''Super Smash Bros.'' series when they collide with a regular hitbox that is within a character's grab range. In ''Super Smash Bros.'' and ''Melee'', the grab has priority over the hitbox and will completely override whatever hitbox it collided with and grab the opponent; in ''Brawl'', the grab still has priority over the hitbox, but the hitbox will deal full damage to the character that attempted the grab before they proceed to grab the opponent. In ''Smash 4'', however, hitboxes outprioritize grabs; in this situation, the character that attempted the grab will receive full damage and knockback from the hitbox that the grab collided with, and the character that threw out the hitbox will only flinch slightly and gain 3% damage (or more if the grab came from a special attack and the grab itself dealt damage).