Weight
- "Light" redirects here. For the smasher, see Smasher:Light.
Weight is a measurement of how much a character can resist knockback. Weight is one of several factors used in calculating the amount of knockback a character experiences. Characters with a higher weight (heavy) tend to suffer less knockback, and characters with a lower weight (light) tend to suffer more knockback, all other factors controlled.
Overview
Weight is in practice understood as how difficult it is to send a character flying away. In this sense, it is usually considered an advantage for a character to be heavy, as less knockback makes it more difficult to KO a character. Additionally, many throws take longer to execute on heavier characters, giving the opponent more time to properly react to throws and DI effectively. Because throwing heavier characters causes the throwing animation to continue longer once the target is let go, the viability of throw combos may be affected; for example, Mr. Game & Watch's down throw-to-down smash combo isn't guaranteed on heavier characters who don't tech the throw, the Ice Climbers's infinite chain grabs are more difficult to perform on heavyweights, and in Melee, Captain Falcon is not vulnerable to many of the up throw chain throws (such as from Marth) that the space animals are vulnerable to despite having equivalent falling speed.
Lighter characters have a few advantages. Weight-sensitive platforms such as those in Mushroom Kingdom and Rainbow Cruise fall slower while holding less weight, making them safer to use for lighter characters. Many combos are less effective on lighter characters because their higher received knockback makes it easier to escape - these combos include some of Fox's waveshine combos in Melee and King Dedede's chaingrab in Brawl, where characters below a certain weight usually receive enough knockback to escape. Finally, certain weight-based throws have hitboxes that appear for very short lengths of time, and if the target is very light, the animation may progress so quickly that the hitbox appears and vanishes in less than a frame without hitting -- this causes the lightest characters to take less damage, notably with Bowser's down throw in NTSC Melee and Link's down throw in Brawl, both of which miss their pre-throw hit on Jigglypuff.
Heavier characters tend to have stronger attacks, longer range, worse recovery, bigger hurtboxes, higher falling speed, and slower movement, while lighter characters tend to have 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 - Captain Falcon is heavy but dashes incredibly fast, Samus is heavy but slow-falling, Yoshi is heavy but rather weak for his weight, Wario is heavy but short and highly maneuverable, Zelda is light-medium with slow and strong attacks, and Falco is light with a very high falling speed and lackluster vertical recovery.
In single player modes, sometimes unnaturally high weight is introduced to challenge the player, such as when fighting Metal Mario; this is often paired with additional flinch resistance, since even characters with infinite weight will still take knockback from any attack with a base knockback greater than 0.
Super Smash Bros. weight values
These values use a different scale than the later games - heavier characters have lower numbers, representing a direct multiplier in the knockback formula. For comparison purposes, the equivalent value in the newer system is also listed.Cite error: Closing </ref> missing for <ref> tag Sakurai also mentioned she uses an antigravity effect which makes her lighter.
- Mewtwo is lighter than most human characters the Super Smash Bros. series (being the same weight as Marth in the PAL version of Melee and Roy and Young Link in all versions), despite its Pokédex entry claiming it weighs 269.0 lbs (122.0 kg). In Super Smash Bros. 4 it is even lighter than Pikachu, which has a Pokédex weight of a mere 13.2 lbs (6.0 kg). Like Rosalina, this can be explained by its tendency to constantly float when in movement, which is explicitly mentioned by its Red Smash trophy in Melee. Its low weight could also be something of an exaggerated reference to its Defense stat being lower than that of most Legendary Pokémon in its home series.
- Jigglypuff is the lightest character in every Smash game except for Melee, where it is heavier than Pichu and is the same weight as Mr. Game & Watch.
- Likewise, Bowser is the heaviest playable character in every game since his debut in Melee, with Donkey Kong being the heaviest in the original Super Smash Bros.
- A certain tip in Smash 4 erroneously states that Kirby is the third lightest character in the game, and Mr. Game and Watch is the second. While this was originally true, the addition of Mewtwo and Kirby's weight being changed makes this tip now incorrect.
References
- Brawl weight and falling speed calculations and explanation
- Brawl weight list and falling speed calculations
- Some character's weight with DI
