Angling
Angling (officially known as shifting) is the ability for a character to alter the direction of a forward tilt or forward smash. For example, angling a punch attack up will generally cause the character to punch diagonally upwards instead of straight forward, while angling it down will tend to cause the character to punch diagonally downwards. Additionally, some attacks will deal slightly altered damage amounts when angled, with attacks typically dealing 1-2% more damage when angled up and 1% less damage when angled down. Starting in Super Smash Bros. 4 it became common for angled attacks to have no damage difference to the non-angled attacks, along with some angled attacks starting to deal more damage when angled down. On the whole, attacks can only be angled if they are a straight punch, kick, or similar strike; attacks that cover vertical ground (such as an overhead sword slash) have no purpose for angling.
Angling attacks downwards can aid in striking short or crouching characters such as Pikachu or Kirby in cases where the regular attack would miss just overhead, but most attacks deal slightly less damage when angled down as mentioned previously. Angling upwards is useful for intercepting aerial characters and often comes with the aforementioned slight damage bonus, but the aforementioned short characters will be even more able to avoid it. Angling can also help with edgeguarding; Ganondorf's and Falco's forward tilts in Super Smash Bros. Melee are prime examples of forward tilts that are more useful at guarding the area around the edge when angled down.
To angle a forward tilt, the player must hold the control stick diagonally up or down when inputting the tilt. Angling forward smashes works differently, and depends on the game. In Melee, angling smash attacks is somewhat difficult; the player has to hold the direction of the C-Stick or control stick at a precise angle between forward and diagonally while inputting the forward smash (which the GameCube controller's control sticks have no indentation for, making it even more difficult). Holding the sticks diagonally up or diagonally down inputs an up smash or down smash instead of an angled forward smash (unlike with tilts). From Super Smash Bros. Brawl onward, the player can angle forward smashes by holding up/down immediately after initiating it (or while charging the smash), making it significantly easier and simpler to do. Using the Wii Remote, it is impossible to angle a forward tilt upwards without an input earlier for the same reason as an up tilt (due to lack of a control stick); however, it is possible to execute a downwards forward tilt by crouching first and using a forward tilt while getting up.
Attacks that can be angled generally have three possible angles: up, side (or neutral), and down. In the original Super Smash Bros. and Melee, some attacks have up to 5 angles, though in Melee every mid-up or mid-down angle is nearly identical to another angle.
List of attacks that can be angledEdit
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| Tilt | Smash | Tilt | Smash | Tilt | Smash | Tilt | Smash | Tilt | Smash | |
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| Bowser Jr. | |
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| Byleth | |
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| Captain Falcon |  |
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| Corrin | |
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| Daisy | |
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| Dark Samus | |
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| Duck Hunt | |
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| Falco | |
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| Fox | |
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| Ike | |
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| Incineroar | |
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| Ivysaur | |
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| Joker | |
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| Kazuya[n 2] | [n 3] |
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| King K. Rool | |
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| Kirby | |
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| Little Mac | |
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| Lucario | |
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| Lucas | |
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| Luigi | |
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| Mario | |
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| Marth[n 5] | |
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| Mewtwo | |
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| Mii Brawler | |
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| Min Min[n 9] | |
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| Ness | |
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| Pac-Man | |
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| Peach | |
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| Richter[n 10] | |
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| Ridley | |
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| Rosalina | |
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| Samus | |
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| Shulk | |
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| Simon[n 10] | |
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| Sonic | |
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| Squirtle | |
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| Wario | |
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| Wolf | |
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| Yoshi | |
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NotesEdit
- ^ a b In Ultimate, the weapon used for Peach and Daisy's forward smash depends on the angle. Angling forward (no angle) uses the golf club, which has longer reach; angling upward uses the frying pan, which deals more damage; and angling downward uses the tennis racket, which is a semi-spike.
- ^ While Kazuya has no angleable normals, he can angle his neutral special.
- ^ Scripts for angled versions of this tilt do exist in the game, but they are inaccessible due to Kazuya's command input tilts
- ^ a b Little Mac's forward smash becomes different types of attacks when angled. Angling forward (no angle) is a straight punch, angling up is an uppercut with more vertical knockback, and angling down is a body hook that deals low knockback but high damage and shield damage.
- ^ a b In Ultimate, Marth and Lucina can angle their neutral special; this also applies to Kirby when copying their neutral special.
- ^ a b In Melee, Mario and Luigi's forward tilts deal very weak set knockback at the Sakurai angle when angled down.
- ^ In Brawl, Luigi's forward tilt deals no knockback when angled down.
- ^ In Brawl, Luigi's forward smash has additional IASA frames when angled up, making it more difficult to punish. The move also does higher damage (and therefore knockback), making the move's already very strong knockback scaling especially immense.
- ^ Min Min can also angle her held jab, and her angleable attacks can also be angled when performed with the special button. However, Kirby cannot angle his neutral special when copying her.
- ^ a b Simon and Richter can angle their forward aerial and back aerial attacks as well.