Damage is a measure of how vulnerable one is to the knockback of attacks. A player's damage starts at 0% and can take any decimal number between 0% and 999%; however, the game only displays integers. At low damages, the player cannot be knocked back very far, and can only be thrown off-stage by the game's most powerful attacks. At high damages, the player is knocked back considerably by most attacks, and is at increasing risk of being KO'd. Though damage is measured in percent, getting to 100% does not mean a character is doomed - the number itself is somewhat arbitrary. Each attack inflicts a set amount of damage (Stale-Move Negation notwithstanding).
The following things are affected by damage:
- Knockback - As a character gets more damage, they fly further when hit. Certain attacks have set knockback, and don't apply.
- Grab time - Characters at high damage can be grabbed for longer.
- Status time - Generally, characters with higher damage are vulnerable for longer from a status effect (such as sleeping). The exception is being stunned though a shield breaking - the more damage a stunned character has, the faster they can recover.
- Ledge recovery - At 100%, a character's ledge animations change to slower ones. Also, their ledge attack gets more powerful.
- Hoop damage - Characters stop getting hoop damage when at 150%.
- Jet Hammer - Like hoop damage, King Dedede stops getting damaged when at 150%.
- Lucario's attack power - The more damage Lucario has, the more damage his aura-based attacks do. The power caps at 182%, shown in SSBB's 25th single player event match
- Pikmin latch time - Pikmin release a character faster at higher damages.
- A Team Healer's healing power - The more damage the target has, the more damage the item heals.
- The Pokemon Trainer's pokemon will run out of energy quicker if they are switched with high damage.
- A character's swim time is affected by how much damage he or she has.If the character has no damage at all they have more time to swim.If they have both hard damage and knockback the could drown quickly and drift off the screen.