Invincibility
Invincibility frames are the period of time (measured in frames) during which one cannot be hit.
These include:
- At the beginning of Get-up attacks and animations
- At the beginning of Techs (all kinds)
- When rolling or sidestepping.
- At the beginning of wall jumps
- At the beginning of certain moves, like Samus' and Bowser's Up + B's (Screw Attack and Whirling Fortress)
- Grabbing the edge of a stage
Some characters' A attacks have partial invincibility which applies only to select body parts for a short time.
These include, but are not limited to:
- Peach up smash (head and arms invincible)
- Fox, Falco down smash (legs invincible)
- Yoshi dash attack (head invincible)
- Ness up tilt (head invincible)
During these invincibility frames (represented in debug mode by blue hitboxes), characters cannot be touched by attacks; that is, an attacker will not suffer hitstun lag, and projectiles will continue right past the character.
There is a second type of invincibility (hitbox colour of green) which is identical to the first, except the character can be hit (although not affected): attackers suffer hitstun lag and projectiles stop on collision. This kind of invincibility is much rarer:
- After you respawn, when you leave the platform (120 frames, or 2 seconds)
- When both Ice Climbers up B, the secondary climber gains it for nearly 1 second
- At the beginning of any throw (besides Bowser's Koopa Klaw throws) for 8 frames
- When you touch a starman, you gain it for seconds
In Brawl, during this kind of invincibility, characters can still be damaged and knocked back by the Team Healer and Issac's attack.
Because any hitbox cannot hit the same object consecutively, attacks that hit this hittable invincibility will be unable to hit the character if the invincibility (such as respawn invincibility) ends before the hitbox does. With the touchless invincibility (such as a dodge), a long lasting hitbox (such as Mr. Game and Watch's forward tilt) will "wait it out" and hit the character when the invincibility ends.
