Meta Knight (SSB4)/Neutral aerial

Hitbox visualization showing Meta Knight's neutral aerial.

Overview

Meta Knight spins with Galaxia extended. With quick start-up, long duration, low ending and landing lag, and good power, this move is effective for relieving pressure, either as an out of shield option or to break juggles. It is also a decent combo move, being able it to lead into a dash attack at lower percents, and it can easily be comboed into from Meta Knight's dash attack, down throw, and up aerial. Neutral aerial is also a potent edge-guarding tool, as it can cover both immediate and delayed recoveries, and the strong hit KO's offstage at roughly 100%, while the late hit sends foes at a favorable trajectory.

Overall, this is a highly versatile move that is used commonly in competitive play.

Update history

1.0.4/ 1.0.1

• Damage (7% (clean)/5% (late) → 10%/7.5%).

1.0.8

• Landing lag (20 frames → 16).

Hitboxes

ID	Part	Damage	SD	Angle	BK	KS	FKV	Radius	Bone	Offset			SDIx	H×	T%	Clang	Rebound	Type	Effect	G	A	Sound	Direct
Clean
0	0	10%	0		40	100	0	4.0	25	0.0	0.0	0.0	1.0x	1.0x	0%							Slash
1	0	10%	0		40	100	0	4.0	25	0.0	5.2	0.0	1.0x	1.0x	0%							Slash
2	0	10%	0		40	100	0	7.0	0	0.0	7.2	0.0	1.0x	1.0x	0%							Slash
Late
0	0	7.5%	0		40	100	0	3.8	25	0.0	0.0	0.0	1.0x	1.0x	0%							Slash
1	0	7.5%	0		40	100	0	3.8	25	0.0	4.0	0.0	1.0x	1.0x	0%							Slash
2	0	7.5%	0		40	100	0	3.8	25	0.0	7.2	0.0	1.0x	1.0x	0%							Slash

Timing

Initial autocancel	1-5
Clean hit	6-7
Late hit	8-20
Interruptible	44
Animation length	49

Landing lag

Animation length	16

Legend (1 square = 1 frame)

Lag time

Hitbox

Hitbox change

Autocancel

Interruptible

Trivia

• Within the move's script, there is a timer on frame 40 which is most likely present to activate the move's late auto-cancel window. However, the flag to activate the late auto-cancel is simply missing, meaning that the move has no late auto-cancel window. As a result, the move does not auto-cancel until the animation ends on frame 50, rather than on frame 40 as the empty timer suggests. This was fixed in Ultimate.

Meta Knight's moveset

Neutral attack · Forward tilt (1 · 2 · 3) · Up tilt · Down tilt · Dash attack · Forward smash · Up smash · Down smash
Neutral aerial · Forward aerial · Back aerial · Up aerial · Down aerial
Grab · Pummel · Forward throw · Back throw · Up throw · Down throw
Floor attack (front) · Floor attack (back) · Floor attack (trip) · Edge attack
Neutral special (def · c1 · c2) · Side special (def · c1 · c2) · Up special (def · c1 · c2) · Down special (def · c1 · c2) · Final Smash