SmashWiki:Glossary

Below is a glossary that is useful for understanding SmashWiki.

General terms

These terms apply to fighting games in general:

• Active frames: The collection of frames during a move's animation where hitboxes are present, and thus the move is capable of hitting the opponent and dealing damage.
• Approaching: Moving towards an opponent, usually in conjunction with attacks.
• Attack: Use of a move that damages the opponent.
• Archetype: Category that a fighter falls into based on their most commonly used moves and gameplans. There are numerous archetypes.
• AI or artificial intelligence: Programmed behavior of computer-controlled characters. "Bad" AI means the intended function was done poorly.
• Buff:
  1. Developmental improvement to a character in later game releases or balance patches.
     • Nerf: Developmental weakening to a character in later game releases or in balance patches.
  2. Positive and temporary status effect.
     • Debuff: Negative status effect.
• Buffering: Inputting an action while still committed to another action, and have the new input occur as soon as the player is able to act again.
• Camping: Defensively staying away from the opponent, generally in one place, and prolonging the battle. When involved with exploits or other extreme tactics, camping can turn into stalling.
• Cancel: The act of prematurely ending an animation to be free to act again sooner. Cancellable actions vary between games but often includes attacks, movements, and receiving knockback or hitstun.
  • "Cancelling" can also refer to cancelling the execution of an action to remain non-committal. Characters with chargeable special moves may have the option to cancel them before release to avoid an otherwise lengthy period of vulnerability or to gut an opponent's attempt to predict or punish the attack.
  • Kara cancel: The ability to cancel the start-up of a move into another move. Both of these moves are dependent upon the game and character: for example, all characters can cancel their dash attack into their dash grab in every game except for 64 (known as a boost grab), while Ryu, Ken, and Terry can cancel their normals in the first 3 frames after activation into their command inputs. It's usually done to transfer properties of the first move (such as range or invincibility) onto the second.
• Clean hit: A well-timed hit that uses an attack's initial hitbox; usually much stronger than the late hit. Many attacks don't differentiate, but examples of those that do include Fox's up smash in Melee and most sex kicks.
  • Late hit: A hit that uses an attack's later hitbox; usually weaker than the clean hit. Some attacks have a sourspot that coincides with the late hit, like the Knee Smash
  • Some attacks have a middle hit, and some have even more stages (e.g. "clean-mid" or "late-mid").

  See also: sweetspot and sourspot

• Computer player: A player that's entirely controlled by the game rather than by a human. In most of Smash's single-player modes, the human plays entirely against computer players. In multiplayer, they're usually only introduced by choice. Their difficulty is usually adjustable.
• Clone: A character that shares most of their moveset and animations with another character, rather than having a moveset unique to them.
  • Semi-clone: The "in-between point" of being a non-cloned character and a clone, this is a character that shares a significant portion of their moveset and attributes with another character, but also has a significant amount of different animations, attributes and moves, to the point where calling them a clone is not entirely accurate.
    • An example in Smash would be Toon Link, who uses most of Link's attacks, much of which have altered functioning, alongside having a handful of entirely unique moves, animations, and very different attributes.
  • Pseudo-clone: A character that has some shared attacks, animations and attributes with another character, similarly to a semi-clone. However, whereas semi-clones are still largely based on other characters, pseudo-clones are largely unique overall, and so calling them semi-clones would be somewhat misleading.
    • An example in Smash would be Wolf, who shares a small number of moves and animations with Fox, but the vast majority of his moveset and attributes are entirely unique.
  • Echo fighter: An official designation given to some clone characters in Ultimate. While most of the characters designated as Echoes are extremely similar to their parent character, if not nigh-identical, Ken was also designated as an Echo despite being less similar to his parent character than a couple clones who weren't designated as an Echo, for example Dr. Mario. As such, "Echo Fighter" isn't exactly an official synonym of the term "clone", nor is it a defined classification based on how "cloned" a character is.
  • Decloning: The act of making a cloned character more unique in the transition from one game to another through giving them new moves, animations and altered attributes, sometimes in conjunction with the original character getting a few changes of their own as well. Also known as "Luigification" in the Smash community, referring to Luigi, who initially started off as a clone of Mario in Smash 64, but has been extensively decloned from the latter over time in later installments.
• Combo: A series of attacks strung together in succession.
  • True combo: A series of attacks strung together where the opponent was truly incapable of escaping before the finish.
  • String: A series of attacks strung together where the opponent was capable of reacting in-between blows and could have thus escaped.
• Counter: Can refer to either:
  1. A special move that relies on waiting to be struck first, and then retaliating, as originally seen with Marth and Roy's Counter in Melee.
  2. A character who has an advantage over another; for example, in Brawl, Pikachu counters Falco, as documented on the matchup chart. These can be further divided into soft counters and hard counters; the former refers to matchups where one character has a slight advantage and the latter refers to matchups where one character has a significant advantage.
• Dashing: A form of movement, that involves the character running across the ground. This is usually the fastest means of movement for a character, though a few characters can move faster through other means.
• Dodge: A move that makes a character temporarily intangible to attacks. Can also refer to general movement utilized to avoid getting hit.
  • Rolling dodge: A dodging manoeuvre that involves moving sideways via a roll or similar movement.
  • Sidestep: A dodging manoeuvre that involves doing a quick dodge in place, typically with less vulnerability after completion but leaves the player intangible for a more limited time frame. Also referred to as a "spot dodge".
  • Air dodge: A dodging manoeuvre that involves an aerial character doing a dodging manoeuvre while moving through the air. Behaves differently in Melee, in Brawl, in SSB4 and in Ultimate. In Melee, characters can air dodge once toward a small distance in any direction while leaving the character helpless afterward, and all existing aerial momentum will be halted/replaced; in Brawl, characters cannot air dodge toward any direction, but will not be left helpless after air dodging, can air dodge as many times as desired, will not endure any landing lag, and their aerial momentum is fully preserved; in SSB4, air dodges function similarly to in Brawl, but characters endure landing lag; and in Ultimate, characters can only air dodge once in the air and can air dodge in any direction, but their aerial momentum is fully preserved/merely shifted rather than being interrupted altogether, and will suffer a large amount of cooldown instead of becoming helpless.
• Exploit: A case where separate mechanics or interactions work as intended, but cause unintended outcomes when combined. An example is how Melee recognizes that the Ice Climbers, Popo and Nana, are the "same" character when attacking, and also recognizes that characters being hit by attacks from the character cannot break out of grabs; when these two mechanics are combined, however, wobbling occurs, as grabbed opponents cannot break out of Popo's grab because they are constantly being hit by "one" character.
• Frame: The primary unit of time at which game runs. The Smash Bros. series runs at 60 frames per second, meaning 1 frame = 1/60 of a second, approximately 16.7 milliseconds.
• Frame data: Buzzword used to refer to the technical properties of a move overall; often extended to refer to a character's moveset as a whole.
• Free-for-all: A match with more than two players that does not involve two teams. A free-for-all match would also theoretically be played with multiple teams.
• Footsies: The term itself means different things to different people, but the most common definition is gameplay that takes place directly in front of the fighters. Thoughtful strategy and mind games are key at this distance, as using random moves is highly inadvisable.
• Glitch: A flaw or oversight in the game's programming which results in an unintended outcome. An example would be the Name Entry glitch in Melee, where the developers did not foresee a case where players would attempt to enter a name and leave the character select screen at the same time.
• Grabbing: Clutching the foe so they cannot move for a brief period of time. Usually, a throw follows.
  • Dash grab: A type of a grab that a character performs out of a dash. Usually slower than a standing grab and more punishable if missed, but the momentum of a character's dash can allow them to grab from farther away.
  • Pivot grab: A type of grab introduced in Brawl, where a dashing character turns around to grab. Pivot grans are usually slightly slower than standing or dash grabs, but generally have less ending lag and farther reach than dash grabs.
  • Boost grab: A type of grab introduced in Melee, where the momentum from a dash attack is transfered into a dash grab, increasing its range for some characters. It is performed by inputting a dash attack, and then inputting a grab quickly after, which cancels the dash attack into a grab.
  • Command grab: A special move that acts like a grab, bypassing shields and putting the opponent in a special grabbed state. Examples include Falcon Dive and Flying Slam.
    • Hit grab: A special type of grab that is blockable, despite putting opponents in a grabbed state when connecting. Examples include Fishing Rod and Buster Wolf.
• Grappler: An archetype of character whose most powerful move(s) is their throw(s). They usually have one or more command grabs, and are extremely powerful at close range, but fall off at further ranges. The prototypical example is Zangief from the Street Fighter series; in the Smash Bros. series, the fighter most aligned with the archetype is Incineroar. The primary emotion grapplers are intended to invoke in their opponent is fear, as being cornered by a grappler is more often than not a death sentence for the opponent.
• Hit and Run: An archetype which encompasses fighters that excel at running in, getting some damage, then running away. Being unpredictable and evasive is key to characters in this archetype, as they usually are very easy to kill if they are caught. Time out victories are most commonly found with this category.
• Hitbox: The area of effect for an attack. Generally in proportion of the action; a kick attack should generally have hitboxes on the foot and leg.
  • Hurtbox: The area on a character or object, where an opposing hitbox must touch to register hitting the character/object.
  • Disjointed hitbox: A hitbox that extends past the character's hurtboxes, thus allowing it to pass through opposing hitboxes without hurting the user. Nearly every move technically has hitboxes that are disjointed to some degree, so this term more often gets used to refer to moves where the "disjoint" is significant enough for it to semi-reliably hit through opposing moves without the user getting hit, such as for most moves that utilize weapons.
• Hitlag: The freeze frames that occur when an attack connects, where both characters are frozen in position until the effect ends (unless caused by a projectile, then only the target experiences hitlag). Although primarily used by developers to enhance the feel of an attack's power, actions can also be cancelled or buffered during this time. Sometimes called "hitstop" or "hitpause" depending on the game and language.
• Hitstun: The time when one cannot take any action after being hit.
  • Hitstun canceling: The act of canceling an attack's hitstun before its duration finishes. This mechanic was introduced in Brawl and was by far at its most powerful there, where if characters were hit by a strong enough blow to induce tumble, they could air dodge after 13 frames or perform an aerial attack after 25 out of hitstun regardless of the hitstun amount. Smash 4 and Ultimate kept the mechanic but severely nerfed it, increasing the air dodge and aerial hitstun cancel delays to 40 and 45 frames respectively, while also now scaling with the amount of knockback sustained and so increasingly strong blows have increasingly longer hitstun cancel delays.
• Home stage: A stage associated with one or more specific characters. In the context of Super Smash Bros., the most common associations are "shares a universe with the character" and "where the character is fought in a single-player mode". Is generally not related to whether a character performs well on the stage.
• Item: An object spawned in the middle of a battle. Items have a variety of uses, including healing one's self or ally, or damaging a target. Items, unless they can be spawned by a character's move, are not permitted in competitive play.
• Juggle: Any series of attacks which keep an enemy in the air, preventing them from landing.
• Lag: A catch-all term for delay in an action. There are several different types of lag.
  • Start-up lag: Refers to the period of time between an action being inputted and the action having an effect.
  • Ending lag: Refers to the period of time between an action's effect finishing and the player being able to input another action.
  • Landing lag: A different type of ending lag that occurs when a character lands with an aerial attack before the aerial's completion, which causes the character to go through a special landing animation where the player cannot input another action before the animation's completion.
  • Wi-Fi lag: Refers to the delay inherent in communicating between players that are competing over the internet, which can skew the outcome of tight situations if long and/or inconsistent.
  • Display lag: Refers to when a display device (e.g. TV) is behind the current game state, leading to players reacting to a situation that has already passed.
• Leak: A revelation of information about an unreleased game or other unreleased content released prematurely, from an unofficial source and without the creators' consent. Leaks, whether real or fake, are often the subject of rumors.
• Mindgame: Strategies or techniques employed for the purpose of outwitting the opponent psychologically. The primary component of cerebral skill, the counterpart to technical skill.
  • Baiting: The act of trying to trick the opponent into doing an action that the player can then punish them for.
  • Pressuring: The act of limiting the opponent's options to force them to react in a detrimental manner.
  • Read: A term used to refer to when a player successfully predicts the opponent's next action and is able to preemptively react to punish it effectively. A hard read is when the player pulls off a more significant prediction that allows them to land a particularly heavy blow or start a particularly effective combo, especially when committing to this before the opponent has performed the predicted action.
• Modification: Usually shorted to "mod", is the editing of a video game by an unrelated third party, not endorsed by its original developers. Mods are done to change the aesthetics or gameplay aspects to the modder's content. Project M is an example of a popular mod for Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
• Move: A distinct, animated action a character can take in a fight. Examples include Fox's Flip Kick, distinct from Fox's Blaster.
• Neutral game: The phase in a game in which no opponent has an advantage over the other.
• Palette swap/Costume swap: The altering of a character's appearance. Used to discern multiples of the same character; for instance, the default Kirby costume is Kirby with pink skin, but can be changed to blue, yellow, red, green, or white. Some characters such as Pikachu exhibit costume changes that add accessories; default Pikachu has no accessories, but a costume change could give it goggles or a hat. And some characters have entirely different outfits, different designs, an opposite-gender variant, or even other characters for their palettes. Costume changes are largely aesthetic and generally have no effect on gameplay.
• Projectile: An attack that is not connected to the attacker. These come with the benefits of a variety of unique properties not seen in physical attacks, such as long range, causing hitlag to a target but not the user, and allowing the user to act while the projectile is still in play.
• Punish: Attacking the foe while they are vulnerable, usually after failing to execute an attack/strategy.
• Reach/range: Refers to how far out an attack's hitboxes reach out, and thus how far away an attack can hit an opponent.
• Rumor: An unverified claim about a game that receives significant spread throughout the community. They are especially prevalent during the time a new game is announced and before its release. Most rumors are completely false, though a few end up having truth to them.
• Rushdown: An archetype which encompasses fighters that tend to be fast and combo oriented with a mostly offense-based moveset. They rely on getting in their opponent's face and applying pressure until they force the opponent to make an opening, then swarm the opponent to kill them quickly. However, if the opponent either keeps them at a distance or is simply patient, the rushdown fighter does not have much in terms of a backup plan and will likely lose.
• Shield: Blocking an attack. In the Smash series, an energy sphere surrounds the player as they block, but this deteriorates over time, which will result in it breaking when it shrinks below its minimum threshold.
• Shoto: An archetype that originates from the Street Fighter series; fighters in this archetype are usually very technical with some type of projectile, gap closer and anti-air. The name comes from Shotokan Karate, a common real-world martial art that many video game characters practice.
• Spacing: The act of manipulating an opponent's position by utilizing the range of one's character's moves relative to the range of the opposing character's moves. Additionally refers to hitting with an attack from sufficiently far away or hitting with the attack's desired hitbox, to avoid getting punished.
• Stage: The setting for a battle. Can also be called a map.
• Stalling: The act of deliberately avoiding all conflict, often through the use of extreme exploits to leave oneself invulnerable or out of reach for an extended period of time, with the intent of letting a match's time run out or making the game unplayable. Generally overlaps with camping, but to a much greater degree.
• Stock: The amount of lives a character has. Also refers to the match type; a Stock Match ends when a player runs out of lives. Not always timed, but when they are, the person with the highest amount of stock wins in the event of time running out.
• Sweetspot: The hitbox of an attack that deals the most desirable effect; typically the strongest hitbox in the attack.
  • Sourspot: The hitbox that deals the least desirable effect; typically the weakest hitbox in the attack.
• Taunt: An action done to mock the foe. Usually have no sort of in-game effect, and done in celebration. Entire matches dedicated to taunts are appropriately called "Taunt Matches".
• Technical skill: Known as "tech skill" for short, refers to a player's ability to manipulate their controller to produce desired inputs. Players with greater tech skill can make inputs faster and more precisely, allowing them to more often and effectively pull off manoeuvres that require more complicated inputs.
• Time out: Refers to when a match's timer runs out, resulting in the end of the match and a winner being announced, or progressing to a tie-breaker if two or more players tied. In competitive play, it is also used as a verb, referring to when a player wins a game by letting the time run out while they have a stock or percentage lead.
• Training mode: Allows one to become familiar with the character that one is using in a controlled setting.
• Tier list: The ranking of a character's potential effectiveness to perform in competitive play in relation to a game's entire character roster.
• Tournament: A gathering of players to compete in a controlled setting, to determine the best player out of the gathering.
• Walking: A type of movement that involves the character walking across the ground. While usually slower than other movement options, a character can perform any action at any time out of a walk.
• Zero-to-death combo: Referred to as "zero-death" for short, a combo that starts on an opponent at or near 0% damage, that finishes with that opponent getting KOed. Can also be used to refer to any general sequence of moves initiated against an opponent at 0% damage and ends with them getting KOed that was not actually comboed together, but where the opponent was unable to successfully hit back or interrupt the sequence.
  • Infinite: A combo that can continue indefinitely regardless of damage while keeping the opponent locked in with no chance to escape if performed correctly. Functionally equivalent to a zero-death, but there is also the potential to stall time (which all tournaments have rules against). An example of an infinite is wobbling in Melee.
    • Wall infinite: An infinite combo performed against a wall. An example would be using Fox's Shine against a wall in Melee, or using King Dedede's down throw to chain grab an opponent near a wall in Brawl.
• Zoner: An archetype that encompasses fighters who excel at keeping the opponent at a distance using long ranged/disjointed moves or projectiles. The goal is to threaten the opponent without being in range to get threatened back. But just as easily as they can pressure, they can also be pressured; if the opponent is able to penetrate the zoner's barriers, they can potentially inflict massive damage, as zoners typically lack reliable defensive options.

Smash-specific

These terms pertain to the unique elements in the Smash Bros. series:

• Advanced technique: A technique that is not one of the game's basic moves, and requires more than mere basic inputs to successfully perform.
• Aerial attack: An attack that a character performs while airborne. In each Smash game, every character has five different aerials, one for each of the four basic directions and one for no directional input. The type of aerials are:
  • Neutral aerial: Referred to as "nair" for short, an aerial inputted when the attack button is pressed without any directional input. Neutral aerials are typically weak and the character's aerial attack with the fastest start-up, while involving being a type of sex kick, or an attack where the character spins.
  • Forward aerial: Referred to as "fair" for short, an aerial inputted when the attack button is pressed in conjunction with the direction the character is facing. Forward aerials typically involve some sort of attack towards the front of the character. Effect wise, there is no common archetype for forward aerials, with their speed, power, reach, and trajectory varying greatly across characters.
  • Back aerial: Referred to as "bair" for short, an aerial inputted when the attack button is pressed in conjunction with the reverse direction the character is facing. Back aerials typically involve some sort of attack towards the back of the character, and are usually a solidly useful attack that is above average in all categories; very few characters have a back aerial that is decidedly ineffective or inferior to the character's other attacks.
  • Up aerial: Referred to as "uair" for short, an aerial inputted when the attack button is pressed in conjunction with an upward directional input. Up aerials typically involve some sort of attack aimed above the character, and are usually an upward-hitting attack meant to juggle the opponent and/or KO opponents vertically.
  • Down aerial: Referred to as "dair" for short, an aerial inputted when the attack button is pressed in conjunction with a downward directional input. Down aerials typically involve some sort of attack aimed below the character. Effect-wise, down aerials are typically meteor smashes, a multi-hitting drill type of attack, or a stall-then-fall that also may or may not meteor smash; however, some moves do not fit in any of the aforementioned categories.
  • Grab aerial: Referred to as "zair" for short, an unique aerial inputted when the grab button is pressed. Only characters with tether grabs can use a grab aerial.
• Auto-canceling: If a character lands with an aerial during a specific timeframe of the attack (usually the immediate beginning or immediate end of the move), the character will land with their standard landing animation instead of the aerial's landing animation, resulting in almost no landing lag.
• Blastline: The invisible boundaries on the four sides of a stage, that will KO a character who passes them, whether by being knocked past them or moving past one themselves. The exception is the top blastline, which will only KO when a character passes one while in knockback.
• Chain grab/chain throw: A series of consecutive throws that allow the player to regrab the opponent before they can escape; essentially a combo involving throws. It is most prominently featured in Melee and Brawl, and is not possible to perform in SSB4 and Ultimate.
• Clang: When two attacks collide into each other. It will either result in the attacks cancelling each other out (if they deal similar damage) or one overriding the other (if one is significantly stronger than the other).
• DACUS: Short for "dash attack-cancelled up smash", an act where a player immediately cancels their dash attack with an up smash, which results in some characters sliding forward a significant distance while performing their up smash. It can only be done in Brawl.
• Dash attack: A type of attack that a character can perform while dashing. Typically involves the character moving forward a small distance while attacking.
• Dash dancing: The act of repeatedly dashing back and forth, done to either confound the opponent or to show off. This is most commonly seen in Melee.
• Direction of attacks: All characters can direct their attacks;
  • Up: All characters can do an upward-directed attack on the ground or in the air.
  • Down: Likewise with up, all characters can do a downward-directed attack on the ground or in the air.
  • Sideways: On the ground, attacks directed to the left or right are referred to as "side" attacks.
  • Forward: Offensive moves initiated while moving forward in the air. Also tends to be used for side ground attacks—"forward tilt" and "side tilt", and "forward smash" and "side smash", refer to the same attack; this is not true for aerial attacks, however.
  • Back: Offensive moves initiated while the control stick is pointed in the opposite direction of where the character is facing. Primarily only applies to aerial attacks, though there are a few command input moves that use this direction.
  • Neutral: No input given other than the attack button.
• Directional influence: If a player holds the control stick in a direction as they are struck with an attack, they will slightly alter their launch trajectory in the direction they were holding their control stick. Can be utilized to live longer and to escape combos. Referred to as "DI" for short.
  • Smash directional influence: If a player makes any movement inputs right when they are struck with a hitbox, their character's position will move slightly towards the direction inputted before being launched. Mostly utilized to escape combos and multi-hitting moves before their completion. Referred to as "SDI" for short.
• Edge-guarding: The act of attacking an off-stage opponent, taking advantage of their increased vulnerability to more easily damage and KO them, while trying to prevent them from successfully making it back to the stage.
• Falling speed: The speed at which a character falls when airborne.
  • Floaty: A term used to refer to characters with especially low falling speeds, such as Peach or Jigglypuff.
  • Fast-faller: A term used to refer to characters with especially fast falling speeds, such as Captain Falcon or Fox.
• Fastfall: Pressing down on the control stick at or after the peak of a jump, causing the character to fall quicker.
• First Actionable Frame: Referred to as "FAF" for short, it is the first frame in which another action can be performed. If the action is interruptible, it is the frame this can be done; if not, it is the action's animation length plus one.
• Final Smash: An attack of ultimate power granted to a character upon breaking the Smash Ball (or additionally in Ultimate only, filling the Final Smash Meter). Activated by pressing the special move button with no directional input once gained.
• Footstool: An action involving gaining height by jumping off a character's head and putting them in a "footstooled" animation that immobilizes them. When a footstool does not put the character in a "footstooled" animation, it is known as a phantom footstool.
• Gimp: A KO that involves disrupting an offstage opponent's recovery, resulting in them failing to make it back to the stage and falling to their death at the bottom blastline, rather than forcefully knocking them past a blastline.
• Glide: A technique in Brawl that allowed some characters to glide through the air and travel long distances.
• Glide toss: A technique that involves immediately cancelling a character's roll by throwing an item, which results in the character sliding in the roll's direction while throwing the item. The distance slid depends on the character, what direction the character was rolling, and the specific time they interrupted the roll. The distance slid can vary from character to character, ranging from covering almost no distance to traveling almost the entire stage length. In SSB4 and Ultimate, canceling a roll into an item throw completely halts the user's horizontal momentum, and in Ultimate, the window to perform the technique has been reduced to only two frames, so the technique sees most use in Melee and Brawl.
• Helpless/Special fall: A state where a character in the air is unable to perform any action until landing. Typically occurs after performing a recovery move, and is indicated by the character being stuck in a character-specific pose while flashing.
• Interruptibility: The ability to cancel part of an animation with a new action.
• Jab: The common term for a character's neutral attack, which is a ground attack inputted by pressing the attack button without any directional input. Typically a very quick, short reaching, and very weak attack, that can be followed through for a standard basic combo.
• Jump cancel: A technique that can be performed by inputting certain actions while in the pre-jump lag that all characters have.
• Kill confirm: A true combo setup that can be unavoidably followed up with a KO move if successfully pulled off.
  • 50:50: A combo setup that can lead to a KO, but the opponent can evade the followup through a single unreactable defensive option (most commonly either with an air dodge or specific DI), yet conversely the initiator can still read the opponent's chosen defensive option and punish it accordingly with a KO move. So essentially, a kill setup that the opponent can pick one of two actions to avoid the followup, and the initiator must make a coinflip guess on which action they'll take.
• Knee: Shorthand for the Knee Smash, Captain Falcon's forward aerial in every Smash Bros. game since Melee.
• Knockback: The amount of force applied to a character when hit. Also used to describe the distance flown due to this force.
• Knockout/KO : When a character is launched out of the stage, or, in Stamina Mode only, runs out of hit points.
• L-cancel: The act of pressing L/R/Z right before landing with an aerial attack to reduce its landing lag. This technique does not exist in Brawl, SSB4 and Ultimate, and is only present in Smash 64 (where it is called Z-canceling) and Melee.
• Ledge: The end part of a platform that characters can hang on to. Typically, characters grab onto the ledge when recovering from offstage. Various actions can be done off a ledge.
  • Edge-hogging: The act of grabbing a ledge to intentionally prevent another player from doing so. Often utilized during edge-guarding. It does not exist in SSB4 and Ultimate due to their altered ledge mechanics, and only sees use in Smash 64, Melee and Brawl.
• Guest/third-party character: A playable character that is not originally from a Nintendo property; Sonic, Snake, and Mega Man are all examples of guests.
• Meteor smash: An attack that launches opponents downward. Since grounded opponents cannot be hit through the stage, such attacks will instead cause them to bounce off the stage, resulting in them flying upward with reduced knockback.
  • Meteor cancel: A mechanic that allows an aerial character hit by a meteor smash to completely negate the meteor smash's knockback, by jumping or performing their recovery move in a specific timeframe after being hit with one. It only exists in Melee and Brawl.
  • Spike: An attack that launches opponent downward, but at a diagonal-enough angle that the game does not recognize it as a meteor smash, and thus it cannot be meteor canceled. Also a common term used to refer to meteor smashes in Smash 64, Brawl, SSB4 and Ultimate, where the lack of any downward-hitting attacks on playable characters with altered functionality negates the need to have distinct terms.
  • Semi-spike: An attack that hits opponents at an especially low horizontal angle, which causes them to fall below the stage's height when knocked offstage with one.
• Midair jump: A jump every character can perform while airborne, often referred to as a "double jump". Most characters can only use one midair jump before landing or grabbing a ledge, but some characters can jump an additional multiple times in the air before landing.
  • Double jump cancel: The act of canceling the momentum of a character's midair jump with an attack. Can only be performed by the few characters with a delayed midair jump, such as Ness or Mewtwo. It is not possible to cancel the upward momentum of delayed double jumps completely with regular aerial attacks in Brawl, SSB4 or Ultimate.
• Misfire: In every game from Melee onward, Luigi's Green Missile move has the chance to randomly "misfire" regardless of charge, resulting in an explosive animation that causes Luigi to fly across the stage, resulting in it traveling faster and farther, while dealing significantly more damage and knockback to any opponent that he collides with.
• Momentum canceling: A technique, where a player in knockback performs various actions, to redirect or negate their momentum, allowing them to survive blows that would have KOed them otherwise. This technique is a defining part of Brawl's metagame, as the game's extreme hitstun canceling allowed characters to act long before their knockback finished and so gave them much greater control to redirect their momentum or perform moves that negated it. All other games besides Smash 64 also have momentum canceling, but without such extreme hitstun cancelling, the technique is much more niche and the available momentum canceling methods can generally only extend survival by a couple percent.
• Moonwalking: A technique that allows a character to move backward a small distance while dashing. It can only be performed in Melee.
• Out of shield: Refers to any action a player performs immediately out of their shield. An out of shield punish is when the player successfully punishes the opponent after the opponent struck their shield.
• Planking: A technique where a player stays hanging on the ledge beyond what is necessary, abusing the ledge's invincibility to remain safe. One of the most prominent stalling tactics. It is much less abusable in SSB4 and Ultimate than in prior games due to altered ledge mechanics.
• Priority: The mechanic that determines what happens when the hitboxes of two attacks collide with each other. Usually results in the two attacks being interrupted and thus "cancelled out", though if one colliding hitbox deals significantly more damage than the other, only the weaker attack will be interrupted while the stronger attack continues throughout its normal duration. Also erroneously used to refer to an attack's general ability (through its speed, reach, hitbox duration, and hitbox placement) to bypass other attacks.
  • Transcendent priority: A term used to refer to a property some hitboxes have, where they are completely unable to clang with the hitboxes of all other attacks, allowing them to bypass priority altogether.
• Recovery: An effort to return to the stage once knocked off it.
• Scrooging: The act of a player traveling underneath the stage from one side to the other, usually to stall time. There are "anti-scrooging" rules that were implemented in many high-level Brawl tournaments. The general rule states that the character must land on the stage before scrooging again. The terminology/technical was abused, however.
• Share stock: In team-based multiplayer matches, it is possible to take an ally's extra life once the player has been removed from the game, done by pressing Start in Melee or A+B in Brawl.
• Sharking: The act of a player attacking the opponent from underneath the stage's main platform. Considered to be an "offensive" version of ledge planking, though sharking also can involve platforms that can be jumped through, such as on Halberd.
• Short hop: A smaller jump, done by tapping the jump button briefly and letting go near immediately.
• Smash attack: A powerful offensive ground move that can be charged for additional damage. Every character has three types of smash attacks;
  • Forward smash: Also known as "side smash", and referred to as "f-smash" for short, inputted by pressing the attack button in conjunction with a tapped left or right directional input. Typically involves the character throwing a mighty blow in front of them, with generally more reach than their other attacks. Forward smashes are usually the character's slowest but most powerful smash attack, and one of the character's most powerful attacks, if not their strongest altogether.
  • Up smash: Referred to as "u-smash" for short, inputted by pressing the attack button in conjunction with a tapped up directional input. Typically involves the character forcefully striking upward. Effect-wise, up smashes tend to be roughly in between forward and down smashes in terms of speed and power, though some characters have up smashes that are distinctly more powerful than their other attacks (Fox being a prominent example of such throughout the series). Some characters also have up smashes that are weaker than their other smashes while being multi-hitting.
  • Down smash: Referred to as "d-smash" for short, inputted by pressing the attack button in conjunction with a tapped down directional input. Typically involves the character striking both the front and back of them, whether at the same time or in succession. Down smashes are usually the character's fastest, but weakest smash attack, and are instead designed to safely cover both sides of a character when it is difficult to tell which side the opponent is, or if being surrounded by multiple opponents.
• Spacie: Refers to Fox, Falco and Wolf, who are at least pseudo-clones of each other in the Smash games they appear in, alongside each having a combination of fast falling speed and high gravity that makes them to uniquely vulnerable to certain combos and chain throws that are significantly less effective against other characters, especially in Melee and Brawl.
• Special move: A move that has unique or otherwise unusual properties, that go beyond merely damaging a foe, and can be typically initiated from the ground or air. Also called B moves. Every character has four special moves (three in Smash 64), which are:
  • Neutral special: A special move inputted by tapping the special button without any directional input. Neutral specials are typically the character's most basic special move, being a projectile or some type of charging attack.
  • Side special: Also known as a "forward special", a special move inputted by tapping the special button in conjunction with a left or right directional input. Side specials are typically special moves that involve the character moving forward while attacking, or a projectile with more complicated attributes. Side specials did not exist in Smash 64.
  • Up special: A special move inputted by tapping the special button in conjunction with an upward directional input. Up specials are typically the character's "recovery move", a type of move that allows the character to move a significant distance through the air. Up specials also usually have minimal practical effect outside recovery purposes.
  • Down special: A special move inputted by tapping the special button in conjunction with a downward directional input. Down specials are typically a character's special move with an "other function" (i.e. they have a more unique effect than the character's other special moves).
• Stale-move negation: A mechanic that causes a move to weaken as it is successively used. It additionally only counts moves that successfully hit an opponent; a move that fails to land will not count towards it. In Ultimate, it also applies to moves that hit an opponent's shield as well.
• Sticker: A collectible item that can be applied to characters in Brawl's Subspace Emissary to boost stats.
• Sudden Death: A mode used to resolve ties in versus mode matches, where all tied players will fight with only one stock and 300% damage, where the first strike landed usually leads to an instant KO. Eventually Bob-ombs start falling from the sky if the players fail to KO each other in time, and in Ultimate the blast zones will also start shrinking to farther discourage camping.
• Tech: The action of pressing the shield button the moment one hits a surface while in tumble or in a launched state to cancel all knockback. When teching on the ground, one can "tech-in-place", "tech roll away", or "tech roll in". "Tech" is also used as shorthand for "technique".
  • Tech chase: The action of predicting what one's opponent will do when the opponent lands on the ground in a situation where they could have teched.
• Tether grabs and extended grabs: Some characters possess grabs with exceptionally long range, often in exchange for speed. The distinction between a "tether" and "extended" grab is purely technical, based on how the grab is connected to the character's animation skeleton.
• Tether recovery: A method of recovery involving grabbing onto a ledge from a distance. There are multiple moves capable of connecting to ledges, including an aerial tether grab (a.k.a. "zair"), some special moves, and even a few basic aerial attacks.
• Tilt: The common term for "strong attacks", standard ground attacks that can be performed towards a direction with the control stick "tilted" instead of tapped. In Ultimate, they are officially known as "tilt attacks". There are three type of tilts:
  • Forward tilt: Also known as "side tilt", and referred to as "f-tilt" for short. Inputted by pressing the attack button in conjunction with the control stick tilted towards the right or left direction. Forward tilts typically involves the character throwing out some sort of basic attack in front of them, while being somewhere between their jab and forward smash in terms of power, speed, and reach. Usually serves as a quick spacer or weak punisher.
  • Up tilt: Referred to as "u-tilt" for short. Inputted by pressing the attack button in conjunction with the control stick tilted upward. Up tilts typically involve the character throwing out some basic attack above them. Up tilts tend to be more powerful than forward tilts but with less reach, and usually serve as anti-airs or quick ground attack that can start combos and juggle opponents, while being capable of KOing at very high damages, though some up tilts are distinctly powerful and can KO as effectively as smash attacks.
  • Down tilt: Referred to as "d-tilt" for short. Inputted by pressing the attack button in conjunction with the control stick tilted down. Down tilts typically involve the character throwing out some basic attack that is aimed low in front of them, and are usually the character's fastest tilt, but also their weakest. Depending on the character in use, down tilts may often useful grounded spacing tools, decent combo starters, or even forward-moving slide attacks. Many down tilts also have the ability to induce tripping, and many can also semi-spike, or particularly in Melee and Brawl, even meteor smash.
• Traction: How much the character slows down on the ground. The lower the traction of a character, the farther they will slide around on the ground from momentum.
• Transition stage/Transformation stage: A type of stage that changes its shape or layout throughout a match.
• Tripping: The act of a character tumbling over, and being left in a vulnerable sitting position. Tripping can be induced from being hit with certain attacks at too low of damage to get launched off the ground, and in Brawl, can randomly occur 1% of the time whenever a dash is inputted.
• Trophy: A collectible object, modelled after specific characters and/or objects from franchises represented in Smash Bros. (as well as from some other Nintendo games), that can be viewed in the trophy gallery, accompanied by a short bio of the trophy's subject. Trophies can be obtained by doing various tasks in-game. Collectible trophies do not exist in Smash 64 or Ultimate.
• Tumble: A state in which a character has been hit and is falling in a tumbling animation.
• Walk-off: A part of the stage that extends all the way to the left or right blastline, rather than stopping at a ledge.
• Wall of pain: A technique where a player barrages the (usually offstage) opponent with a succession of aerials across a horizontal distance, while the opponent is unable to, or can react little before the player finishes. Most prolific with Jigglypuff, though other characters, particularly ones with multiple midair jumps, fast air speeds, slow falling speeds and fast, spammable aerials, can pull off lesser variations.
• Wavedashing: A technique in Melee and Ultimate that involves the character air dodging into the ground at a diagonal angle, resulting in them sliding a small distance while being able to input any other action. How far a character slides is dependent on their traction, with characters sliding farther the lower their traction is. Characters with the highest traction will barely move, while in Melee, those with the lowest traction will slide nearly half the stage's length. The technique sees far more use in Melee than in Ultimate.
• Weight: Each character has a weight value, which affects how far they are launched when hit, with characters suffering less knockback the heavier they are. Heavier characters typically survive for longer than lighter characters, but are in return more vulnerable to being comboed.

Tournament-specific

These terms are used in the context of Smash tournaments, or the fighting game tournament community in general:

• Bracket manipulation: The act of a player or a group of players manipulating the progression of a tournament bracket, typically done by one intentionally losing in pools or the winners bracket to get a more favorable bracket progression, or intentionally losing to help another player artificially place higher. If discovered, smashers will be penalized.
• Crew: A group of Smash players that play and practice against each other. Will also often team together in doubles tournaments and Crew battles. They are often formed by players who live near each other in real life, but this is not necessary. Crews often use online chat services such as Skype and Discord to converse and organize matches amongst each other.
• Counterpicking (stage): The act of picking the next stage after losing, usually with the intent to give the counterpicking player an advantage.
  • Counterpicking (character): The act of a player choosing their character after the opponent chooses theirs, also usually done to give themself an advantage.
• Dave's Stupid Rule: (abbreviated DSR) A tournament rule that prevents one from counterpicking to a stage he/she already won on/last won on depending on which version is used.
• Death pool: In tournaments that run elimination pools before brackets, this term refers to any poorly balanced pool with a disproportionately high overall skill level compared to the rest of the tournament's pools, usually with more players than the pool cutoff allows who would be expected to make it out of properly balanced pools. Thus one or more of the better players will be forced to drown, and it's made more difficult for weaker players to upset their way out of the pool.
• Disrespect: Can refer to either:
  • An in-game action that is unnecessary, but is impressive or provides more entertainment to spectators, such as attacking an opponent that has already expended their recovery and cannot reach the stage with a meteor smash or signature finisher. This use of the term is often joking.
  • An action of no regard or courtesy for an opponent, such as refusing to shake hands/fistbump after a loss. This use of the term is much more serious.
• Ditto match / Mirror match : A match where all players chose the same character.
• Doubles / Teams: The portion of a tournament where matches involve teams of two players each.
• Drowning: Slang for getting eliminated during the pools phase of a tournament.
• Friendly: A non-tournament match between two or more players with no consequences for winning or losing.
• Hidden Boss: On a regional scale, refers to a lesser-known player who is not ranked on the region's power ranking or is mostly inactive, yet is a significant tournament threat to most, if not all, of the region's players. On a national level, it extends to players who lack national recognition or are inactive, but still remain a significant threat to most players at a national-level tournament. The term is additionally used on the 2015 SSBMRank in lieu of "honorable mentions".
• Hype: Analogous to "excitement", such as "they're hyped for the next match".
• John: A "justification" for one underperforming or an error in performance.
• Labber: A Smasher who discovers various techniques and combos for their characters, usually in training mode.
• Main: A Smasher's preferred character, and the one they play and train with the majority of the time; some Smashers may have more than one main, though competent players will never have more than about three true mains.
• Matchup: The measure of how a character is expected to perform versus another character, with both played at high, equal skill. For example, Mario in Brawl has a +1 matchup against Link, meaning Mario is expected to fare slightly better and win more often than not. Mario has a -1 matchup when facing Yoshi however, and thus Mario is considered to be at a slight disadvantage.
• Money match: A non-tournament match between two or more players, who each wager an amount of money, that will then be taken by the winner of the match. Sometimes played with additional stipulations (such as the players having to use a specific character), and the players may wager something other than money as well, such as the "rights" to a particular color scheme.
• Neutral start: A request that is carried out by everyone relocating their characters on the stage at the start of a match, so that no party begins with a positional advantage over the other.
• Pocket character: A secondary character the player doesn't properly practise with, who they explicitly use when it will give them a significant advantage over the opponent's character, or in a desperate bid to try throwing the opponent off with matchup unfamiliarity.
• Power Rankings: A ranking of players based on their competitive success over a defined period, referred to as PR for short. A PR's scale can range from covering only a city's local scene, all the way up to covering the entire world (such as SSBMRank).
• Professional smasher: Also just Professional or Pro for short. An antiquated term used to describe a player that is skilled enough to make a real profit playing Smash, or to refer to any high level player in general. While a prevalent term in competitive Smash's earlier years, coming from MLG formally using the term to label players that placed highly at their events, it fell out of favor over time, and around after the release of Smash 4, it primarily only saw regular use on SmashWiki, until the wiki finally made a formal decision to phase out its usage in 2023. This is partly for being more of a mouthful than to just say someone is a "good player", and partly because the common definition of the word "professional" is someone who does something for a living, of which there have been very few people that have ever made a legitimate living playing Smash, causing confusion and mockery for using the term to describe players that Smash was supplementary income for at best.
  • Semi-professional smasher: Also just Semi-professional or Semi-pro for short. An antiquated term used to describe above-average competitive players that could rank highly in their region and win some money from their local tournaments, but weren't a threat to place highly at larger regionals and majors. Like professional, it fell out of favor in community usage around the later Brawl and Smash 4 era, and SmashWiki made a formal decision to phase out its usage in 2023.
  • Top professional smasher: Also just Top professional or Top pro for short. An antiquated term used to describe the very best players in each respective Smash game, who can place very highly at any tournament, including major-level events. Like professional, it fell out of favor in community usage around the later Brawl and Smash 4 era, with people just using variations of the term "top level player" instead, and SmashWiki made a formal decision to phase out its usage in 2023. Aside from the aforementioned issues with the usage of "professional", this term caused additional issues as the level of player it was used to described was gradually diluted over time, with the wiki at one point labelling over a thousand different players as being "top professionals" in at least one Smash game, causing farther confusion and mockery when so few of these players ever actually made serious money from the games that were labelled being "top professional" in.
• Ruleset: Guidelines that participants must follow when fighting in a tournament. Typically, this includes rules such as limiting stage selection or controlling who must choose their character first.
• Salty: Analogous to "being upset, disappointed, and/or angry", such as "he's real salty he lost".
• Salty runback: The act of, upon losing a match, quickly selecting the same stage for the next match.
• Sandbagging: The act of intentionally under-performing, whether through purposely playing poorly or using a character the player knows they will perform worse with.
• Secondary: A character that a player often plays and trains with, though much less so than with their main(s), and will usually not be the first character the player goes to when trying to win. Typically used in tournament matches in specific matchups, where the player's main is hard countered, or when the player simply heavily dislikes fighting the opposing character with their main.
• Set: A set or match is a series of games played between two opponents. Sets more most commonly played in a best-of-three (Bo3) or best-of-five (Bo5) series.
• Side event: An additional, less serious event at a tourney played on the side of the tournament's primary event. Is typically another tournament bracket run under non-standard conditions or with additional stipulations.
• Singles: The portion of a tournament where matches involve one-on-one matches. Typically used in contrast to "doubles".
• Slob pick: A rule that allowed the loser of a match to change either their character or the stage, while the winner was required to remain in their previous setting.
• Smasher: A term used to refer to people who play Smash with any sort of dedication.
• Splitting: The act of two or more players sharing their winnings from a tournament amongst themselves. It typically happens in innocuous contexts where the tournament could not finish (such as the tournament's venue closing before its conclusion), and so all players that have not yet been eliminated from the tournament split the pot. In more grey cases, it happens when two or more finalists no longer want to play at the end of a tournament and so agree to split their winnings, then play their remaining set(s) with halfhearted effort, if they play their sets at all. In clear fraudulent cases, it can involve a player agreeing to intentionally lose to another player in exchange for a portion of their winnings, sometimes in a conspiracy to target eliminating a third unrelated player that one of the two splitting players has an unfavorable matchup against.
• Stream: Tournaments may record matches for viewers on the internet to watch live; this is called streaming or livestreaming.
• The Swedes: Collectively referring to Armada and Leffen, two of the dominating Melee players.
• Tournament legal: Settings and regulations widely accepted for playing competitively.
• Upset: A term used when a lower-seeded player defeats a higher-seeded player.
  • The severity of an upset can be determined by the upset factor, with a higher upset factor correlating to a more severe upset. The upset factor is determined by the difference between the number of projected rounds the two players would have to play in order to win, so the #32 seed player (projected to place 25th, or 9 rounds from winning the tournament) defeating the #1 seed player (or 0 rounds from winning the tournament) is an upset factor of 9.
• VOD: The short form for "Video on demand", usually referred to videos containing tournaments related matches.

Wiki-specific

The terms that follow are used in the context of SmashWiki itself. Please note that skimming this section should not be done in lieu of actually reading policy.

• Administrator/System Operator: A highly trusted user of the wiki entrusted with additional tools that regular users cannot access, such as the ability to delete a page or block users. They have a noticeboard where all users can post problems or concerns that the admins will aid with.
• Autoconfirmed user: An account that has been existent for at least a week, with ten or more edits. Upon achieving auto confirmed status, the user gains more rights, such as moving a page.
• Article: A page of relevant Smash Bros. information. A "complete" article addresses all the aspects of the subject in addition to using appropriate images and links to other articles.
• Block: Preventing a user from editing the site, in accordance to the blocking policy.
• Bot: A non-human user that is programmed to do a certain task on the wiki, typically minor and simple maintenance work that needs to be done on a large amount of pages, that would otherwise distract the active user base from making more significant edits.
• Bureaucrat: Users that can modify the powers of users, in addition to some other additional tools admins do not have.
• Cleanup: An article in need of cleanup needs the attention of other users to improve formatting, structure, or clarity of the article in question.
• Developer: User that can lock and edit the database if necessary.
• Discord: A messaging platform based around "communities," which allows anyone to chat with people within the same channel. SmashWiki has its own Discord server, which is generally used used to organize online matches, discuss Wiki matters, or to hang out.
• Edit: Edits are done to modify the website's text or appearance. See Help:Editing for the full scope.
• File/Image: A picture uploaded to the Wiki; images are almost always employed in articles or templates, but each user is allowed to upload some personal images, as long as they're not excessive. Unused or lower quality images get deleted over time.
• Flaming/Flamer: The act of "flaming" is purposely going out of one's way to insult and harass other users of the site. Continued acts of flaming will lead to a ban. A "Flame War", where insults are exchanged from both parties, almost always lead to a ban.
• Forum: A discussion page that isn't attached to an article or user page; typically pertaining to general wiki issues or for exchanging opinions. The best example of a forum is the Smash Arena. Not to be confused with a Talk page.
• Help page: A page dedicated to explains aspects of SmashWiki. See Help:Contents and the help category for help pages.
• Link: A piece of text, usually differentiated by color, that once clicked will lead to a different page on the site. Links are as follows;
  • Blue links go to a page in SmashWiki.
  • Purple links go to an already visited page in SmashWiki.
  • Red links lead to pages that do not exist. Some pages may be supposed to exist, while others may not.
  • Lighter blue links will bring the user to a page outside of SmashWiki. We are not responsible for the actions of external websites.
• Policy: The rules of the Smashwiki; how the site is to be run, what is expected from the articles and users, et cetera. All users should familiarize themselves with the policies prior to editing.
• Rollbackers: Users who can use rollback to immediately undo all edits by the same person in one click. This is mostly used to deal with vandals.
• Sockpuppet: A sockpuppet is an alternative account made by a user under non-good faith intent, usually to pretend being another user, to violate wiki policy without getting infracted on their primary account, to get multiple votes on Smash Arena, or to bypass a ban.
• SmashWiki Status System: An analysis of the Wiki's current state; when the wiki has a high volume of editing while lacking large quantities of information, a "yellow" or "red" status may be employed, and this means that user page and forum edits are limited, until the wiki enters a better state. "Green" or "Blue" are what are considered "healthy" areas to be.
• Stub: An article that has inadequate information; it may have incomplete sections or lacking sections entirely.
• Talk page: A page attached to every other page for communicating with other Wiki members about topics relating to the original page's content. See Help:Talk page for the full scope. Not to be confused with a Forum.
• Troll: A user that intentionally behaves in an unbecoming manner (such as intentionally repeatedly breaking policy, intentionally spouting unpopular and flame-provoking opinion in an aggressive manner, and attacking other users unprovoked), with the intention to rile up other users and get a negative reaction of them. Can overlap with vandal, though the two are not necessarily the same.
• Universe: The "universe" of a series refers to all properties from said franchise that are relevant to Smash Bros.
• User: A person or bot that uses the website. A user may or may not be logged in, nor is it required to view and edit most of the site.
  • Userpage: A personal page every user is entitled to upon registering. No anonymous users may get their own user page. In addition, all users can also have user subpages. Generally, though, it's frowned upon to emphasize user page construction over wiki contributing, especially when SmashWiki enters "Status Red".
• Vandal: A user who purposely fills Smashwiki with incorrect or inappropriate text, or removes sections of articles. Such users are extremely likely to be banned in accordance to the block policy.
• Wiki: A community-maintained website with the intention of becoming the compendium of whatever subject it pertains to. For example, Smash Wiki aims to become a compendium of Smash Brothers. information.