Ice Climbers (SSBU)/Up aerial

Hitbox visualization showing Popo's up aerial.

Hitbox visualization showing Nana's up aerial.

Overview

Each of the duo swings their mallet outward in a wide arc overhead, identical to their original and quintessential aerial attack in Ice Climber. It sports high speed, decent activity, and moderate ending and landing lag, along with solid damage output and knockback to boot, killing middleweights at around 150% from grounded levels. Like several swordfighters with similar aerials that cover a wide arc, such as the Aegis, Corrin, Shulk and Marth, it provides quick, wide, and disjointed coverage, able to juggle opponents effectively and cover entire platforms. It deals high damage and has enough shieldstun to be almost unpunishable out of shield, which is accentuated further yet by the Ice Climbers' landing animation retaining their hurtboxes low to the ground.

The great frame-advantage carried by the following Ice Climber's portion of the move allow it to chain into itself at low to medium percents, leading to damaging ladder combos similar to those of Mario, although the much greater power of the duo's up aerial makes it less viable for KO confirms and moreso for racking up damage or as a raw KO option. Like Mario, however, a landing up aerial can lead to a spike with their forward aerial for an early kill. The move can also be confirmed into with a down throw or up tilt at almost all kinds of realistic percents, causing devastating damage early on and relatively easy KOs later on. However, it has little usage in desyncs save for some niche zero-to-death combos.

While its high launching angle prevents it from being useful for edgeguarding, it is a great method to shark unsuspecting opponents because of its speed and size. Like the duo's back aerial, up aerial's ending lag is low enough for the Ice Climbers to double jump, throw out another one or a different aerial after using up aerial out of a short hop. This also allows it to serve as a very easy method to desync the Ice Climbers depending on the partner's length of delay (known as desynching), as it gives the player access to beginning a friendly-beginner desync by performing a short hop and input an up aerial just before landing, and when timed correctly, the partner will auto-cancel the move while the leader is stuck in landing lag, leaving the partner free to act, which is the easiest method to involve the desynced Ice Climbers due to the partner's increased jumping height and mobility.

Even without a partner to strike with, the Ice Climbers' up aerial still has good range, great speed, and solid KO potential, without much ending lag to deal with. It is therefore one of a solo Ice Climber's best tools in their kit and a solid move overall, despite losing much of its damage, safety and combo potential upon isolation. Overall, a clear sign of what an incredible attack it is as a pair.

Hitboxes

ID	Part	Rehit rate	Damage	SD	Angle	Angle type	BK	KS	FKV	Set weight	Radius	Bone	Offset			H×	SDI×	T%	Clang	Rebound	Effect	Type	G	A	Sound	Direct	Hit bits	Hit part	Blockable	Reflectable	Absorbable	Flinchless	No GFX	Heedless
Leader
0	0	0	9.0%	0		Standard	20	129	0		4.6	havel	0.0	7.0	0.0	1.0×	1.0×	0%							Punch		All	All
1	0	0	9.0%	0		Standard	20	129	0		3.2	havel	0.0	2.2	0.0	1.0×	1.0×	0%							Punch		All	All
Partner
0	0	0	6.75%	0		Standard	20	154.8	0		4.6	havel	3.0	7.0	0.0	1.0×	1.0×	0%							Punch		All	All
1	0	0	6.75%	0		Standard	20	154.8	0		3.2	havel	3.0	2.2	0.0	1.0×	1.0×	0%							Punch		All	All

Timing

Attack

Initial autocancel	1-6
Hitboxes	7-11
Ending autocancel	27-
Interruptible	36
Animation length	45

Landing lag

Interruptible	15
Animation length	22

Legend (1 square = 1 frame)

Lag time

Hitbox

Autocancel

Interruptible

trivia

• If both the partner climber and their opponent are launched off stage, the partner will attempt to hit the opponent with an up aerial.
• If the Ice Climbers land during an up aerial and crouch afterwards, their models will rotate 360 degrees before entering their crouching animation.

Ice Climbers's moveset

Neutral attack (1 · 2) · Forward tilt · 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
Forward roll · Back roll · Spot dodge · Air dodge · Techs
Floor attack (front) · Floor getups (front) · Floor attack (back) · Floor getups (back) · Floor attack (trip) · Floor getups (trip)
Edge attack · Edge getups
Neutral special · Side special · Up special · Down special · Final Smash