Nerf

Nerfed is a term to describe the weakening of certain attributes of characters when making a sequel. It is often done as an attempt to balance the roster. The best example of this is Kirby's transition from the original Super Smash Bros. to Melee. Kirby went from being one of the best (tier-wise) characters to being one of the worst.

"Nerf" as a verb has been in common use when talking about character or attack changes in all kinds of games, from RPGs to FPSs. The opposite of the nerf is the buff, which describes an improvement in quality.

For example: From SSBM to SSBB, Peach's forward throw and down smash have been nerfed, and she cannot double-jump cancel anymore.

Characters who had attributes nerfed from SSB64 to SSBM

• Ness: speed, range
• Pikachu: range, being candidate for chain grabs
• Kirby: arguably the worst ever in a Smash Bros. game. He lost lots of power, speed, priority, and range in his attacks. His horizontal aerial movement is drastically slower, and he is easier to combo, making a character with terrible stats in Melee
• Yoshi: Specials, combo ability on floaty characters

Characters who had attributes nerfed from SSBM to SSBB

• Samus: Power in her finishers, projectile game, and Bomb Jump technique is less effective as recovery
• Jigglypuff: Combo ability, power in Rest which was an amazing KO move in Melee, three aerial attacks weakened, now sole slowest dash speed, and no longer has the fastest horizontal aerial movement
• Captain Falcon: Speed in his attacks, meteor smash needs to sweetspot to meteor smash, lower traction, and drastical decrease priority (resulting in nearly impossible to safely approach)
• Yoshi: Egg Roll no longer can be used for recovery, smashes are weaker especially down smash, meteor smash now needs to sweetspot to meteor smash, Yoshi Bomb and Egg Throw are weaker in terms of knockback, can no longer Double Jump Cancel
• Ganondorf: Speed, priority (though not as much priority as Captain Falcon), and Wizard's Foot no longer enables a midair jump if one was used already
• Peach: Midair jump, power in forward throw, range and power in down smash, horizontal aerial movement in now slightly below average instead of top speed, can no longer Double Jump Cancel.
• Mario: Slightly his power and slightly his range in many of his moves, his meteor smash now needs to sweetspot to meteor smash
• Sheik: Killing moves except up smash and Vanish are have severly lost their power
• Fox: Shine combos no longer exists, his killing moves are slightly weaker except his back aerial which is now much slower, and Blaster travels roughly half the distance of Melee's Blaster.
• Marth: Shorter grabs, shorter sword, sweetspoting his attacks is harder, standard attack combo is slower, and slightly slower dash speed.

See Also

• Buffed

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