Knockback

Knockback is a measure of how far an attack sends its target. For example, Bowser's forward smash is an attack of high knockback; it launches opponents very far, so far that at high damages it's more powerful than a home-run bat smash attack. Pikachu's neutral A, on the other hand, has very low knockback - it hardly sends opponents anywhere.

The knockback of most attacks increases as the target's damage increases; however, there are some exceptions, notably Fox's shine. Attacks like this are said to have set knockback. There are also some attacks which have a knockback that is not complimentary to their damage. For example, Marth's fully charged neutral-b does a similar amount of damage as Jigglypuff's Rest attack, yet the Rest has a much higher knockback. Also, attacks knock back light characters farther than heavy characters.