Passive armor

Bowser not flinching from Kirby's rapid jab.

Passive armor is an umbrella term encompassing occasions where a character experiences continuous armor without any restrictions. Examples of this include Tough Guy, Tough Body, and continuous super armor seen on transformation-related Final Smashes. Spirit abilities such as Super Slow Armor and Armor Knight can provide the effect to any character, albeit with statistical downsides such as decreased movement speed. Bosses can also be considered to have something akin to passive armor.

Overview

Passive armor was first formally introduced in Melee for Nana and Giga Bowser, where they have 5 and 20 units of knockback-based armor respectively. Because of the low threshold, it generally had little effect outside of using crouch canceling to effectively increase the thresholds. Both of these would be erased in Brawl, though the introduction of Bowser's Giga Bowser Final Smash introduced passive super armor for the first time. Smash 4 would expand on this further, adding Giga Mac, Mega Charizard X, and Mega Lucario, albeit with significantly nerfed durations to transformation Final Smashes in general. Smash 4 also introduced the Tough Guy mechanic for Bowser, giving him 19 units of knockback-based armor permanently with no drawbacks. With Giga Bowser no longer being a fully-controllable character in Ultimate, he received 95 units of knockback-based armor for his boss incarnation, rather than super armor. Ultimate's DLC would also introduce Tough Body as an effective clone of Bowser's fighter ability for Kazuya, only it uses 14 units of knockback-based armor.

Passive armor follows the general rules of armor — for example, grabs and some attack effects will override it — but this nature also leads to some unique side-effects, such as being present during the buried and frozen states, which can lead to delayed reactions to their effects. Passive armor is most commonly seen in the form of knockback-based armor as an extremely minor mechanic, such as the case with Nana or Kazuya, where the threshold is so low that it's effectively nonexistent in many matchups. Passive armor will sometimes come in the form of "subtractive" armor, wherein the knockback is subtracted instead of requiring a threshold to be reached to deal full knockback.

Ultimate introduced spirits, which can provide passive armor effects; specifically, Super Slow Armor and Super Armor from the likes of Regigigas, Polar Bear, Walhart, and Gold Mario can provide passive knockback-based armor to any character. The thresholds are almost identical, though Super Slow Armor, as the name implies, comes with a significant drawback in reducing the user's movement speed.

List of instances of passive armor

Character	Passive armor	Subtractive?
Bowser	19 KB
Giga Bowser	20 KB
	Super armor
	95 KB
Giga Mac	Super armor
Kazuya	14 KB
Mega Charizard X	Super armor
Mega Lucario	Super armor
Metal Box	30 KB
Nana	5 KB
Super Slow Armor (spirit skill)	132 KB
Super Armor (spirit skill)	130 KB

Tough Guy / Tough Body

Tough Guy and Tough Body are fighter abilities, originally introduced with Tough Guy in Smash 4. These specifically apply to Bowser and Kazuya, respectively, in the form of passive knockback-based armor, summing to 19 and 14 KB respectively. Giga Bowser also has the same mechanic, though it isn't named, and it has a threshold of 95 KB. This armor requires the armor threshold to be breached to deal hitstun and knockback. Nana and Giga Bowser both have abilities with similar effects in Melee, but it's subtractive, meaning that instead of requiring a threshold to be reached to deal full knockback, the knockback is subtracted by the value after calculation. Thus, it isn't quite the same in practice.

Because Tough Guy's presence includes crouching, thanks to the 0.85× knockback reduction it provides, it improves the armor's ranges significantly. Bowser's armored smash and tilt attacks also benefit from Tough Guy in Ultimate, giving him effectively two layers of armor for attacks to break through. Because the armor is knockback-based, Tough Guy's effectiveness deteriorates as percentage builds. As the character using it takes more damage, they take more knockback, which gives Tough Guy a hard limit in every matchup. Additionally, effects that increase knockback, such as rage, will also affect Tough Guy. For a character-specific example, Hero's Psyche Up applies a 1.2× knockback multiplier directly onto his moves which, as a result, significantly decreases Tough Guy's effectiveness—if not neuter it outright—until it goes away.

Due to Tough Guy's very low knockback threshold, its usefulness is highly specific to the point of being essentially nonexistent in some matchups. While characters like Luigi and Mega Man are greatly impacted due to their reliance on weak, spammable projectiles in neutral, others such as Donkey Kong and Ganondorf are completely unaffected. This applies even moreso to Kazuya, having drastically lower damage ranges; for example, while Bowser can armor Pyra's Rapid Jab well until 174%, Kazuya can only armor it until around 12%. Like all armor, Tough Guy does not protect characters from grabs either, so characters that are noticeably affected by the ability can normally make up for it through a grab-heavy playstyle. Tough Guy was indirectly buffed in Ultimate thanks to the universal knockback reduction in all rapid jabs. The addition of damage-based armor into his moveset also assisted with this, adding a degree of safety at tighter percent ranges. Because Bowser himself gained more weight, it's common to see him armor rapid jabs to extremely high thresholds and punish them outright.

In the case of Giga Bowser, because he cannot be grabbed in any way and has gigantic weight, it is near-impossible to make him launch or even experience hitstun at first. Seeing Giga Bowser's Tough Guy break is extremely rare, but not impossible with charged smash attacks, strong items, or Final Smashes. However, whether the effort required to make him launch is a viable objective is very arguable.

Kazuya's addition to Ultimate came with a weaker variant of Tough Guy dubbed "Tough Body", which guards against 14 units of knockback, but is otherwise the same. Combined with Kazuya's lower weight, Tough Body is far more situational than Tough Guy, being largely useless in many matchups. On the other hand, because of his crouch-based attacks like Demon God Fist, he can make better use of it in some situations, as crouch canceling applies.

List of attacks affected by Tough Guy/Tough Body

This article or section is incomplete. You can help SmashWiki by expanding or finishing it. The editor who added this tag elaborates: Item damage data from Super Smash Bros. 4, including percents when crouching. Also Kazuya data.

• Bold percentages represent the damage limit if Bowser were crouching.
• Moves with damages labeled "Limitless" means that Tough Guy will always trigger against the move.
• Moves that are available as custom moves are in italics.

User/Item	Move	Part of Move	Damage Limit	Notes
By Characters
Banjo & Kazooie	Neutral Attack	Rapid Jab	83%/318%	Closest hitbox
			503%/737%	Farthest hitbox
	Egg Firing / Breegull Blaster	Breegull Blaster	Limitless	Applies to the 13th egg, and all others preceding; all ranges except for point-blank
Bayonetta	Neutral Attack	Rapid Jab	116% 205%/333%	Closest hitbox
			282%/410%	Farthest hitbox
	Bullet Climax	Entire move	116% 120%/157%	Uncharged bullets
Bowser	Up Throw	Attack hitbox	6%/23%	Applies to hits 1 - 7
Bowser Jr.	Neutral Attack	Jab 1	18%
		Rapid Jab	617%/842%
	Dash attack	Entire move	3%/18% 22%	Farthest hitbox; applies to hits 1 - 5
	Forward smash	Entire move	29% Limitless	Applies to hits 1 - 5
Byleth	Neutral Attack	Rapid Jab	363%/597%	Closest hitbox
			503%/737%	Farthest hitbox
Captain Falcon	Neutral Attack	Rapid Jab	356%/500%
Charizard	Down Throw	Attack hitbox	4%/23%	Collateral damage
	Flamethrower	Entire move	34% 35%	Weak hitbox
	Fire Fang		Limitless	Embers
	Fireball Cannon		46%/92%	Weak hitbox
Chrom	Double-Edge Dance	4th hit; angled down	279%/349%	Applies to hits 1-4
Corrin	Neutral Attack	Rapid Jab	180%/293%
	Forward smash	Yato hitboxes	Limitless
Daisy	Neutral Aerial	Entire move	3%	Late hitbox
	Down Aerial		6%/53%	Applies to hits 1 - 3
Dark Pit	Neutral Attack	Rapid Jab	Limitless 617%/842%
	Down Aerial	Entire move	3%-5%	Meteor hitbox
	Silver Bow	Entire move	3% 0%	Uncharged
Donkey Kong	Neutral attack	Jab 1	7%
	Jumping Headbutt	Entire move	81%/101%	Tough Guy does not trigger if Bowser is hit while airborne
Dr. Mario	Neutral Attack	Jab 1	88%/145%	Farthest hitbox
		Jab 2	36%/136%
Duck Hunt	Neutral Attack	Rapid Jab	13%/169%	Closest hitbox
			363%/597%	Farthest hitbox
	Clay Shooting	Reticle shots	306%
Falco	Neutral Attack	Rapid Jab	500%/663%
	Blaster	Entire move	Limitless
	Explosive Blaster			Applies to hits 1 - 4
Fox	Neutral Attack	Jab 1	7%/81%	Farthest hitbox
		Jab 2	30%
		Rapid Jab	36%/143% 270%/378%	Farthest hitbox in Smash 4
	Neutral Aerial	Entire move	2% 4%	Late hitbox
Greninja	Neutral Attack	Rapid Jab	50%/94% 617%/842%
	Back Aerial	Entire move	0%/11% 0%/12%	Applies to hit 1
			1%/13% 1%/14%	Applies to hit 2
	Water Shuriken		3%/28%	Uncharged
Hero	Magic Burst	Entire move	368%/523%	At MP 100; does not include the last hit
			743%/Limitless	At lower to lowest MP; does not include the last hit
	Whack		4%/23%	Bowser can still get KO'd.
Ice Climbers	Ice Shot	Entire move	27%/47%	Closest range
			30%/53%	Farthest range
	Blizzard	Entire move	27%	Closest hitbox
			35%	Middle Hitbox
Ike	Aether	Falling hit	54%/73%
Inkling	Neutral Attack	Rapid Jab	363%/597%	Closest hitbox
			712%/947%	Farthest hitbox
	Up Aerial	Entire move	0%-1%/43%-44%	Applies to hit 1 only; farthest hitbox
Ivysaur	Neutral Attack	Rapid Jab	147%/222%
	Side Tilt	Entire move	8%/88%	Applies to hits 1 - 6
	Neutral Aerial		55%/130%	Applies to hits 1 - 7
	Bullet Seed		29%-31%	All seeds, except the last
Jigglypuff	Neutral attack	Jab 1	5%
	Spinphony	Entire move	Limitless	Bowser is still turned around
Joker	Gun/Gun Special	Entire move	5%	Close range
			48%/67%	Mid range
King Dedede	Neutral Attack	Rapid Jab	Limitless 494%/681%	Farthest hitbox
			382%/569%	Closest hitbox
	Super Dedede Jump	Stars	4%
	Quick Dedede Jump
Kirby	Neutral Attack	Jab 1	74%/119%
		Rapid Jab	Limitless 124%/197%
Link	Quickfire Bow	Entire move	17%/50%	Uncharged
			1%/16%	Full charge
	Bow and Arrows	Arrows	0%	Thrown
			1%	Z-Dropped
Little Mac	Neutral Attack	Rapid Jab	120%/158% 298%/579%	Also applies when as Giga Mac in Smash 4
	Down Aerial	Entire move	8%/18%	Clean hitbox
			11%/22% 12%/23%	Late hitbox; also applies when as Giga Mac in Smash 4
Lucario	Neutral Attack	Jab 1	7%-4%-1%/84%-67%-48%	Farthest hitbox
	Aura Sphere	Entire move	0%	Uncharged
	Piercing Aura Sphere		44%
Lucas	Down tilt	Entire move	24%/55% 14%	Farthest hitbox
	PK Thunder	Projectile	115% 118%/169%	Applies to the hitboxes in the "tail"
Lucina	Dancing Blade	4th hit; angled down	97% 279%/349%	Applies to hits 1- 4
Luigi	Up Aerial	Entire move	0% 2%-3%	Late hitbox
	Fireball		55%/82% 56%/86%	Early hitbox
			66%/99%	Late hitbox
	Bouncing Fireball		55%/82%	Closest hitbox
			64%/95%	Mid hitbox
			77%/113%	Farthest hitbox
	Super Jump Punch		Limitless	Sourspot
Mario	Neutral Attack	Jab 1	5%/72%	Farthest hitbox
		Jab 2	37%/139%
	Fast Fireball	Entire move	193%/298%	Weak hitbox
Marth	Dancing Blade	4th hit; angled down	97% 279%/349%	Hits 1 - 4
Mega Man	Neutral Attack	Pellets	372%/510% 384%/524%	Long/Mid range
	Side Tilt
	Neutral Aerial
	Up Aerial	Entire move	Limitless	Late hitbox
	Crash Bomber		190%/312% 10%/135%	Applies to hits 1 - 4
	Leaf Shield		17%/79%
Meta Knight	Neutral Attack	Entire move	93%/150% 66%/128%	Does not include the finishing hit
Mewtwo	Neutral Attack	Rapid Jab	52% 550%/751%
	Shadow Ball	Entire move	33% 23%	Uncharged
Mii Brawler	Neutral Attack	Rapid Jab	281%
Mii Gunner	Charge Shot	Entire move	2%	Uncharged
Min Min	Neutral Attack	Rapid Jab	172%	Closest hitbox
			340%	Farthest hitbox
Mr. Game & Watch	Neutral Attack	Jab 1	Limitless
		Rapid Jab	Limitless 101%/201%
	Forward Aerial	Entire move	Limitless	Applies to hit 1 only
	Back Aerial	Entire move	2%/16%	Applies to hits 1 - 3
	Short Order Chef	Entire move	101%/256%	Steak
			120%/300%	Skinny fish
			Limitless	Fat fish
	Judge	Entire move	8%/32%	Judge #2 only
Mythra	Neutral Attack	Jab 1	34%/128%	farthest hitbox
			6%/76%	closest hitbox
		Jab 2	174%/268%	farthest hitbox
		Rapid Jab	188%/305%
Ness	Neutral attack	Jab 1	13%/41%
		Jab 2
	Down Tilt	Entire move	164%/209% 151%	Closest hitbox
			189%/258% 199%	Farthest hitbox
	Down Throw	Attacking hitbox	3%/28%	Collateral; applies to hits 1 - 3
	PK Fire	Pillar	44% 66%/128%	Percent in Smash 4 also includes crouching
	Lasting PK Thunder	Projectile	104%/150%	Applies to the hitboxes in the "tail"
Olimar	Dizzy Whistle	Entire move	Limitless	Bowser is still turned around
Palutena	Neutral Attack	Rapid Jab	162%/263% 173%/281%
Peach	Neutral Aerial	Entire move	2% 3%	Late hitbox
	Down Aerial		6%/53%	Applies to hits 1 - 3
Pichu	Neutral Attack	Entire move	12%	Closest hitbox
	Forward Throw	Attacking Hitbox	3%/19%	Collateral; applies to hits 1 - 3
Pikachu	Neutral Attack	Entire move	8%/44% 82%/165%	Closest hitbox
			34%/74% 87%/176%	Middle hitbox
	Forward Throw	Attacking hitbox	2%/16%	Collateral; applies to hits 1 - 4
	Thunder Jolt	Entire move	2%/4%/7%	Early/Mid/Late hitbox
Piranha Plant	Neutral Attack	Jab 1	11%	Farthest hitbox
		Jab 2	43%
		Rapid Jab	593%/622%
	Down throw	Attacking hitbox	13%	Collateral damage
Pit	Neutral Attack	Rapid Jab	Limitless 617%/842%
	Down Aerial	Entire move	3%-5%	Meteor hitbox
	Palutena Bow	Entire move	5% 6%	Uncharged
Pyra	Neutral Attack	Jab 1	26%/101%	Farthest hitbox
			3%/59%	Closest hitbox
		Jab 2	174%/268%	Farthest hitbox
		Rapid Jab	173%/281%
	Flame Nova	Entire move	Limitless	Closest hitbox; applies to all hits except the final
Richter	Neutral Attack	Jab 1	5%/74%	Farthest hitbox
		Rapid Jab	617%/842%
	Holy Water	Pillar	131%	Same percent when crouching
Ridley	Neutral Attack	Rapid Jab	198%	Closest hitbox
			571%	Farthest hitbox
R.O.B.	Neutral Attack	Jab 1	8%/26% 33%
	Down tilt	Entire move	0%
	Backwards Arm Rotor	Entire move	Limitless	1st hit facing Bowser
	Gyro		84%	Uncharged; late hitbox
	Slip Gyro		5%	Sliding across the ground
Robin	Neutral Attack	Rapid Jab	47% 384%/593%
Rosalina & Luma	Neutral Attack	Rapid Jab	537%/741%	Rosalina
			215%/349%	Luma
	Grand Star	Grand Star looping hits	Limitless	only if Bowser is above on a platform
Roy	Double-Edge Dance	4th hit; angled down	97% 279%/349%	Applies to hits 1 - 4
Ryu	Down tilt	Entire move	Limitless	Tapped; farthest hitbox
	Hadoken	Shakunetsu Hadoken	166% 335%	Fast-tapped; applies to hits 1-4
Samus	Charge Shot	Entire move	2%	Uncharged
	Dense Charge Shot		0%
Sephiroth	Shadow Flare	Initial projectile	54%/106%	Uncharged
			26%/55%	Fully charged
Sheik	Neutral Attack	Rapid Jab	43%/148% 208%/372%
	Forward throw	Attack hitbox	Limitless	Collateral damage
	Back throw
	Up throw
	Down throw
Shulk	Neutral Attack	Jab 1	100%	Buster Art; farthest hitbox
Simon	Neutral Attack	Jab 1	5%/74%	Farthest hitbox
		Rapid Jab	617%/842%
	Holy Water	Pillar	131%	Same percent when crouching
Sonic	Neutral Attack	Jab 2	8%/88%	Farthest hitbox
	Down Throw	Attacking hitbox	23%	Collateral damage
	Double Spring	Entire move	8%
Terry	Neutral Attack	Jab 1	238%/351%	Closest hitbox
		Jab 2 (1st hit)	47%/172%
Toon Link	Pummel	Entire move	4%	Collateral damage
	Hero's Bow		6%/24% 7%	Uncharged
			0%	Full charge
	Fire Arrow		Limitless	Uncharged; direct hit
			527%/664%	Full charge; direct hit
	Piercing Bow		390%/572%	Uncharged
			140%/208%	Full charge
Villager	Neutral Attack	Entire move	122% (lead fist); 10% (rear fist)	Farthest hitbox
	Down smash	Entire move	3%/11%
Wario	Wario Waft	Entire move	Limitless	Uncharged
	Garlic Breath			Closest range
Wii Fit Trainer	Neutral attack	Jab 3	19%/46% 16%	Burying hitbox
Yoshi	Neutral Attack	Jab 1	87%/144%	Farthest hitbox
	Down Aerial	Entire move	9% 12%	Applies to hits 1 - 6
Young Link	Neutral Attack	Rapid Jab	403%/566%
Zelda	Neutral Attack	Rapid Jab	320%/448%
	Forward Aerial	Entire move	6%	Sourspot
	Back Aerial
	Down Aerial		20%/33% 21%/34%	Late sourspot
	Nayru's Love		30% 31%	Applies to hits 1 - 3
	Nayru's Rejection		40%	Bowser is still turned around
Zero Suit Samus	Neutral Attack	Jab 1	127%/208%	Farthest hitbox
	Blast Shot	Entire move	Limitless	Uncharged
By Items
Beehive		Bees	Limitless	Only toughs out the first attack
Fire Flower		Thrown item	25%/46% 19%/36%
		Dropped item	30-53%/66-88%	Depends on the distance dropped
Mr. Saturn		Thrown item	9-10%, 32%/24-25%, 62% 9-10%, 31%/24-25%, 62% 7%, 28%/20%, 56%	Depends on distance thrown
		Dropped item	9-11%/24-40%	Depends on distance dropped
Staff		Shots	5%/25%	Point-blank range
Super Scope		Shots	164%/210%	Uncharged
Superspicy Curry		Flames	3%/120%
By Pokémon
Abomasnow		Blizzard	19%
Inkay		Topsy-Turvy	Limitless
Staryu		Swift	24%/69%
By Assist Trophy
Klaptrap		Rapid bites	961%/Limitless	Collateral damage

Trivia

• The attacks of Little Mac that can be toughed out also apply if he is in his transformation.
  • This makes Bowser the only character who has armor that works against a Final Smash.