Spike

Marth's down aerial is a spike in Melee.

A spike is an attack in SSBM that sends the opponent downward until the hitlag wears off.
A spike is not to be confused with a Meteor Smash, which also sends the opponent downwards, but can be Meteor Canceled before the hitlag depletes.
Few characters have spikes; currently there are 5 characters who have a known spike, and are as follows:

• 1) Falco's Dair.
• 2) Marth's Dair. (NTSC only)
• 3) Ganondorf's Aerial Down+B.
• 4) Captain Falcon's Nipple Spike (Hitting with the upper half of his body during the dair)
• 5) Roy's Up Smash (Must hit an airborne opponent with the tip of the sword)

Note also that Spikes don't necessarily kill the opponent each time: at low damages the downwards thrust wears off and the spiked opponent can recover.
Regardless of this, recovery tends to be impossible at percentages near or above 40%.
The spike is almost always devastating to the opponent; because of this, many Falco and Marth players try to integrate it into play as often as possible.

Since there is no meteor canceling in the original SSB64, all "meteors" are considered spikes.

• 1) Falcon's Down-Air
• 2) DK's Forward-Air and Down-Air
• 3) Fox's Down-Air and shine-spike
• 4) Yoshi's Forward-Air and Down-Air
• 5) Kirby's Down-Air and Cutter
• 6) Jigglypuff's Down-Air
• 7) Samus' Down-Air
• 8) Ness' Down-Air
• 9) Mario's Down-Air and Tornado
• 10) Luigi's Down-Air
• 11) Pikachu's Up-Air is a semi-spike if it connects at a certain angle
• 12) Link does not have spikes or meteors

See also

• Meteor smash – a spike that can be recovered from through a meteor cancel.
• Semi spike – a move that hits the opponent at a very low angle, minimizing recovery opportunities.
• Shine spike – a Fox technique that utilizes the down-b reflector to spike an opponent.