Angling

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Angling is the term used to describe the ability for a character to alter the direction of a forward tilt or forward smash. For example, angling a punch attack up will generally cause the character to punch diagonally upwards instead of straight forward, while angling it down will tend to cause the character to punch diagonally downwards. On the whole, attacks can only be angled if they are a straight punch, kick, or similar strike; attacks that cover vertical ground (such as an overhead sword slash) have no purpose for angling.

Angling attacks downwards can aid in striking short or crouching characters such as Pikachu or Kirby in cases where the regular attack would miss just overhead, but most attacks deal slightly less damage when angled down. Angling upwards is useful for intercepting aerial characters and often comes with a slight damage bonus, but the aforementioned short characters will be even more able to avoid it. Angling can also help with edgeguarding; Ganondorf's and Falco's forward tilts in Melee are prime examples of forward tilts that are more useful at guarding the area around the edge when angled down.

In Melee, angling smash attacks was slightly more difficult than angling tilts; players had to hold the direction of the C-Stick or Control Stick at an earlier time for a smash than they would for a tilt.

Attacks that can be angled generally have three possible angles: up, side (or neutral), and down. In Smash 64, some attacks have up to 5 angles.

In order to angle a forward-attack, the control stick or C-stick must be within a specific diagonal range when the attack button is pressed - diverging too far from these angles causes the attack to remain unangled, or an up-attack or down-attack is used instead. Brawl allows players to angle forward smashes based on where the control stick is after the charging interval ends.

Characters that can angle their attacks

• Mario - Forward smash and tilt
• Donkey Kong - Forward tilt
• Kirby - Forward smash and tilt
• Samus - Forward smash and tilt
• Luigi - Forward smash and tilt
• Yoshi - Forward smash and tilt
• Bowser - Forward tilt
• Wolf - Forward tilt
• Captain Falcon - Forward smash and tilt
• Ganondorf - Forward smash
• Sonic - Forward smash
• Mewtwo - Forward tilt
• Lucario - Forward tilt
• R.O.B. - Forward smash and tilt
• Ness - Forward tilt
• Lucas - Forward tilt
• Jigglypuff - Forward tilt
• Falco - Forward tilt
• Fox - Forward tilt
• Pikachu - Forward tilt
• Pit - Forward tilt
• Zero Suit Samus - Forward tilt
• Ice Climbers - Forward tilt
• Wario - Forward tilt
• Little Mac - Forward smash

Examples of moves with notable angling properties

• In Brawl, if Luigi angles his forward smash upwards, it has additional IASA frames, making it more difficult to punish. The move also does higher damage (and therefore knockback), making the move's already very strong knockback scaling especially immense.
• In Brawl, when Luigi's forward tilt is angled downward, it deals no knockback at all.
• In Smash 4, Little Mac's forward smash becomes different types of attacks when angled; no angle is a straight punch, up angled is an uppercut, and down angled is a body hook. The body hook is implied to deal the most damage with the least knockback of the three variations, while no other information about the functioning of the other two are known at this time.