Ice Climbers (SSBU)/Forward smash

Hitbox visualization showing Popo's forward smash.

Hitbox visualization showing Nana's forward smash.

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Overview

Each of the duo swings their mallet overhead, happily bringing it down onto their target with great force. While its 11 frame startup is only decent compared to most of their kit, it's very quick for a forward smash, the 2nd fastest in the game, in fact. Its impressive speed doesn't sacrifice power in return, either. As it's able to reliably take stocks around 70%. Aside from the typical hard read/punish that most f-smashes serve as, such a fast instance of the move is great for punishing opponents who carelessly grab one of the Ice Climbers, potentially robbing an opponent of their stock at mid percents even when they were the one landing an attack.

When landing a grab while desynced, the partner can be made to buffer a smash attack as the leader throws the opponent, greatly enhancing their damage and launch power. Combining a forward or back throw with an f-smash turns the otherwise very weak throws into devastating kill moves, with f-throw-f-smash being their strongest, and b-throw-f-smash being a close second. (While the back throw variant releases opponents at a closer point to the blast zone, the forward throw variant has hitlag and a much longer animation, allowing the partner climber to charge their f-smash for a moment before the throw connects and KO earlier) Backward throw-forward smash's quicker startup makes it harder to DI, but also harder to time.

While forward smash is an inferior two-framing option compared to down or forward tilt due to only reaching the ledge instead of clipping it, it has its use as a powerful ledge regrab punish in some matchups. Hitting much harder than the tilts, even if only one of the two finds their target.

It's quite a good move in its base form, and even with only a single climber, their forward smash is still decent. Posessing the speed and knockback that made it an appealing move, albeit with a good deal less damage and safety,

Hitboxes

Leader

ID	Part	Rehit rate	Damage	SD	Angle type	BK	KS	FKV	Radius	Bone	Offset			H×	SDI×	T%	Sound	Hit bits	Hit part
Early hit
0	0	0	12.0%	0	Forward	50	105	0	5.5	top	0.0	5.5	8.0	1.0×	1.0×	0%	Punch	All	All
1	0	0	12.0%	0	Forward	50	105	0	4.0	top	0.0	4.0	3.0	1.0×	1.0×	0%	Punch	All	All
Late hit
0	0	0	12.0%	0	Forward	50	105	0	4.5	top	0.0	3.0	8.0	1.0×	1.0×	0%	Punch	All	All
1	0	0	12.0%	0	Forward	50	105	0	4.0	top	0.0	4.0	3.0	1.0×	1.0×	0%	Punch	All	All

Partner

The hitboxes have two possible X offsets depending on whether the partner is facing right or left (respectively), preventing issues with the Z-axis.

ID	Part	Rehit rate	Damage	SD	Angle type	BK	KS	FKV	Radius	Bone	Offset			H×	SDI×	T%	Sound	Hit bits	Hit part
Early hit
0	0	0	9.0%	0	Forward	50	126	0	5.5	top	4.0 or -4.0	5.5	8.0	1.0×	1.0×	0%	Punch	All	All
1	0	0	9.0%	0	Forward	50	126	0	4.0	top	4.0 or -4.0	4.0	3.0	1.0×	1.0×	0%	Punch	All	All
Late hit
0	0	0	9.0%	0	Forward	50	126	0	4.5	top	4.0 or -4.0	3.0	8.0	1.0×	1.0×	0%	Punch	All	All
1	0	0	9.0%	0	Forward	50	126	0	4.0	top	4.0 or -4.0	4.0	3.0	1.0×	1.0×	0%	Punch	All	All