Ice Climbers (SSBU)/Side special
Overview
The duo twirls back-to-back with its mallets extended, happily swinging up and out at the end. If separated, the climber who is present twirls on their tiptoes and ends by swinging out horizontally. It sports a long-lasting multihit nature, with adjustable trajectory and vertical gain, and deals great damage if the move connects in its entirety.
For inexperienced players, Squall Hammer is an attractive option due to its great versatility and ease of use, and can lead to spam playstyles early on.
At low percentages, a side special can lead to an up tilt or up aerial, inducing monstrous combos with the up airs that often follow. While conversions out of Squall hammer are seldom true, they're often only a few frames away, and usually work since the opponents won't have enough time to escape anyway. With some desyncing, one of the two can be made to perform their single variant of their side special. This can be used to surround and protect the other climber with disjointed hitboxes while giving them freedom to use any other move, or to trap victims in a prolonged attack that allows the other climber to land a variety of followups. A desynced Squall Hammer with just the 1st Climber can carry the opposition across a large chunk of the stage while granting the 2nd Climber plenty of time to spike the opponent. When attempting this, their forward air should be done out of a dash to make sure they're close enough to land it if the aforementioned Squall Hammer knocks the target away. The moves can also be done the other way around, having the duo's leader use a forward air. While this can KO at high percents, it's not nearly as potent as the one that spikes. Additionally, a single side special performed this way can confirm into grabs and initiate a slew of other deadly setups, such as their infamous forward throw to forward aerial confirm. When desynced only slightly, each of the duo will perform their single-climber variant as if they were separated. This can often occur as a result of buffering the move right after taking a hit or using a different special. This is usually undesireable because it won't have the damage or combo potential of its stronger form, but if positioned just right, opponents can get pulled in between the climbers, taking more of multihits than they're supposed to and actually putting on more damage than the dual variant would've dealt.
Upon isolation, side special's finisher hit packs a horizontal launch angle rather than a diagonal one. This changes its utility significantly, setting up tech chases rather than combos or juggles. While the single and dual variants of Squall Hammer are quite different, the dual variant is unsurprisingly much better, and an incredible move in general. But the single variant is not bad by any means.
Hitbox visualizations
Leader | Partner | |
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Singular | ||
Dual |
Hitboxes
Singular (leader)
Singular (partner)
Dual
Timing
Singular
In the air, the move enables ledge grabs from both sides starting on frame 56.
Front hits 1-5 | 10, 15, 21, 28, 37 |
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Back hits 1-5 | 13, 18, 24, 32, 42 |
Final hit | 49-50 |
Interruptible (grounded) | 78 |
Animation length | 94 |
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Aerial |
Dual
In the air, the move enables ledge grabs from both sides starting on frame 58.
Hits 1-7 | 10, 14, 18, 23, 28, 34, 40 |
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Final hit (early, late) | 51, 52 |
Interruptible (grounded) | 78 |
Animation length | 83 |
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Aerial |
Helplessness landing
Interruptible | 30 |
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Animation length | 37 |
Lag time |
Hitbox |
Hitbox change |
Interruptible |
Parameters
The move alters the Ice Climbers' physics until frame 51 for a singular attack, and frame 53 for a dual attack, period during which it can also gain height by pressing the special move button.
Maximum distance between climbers to attack together | 30 |
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Initial horizontal speed | 0.8 (grounded) 1 (aerial) |
Horizontal acceleration by input | 0.12 (grounded) 0.08 (aerial) |
Minimum stick sensitivity for acceleration | 0.25 |
Horizontal speed modifier on slopes | 0.25 |
Speed multiplier when bouncing off wall | 0.5 |
Minimum speed when bouncing off wall | 0.4 |
Maximum horizontal speed | 1.1 (grounded) 1.3 (aerial) |
Initial upward speed in the air | 0.6 (singular) 1.2 (dual) |
Gravity | 0.1 |
Falling speed | 2.8 |
Added upward speed via button press | 0.8 (singular) 1 (dual) |
Delay between button presses | 10 frames |
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