Spike
This article is about the Melee usage of "spike". For information about Super Smash Bros. and Brawl's "spikes," see Meteor Smash.
A Spike is a type of attack in the Super Smash Bros. Melee that sends the opponent downward until the hitstun wears off. A spike is not to be confused with a meteor smash, which also sends the opponent downward, but the knockback of which can be cancelled before the hitstun wears off through meteor cancelling.
When referring to Super Smash Bros. and Brawl, people often use the terms "spike" and "meteor smash" interchangeably, as all downwards-hitting attacks in both games are meteor smashes.
Technical information
In Melee, hitboxes that send opponents at an angle between 260 and 280 degrees are recognised by the game as meteor smashes. However, there exist some hitboxes that send opponents downward, but at a diagonal trajectory outside this angle window. As a result, the game does not recognise them as meteor smashes, and are thus unable to be meteor cancelled. In Brawl, the angle window for what the game recognises as meteor smashes was increased to being between 230 and 310 degrees, enough so to cover the downward diagonal trajectory the spikes in Melee had. As a result, the spiking hitboxes in Melee that retained their trajectories are recognised as meteor smashes in Brawl, and are capable of being meteor cancelled.
Game application
Spikes have the benefits of meteor smashes; knocking the opponent downward with gravity assisting the knockback. But they do so however, without the drawback of the opponent having the ability to completely negate the knockback with a jump or recovery move. As a result, spikes are extremely effective KO moves in edge guarding situations - recovering from even moderately powerful spikes is usually impossible above extremely low percents. Because of this, many smashers who main characters with practical spikes try to integrate spikes into play as often as possible.
List of spikes in Super Smash Bros. Melee
Characters with useable spikes
- Captain Falcon - Down aerial; the so-called nipple spike, as only the top hitbox of the three hitboxes of Falcon's down air is a spike. The two lower hitboxes meteor smash. While notoriously difficult to land, it is the most powerful spike in Melee.
- Falco - Down aerial; while the spike lasts for its entire duration in NTSC regions, only the first half of attack spikes in PAL regions.
- Fox - Down aerial; extremely weak, set knockback.
- Ganondorf - Down special, Wizard's Foot, the entirety of its hitbox duration when used in the air.
- Marth - Down aerial when tipped; its angle was adjusted in PAL regions to a meteor smash angle, thus being a meteor smash in PAL regions.
- Roy - Up Smash; only works if an airborne opponent is hit with the tip of the sword.
Other spikes
- Dr. Mario's up smash contains a spike, though it only hits grounded opponents.
- Master Hand and Crazy Hand - The lower hitboxes of the Finger Drill and the Finger Walk are spikes designed to keep targets in place for the next part of the move.
- Pokéball Pokémon:
Spikes in Super Smash Bros. Brawl
It is technically possible for spikes to exist in unmodified Brawl; the increased meteor smash angle window does not include all downward angles. And if the angle of a hitbox in Brawl is hacked to outside the standard 0-360 range of angles (for example, 630, which would equal a meteor smash angle of 270), the game will not recognize it as a meteor smash, and it will therefore act as a spike.
There are a few boss hitboxes with angles in the -70 to -90 range, which while unconfirmed is very likely to not be detected as a meteor smash. Aside from these bosses, however, no known hitboxes in the game naturally have such angles, and there are no known hitboxes that hit opponents at an angle lower than what would be considered a semi-spike, but above what the game would consider a meteor smash. As such, spikes are considered a removed element in Brawl.
See also
- Meteor smash - an attack that deals downward knockback but that can be recovered from through meteor cancelling.
- Semi-spike - an attack that hits the opponent at a low horizontal angle that hinders recovery opportunities.
- Stage spike - a spike performed by bouncing an opponent off an angled part of a stage to send them downward.
