Roy (SSBM)/Dash attack

Hitbox visualization showing Roy's dash attack.

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OverviewEdit

Roy lunges forward and performs an upward slash. The move is infamous for its horrid hitbox coverage, due to the move's active frames beginning before he swings his sword and ending very early in Roy's sword swipe. This is widely considered in the community to be a developer mistake, as the move is a nearly identical copy of Marth's, with the same exact amount of active frames, startup, and IASA, but with the attack animation slowed down, thus causing a mismatch between when the move can actually hit and when it appears it should hit.

Due in no small part to this development blunder, the move has no real business being used in neutral, but can be used as a combo tool. The hilt sweet spot (which is the highest priority hitbox) has the same hitbox properties as Marth's tipper, and as mentioned above, the exact same frame data (active frames and interrupt, not animation). Due to this fact, the move has similar utility to Marth's in combo, but lacks the range to be as widely applicable. As such, the move should never be "thrown out" randomly in neutral, as the range is so poor and the endlag is high enough, that you will likely be punished severely. However, it can be quite useful in combos under niche circumstances, such as after a down tilt or up throw, if DI'd out or DI'd in respectively. If dash attack itself is DI'd out then it sends almost straight upwards, due to the 110 degree inwards sending angle being mostly negated by the near 20 degrees of outwards DI, with appreciable base knockback, allowing time for a follow-up such as a forward smash finisher or a combo extender like grab or down tilt.

Overall, while this attack is situational at best and terrible if used ignorantly, it still fulfills a solid niche in Roy's combo game and offers more value to his kit than attacks such as up tilt and back aerial.