While playing Smash Ultimate, you may have noticed times where attacks seem to deal more damage/knockback than others. In this article, we’ll go over why this happens in detail so you can optimize your damage output and killing potential when playing certain characters.
While playing Smash Ultimate, you may have noticed times where an attack (you were either taking or receiving) seemed to deal more damage or knockback than it does at other times. This isn’t just some random variable or glitch, but a gameplay feature to keep in mind. Something not really explicitly stated by the game is that many characters’ attacks have certain “sweet spots”.
This means that there is a certain time frame and/or place for characters where their attacks will deal the most damage and knockback possible. We’ll be going over a few examples of these general sweet spots before going over a few characters who have entire movesets (or kits) built around this mechanic.
Characters will usually only have a few moves at most that have sweet spots—if any at all. These attacks will fall into two categories, physical attacks or energy attacks.
If an attack with a sweet spot is a physical attack the general rule of thumb is to have the opponent lined up with the edge of the attack. For example, Ness’s forward smash attack. With this attack, Ness swings his baseball bat at his enemy. If the farther end of the baseball bat connects, the enemy will receive additional damage and knockback, so it’s best to try to position yourself farther from your enemy to land this attack.
Energy attacks with sweet spots follow a very similar principle. Usually these attacks will have a ball of energy or an explosion as a part of the attack, and said object is usually a bit disjointed from the characters. Rather than having your character hit the enemy with his own body, it’s best to line up opponents so that this energy blast or explosion is connecting. An example of this can be seen with Mario’s forward smash.
Mario is an example of a character with only one sweet spot in his moveset: his forward smash. Here, it’s best to try and position your opponent so that they are being hit directly by the blast that Mario creates. You’ll know if you successfully landed the attack by a slightly different sound cue than normal as well as the opponent being launched back with a flame effect added to them. If you want to finish with this move, keep this spacing in mind as it greatly enhances knockback and therefore kill-power.
If you want consistency, then Mario’s other directional smash attacks are also solid options that pack a solid punch and knockback, and are consistent all throughout their duration offering no risk or reward for landing the attack at different locations.
It’s important to note that sweet spots aren’t just exclusive to smash attacks as well. Some moves, such as Captain Falcon’s forward aerial attack, have sweet spots that, if used correctly, can have devastating results for their opponent.
Some characters, however, will take it a step further. While most characters only have a few attacks with sweet spots, thus they are important to utilize but not necessarily mandatory, a few characters will have sweet spots present through their entire moveset.
Following the pattern of sweet spots established earlier where spacing out some distance between your character and your opponent’s is key, Marth’s sweet spot lies on the tip of his blade. As one of the first characters to focus so heavily on this mechanic back in Super Smash Bros. Melee, this has led to the sweet spot concept’s nickname being known as the “tipper” mechanic.
Every attack of Marth’s utilizes his blade in some way, thus playing Marth is a bit more of a complex affair. Players must keep in mind how Marth’s hitboxes feel and keep their opponents at a distance to be able to properly land the sweet spot of their blade. If they miss their attack, it leaves them wide open for punishment.
If you find yourself unhappy with this playstyle of constantly having to space out your opponent, we recommend picking up Lucina. She has the same exact moveset as Marth, being an echo fighter, but has no risk involved as her blade lacks the tipper mechanic completely: her damage and knockback distribution is even across her sword.
Unlike Marth, with whom players need to keep their distance to land powerful attacks against their opponent, Roy’s strength lies in the base/hilt of his sword. Thus, the closer you are to your opponent, his attacks will deal more damage and knockback. This system results in a character with a much more aggressive playstyle as, even if Roy misses his sweet spot, the tip and edge of his sword is still an attack. This means that even if the effectiveness of the attack is reduced (often called landing a “sour spot”), enemies will still receive damage and can’t punish Roy as easily as Marth.
Roy’s aggressive playstyle is also handy in punishing players who constantly shield, as his attacks will easily connect with those shields and cause a great deal of shield pressure as the shield takes hit after hit.
If players find themselves unhappy with the sweet spots on Roy as well, however, he also has an echo fighter of his own: Chrom.
Chrom has largely the same moveset and characteristics as Roy, but with one key difference: his recovery. Borrowing his recovery from Ike, Chrom’s up special is a great way to kill opponents, and is much stronger than Roy’s recovery. When it comes to utility, however, Roy’s recovery is without a doubt superior as you can at least gain some horizontal momentum and/or distance with it. That’s not saying much as his recovery is largely mediocre in terms of vertical or horizontal travel, but Chrom/Ike’s recovery in comparison only offers a little more vertical movement upwards before he shoots straight back down, with no horizontal movement options available.
Experiment with characters and take note of moments where it feels like their attacks are randomly more powerful. Then take those characters to training mode and test their attacks out with the previously mentioned general rules of sweet spots in mind: try to hit characters with the outer edge of attacks. Since these moves will often have a deep sound cue play and deal more damage and knockback, they are easily recognizable and satisfying to pull off. From there, it’s just a matter of amping up your use of these sweet spots in actual gameplay and keeping spacing in mind while playing.
