As many of you know, grabbing has been significantly nerfed in Smash Ultimate. However, even with the nerfs compared to its Melee and Smash 4 counterparts, it is still an important tool to use for every character. Today, I’ll be telling you the different ways of grabbing, the importance of each in different situations, and why mixing up different ways of grabbing will help your gameplay improve tremendously.

Roll Cancel Boost Grab

Roll Cancel Boost Grabbing allows your character to have extended range on their dash grabs. Having longer range while grabbing helps every character because it rewards chasing down your opponent, is fantastic in making your opponent give you more space, and is fantastic in messing up opponent’s spacing

Roll cancel boost grabbing allows you to have a larger effective area to use in tandem with other moves such as dash attacks and a variety of special moves your unique character has. For example, a regular dash grab may not be able to reach your opponent, but your dash attack or special move can. So, when you can read the opponent shielding to your dash attack or special move, a Roll Cancel Boost Grab will help you win neutral.

This gives you more space to work with because if the opponent stays in the same area where both a dash attack/special move and a Roll Cancel Boost Grab can hit, then it allows you to have more options against the opponent and they then need to go against your mix-ups. Opponents want to always limit your options, so the most logical thing for them to do is to back out of your effective range. This allows you to have more space do things such as dash dance, jump, and retreating yourself which all help you win neutral.

To perform a roll cancel boost grab, you must start your dash, then as you start, press shield and then press A, like you are performing a shield grab. Do not push shield and A at the same time or else you will perform a regular dash grab. To know if you did it correctly, a small spark or shine from the roll will appear on your character as shown in the image below.

Roll cancel boost grabbing is another tool to increase your effective range, but the tricky timing is difficult for newer players. Once you learn this important piece of tech and implement it in your gameplay, you will experience more neutral exchanges being won.

Pivot Grab

Pivot Grabs have been greatly reduced from Smash 4. However, it is still one of the best ways to bait an opponent chasing you down. With the implementation of characters unable to run past other characters, it significantly reduces the pivot grab’s offensive capabilities but its defensive capabilities are still present.

Pivot grabs help you by giving more range on your grab once performed. This helps deter people who chase. It is a very fast punish to a whiffed attack and mixes up your opponents in their defensive options.

When opponents chase, they will most likely expect either a fully offensive retaliation, such as an attack of your own out of shield or fully defensive response to them chasing you such as dashing away, jumping, shielding, spot dodging, or shield grabbing. Pivot grabs let you have a mix of both offensive and defensive options and open up more options to your disposal.

Like Roll Cancel Boost Grabbing, Pivot Grabbing increases the grab range which boosts your effective range. When running away from your opponent, the pivot grab can help you bait and punish the opponent’s approach option and turn his advantage to your advantage. This increases your options and gives you more chances and more ways to punish your opponent approaching you.

Another way to use implement pivot grabbing is by staggering your own approach. If an opponent is stuck in shield, what you can do is dash towards them, dash back, then pivot grab them. This way you can beat out spotdodging from shield, them holding shield, their shield grab, and some attacks because you would be able to dash out of their effective range.

To do a pivot grab, after you dash or run, simply push the control stick in the other direction and your grab button.

Pivot grabs are easy to do. However, the application of pivot grabs will be difficult to incorporate in gameplay because their most effective use is while you are in disadvantage being chased by an opponent, which normal players would be in a higher pressure situation.

Dash Grab

Dash grabs are the most common way to grab and punish opponents stuck in shield. Dash grabs are the offensive grab option that you will use in neutral knowing that you’ve won the neutral or as a punish option against your opponent. It is standard that every player knows how to dash grab because not only do most characters get fantastic punishes off it, but it is one of the most common ways in the game to transition from the neutral game to the punish game. However, knowing when to dash grab and when not to is the difficult part.

People should dash grab when they know an opponent’s movement option, if the opponent stays in shield, or should be used as a punish option for opponents messing up in neutral or disadvantage. Knowing how fast your character can dash grab is detrimental in improving your game, and being strict with when you dash grab is as important.

An extremely important use of dash grabbing is dashing out of your shield to catch your opponent’s landings. Opponents may use an aerial out of shield to try and hit you in retaliation to your approach, so dashing then shielding the attack will counter this, and after their out of shield option, punishing their landing with a dash grab will make it so that you are now in an advantageous position.

To perform a Dash Grab, simply run towards your opponent, then grab by pushing the grab button.

Standing Grab

Standing grabs are usually moves that are more read-oriented. When you stand and grab someone, you have basically called them out on doing something and are able to grab them without moving. You won’t see standing grab used as much because it's more risky than the other grabs simply because you have to be stationary, but it is mainly used in calling people’s spotdodges, reading a person’s movement such as tech roll in or roll in, or when you are calling out a defensive option while in the opponent’s face such as a spotdodge.

Standing grabs are effective when you would like to scare or slow down the pace against your opponent because while you are stationary, you have the potential to do anything. Opponents in the game will always expect you to do something, so when you just stand there and grab, things get extremely into the mind games which will play to your advantage.

Standing grabs are effective in slowing down the pace, reading your opponent, and causing the most mental damage out of all the grabs simply because you’re stationary. It should be used as a safer read than a smash, a prediction option for defensive skills such as tech in place, or used to style on people such as with walk-up standing grab to really show your dominance.

To do a standing grab, just push the grab button.

Shield Grab

The most defensive grab that is highly abused in lower level play would be shield grabs. Shield grabs are good because they are an easy punish tool for people who do unsafe pressure onto your shield.

The good thing about shield grabbing is that you already have a shield onto you, so if your opponent does an unsafe option onto your shield, a shield grab will almost always be able to punish the opponent. It is an easy tool many players learn early on as a crutch to getting out of a lot of high-pressure situations, but with its strength comes many weaknesses.

The bad thing about shield grabbing is that you automatically concede movement to do this move. With the standing grab, you still have the potential to move and, with dash grabbing, you are mobile which allows you to take stage control. With shield grabbing, you are conceding the neutral and allow your opponent to get the first hit, but if the opponent messes up their advantage state, then it is an easy and fast punish tool you have to push the advantage state that they messed up in.

The strength of this is that shield grabbing will almost always effectively punish unsafe options the opponent does in neutral, but the huge disadvantage is that you give up stage control, and you allow the person to make the first move. If the opponent does not mess up their spacing, shield pressure, or advantage state against you, then you will allow them to win neutral and that will put you into disadvantage.

Safe spacing, safe shield pressure, and baiting out shield grabs all negate shield grabbing strengths and uses, but its reward for punishing opponents who messes these up will greatly benefit the player.

To perform a Shield Grab, hold the Shield button and press the A button.

Conclusion

Grabs, even though they are heavily nerfed from their Smash 4 counterparts, play an extremely important part in Smash Ultimate’s gameplay. Grabs help people transition from neutral to punish, allow for both defensive options and offensive options in neutral, and are a fantastic way to punish opponents in neutral. Grabs are a fantastic neutral tool, but be wary of players reading that grab by doing moves that pullback such as Pit’s side-B, Upperdash Arm, and Falcon’s side-B, Raptor Boost, spot dodges, and attacks that stuff out your approaches and retreats. As always, I hope this guide to grabbing helps you improve gameplay and remember Happy Smashing!

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