Movement
Dash
Dashing is the most important grounded movement option in the game. Quickly flicking the stick to the side causes your character to enter their initial dash animation that has duration and speed dependent on character. From this state you can instantly change direction by flicking your stick to the other side and dashing in that direction (dashdancing). You can also jump, giving you access to important techniques such as wavedashing and jump cancelling. Some characters such as Marth also have dash animations that can be abused to make them very difficult to hit. Dash is however a limited state, from which most attacks cannot be performed directly. Tilts and smash attacks are inaccessible without techniques such as jump cancelling and pivots. You also cannot crouch during dash.
Run
After the initial dash animation ends if your stick is still pushed to the side your character will enter run. Run is a much less useful state than dash as you cannot dashdance but it still has its uses. For one, run can be interrupted by crouching, allowing you to perform any grounded attack (run cancel).
Crouch
Crouching is a very important state. Crouching decreases the size of the player character's hitbox, often to great effect (sheik, puff) and reduces knockback received by a factor of x0.67, allowing you to withstand attacks without being knocked down for longer. This also reduces the hitlag caused by moves.
Jump
Jump moves the player character from the ground to the air. Jumps have a few frames of startup (jumpsquat) that vary per-character and all characters can jump a second time in air, with some characters having several airjumps. Grounded jumps have two variants, a shorthop and a fullhop. shorthopping is performed by releasing the jump button before the end of jumpsquat.
Attacks
Defensive Mechanics
Shield
Pressing L or R activates your character's shield. Shield comes out on frame 1 (maybe there are exceptions idklol) and covers most of the character's body. Shield size is highly variable per character with extremes such as Mr. Game & Watch having lots of vulnerable areas (badly phrased) and as shield health is depleted the shield will get smaller and cover less of the character's body. Shields start with 60 health and shield health is depleted at a rate of 0.28 health per frame while shielding and attacks deal damage x0.7 shield health. While not shielding, shield health regenerates at a rate of 0.07 units per frame.
Directional Influence
Directional Influence (usually abbreviated as DI) is a mechanic that lets the receiver of an attack affect its trajectory by holding a direction while being hit. DI can be used to make comboing difficult, or to live for longer by DIing to increase travel distance to the blast zone. Effective punish game requires using DI mixups to set up edgeguards or kill.
Smash Directional Influence
Smash directional influence (abbreviated SDI) allows the receiver of an attack to alter their position during hitlag. Upon flicking the stick, the stick's X and Y coordinates will be multiplied by 6 and the player character will be teleported that distance. This can be performed on every hitlag frame except the first, and can be performed several times on the same attack. SDI is useful for escaping multihit moves, infamously decreasing the effectiveness of fox's uThrow uAir combo.
Automatic Smash Directional Influence
Automatic smash directional influence (abbreviated ASDI) is similar to SDI with a few key differences. It multiplies stick values on the last frame of hitlag by 3 thusly moving the player character by half the distance of a comparable SDI and can be buffered. Unlike SDI, you can ASDI from air to ground, making it a very powerful defensive option. ASDI also has the strange property of reading the C-stick values and prioritising them over the analog stick. This allows you to DI in one direction and ASDI in another which unlocks options such as Amsah techs.
Spotdodge
Spotdodging by pressing down while in shield renders the player character fully intangible for some frames, with startup, intangible frames, and endlag varying on a per-character basis, with extremes like Mr. Game & Watch being in lag for more time than he is intangible.
Roll
Rolling by pressing left or right while in shield moves the player character in the direction pressed and gives some frames of intangibility. Framedata and distance moved is dependent on character and sometimes on direction of the roll.
Airdodge
Airdodging by pressing L or R and optionally a direction renders the player character fully intangible while in the air and if a direction is pressed moves them a short distance in that direction. The player character is left helpless after an airdodge. Airdodges are intangible from frame 4 and have intangibility duration depending on character. The main use of airdodging is to use the momentum given by a directional airdodge to wavedash.
Game Mechanics
"Smash" Attacks
You can charge a smash attack by performing the commands required for a Smash, and holding those commands down. Upon release, a more powerful version of the attack is released.
e.g. F-Smash (Hold Forward and A)
The charged versions of smash attacks are very rarely used, as they inherently telegraph themselves and are thus, easily avoided.
Double Jumping
After you have jumped, it is possible to jump again (For some characters this can be repeated beyond a second jump). You can change your direction very easily using double jumping.
Shielding
By pressing either R/L, you can bring up a shield that covers your entire body (for most characters). This will cover you irrespective of the section that an attack is aimed.
The shield is analogue, so the strength with with the button is pressed corresponds to the strength of the shield. The shield takes longer than you might expect to appear and disappear. You can spot dodge, roll, or even Up B out of a shield instantly. You can also grab by pressing "A" as well.
Spot Dodging
By simultaneously pressing R/L and Down, your character will "Spot Dodge". That is, literally dodge any move whilst standing. (This is of course provided that the move is not longer than the dodge state frames)
Aerial Dodging
By simultaneously pressing R/L and, optionally, any of the 8 directions, your character will "Aerial Dodge". That is, literally dodge in that direction out of the way of any move whilst in the air. (This is of course provided that the move is not longer than the dodge state frames). This is far more risky than a spot dodge, as the resulting state it puts you in prevents you from attacking or performing any other move until you touch the ground again. (There are exceptions)
Rolling
By simultaneously pressing R/L and Left/Right, your character will "Roll". This is an evasive manoeuvre that places you away from you initial position, this can be punished easily if used excessively, as it has fairly large recovery time.
"Up B"ing
The majority of characters can utilize their Up B move to gain height. Unlike other moves you can grab the edge through the move, and the move (for most characters) is predominantly used purely for recovering to the ledge.
Ledge Grabbing
By arriving at a position on level or just below the edge, your character will grab onto the ledge. This provides him with a few frames of invincibility. From this position he has a number of options available to him.
Ledge Grabbing is frequently used by an attacker to prevent the recovering defender from grabbing onto edge, because only one person can ever occupy the space at one time. This is called Edge Hogging.
L-Canceling
When your character hits the ground during the animation of an aerial attack there is a delay while your character lands. This delay is most evident with moves like Link's or Gannon's down-airs, although it is present with every aerial in the game. You can drastically reduce this delay by pushing L or R at the moment you hit the ground.
L-Canceling is essential for many high level techniques, such as Falco's Pillaring.
Wave Dashing
Wave Dashing is a special movement technique which allows characters to attack while moving. Some characters can Wave Dash faster than they can run, such as Luigi and the Ice Climbers.
Wave Dashing is a variation on Wave Landing. To Wave Land perform an air-dodge (referred to as Aerial Dodge earlier in this guide) diagonally into the ground the moment before your character lands. Your character will slide across the ground. While sliding, you may perform any move your character can do which standing on the ground, including Smash Attacks.
Wave Dashing is the same technique, but used in a different way. While standing on the ground, perform a jump. The moment your jump animation takes your character off the ground, perform a Wave Land. Your character will begin their jump animation, and then immediately slide across the ground, as if they had Wave Landed. A skilled player can swiftly Wave Dash back and forth to confuse opponents, or chain multiple Wave Dashes together to quickly move across the stage, or to position themselves to attack enemies.
Every character's Wave Dash is different. "Floaty" characters such as Luigi, the Ice Climbers, Samus and Marth have the longest wave dashes. Fast characters, such as Sheik and Fox have shorter, but faster Wave Dashes. Heavy Characters such as Gannon and Bowser have very short and slow Wave Dashes. Peach and Zelda's Wave Dashes as so short that they are considered useless.
Wave Dashes can also be used to quickly Edge Hog. Position your character so they are facing away from the edge, and looking towards the level. Wave Dash backwards, and your character will slide off the level backwards and grab the edge.
