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Freezing

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Not to be confused with the freeze glitch. For game freezing, see game crash.
Blizzard, a freezing attack, being used in Melee
Blizzard, a freezing attack, being used in Brawl
Blizzard, a freezing attack, being used in Ultimate

Freezing, also known as ice, is an attack effect in the Super Smash Bros. series, which debuted in Super Smash Bros. Melee and has appeared in every subsequent game. It causes a character to be encased in ice while taking knockback, preventing them from taking action for a certain amount of time in replacement of the hitstun they would usually experience.

Freezing attacks are boosted by Freezing Attack stickers in Super Smash Bros. Brawl's The Subspace Emissary and the support spirit skill Water & Ice Attack ↑, as well as certain Spirit Battle conditions in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. In Ultimate, the spirit skill or trait Water/Freezing Resist ↑ weakens freezing attacks. The support spirit skill Ice-Floor Immunity prevents the equipped fighter from being frozen or being damaged by Spirit Battle ice floors, but does not affect the damage the player takes from freezing attacks.

General properties[edit]

In all games, a freezing attack needs to inflict knockback of at least 52.5 units to freeze the target, which matches the minimum knockback required to trigger their heavy flinching animation. When a character gets frozen, their knockback is calculated as usual, but they decelerate slower as they fly away (with a launch speed decay of 0.03 per frame, down from 0.051), and their falling speed is reduced (by 0.7× from Brawl onward), giving them significantly floatier physics and causing them to cover a longer distance. While frozen, characters also take 0.5× damage and 0.25× knockback from subsequent attacks, hindering the effectiveness of KO setups against frozen opponents, with even powerful meteor smashes dealing negligible knockback. Frozen characters cannot be grabbed.

In Melee, being hit by a freezing attack causes a variation of the ping sound to play; only those that deal high enough knockback, such as the Freezie and Articuno's attack, use the actual ping sound. From Brawl onward, freezing attacks use their own sound effects, with the exception of Mr. Game & Watch's Judge #8.

Freeze time[edit]

The amount of frames characters are frozen for is determined differently across games, though in all of them, the damage inflicted by the freezing attack is a factor, and it is altered by both button mashing from the victim's part and dealing damage to them while frozen. Additionally, remaining freeze time will begin decaying immediately, even during hitlag, meaning that non-projectile ice attacks effectively have a lower frame advantage. In Melee, the formula for the initial freeze time is damage * 12.5, rounded down; button mashing reduces it by 3 frames per input, and attacks reduce it by 0.75× of the damage they would deal to a non-frozen opponent, even if the attack has a freezing effect. In Brawl and Smash 4, freeze time is reduced overall; the formula is changed to damage * 12 rounded down, and button mashing reduces freeze time by 4 frames per input (7.2 with buttons in Smash 4, though they cannot be inputted as quickly as stick inputs), while attacks reduce it by 2× of the damage they would deal to a non-frozen opponent. In these three games, hitting a frozen opponent with a flame attack thaws them out immediately.

In Ultimate, freeze time has undergone significant changes. The new formula for the initial freeze time is 5d + 0.5p, rounded down, where d is the damage dealt by the freezing attack, taking the 1v1 multiplier and modifiers such as stale-move negation into account, while p is the target's percent before the attack connects (unlike other status conditions such as burying and sleep, which use the post-hit percent). For example, if a character is hit by a fully charged PK Freeze (which deals 23% damage) at 25%, they are initially frozen for 150 frames in a 1v1, and 127 frames in battles with more players. Additionally, freezing now has a maximum duration of 250 frames. Button mashing still reduces freeze time by 4 frames per input (7.2 with buttons), but attacking frozen opponents has considerably different effects depending on the kind of attack used:

  • If the attack has a freezing effect, it adds 0.67× of the initial freeze time it would otherwise inflict.
  • If the attack has neither a flame nor freezing effect, it adds freeze time equal to 0.38p - d/4, with p and d working the same as in the standard formula. As a result, attacking frozen opponents increases their freeze time instead of decreasing it like in previous games, although more damaging attacks counterintuitively add less freeze time at the same percents as less damaging ones.
  • If the attack has a flame effect, it sets the freeze time to 0.38p + 1.38d, regardless of the remaining amount at the time of the hit. This generally causes the opponent to thaw out quicker, but still has the counterintuitive effects of being less effective the sooner they are to thawing out, and more damaging flame attacks being less effective for reducing the freeze time.
    • All these increases to freeze time still abide by the 250-frame cap, and can only be done up to 5 times until the opponent thaws out.

Uniquely, Hero's Kacrackle Slash applies a 2× multiplier to the initial freeze time, giving him a greater advantage over the opponent compared to other freezing attacks. Furthermore, multi-hit freezing attacks (namely the Ice Climbers' Blizzard) have a new accumulation mechanic that lets them freeze opponents even if they deal less than 52.5 units of knockback. More specifically, each hit's resulting freeze time from the formula (if they would have caused freezing) is added together if the target is kept in hitstun between them, and if the combined value exceeds 263, the opponent is frozen by the hit to have crossed the threshold, using its individual freeze time. For example, in a 1v1 match with stale-move negation disabled, Blizzard can freeze as early as 28.4% with 9 hits; if there is no percent increase between hits (such as by the Fixed Damage option in Training mode), this instead happens at around 37%, which can be verified by the result of (5 * 2.16 + 0.5 * 37) * 9 exceeding 263. As this only takes damage into account, it works regardless of the opponent's weight or knockback modifiers, unless they take no hitstun as a result of either armor or the attack dealing flinchless knockback.

In all games, a frozen character automatically jumps after thawing out, canceling out most of their remaining launch speed, and can perform other actions immediately (except in Melee, where they sustain 16 frames of ending lag), though their horizontal momentum is still temporarily locked. Additionally, they are protected from subsequent freezing attempts for 60 frames after thawing out.

Overall, freezing is unreliable for conventional combos and KO setups compared to other status conditions, due to the opponent's greatly reduced damage and knockback taken during it, as well as lacking any frame advantage when they thaw out. However, it can still be a useful way to build damage, due to button mashing's relatively weak effect on it causing characters to usually remain frozen for a prolonged amount of time. In Ultimate, Lucas' PK Freeze is also notorious for launching at a low angle that is strengthened in effectiveness by its freezing effect, causing characters to fly much farther than usual due to their combination of reduced launch speed decay and longer immobile time, which makes it an excellent edgeguarding and horizontal KO option.

The Subspace Emissary[edit]

Freezing is one of the more useful effects in The Subspace Emissary: it deals extra damage to flame-based enemies and about half of the bosses, and is only specifically resisted by Glices. However, it cannot cause non-fighter enemies to freeze, and attacks with the freezing effect are rare and almost exclusively indirect, which most enemies and bosses resist; Judge is the only non-indirect freezing attack available in The Subspace Emissary, and it can only be used at random.

List of freezing attacks[edit]

By characters[edit]

Character Move(s) Games
Giga Bowser Down smash Super Smash Bros. MeleeSuper Smash Bros. BrawlSuper Smash Bros. 4Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Hero Command Selection (Kacrackle Slash) Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Ice Climbers Ice Shot Super Smash Bros. MeleeSuper Smash Bros. BrawlSuper Smash Bros. Ultimate
Blizzard
Iceberg Super Smash Bros. BrawlSuper Smash Bros. Ultimate
Kirby Ice Breath Super Smash Bros. 4
Kirby (Copy Abilities) Ice Shot Super Smash Bros. MeleeSuper Smash Bros. BrawlSuper Smash Bros. Ultimate
PK Freeze Super Smash Bros. BrawlSuper Smash Bros. 4Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Magic (Blizzaga) Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Lucas PK Freeze Super Smash Bros. BrawlSuper Smash Bros. 4Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Luigi Ice Ball Super Smash Bros. 4
Mega Man Ice Slasher
Mr. Game & Watch Judge (number 8) Super Smash Bros. MeleeSuper Smash Bros. BrawlSuper Smash Bros. 4Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Ness PK Freeze (custom PK Flash) Super Smash Bros. 4
Sora Magic (Blizzaga) Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

By items[edit]

Character Move(s) Games
Assist Trophies Krystal: Ice Blast Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Riki: Freezinate Super Smash Bros. 4Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Wily Capsule: Ice projectiles Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Freezie Thrown Freezie Super Smash Bros. MeleeSuper Smash Bros. BrawlSuper Smash Bros. 4Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Attacking a Freezie Super Smash Bros. BrawlSuper Smash Bros. 4Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Poké Ball Pokémon Abomasnow: Ice Punch Super Smash Bros. 4Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Abomasnow: Blizzard Super Smash Bros. 4Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Alolan Vulpix: Icy Wind Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Articuno: Icy Wind Super Smash Bros. Melee
Ditto: Transform (if the summoner possesses freezing attacks) Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Kyurem: Icy Wind Super Smash Bros. 4Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Suicune: Blizzard Super Smash Bros. Melee
Suicune: Contact with head before attacking Super Smash Bros. BrawlSuper Smash Bros. 4Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Suicune: Aurora Beam Super Smash Bros. BrawlSuper Smash Bros. 4Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Togepi: Powder Snow Super Smash Bros. MeleeSuper Smash Bros. BrawlSuper Smash Bros. 4Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

By enemies and bosses[edit]

Enemy/Boss Attack(s) Games
Blue Bubble Ramming into the player Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS
Crazy Hand Tri-Poke (third hit) Super Smash Bros. MeleeSuper Smash Bros. Brawl
Frozen Rope Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Cryogonal Ice Beam Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS
Giga Bowser Down smash Super Smash Bros. MeleeSuper Smash Bros. Ultimate
Glice Ice attack Super Smash Bros. BrawlSuper Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS
Marx Ice balls Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Master Hand Icy Wind Super Smash Bros. 4

By stage hazards[edit]

In addition to natural stage hazards, the Spirit Battle condition "The floor is frozen" creates a hazard that inflicts freezing damage.

Stage Hazard Games
Gerudo Valley Kotake's ice spell Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DSSuper Smash Bros. Ultimate
Mushroom Kingdom U Falling Icicles Super Smash Bros. for Wii USuper Smash Bros. Ultimate

Trivia[edit]