Little Mac's Neutral Special...

I'm having a hard time finding out the "special" benefit of the move. Is it something as hard to notice as super armor or invincibility frames?

It looks alot like a normal attack and theres already a decent juggling capable up tilt so thats why my curiosity sparks.



Also....his Forward Smash doesnt kill for anything lmao. is that like more a damage racking move or low priority move?

Little Mac has a power meter that works like SSB4's version. Each time you land a hit the metre goes up one, but resets if you don't combo into your next hit. The metre increases the power of up B, and the power and distance of neutral B. The idea is that at all values of the combo metre, neutral B has enough power and distance to combo into almost anything. The idea is that Little Mac can send someone up high into the air with neutral B, and then finish off with up B for extremely early kills.

Dunno about forward smash, you'll have to wait for a reply from PH, who did the latest Mac revamp.

still confused considering that a weak neutral B can still set up for an Up B kill (in my experience).

is this "power meter" invisible?

I believe that Little Mac's Forward Smash is suppose to represent a gut punch, which would normally stun the opponent that falls victim to one. There were gut punches in all punch-out games and the super gut punch which was in the SNES version, and iirc the Wii and Arcade version.

Well Mike that's the point of neutral special. It combos no matter what level of combo metre you're on.

I guess its just one of those characters that begs more exploration than others

Neutral B's main purpose is to bump up your combo meter a point while giving you a guaranteed up B kill followup. Side smash is a stun punch.

Perfect Hell wrote:

Neutral B's main purpose is to bump up your combo meter a point while giving you a guaranteed up B kill followup.  Side smash is a stun punch.

oh ok so Neutral B is the only thing that boosts "meter" to make the UP B more deadly correct? (also meaning that other specials or normals don't boost this meter)


I figured Side Smash would be some stun thing except it pushes the opponents away from you but I figure that there are still some possibilities maybe.

You must be referring to side tilt then, because side smash has no knockback whatsoever. This move also has high stun, though you have to chase in order to get a followup hit.

All of Mac's attacks boost the meter. What's special about neutral B is that on hit it pops him and the opponent upward and gains interrupt, making it an ideal link to the up b. But all attacks build the meter, so the point is to do a combo and then end it with either side b or up b, and neutral b is capable of setting up that up b.

Perfect Hell wrote:

You must be referring to side tilt then, because side smash has no knockback whatsoever.  This move also has high stun, though you have to chase in order to get a followup hit.

Oh naah you said it right there. It's the Side Smash i'm talking about. It has knockback but barely and without any growth with damage. If the character being hit with the attack is being moved from damaged position then that's already knockback.........but thanks, you answered my question. I was assuming that the move would keep the opponent still since everybody else here said it's a stun punch but yeah that little bit of knockback confused me even though I was starting to think that it's unexpected setup move as Smash attack.

Yeah i've been playing this character for awhile...........


I totally get the side smash but I still don't see it with the Neutral Special


There have been many times where opponent was easily able to escape the Up special after neutral special (probably with Directional Influence) which means that it's not a "guaranteed" setup for the Up special.

Also......there is never an instance where the Neutral Special increases in "power and distance" and if there is than its barely a difference or it still doesn't show an obvious benefit.


It would be cool if somebody could put up a video making great use of Neutral Special in case there is something i'm not doing right

Well basically what you said is right. It does set up Up B especially because of the slight vertical boost on hit, but the problem is you can DI escape it and higher level CPU will always get it right. Unfortunately there's nothing that can be done to stop normal DI from occurring. One benefit it has though is that you can use it straight out of shield. On a human opponent this would be a counter in a sense, and since they didnt expect it most likely they mess up the DI.

Another benefit I believe I found is that it can do an "off the ground" juggle start if the opponent is still on the floor.

Though with all of this the move doesn't seem to have enough benefits to stand out and I barely ever feel like using it to be honest with my experience so far. Maybe you can consider making the "interrupt"/Cancel for move into Up Special more earlier within the frames if you really can't do anything about the DI happening.

I understand about giving it time to see how it goes. I will admit I've only been able to play with Lv10 Cpu's.


Btw to clarify the "combo metre" thing.........its seems that what was meant to be implied is that the Up Special and Side Special temporary increase in damage and knockback are relying on the regular crusade combo system in the game (always showing you how much you have on your icon) and you must initiate before it disappears

Little Mac is a badass in SSB4, I hope you give him that moveset beacuse it is much better compared to his moveset from crusade

mikeyn1gm wrote:

Another benefit I believe I found is that it can do an "off the ground" juggle start if the opponent is still on the floor.

Though with all of this the move doesn't seem to have enough benefits to stand out and I barely ever feel like using it to be honest with my experience so far. Maybe you can consider making the "interrupt"/Cancel for move into Up Special more earlier within the frames if you really can't do anything about the DI happening.

I understand about giving it time to see how it goes. I will admit I've only been able to play with Lv10 Cpu's.


Btw to clarify the "combo metre" thing.........its seems that what was meant to be implied is that the Up Special and Side Special temporary increase in damage and knockback are relying on the regular crusade combo system in the game (always showing you how much you have on your icon) and you must initiate before it disappears

Well, in the next version we've basically decided to make it a REALLY good combo tool on hit, basically guaranteed followups and also given it armor, however to counter-balance it's effectiveness as an approach and counter tool, we made it's knockback direction random (within a range, it always sends in at least somewhat of an upward direction, it basically ranges from diagonal up-left to diagonal up-right and anywhere in between).  This makes the move a great combo starter, very unique, but also requires skill to actually capitalize off the hit.  You have to quickly react to the randomized direction and the way the opponent's DI happened to interact with it.

And actually our built in combo meter system for him is stricter than the game's combo counter.  At some point i'd like to add an actual counter by his HUD.

WolfHub wrote:

Little Mac is a badass in SSB4, I hope you give him that moveset beacuse it is much better compared to his moveset from crusade

Please don't bump 2-month old threads unless they are in the 'Crusade Characters' or 'Unofficial Characters' subforums. This comment could have easily gone into the Little Mac topic.

That said, I don't think they'll give the SSB4 moveset...

Perfect Hell wrote:

mikeyn1gm wrote:

Another benefit I believe I found is that it can do an "off the ground" juggle start if the opponent is still on the floor.

Though with all of this the move doesn't seem to have enough benefits to stand out and I barely ever feel like using it to be honest with my experience so far. Maybe you can consider making the "interrupt"/Cancel for move into Up Special more earlier within the frames if you really can't do anything about the DI happening.

I understand about giving it time to see how it goes. I will admit I've only been able to play with Lv10 Cpu's.


Btw to clarify the "combo metre" thing.........its seems that what was meant to be implied is that the Up Special and Side Special temporary increase in damage and knockback are relying on the regular crusade combo system in the game (always showing you how much you have on your icon) and you must initiate before it disappears

Well, in the next version we've basically decided to make it a REALLY good combo tool on hit, basically guaranteed followups and also given it armor, hover to counter-balance it's effectiveness as an approach and counter tool, we made it's knockback direction random (within a range, it always sends in at least somewhat of an upward direction, it basically ranges from diagonal up-left to diagonal up-right and anywhere in between).  This makes the move a great combo starter, very unique, but also requires skill to actually capitalize off the hit.  You have to quickly react to the randomized direction and the way the opponent's DI happened to interact with it.

And actually our built in combo meter system for him is stricter than the game's combo counter.  At some point i'd like to add an actual counter by his HUD.

That sounds great!

Perfect Hell wrote:

Well, in the next version we've basically decided to make it a REALLY good combo tool on hit, basically guaranteed followups and also given it armor, hover (however) to counter-balance it's effectiveness as an approach and counter tool, we made it's knockback direction random (within a range, it always sends in at least somewhat of an upward direction, it basically ranges from diagonal up-left to diagonal up-right and anywhere in between).  This makes the move a great combo starter, very unique, but also requires skill to actually capitalize off the hit.  You have to quickly react to the randomized direction and the way the opponent's DI happened to interact with it.

And actually our built in combo meter system for him is stricter than the game's combo counter.  At some point i'd like to add an actual counter by his HUD.

Oh geez, that typo changes the whole meaning. Fixed in original post.