Meta Knight Forward Smash Priority
in Brawl, Meta Knight has transcendent priority on most of his moves, including Forward Smash.
in Ultimate, his only transcendent move is the Rapid Jab Finisher (which is universal for all rapid jabs)
so what do we make of forward smash now........................ it's quite good, it's very safe on shield (-6 on shield in general), has incredibly low end lag (17) and has high knockback scaling (108 KBG), it is however somewhat slow with 24 frames of start up
what i really find fascinating about the move is that now that it is no longer a transcendent hitbox, it can clank. but more notably, when it out-prioritises a hitbox (winning an interaction), it does something truly unique; it gives you a whole second of advantage
when fsmash loses an interaction, meta knight goes into rebound, but is usually hit before then. if it trades with another grounded hitbox which clanks with it, both attackers go into rebound. however, when meta knight wins, the opponent goes into rebound, and... fsmash does not hit them, because it clanked. fsmash is only active for a single frame, so the next frame which would hit the opponent does not do so (since there is no hitbox).
this means, during the clank, the opponent suffers 30 frames of hitlag, then between 45 and 58 frames of rebound, whereas meta knight only suffers 17 frames of endlag
in total, the opponent suffers between 58 and 71 frames of being frozen while meta knight is completely actionable; meta knight gets to do LITERALLY ANY move he wants to do
this opens up for combo starters (grab, dash attack, dair) or potent, but slow moves like another fsmash, drill rush, or dimensional cape attack
Meta Knight FSmash can provide >58 frames of advantage while positioned in front of an opponent
