Frozen is a state which characters enter under varying circumstances, most commonly being hit by a Freezie. In this state, characters are unable to do anything. Characters thaw out naturally over time, although button mashing helps break out faster. Being hit with a fire attack or an explosion will immediately undo the freezing. How long a character stays frozen depends on both current damage and what caused the freezing.
Frozen characters cannot be affected by other status effects (such as being asleep, buried, or stunned), take very low knockback, and cannot be grabbed. The ice also reduces the damage of all attacks to about half. Fire/explosion attacks do not get any benefit or penalty other than removing the ice.
Typically, the hit that causes freeing will send a character upwards. This has the effect of making it difficult to push a frozen character off an edge, as well as making most freeze-based KOs occur off the top.
Causes of Freezing[]
Generally, all ice attacks have a remote chance of freezing the enemy. More specifically:
- Freezie - The most common way a character becomes frozen. When a Freezie is thrown at an opponent, the opponent will be encased in a block of ice for a few seconds.
- Giga Bowser's Down Smash - Giga Bowser will retract into his shell and spin rapidly, occasionally freezing opponents.
- Ice Climbers' Ice Shot - Can occasionally freeze opponents with high damage percentages, though the effect wears off extremely quickly. Also, the opponent flies up quite fast, but due to its short freeze time, it isn't really enough to make a difference.
- Ice Climbers' Blizzard - When the Ice Climbers use their Down Special Move, they will release a small gust of wind from their hands. The characters that make contact with the attack will be encased in a block of ice for a split second.
- Ice Climbers' Final Smash - Iceberg - A massive iceberg rises from the ground covering most of the stage. The iceberg can freeze any opponents who touch it for a period of time. They will bounce back after being frozen.
- Lucas's PK Freeze - Lucas's Neutral Special Move. He fires off a large snowflake that acts similarly to PK Flash. After the snowflake charges enough, it will explode, freezing anyone in the surrounding area, as well as harshly damaging the players who are hit.
- Mr. Game & Watch's Judge (8) - When someone is hit with an 8, they will be frozen and fly up.
- Articuno's Blizzard - Articuno will unleash a large ring of ice. Any character that is in Blizzard's blast radius will become frozen for a few seconds.
- Togepi's Powder Snow - One of the attacks Togepi can use while using Metronome is Powder Snow, for which Togepi will release a small blast of ice from its body. Any character that is in the radius of the blast of ice will become frozen for a few seconds.
- Suicune's attacks - In Melee, the frozen effect only lasts very briefly, but in Brawl, if a character touches Suicune when it appears, he or she will become frozen for a Freezie-like amount of time.
- Crazy Hand - A few of Crazy Hand's attacks can cause freezing.
- Glices - A Glice's attack will freeze Fighters. This usually lasts just long enough for the Glice to attack again.
- Mega Man's Ice Slasher - If the Ice Slasher hits a character, he or she will become frozen for some time.
Trivia[]
- In Super Smash Bros. Melee, if players are KO'd in Stamina Mode by freezing, they will remain frozen for the rest of the match.
- In Super Smash Bros. Brawl, if a frozen character gets Star KO'd, the sound of the ice shattering can be heard, but the character will be shown frozen while flying in the background.
- In Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, if a frozen character goes past the blast line, there is a chance that instead of using their KO voice clip, they will instead use their damage voice clips instead, use both of them simultaneously or nothing at all.