Unleashed Power: An Isabelle knockback comparison chart

Originally inspired by this post about Marth and Lucina, I’ve been taking characters into training to track their knockback. I invited newcomer Isabelle to Final Destination to see how well she cleans house.

Other Characters:
Bowser Jr
Sheik
Ganondorf
Young Link

All moves were performed against a static Mario standing in the middle of Final Destination. Percent is when Mario was sent into a blastzone. Obviously this means no DI and that the following percents aren't useful in a real match, but are simply provided as baselines to check against. Compare them to each other or to the numbers for the other characters, for example.

Click the PERCENT KILL column to sort by numbers. Attacks were done with strong hits connecting and as many hits from multi-hit moves hitting as possible.

Move	Percent Kill	Notes
Fsmash	96
UpSmash	112
DownSmash	143
UpTilt	234
DownTilt	127
FTilt	163
DashAttack	239
Jab	NULL	Tiny set knockback move, won’t kill even at 999%.
ForwardAir	181	Strong hit. Middle hit 383%, weakest hit 515%
BackAir	145	Strong hit. Middle hit 329%, weakest hit 463%
UpAir	145	Performed on jumping CPU at height of their first jump
DownAir	250
NeutralAir	172
ForwardThrow	NULL	CPU in center, thrown toward farthest edge. Won’t kill even at 999%.
BackThrow	146	CPU in center, thrown toward closest edge
UpThrow	215
DownThrow	277
Lloid Trap	143
Rod Fthrow	198
Rod Bthrow	290
Rod Uthrow	141
Rod Dthrow	273

For her Fair and Bair knockback values, the strong hit is point-blank, middle hit is … kind of the middle of that (standing on the second concentric ring on Final Destination), and the weakest hit has Isabelle standing nearly at the ledge and pegging Mario with a slingshot pellet.

To test her Rod throws, I put Isabelle herself in the center of FD and threw from there.

Takeaways:

Isabelle is fucking jacked, with incredibly high knockback on many of her moves.

Her Fsmash has limited range but great power. Her party popper equals Bowser Jr’s giant drills but with a fraction of the startup and endlag.

Isabelle’s weed-pulling DownTilt has baffling launching power, killing 5% earlier than Ganondorf’s DownTilt.

While Isabelle’s BackThrow is a rock-solid option that kills at 146%, backwards is her worst Rod throw, not killing until 290%.

If Isabelle can snag someone with her rod, her best option is tossing them off the top of the screen at 141%.

Buried Lloid must be respected, as it kills at 143% -- that’s a lot of power for a trap.

The strong hit of Isabelle’s slingshot Bair is hugely powerful, a blindingly fast projectile that can be spammed twice in each jump and kills at 145%. That’s 63% earlier than a K Rool cannonball.