Lag

Lag is a term that indicates a period of time when a character is performing an attack animation, but the move is not active. During this time, the player is unable to perform in any other action, with the exception of moving through the air when concerning aerial moves. The two main categories of lag that every move in the game has are startup lag and ending lag. For aerials and certain special moves when used in the air, there's an additional form of ending lag that can occur called landing lag. The more lag a move has, the easier it is to evade the attack and punish the user. Typically, powerful moves have more startup and/or endlag, though this is not always the case.

Startup lag
Startup lag, also known as just startup and windup, is the time period between a move being initiated and the move having an effect, such as the length of time before a hitbox is first produced. Examples of moves with notable start-up include 's Hammer and 's forward smash. There are some moves that have little start up such as 's reflector and 's rest.

There is some start up for moves that can be used for recovery such as 's Fire Fox and 's Vanish which will leave them open to being edge guarded.

Ending lag
Ending lag, also known as cool down, is the time period between the end of the active duration of an attack and the first act-able frame following the end of the move's animation. For instance, the length of time after an attack's hitboxes ceases that the character can move again. Almost all attacks have more ending lag than startup lag, though generally, attacks with lower start-up lag tend to have proportionally more ending lag and vice-versa. Attacks such as 's dash attack and Jigglypuff's down smash are notorious for having an extreme amount of ending lag. However, there are a few attacks with little ending lag, such as Fox's Blaster or Pikachu's down tilt.

There are some ways to avoid the ending lag of certain attacks. Fox is able to cancel the ending lag of his reflector by jumping out of it while he can cancel the lag of his blaster by auto-canceling it. Another way to cancel the ending lag of a move is by ledge canceling, which can do by performing a sliding up tilt off a ledge.

Landing Lag
Landing lag is the lag incurred when an airborne character lands on the ground for any reason. The amount of lag depends on what action the character is performing upon landing.

Normal Landing
Characters will experience normal landing if they land on the ground without performing any action, such as an attack, outside of air dodging. This will give characters about 3-4 frames of lag before they are able to move again. The amount of lag a character experiences varies depending on the character.

Aerial Landing
If a character lands while in the middle of an aerial attack, they go through a unique animation that lasts for significantly longer than a normal landing. A clear example is 's down aerial; hitting the ground during the attack results in Link's sword getting stuck, and he has to spend a notable amount of time pulling it out before he can do anything else. Each aerial attack has its own amount of landing lag; most special moves tend to continue execution instead of being interrupted when the user lands while using them, though a few undergo their own unique landing animation if the character lands after initiating them in the air, such as Falcon Kick.

In the Super Smash Flash series
In Super Smash Flash, characters have little start up and ending lag in their attacks which allows them to keep throwing out attacks continuously without being punished. Due to the game mechanics, landing lag did not exist in any form.

In Super Smash Flash 2, the majority of the Smash mechanics in the official games were implemented in here, including the mechanics of lag.

Attacks hardly suffer large amounts of lag, be it start up or ending lag, when compared to the official games. Attacks that suffer quite a bit of lag is minimal when compared to the official games. Landing lag is one of the most overhauled changes in SSF2. The majority of character attacks have little to no landing lag that will hinder them outside of a few select character attacks and special moves. This is due to the auto cancel window being larger then it is in the official games and L-canceling being automatic, which lowers the amount of lag that any character experiences. It is mostly advised for players to perform certain aerial attacks when they are attacked and fall into tumble so they won't be put into a tech chasing situation or slide off the stage, where they will be put into a edge guarding sitution.