Hit Drag, also known as Attack Delay or Attack Penetration, refers to an attack that slows down after it connects with a target.

Attack Delay is used in Focus Stimulant, but hit drag is the less ambiguous term, since there are other movement-inhibiting delays in attack animations that don't involve hitting a target.

What is Hit Drag?

When an attack connects with a target, the animation may slow down as the weapon cleaves through the target. The attack becomes noticeably slower compared to when the attack missed the target.

• Hit Drag is most noticeable with melee smash attacks that have a wide cleave or multiple hits. However, not all attacks have hit drag.
• Hit drag serves as an extra differenciater on top of speed, range, and damage of smash attacks. The fastest attacks to spam when there is no hit drag may be different from normal.
• Hit drag also allows the designer to decrease the damage potential and increase the risk of an attack only when it is used to deal damage. So the utility aspects of an attack would not be significantly affected (ex: using an attack to speed up movement or add extra range to a dodge).

Reducing Hit Drag

• While transformed as Dark Knight or White Knight, hit drag is almost entirely removed. This is why attacking while transform will sometimes seem faster even though there is no increase in attack speed.
• Focus Stimulant will remove hit drag while its effect is active.
• The effect of hit drag is reduced if the smash attack hits at an angle or from farther away such that collision area is small, but the attack will still deal normal amount of damage.