Ten characters, three default Arms per chacter- 30 arms so far.
I've organized them here, grouped by the "throw type" or "class" (not sure if these are official terms, so these labels may be different elsewhere).
If you want to look something up but can't quite remember it by name, here they all are in alphabetical order, for CTRL + F purposes:
| Blorb | Boomerang | Buff | Bubb | Chakram | Chilla | Coolerang | Cracker | Dragon | Guardian | Homie | Hydra | Ice Dragon | Megaton | Megawatt | Parasol | Phoenix | Popper | Ramram | Retorcher | Revolver | Seekie | Slamamander | Slapamander | Sparky | Thunderbird | Toaster | Triblast | Tribolt | Whammer |
First, some general notes that apply to all ARMS and the interplay between them.
Weight
Arms have either a Light, Medium, or Heavy weight, with a simple "greater-than" dynamic (not rock-paper-scissors as sometimes misnamed).
Punching at one another:
When Arms
match weights, they will both fall to the ground, and then recover to both players.
When a heavier arm hits a lighter arm, the heavier weight
beats the lighter.
So,
Light matches Light and beats nothing.
Medium beats Light, matches Medium and is beaten by Heavy.
Heavy mathches Heavy, and beats everything else.
During rush,
all Arms gain +1 weight. A Heavy can beat anything except another Rush Heavy, a Rush Medium matches a regular heavy and beats a regular medium, and so on.
One unique note on priority in addition to the weight classes: The rapid-fire Multi-Shot arms, Revolver and Retorcher, can but thought of as firing three lights in a row. against a single Light Arm attack two of the three shots will still penetrate, fired through two Light Arms, a single shot may still penetrate. Mediums and Heavys simply absord all three shots.
Plus Arms
When you unlocked a duplicate of an Arm you already own for a character, it gets a one-time upgrade to a plus version, with 10 higher base damage. Some also give slightly higher recovery speed, and Megaton, Megawatt, Whammer and Guardian give +5 to throw damage. and
Distance
All Arms in ARMS have an identical maximum range; the range they extend to if you whiff. You may have encountered the situation where you and your target are seemingly just inches outside of one another's effective range, with arms stopping in front of your face. This maximum distance also represents the maximum amount of rush meter you can gain with a single punch, because meter is gained gradually while a punch is traveling.
A Note on Speed
Calculating the effective speed of Arms is more difficult than expected.
Different classes of Arms have wildly different times-to-reach-max-range, a metric that is confounded ever further by Arms hitbox size per character,
Gloves can be thought of as the most basic type, sure. But they are also some of the most versatile and potent in the game. In many basic situations, a glove type Arm is basically your safest bet across the board, and
Toaster
Sparky
Buff
Chilla
Bubb
Phoenix
Thunderbird
Boomerang
Coolerang
Chakram
Ramram
Dragon
Ice Dragon
Megaton
Megawatt
Homie
Seekie
Tribolt
Triblast
Retorcher
Revolver
Hydra
Popper
Cracker
Parasol
Guardian
Whammer
Blorb
Slapamander
Slamamander