Dead

[vidjogamer]

This room is dead.

I go to every other character room and what do i see? I see threads upon threads of tactics, strategies and counter characters. Where is this for pika?

So i ask this of you: help revive this room as well as providing knowledge to make pika the character he has the potential to be.

[EnigmaticCam]

I'm a beginner with Pikachu :) I don't have anything worth inputting, but I may ask a few questions here and there occasionally.

[BUHO]

well most beginners don't choose pikachu, becasue in melee he's not much of a great char and is almost worthless unless you play on a relatively advanced level. Therefore this forum is pretty empty because all the experienced pika users pretty much know all there is to know about the character... id post more if people needed tips. It'd be great to ask some questions enigmatic.

[vidjogamer]

i am forced to dissagree. Thats what they said about fox, untill they discovered waveshining... the fact is, ther is more to pika that meets the eye.

[BUHO]

right, i didnt mean to say there are no new moves or tactics left to be figured out our discussed on pika, just that as of now things are pretty static, and i havn't found anything out of the ordinary to comment on.

[EnigmaticCam]

well most beginners don't choose pikachu, becasue in melee he's not much of a great char and is almost worthless unless you play on a relatively advanced level. Therefore this forum is pretty empty because all the experienced pika users pretty much know all there is to know about the character... id post more if people needed tips. It'd be great to ask some questions enigmatic.

Okay! Well, as I mentioned in my post under PictishFreak's FAQ, I want to get my game up as fast as I can. I know that practice makes perfect, so maybe you can tell me some of the fundamentals of Pika's advanced tactics. In other words, what are the most important things for me to learn, in fact, the very first things I should learn, if I am to be 'one with pika'. lol

I may be a beginner comapared to you advanced people out there, but I'm no beginner to smash brothers, so even the most advanced tactic I'm willing to try. I can wavedash about 75% of my attempts to now, so I know I need to continue to work on that.

[RaptorHawk]

I picked Pika as my main way back in SSB for N64 and when Melee came out I chose him as my main and he is still my main. I agree with Vidjo that the Pika forums are quite dead. Anyone have any ideas to help bring the Pika forums to life?

[EnigmaticCam]

I have an idea! Why don't we work on creating the ultimate Pika FAQ? I know that PictishFreak's FAQ is awesome, but from what other people and himself have said, it's for beginner to intermediate. Why don't we add on the high advanced stuff that he never got to? Maybe we can incorporate stuff from all the best pika players here and make something grand. What do you think?

[vidjogamer]

I thinks its a good idea. But where to start? To be honest, i never read pictish's guide XD. Well, this is going to be hard. As a good pika player, i think the most important thing with him is spacing. I cant stress that enough. Pika does not have the priority or range to go all offense, you NEED good spacing. When you attack you should hit them, and if you dont, make sure you dont get it as a result. It seems almost obvious, but its easier said than done. I nair only to get dsmashed by a cc'ing samus all the time. Its a pain. So anyway, i think little tricks are very important, im going to be getting some vids up soon, so you guys let me know what you think, if any of you can get vids up that would be great too. I think character specific strategies are very important as well. Pika isnt like falco, he cant short hop into dair shine against every character. So thats what i think we should focus on first. I'd be happy to compile an "expert" guide with the info we compile here. What do you all think?

[Electricmouse]

I think that its a grand idea. I'll help anyway I can, if you need a second opinion an a character specific strategy or when to use a specific move just feel free to ask vidjo. I'm sure that all us can make a terrific pika guide that will help players for years to come.

[BUHO]

yes, the primary thing with pika is to get used to the speed, the spacings, and the priority. Pika's wavedash is useful, but often I have found that it lacks those few pixels of distance that would help to evade an oncoming attack... so get ready for that. My main tactic is getting my opponent in the air, allowing for uair, nair or even thunder when appropriate, the dsmash works well for setups and combos. The uair is your best friend, because it is pikas one move that will outprioritise most other attacks. (you better be csticking mostly everything). Then it comes down to either and attempted uair spike or a finish with usmash or fsmash. Enigmatic this may be old news to you... or perhaps you or others on this forum have different overall approaches. Maybe it would be good to compare.. and elaborate to unify the way the pika community plays like the other character communities.

[RaptorHawk]

Yes spacing is a huge part of Pikas game. I generally use dashdanceing and wavedashing for mindgames until i find an oppening to attack. Now depending on the situation is what determines what attack(s) i will do. I think this is what makes Pika a very hard character to explain. He is VERY situational. You just have to know what to do when.

[vidjogamer]

Does anyone else have recording capabilities? I would love to see some good pikas other than myself.

I agree. What attack you do is very situational. I find pika to be hard to combo with too. His attacks are influenced too much by DI, so you have to follow their recovery.


Lately I've been doing some personal intensive training in smash in general. So we'll see if i improve at all. Pika is, afterall, only my second priority (maybe even less ='( i know, its sad) I need to play peach too you know!

So if anyone has any good tricks, go ahead and post them. Also, i'd like to start with characters pikachu is good against. I'd like you all to list the characters you think pika is exceptionally good against (if any). Then, give a reason or two why. Keep it simple! But make sure they are game influencing reasons, not "you cant up smash jiggly and kill her at low percents" that would be a bad example. Sure its a good thing, but overall, i find it to be a tough match. but thats not important right now, i want to know what you all think.

[BUHO]

yeah the whole THS crew CAN record matches... we just don't that often. Maybe I can show you some vids of myself, prolly not all that impressive but i guess thats for the better cuz I can always learn more.

[EnigmaticCam]

The newbie (me) had a good idea :)

I think the key to working on an advanced FAQ is organization. Notice how PictishFreak's FAQ is very organized. I'm sure you all can spout out one thing after another, but it would be difficult to manage all kinds of tactics and techniques jumbled together.

First, maybe we should create a new topic? This one is titled "Dead", and I don't think it attracts attention very well, at least the kind of attention we want.

Second, how about a list of categories? Divide up Pika's moves into four or five variations, each of which to contribute ideas to

I think this should be a challenge to the Pika Gods out there. I've seen you say a lot about all these "moves and plays that you can never really describe." Why not give it a try? :) I know it sounds like a lot, but maybe it might be easy to think of all the things you do a lot; certain moves and/or combos that you find yourself doing a lot, both against all charactes, and against specific characters. How about making a small vid for each tactic?! If anybody here plays a musical instrument, isn't it a lot easier to learn to play a song if you already know how the song goes in your head, than if you were to try to get the gist of a song you never heard of straight off the sheet music? Same for this kinda thing. I read what you guys are telling me, but it makes the most sense seeing it in action.

RaptorHawk - You say that Pikachu is very situational. I know you can't think of every situation possible, but can you think of some that are very common? Or some that you find very effective? I don't want a long list now, but I'm just trying to get the idea across of how to organize all this mastery of yours in your mind

Aaah! I don't want to sound like I know how to play Pika better than all you and hence am barking orders :) But take it from someone who wants to learn from the masters, because ultimately, isn't that what a FAQ is for? :)

[Supa-Def]

To add on to the FAQ, maybe u guys could make a montage of Pika kicking ***. I don't play Pika, i'm more of a Pichu player(currently working on "Thunderstruck:a Pichu Combo Vid") but i'm kinda tired of seeing this board dead. <_< just a suggestion

[EnigmaticCam]

Did I scare everyone off? heh

[pictish freak]

Vidjo, no point in reading my guide. It's to get peopel to a start into high level play and a basic grasp of Pikachu so they can build up from there, basically. It's in need of an update and sucks in some places. I don't agree with some of it anymore, and feel I don't touch on some things nearly enough.

As for devloping pika, sounds great. I'll post when it's not nearly midnight as to give some useful stuff ^^

[Zanguzen]

i agree with raptor pika is not complicated in the least bit he jus suks so all u need is timing, spacing and mindgames and the other basics i think a guide wud be pointless my pika is mediocre and all i did to get that far was play falco who is all about timing and needs mindgames a lot

[vidjogamer]

lol, falco doesnt need mindgames.

[Melee Warrioir]

hey guys remember me? lol, yep im back. for now... anyways, not to rain on anyone's parade but making a new guide for experts might not be worth its time. because an expert should have enough wits to know and grow and learn on his/her own in any given situation. i mean if the person has met the standards to be proclaimed as "advanced" the next stage is ultimately fight harder and harder opponents and learn from those battles. i mean, what pictish has done is great, and i think thats all thats needed really.

now what i think we should do is maybe discuss pika videos one at a time and talk about various different things we all see. if we can get as many videos of any pika players on this thread, then we can all kind of, "tutor" that player on how becoming better with suggestions, etc. sound good?

[EnigmaticCam]

Well, I need to get hardware for vids since I will have to start providing proof for Mario Kart times, so maybe I definitely can get some SSBM vids, and you guys can critique it. I just don't know when I can do that.

[vidjogamer]

i promise ill get back to this, ive just been slightly busy.