How to Hatch a Healthy and Taunty Pichu by Coen
UPDATE 11th of November 2010: THIS GUIDE IS SEVERELY OUTDATED
Most of the theoretical info might still be useful, but please don't take this guide too seriously anymore. You're probably better off reading another Pichu guide or something if you're still interested in playing Melee.
OLD:
Ok, Bringer's Yoshi guide also has this kind of name but I couldn't help using it myself too since Pichus also hatch from eggs and eggs are too good. ^_^
First, this guide can ONLY be seen at Smashboards.com and ssbbrawl.com, so PM me if you find it on another site. If you want to contact me, do it via MSN: NGCXX@hotmail.com or AIM: NGCoen.
Furthermore, please post any comments and feedback here, I would REALLY appreciate it. And I'll teach you a little secret.
Current Version: Version Taunt # 1337 : It's the 1337th taunt in the series. What's the series? I don't know either =D. I updated a whole lot of the second post of the two posts this guide consists of. God, I can't believe how noob I was when I first wrote this guide. So I made the KOing (6.1) and Edgeguarding (6.2) real pro-a-listic. No more bull****, this crap is real. The Recovery part still sucks *** though, written in my crappy old english from when I was a ******** 15 year old kid. Oh wait, I'm still ******** =D Anyway, enjoy the guide and may you learn something new.
Version Taunt # 1: I've added a whole lot of changes to the guide, mainly in the first post (out of the two). Making this version...*bongos play louder and louder*...*bongos stop*...Version Taunt # 1 ^___^
Version Beta +: I updated the guide, adding the so-called Fun Facts of several moves. I'm only as far as Upsmash with the real info adding and updating though. I corrected a few things too. Check it out, again!
EDIT: I've added the additional Downsmash info, corrected a few things, a named a new technique =D : The Running Jolt Wall + a FULL DESCRIPTION . Check it out XD. Good stuff, I can assure you. Not too helpful, but good stuff.
Version Beta: I updated the guide from the Beginning of the guide to the Dash Attack in the Moves section, adding a LOT more information from my personal experiences and facts. Check it out, it's too good! More updates coming very soon! Yayuuuhhhzzz!!
Version Alpha and a half: I added the Fox matchup. That's why it's Alpha and a half and not Beta. Learn from it. This is the current version.
Version Alpha: I posted the basic guide, I will add more things to it later, like more sections, colours, italics and stuff. I’m planning on a BTT section, HRC, character match-ups, statistics, more technical stuff and more…btw, this is not the current version of the guide anymore!!!
1. General Information about Pichu and the Guide.
-1.1 Why I’m writing This Pichu Guide
-1.2 What the **** is a Pichu?
-1.3 The tiny Mouse in Melee.
2. Terms
-2. The List of Terms.
3. The Pros and Cons
-3.1 Why you should play Pichu.
-3.2 The Things that People don’t like about Pichu.
-3.3 Explaining of his Pros and Cons.
4. What this Mouse is capable of and when to use it!
-4.1 A moves (Ground attacks).
-4.2 Special Attacks
-4.3 Aerials
-4.4 Smash Attacks
-4.5 Throws
5. Pichu VS. Pikachu
-5.1 A moves compared.
-5.2 Special Attacks compared
-5.3 Aerials compared
-5.4 Smash Attacks compared
-5.5 Throws compared
-5.6 Advanced and Non-advanced techniques compared.
6.1 KOing with Pichu
6.2. Edgeguarding with Pichu.
6.3 Recovering with Pichu.
6.4 Defensive
6.5 Approach
7. What Pichu is good at and what not: Advanced Techs and Stats.
8. The Tauntology, *****es!!!
9. Character Matchups and Credits.
1. General Information about Pichu and this Guide.
1.1 Why I’m writing This Guide on Pichu.
The first reason is that I haven’t seen one on Smashboards yet.
The second reason is because there are only Pichu guides on the internet that kinda…suck. Then the third reason is that I want to let people see that they’re horribly wrong about Pichu!
That’s about it, let’s move on.
1.2 What the **** is a Pichu?
Pichu is the world-famous yellow/black electric mouse Pokemon, who is a pre-evolution of the even more world-famous electric mouse Pokemon Pikachu. This creature never reached the popularity of his older self because he didn’t ‘exist’ yet in the most popular Game Boy game ever: Pokemon Red/Blue. But because of SSBM he’s got one step closer to being the most popular Pokemon. This Pokemon’s first appearance was in Pokemon Gold and Silver. Pichu’s an electric type Pokemon, who unfortunately for us and for him, hurts himself when using any electric attack. Pichu’s Pokemon nr.172, between Cleffa and Lanturn and reaches his evolution by having a good relationship with his trainer and can be obtained by letting 2 Pikachu’s lay an egg (male and female) or a Ditto and a Pikachu. After being evolved into Pikachu, a thunderstone can be used to get a Raichu. Here are a few stats and stuff of this baby Pokemon:
Height: 0, 30 M
Weight: 2 Kg
This Pokemon can be male or a female
1.3 The Tiny Mouse in Melee.
Pichu is a character that is most hated and most underrated by almost everyone because they think that he’s too light and weak and that he sucks and stuff. You can find him under Fox and next to Pikachu. Someday everybody will see Pichu as an acceptable character and realize they were horribly wrong, which is also one of the purposes of my guide. But first, unlock him by playing 200 Vs. Matches or by completing event 37.
2. Terms
2. The List of Terms
I’m making this list to be sure everybody knows what I’m talking about so read this if you don’t know some terms yet.
Aerial attacks: Attacks that you can use while airborne. There are 5 kinds of aerial attacks, named Nair (neutral air, don’t tilt and press A), Fair (forward air, tilt forward, press A), Bair (back air), Dair (down air) and finally U-air (Up air, tilt up, press A). Additionally, you can also C-stick aerials.
Air Dodging: Pressing the R or L button while airborne to perform a dodge animation in which you are invincible for a set amount of frames. It can be used in all directions and is part of wavedashing.
Camping: Staying in the same place (preferably in a cheap place) to win the match in a way that’s sometimes banned on tournaments. Example: Fox can stay on the cloud that is furthest away from the stage on Yoshi’s Story 64 and spam short hop (double) blaster. When the opponent comes towards Fox to attack him, he can jump/run away to the stage most of the time without getting hit by the opponent and spam blaster again. This is, as I already said, forbidden on tournaments and also the reason why Yoshi’s Story 64 is banned.
Crouch-Cancelling: Tilting the Control Stick downwards while on ground to crouch and reduce knockback greatly. This works well for counterattacking (mostly Down-Tilt or Down-Smash) on low percentages and it helps keeping yourself on-stage at mid-high percentages. This term is often referred to as CC. And don’t CC Peach’s D-smash, it’s not like it will make you happy or something.
Chain-throwing: Grab the opponent and throwing him in a certain direction (differs with the character who chain grabs) to grab him in the air again before he hits the ground and is still stunned. This can be used repeatedly until a certain percentage (differs with character using this technique and character who is being chain grabbed). The only way to get out of this is waiting until you reached that certain percentage of damage (which you don’t want to) OR DI, which is the best way to get out of these nasty chaingrabs. In the PAL version, Pichu can, unfortunately, be chaingrabbed by certain characters.
Combos: A couple of attacks followed up by each other to create a ‘chain’ of attacks to rack up damage. Most combos can be DI’d out of.
Dash Cancelling: Tilting the control stick down while running to stop your running movement. Used as a fake out tactic or to attack out of a dash.
Dash Dancing: Tapping the control stick back and forth. If you repeatedly tap the control stick the other way fast enough, your character will keep dashing back and forth. This technique is often used as a mindgame and can be followed up by most kind of tactics.
DI: Directional Influence, the name says everything, at least, if you can think logically. You can hold any direction on the control stick while in the air to DI. DI is one of the most important things in the game and is used to escape combos or just adjusting the way of flying through the air (especially when you’re knocked away you should DI the right way to prevent from being KO’d). Check out this amazing thread by Doraki:
http://smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=60218&highlight=doraki+guide
and learn from it.
Edgeguarding: When you’ve sent your opponent flying off the side of the stage, you can prevent them from coming back using certain strategies. This is called Edgeguarding someone.
Edgehogging: Grabbing the ledge to prevent someone else from grabbing it. You can slide off the stage to hang on the ledge using a Wavedash or a Shorthop/ Jump backwards. It’s always best to press L or R when your opponent is coming from under to hit you with an up- B (Marth’s up-B, Link’s up-B), so they won’t hit you. When your opponent comes from above while already have used their up-B (which will leave them helpless falling down), just hanging on the edge does the trick.
Fastfalling: Tilt the control stick down at the peak of your jump to fastfall. Fastfalling can be really important and is also part of Shffl’ing. You can even use it as a mindgame and to fall to the ground faster (which seems obvious).
Hitbox: How long an attack lasts and the area an attack covers and in which it can deal damage to your opponent.
Johns: Lame excuses for losing a match.
Juggling: Comboing your opponent in the air and keeping him there. Good examples are Pichu’s U-air and U-tilt, which is an excellent move for juggling, especially with fastfallers.
Jump cancelling: When shielding, you can jump out of your shield to avoid the lag from ‘putting away’ your shield, which your character will do when you don’t Jump-cancel. Fox and Falco’s Shine can also be Jump-cancelled. Grabs can also be JC’d, and that’s good for Pichu because his grabbing range kinda sucks. After a Shield-Cancel you can do any aerial attack since you are in the air, unless you Wavedash out of it or use a JC’d Up-smash (preferably C-sticked).
Knockback: The term that decides how far an attack will send your opponent. Smash Attacks usually have great Knockback while tilts usually don’t.
L-cancelling: A very important technique to get rid of half the usual lag from an aerial attack when landing. Do this by pressing L or R right before you hit the ground while doing an aerial attack and the lag will be half of the usual lag time. Also, this is one of the most important techniques in the game.
Lag: The time you can’t do anything at the beginning or the end of an attack. During this amount of time, you’re also vulnerable to your opponent’s attacks. Good examples of Lag are Link’s Dair (not L-cancelled, wind-down lag) and Falcon Punch or Warlock Punch (wind-up lag).
Multiple hit Attack: When an attack has mutiple hits, it can be DI'd out of. This is a fact.
Phantom Hit: A hit that clearly seems to hit your opponent but doesn’t give any Knockback. It does do the damage though.
Powershielding: Pressing the R or L button while an attack is in your shield range results in some kind of white flash called Powershielding. With Powershielding you can reflect your enemy’s projectile with an inhuman timing lvl9 CPU’s seem to have (because they’re not human). I don’t recommend Powershielding because it’s so ridiculously hard to do.
Priority: Every move has priority. When two moves have the same priority and hit each other at the same time, a CLANG sound will be heard. Moves with higher priority always beat and break through low priority moves. A few high priority moves are Peach’s Parasol and Ganondorf’s Warlock Punch. Moves that involve disjointed hitboxes however, always have an advantage over regular moves. Example: Marth hits the opponent with his sword (the disjointed hitbox), while Pichu is jumping towards him while using his Nair. Because Marth has a sword, he will mostly break through Pichu's attacks without getting hit himself (the sword gets hit).
Set ups: Set ups are attacks or throws used to lead into another attack. A single weak attack can be a set up for another (stronger) attack.
Shieldgrabbing: Pressing A while shielding to grab your opponent out of your shield. When your opponent dash attacks towards you with certain characters and you’re shielding, you will block the attack so you can shieldgrab them while they suffer lag. That’s the most standard one of the many ways to use Shieldgrabbing.
SHFFL: This term means Short Hop, Fastfall, L-cancel. If you combine these 3 together in a perfect way while doing an aerial, you’re right above the ground because you Short Hop, you will be on the ground again really fast because you Fastfall and you will cancel half of the afterwards lag time using L-cancel. Now isn’t that the kind of technique we’ve all been dreaming about.
Shorthopping: A really valuable technique that requires pressing the X or Y button for a really short time (2 to 11 frames, differs per character), not how hard you press it, which is still a mistake some people make. With Pichu, it’s kind of hard to do.
Sidestep dodge: Tilt the control stick down while shielding to do a sidestep dodge. This comes in handy for evading most attacks or projectiles.
Spamming: Using an attack repeatedly which can come in handy with techniques like Falco’s ShortHopLaser (SHL) and characters who have good projectiles, such as Samus.
Sweetspotting: Hitting an attack on the right frames or with the right part of the weapon/body part used to perform the attack. Sweetspots usually do more damage and have greater Knockback. Marth and Roy their swords have sweetspots (Marth tip of sword and Roy middle of sword). Many attacks have sweetspots, for example: In Pichu's F-smash, the last electrical hit is the sweetspot, and it's ridiculously many times more powerful than the other hits.
Teching: Pressing R or L right before you hit the ground in stunned position to get an instant recovery (you stand on your feet right away while betting some invincibility frames). You can also Tech-roll. Tech-rolling is Teching while tilting the control stick to the right of the left. Overall, teching is useful to escape an opponent’s attack and as a valuable mindgame.
Walljumping: A technique where you jump off a wall by tilting the control stick the opposite direction of the wall upon hitting the wall. Unlike Pikachu, Pichu is able to do this handy technique. Take that.
Wallteching: Works the same as teching, but you do not press L or R on the ground, but against a wall.
Wavedashing: A really useful technique used for evading attacks, mindgames and for beginning or following up combos, that's really hard to get into your game. You can Wavedash by jumping and airdodging towards the ground when you have not left the ground yet. Wavedash is often referred to as WD.
3. The Pros and Cons of playing this mouse.
3.1 Why you should play Pichu.
PROS:
Pro # 1: No electricity on good attacks
Pro # 2: Tiny
Pro # 3: Recovery
Pro # 4: Nobody knows how.....
Pro # 5: Dissing
Pro # 6: Quick and nimble.
Pro # 7: Smash attacks overall
Pro # 8: Edgeguarding
Pro # 9: Low knockback
Pro $ 10: 2 Frames
Pro # 11: Light
3.2 Things that people don’t like about Pichu.
Cons:
Con # 1: Self-Damaging
Con # 2: Light
Con # 3: Shorthop
Con # 4: Range
Con # 5: KO
Con # 6: Ledge Recovery
Con # 7: Techroll
3.3 Explaining the Pros and Cons.
About Pichu’s Pros
Pro # 1: Most of his good attacks don’t involve electricity. His Upsmash, Nair, Bair, Downsmash, Up-air, Downthow, Upthrow, Backthrow all don't hurt himself while still being great attacks.
Pro # 2: He is tiny. The world of facts says that means he's harder to hit. He can also evade things easier of course. ^__^
Pro # 3: Pichu has a really, really unpredictable recovery. He can vary his ways of recovery so much that you'll make it back safely. It also goes very far, and trust me, he needs it. I'll cover more on this in the Edgeguarding Section.
Pro # 4: Another big advantage is that people often don’t know how to fight effectively against a Pichu because they either had never encountered a good Pichu player before or don't know anything about Pichu at all. Probably both, huh ^___^. I can also guarantee that they will be surprised when you pick Pichu out of all other (and better) chars. At tournament it’s like: ‘Huh, Pichu, c’mon man, that’s gay’, then own the crap out of them, humiliate them, and laugh at them, all because you won with Pichu.
Pro # 5: About the dissing, there’s nothing of an in-game advantage here but it’s always nice to see people’s faces after getting ***** by Pichu. You also diss your opponent by damaging yourself, like ‘I’m making it easier for you, cuz you suck’. Nice!
Pro # 6: Quickness allowes for a lot of things such as escaping, moving faster, better and easier comboing etc.
Pro # 7: The Up-smash and F-smash are really good for KO-ing and are two of the best Up and F-smashes in the game. Overall, his smash attacks are great and really make up for his little-range tilts.
I’ll discuss this later.
Pro # 8: Pichu is really good at edgeguarding. He has good moves that can reach under the edge etc. All your edgeguarding are belong to us =D
I'll cover much more on this in the Edgeguarding section.
Pro # 9: A con's actually making a pro here. Because of many low-knockback attacks, he’s a combo master ^_^. For example the Up-air's knockback only increases very slowly, which make it useful as a combo move on most percentages.
Pro # 10: The 2 frames of lag upon landing instead of 4 can come in handy. If you really think about the game and know how 2 frames can make a difference, it all becomes clear.
Pro # 11: Pichu is light, fortunately. This speaks for itself: Pichu is not easily combo'd and can get out of combos earlier than other characters can.
About Pichu’s Cons
Con # 1: Of course, usually the self damaging is the first thing people think about when they hear the name 'Pichu'. It make people's opinion about Pichu like: ‘Omgwtfbbq, he damages himself, so he’s lame and he sucks’. This isn't very much the case, really.. But as we all know, there’s no real profit in self-damaging unless you really want to kill yourself in stamina mode with Thunder or a fully charged Skull Bash (looks really funny by the way). About half of his attacks, I'm not presenting an exact number here, involve electricity and most of those attacks give Pichu 1%, 2%, 3% or 4% damage. This can be influenced by the duration of the attack, but most of the time it's a set percentage of damage you recieve with every attack.
Con # 2: Pichu is unfortunately a very light character. The lightest character in the game, actually. This speaks for itself: Pichu gets KO'd faster.
Con # 3: Shorthopping isn’t easy with Pichu. You have to let go of the X/Y button on the 4th frame or earlier after pressing it to do a shorthop instead of a longjump.
Con # 4: He lacks range; Look at his tilts to see it. His aerials have better range than most other attacks, but still don't excel in range. Also his grabbing range, which is 4th worst in the game isn't built to be abused.
Con # 5: He's probably on the edge of being able to KO someone and not being able to KO someone: he has lots of attacks that have low knockback, but also has some very high knockback ones.
Con # 6: He has crappy ledge recovery moves compared to most others. More info on this later.
Con # 7: His techroll is slow, has much lag and doesn't go far. It's also very easy to tech chase it once you know it's length.
Con # 8: Gimpyfish dislikes Pichu. Don't expect him to respect you if you're gonna play Pichu.
4. What does Pichu use to kill the opponent? There is more needed than just cuteness!
In this section I'll describe the aspects of Pichu's moves .
I'll rate the usefulness of the move in high level/tournament play. The moves can be Neverused/Very low/Low/Decent/High/Very High.
I'll also list (and rate) the Knockback, Angle of Knockback, Range, Priority, Startup Lag, Wind down Lag, Duration and Damage and a possible unique stat only Pichu can have: Self-damage.
Pay attention: All of the ratings are RELATIVE.
For example, in a Marth guide, his Uptilt would probably be ranked 'high' in range. That is in comparison to his other attacks, I would assume, because a 'Very high' rating would be for example F-smash. In this Pichu guide, an Upsmash would also be ranked 'very high' in range but it doesn't have nearly the range Marth's F-smash has. That's what I mean with Relativity: For Pichu, Upsmash is one of his longest-range attacks and will hence be rated with 'very high'. Pichu is on a whole different level when it comes to range than Marth is. Pichu's longest-ranged attack will probably not even be as long as Marth's shortest-ranged attack. So you have to THINK on that level. A 'very high' range rating in this guide is actually still not too long. Get it now I've repeated myself 4 times or something?
Other explanations:
Knockback: How powerful it is/how far it sends the opponent
Range: How far the hitbox of the attack reaches
Duration: How long the hitbox of the attack stays out
Startup Lag: How long it takes for the hitbox to start.
Wind down Lag: How long it takes after the hitbox to get into a neutral position again.
I'll describe Angle of Knockback in degrees by the way so here's a little explanation:
90 degrees upward = vertically upward
45 degrees upward = diagonally upward
0 degrees = Horizontally
45 degrees downward= diagonally downward
90 degrees downward = vertically downward
Also keep in mind that the Angle of Knockback means the Angle of Knockback when your opponent doesn't DI and that it can vary between characters. Note that this is approximate average of the angle of knockback on all characters combined.
4.1 The Neutral A, Forward Tilt, Down Tilt, Up-tilt and Dash Attack
Neutral A/ Headbutt:
Use in high level/tournament play: You don't wanna use it.
Knockback: Almost Nonexistant.
Angle of Knockback: Not many people know this, but it's actually some sort of spike a really high percentages in about a 20 degree downward angle. Otherwise, there's not really an angle.
Range: Just as you would expect it. Medium/Far.
Priority: Decent, but I don't think it cuts through Fire Fox.
Startup Lag: Very Very Low, it's lightning fast!
Wind down Lag: Low, but noticable.
Duration: Very very short, it's a headbutt after all.
Damage: 1-2%
Pichu does a, well...headbutt =D pretty cool huh?
An attack that should not be used unless you think it might be useful. This move is buttonbashable (great word, huh?). That means you can be guaranteed of a few hits everytime you hit with it. But usually this move gets CC'd or DI'd out of as soon as possible and punished since it suffers at least some lag and doesn't knock your opponent away (as in, out of punish range). Pichu is very vulnerable to smash attacks, you don't want to get hit by them. In the end,, sometimes it’s useful to ‘clang’ a fast tilt to suprise your opponent and counterattack or get away quickly.
Fun Fact: Did you know this move is believed to be an infinite against a wall by most n00bs?
Forward-tilt/ Little Critter Kick:
Use in high level/tournament play: I use it a lot myself. It's underrated, but oh so useful. I'll give it a 'Medium'.
Knockback: Low, but enough.
Angle of Knockback: Around 35 degrees upward
Range: As far as it's feet stretch. Which isn't far.
Priority: High (I like it's priority)
Startup Lag: Little
Wind down Lag: Little
Duration: It's a standing sex kick. Pretty long for a mouse.
Damage: 4-8%
Pichu sticks out his two feet to bump the opponent.
An attack with very short range that can be used to your own liking. It's have blow-my-mind-knockback, but it has a somewhat useful angle of knockback if your opponent DIs wrong, as it may set up for another attack that way. The hitbox also stays out for a short while, making it useful as temporary priority mini-wall. And it ***** Fox and Falco's recovery. It's like: BUMP *they try to recover again* BUMP *try to recover again* BUMP to edgehog *fox and falco die*
Fun fact: Did you know you can angle this and hit sweetspotters? (lol Fox and Falco ****)
Down-tilt/ Low Tail whip:
Use in high level/tournament play: Medium, it's situational and used for spacing and edgeguarding issues.
Knockback: Low, but useful.
Angle of Knockback: around 0 degrees = horizontal
Range: Long, his tail get pretty long.
Priority: Decent, but lacks the priority to edgeguard certain characters.
Startup Lag: Very Little, it's quick.
Wind down Lag: Very Little, it's...quick.
Duration: Very short
Damage: 4-7%, decent huh?
Pichu sweeps his tail at the opponent feet to 'tackle' him.
This is a good attack that's a pret goodty edgeguarding move for the little mouse, but lacks priority (covered later). Otherwise, use this to create a little distance between you and your opponent and space yourself well. It has suprising range too, use it to your advantage.
Fun fact: Did you know will most likely hit under your opponent's shield since it has a hitbox that is really close to the ground?
Up-tilt/ High Tail whip:
Use in high level/tournament play: Very High, <3 this move.
Knockback: Very low indeed XD
Angle of Knockback: around 90 degrees upward = straight vertical
Range: Decent, I'd wish it had more range.
Priority: High, hell yeahz.
Startup Lag: Very little, it's quick too.
Wind down Lag: Very little, it's quick also.
Duration: Short
Damage: 3-6%
Pichu does a tail whip into the air to flip his opponent up a little into the air.
This move is awesome. It's low and vertical knockback angle set up for nearly everything. This move also has surprising priority and can stop many aerials. Against fastfallers, it can be used repeatedly at certain percentages, until they DI out of it or are knocked back too far so they can escape it with a jump (which will only happen at very high percantages, because knockback of this move increases very slowly as the opponent takes more damage). So if you don't want to mindgame your opponent into an Upsmash, use the faster Uptilt and THEN Upsmash them ^_^.
Fun fact: Did you know if your opponent is Falco, Fox or Falcon, and they don't DI, they are really screwed?
Dash attack/ Dash headbutt:
Use in high level/tournament play: Very low, for a reason.
Knockback: Low, just dumb. This move has zero intellegence.
Angle of Knockback: Differs. Either around 20 degrees upward or around 0 degrees.
Range: Decent, but what does it matter?
Priority: High in the first part, decent in the last part of the animation.
Startup Lag: Very little, it's fast here.
Wind down Lag: High, and it's **** slow here.
Duration: Somewhat Long, but we don't need it.
Damage: 5-8%, no complaining about the damage though.
This move sucks Mew2King's balls. Anyway, I'll describe the move:
Pichu dashes towards the opponent and does a running headbutt, to fall on the ground after it.
It has 2 different angles of knockback, depending one when you hit with it during the animation. The 20 degree upward angle is when you hit him with the first part of the move, the 0 degree angle when you hit him with the last part of the move. Either way, it’s a low-knockback attack with horrible wind down lag that's very rarely useful. The only time you want to land this is when your opponent is at at least 90-100% damage because at that point you will actually be able to knock him off the edge far enough to not be affected by the wind-down lag so you can edgeguard him properly. It does break through some ledge attacks as it has some priority though. Useful against ledge attack-whores Also, when the opponent tries to jump (not ledge jump) on the stage, it’s useful to dash attack to break through their potential aerial attack, ruining your opponent’s recovery and stealing their second jump, which is quite a suprising trick to pull off at higher percentages. Don't attack on a shield with this, as all characters (even those with slow grabs) can easily shieldgrab you.
Fun fact: Did you know that when Pichu lies on the ground in the second part of the animation, some grabs go over his head,, lol. It's quite useless though as the wind down lag is big enough to let your opponent grab AGAIN.
4.2 Smash Attacks
Forward smash/ Spark cannon:
Use in high level/tournament play: High
Sweetspot: Last one of his sparks.
Knockback (non-sweetspotted): Very very low, the sparks suck you into the next one
Knockback (sweetspotted): Very high
Angle of Knockback: 45 degrees upwards
Range: Long
Priority: Disjointed, very high.
Startup Lag: Little/Average
Wind down Lag: Little
Duration: Long
Damage: 9-20% (fully charged maximum)
Self-Damage: 2% (set percentage)
Pichu sucks his opponent into the sparks to deliver a final blow.
While being an attack that damages Pichu himself, this move has noticably more range than his f-tilt and has a very strong sweetspot that knocks an opponent pretty far away, even if you hit the opponent at 0% damage. That means it’s a little overpowered, but hey it’s Pichu, he deserves to have at least 1 major edgeguarder/killer move. Anyways, the downside of this move is that it still lacks too much range to be a really effective move out of edgeguarding. The major blow I'm talking about is the last hit in his series of sparks. This move is ONLY a good move because of that sweetspot. Now here the 'nobody knows how to play against Pichu' factor comes in: Most people don't know how to DI this. However, people who know how to DI this and when to expect it (the real pros is what I'm talking about, yeah), DI the first hits away from Pichu or upwards to prevent getting hit by the last spark. This CAN make this move pretty useless, but do not be feared. Against those players, it's just predict their movement and start the move a little earlier so that you still hit with the sweetspot. And luckily this move doesn't have very much wind down lag, so you won't get punished most of the time, would you miss this. It also has a disjointed hitbox, which gives it great priority to break through lots of stuff. Good ****! All with all, a powerful move if used right, TO SEND YOUR OPPONENT INTO OBLIVION.
RAWR?
Fun fact: Did you know that when opponents tries to DI out and fails to do so because he starts DI-ing too late, he'll DI along with the normal knockback angle of this move, making it more effective.
Fun fact 2: Did you know fastfallers get ***** by this move since they have a slightly harder time to DI out of the fearful attack?
Up-smash/ Head Whack:
Use in high level/tournament play:: Very high
Knockback: Very high
Angle of Knockback: 90 degrees upwards
Range: Very long
Priority: High
Startup Lag: Low
Wind down Lag: Low
Duration: Short
Damage: 8-21% (fully charged maximum)
Pichu does a head whack above him.
Being just a little bit worse than Pikachu’s Up-smash, this is the sixth-strongest up-smash in the game and one of Pichu’s best moves. This move is probably Pichu's best move for KOing or racking up damage. The fact that this move has good priority + Pichu's quickness allow it to be spammed a little. Just a little though. Also, this move hits on both sides of Pichu (strangely, it has more range behind Pichu than it has in front of him) and of course above you, but it STILL lacks great range, even though this is one of Pichu's longest ranged physical attacks. Whether it’s a good thing or not that this move hasn’t got a sweetspot, you can decide for yourself; Anyway, this is as I already said one of Pichu’s best moves that greatly contribute to Pichu’s ability to KO someone.
Fun fact: This move has a really weird hitbox. I once hit someone above me and really didn't seem to be in my Upsmash range. I also hit someone behind me where the Upsmash isn't supposed to hit. This just begs for more research ^_^ AR ftw anyone?
Down-smash/ Whirling Tornado
Use in high level/tournament play: Average, maybe Low.
Knockback: High, in terms of Pichuity.
Angle of Knockback: It doesn't seem like it, but the absolute angle of knockback is about 20 degrees UPWARD. And that's called a spike O_o
Range: Intermediate, and less than you would expect from the animation.
Priority: Average/High, so that's a plus.
Startup Lag: Very little, yay it's fast too! Wait, which of Pichu's attacks isn't fast?
Wind down Lag: Very much, youre so gonna get punished if you miss. And when you hit @ low % too.
Duration: Short/Average, bah @ the duration.
Damage: 7-17% (fully charged), not bad I guess.
Pichu spins like a tornado.
A good but not great smash that’s mostly used to smack away your opponent to create distance between both or even better, for edgeguarding. Unlike Pikachu’s D-Smash, this smash hits only 1 time, but doesn't inflict self damage. More importantly, this smash halfspikes and sends the opponent in the opposite way of the side you hit him with it, and that’s the reason that it’s great for setting up edgeguarding and knocking enemies off-stage for semi-spike KO’s. But what really hurts is the wind-down lag of this move. Don’t miss! Another bad thing about this move is the ****ing unexpected SHORT RANGE of this move, gah....it looks like it has uber range but it doesn't, so don't fall for the dust clouds! ;_;. Watch out for this and space this move well. Last bad one's that the hitbox of this attack isn't out for the whole animation, as you will probably notice when using it a couple of times. Be careful with that too. So, as you can see, there are lots of things you have to be careful with when trying to use this move. What I wanna point out is that it's pretty situational and that in a lot of cases other options are a better choice.
Fun fact: Did you know this attack has some invincibility frames in the beginning? Rarely useful though.
4.3 Special Attacks
Neutral-B/ Thundershock:
Use in high level/tournament play: High, because it owns!
Knockback as ground jolt: Very very low, very very little stun.
Knockback as a aerial jolt: Very Low, but enough for ****** Fox and Falco's recovery.
Angle of Knockback: Around 10 degrees upward
Angle of Aerial Moving Thunderjolt: 45 degrees downward
Range: Long for being a projectile, yep.
Priority: Low, alas.
Startup Lag: High, he HAS to say 'piiii-chu' before shooting.
Wind down Lag: Average
Duration: Long for being a projectile
Damage: 4-7% on the ground, 6-10% in the air, that's a whopping 10 damage, ladies and gentlemen.
Self-Damage: 1% (set percentage), that's a whopping 1 damage, ladies and gent....wait, what?
Pichu shoots a jolt like he does in the Pokemon games/anime.
Pichu's only real projectile. Decent damage and edgeguarding capabilities make this a useful move. There are of course a few lame downsides. Number one is the priority. Jabs/disjointed and high priority attacks/other projectiles easily clank or out prioritize this. Number two is the lack of cancelling this move. You have to endure the whole startup and wind down lag. So when your opponent can reflect it (fox, falco, zelda etc.), there's a chance that if you're close enough, you won't be able to get away before you get the jolt right back in your face. So space yourself well against those characters. To make this an extra useful move, you can shorthop and fulljump while moving through the air: this let's you get away while shooting a thunderjolt at the right moment to avoid your opponent getting to you real fast again since they're busy avoiding/shielding it, just hope it hits. It's not like you can only use the jolt while escaping though, you can also approach with it. Now, there's timing required: when you fulljump towards your opponent, as soon as you leave the ground, do a thunderjolt and immediately DI along with it. The animation should end just before or exactly when you fall on the ground again, then time your dash as soon as possible to run after the thunderjolt. FETCH!
NOW YOU'RE RUNNING INSIDE YOUR THUNDERJOLT, USING IT AS A PROTECTIVE AND OFFENSIVE WALL, ALLOWING YOU TO PRESSURE YOUR OPPONENT INTO WHATEVER ATTACK!!!
QUIT READING NOW IF YOU DON'T WANT TO GET CONFRONTED WITH TOTAL BULL****. (at least, scroll down to where the part between the hooks ends).
(((((I CALL IT: THE RUNNING JOLT WALL
lol.
Can you imagine it? A jolt that 1,5x the height of you, protecting you as a wall? It's true.
With this, your opponent has to evade/get rid of the thunderjolt before attacking you. And before you're asking, yes, Pichu runs exactly (or at least almost) as fast as the thunderjolt moves so he stays in it!
IT REALLY LOOKS FRIGGIN' SWEET! AND IT'S PRETTY USELESS TOO =D
Let's sum it up:
- Your opponent gets hit by the jolt -> You quickly do any move you want.
- Your opponent shields, gets hit by the jolt, can't shieldgrab -> You grab him.
- Your opponent jumps over the jolt -> You plant an aerial into their face.
- Your opponent jumps over the jolt and tries to aerial you -> You just forced him to jump, so they will probably use an aerial. Time for mindgames!
- Your opponent powershield -> You get hit or your jump out of it in time and try something, might your opponent not have gotten away already.
- Your opponent runs away from the thunderjolt -> You probably forced him to the edge. Try something to throw him off.
etc.
- Your opponent uses an attack that outprioritizes the thunderjolt and goes right through it, hitting you -> You see this coming and wavedash back, giving them the lag of their attack. Time for counterattacking
-Your opponent use a clanking projectile -> You just keep running and you're now closer to them. Congratulations. ))))))))
It's just that, you'll never be able to use this. Ever. That's why I rate this:
Tournament/high level use: Nihil
This whole thing only counts in situations in which you can actually pull off the running jolt wall, and those are very very very very few. It may sounds a little reliable, but it's too hard to pull it off constantly as Final Destination is the only tournament stages big enough for it to actually work. It still looks too good though.
Fun fact: Did you know it's very hard to powershield this projectile?
Fun fact 2: Did you know the Running Jolt Wall looks too good?
UPDATE: I noticed Piccit made a thread about this asking how effectively it really was etc. You should know this is not as good as I make it look like. I just like to exegerrate it. This technique is not nearly as useful as most of Pichu's other moves etc.
You'll probably get the point now.
Side-B/ Skull Bash:
Use in high level/tournament play: Very low, just for recovery.
Knockback: Very low to very high (depends on how long it's charged)
Angle of Knockback: Around 45 degrees upward
Range: Very Long to VERY VERY long
Priority: Low to Decent
Startup Lag: It's chargeable, so depends.
Wind down Lag: Long
Duration: Long to Very very long
Damage: 7-39%
Self-damage: 1% (set percentage)
Pichu launches itself. A rather suicidal move.
As an attack move it's crap and you know it. It does have a use though: recovery, which I'll be discussing in a later part of this 1337Chu guide. As for a couple of other things about the move you should know, you can charge it up to 4 seconds long (estimated time), and easily KO yourself with it if you like to do so.
Fun Fact: Did you know you should use this when your opponent says: 'I bet you can't suicide in style'. Then prove him wrong. I've done it many many times >_______________________>
Fun Fact 2: Go to stamina mode, make Pichu hurt himself until he has only 1 HP left. Then use this move. lol.
Up-B/ Agility:
NOTE: the startup and wind down lag in this move are indicated to represent the lag before/after the *zip* animation starts/ends, because this move has no hitbox.
Use in high level/tournament play: Very high
Knockback: Nonexistant
Startup Lag: Very Low
Wind down Lag: Low to almost nonexistant (1 frame)
Duration: Very long
Self-damage: 1% on the first zip, 3% on the second, that makes 4% max.
Pichu zips and then zaps.
'Agility:
Psychic
Accuracy: 100
Power: --
Effect: Raises user's speed by 2 stages.'
In the pokemon games, that is.
Pichu’s great recovery move (Hurray): not too predictable, just a little slow compared to Pikachu’s Up-B, but still fast enough. It travels quite a long distance and you'll be able go into 2 directions with it on after another. (To the noobs: to use it the second time, simply tilt your control in the desired direction immediately after the first one). This move’s unpredictability is very stage-dependant though: on FD, for example, there are no platforms and therefore less ways to recover without your opponent intercepting the attack. On Battlefield however, the edge is harder to sweetspot and play mindgames with, but the platforms leave more recovery ways open. Also, platforms (and diagonal floors, for some odd reason) mean more possibilities of utilizing landfallspecial lag, obviously. The last thing you should know is that this move has absolutely NO stun, unlike Pikachu's. Watch that.
Fun Fact: Did you know this move has a lot of potential? Check T0MMY's guide to see how since I'm not going to write as much about it as he did and he knows his stuff too. (well, sometimes)
Down-B/ Thunder:
Use in high level/tournament play : Medium, but it looks good.
Knockback: Very low/ High, depends.
Angle of Knockback: about 70 degrees upward when the thunder itself hits the opponent, 45 degrees upwards if the Thunder hits Pichu, then the opponent.
Range: Vertical range: Very long, Horizontal range: Low/Long
Priority: Very high, you won't see any move cut through a nice bolt of Thunder.
Startup Lag: High, the hitboxes comes out of the cloud not too long after you press Down-B.
Wind down Lag: Very high/ High, depends on whether the Thunder hits Pichu or not.
Duration: Very long, longer than a standard thunder that is, but also a lot slower.
Damage: 4-16%
Self-damage: 3%, set percentage, if the Thunder hits Pichu.
The tiny mouse summons a whole lot of electricity that can be a pain in the *** for the opponent. It has a maximum of 4 hits, which all have pretty poor knockback, but can be used to rack up damage. However, it can actually help with juggling combos (against any type of character), and if you're feeling lucky and your opponent's high in the air at a high percentage, give it a KO shot. Platforms make Pichu a happy mouse by preventing the thunder hitting him, so also make use of that. On stages without platforms, you cant avoid it by shorthopping to the left or the right and then Thundering. Overall, the attack can be pretty useful, but it's very stage/character and mindgame dependant. Use it wisely >_^ as the Koopa from Mario Party 1 would say when it gives you 10 coins at the beginning of a map.
4.4 Aerials
Nair/ 360 Air Turn-around and around:
Easily Pichu's best aerial. N00bs usually tend to spam this attack. So on a first note: Don't spam it, at least not mindlessly. Thy punishment will be severe. So, Nair is 'Chu's best aerial, having good priority, good range and decent damage. (And on a side note, differently from what I first thought, after doing tests, it appears the hitbox does not cover Pichu's ears, with the ears being a hitbox of Pichu's body). Being able to shffl this attack is a must for every Pichu player, remember that. After lots of playing Pichu, I found that I'm using this move the most when I approach, start a combo, edgeguard and after tech-chasing someone. When attacking on shield, land BEHIND the opponent or at least try, it's really the best thing to do because you'll avoid shieldgrabs and you'll often lure your opponent out of his shield, which give you the opportunity to up-tilt or upsmash. And oh yeah, if you want to spam something, spam this. Best choice evah...
Fun Fact: Did you know Nair to Nair to Nair to Nair to Nair combos exist? If not:
Yeah, they do ^____^
Fair/ Thundering Ownage:
This attack is a good setup, but it pretty much sucks. Why do you ask? A maxium of 4 damage to yourself. Not 1, not 2, not 3 but 4!! damage, and only does little damage to your opponent too. It's not worth it. There are certain times though that it's actually implementable. Despite the fact of the damage, the move (if L-cancelled), can lead into say...a grab, d-smash, upsmash. (I use Fair to grab pretty often). Note that this attack has SET KNOCKBACK, it never changes; hence it's comboability. Another downside: multiple hits. Multiple hits is never good, because your opponents will be able to DI out of it. And trust me, if you keep doing this for a while, they'll learn how to DI it. Never use to hit airborne foes high up: this move absolutely needs to combo into something or else it's just a waste of time, money and damage.
Fun Fact: Did you know that despite the fact that this is an aerial move, it's pretty much useless in mid-air? For obvious reasons like the one I stated.
Bair/ Flying Squirrel Attack ^_^:
One of the critter's better aerials. Decent knockback, little lag, good priority. Nothing wrong with Bair. It's got edgeguarding properties. At lower % it may even set up for Uptilt or something.. A big difference with Nair, is that this move doesn’t get weaker the longer it lasts but doesn’t have as much range as the Nair, resulting in an attack still worth using because it’s so nice and has good priority.
Fun Fact: Did you know....Pichu looks like a Flying Squirrel when he does this attack. Yay ^.^
Dair/ Electrical Headcrash:
This is an odd electrical (self-damaging) move. It has two different parts with two different kinds of knockback: The part where Pichu ‘bumps’ his head out and the other part in which he hits the ground (at least, if you're not using this while rising). The sweetspot of this move is when the head is bumped out, and has quite good knockback. The other part (the ground sparks) does almost no damage and minimum knockback. But the odd thing is that at certain percentages (it differs per character and occurs very rarely), if you hit with the sweetspot first, Pichu sometimes (as in, sometimes when you hit the ground) hits with the second-weak blow (Sparks that come out on both sides of Pichu) that’ll ruin the great knockback of the first blow. Your opponent will still get the damage and all, but almost no knockback, since the second hit, which is the final hit of the attack, stops the uber-knockback from the first blow. Due to this, this move is best used at higher percentages when your opponentgets knocked back further and faster when hit by the first blow and thus won’t be hit by the second blow, and in the air while rising, so there’s no chance of a second hit. Finally, the main purposes of this attack are edgeguarding and KOing.
Fun Fact: Did you know that even I feel the pain Pichu endures when he uses this attack? And I don't give a crap about feelings =D
U-air/ Juggle Juggle Tail Whip ^_^:
Juggling, juggling and juggling, and if you can't juggle anymore, follow it up with another aerial. How? The knockback is ideal. Not too strong, not too weak, just perfect for juggling. This move sends them up in a nearly straight upwards angle, although DI can mess this up badly, so try to predict how your opponent is going to DI from this. Against fastfallers, this move is even better than it is against normal characters because it's a thousand times easier to juggle fastfallers. When you think you won't be able to juggle any more, use another aerial to finish the combo (or potentially continuing it?). Another great thing is that this move definitely has amazing priority (better than Nair), trades hits with Falco's dair.....nuff said. On stages with platforms this move is even better for juggling, because of…the platforms. ^_^ Use it wisely, as Koopa Troopa from Mario Party 1 would say when he gives you a few coins at the beginning of a board.
Fun Fact: Did you know this attack is weak but deadly? Not really.....
Fun Fact 2: Did you know this attack is Chu Dat's favorite? I guess you're all gonna start spamming it now, am I wrong?
4.5 Throws
Z while holding: This is the most useless attack ever. 1-2% to the opponent opposed to 1% to yourself. Not worth using in my opinion. GTFO
Fun Fact: Did you know there isn't anything funny about this at all?
F-throw/ Lighting Lameage:
Avoid this, except at really, really high percentages like 150%. That’s the only moment when this throw will actually throw him far enough to edgeguard well. Another bad thing: lot of self-damaging and little damage to the opponent. A bad throw, even the worst of his throws. If you're feeling lucky and skillful, give it a try though.
Fun Fact: Did you know some believe this to be an infinite against a wall? N00bs....
B-throw/ Dizzy Roll:
A powerful throw for throwing someone off the edge or comboing into a Nair. It usually sends the opponent far enough off the edge for some good edgeguarding.
Fun fact: Did you know the rolling involved in this attack is too good? Why? Even if your recovering opponent manages to land far on stage, you will still throw him off the edge NEAR the edge, starting over the whole process, continually making it harder for the opponent to recover. (LOL the fun fact description is longer than the actual move description, about 3 times as long now I've added this).
Up-throw/ I hate you attack:
A throw you can combo out of on any character at low percentages/on fastfallers at mid/high percentages. Usually this is used as a set-up for a combo with U-air, U-smash, Nair, Bair, Dair or Thunder. If the opponent DI’s to the left or right, you can jump after him to hit him with an aerial as soon as possible. Note that it's even capable of Chainthrowing.
Fun Fact: Did you know you can only chainthrow Foxes and Falcos who have bad DI with this move.
Fun Fact 2: Did you know you can chainthrow Falcon way easier than Fox and Falco with this move (DI included).
D-throw/ Humping devastation:
If your opponent is a fastfaller, he will always be able to tech it before you can follow up, so tech-chase him.
If your opponent is a floaty, isn't called Samus, Luigi or Peach, and doesn't DI this move right, it's time for follow ups like Upsmash or Nair.
Fun Fact: Did you know that when you D-throw them and F-smash immediately after, the last bolt of the F-smash will hit exactly if your opponent techs in place. Mindgames.
UPDATE 11th of November 2010: THIS GUIDE IS SEVERELY OUTDATED
Most of the theoretical info might still be useful, but please don't take this guide too seriously anymore. You're probably better off reading another Pichu guide or something if you're still interested in playing Melee.
OLD:
Ok, Bringer's Yoshi guide also has this kind of name but I couldn't help using it myself too since Pichus also hatch from eggs and eggs are too good. ^_^
First, this guide can ONLY be seen at Smashboards.com and ssbbrawl.com, so PM me if you find it on another site. If you want to contact me, do it via MSN: NGCXX@hotmail.com or AIM: NGCoen.
Furthermore, please post any comments and feedback here, I would REALLY appreciate it. And I'll teach you a little secret.
Current Version: Version Taunt # 1337 : It's the 1337th taunt in the series. What's the series? I don't know either =D. I updated a whole lot of the second post of the two posts this guide consists of. God, I can't believe how noob I was when I first wrote this guide. So I made the KOing (6.1) and Edgeguarding (6.2) real pro-a-listic. No more bull****, this crap is real. The Recovery part still sucks *** though, written in my crappy old english from when I was a ******** 15 year old kid. Oh wait, I'm still ******** =D Anyway, enjoy the guide and may you learn something new.
Version Taunt # 1: I've added a whole lot of changes to the guide, mainly in the first post (out of the two). Making this version...*bongos play louder and louder*...*bongos stop*...Version Taunt # 1 ^___^
Version Beta +: I updated the guide, adding the so-called Fun Facts of several moves. I'm only as far as Upsmash with the real info adding and updating though. I corrected a few things too. Check it out, again!
EDIT: I've added the additional Downsmash info, corrected a few things, a named a new technique =D : The Running Jolt Wall + a FULL DESCRIPTION . Check it out XD. Good stuff, I can assure you. Not too helpful, but good stuff.
Version Beta: I updated the guide from the Beginning of the guide to the Dash Attack in the Moves section, adding a LOT more information from my personal experiences and facts. Check it out, it's too good! More updates coming very soon! Yayuuuhhhzzz!!
Version Alpha and a half: I added the Fox matchup. That's why it's Alpha and a half and not Beta. Learn from it. This is the current version.
Version Alpha: I posted the basic guide, I will add more things to it later, like more sections, colours, italics and stuff. I’m planning on a BTT section, HRC, character match-ups, statistics, more technical stuff and more…btw, this is not the current version of the guide anymore!!!
1. General Information about Pichu and the Guide.
-1.1 Why I’m writing This Pichu Guide
-1.2 What the **** is a Pichu?
-1.3 The tiny Mouse in Melee.
2. Terms
-2. The List of Terms.
3. The Pros and Cons
-3.1 Why you should play Pichu.
-3.2 The Things that People don’t like about Pichu.
-3.3 Explaining of his Pros and Cons.
4. What this Mouse is capable of and when to use it!
-4.1 A moves (Ground attacks).
-4.2 Special Attacks
-4.3 Aerials
-4.4 Smash Attacks
-4.5 Throws
5. Pichu VS. Pikachu
-5.1 A moves compared.
-5.2 Special Attacks compared
-5.3 Aerials compared
-5.4 Smash Attacks compared
-5.5 Throws compared
-5.6 Advanced and Non-advanced techniques compared.
6.1 KOing with Pichu
6.2. Edgeguarding with Pichu.
6.3 Recovering with Pichu.
6.4 Defensive
6.5 Approach
7. What Pichu is good at and what not: Advanced Techs and Stats.
8. The Tauntology, *****es!!!
9. Character Matchups and Credits.
1. General Information about Pichu and this Guide.
1.1 Why I’m writing This Guide on Pichu.
The first reason is that I haven’t seen one on Smashboards yet.
The second reason is because there are only Pichu guides on the internet that kinda…suck. Then the third reason is that I want to let people see that they’re horribly wrong about Pichu!
That’s about it, let’s move on.
1.2 What the **** is a Pichu?
Pichu is the world-famous yellow/black electric mouse Pokemon, who is a pre-evolution of the even more world-famous electric mouse Pokemon Pikachu. This creature never reached the popularity of his older self because he didn’t ‘exist’ yet in the most popular Game Boy game ever: Pokemon Red/Blue. But because of SSBM he’s got one step closer to being the most popular Pokemon. This Pokemon’s first appearance was in Pokemon Gold and Silver. Pichu’s an electric type Pokemon, who unfortunately for us and for him, hurts himself when using any electric attack. Pichu’s Pokemon nr.172, between Cleffa and Lanturn and reaches his evolution by having a good relationship with his trainer and can be obtained by letting 2 Pikachu’s lay an egg (male and female) or a Ditto and a Pikachu. After being evolved into Pikachu, a thunderstone can be used to get a Raichu. Here are a few stats and stuff of this baby Pokemon:
Height: 0, 30 M
Weight: 2 Kg
This Pokemon can be male or a female
1.3 The Tiny Mouse in Melee.
Pichu is a character that is most hated and most underrated by almost everyone because they think that he’s too light and weak and that he sucks and stuff. You can find him under Fox and next to Pikachu. Someday everybody will see Pichu as an acceptable character and realize they were horribly wrong, which is also one of the purposes of my guide. But first, unlock him by playing 200 Vs. Matches or by completing event 37.
2. Terms
2. The List of Terms
I’m making this list to be sure everybody knows what I’m talking about so read this if you don’t know some terms yet.
Aerial attacks: Attacks that you can use while airborne. There are 5 kinds of aerial attacks, named Nair (neutral air, don’t tilt and press A), Fair (forward air, tilt forward, press A), Bair (back air), Dair (down air) and finally U-air (Up air, tilt up, press A). Additionally, you can also C-stick aerials.
Air Dodging: Pressing the R or L button while airborne to perform a dodge animation in which you are invincible for a set amount of frames. It can be used in all directions and is part of wavedashing.
Camping: Staying in the same place (preferably in a cheap place) to win the match in a way that’s sometimes banned on tournaments. Example: Fox can stay on the cloud that is furthest away from the stage on Yoshi’s Story 64 and spam short hop (double) blaster. When the opponent comes towards Fox to attack him, he can jump/run away to the stage most of the time without getting hit by the opponent and spam blaster again. This is, as I already said, forbidden on tournaments and also the reason why Yoshi’s Story 64 is banned.
Crouch-Cancelling: Tilting the Control Stick downwards while on ground to crouch and reduce knockback greatly. This works well for counterattacking (mostly Down-Tilt or Down-Smash) on low percentages and it helps keeping yourself on-stage at mid-high percentages. This term is often referred to as CC. And don’t CC Peach’s D-smash, it’s not like it will make you happy or something.
Chain-throwing: Grab the opponent and throwing him in a certain direction (differs with the character who chain grabs) to grab him in the air again before he hits the ground and is still stunned. This can be used repeatedly until a certain percentage (differs with character using this technique and character who is being chain grabbed). The only way to get out of this is waiting until you reached that certain percentage of damage (which you don’t want to) OR DI, which is the best way to get out of these nasty chaingrabs. In the PAL version, Pichu can, unfortunately, be chaingrabbed by certain characters.
Combos: A couple of attacks followed up by each other to create a ‘chain’ of attacks to rack up damage. Most combos can be DI’d out of.
Dash Cancelling: Tilting the control stick down while running to stop your running movement. Used as a fake out tactic or to attack out of a dash.
Dash Dancing: Tapping the control stick back and forth. If you repeatedly tap the control stick the other way fast enough, your character will keep dashing back and forth. This technique is often used as a mindgame and can be followed up by most kind of tactics.
DI: Directional Influence, the name says everything, at least, if you can think logically. You can hold any direction on the control stick while in the air to DI. DI is one of the most important things in the game and is used to escape combos or just adjusting the way of flying through the air (especially when you’re knocked away you should DI the right way to prevent from being KO’d). Check out this amazing thread by Doraki:
http://smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=60218&highlight=doraki+guide
and learn from it.
Edgeguarding: When you’ve sent your opponent flying off the side of the stage, you can prevent them from coming back using certain strategies. This is called Edgeguarding someone.
Edgehogging: Grabbing the ledge to prevent someone else from grabbing it. You can slide off the stage to hang on the ledge using a Wavedash or a Shorthop/ Jump backwards. It’s always best to press L or R when your opponent is coming from under to hit you with an up- B (Marth’s up-B, Link’s up-B), so they won’t hit you. When your opponent comes from above while already have used their up-B (which will leave them helpless falling down), just hanging on the edge does the trick.
Fastfalling: Tilt the control stick down at the peak of your jump to fastfall. Fastfalling can be really important and is also part of Shffl’ing. You can even use it as a mindgame and to fall to the ground faster (which seems obvious).
Hitbox: How long an attack lasts and the area an attack covers and in which it can deal damage to your opponent.
Johns: Lame excuses for losing a match.
Juggling: Comboing your opponent in the air and keeping him there. Good examples are Pichu’s U-air and U-tilt, which is an excellent move for juggling, especially with fastfallers.
Jump cancelling: When shielding, you can jump out of your shield to avoid the lag from ‘putting away’ your shield, which your character will do when you don’t Jump-cancel. Fox and Falco’s Shine can also be Jump-cancelled. Grabs can also be JC’d, and that’s good for Pichu because his grabbing range kinda sucks. After a Shield-Cancel you can do any aerial attack since you are in the air, unless you Wavedash out of it or use a JC’d Up-smash (preferably C-sticked).
Knockback: The term that decides how far an attack will send your opponent. Smash Attacks usually have great Knockback while tilts usually don’t.
L-cancelling: A very important technique to get rid of half the usual lag from an aerial attack when landing. Do this by pressing L or R right before you hit the ground while doing an aerial attack and the lag will be half of the usual lag time. Also, this is one of the most important techniques in the game.
Lag: The time you can’t do anything at the beginning or the end of an attack. During this amount of time, you’re also vulnerable to your opponent’s attacks. Good examples of Lag are Link’s Dair (not L-cancelled, wind-down lag) and Falcon Punch or Warlock Punch (wind-up lag).
Multiple hit Attack: When an attack has mutiple hits, it can be DI'd out of. This is a fact.
Phantom Hit: A hit that clearly seems to hit your opponent but doesn’t give any Knockback. It does do the damage though.
Powershielding: Pressing the R or L button while an attack is in your shield range results in some kind of white flash called Powershielding. With Powershielding you can reflect your enemy’s projectile with an inhuman timing lvl9 CPU’s seem to have (because they’re not human). I don’t recommend Powershielding because it’s so ridiculously hard to do.
Priority: Every move has priority. When two moves have the same priority and hit each other at the same time, a CLANG sound will be heard. Moves with higher priority always beat and break through low priority moves. A few high priority moves are Peach’s Parasol and Ganondorf’s Warlock Punch. Moves that involve disjointed hitboxes however, always have an advantage over regular moves. Example: Marth hits the opponent with his sword (the disjointed hitbox), while Pichu is jumping towards him while using his Nair. Because Marth has a sword, he will mostly break through Pichu's attacks without getting hit himself (the sword gets hit).
Set ups: Set ups are attacks or throws used to lead into another attack. A single weak attack can be a set up for another (stronger) attack.
Shieldgrabbing: Pressing A while shielding to grab your opponent out of your shield. When your opponent dash attacks towards you with certain characters and you’re shielding, you will block the attack so you can shieldgrab them while they suffer lag. That’s the most standard one of the many ways to use Shieldgrabbing.
SHFFL: This term means Short Hop, Fastfall, L-cancel. If you combine these 3 together in a perfect way while doing an aerial, you’re right above the ground because you Short Hop, you will be on the ground again really fast because you Fastfall and you will cancel half of the afterwards lag time using L-cancel. Now isn’t that the kind of technique we’ve all been dreaming about.
Shorthopping: A really valuable technique that requires pressing the X or Y button for a really short time (2 to 11 frames, differs per character), not how hard you press it, which is still a mistake some people make. With Pichu, it’s kind of hard to do.
Sidestep dodge: Tilt the control stick down while shielding to do a sidestep dodge. This comes in handy for evading most attacks or projectiles.
Spamming: Using an attack repeatedly which can come in handy with techniques like Falco’s ShortHopLaser (SHL) and characters who have good projectiles, such as Samus.
Sweetspotting: Hitting an attack on the right frames or with the right part of the weapon/body part used to perform the attack. Sweetspots usually do more damage and have greater Knockback. Marth and Roy their swords have sweetspots (Marth tip of sword and Roy middle of sword). Many attacks have sweetspots, for example: In Pichu's F-smash, the last electrical hit is the sweetspot, and it's ridiculously many times more powerful than the other hits.
Teching: Pressing R or L right before you hit the ground in stunned position to get an instant recovery (you stand on your feet right away while betting some invincibility frames). You can also Tech-roll. Tech-rolling is Teching while tilting the control stick to the right of the left. Overall, teching is useful to escape an opponent’s attack and as a valuable mindgame.
Walljumping: A technique where you jump off a wall by tilting the control stick the opposite direction of the wall upon hitting the wall. Unlike Pikachu, Pichu is able to do this handy technique. Take that.
Wallteching: Works the same as teching, but you do not press L or R on the ground, but against a wall.
Wavedashing: A really useful technique used for evading attacks, mindgames and for beginning or following up combos, that's really hard to get into your game. You can Wavedash by jumping and airdodging towards the ground when you have not left the ground yet. Wavedash is often referred to as WD.
3. The Pros and Cons of playing this mouse.
3.1 Why you should play Pichu.
PROS:
Pro # 1: No electricity on good attacks
Pro # 2: Tiny
Pro # 3: Recovery
Pro # 4: Nobody knows how.....
Pro # 5: Dissing
Pro # 6: Quick and nimble.
Pro # 7: Smash attacks overall
Pro # 8: Edgeguarding
Pro # 9: Low knockback
Pro $ 10: 2 Frames
Pro # 11: Light
3.2 Things that people don’t like about Pichu.
Cons:
Con # 1: Self-Damaging
Con # 2: Light
Con # 3: Shorthop
Con # 4: Range
Con # 5: KO
Con # 6: Ledge Recovery
Con # 7: Techroll
3.3 Explaining the Pros and Cons.
About Pichu’s Pros
Pro # 1: Most of his good attacks don’t involve electricity. His Upsmash, Nair, Bair, Downsmash, Up-air, Downthow, Upthrow, Backthrow all don't hurt himself while still being great attacks.
Pro # 2: He is tiny. The world of facts says that means he's harder to hit. He can also evade things easier of course. ^__^
Pro # 3: Pichu has a really, really unpredictable recovery. He can vary his ways of recovery so much that you'll make it back safely. It also goes very far, and trust me, he needs it. I'll cover more on this in the Edgeguarding Section.
Pro # 4: Another big advantage is that people often don’t know how to fight effectively against a Pichu because they either had never encountered a good Pichu player before or don't know anything about Pichu at all. Probably both, huh ^___^. I can also guarantee that they will be surprised when you pick Pichu out of all other (and better) chars. At tournament it’s like: ‘Huh, Pichu, c’mon man, that’s gay’, then own the crap out of them, humiliate them, and laugh at them, all because you won with Pichu.
Pro # 5: About the dissing, there’s nothing of an in-game advantage here but it’s always nice to see people’s faces after getting ***** by Pichu. You also diss your opponent by damaging yourself, like ‘I’m making it easier for you, cuz you suck’. Nice!
Pro # 6: Quickness allowes for a lot of things such as escaping, moving faster, better and easier comboing etc.
Pro # 7: The Up-smash and F-smash are really good for KO-ing and are two of the best Up and F-smashes in the game. Overall, his smash attacks are great and really make up for his little-range tilts.
I’ll discuss this later.
Pro # 8: Pichu is really good at edgeguarding. He has good moves that can reach under the edge etc. All your edgeguarding are belong to us =D
I'll cover much more on this in the Edgeguarding section.
Pro # 9: A con's actually making a pro here. Because of many low-knockback attacks, he’s a combo master ^_^. For example the Up-air's knockback only increases very slowly, which make it useful as a combo move on most percentages.
Pro # 10: The 2 frames of lag upon landing instead of 4 can come in handy. If you really think about the game and know how 2 frames can make a difference, it all becomes clear.
Pro # 11: Pichu is light, fortunately. This speaks for itself: Pichu is not easily combo'd and can get out of combos earlier than other characters can.
About Pichu’s Cons
Con # 1: Of course, usually the self damaging is the first thing people think about when they hear the name 'Pichu'. It make people's opinion about Pichu like: ‘Omgwtfbbq, he damages himself, so he’s lame and he sucks’. This isn't very much the case, really.. But as we all know, there’s no real profit in self-damaging unless you really want to kill yourself in stamina mode with Thunder or a fully charged Skull Bash (looks really funny by the way). About half of his attacks, I'm not presenting an exact number here, involve electricity and most of those attacks give Pichu 1%, 2%, 3% or 4% damage. This can be influenced by the duration of the attack, but most of the time it's a set percentage of damage you recieve with every attack.
Con # 2: Pichu is unfortunately a very light character. The lightest character in the game, actually. This speaks for itself: Pichu gets KO'd faster.
Con # 3: Shorthopping isn’t easy with Pichu. You have to let go of the X/Y button on the 4th frame or earlier after pressing it to do a shorthop instead of a longjump.
Con # 4: He lacks range; Look at his tilts to see it. His aerials have better range than most other attacks, but still don't excel in range. Also his grabbing range, which is 4th worst in the game isn't built to be abused.
Con # 5: He's probably on the edge of being able to KO someone and not being able to KO someone: he has lots of attacks that have low knockback, but also has some very high knockback ones.
Con # 6: He has crappy ledge recovery moves compared to most others. More info on this later.
Con # 7: His techroll is slow, has much lag and doesn't go far. It's also very easy to tech chase it once you know it's length.
Con # 8: Gimpyfish dislikes Pichu. Don't expect him to respect you if you're gonna play Pichu.
4. What does Pichu use to kill the opponent? There is more needed than just cuteness!
In this section I'll describe the aspects of Pichu's moves .
I'll rate the usefulness of the move in high level/tournament play. The moves can be Neverused/Very low/Low/Decent/High/Very High.
I'll also list (and rate) the Knockback, Angle of Knockback, Range, Priority, Startup Lag, Wind down Lag, Duration and Damage and a possible unique stat only Pichu can have: Self-damage.
Pay attention: All of the ratings are RELATIVE.
For example, in a Marth guide, his Uptilt would probably be ranked 'high' in range. That is in comparison to his other attacks, I would assume, because a 'Very high' rating would be for example F-smash. In this Pichu guide, an Upsmash would also be ranked 'very high' in range but it doesn't have nearly the range Marth's F-smash has. That's what I mean with Relativity: For Pichu, Upsmash is one of his longest-range attacks and will hence be rated with 'very high'. Pichu is on a whole different level when it comes to range than Marth is. Pichu's longest-ranged attack will probably not even be as long as Marth's shortest-ranged attack. So you have to THINK on that level. A 'very high' range rating in this guide is actually still not too long. Get it now I've repeated myself 4 times or something?
Other explanations:
Knockback: How powerful it is/how far it sends the opponent
Range: How far the hitbox of the attack reaches
Duration: How long the hitbox of the attack stays out
Startup Lag: How long it takes for the hitbox to start.
Wind down Lag: How long it takes after the hitbox to get into a neutral position again.
I'll describe Angle of Knockback in degrees by the way so here's a little explanation:
90 degrees upward = vertically upward
45 degrees upward = diagonally upward
0 degrees = Horizontally
45 degrees downward= diagonally downward
90 degrees downward = vertically downward
Also keep in mind that the Angle of Knockback means the Angle of Knockback when your opponent doesn't DI and that it can vary between characters. Note that this is approximate average of the angle of knockback on all characters combined.
4.1 The Neutral A, Forward Tilt, Down Tilt, Up-tilt and Dash Attack
Neutral A/ Headbutt:
Use in high level/tournament play: You don't wanna use it.
Knockback: Almost Nonexistant.
Angle of Knockback: Not many people know this, but it's actually some sort of spike a really high percentages in about a 20 degree downward angle. Otherwise, there's not really an angle.
Range: Just as you would expect it. Medium/Far.
Priority: Decent, but I don't think it cuts through Fire Fox.
Startup Lag: Very Very Low, it's lightning fast!
Wind down Lag: Low, but noticable.
Duration: Very very short, it's a headbutt after all.
Damage: 1-2%
Pichu does a, well...headbutt =D pretty cool huh?
An attack that should not be used unless you think it might be useful. This move is buttonbashable (great word, huh?). That means you can be guaranteed of a few hits everytime you hit with it. But usually this move gets CC'd or DI'd out of as soon as possible and punished since it suffers at least some lag and doesn't knock your opponent away (as in, out of punish range). Pichu is very vulnerable to smash attacks, you don't want to get hit by them. In the end,, sometimes it’s useful to ‘clang’ a fast tilt to suprise your opponent and counterattack or get away quickly.
Fun Fact: Did you know this move is believed to be an infinite against a wall by most n00bs?
Forward-tilt/ Little Critter Kick:
Use in high level/tournament play: I use it a lot myself. It's underrated, but oh so useful. I'll give it a 'Medium'.
Knockback: Low, but enough.
Angle of Knockback: Around 35 degrees upward
Range: As far as it's feet stretch. Which isn't far.
Priority: High (I like it's priority)
Startup Lag: Little
Wind down Lag: Little
Duration: It's a standing sex kick. Pretty long for a mouse.
Damage: 4-8%
Pichu sticks out his two feet to bump the opponent.
An attack with very short range that can be used to your own liking. It's have blow-my-mind-knockback, but it has a somewhat useful angle of knockback if your opponent DIs wrong, as it may set up for another attack that way. The hitbox also stays out for a short while, making it useful as temporary priority mini-wall. And it ***** Fox and Falco's recovery. It's like: BUMP *they try to recover again* BUMP *try to recover again* BUMP to edgehog *fox and falco die*
Fun fact: Did you know you can angle this and hit sweetspotters? (lol Fox and Falco ****)
Down-tilt/ Low Tail whip:
Use in high level/tournament play: Medium, it's situational and used for spacing and edgeguarding issues.
Knockback: Low, but useful.
Angle of Knockback: around 0 degrees = horizontal
Range: Long, his tail get pretty long.
Priority: Decent, but lacks the priority to edgeguard certain characters.
Startup Lag: Very Little, it's quick.
Wind down Lag: Very Little, it's...quick.
Duration: Very short
Damage: 4-7%, decent huh?
Pichu sweeps his tail at the opponent feet to 'tackle' him.
This is a good attack that's a pret goodty edgeguarding move for the little mouse, but lacks priority (covered later). Otherwise, use this to create a little distance between you and your opponent and space yourself well. It has suprising range too, use it to your advantage.
Fun fact: Did you know will most likely hit under your opponent's shield since it has a hitbox that is really close to the ground?
Up-tilt/ High Tail whip:
Use in high level/tournament play: Very High, <3 this move.
Knockback: Very low indeed XD
Angle of Knockback: around 90 degrees upward = straight vertical
Range: Decent, I'd wish it had more range.
Priority: High, hell yeahz.
Startup Lag: Very little, it's quick too.
Wind down Lag: Very little, it's quick also.
Duration: Short
Damage: 3-6%
Pichu does a tail whip into the air to flip his opponent up a little into the air.
This move is awesome. It's low and vertical knockback angle set up for nearly everything. This move also has surprising priority and can stop many aerials. Against fastfallers, it can be used repeatedly at certain percentages, until they DI out of it or are knocked back too far so they can escape it with a jump (which will only happen at very high percantages, because knockback of this move increases very slowly as the opponent takes more damage). So if you don't want to mindgame your opponent into an Upsmash, use the faster Uptilt and THEN Upsmash them ^_^.
Fun fact: Did you know if your opponent is Falco, Fox or Falcon, and they don't DI, they are really screwed?
Dash attack/ Dash headbutt:
Use in high level/tournament play: Very low, for a reason.
Knockback: Low, just dumb. This move has zero intellegence.
Angle of Knockback: Differs. Either around 20 degrees upward or around 0 degrees.
Range: Decent, but what does it matter?
Priority: High in the first part, decent in the last part of the animation.
Startup Lag: Very little, it's fast here.
Wind down Lag: High, and it's **** slow here.
Duration: Somewhat Long, but we don't need it.
Damage: 5-8%, no complaining about the damage though.
This move sucks Mew2King's balls. Anyway, I'll describe the move:
Pichu dashes towards the opponent and does a running headbutt, to fall on the ground after it.
It has 2 different angles of knockback, depending one when you hit with it during the animation. The 20 degree upward angle is when you hit him with the first part of the move, the 0 degree angle when you hit him with the last part of the move. Either way, it’s a low-knockback attack with horrible wind down lag that's very rarely useful. The only time you want to land this is when your opponent is at at least 90-100% damage because at that point you will actually be able to knock him off the edge far enough to not be affected by the wind-down lag so you can edgeguard him properly. It does break through some ledge attacks as it has some priority though. Useful against ledge attack-whores Also, when the opponent tries to jump (not ledge jump) on the stage, it’s useful to dash attack to break through their potential aerial attack, ruining your opponent’s recovery and stealing their second jump, which is quite a suprising trick to pull off at higher percentages. Don't attack on a shield with this, as all characters (even those with slow grabs) can easily shieldgrab you.
Fun fact: Did you know that when Pichu lies on the ground in the second part of the animation, some grabs go over his head,, lol. It's quite useless though as the wind down lag is big enough to let your opponent grab AGAIN.
4.2 Smash Attacks
Forward smash/ Spark cannon:
Use in high level/tournament play: High
Sweetspot: Last one of his sparks.
Knockback (non-sweetspotted): Very very low, the sparks suck you into the next one
Knockback (sweetspotted): Very high
Angle of Knockback: 45 degrees upwards
Range: Long
Priority: Disjointed, very high.
Startup Lag: Little/Average
Wind down Lag: Little
Duration: Long
Damage: 9-20% (fully charged maximum)
Self-Damage: 2% (set percentage)
Pichu sucks his opponent into the sparks to deliver a final blow.
While being an attack that damages Pichu himself, this move has noticably more range than his f-tilt and has a very strong sweetspot that knocks an opponent pretty far away, even if you hit the opponent at 0% damage. That means it’s a little overpowered, but hey it’s Pichu, he deserves to have at least 1 major edgeguarder/killer move. Anyways, the downside of this move is that it still lacks too much range to be a really effective move out of edgeguarding. The major blow I'm talking about is the last hit in his series of sparks. This move is ONLY a good move because of that sweetspot. Now here the 'nobody knows how to play against Pichu' factor comes in: Most people don't know how to DI this. However, people who know how to DI this and when to expect it (the real pros is what I'm talking about, yeah), DI the first hits away from Pichu or upwards to prevent getting hit by the last spark. This CAN make this move pretty useless, but do not be feared. Against those players, it's just predict their movement and start the move a little earlier so that you still hit with the sweetspot. And luckily this move doesn't have very much wind down lag, so you won't get punished most of the time, would you miss this. It also has a disjointed hitbox, which gives it great priority to break through lots of stuff. Good ****! All with all, a powerful move if used right, TO SEND YOUR OPPONENT INTO OBLIVION.
RAWR?Fun fact: Did you know that when opponents tries to DI out and fails to do so because he starts DI-ing too late, he'll DI along with the normal knockback angle of this move, making it more effective.
Fun fact 2: Did you know fastfallers get ***** by this move since they have a slightly harder time to DI out of the fearful attack?
Up-smash/ Head Whack:
Use in high level/tournament play:: Very high
Knockback: Very high
Angle of Knockback: 90 degrees upwards
Range: Very long
Priority: High
Startup Lag: Low
Wind down Lag: Low
Duration: Short
Damage: 8-21% (fully charged maximum)
Pichu does a head whack above him.
Being just a little bit worse than Pikachu’s Up-smash, this is the sixth-strongest up-smash in the game and one of Pichu’s best moves. This move is probably Pichu's best move for KOing or racking up damage. The fact that this move has good priority + Pichu's quickness allow it to be spammed a little. Just a little though. Also, this move hits on both sides of Pichu (strangely, it has more range behind Pichu than it has in front of him) and of course above you, but it STILL lacks great range, even though this is one of Pichu's longest ranged physical attacks. Whether it’s a good thing or not that this move hasn’t got a sweetspot, you can decide for yourself; Anyway, this is as I already said one of Pichu’s best moves that greatly contribute to Pichu’s ability to KO someone.
Fun fact: This move has a really weird hitbox. I once hit someone above me and really didn't seem to be in my Upsmash range. I also hit someone behind me where the Upsmash isn't supposed to hit. This just begs for more research ^_^ AR ftw anyone?
Down-smash/ Whirling Tornado
Use in high level/tournament play: Average, maybe Low.
Knockback: High, in terms of Pichuity.
Angle of Knockback: It doesn't seem like it, but the absolute angle of knockback is about 20 degrees UPWARD. And that's called a spike O_o
Range: Intermediate, and less than you would expect from the animation.
Priority: Average/High, so that's a plus.
Startup Lag: Very little, yay it's fast too! Wait, which of Pichu's attacks isn't fast?
Wind down Lag: Very much, youre so gonna get punished if you miss. And when you hit @ low % too.
Duration: Short/Average, bah @ the duration.
Damage: 7-17% (fully charged), not bad I guess.
Pichu spins like a tornado.
A good but not great smash that’s mostly used to smack away your opponent to create distance between both or even better, for edgeguarding. Unlike Pikachu’s D-Smash, this smash hits only 1 time, but doesn't inflict self damage. More importantly, this smash halfspikes and sends the opponent in the opposite way of the side you hit him with it, and that’s the reason that it’s great for setting up edgeguarding and knocking enemies off-stage for semi-spike KO’s. But what really hurts is the wind-down lag of this move. Don’t miss! Another bad thing about this move is the ****ing unexpected SHORT RANGE of this move, gah....it looks like it has uber range but it doesn't, so don't fall for the dust clouds! ;_;. Watch out for this and space this move well. Last bad one's that the hitbox of this attack isn't out for the whole animation, as you will probably notice when using it a couple of times. Be careful with that too. So, as you can see, there are lots of things you have to be careful with when trying to use this move. What I wanna point out is that it's pretty situational and that in a lot of cases other options are a better choice.
Fun fact: Did you know this attack has some invincibility frames in the beginning? Rarely useful though.
4.3 Special Attacks
Neutral-B/ Thundershock:
Use in high level/tournament play: High, because it owns!
Knockback as ground jolt: Very very low, very very little stun.
Knockback as a aerial jolt: Very Low, but enough for ****** Fox and Falco's recovery.
Angle of Knockback: Around 10 degrees upward
Angle of Aerial Moving Thunderjolt: 45 degrees downward
Range: Long for being a projectile, yep.
Priority: Low, alas.
Startup Lag: High, he HAS to say 'piiii-chu' before shooting.
Wind down Lag: Average
Duration: Long for being a projectile
Damage: 4-7% on the ground, 6-10% in the air, that's a whopping 10 damage, ladies and gentlemen.
Self-Damage: 1% (set percentage), that's a whopping 1 damage, ladies and gent....wait, what?
Pichu shoots a jolt like he does in the Pokemon games/anime.
Pichu's only real projectile. Decent damage and edgeguarding capabilities make this a useful move. There are of course a few lame downsides. Number one is the priority. Jabs/disjointed and high priority attacks/other projectiles easily clank or out prioritize this. Number two is the lack of cancelling this move. You have to endure the whole startup and wind down lag. So when your opponent can reflect it (fox, falco, zelda etc.), there's a chance that if you're close enough, you won't be able to get away before you get the jolt right back in your face. So space yourself well against those characters. To make this an extra useful move, you can shorthop and fulljump while moving through the air: this let's you get away while shooting a thunderjolt at the right moment to avoid your opponent getting to you real fast again since they're busy avoiding/shielding it, just hope it hits. It's not like you can only use the jolt while escaping though, you can also approach with it. Now, there's timing required: when you fulljump towards your opponent, as soon as you leave the ground, do a thunderjolt and immediately DI along with it. The animation should end just before or exactly when you fall on the ground again, then time your dash as soon as possible to run after the thunderjolt. FETCH!
NOW YOU'RE RUNNING INSIDE YOUR THUNDERJOLT, USING IT AS A PROTECTIVE AND OFFENSIVE WALL, ALLOWING YOU TO PRESSURE YOUR OPPONENT INTO WHATEVER ATTACK!!!
QUIT READING NOW IF YOU DON'T WANT TO GET CONFRONTED WITH TOTAL BULL****. (at least, scroll down to where the part between the hooks ends).
(((((I CALL IT: THE RUNNING JOLT WALL
lol.
Can you imagine it? A jolt that 1,5x the height of you, protecting you as a wall? It's true.
With this, your opponent has to evade/get rid of the thunderjolt before attacking you. And before you're asking, yes, Pichu runs exactly (or at least almost) as fast as the thunderjolt moves so he stays in it!
IT REALLY LOOKS FRIGGIN' SWEET! AND IT'S PRETTY USELESS TOO =D
Let's sum it up:
- Your opponent gets hit by the jolt -> You quickly do any move you want.
- Your opponent shields, gets hit by the jolt, can't shieldgrab -> You grab him.
- Your opponent jumps over the jolt -> You plant an aerial into their face.
- Your opponent jumps over the jolt and tries to aerial you -> You just forced him to jump, so they will probably use an aerial. Time for mindgames!
- Your opponent powershield -> You get hit or your jump out of it in time and try something, might your opponent not have gotten away already.
- Your opponent runs away from the thunderjolt -> You probably forced him to the edge. Try something to throw him off.
etc.
- Your opponent uses an attack that outprioritizes the thunderjolt and goes right through it, hitting you -> You see this coming and wavedash back, giving them the lag of their attack. Time for counterattacking
-Your opponent use a clanking projectile -> You just keep running and you're now closer to them. Congratulations. ))))))))
It's just that, you'll never be able to use this. Ever. That's why I rate this:
Tournament/high level use: Nihil
This whole thing only counts in situations in which you can actually pull off the running jolt wall, and those are very very very very few. It may sounds a little reliable, but it's too hard to pull it off constantly as Final Destination is the only tournament stages big enough for it to actually work. It still looks too good though.
Fun fact: Did you know it's very hard to powershield this projectile?
Fun fact 2: Did you know the Running Jolt Wall looks too good?
UPDATE: I noticed Piccit made a thread about this asking how effectively it really was etc. You should know this is not as good as I make it look like. I just like to exegerrate it. This technique is not nearly as useful as most of Pichu's other moves etc.
You'll probably get the point now.
Side-B/ Skull Bash:
Use in high level/tournament play: Very low, just for recovery.
Knockback: Very low to very high (depends on how long it's charged)
Angle of Knockback: Around 45 degrees upward
Range: Very Long to VERY VERY long
Priority: Low to Decent
Startup Lag: It's chargeable, so depends.
Wind down Lag: Long
Duration: Long to Very very long
Damage: 7-39%
Self-damage: 1% (set percentage)
Pichu launches itself. A rather suicidal move.
As an attack move it's crap and you know it. It does have a use though: recovery, which I'll be discussing in a later part of this 1337Chu guide. As for a couple of other things about the move you should know, you can charge it up to 4 seconds long (estimated time), and easily KO yourself with it if you like to do so.
Fun Fact: Did you know you should use this when your opponent says: 'I bet you can't suicide in style'. Then prove him wrong. I've done it many many times >_______________________>
Fun Fact 2: Go to stamina mode, make Pichu hurt himself until he has only 1 HP left. Then use this move. lol.
Up-B/ Agility:
NOTE: the startup and wind down lag in this move are indicated to represent the lag before/after the *zip* animation starts/ends, because this move has no hitbox.
Use in high level/tournament play: Very high
Knockback: Nonexistant
Startup Lag: Very Low
Wind down Lag: Low to almost nonexistant (1 frame)
Duration: Very long
Self-damage: 1% on the first zip, 3% on the second, that makes 4% max.
Pichu zips and then zaps.
'Agility:
Psychic
Accuracy: 100
Power: --
Effect: Raises user's speed by 2 stages.'
In the pokemon games, that is.
Pichu’s great recovery move (Hurray): not too predictable, just a little slow compared to Pikachu’s Up-B, but still fast enough. It travels quite a long distance and you'll be able go into 2 directions with it on after another. (To the noobs: to use it the second time, simply tilt your control in the desired direction immediately after the first one). This move’s unpredictability is very stage-dependant though: on FD, for example, there are no platforms and therefore less ways to recover without your opponent intercepting the attack. On Battlefield however, the edge is harder to sweetspot and play mindgames with, but the platforms leave more recovery ways open. Also, platforms (and diagonal floors, for some odd reason) mean more possibilities of utilizing landfallspecial lag, obviously. The last thing you should know is that this move has absolutely NO stun, unlike Pikachu's. Watch that.
Fun Fact: Did you know this move has a lot of potential? Check T0MMY's guide to see how since I'm not going to write as much about it as he did and he knows his stuff too. (well, sometimes)
Down-B/ Thunder:
Use in high level/tournament play : Medium, but it looks good.
Knockback: Very low/ High, depends.
Angle of Knockback: about 70 degrees upward when the thunder itself hits the opponent, 45 degrees upwards if the Thunder hits Pichu, then the opponent.
Range: Vertical range: Very long, Horizontal range: Low/Long
Priority: Very high, you won't see any move cut through a nice bolt of Thunder.
Startup Lag: High, the hitboxes comes out of the cloud not too long after you press Down-B.
Wind down Lag: Very high/ High, depends on whether the Thunder hits Pichu or not.
Duration: Very long, longer than a standard thunder that is, but also a lot slower.
Damage: 4-16%
Self-damage: 3%, set percentage, if the Thunder hits Pichu.
The tiny mouse summons a whole lot of electricity that can be a pain in the *** for the opponent. It has a maximum of 4 hits, which all have pretty poor knockback, but can be used to rack up damage. However, it can actually help with juggling combos (against any type of character), and if you're feeling lucky and your opponent's high in the air at a high percentage, give it a KO shot. Platforms make Pichu a happy mouse by preventing the thunder hitting him, so also make use of that. On stages without platforms, you cant avoid it by shorthopping to the left or the right and then Thundering. Overall, the attack can be pretty useful, but it's very stage/character and mindgame dependant. Use it wisely >_^ as the Koopa from Mario Party 1 would say when it gives you 10 coins at the beginning of a map.
4.4 Aerials
Nair/ 360 Air Turn-around and around:
Easily Pichu's best aerial. N00bs usually tend to spam this attack. So on a first note: Don't spam it, at least not mindlessly. Thy punishment will be severe. So, Nair is 'Chu's best aerial, having good priority, good range and decent damage. (And on a side note, differently from what I first thought, after doing tests, it appears the hitbox does not cover Pichu's ears, with the ears being a hitbox of Pichu's body). Being able to shffl this attack is a must for every Pichu player, remember that. After lots of playing Pichu, I found that I'm using this move the most when I approach, start a combo, edgeguard and after tech-chasing someone. When attacking on shield, land BEHIND the opponent or at least try, it's really the best thing to do because you'll avoid shieldgrabs and you'll often lure your opponent out of his shield, which give you the opportunity to up-tilt or upsmash. And oh yeah, if you want to spam something, spam this. Best choice evah...
Fun Fact: Did you know Nair to Nair to Nair to Nair to Nair combos exist? If not:
Yeah, they do ^____^
Fair/ Thundering Ownage:
This attack is a good setup, but it pretty much sucks. Why do you ask? A maxium of 4 damage to yourself. Not 1, not 2, not 3 but 4!! damage, and only does little damage to your opponent too. It's not worth it. There are certain times though that it's actually implementable. Despite the fact of the damage, the move (if L-cancelled), can lead into say...a grab, d-smash, upsmash. (I use Fair to grab pretty often). Note that this attack has SET KNOCKBACK, it never changes; hence it's comboability. Another downside: multiple hits. Multiple hits is never good, because your opponents will be able to DI out of it. And trust me, if you keep doing this for a while, they'll learn how to DI it. Never use to hit airborne foes high up: this move absolutely needs to combo into something or else it's just a waste of time, money and damage.
Fun Fact: Did you know that despite the fact that this is an aerial move, it's pretty much useless in mid-air? For obvious reasons like the one I stated.
Bair/ Flying Squirrel Attack ^_^:
One of the critter's better aerials. Decent knockback, little lag, good priority. Nothing wrong with Bair. It's got edgeguarding properties. At lower % it may even set up for Uptilt or something.. A big difference with Nair, is that this move doesn’t get weaker the longer it lasts but doesn’t have as much range as the Nair, resulting in an attack still worth using because it’s so nice and has good priority.
Fun Fact: Did you know....Pichu looks like a Flying Squirrel when he does this attack. Yay ^.^
Dair/ Electrical Headcrash:
This is an odd electrical (self-damaging) move. It has two different parts with two different kinds of knockback: The part where Pichu ‘bumps’ his head out and the other part in which he hits the ground (at least, if you're not using this while rising). The sweetspot of this move is when the head is bumped out, and has quite good knockback. The other part (the ground sparks) does almost no damage and minimum knockback. But the odd thing is that at certain percentages (it differs per character and occurs very rarely), if you hit with the sweetspot first, Pichu sometimes (as in, sometimes when you hit the ground) hits with the second-weak blow (Sparks that come out on both sides of Pichu) that’ll ruin the great knockback of the first blow. Your opponent will still get the damage and all, but almost no knockback, since the second hit, which is the final hit of the attack, stops the uber-knockback from the first blow. Due to this, this move is best used at higher percentages when your opponentgets knocked back further and faster when hit by the first blow and thus won’t be hit by the second blow, and in the air while rising, so there’s no chance of a second hit. Finally, the main purposes of this attack are edgeguarding and KOing.
Fun Fact: Did you know that even I feel the pain Pichu endures when he uses this attack? And I don't give a crap about feelings =D
U-air/ Juggle Juggle Tail Whip ^_^:
Juggling, juggling and juggling, and if you can't juggle anymore, follow it up with another aerial. How? The knockback is ideal. Not too strong, not too weak, just perfect for juggling. This move sends them up in a nearly straight upwards angle, although DI can mess this up badly, so try to predict how your opponent is going to DI from this. Against fastfallers, this move is even better than it is against normal characters because it's a thousand times easier to juggle fastfallers. When you think you won't be able to juggle any more, use another aerial to finish the combo (or potentially continuing it?). Another great thing is that this move definitely has amazing priority (better than Nair), trades hits with Falco's dair.....nuff said. On stages with platforms this move is even better for juggling, because of…the platforms. ^_^ Use it wisely, as Koopa Troopa from Mario Party 1 would say when he gives you a few coins at the beginning of a board.
Fun Fact: Did you know this attack is weak but deadly? Not really.....
Fun Fact 2: Did you know this attack is Chu Dat's favorite? I guess you're all gonna start spamming it now, am I wrong?
4.5 Throws
Z while holding: This is the most useless attack ever. 1-2% to the opponent opposed to 1% to yourself. Not worth using in my opinion. GTFO
Fun Fact: Did you know there isn't anything funny about this at all?
F-throw/ Lighting Lameage:
Avoid this, except at really, really high percentages like 150%. That’s the only moment when this throw will actually throw him far enough to edgeguard well. Another bad thing: lot of self-damaging and little damage to the opponent. A bad throw, even the worst of his throws. If you're feeling lucky and skillful, give it a try though.
Fun Fact: Did you know some believe this to be an infinite against a wall? N00bs....
B-throw/ Dizzy Roll:
A powerful throw for throwing someone off the edge or comboing into a Nair. It usually sends the opponent far enough off the edge for some good edgeguarding.
Fun fact: Did you know the rolling involved in this attack is too good? Why? Even if your recovering opponent manages to land far on stage, you will still throw him off the edge NEAR the edge, starting over the whole process, continually making it harder for the opponent to recover. (LOL the fun fact description is longer than the actual move description, about 3 times as long now I've added this).
Up-throw/ I hate you attack:
A throw you can combo out of on any character at low percentages/on fastfallers at mid/high percentages. Usually this is used as a set-up for a combo with U-air, U-smash, Nair, Bair, Dair or Thunder. If the opponent DI’s to the left or right, you can jump after him to hit him with an aerial as soon as possible. Note that it's even capable of Chainthrowing.
Fun Fact: Did you know you can only chainthrow Foxes and Falcos who have bad DI with this move.
Fun Fact 2: Did you know you can chainthrow Falcon way easier than Fox and Falco with this move (DI included).
D-throw/ Humping devastation:
If your opponent is a fastfaller, he will always be able to tech it before you can follow up, so tech-chase him.
If your opponent is a floaty, isn't called Samus, Luigi or Peach, and doesn't DI this move right, it's time for follow ups like Upsmash or Nair.
Fun Fact: Did you know that when you D-throw them and F-smash immediately after, the last bolt of the F-smash will hit exactly if your opponent techs in place. Mindgames.
