Fixing Pikachu's moveset (issues)

[Cassio]

Alright, played these two games side by side for awhile the other day to confirm and spoke with others about this too.

Pikachu's uthrow and upair have some issues, and it throws off his game. At first I thought it was intentional, but from what I understand now they were supposed to transfer over from melee as they were. However from playing and speaking with other proficient with pikas there's definitely something off. There's probably a dozen or so other things this might be true for as well, so I understand the hesitation to adjust anything and hope pika can just work with what he has. But even putting aside whether pika is good or bad, these two matter the most in retaining the spirit and character of pikachu that's in every other smash game, and allow him to be a complete character capable of success. So far buffs, while welcome, have not been able to replace these changes. Keep in mind this is for high-top level play.

1)U-throw and pikachus grab game:
Pics of the difference:

Spoiler

Pikachu's historically been a very mobile run and gun sort of character. In spite of his short grab range, his often confusing movement put opponents in their shield (from fear or wiffed attacks) that pikachu capitalized on with grabs, and being able to punish strongly and build momentum from his grabs. Currently uthrow sends opponents further away, creating big reduction in combos and pressure, and pika doesnt have a throw which functions this way in its place (in Brawl dthrow basically functions the same way as pikas uthrow). Shielding against pikachu suddenly is much safer, and this heavily reduces his strengths in movement and pressure, particularly in landing kills.

2. Uair slam dunk
This ones harder to quantify. I thought the issue was more with pikachus edgeguarding and everyones better recovery, but onstage pikachus uair acts differently as well. While I plan to test and play around with it more, so far the first hit and second hit of uair seem fine or at least close enough to what they were (need to play with it more) while the third and fourth don't cause the same off balance hits. The best way I can describe it is in PM it feels like the opponent is being pushed away while in melee its more like a slam dunk. Its something about the speed at which the opponent travels (maybe distance). Single images can't capture this, but Im going to try and find a better way to measure and represent this.

It might seem like a minor thing, but uair is one of if not the best and most important of pikachu's moves in melee and every smash game. The amount its used is very significant. The issue it causes is uair no longer has the same pressure and punishment factor it once did, which causes problems in many areas (but especially edge guarding which is signature pikachu). Aside from connecting uair itself, the amount of respect the move is afforded is important especially offstage.

I highly recommend watching this video to understand the importance of these two changes:

3. Standing grab
This isnt really as important as the first two, and it's not a melee > PM like the other ones. But in melee and brawl pikachu was know to have absolutely terrible grab range, but brawls was just slightly less terrible.

Edit:I didn't elaborate on the grab range and definitely don't mean his grab range shouldn't be bad, the main reason i think it should be just a tiny bit better (around his brawl range which is still pretty bad) has to do with grabbing close range shielded attacks. It seems like even extremely light unspaced touches at close range push pika away from grabbing. Maybe theres more shield push back on attacks or theyre pushed back when attacking shields (i think this is actually an known issue with PM?), but for whatever reason it doesnt bug me to the same extent in Melee or Brawl. It's annoying when youve made a clearly good read shielding an attack at super close range but the grab still misses.

 

[dRevan64]

What's that first twitch VOD from?

 

[Anther]

I appreciate you doing this Tagxy!
I do agree that it is silly how pika's up throw tends to release people so high at low and medium percents that it cannot be properly followed up, and it does seem to be a release point issue as opposed to a knockback issue.

I do not know anything about uair's spike and reverse spikes being off though. Are you saying that he's more likely to make an opponent slide instead of knocking them down?

 

[Paradoxium]

That up throw though, we need it back

 

[Time2Play]

So, who is developing Pika with the PMBR Crew?

 

[Cassio]

Im not sure who works with pika.
@ dRevan64 It was some Canada tournament, but I tested this on several stages on different wiis myself too.
@ Anther Sent this to you already and I need to test it more, but heres another example that more closely relates:

4:44 - Watch fast/far falco flies at 0% from uair's hit. It seems like it might be a tad longer too. You can recreate this hit too by uairing an opponent from the ledge, which also seems to have more force and be more likely to gimp in melee.
4:33 - watch how axe uses 4 different hits of uair at 0% to get a gimp which I dont believe would work as well in P:M.

I know Im not the only one whos mentioned it. On the old boards it was stated:

Does up air have the same hitboxes as Melee?

I find myself uncomfortable or unfamiliar with it in PM.

Uair is the same as Melee, yes. It just does more damage, 7% iirc.

I'm uncomfortable with this Pika compared to Melee Pikachu too.

I feel his up air isn't the same and its throwing me off badly.

Even though I point out uair and uthrow specifically, the bigger picture is that pika took hits in two important areas of his build. I'll quote something I wrote somewhere else with my thoughts on the matter:
"Pikachu's sub-par range and true combos were traits that meshed with speedy movement supplemented by a strong grab game and top tier edge guarding. Hes a character that keeps opponents off-balance and these were critical traits in that scheme. It all worked together and gave him character, but now pikachus grab game and edgeguarding took hits and he feels to have lost part of his personality. Moving around with pika and being obnoxious in PM is fun and probably fine for a lot of people that dabble with him, but its like when youre actually trying to compete. I dont think there's a real fear of being grabbed or being offstage vs pika compared to other smash games, which defines how pika is played and fought against. It should be giving people nightmares!"

 

[dkuo]

i dont play pm that much but i dont think he needs a longer grab range <_< but this will just end up in me rambling about what pm pika should become lmao

also last time i played (v3.0) his uair seemed okay. i usually play spacies tho so i probably havent checked for oddities as much as you guys have
hopefully his uthrow is returned to melee form, whether its knockback or release point. keeping opponents close to the ground/pika after uthrow is super vital, at least from the perspective of someone who plays melee pika a lot

 

[Cassio]

i dont play pm that much but i dont think he needs a longer grab range <_< but this will just end up in me rambling about what pm pika should become lmao

also last time i played (v3.0) his uair seemed okay. i usually play spacies tho so i probably havent checked for oddities as much as you guys have
hopefully his uthrow is returned to melee form, whether its knockback or release point. keeping opponents close to the ground/pika after uthrow is super vital, at least from the perspective of someone who plays melee pika a lot

I didn't elaborate on the grab range and definitely don't mean his grab range shouldn't be bad, the main reason i think it should be just a tiny bit better (around his brawl range which is still pretty bad) has to do with grabbing close range shielded attacks. It seems like even extremely light unspaced touches at close range push pika away from grabbing. Maybe theres more shield push back on attacks or theyre pushed back when attacking shields (i think this is actually an known issue with PM?), but for whatever reason it doesnt bug me to the same extent in Melee or Brawl. It's annoying when youve made a clearly good read shielding an attack at super close range but the grab still misses.

I'm having a hard time pinpointing if its uair or what about the game mechanics but its something really subtle that makes pikachu's ability to edgeguard less threatening across the board.

 

[Juushichi]

I guess I should subscribe to this thread or something.

Hi~ everyone. At the risk of my sanity (and likely issues with internet), I was the one who worked on Pikachu the most/suggested changes at the behest of speaking with Pikachu players. So I guess I was the design lead from 2.6b->3.0.

 

[Cassio]

lol, cool. Thanks for keepin an eye out. Maybe I'll try getting pikas together to get firm consensus.

I think so far everyone's hoping the mechanics for uthrow are returned 100% to melee's. I think Anther's right, the move functions exactly like melee except that it seems to release from the top of pikas head instead of the stage (its almost exactly one pika length higher).

The small grab range thing too for reasons I mentioned above.

Not sure what to suggest about edgeguarding/uair stuff

Everything else about pika seems to function pretty well.

 

[Paradoxium]

I guess I should subscribe to this thread or something.

Hi~ everyone. At the risk of my sanity (and likely issues with internet), I was the one who worked on Pikachu the most/suggested changes at the behest of speaking with Pikachu players. So I guess I was the design lead from 2.6b->3.0.

Your doing a fine job, just don't give into the notion that Pikachu is the worst in the game

 

[Juushichi]

Ultimately, upthrows accross the board appear to be affected (including GnW) and others, mitigating the effectiveness of the things you can do out of them.

This was not an intentional change, so we're doing what we can to fix it.

 

[Fish&Herbs19]

"The distance they go on uthrow is a bit different (slightly higher) due to the way their hitstun animations work in relation to the current landing detection"

This was a post from the Jigglypuff thread related to Jigg's up throw on July 21. Link here: http://smashboards.com/threads/p-m-jiggly-differences-from-melee.336551/

I don't play enough Pikachu in both games to understand the differences between the up airs. Also @ Cassio , I understand that you think Pikachu is "bad/different from Melee" but I don't think it is worth your time to argue in Twitch chats or other Smashboards forums when 1) Majority of people disagree with you or 2) Majority of people won't listen to your reasoning or just don't care.

 

[Cassio]

Not sure what you mean, most people seem to agree.

 

[Fish&Herbs19]

Oracle:
Lol pikachu is fine. Idk how you can argue that hes worse than melee pika when melee pika is absolute trash. Pm pika has an incredible recovery, good dashdance, solid throw game, and an upsmash thats BETTER than foxs and kills earlier with thunder. What more do you even want?
Yursaman:
You can still gimp spacies as easily as you could in melee, but I do think that the majority of the cast having such good recoveries is a problem that shouldn't be attributed to Pikachu specifically. It's definitely my major gripe with this game.

This is from the Tier List Speculation thread. There also was plenty of disagreement from the chat at the SSS when Okami started playing Pikachu.

So other than the Up-throw height distance and the different knockback on the semi-spike hits of up air, are there anything else that is different?

 

[Cassio]

Still not sure what point you're trying to make, anecdotal stuff doesnt help.

In any case, if you mean these specific thoughts are important in particular they only help if theyre reliable. Yurs said after our conversation that he doesnt play pika enough to make a judgement, and anyone who says this:

melee pika is absolute trash.

clearly doesnt know the character. When it comes to specifics I think its important to listen to those with well formed opinions.

For melee > PM changes yes so far the uthrow forsure, uair is tentative. It has something to do with his edge game which others have admitted is weaker than melees, pinning the specifics is hard though.

 

[Oracle]

ITT: Pikachu players whine like babies because they suck and can't accept that its them, not the character

Protip: being a pikachu main doesn't mean that you're some special snowflake who can magically see what dozens of better players and game designers can't.

 

[Cassio]

I never said it did. What I actually said was your reflections on melee pika make clear your lack of knowledge on the subject. Feel free to make all the unsubstantiated statements you want, though I would prefer it somewhere else.

 

[Fish&Herbs19]

ITT: Pikachu players whine like babies because they suck and can't accept that its them, not the character

Protip: being a pikachu main doesn't mean that you're some special snowflake who can magically see what dozens of better players and game designers can't.

I don't think it is necessary to go that far as to say that. Cassio has quoted some evidence, and even small differences make a difference, whether it be because some numbers weren't imported properly from melee or something such as landing detection changes the heights of throws. I don't think the character is bad, but there are some slight, unintentional changes from Melee that should be changed back to their Melee form if possible.

 

[Oracle]

Just bc something is different from melee does not mean its a bad thing...maybe it adds something you havent found yet?

I try to stay out of stuff like this but when ppl whine about stuff like this it makes our community look awful and confirms lots of ppls silly assumptions that pm players just whine for buffs/nerfs.

Pm pika can do everything melee pika can do, usually better, plus he can do a bunch more stuff he couldnt do in melee like recover. You just have to do it a little differently than before, which is not at all a bad thing and one of the moste trite and useless things you could complain about. This game is in no way about just getting stuff 1:1 from melee, its a new game based off melee. Dk players dont complain that dks throws act differently from melee bc the difference adds more to him as a character. If you spend all day posting about tiny little differences between melee and pm pikachu then youre guaranteed to miss the stuff that adds to pika, because youll be too busy seeing everything as "difference from melee" rather than "chance to improve".

 

[Cassio]

Aside from giving pika his brawl over melee grab range which is pretty minor, this isnt a conversation about buffs and nerfs. It's asking for a return of important traits pika had in melee. This was provided to fox falco and others, is pika not important enough because he isnt top tier and popular?

These arent complaints about minor BS, and thats the point of understanding the character. There's dozens of differences between melee and PM pika. Theres only two listed, the two most important ones as it relates to pikas character scheme, and skipped over is everything irrelevant (recovery wasnt one of them, that's fine).

Also considering I'm fairly content with pika's melee arsenal I'm not sure how I can be accused of asking for arbitrary buffs. I know how to develop a character and I know how to find utility in a moveset. In fact bc my friends play this game Ill probably end up being one of the people who develops this character the most.

 

[Paradoxium]

I mean, trying to emulate everything from melee is probably a bad idea, but...
His uthrow was better in melee than in pm, so I think it should be reverted back.

Pikachu is solid, I've been saying this about him for a long time.

 

[Oracle]

Well you obviously dont know how to develop a charavter or you would have by now... this argument is pointless because youre obviously not mature enough to admit you could be wrong as evidenced by you ignoring the entire point of my post...

Assuming melee pikas stuff is automatically better than pm pikas in an early meta when you havent done any real testing is ludicrous. You havent considered the possibility that you could be missing something, which makes your entire post arrogant and stupid. You can have fun on my ignore list with bubbaking because I cant take any more of this stupidity

 

[Cassio]

It's really not that serious...but this wasnt the right place for that sort of discussion anyways. Guess Ill address what I 'skipped' and be done with it, Ill collapse it so peeps dont have to read this anymore.

Spoiler

I skipped it because it seemed pointless. But since it's important to you I'll address it. I'm not sure why youre making a big deal about the possibility I could be wrong, as if admitting that changes anything. There's nothing that doesn't have the possibility of being wrong not matter how much its developed or tested, I stated these minor and extremely safe differences because there's an extremely high probability they are right. Theres a reason PM's mechanics and characters have changed since 1.0 even with the possibility of 'being wrong'. Theres tons of others ideas for improving pika I and many others could suggest, we don't because we respect letting things develop on things that are less certain.

Well you obviously dont know how to develop a character or you would have by now...

Irony...I do have experience developing a character from the ground up (among other things, I was the first person to see QAC's utility in brawl and give it its name).

I'm not sure where you got that I was automatically assuming or didn't test anything. And I didnt blindly suggest PM pika emulate melee 100%. I picked two things from melee pika, that I supported with thoughtful explanations and supported with evidence as well as plenty of of experience and a deep understanding of smash game mechanics like grabbing and offstage game.

 

[Oro?!]

Uair tail spike differences are likely caused by the different weights and gravity of characters that you are hitting. Jigglypuff hardly gets "slam dunked" in Melee, and I'm sure a lot of the lack of a feeling of power comes from sound effects and overall enhanced recoveries.

Uthrow is a known problem, and it heavily affects several characters, but is much more noticable among melee veterans and/or in Melee matchups. It will be fixed in the future to retain it's chaingrab and combo potency.

Pikachu does have a small grab. This is less of an issue on a character with a lot of mobility though; see Captain Falcon. If Pikachu needed help, I'm not sure this would be the first area that would be looked at, simply because when uthrow works properly, it is an extremely rewarding throw and already makes certain melee matchups even or in his favor already.

 

[Cassio]

Uair tail spike differences are likely caused by the different weights and gravity of characters that you are hitting. Jigglypuff hardly gets "slam dunked" in Melee, and I'm sure a lot of the lack of a feeling of power comes from sound effects and overall enhanced recoveries.

Thanks for the thorough reply and elaboration that explains a lot. I couldnt figure out why it was different, just that his edge game had softened. To a decent extent, its not about pika being bad or good as much as the flow of the character.

I understand what you mean about grab range and mobility as mentioned in the OP too, and its not as important as the other two. Maybe you already read, but it has more to do with how much shields are push backed on attacks than grabs through mobility. The main example is dashing up to an opponent completely reading they'll do a get up attack, and then their get up attack pushes pika outside his grab range. Its mainly about maintaining momentum moreso than creating it, so that opponents cant toss out very poorly spaced attacks just to kill momentum (I understand if theyre spaced even a bit thats different).

This was my suggestion because if its reverted to his brawl range, its something minor that hes had and has been tested for years before as opposed to something novel and untested. With arguably even more rewarding grabs in Brawl, he was still considered to have trouble landing grabs. Even an extremely minor improvement like pikas brawl grab range assists his momentum though when he gets a read.

 

[Oro?!]

I'm fairly certain that Pika's grab range might match Brawl's already, since it was undoubtedly better. I will have to double check on that though, as I doubt Pika's grab range was matched from melee.

 

[Pikabunz]

I'm fairly certain that Pika's grab range might match Brawl's already, since it was undoubtedly better. I will have to double check on that though, as I doubt Pika's grab range was matched from melee.

He definitely has Melee's grab range. What's weird is that Pikachu can grab characters that are behind him. It's like they shifted his grab hitbox back or something. I'm only talking about his standing grab, btw. His running and pivot grab are fine.

And about upthrow; in 2.6 it was higher than Melee's, but you were still able to chain grab spacies with it so it was still as good as Melee's. In 3.0 they made it even higher for some reason so you can't do as much with it. I wish they would put these kinds of things in the change log.

 

[Time2Play]

In 3.0 they made it even higher for some reason so you can't do as much with it. I wish they would put these kinds of things in the change log.

I think it was unintended and they are trying to fix it. It affects Jigs too, for example.

Edit: They are still a lot of things that have to be fixed, like Parry, so we should just wait for the next update,

 

[Cassio]

Prime I think you could wiggle out of hitstun and jump away, and besides the CGs it still makes it harder to combo with on the rest of the cast when theyre further. Although I dont have 2.6 to test. Also they did mention something about changing his uthrow in the changelog recently, but i think it was from 2.5 -> 2.6.

I completely forgot about how pikas melee grab sort of grabs in back of him too. It actually does that in melee sometimes too. Id kind of miss that if it changed, we should talk/test that some more.

 

[Kerenthar]

I am absolutely agreed with all this points and I like to add another one: down tilt feels weaker now. I dont know this is a global effect or what...

 

[Cassio]

After some discussion here are the two things needed for pika

1)Fixing the uthrow glitch to match melees. From what I understand this is already being worked on.
2)Give pikachu his just slightly better brawl grab range, while still retaining the melee trait that sometimes catches opponents in grabs behind him

The offstage stuff really does seem to be from everyone having better recovories. So pika will probably still be not too good but at least itll be workable.

Also, Im not sure if its the same but pika had a really good tech in place for melee that if it isnt currently the same would be nice to have again.

 

[Daftatt]

Pikachu is hopefully in line for some small buffs come next release. U-air I actually find very effective as it is great for gimping still even if it feels really soft on hit, although I admit I had never played pikachu seriously in melee.

 

[G13_Flux]

a lot of characters can actually grab those behind them. thats not specific to pikachu. in fact i think everyone minus a few of the tethers maybe can do that.

 

[Paradoxium]

I guess I should subscribe to this thread or something.

Hi~ everyone. At the risk of my sanity (and likely issues with internet), I was the one who worked on Pikachu the most/suggested changes at the behest of speaking with Pikachu players. So I guess I was the design lead from 2.6b->3.0.

If you are still a pmbr member working on pikachu I just wanted to say something about skull bash. I actually already all ready said it in a different thread

While I was playing as Pikachu I messed up the Qa input and just skull bashed instead. The funny part was that it actually hit. So I started mixing it in with my gameplay and it actually hits pretty often. Unfortunately an uncharged skull bash sucks so it can't really be used that effectively.

Another thing I've tried using it for was tech chases. Like start charging when they are about to tech, and when they do skull bash into them. This use isn't too effective either lol, and when I landed it there was still barely and reward. But I was still able to land it

What I'm getting at is with the right amount of tweaks I think skull bash can be pretty useful. Right now the time it takes to use the move, the punishment for missing, and the pitiful punishes off of landing it make it a pretty unviable move for everything except recovery. If it was just slightly better I think people could do some creative stuff with it, and I think it would give pikachu another cool option.

Yea I know he already has QaC, but a skull bash that doesn't suck would be pretty cool

 

[Juushichi]

I'll see what others think about it.

 

[Cassio]

Honestly I dont think its that important. What can pikachu do with skull bash that he couldnt do already? Yeah the move sucks but it wouldnt really add a lot to pika. If people are really looking for ideas on pika improvements, this is the order Id put them in

1. Mentioned uthrow fix already
2. Mentioned Brawl grab range
3. Mentioned melee tech in place (if its different)
4. Dtilt that keeps opponents close at low-mid% so it combos (like brawl) instead of sending them far away.
5. Less laggy dash attack
6. Less laggy jab or 64 jab to grab
7. Let skull bash charge instead of releasing or other skull bash improvement
8. 64 Quick Attack characteristics

5, 6, and 8 are pretty massive improvements though which is why theyre low.

 

[Paradoxium]

Honestly I dont think its that important. What can pikachu do with skull bash that he couldnt do already? Yeah the move sucks but it wouldnt really add a lot to pika. If people are really looking for ideas on pika improvements, this is the order Id put them in

1. Mentioned uthrow fix already
2. Mentioned Brawl grab range
3. Mentioned melee tech in place (if its different)
4. Dtilt that keeps opponents close at low-mid% so it combos (like brawl) instead of sending them far away.
5. Less laggy dash attack
6. Less laggy jab or 64 jab to grab
7. Let skull bash charge instead of releasing or other skull bash improvement
8. 64 Quick Attack characteristics

5, 6, and 8 are pretty massive improvements though which is why theyre low.

You think I'm requesting the skull bash buffs for the wrong reasons. I don't think he needs it and it won't buff him in any significant way, but why the hell shouldn't we have a little bit of fun with this? With slight buffs I felt this could be a creative move where people can do some flashy things with it, they can throw it in to style on people. It would be fun to add a little bit of spice to his move set.

As it stands, skull bash is worthless for everything but recovery, why should we keep it terrible? Why not beef it up, make it useful. Why not make it fun.

Basically, I don't think it's a buff pikachu needs, but I think it is a buff many of us want. Everything doesn't have to be strictly business when it comes to this kind of stuff

 

[Comet7]

I don't see why skull bash would be used anyway, other than for recovery. Pika already has safer and better options.

 

[Paradoxium]

I don't see why skull bash would be used anyway, other than for recovery. Pika already has safer and better options.

So than we should just keep it absolutely terrible for the sake of it, because he has better and safer options we should leave this move god awful. There is no reason for this move to be that pitiful.

Did you not read my last post, it is not something that he needs but something that we want. Tweaking this move can inspire some creativity, earn some style points, and be really really fun. Why do you want to keep this move so bad?