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Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

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Shady Shaymin

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"Its a really good tech that fixes everything about pika guys idk why top players arent doing it and winning"

Spare me
It's a good tech that covers every option the opponent can possibly take while also being possible to execute on reaction as opposed to on a read, that just do happens to be tricky to execute. I'm sorry it doesn't fit your narrative that you've established for characters you don't play.

Riddle me this: how early does RAR thunder kill?
It killed sheik at 110 from the middle of FD in esam's video.
 

A10theHero

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"Its a really good tech that fixes everything about pika guys idk why top players arent doing it and winning"

Spare me
The difference is that we actually have an idea for why we're not seeing it used much.

Riddle me this: how early does RAR thunder kill?
I was actually doing some work with it today, and without rage and at the center of Omega Battlefield, Pikachu can kill Sheik at 125%.


This is towards the latter end of the range.
It works approximately from 100% to 130% on Sheik. After that, it's either Down Throw to RAR Thunder or Up Throw to DJ Thunder, both of which are not guaranteed under all circumstances.
 
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Ghostbone

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So it's apparently a tech so hard that not even the best Pikachu main can do it consistently, with only a 5% kill range without rage, ONLY IN THE CENTRE OF THE STAGE (since near the ledge you can DI behind pikachu to live)

Wow so good, fixes Pikachu's kill problems all right.
 
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Shady Shaymin

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So it's apparently a tech so hard that not even the best Pikachu main can do it consistently, with only a 5% kill range without rage, ONLY IN THE CENTRE OF THE STAGE (since near the ledge you can DI behind pikachu to live)

Wow so good, fixes Pikachu's kill problems all right.
Did your main get nerfed or something? Do you main a character that has hard time fighting pikachu? Because you're taking my simple facts awfully personally. I'm sorry that pika being able to cover all options out of an up throw to confirm a thunder strikes such a nerve.

Esam has a video of himself doing rar thunder with ease, but tourney nerves make it easy to screw up advanced tech. It's not like he hasn't gotten it before, he got it easily against trela at smash con.
 

ARISTOS

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Ok, RAR Thunder out of up-throw is true.

If people can't hit it accurately and consistently then so what? Pikachu would then still find it difficult to deal with killing.
 

Peppermint1201

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Did your main get nerfed or something? Do you main a character that has hard time fighting pikachu? Because you're taking my simple facts awfully personally. I'm sorry that pika being able to cover all options out of an up throw to confirm a thunder strikes such a nerve.
Don't respond to a legitimate argument with such rudeness.

Pikachu's uthrow RAR thunder doesn't seem to be much (if at all) better than Ness' kill throw in terms of how early it starts to kill, and yet Ness is still likely not a top 10 character. Additionally, unlike a kill throw, this setup eventually stops working. Killing off of grab is not an instant remedy to viability, especially when Pikachu is still lacking in safe kill options even WITH this setup. Many characters play effective anti-grab games, and all characters are capable of being in the air, a state which prevents grabs. This is all of course assuming the Pikachu player has immense technical prowess and never drops their upthrow RAR thunders.
 
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A10theHero

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So it's apparently a tech so hard that not even the best Pikachu main can do it consistently, with only a 5% kill range without rage, ONLY IN THE CENTRE OF THE STAGE (since near the ledge you can DI behind pikachu to live)

Wow so good, fixes Pikachu's kill problems all right.
Who said 5%? It's a roughly 30% range.

Ok, RAR Thunder out of up-throw is true.

If people can't hit it accurately and consistently then so what? Pikachu would then still find it difficult to deal with killing.
Yeah, I'm not denying that. All I said was that it's possible to do it accurately and consistently.
If you remember my really long post from a while ago, I said that the most important thing that Pikachu's future hinges on is mastering and sucessfully implementing this kill confirm. I never said that anything is certain.
 

NairWizard

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The irony here is that I know a Pikachu main who posts in this thread who has essentially stated this before.
Sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Whoops.
Maybe you should ask "former" Pikachu players about these things :p
But this was pre-patch and they may actually have faith in Pikachu's merits again; Sheik isn't strictly better in 95% of game play anymore (and Meta Knight moving down a peg doesn't overtly ensure he's vastly better in nearly every threatening ability while sharing similarities).
I wasn't planning to make a Pikachu post, but since I've been "summoned," might as well.

Pikachu's niche in the game was great edgeguarding (ability to go deep with multiple aerials due to recovery distance/quick recovery) combined with long-range, spacing-disruptive shenanigans in Quick Attack, an amazing disadvantaged state (multiple aerials to escape, Thunder, recovery, QA to land, short frame/b-air). Sheik had better edgeguarding, a better long-range game (lol Needles), and a better disadvantaged state. Truthfully there was no reason to play Pikachu while Sheik existed. He didn't do, well, *anything* that she couldn't do better. Most characters were overshadowed by prepatch Sheik, of course, but the attribute comparisons were never quite as direct as with Pikachu.

After the patch it's a little different. Pikachu's hard read tools are now better than Sheik's since her grab reward's been toned down (before Sheik "hard-reading" you just consisted of her predicting that you would be shielding and grabbing you, lol, which was so ridiculously safe), so you can feasibly use Pikachu instead if you are skilled at making reads. Sheik is still obviously the better character, though.





People misunderstand Pikachu frequently. If you take a look at some of the weaknesses Pika has been stated to have just in this topic alone in the last 2 or 3 pages, you'll find:

- low range
- weakness to swords
- low weight/survivability
- lack of kill confirms
- lack of mid and high % combos
- low damage output on single attacks
- predictable/avoidable edgeguarding

and then some that people missed:
- mediocre shield pressure and grab range
- above-average landing lag (though mitigated by use of generous autocancels)
- lack of a killing aerial
- some average/mediocre mobility parameters, like air speed, initial dash->shield, foxtrot

To me these weaknesses when combined outline/form the trappings of a bottom 10 character.

"But Solid! Pikachu can't possibly be bottom 10!"

He isn't, but with the way people (with the intention of fighting back against perceived Pikachu overhype) talk about him, especially in this thread, he sure seems bottom 10. But people seem hesitant to follow through to the logical conclusion of their observations. Posts about Pikachu will frequently top off a list of his weaknesses with "But he's still a solid high tier." What makes him high tier? That part always just goes unsupported.

If I were to make a case for it I'd probably mention his disadvantage, f4 jumpsquat combined with quick startup on aerials and tilts, and good walk/crawl/run which allows him to mix up other characters.


Some of those weaknesses are definitely exaggerated, too. For instance, I don't think that Pikachu has much of a problem with swords/disjoints because there are two sides to every coin. It's too shallow to say that "sword vs. low range, sword must win." This is the same line of thinking that causes people to underrate Mario. Once Pikachu is "in," he's very hard to get out again. With the best roll/spotdodge data in the game, he also gets in very easily. roll in -> up-tilt is an actual thing that works, for instance. pivot up-airs are also great against swordsmen in the same vein. Also, most swordsmen like trapping their opponents in advantage, but Pika escapes/ignores a lot of traps by resetting to the ledge with QA.

His swordsmen MUs are not too bad. Marth and Lucina were never really problems for him, and neither was Roy. Corrin's manageable, and even Cloud is fine (Pikachu probably loses, but it's not a roflstomp). Ike's the hardest of the swordsmen for Pika, but it has nothing to do with the sword and everything to do with Ike's shield game being very potent. Pikachu loses to grabs, jabs, and shields in this MU, not to Ike's massive disjoint (I mean, of course, disjoint is always better than no disjoint, that's just trivially true, but it doesn't affect the MU nearly as much as other factors).

If I had to prioritize his weakneses, it'd go something like:

#1 Pikachu does have a problem killing, with no killing aerial or real confirm (d-tilt -> n-air? lol)

#2 shields work pretty well against him, as his shield pressure tools aren't amazing (watch ZeRo shield a lot against ESAM, for instance, almost as much as he shields against Nairo's ZSS, which is a tether grab character).

#3 Pika's neutral isn't that great. He doesn't have a safe poke, and tjolt is almost entirely useless nowadays since everyone powershields and then just does whatever (though you can use it to cover your approach in certain situations/MUs); it's too slow to actually do anything consistently. His grab range is kind of mediocre too.

Quick Attack is not a good answer to Pika's problems in neutral, despite how many people seem to get hit by/fall for it. It starts moving on f15, and the hitbox doesn't appear until f18, so it's definitely way more than reactable. People trying to predictively shield it probably have the wrong approach in mind. Your best option against QA is to take advantage of Pika's extended hurtboxes and throw out a devastating attack like a Rosa up-smash or Ganon n-air or something.

Sure, sometimes, Pika will react to your hitbox while moving and choose a safe location to retreat to with the second part of QA, or he'll move in a way that goes through you and then punish you. But the risk:reward here is always in your favor, because if you do manage to hit him (which will happen about a fourth to a third of the time), he just dies, and he's a character that has trouble sealing the stock himself, so reclaiming leads is difficult for him.



In 1.1.5 i think pikachu now outclasses sheik. sheik has superior frame data on her aerials, but now she's only 2 points heavier than pikachu, who actually has a kill confirm that's guaranteed unlike sheik.

This confirm doesn't work as a confirm.

Yes, you can just barely react and catch DI but you can only be ready to read two directions at a time--either forward and no DI, or behind and no DI. It's more of a 50:50 than a kill confirm, and even that's assuming that your reaction time is just amazing; it's 1/3 if it's not. And even if it were guaranteed, it isn't overwhelmingly powerful especially from centerstage, so it's not nearly as good as some of the other kill confirms in the game.

I would be very happy to be proven wrong about this confirm, but as far as I can tell, there's no evidence to suggest that you can get it consistently, although I appreciate the effort that Pikachu mains are putting into the character.
 
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Shady Shaymin

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Ok, RAR Thunder out of up-throw is true.

If people can't hit it accurately and consistently then so what? Pikachu would then still find it difficult to deal with killing.
Esam went into beast 6 without practicing the tech, he admitted this afterwards. Judging by the reaction times and dexterity of top level players, it is definitely possible to do this tech with consistency. It's still nothing compared to some melee inputs anyway.
 

ぱみゅ

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The CCI loves to underrate Pikachu.
Like he suddenly is not the combo machine he is, Quick Attack is not an amazing "Skip Neutral" tool, and doesn't have several conditioning and kill moves to finish off stocks out of raw reads at not ridiculous high percents like Mario.

And my favorite part is how the CCI states over and over that he has only one representative who is inconsistent as a player, so we count every 13th position but not the 2nd's and 3rd's for some reason.

Yet, we do glorify most of iStudying's and Ranai's solitary results and boost the impressions on their characters despite pretty much nobody else has results at the same scale as theirs.

Because it's obviously the characters, not the players.

:196:
 

Ghostbone

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Who said 5%? It's a roughly 30% range.
You said it kills at 125
If it doesn't kill until 125, and only works till 130, it only has a 6% range that it kills (which would only get smaller with rage)
Yet, we do glorify most of iStudying's and Ranai's solitary results and boost the impressions on their characters despite pretty much nobody else has results at the same scale as theirs.
Nobody thinks Greninja is a top 10 characters, and Ranai's results are way better than ESAM's, yet people still struggle to fit Villager into top 10.

So why is Pikachu exempt from this for some reason lol, we're not underrating PIkachu, Pikachu players and ESAM fanboys are overrating Pikachu lol.
 

Illusion.

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For Pikachu, there's ESAM and Shimitake off the top of my head. Is there anyone else?
 
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C0rvus

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The CCI loves to underrate Pikachu.
Like he suddenly is not the combo machine he is, Quick Attack is not an amazing "Skip Neutral" tool, and doesn't have several conditioning and kill moves to finish off stocks out of raw reads at not ridiculous high percents like Mario.

And my favorite part is how the CCI states over and over that he has only one representative who is inconsistent as a player, so we count every 13th position but not the 2nd's and 3rd's for some reason.

Yet, we do glorify most of iStudying's and Ranai's solitary results and boost the impressions on their characters despite pretty much nobody else has results at the same scale as theirs.

Because it's obviously the characters, not the players.

:196:
I agree, Pikachu is getting a lot of unexpected flak here.

I think it might be because it's ESAM, and he's known to overestimate Pikachu, but the guy gets good results. He's a top level player, so his not so great placings stand out more, because we expect top 8s from him. And maybe it's also because we are more familiar with him; he's an active member of the Smash community, a content creator, and a generally expressive person.

Pikachu is not top tier. He loses pretty squarely to Mario, a common tournament threat. He doesn't really beat any good characters, just goes around even with them. His kill confirm seems hella inconsistent. He doesn't dominate in neutral. He's not top 10 even, he's a middle of the road high tier character at best.

But his results reflect this. Perhaps they exceed this.

I think a lot of it has to do with peoples' expectations, and generally the characters they enjoy. When iStudying does well, all the Greninja mains are happy. People who like Greninja or didn't expect this have something to say about it. Same with Ranai (but less so, I rarely see many Villager mains anymore.)

Pikachu does well? Of course, it's ESAM, right? I dunno. Pikachu is clearly not a top threat, and may never have been. But it's clear he isn't bad. Nobody is here kicking up dust going "Pikachu beats Bayo! He's top 5 now!" so I don't get why people are bashing him all of the sudden.
 

TheGoodGuava

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You said it kills at 125
If it doesn't kill until 125, and only works till 130, it only has a 6% range that it kills (which would only get smaller with rage)

Nobody thinks Greninja is a top 10 characters, and Ranai's results are way better than ESAM's, yet people still struggle to fit Villager into top 10.

So why is Pikachu exempt from this for some reason lol, we're not underrating PIkachu, Pikachu players and ESAM fanboys are overrating Pikachu lol.
Because of Pikachus matchup spread. While theoretical, he only has 3 disadvantageous matchups. You all need to stop saying results are the only thing that matters, Smash 4 is literally the only game with a community that takes tournament results into consideration when placing a character on a tier list. Based on matchup spread alone Pikachu and Rosalina would be the best in the game, both only having 3 matches they don't go even in or win. Ironically Rosalina wins against Pikachu's losing matchups while Pikachu wins against Rosalina's
 

Blobface

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Figured I'd bring up Ganon's buffs.

So first, some numbers:

Jab's total frames were reduced from 34 to 28. It's startup was also reduced, so assuming the same 2 active frames, that's going from 25 frames of lag to 20, a decrease of 20%.

Dash Attacks total frames were reduced from 41 to 37. The hitbox duration is the same, so that's a decrease from 22 to 18 frames of lag, a decrease of 18.18%.

First off the Flame Choke grabbox buffs are nice but not that important. Figured I'd get that out of the way.

Jab's not just functional, it's actually a really good tool now. It's still subpar OoS, but it has a much better use now as a spacing move. 20 frames is a very low amount of lag for its new range, making it overall very good at keeping people out of Ganon's face and in mid range where Ganon is at his strongest. It's an actual jab/poke now as opposed to "the redundant move that you only use because it's technically your fastest move".

Wizkick buffs are a huge plus. Wizkick being weak was a huge hole in Ganon's gameplan previously. Now it does more damage, sends people further offstage earlier, and is an actual kill move. It's strong enough to go through bullet climax now making the Bayonetta matchup at least feasible to win. Considering that Wizkick beats virtually everything but shield, it's definitely possible that it's now that "stock cap" that Ganon really needs. That will take much more time to know for sure however.

Dash Attack is definitely my personal favorite buff of this patch. It feels sooo much more fluid now, and is honestly kind of spammable. To put this into perspective, Dash Attack now has the same endlag of Ganon's U-smash, 18 frames. The decreased endlag makes it more rewarding and even gives Ganon a broader range to kill confirm off it. It's still very easy to shieldgrab if you don't cross up though.

As for how the Sheik and ZSS nerfs affect him, I'd say he's only slightly better off from that. Weaker Sheiks and ZSS's + more Clouds is a good (Cloud is disadvantageous for Ganon, but it's still one of his better top tier matchups). But more Bayonettas, even with buffed Wizkick is a bad.

With all this taken into account, I'd say that this patch benefited Ganon more than any other patch. I still can't say with confidence that he's "viable" yet, but he's far better than he's ever been.
 
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A10theHero

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I wasn't planning to make a Pikachu post, but since I've been "summoned," might as well.

Pikachu's niche in the game was great edgeguarding (ability to go deep with multiple aerials due to recovery distance/quick recovery) combined with long-range, spacing-disruptive shenanigans in Quick Attack, an amazing disadvantaged state (multiple aerials to escape, Thunder, recovery, QA to land, short frame/b-air). Sheik had better edgeguarding, a better long-range game (lol Needles), and a better disadvantaged state. Truthfully there was no reason to play Pikachu while Sheik existed. He didn't do, well, *anything* that she couldn't do better. Most characters were overshadowed by prepatch Sheik, of course, but the attribute comparisons were never quite as direct as with Pikachu.

After the patch it's a little different. Pikachu's hard read tools are now better than Sheik's since her grab reward's been toned down (before Sheik "hard-reading" you just consisted of her predicting that you would be shielding and grabbing you, lol, which was so ridiculously safe), so you can feasibly use Pikachu instead if you are skilled at making reads. Sheik is still obviously the better character, though.





People misunderstand Pikachu frequently. If you take a look at some of the weaknesses Pika has been stated to have just in this topic alone in the last 2 or 3 pages, you'll find:

- low range
- weakness to swords
- low weight/survivability
- lack of kill confirms
- lack of mid and high % combos
- low damage output on single attacks
- predictable/avoidable edgeguarding

and then some that people missed:
- mediocre shield pressure and grab range
- above-average landing lag (though mitigated by use of generous autocancels)
- lack of a killing aerial
- some average/mediocre mobility parameters, like air speed, initial dash->shield, foxtrot

To me these weaknesses when combined outline/form the trappings of a bottom 10 character.

"But Solid! Pikachu can't possibly be bottom 10!"

He isn't, but with the way people (with the intention of fighting back against perceived Pikachu overhype) talk about him, especially in this thread, he sure seems bottom 10. But people seem hesitant to follow through to the logical conclusion of their observations. Posts about Pikachu will frequently top off a list of his weaknesses with "But he's still a solid high tier." What makes him high tier? That part always just goes unsupported.

If I were to make a case for it I'd probably mention his disadvantage, f4 jumpsquat combined with quick startup on aerials and tilts, and good walk/crawl/run which allows him to mix up other characters.


Some of those weaknesses are definitely exaggerated, too. For instance, I don't think that Pikachu has much of a problem with swords/disjoints because there are two sides to every coin. It's too shallow to say that "sword vs. low range, sword must win." This is the same line of thinking that causes people to underrate Mario. Once Pikachu is "in," he's very hard to get out again. With the best roll/spotdodge data in the game, he also gets in very easily. roll in -> up-tilt is an actual thing that works, for instance. pivot up-airs are also great against swordsmen in the same vein. Also, most swordsmen like trapping their opponents in advantage, but Pika escapes/ignores a lot of traps by resetting to the ledge with QA.

His swordsmen MUs are not too bad. Marth and Lucina were never really problems for him, and neither was Roy. Corrin's manageable, and even Cloud is fine (Pikachu probably loses, but it's not a roflstomp). Ike's the hardest of the swordsmen for Pika, but it has nothing to do with the sword and everything to do with Ike's shield game being very potent. Pikachu loses to grabs, jabs, and shields in this MU, not to Ike's massive disjoint (I mean, of course, disjoint is always better than no disjoint, that's just trivially true, but it doesn't affect the MU nearly as much as other factors).

If I had to prioritize his weakneses, it'd go something like:

#1 Pikachu does have a problem killing, with no killing aerial or real confirm (d-tilt -> n-air? lol)

#2 shields work pretty well against him, as his shield pressure tools aren't amazing (watch ZeRo shield a lot against ESAM, for instance, almost as much as he shields against Nairo's ZSS, which is a tether grab character).

#3 Pika's neutral isn't that great. He doesn't have a safe poke, and tjolt is almost entirely useless nowadays since everyone powershields and then just does whatever (though you can use it to cover your approach in certain situations/MUs); it's too slow to actually do anything consistently. His grab range is kind of mediocre too.

Quick Attack is not a good answer to Pika's problems in neutral, despite how many people seem to get hit by/fall for it. It starts moving on f15, and the hitbox doesn't appear until f18, so it's definitely way more than reactable. People trying to predictively shield it probably have the wrong approach in mind. Your best option against QA is to take advantage of Pika's extended hurtboxes and throw out a devastating attack like a Rosa up-smash or Ganon n-air or something.

Sure, sometimes, Pika will react to your hitbox while moving and choose a safe location to retreat to with the second part of QA, or he'll move in a way that goes through you and then punish you. But the risk:reward here is always in your favor, because if you do manage to hit him (which will happen about a fourth to a third of the time), he just dies, and he's a character that has trouble sealing the stock himself, so reclaiming leads is difficult for him.
I pretty much agree with all of this.
I'd just say that Pikachu does have safe pokes (Down Tilt, SHAC Dair, and RAR SH Uair). ESAM doesn't use these options as much because he likes to play an aggressive Pikachu. He acknowledged them in his Pikachu guide, but he's still more of a fan of SH Fair.

This confirm doesn't work as a confirm.

Yes, you can just barely react and catch DI but you can only be ready to read two directions at a time--either forward and no DI, or behind and no DI. It's more of a 50:50 than a kill confirm, and even that's assuming that your reaction time is just amazing; it's 1/3 if it's not. And even if it were guaranteed, it isn't overwhelmingly powerful especially from centerstage, so it's not nearly as good as some of the other kill confirms in the game.

I would be very happy to be proven wrong about this confirm, but as far as I can tell, there's no evidence to suggest that you can get it consistently, although I appreciate the effort that Pikachu mains are putting into the character.
According to http://www.humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime, the median reaction time is 215 milliseconds. In my calculations from earlier, I used 300 milliseconds. In that context, I don't think your reaction time needs to be amazing. But you do need to put in a lot of effort and it can be easy to mess up.

Honestly, I do think there are much better kill confirms. What I like though about RAR Thunder is that, in the occasional event that they do survive the hit, they take almost 30% of damage. From 125% to 150%, that's a huge deal since FF Fair to Up Smash is more likely to be true, FF Fair to Ftilt is more likely to kill, and Pikachu's other meh kill options become more useful. It won't always net the kill, but it definitely could help Pikachu quite a bit.

Today, while doing my lab work, I had gotten two and a half (I messed up the last input on the third try but still got the spike before the air dodge) RAR Thunders in a row. Of course, this was all DI away, so that made it pretty easy to repeat consistently. That's the closest I've ever gotten to consistency with RAR Thunder. Granted, the last time I practiced this combo was several months ago, but it's all I can offer right now. There won't be much of an answer on this for a while.

You said it kills at 125
If it doesn't kill until 125, and only works till 130, it only has a 6% range that it kills (which would only get smaller with rage)
I also said that that was in the latter half of the range. After that I said it was roughly 100-130%. I had Sheik at 125% in that gif because I was labbing options right around the time RAR Thunder stops working.

So why is Pikachu exempt from this for some reason lol, we're not underrating PIkachu, Pikachu players and ESAM fanboys are overrating Pikachu lol.
This kinda proves ぱみゅ's point. People in this thread underrate him so much. Here, it's just as bad as people who overrate him.

For Pikachu, there's ESAM, Shimitake, and who else?
The only other top rep is NAKAT sometimes.
 

thehard

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I feel like we should talk about Mr. R going to game 10 with Tyroy, the Bayonetta from Midwest Mayhem.
https://secure.twitch.tv/events2compete/v/56052607 (~4:17:00)

I'm worried about this character's endgame. You never really have to commit to any action. Witch Twist, especially OoS is ludicrous- where's the counterplay here? For that matter what is Bayo's weakness? Her specs + burst movement options kind of give her an A+ advantage, disadvantage, and neutral. I've been trying to defend her but I have no idea how people don't think she's #1 right now. I'm a bit annoyed at the whole thing so I'll cut this post short.
 

my_T

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Because of Pikachus matchup spread. While theoretical, he only has 3 disadvantageous matchups. You all need to stop saying results are the only thing that matters, Smash 4 is literally the only game with a community that takes tournament results into consideration when placing a character on a tier list. Based on matchup spread alone Pikachu and Rosalina would be the best in the game, both only having 3 matches they don't go even in or win. Ironically Rosalina wins against Pikachu's losing matchups while Pikachu wins against Rosalina's
THIS^^^

taking results into account is such a flawed way of determining a characters position on a tier list. There are certain factors that can heavily sway a characters results such as player skill, character representation, and lack of competition (this could fall under player skill).

The only effective way of making a tier list is determining the facts (what their tools do, strengths/weaknesses of those tools) of a specific character and comparing that specific character to the rest of the roster.

If pikachu's uthrow to RAR thunder is true then IT HAS TO BE TAKEN INTO CONSIDERATION when determining how good he is as a character. You can't blame and penalize a character because the player(s) using said character are inconsistent or lacking in skill.

A good example of this would be Bryan in tekken tag 2. His taunt cancel just frames are VERY hard to execute but they have very good utility. Knee has shown just how amazing Bryan is because he along with a handful of other players have the execution to use Bryan to his full potential.
 

Teshie U

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Don't high platforms also mess with upthrow thunder? So this is only good center stage, but not on BF,Dreamland, Town.



Also on the subject of dash attacks, does anyone else thing Samus DA is bonkers now?
 

sedrf

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Pikachu is pretty much :falconmelee: at this point. Like he's a fine pick,but everybody keeps circlejerking about how not great he is like they did with:4peach:. Amd to be honest it's rather stupid with how some(key word some) are hyping :4mewtwo: and :4greninja: to all hell.
It's like bruh pikachu might not be the best **** ever ,but you just listing their flaws like it's the end all is rather shortsighted.
Like here: :4cloud2:
He has a rather subpar recovery
Most of his limits are not that great
He has a ****ty throw game
His kill confirms seem to be land up air or limit side b
But still you would be damned to find anybody here that would say cloud isn't a contender for the top 5.

I feel it's best for the thread is stop looking at the negatives and look at what makes it good.
Also:4bayonetta: is no where near as strong as people say,but as long as she is viable she will forever crap on low level tournies.
 

[BROF]

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『 HOLY DIVER 』 Jojo Part 7 best part.
I feel that the Bayonetta hate train will come down a little bit once people actually start remembering how to DI/SDI her stuff.
Been playing against a lot of Bayonetta and if they use Witch twist even once that's your best get out of jail card. Maybe it's because I play melee alongside 4, so SDI is still something I do a lot, but people need to get on slamming the stick a lot more.
The lack of proper SDI on most players is understandable due to SDI being useless for the most part, but it's due time to pick it up again.
 

TheGoodGuava

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THIS^^^

taking results into account is such a flawed way of determining a characters position on a tier list. There are certain factors that can heavily sway a characters results such as player skill, character representation, and lack of competition (this could fall under player skill).

The only effective way of making a tier list is determining the facts (what their tools do, strengths/weaknesses of those tools) of a specific character and comparing that specific character to the rest of the roster.

If pikachu's uthrow to RAR thunder is true then IT HAS TO BE TAKEN INTO CONSIDERATION when determining how good he is as a character. You can't blame and penalize a character because the player(s) using said character are inconsistent or lacking in skill.

A good example of this would be Bryan in tekken tag 2. His taunt cancel just frames are VERY hard to execute but they have very good utility. Knee has shown just how amazing Bryan is because he along with a handful of other players have the execution to use Bryan to his full potential.
Taking results into consideration more than matchup spread is just going to glorify characters with great representation and human error. It's one of the few reasons other fighting game players don't take smash seriously. Its why characters like Pikachu are so severely under rated and characters like Bayonetta are so over rated. Bayonetta is slow and just playing her forces a slow paced match ONLY because Witch Time is so effective. This makes characters that thrive in slow paced environments i.e. grapplers, zoners, spacing based characters do well against her. This leads to a ton of even/losing matchups and not as many good matchups as you'd like to think. That's why I would only place her around no. 10 if I were to make a tier list. She does fine against the top tiers (other than Pikachu and Rosa) but loses or goes even/loses to way to many mid tiers to be top tier

To be clear, I'm a Zard/Marth main, Both I would argue go even with Bayonetta
 
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[BROF]

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『 HOLY DIVER 』 Jojo Part 7 best part.
Like here: :4cloud2:
He has a rather subpar recovery
Most of his limits are not that great
He has a ****ty throw game
His kill confirms seem to be land up air or limit side b
But still you would be damned to find anybody here that would say cloud isn't a contender for the top 5.
Limit charge is the single best "come to me" move in the game. It forces approaching like no other move in the does. It's funny how a move like that ended on a swordsman. Also his lack of kill confirms dont affect him that much when you have access to limit cross slash. Having an smash attack that can be done in the air, with i-frames, and pretty much cooldown is downright amazing if you ask me. Seriously, I love limit side B so much. If Cloud was ever to get nerfed even more I hope L. Cross Slash stays the powerhouse it is.
Also has many others have said, throw into Limit charge is best the combo throw.
 

LancerStaff

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I don't understand why people say this.
Like, I've asked Pikachu mains in the Discord chat who they felt were Pikachu's bad matchups. None of them were swordfighters. We actually had a discussion on this a few days ago, and nobody felt that range was a significant barrier.
I say this because that's what we were told. I recall Pikas bringing up the idea quite often up until at least when Ryu and Roy came out, and as far as myself and others were aware it hadn't changed until ESAM started saying Pika beat Cloud.
 

Ghostbone

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We have to take results into account when judging tier lists/matchups because it's really hard to rate character's tools accurately in a vacuum.

And it's the only objective measure we have, everyone rates a characters tools differently, someone can claim that in theory fox is the best character in the game (just an example), and there's no way to actually disprove them. They'll just go on about frame 2 jab, u-tilt frame traps and punishing everything with u-smash. It's pointless just talking about theory for this reason.

And Pikachu isn't even good in theory lol, no range, bad kill power, meh mobility outside quick attack which has its own issues with wonky hurtboxes and no invincibility.
Like someone said pika only has 3 bad matchups in theory. No, pikachu only has 3 bad matchups in theory IN YOUR OPINION. Theorycrafting isn't some absolute measure lol
 
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TheGoodGuava

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User was warned for this post
We have to take results into account when judging tier lists/matchups because it's really hard to rate character's tools accurately in a vacuum.

And it's the only objective measure we have, everyone rates a characters tools differently, someone can claim that in theory fox is the best character in the game (just an example), and there's no way to actually disprove them. They'll just go on about frame 2 jab, u-tilt frame traps and punishing everything with u-smash. It's pointless just talking about theory for this reason.

And Pikachu isn't even good in theory lol, no range, bad kill power, meh mobility outside quick attack which has its own issues with wonky hurtboxes and no invincibility.
Like someone said pika only has 3 bad matchups in theory. No, pikachu only has 3 bad matchups in theory IN YOUR OPINION. Theorycrafting isn't some absolute measure lol
You can't defend a characters position on a tier list using what you said, that doesn't matter when he still has a matchup spread that's barely above average. Also as I said before, that's what every other fighting game uses in its tierlist, theory. Actual data based on the number of options a character has vs another character is more reliable than tournament results will be. You also seem to have called Pikachu bad in theory because of what, 2 things? His benefits are overwhelmingly better than his cons. Great throws, excelent frame data, best recovery in the game, tied for best matchup spread, his neutral is ridiculous, approach is godlike, disadvantage is great with numerous landing options, his only real weakness is lack of kill power. Even then Pikachu isn't a character that straight up kills, its a character that gimps you at 40. Results account for human error and character representation. If you want to base your things off of results have fun with Cloud and Mario at the top of the list. That would be akin to putting Ryu at the top of the SF4 tierlist or worse, a Githubs tierlist
 
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Ghostbone

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lol why is everything so black and white with people.

Results support theory. You can go on about how good a character is, but if it's not shown anywhere then your theory is probably wrong.
Purely theory based tierlists always fail because if you're just judging a matchup from your computer you're missing all the nuance that goes into it. Plus theory is just people's opinions, everyone has a different opinion so good luck making any sort of objective tier list or matchup ratios with theory lol.

But obviously results by themselves aren't enough, some characters are over represented because of their ease of use (Mario at mid level). That doesn't mean results are meaningless.

Anyway I'll respond to your specific points since most of it is straight up false
Great throws, excelent frame data, best recovery in the game, tied for best matchup spread, his neutral is ridiculous, approach is godlike, disadvantage is great with numerous landing options, his only real weakness is lack of kill power. Even then Pikachu isn't a character that straight up kills, its a character that gimps you at 40.
Pikachu's throws are average, he has an early % combo throw, and that's it. U-throw doesn't kill until ludicrous %s but does still count as a stock cap eventually. F-throw does ok damage but nothing spectacular.

His frame data isn't that good for the range, excellent definitely isn't the right word. Jab is frame 2 but doesn't have a safe jab combo/cancel like other frame 2 jabs, tilts are average, aerials have really bad landing lag though nair/uair/bair have good start-up.

Saying his recovery is the best is a huge exaggeration, it's outclassed by MK/Sheik/ZSS for sure, and about tied with bayo.

Neutral is ridiculous? How exactly, he doesn't have any spammable spacing tools or great mobility to get around, and his projectile is mediocre.

Approach is godlike? Again explain this, pikachu finds it really hard to get in on any character with decent defensive spacing, which can be plainly seen in his terrible Mario MU.

Disadvantage is good, but not better than Sheik, ZSS, Bayo, Sonic, Meta Knight and likely a couple others if we exclude recovery (which we should because otherwise you're just rating his recovery twice lol)

Plus, Pikachu only gimps you at 40 if you don't tech, which as SOME people have apparently continuously gone on about in this thread, since it's possible to do something we should pretend like people can get it 100% consistently.
 
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Dcas

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We have to take results into account when judging tier lists/matchups because it's really hard to rate character's tools accurately in a vacuum.

And it's the only objective measure we have, everyone rates a characters tools differently, someone can claim that in theory fox is the best character in the game (just an example), and there's no way to actually disprove them. They'll just go on about frame 2 jab, u-tilt frame traps and punishing everything with u-smash. It's pointless just talking about theory for this reason.

And Pikachu isn't even good in theory lol, no range, bad kill power, meh mobility outside quick attack which has its own issues with wonky hurtboxes and no invincibility.
Like someone said pika only has 3 bad matchups in theory. No, pikachu only has 3 bad matchups in theory IN YOUR OPINION. Theorycrafting isn't some absolute measure lol
It´s really mindblowing that this is the first comment with some objective and solid points in this thread.

Reading throu this pages i realize why this community is the way it is. They base their results on 100 for glory matches, from theorycrafting and low level tournaments, sure anyone is allowed to spit out their opinions but i´ll rather take the opinion from several top smash players plus my own opinion ( based on tourney results) to actually craft something with some sort of fundamentals.

Mods should consider how to handle this sort of thread or at least change the title, at time this is just theorycrafting and SUBJECTIVE opinions, no solid facts, no objective and so on.
 
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NairWizard

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These are nitpicks since I agree that Pikachu is pretty mediocre, but being too negative or too positive is sometimes a problem:

Approach is godlike? Again explain this, pikachu finds it really hard to get in on any character with decent defensive spacing, which can be plainly seen in his terrible Mario MU.
Pikachu doesn't struggle to get in on Mario, he generally outranges Mario with his ground game. Pivot f-smash, d-tilt, and up-tilt are good ranged tools against Mario, and Mario only has his b-air in response really, which is not even half as good as Doc's b-air for the job due to the differences in their short hop heights, though it is decent in general in the MU.

The problem with the Mario matchup is that Mario gets the KO first in all situations because all of Pikachu's KO moves are worse than Mario's ridiculous up-smash, which he can more or less just spam in this MU. They combo each other for similar amounts of damage, but Mario is heavier, and up-smash is just flat out better than all of Pikachu's tools at close range. Mario's KO power and weight are the defining factors of this MU, not defensive spacing or Pikachu "getting in" on Mario.

Additionally, Pikachu is one of the best characters at "getting in" on anyone. His rolls are great, and airdodge and spotdodge are also among the best in the game, and we've all seen how effective defensive options like rolls are at top level for getting in, assuming that they're executed as part of a sequence rather than standalone. He's got some really solid mobility parameters too. 13th runspeed, crawl, 4f jumpsquat, and 12th walk speed, and he has the tilts to supplement his walking which not a lot of characters have; QA also exists even if it's unreliable at times--if you anticipate your opponent committing to a roll or anything else you can just QA to close a lot of distance/mess up spacing. He surely does have some problems with movement (air speed could be better, though horizontally he moves pretty well actually, and foxtrot/initial dash), but to say that he finds it really hard to get in is a little farfetched; Pikachu gets in quite easily.

Disadvantage is good, but not better than Sheik, ZSS, Bayo, Sonic, Meta Knight and likely a couple others if we exclude recovery (which we should because otherwise you're just rating his recovery twice lol)
Not sure I agree with this.

He's got multiple aerials that actually break combos, n-air being frame 3 (how many characters even have a frame 3 option?) and up-air being frame 4. Landing hitbox of d-air also comes out on frame 1, for random free landings. Thunder breaks out of some combos. Quick Attack although f15 to start up allows him to escape traps just as well as Bouncing Fish and probably better than Flip Kick against some characters, though these other tools double as a combo escape (for which Pika has n-air instead). His small size and compression property on b-air also make his landings somewhat difficult to punish.

MK has a harder time breaking out of strings; Sheik, ZSS, and Bayo are more susceptible to true combos due to their physics and humanoid frames; and Sonic has a tough time landing. Pretty sure it's arguable that he's just as good as these guys in disadvantage, since he beats each of them in specific areas.


The rest of your post I agree with.
 
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bc1910

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who is better? Pikachu, Mewtwo, or Greninja?
In the current meta, Pikachu is still the best Pokemon.

Greninja and Mewtwo both have the potential to surpass him though. Whilst he's still top 14, he's at the lower end of it (potentially 14th, actually).
 

TheGoodGuava

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lol why is everything so black and white with people.

Results support theory. You can go on about how good a character is, but if it's not shown anywhere then your theory is probably wrong.
Purely theory based tierlists always fail because if you're just judging a matchup from your computer you're missing all the nuance that goes into it. Plus theory is just people's opinions, everyone has a different opinion so good luck making any sort of objective tier list or matchup ratios with theory lol.

But obviously results by themselves aren't enough, some characters are over represented because of their ease of use (Mario at mid level). That doesn't mean results are meaningless.

Anyway I'll respond to your specific points since most of it is straight up false

Pikachu's throws are average, he has an early % combo throw, and that's it. U-throw doesn't kill until ludicrous %s but does still count as a stock cap eventually. F-throw does ok damage but nothing spectacular.

His frame data isn't that good for the range, excellent definitely isn't the right word. Jab is frame 2 but doesn't have a safe jab combo/cancel like other frame 2 jabs, tilts are average, aerials have really bad landing lag though nair/uair/bair have good start-up.

Saying his recovery is the best is a huge exaggeration, it's outclassed by MK/Sheik/ZSS for sure, and about tied with bayo.

Neutral is ridiculous? How exactly, he doesn't have any spammable spacing tools or great mobility to get around, and his projectile is mediocre.

Approach is godlike? Again explain this, Pikachu finds it really hard to get in on any character with decent defensive spacing, which can be plainly seen in his terrible Mario MU.

Disadvantage is good, but not better than Sheik, ZSS, Bayo, Sonic, Meta Knight and likely a couple others if we exclude recovery (which we should because otherwise you're just rating his recovery twice lol)

Plus, Pikachu only gimps you at 40 if you don't tech, which as SOME people have apparently continuously gone on about in this thread, since it's possible to do something we should pretend like people can get it 100% consistently.
Pikachu's throws are great in the sense that assuming the Pikachu player is good they can get 30 - 40% with downthrow > upair > ff fair chaingrab, fthrow puts them offstage and sets up for gimps, combos into dash attack at lower percents. Bthrow is fthrow without the low % combos and further offstage, also a killthrow at 180. Uthrow is a 50/50 for a ton of damage or death.

His frame data is great, his landing lag is bad. If they made his landing lag not bad he would be broken.

Pikachu can edgeguard and gimp literally everyone until he wins with rar thunder, bair, nair, fair, and dair. Against certain characters you can camp at essentially 0 with an offstage thunderspike.

What did you do? Watch the Beefy Smash Doods video and think "oh haha pikachus recovery isn't ridiculous lol"? He is nigh ungimpable with a nearly infinite amount of recovery mixups. The only character that has the tools to effectively gimp Pikachu is Ness and well, we all know how that usually goes. Everyone else is gimpable, Bayonetta in particular is rather easy. I play Marth and literally just dtilt > counter/fair spam offstage until they die. Her recovery is long but its easy to mess with because of how slow it is. Nobody but an easily gimped character has the tools to effectively deal with his recovery.

Disadvantage is amazing, on par with Sheik, better than ZSS, a little bit worse than MK and Bayo, a lot better than Sonic. He and Sheik both have a 3 frame combo breaker and great burst movement abilities to get them out of sticky situations, ZSS just has flip kick and boost kick to get her out of things which are good except boost kick is a frame slower and you can actually get out of it with good SDI.

His mobility options aren't bad, even without quick attack. He has a good dash speed, very fast walking speed, and extremely high air acceleration.

His neutral is amazing, he can punish ANYTHING you do from anywhere on the stage. Quick attack is godlike when you're playing footsies even against a character like Ryu. Ftilt, fsmash, fair, nair, dair, dtilt, upair, and quick attack are all great options and his grab is great. His mobility just makes his neutral even better. The Mario MU is bad because he takes away one of Pikachu's best tools with 3 moves, upsmash, nair, and fludd.

Pikachu's ONLY legitimate issue is not having any real kill confirms. The character is an underrated god that nobody can accept is a top 3 character because there's only one person who plays him at a professional level and he hasn't been consistent
 
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Ghostbone

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Far out why do I waste my time here.
Like I was writing up a response but it's pointless because half the people here are just theory monsters who get all their play experience vs bad players and thus think stuff like Marth fairing bayo over and over off-stage actually works vs good players lmao, so anything I say just goes over their heads.

Like SolidSense makes good points, why can't everyone here be like them.
 
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TheGoodGuava

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Far out why do I waste my time here.
Like I was writing up a response but it's pointless because half the people here are just theory monsters who get all their play experience vs bad players and thus think stuff like Marth fairing bayo over and over off-stage actually works vs good players lmao, so anything I say just goes over their heads.

Like SolidSense makes good points, why can't everyone here be like them.
He only makes good points because what he agrees with what you say. You haven't given me any actual data, just said I was wrong. Also, how would you recommend gimping a Bayonetta if you're so good at it? Not knocking her out of her second recovery and abusing her rather short, predictable recovery with Marths excellent disjointed aerials and frame 5 counter that spells her inevitable death at 70 because she decided to go offstage?
 
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Nocally

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I

In short, having more range isn't inherently an issue since there are exploitable drawbacks to it. The con of high recovery frames is especially something that works in Pikachu's favor since he can quickly punish these moves.

Oh and if you're curious:
These were the opinions of around 10 Pikachu mains, including players who actively participate in tournaments and those who do not.

Almost unanimous
:4mario: :4ness:

About half agree, half disagree
:4sheik:, :4luigi:, :4drmario:, :4gaw:

Less than half
:4yoshi:


.
What do these characters have in common? quick escape options (f3 nair) or an equal juggle game against Pikachu, and most of them have higher reward per hit while outliving Pika percent-wise

Just thought I would supply some minor info to your great post.
 

DblCrest

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I'd also like to say how important it is to edgeguard Bayonetta in particular because offstage is pretty much the only time you can go ham on her without fearing Witch Time

And honestly it makes the game much more exciting and balanced because now, like how Tyrant is showcasing post-patch Meta Knight, players must....

Play neutral :O

I feel like this will also flesh out the people who don't want to learn how to read people and play the game on a mental level like Melee. Now instead of relying on win conditions, we are getting our victories in our actual skills

Except Bayonetta. **** that ****
Bayo can be a tad frustrating to edgeguard if you mess up. If you eat an afterburner kick during your attempt she gets another one to use and get back on stage. :S
Plus there's the way she can mix things up between choosing to double jump or witch twist. Only time you can reliablely get her is probably when she's only recovering vertically.
Unless you have something to beat out her disjoints.

Though what do the Bayo mains think? Do you EVER get gimped or have your recovery interrupted?
 
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~ Gheb ~

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taking results into account is such a flawed way of determining a characters position on a tier list.
Using tournament placings directly to determine a character's position on the tier list is flawed indeed. But taking a character's tournament results into account is helpful, if not necessary to figure out how certain matchups go. Which in turn helps us coming to a conclusion where certain characters belong on the tier list. That's why the Greninja community needed to be kept in check a little after Beast VI - istudy's placing did not prove in any way that Greninja was high tier / underrated / whatever. But his wins helped us confirm that Greninja has a major advantage against Luigi, that he can beat Fox, that he does fine against both Diddy and Pikachu and that Sheik was the ultimate roadblock for him. That's matchup-specific information based on empirical evidence. Why would you *not* take that into account in a character analysis?

:059:
 
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