ANOTHER Update (see quote) - Help toasty's baby Pika! <3<3<3

[toasty]

Watching a bit of Anther on the live feed of CoT4 inspired to bring back one of my Melee mains in Brawl since I didn't really like him at first...

I've spent 3 solid days using him a decent amount and yesterday I recorded a bunch of friendlies at a friend's house. (videos at the bottom of the post)

EDIT: the reason I'm posting these SO soon after I just started using him is so that I can kill my bad habits before they become too much a part of my game

THE SOUND QUALITY IS HORRIBLE. Please mute your speakers or they WILL blare. Error with the program we used

I haven't watched these matches carefully enough to pick myself apart yet, but I know that I'll often have predictable recovery patterns [using SideB too often and from too high up]...

most of my on-stage SideB usage were really messed up QAC attempts and sometimes I'd spam QAC to get the hang of the angles and what I can do afterward.

I also missed a good deal of follow-up opportunities from uair/utilt and I don't think I dsmash enough.

I also don't know matchups well at ALL [which also means I don't know much about priority, or about the chaingrab stuff either but I'll make good use of all the Pika documentation on the boards when I get a chance so no need to post the standard info ]

Any and all help is greatly appreciated! <3

VIDEOS:

again...the sound quality is beyond horrible, please mute your speakers.

Vs. Wario
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnLxGm3rxKY

Vs. DDD
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srL4NJaELZw

Vs. Pokemon Trainer [LOL poor Ivysaur...and...uh...my questionable DI >_>]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rxyynddfr8

NEW VID...same night >_>
Vs. YOSHI --- I'm mostly posting this to show a vid with a good Yoshi since I think those are pretty rare
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9zz8otpJ50

There are most likely other vids that will be posted later, I don't remember. They're probably better too since we played for a WHILE and I think I fixed some of the problems I had by the end of the night.

But please, anything you can suggest/share/correct would be great. (oh, and thanks K-9 for the advice, early on)

EDITZ...EVEN NEWER VIDS ^_^ [from day #4]

Okay this is the first vid that was recorded since the time I made this thread, you can probably see a few of the things y'all mentioned being implemented in this [well...the first few posts anyway]

[as you can see, I'm much more concerned about figuring out what works and becoming more comfortable with the character mechanics than I am concerned with winning XD...but for real I think that's how you should always play friendlies until you have enough control over your character to the point where you almost always do what you want to happen and the only limit is your further creativity and not your technical skill]

Vs. Wario
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cD4aEODTo0

EDIT OHHH SNAP this was just posted =D!!!
Vs. Wario again...second kill is sweet ^_^ again: this was friday night, the first vids I posted were from Thursday night so I had seen a few of your posts by the time I played this match...so thanks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ove6zBTVkE

 

[gallax]

i like your pika. your fair>utilt comboes are great. the problem with most pikas is that they land too soon with the fair and their is a little more lag than there should have been. you time it out great and your follow up are good. im talking about in the PT fight. some thing to remember though when you are on the ledge hanging, there are two ways to stall. first is to drop straight down and qa back straight up on the edge. second is a little harder, but still good.

this must be done extremely quick. press your control stick away from the ledge then use your skullbash right away to grab right back to the ledge. your invincibility frames should not wear off and you should not be more than a pikas length away. this is couresy of ESAM.

and when fighting squirtle, use your dsmash more. and when they are changing pokemon, dsmash.

 

[King~]

in the match VS. D3

i like your off the stage attcks towards the end.

in that matchup u can foward throw chanin grab and u can follow up your downthrows with alot of things(Nair, Upair, upsmash, etc...)

thundergauards work well vs D3, and down smash hurts.

i like so far soon as u start gettin combos/followups down it will get much better

 

[M15t3R E]

ZOMG!!!!
Toasty Toast!!!

I had no idea you were interested in Pikachu haha.
So, I liked your Pika but you were probably a bit too aggressive. Approach slowly with t-jolts or even camp with them for a bit and bait your opponents. Pikachu's punishing game is too good. If you let them approach more you should be able to get in more shieldgrabs and maintain better stage control.
Other than that, use thunder to edgeguard off-stage. On-stage, approach a bit more by land. Approaching by air is fine, but just mix it up more.

Good Pikachu! Next time we meet, we are going to ditto and I'll critique you in person!

 

[Kenrawr]

VA is being taken over by pikachu. =]

Moar usmash toasty! It finishes fairly early (someone back me up on the %'s >_>).
I personally also love fsmash for spacing =x idk if that's really the pikachu way though.
And I know you told me you/or your friend hates it when you cg them but fthrow cg D3's when you have the chance when they're at 0-40ish.

Your pika improved a lot from what I can see Toasty. :D

 

[toasty]

woooord...thanks to all of you =D! some of the fundamental stuff y'all told me has already improved my game a lot [between yesterday morning and last night haha]

...funny thing is, I was talking to EggSniper [my opponent in all these vids] and I think he's over all that stuff [CG and such] and we looked at the vids that were posted so far and realized that there were a lot more vids from that same day, but later on in the day [so he hadn't had a chance to upload them], but we both remember the later matches being considerably better than the ones I posted here XD

when he posts them up, I'll put the links in here

oh and yayuhhhzzz the VAchus will be too goodz...too bad Azen had to get fair-spiked by Boss's Mario in that one C3 match, I think that was the end of his tourney Pika days [granted that was when Brawl first came out and he was using a different character every tournament and winning or placing haha]



EDIT: I forgot to mention, with some of the advice I got yesterday, it help me take a match off of a certain SoVa Marth who's pretty amazing...probably playing a teams match at C3 with Chudat as we speak XD but yeah lots of dash/pivot/boost grabs, that was the only way I could get in on Marth

and then after that...ugh...haha, but yeah he has like ZERO Pika experience

 

[Spelt]

I found you trying to get away from dedede's B attack very entertaining. xD


I know i'm really not the one who should be critiquing anybody but i do think you're a little too risky with your edgeguarding.

 

[arwildcats09]

Pikachu has a chaingrab.

 

[Kenrawr]

Hmmm, that was UMBC I believe when Azen used pika that one time. And he won the set against Boss =D

Also awesome that you took a match off of Mr. Kadaj.
Even if he has no pika experience it's the spacing that gets ya and Kadaj seems to be pretty awesome at that.

 

[Tagxy]

It takes balls to go offstage vs a D3 when he's up a stock. Actually never do that again.

 

[toasty]

It takes balls to go offstage vs a D3 when he's up a stock. Actually never do that again.

hahaha, yeahhh you're right, I probably should I just wanna **** sooo badly XD


also...the guy I was playing against mains Yoshi...this was a match from the same night as all the other vids I posted here sooo...yeah...ugh this guy's good >_>

[hah I really need to work on my aggressive habits and I gotta perfect button input...skullbashes that were supposed to be reverse jolts]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9zz8otpJ50

edit: yeah K-9...spacing is one of Kadaj's major strengths. I think what frustrated him more though was that I getting a ton of grabs in and usually, as ROB, that doesn't happen much and he's usually the one punishing ME with grabs =D

speaking of which, I had no idea that Pika's grab [running grab anyway] was just about as good as MK's @_@

 

[neji32]

Cg more and dont always go for the Nair off stage. If DDD is jumping towards the stage at 139% thunder guard will kill him. Grab more too. Try baiting sometimes instesd of always approaching. And try to not fall for the same thing lol
DDD suck you get sucked in he spit you out and do it again. That happened twice

P.S anyone notice the suspicious "69%" at the end of both the 2nd and 3rd game O=

 

[toasty]

The Power of 69 is too good

and to think a lot of us thought it didn't carry over from Melee to Brawl...

But yeah, I'll keep that in mind...I didn't even realize I wasn't using thunder for edgeguarding until y'all mentioned it. [see these are exactly the habits I'm talking about! yessss it's working...I need to erase a lot of my Melee-chu habits that don't transfer to Brawl Pika]

thanks again

 

[Pika_Cam]

Just a few things I noticed...

-Edgeguard with thunder by letting the thunder go in front of you just off the edge
-Use more uair
-Grab more and use those chaingrabs
-Don't get above your opponent so much; pikachu has fewer options from above

Other than that, you have a very nice Pikachu. Your combos are good, especially with the fairs, and you use tilts effectively.

 

[toasty]

Okay this is the first vid that was recorded since the time I made this thread, you can probably see a few of the things y'all mentioned being implemented in this [well...the first few posts anyway]

[as you can see, I'm much more concerned about figuring out what works and becoming more comfortable with the character mechanics than I am concerned with winning XD...but for real I think that's how you should always play friendlies until you have enough control over your character to the point where you almost always do what you want to happen and the only limit is your further creativity and not your technical skill]

Vs. Wario
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cD4aEODTo0

EDIT OHHH SNAP this was just posted =D!!!
Vs. Wario again...second kill is sweet ^_^ again: this was friday night, the first vids I posted were from Thursday night so I had seen a few of your posts by the time I played this match...so thanks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ove6zBTVkE

 

[Kenrawr]

Yay a bit moar upsmash
Hope to see your pika soon, toasty.
*runs out of things to say*

 

[gampy]

In your latest videos you get caught in Wario's mouth a lot when getting up from a ledge. Something you can do is fall of the ledge, shoot a t jolt, if you do it right it will go back up the stage and hit him.

 

[Kenrawr]

I thought you can't do that on smashville since there essentially aren't any walls on the sides.

 

[toasty]

wait...so it won't travel DOWN the wall of the stage? tight...

oh and K-9 he probably didn't mean Smashville, just in general when it applies?

also, from now I'm just going to uair him through the stage if he does that, those were like 8,000 of my last ditch efforts to see if there was a spot I could hit to knock him out of the bite

but yeah thanks!

I have a MM against a pretty good DK this weekend...wish me luck ^_^ [sheeeit I need to look up the CG %s haha]