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Q&A Ask about Pikachu! Hosted by Axe and N64! feat. dkuo!

iRobinhoood

Smash Lord
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I would definitely avoid approaching Marth from above. Also, most amateur & bad Marth's who walk slowly away or toward you... ARE PREPARING THE FSMASH.
 

oukd

Smash Lord
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...or are trying to make you think they're preparing something and trying to make you react to an empty threat. It's true many many Marths who do that are about to fsmash, but it's a bad assumption imo...

Either way waveshielding out of range in this situation works out really well.
 

iRobinhoood

Smash Lord
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...or are trying to make you think they're preparing something and trying to make you react to an empty threat. It's true many many Marths who do that are about to fsmash, but it's a bad assumption imo...

Either way waveshielding out of range in this situation works out really well.
Fixxxed OP
 

oukd

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Apr 21, 2010
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Well...good Marths do it too <_< I'm not saying it's a bad strategy, but rather that making assumptions in certain situations isn't always good, and I consider this to be one of those situations (that is, assuming the Marth will fsmash after walking).

I'm just being nitpicky lol don't mind me

Axe, what would you do if you were playing against a Marth in a crew battle and trading would be a really bad idea? :p
 

iRobinhoood

Smash Lord
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When facing Marths I've adapted a style of play specific to him. I try to either be just out of tipper range when away from him but also be inside him enough to avoid being tippered. I've been tippered too many times -___- so I have a zoning thing going on in my head as I play. Huge sirens go off if I'm at a specific distance from Marth. Overexaggerating of course, and a bit biased as a Samus player.

But I also love playing Pika lol.
 

oukd

Smash Lord
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dayum. revival of joe on smashboards

man im so bad at pikachu -_- seriously need to work on not being a ***** and closing my dd spacing more
and actually go offstage to edgeguard in tourney without being scared of dying. playing pika with falco mindset doesn't work out lmao
 

Captain Smuckers

Smash Journeyman
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Nov 5, 2010
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Mount Vernon, NY
^^^^^
I'm also currently working on that. I'm especially terrified of fox, marth and ganondorf, but i'm slowly getting over it. Something that frustrates the crap out of me is how frequently I screw up running up smashes. I'm great at it while practicing (cause it isn't really that hard lol) but while I'm under pressure playing a game, I just become incapable and it's annoying lol. Anyway I have a question primarily for axe, but anyone who wants to, feel free to answer as well.

How frequently do you practice by yourself? And in recent times, what exactly do you practice?
If you don't actually practice too much nowadays, how much did you practice at the time in your smash career (I guess?) when you would practice the most?

Hard to really phrase that well lol, anyway yeah I was just wondering about that. Like I said, if anyone wants to answer other than axe, be my guest.
 

ChivalRuse

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College Park, MD
If I ever am having tech skill issues, I usually practice the SPECIFIC input I'm messing up repeatedly until I have it down again (generally this takes 15 minutes at most).

yea ^.^ fox, marf and ganon are hardz for pika. Generally dash dancing a lot is good vs ganon, shielding a lot is good vs marf, and well vs fox you just have to play well LOL!
 

oukd

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@smuckers - yea i mess up random tech stuff under pressure too (tournament pressure) not much with falco, primarily with pika. it's gotten better though since ive been focusing on pika more lately. just need to play more :)

seriously debating whether i should actually go all pika at apex like i said i would...my falco's looking so much stronger nowadays. hm...i'll see in the next few months i suppose
 

ChivalRuse

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Don't think about your character choice in tournament! FEEL! It is like a finger pointing at the moon. Don't concentrate on the finger or you will miss all of the heavenly glory!
 

Captain Smuckers

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I do practice running upsmashes, which is the sad part....lol

I also have the problem of screwing up tech things with pika more than falco, funny how that works. Anyway, I don't think you necessarily need to say "I will only play pika at apex." Instead, say "I will start every set as pika and will only switch if I get *****!" I''ll probably do the same, though by that point I intend to be significantly better with pikachu than falco so odds are that I will in fact go all pika. Hopefully I'll do the same at rom and any other tournaments I go to until apex. You know, cause pika's great and falco is a stupid ugly bird thing that nobody will ever love. Do any other pikachu players plan on going to rom5? Or will I be the only one representin'?

Edit: Also what ChivalRuse said, if you're feeling like waay better as falco, play falco. Though you should keep in mind that the second you play falco, you forfeit your moral highground...be careful.
 

oukd

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Eh I'm not interested in switching characters in sets...I always want to figure out what I'm doing wrong in specific matchups so I like never switch lol. In the same vein I almost always go back to the stage I lose on if I think I can win there. Also I want to be proficient with both characters so I try to only use 1 character per tourney...except nowadays whenever I try doing a Falco only tourney and I end up on a recording set I go Pika for more Pika footage. It's a good learning experience imo. I want to feel as comfortable with Pika as I am with Falco and do well with either character.

...I guess I have too much pride or something <_<

EDIT: also i plan on going to rom5. ****'s hype.
 

oukd

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Almost, cstick just a hair later than greystick. If you do them together the game will register the cstick as a buffer hop and you'll just jump.
 

Captain Smuckers

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Why must the pika boards be so dead lol. Uhmmmmmmmm, okay heres a good one. What are your favorite stages to fight the most common characters/top tiers on? Actually, try to include 2 stages. Maybe the first pick is banned, or in my case sometimes, there are actually just 2 stages that are about equal for me. For the record, I am always okay with going to battlefield so I won't include it.

Fox:dreamland/fountain of dreams (sometimes...)

Falco:dreamland/final destination (also sometimes...)

Marth:Final Destination/dreamland

Sheik:Yoshi's story/pokemon stadium

Captain Falcon:final destination/dreamland

Peach:Yoshi's/pokemon stadium

Jigglypuff:Yoshi's/pokemon stadium

This doesn't mean I will only go to those stages in those matchups, but I go into the set thinking that they're good for me.

Feel free to either add characters or leave some blank.
 

iRobinhoood

Smash Lord
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Today I made a huge leap in my Pikachu game. I mean really huge. Recently I was watching some Wobbles gameplay and it inspired me to play some IC's tonight. I noticed during his MUs how crucial wd oos was and I knew I was going to need to apply it to my game tonight to get grabs. So I started doing it with the ICs. WD oos -> grab and WD oos -> dsmash. Soon enough I was getting really good at it. Then i switched to Pika and gave it a shot.

Absolutely groundbreaking.

My Pika game jumped tremendously with the addition of WD oos to my gameplay. I could finally keep up with Marth players constantly pushing me away and shielded smash attacks. Just wondering how do you guys WD oos? I do it all with the R button and Y button. I shield with R, jump with Y, and immediately click R again.

Also:

Fox: FD/dreamland (sometimes...)

Falco: FD/dreamland (also sometimes...)

Marth: FD/dreamland

Sheik: Yoshi's story/fountain

Captain Falcon: FD/dreamland

Peach: Yoshi's/pokemon stadium

Jigglypuff: dark alley behind the venue
 

AXE 09

Smash Master
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Dec 3, 2006
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I'm honored, but I Gotta dispose of that jerk axe somehow first...

Oh and every other pika main too
:phone:
Lol I'm really nice, I promise!

Anyways just to answer some questions,

1) I normally practice for at least an hour or two per day by myself, but when I can play with others, I'll literally play for like 8 hours straight or longer if they have the stamina lol.

2 hours per day might not seem like all that much to new players, but when you get to a really high level, it gets increasingly difficult to practice by yourself. I think I'm one of the few top level players who still sits in my room and practices by myself EVERY DAY.
Sad to say though, I haven't played any Melee at all for this past like week almost, since I'm working my butt off with 2 jobs (1 full time, and the other requires endless hours of studying. My head hurts lol) and I've also been moving. My muscles are sore as heck lol. I haven't been able to get on the boards that much even :(

For stages, regardless of what character I'm playing against, Battlefield is my #1 counterpick. It's just my personal preference lol. Against floaties, I like Pokemon Stadium, and I like Dreamland against Spacies (unless they don't ban FD. FD against Fox/Falco/Falcon is almost like an auto win for me in my eyes. I do nothing but chaingrab lol so cheap)

Also Robin: WD OOS is AMAZING and I'm so glad you learned the importance of it :) I think it's one of those techniques that will take you to the next level. My skill level rose drastically when I started learning how to WD OOS

:phone:
 

iRobinhoood

Smash Lord
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No wonder his upB tricksies are so good. Next step for my Pika isn't such a giant leap but Axe as you told me at Apex, all the little things add up. Time to apply some shield DI to my game.

:phone:
 

oukd

Smash Lord
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Apr 21, 2010
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hm, ive never practiced my upb angles. ever since 64 they just came really naturally to me <_< shffling with pika on the other hand im still kind of inconsistent in, embarrassingly enough. im even more consistent with fox than pika for some reason even though the jumping motion is exactly the same. maybe it's the mindset of 'fox is broken' :laugh: maybe because i practice with falco 20x more than pika. idk. that's changing as of late though since i want my pika to catch up.

also on the topic of practicing on your own, pp wrote a nice compendium on what to practice on in case you guys dont read the falco boards. link here

i honestly don't have huge stage preferences but this is generally how it goes:

- fd is obviously my pick for ff'ers/ban against cg'ers
- bf is an awesome overall stage except i wish there was a little more leeway for dropzone shenanigans/low edgeguards
- fod gives me just that so I really enjoy that stage, except platforms make it slightly awkward. works out against a lot of characters though. possibly my favorite stage
- dl is good for when gimps are effective in the mu, esp when the opponent is relying on strong hit kills. don't really like it against opponents faster than me though
- ys is nice against certain (note: campy) playstyles but it's really hard to edgeguard on. plus you die fast -.- good against light characters though because usmash. plus the small stage makes onstage combos really controlled and nice so it's my jank cp :bee:
- ps is a great stage in general but the transformations are kind of dumb sometimes. thankfully they're usually dumber for the opponent than it is for me (unless im playing vs spacies, in which case it's about equal)
 

oukd

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wat...why

and you can't beat vman with marth dtilt, he has roy dtilt
 

Captain Smuckers

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I assure you that isn't all he practices lol. Anyway, I also would like to know what he practices, hence my original question :D. I practice upB tricksies, as I would hope most pika players do (unless they're amazing like dkuo and it "just comes naturally" <_<), but I legitimately don't know what else to do lol. I basically just do movement things like wavelands, experimenting with dash dances, and lately shield dropping. Primarily shield dropping because I can only do other things so much before I go "bleh, I can do this already" which admittedly is a problem. I don't think I practice things I think I'm pretty good at already enough. I should make sure I get to the point of having 100% consistency with most things, but I just get bored and stop which is baaaaaaaaaad.

On a side note, do any of you guys also practice with fox to increase general techskill? And do you think its actually a good idea?
 
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