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

[Captain Smuckers]

I don't mean like, playing friendlies with them or anything. I literally mean when you are practicing alone, playing as fox and practicing technical things such as waveshines, shdl's, drillshines etc.

 

[DerfMidWest]

Spacies are really fun if you put the time into them.
Nothing in this game feels cooler than shine->bairing somebody with fox.


I picked fox up for techskill practice a little less than a year ago. Didn't plan on using him in actual play at all.
Ended up maining him for a long time.

 

[oukd]

When I practice tech I practice with a bunch of characters...but I think it's a lot better to focus on one character to improve that specific character's tech.

Personally I like practicing specific motions that I notice I have trouble with in matches. For example, I noticed once that I had difficulty with dashing out of dsmash asap and end up walking a lot (thus missing my followup) so I worked on that until I felt comfortable with it - random stuff like that, few minutes at a time max. Doing actions out of actions as fast as possible is a really valuable skill imo.

After I can't think of anything specific I work on my consistency and focus - trying to make Pika do exactly what I'm thinking for as long of a time as possible, while making my chain of actions technically intensive and full of actions I flub a lot in actual matches.

I also work on/experiment with comboing. Rather than focusing on damage output I try to carry my opponent as close to the edge as possible in one chain, over and over again. It kind of forces you to try new combo paths, but at the same time it's still pretty hard to break out of habitual combos...

Since beginning competitive play around January this year, spacies just don't appeal to me. They look so, gray, and non-appealing.

But they're the funnest well, for me at least. The only thing that takes away from the appeal to me is how many people play them lol

 

[Captain Smuckers]

vanir.....who do you main.....?

 

[oukd]

look at his character icons...

 

[DerfMidWest]

I currently main ICs.
I second Fox and Pichu (both are former mains)

 

[Captain Smuckers]

Alrighty, lets hope we never play friendlies :D (just kiddin'....................)

The reason that his character icon didn't seem sufficient to me was because
A: Not everybody actually puts their main as their icon so I wanted to double check
B: I thought he used to be a pichu, he's always on the pikachu boards, and he just referenced a time of maining fox

I'd say there is some room for confusion

 

[N64]

smuckers, i'll usually start with fox when practicing solo just to get my hands warmed up quickly. it's so easy to just hit lots of buttons and move around a ton in rapid succession with him. Gets my mind back in the "oh right, we're playing melee" mode pretty quick. Then i'll switch over to Pika or whoever i'm really practicing.

I don't know if it's necessarily 'good' or 'bad', it's just what works for me.

 

[Captain Smuckers]

Yeah, I basically do the same. I have a bit of a warm up process that involves like 5 characters lol.

Also I was just kinda wondering, N64..........When was the last tournament you went to?

 

[N64]

oh goodness, um... SMYM 12? It's been a while.

I'm just your friendly neighborhood pikachu these days.

 

[DerfMidWest]

Lol. forever a pichu main at heart <3

 

[iRobinhoood]

Someone remind me how to shield toggle again?

 

[Captain Smuckers]

just hold your shield up and very gently move the joy stick in the direction you want to toggle. If you do it too abruptly, you'll just roll/spotdodge/jump depending on the direction you're toggling.

 

[iRobinhoood]

No I meant the thing where you go from light shield to full shield with the click of a button or something like that lol.

But I also need to start shield DIing as well^

 

[AXE 09]

Someone remind me how to shield toggle again?

While holding A + L/R, press Z to light shield, and release Z to heavy shield You can freely toggle between the two.

As for practicing alone, I just kinda... idk. I practice general movement (wavelanding, up-b tricks, edge tricks, etc.). I like to just go to a random neutral stage and do nothing but move around. That's what I've been doing lately anyways.

Sometimes I'll throw in a computer and practice doing some creative combos. Idk... I just practice everything lol

 

[Medz!]

Duuuudddeeee definitely this ^-----

That's how I practice my movement even though I don't practice pika.

 

[Captain Smuckers]

Yeah I pretty much do the same thing. Honestly I don't see what else there is really lol. Character like fox and falco obviously have crazy technical things to always be working on, but pikachu really just has movement. Shield dropping is the only remotely technical thing I practice as pika, and I think I've gotten pretty good at it in practice. Actually using during a match though is much harder obviously. I'll get there one day....

Also sorry about the misinformation robin D:
I thought that shield DIing was known as toggling, my mistake.

 

[DerfMidWest]

Oh to toggle shields i just slightly release R and let it switch to light shield...

 

[Ryobeat]

Even though I ain't a pika , how do you shield drop? I have no idea, and I don't know what I need it for . I main peach.

 

[iRobinhoood]

Some use the dash method. While on a platform, quickly dash into your shield, while still holding left or right from the dash, move the control stick one notch down from either left or right.

So

:stick5: -> :stick6: -> :rtrigger: -> :stick3:

 

[DerfMidWest]

You slide the stick down slow enough that you don't spot dodge, but quick enough that you don't just angle you shield.

Peach's shield drop uair is pree good to escape pressure.

 

[Captain Smuckers]

Pikachu's shield drop upair is delicious

Well if you wanna get technical about it, there is shield dropping, and shai dropping. I consider them the same thing though because the basic principle is that you drop through a platform while using your shield.

I don't know all of the technical aspects of shield/shai dropping and you can look them up, but the gist of it is:

Shield dropping is when you put your shield up on a platform and push down the perfect amount so that you drop through. Note that you do not push the stick all the way down, its somewhere between neutral and all the way down.

4 ways of shai dropping:
One way is by starting to dash and putting your shield up and pushing straight down within like 2 frames I believe.

Another way is to push down immediately after you land on a platform and put your shield up immediately after pushing down, I don't know the exact frame data.

Like Robin said before, one way is to start dashing, then put your shield up while continuing to hold in the direction you were dashing, and move the joystick one notch down from that direction so it should be diagonal.

The last way, my favorite, is to start a dash and push the joystick one notch below either directly left or right and then put your shield up. It's basically the same as the last one except you put your shield up after you bring the joystick down one notch.

I think that about sums it up, but like I said I'm certainly not the most knowledgeable person on the subject and you should probably look it all up. I know there are guides of them somewhere on the boards.

 

[oukd]

^ this

technically shield/shai dropping are the same, but i think it's easier to say dash dropping and shield dropping to distinguish between the two, since those are the two primary benefits that using shield mechanics provides.

I think there's also a way to shield drop out of shield stun, but I'm not tooooo sure how it works. I think it's just pressing down asap during shield stun frames. haven't been able to test it consistently enough to know.

dash dropping is really useful because it gives you the options you can have out of running off a platform (ie runoff bair for most characters) except you can do it everywhere on the platform. plus it can catch people by surprise if you do it out of dd. i use this more than i use shield dropping, one of my favorite advanced techs

 

[~Tac~]

It's funny, because recently I've been trying to integrate dash dropping into my game. It's also easily one of my favorite advanced techs, looks so smooth. <3 Anyone under you incorrectly (cept damn marth) is often a free grab with a well placed fair.

 

[DerfMidWest]

Ew... Fair is meh.
Subject to CC too much.

For shield drop out of stun, I think you use the c-stick or something (somebody told me this) but I've never tried it.

 

[oukd]

Who's going to be CC'ing against an opponent DD'ing on a platform above them?

Answer: Nobody





(jk I know that's not true but it still works at least once or twice, once the opponent learns you can dash/shield drop they'll watch for drops more)

Also shielddropping against marth under plats works wonders, esp. against utilt

 

[~Tac~]

lolol^

But yeah, once they learn of it, more than likely they'll see not to just run under a platformed Pikachu. Even though they could just throw out a damn tipper whenever they want. Still gets a free grab, I'd say it helps on that one chance at Yoshi's on marth rofl.

I can never seem to get the timing against that utilt, 2good.

 

[Captain Smuckers]

So my friend played pika (he never does) against me a few games yesterday...now I understand the hell I put people through when I play as pika

 

[~Tac~]

I usually get nair spammed by non-pikas. ...And then they Up-B into the bottom of the stage.

 

[DerfMidWest]

Nair is all you need.
Uair helps too.

 

[strawhats]

So my friend played pika (he never does) against me a few games yesterday...now I understand the hell I put people through when I play as pika

How does the pika ditto work anyway. I've always been curious(not a pika main as u know) just interested.

 

[mr q]

pika ditto is a game of dashdancing, theyre pretty uneventful concidering you cant really tailspike another pika just cause his upb is too awesome but fun none the less

 

[Captain Smuckers]

Sorry I should have specified that I played him as falco. The pika ditto is like my least favorite match up. It's just dash dance into dash dance into Nair into dash dance. It's really boring and I don't intend to put myself through that. My point was just that I had never really known how frustrating it is to fight a pikachu, as any character. I would still beat my friend handily, but it was a pain in the *** lol

 

[DerfMidWest]

Its literally just DD nair, a bit of dthrow, a few jolts, and then usmash (->thunder)

Its boring and dumb.

 

[iRobinhoood]

Picked up Doc recently, how does Pika do against Doc?

 

[DerfMidWest]

That mu is bad.

 

[Captain Smuckers]

Pika does pretty badly against doc. For one thing, Doc can chain grab pika and pills are incredibly annoying. He's actually pretty easy to gimp due to his terrible recovery, but thats pretty much all that pika has goin for him against doc. I haven't played too many docs so I'll let someone who is more experienced with the matchup explain it more thoroughly.

 

[~Tac~]

-Fair kills Pika early on all but Dreamland(maybe FD too), due to being 6th lightest.
-Doc's Bair and Nair have high priority that trades or beats Pika's approach.
-Pills are too good and can 'kinda' beat out jolt. Also sets Pika up for followup edgeguard due to first UpB's stretchbox
-Doc's Dthrow = Free combo

Can't specifically think of any more points that really make the MU bad. I'm sure I'm missing something so I'll let one with more experience explain what they know as well.

 

[iRobinhoood]

Oh wow I never thought it was that bad lol. Well I'm pretty bad at Doc right now, so Pika's rejoice!

 

[DerfMidWest]

Doc just pills, then dthrows a bunch, then runs away and pills, then comes back in and drthow->fairs.

You can't out camp him easily as pika, and approaching is really hard against good Docs.
Gimps are pretty free, but getting doc offstage is not easy for pika.