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

[soju]

when you play a character with trex arms any additional range is extremely helpful

 

[N64]

If I get like rising uair at mid-high percent midstage and they DI away far enough for only bair to connect, I will bair because only it will hit. That kinda stuff. It's not often relevant, but it can be useful.

 

[Kuralesache]

the range on bair is actually far more than you'd think... it's kind of hard to describe, but bair wiggles you back and forth when you use it. it's not just that your hitbox is farther from your center, but also that you actually move forward a bit as well. I don't think you can see it in the frame data gifs cause of the way they were made but I'll try to make some images tomorrow to illustrate. it's most obvious when you l-cancel a bair at some points and it looks like it teleports you back a bit. you're gaining range without disjointing the hitbox is one way to look at it.

 

[soju]

Pika Bair mechanics are wonky

 

[CannaSwiss]

the range on bair is actually far more than you'd think... it's kind of hard to describe, but bair wiggles you back and forth when you use it. it's not just that your hitbox is farther from your center, but also that you actually move forward a bit as well.

Yeah I know what you mean. I guess also just the fact that it stays out longer than nair helps with the range cause your momentum can take you closer to the enemy.

I've got another question tho, what do you guys use for on stage edge guards? Like just standing at the edge of the stage. It seems like down angled ftilt, dtilt and fsmash all work. What do you guys do?

 

[soju]

Ftilt will usually be your best option, you can gimp falcon and ganon at low % if he recovers low with d smash but their recovery is butt anyways

 

[M.C.Jeducation]

Any general tips on fighting sheik? Like what my general sort of playstyle and aim should be against her.

I have a bit of trouble against sheik, and my other main character is falcon so im not gonna get any advantage by changing character xD

 

[soju]

you'd probably fair better with falcon, but you wanna basically play reactive, try to get her to jump since her short hop and aerial movement is booty, other then that for the most part outplay them, sheik is one of those characters

 

[herbmaster%]

Say that I'm stage striking against a fox. --Battlefield is a strong choice because I've got advantages off the egde. I'm pretty comfortable on yoshi's, but it's probably better for fox since the floor is lower, idk. --Final is good because of the chaingrabs, but will likely get banned for that reason. --FoD is also good for it's low floor. --Dreamland probably works better for fox because of the extra room for dashing. If i get first ban i'm thinking i'd ban dreamland first. if he cpicks me to ---stadium he'll have the extra room, but i still have the jutting edges and we'd both have the low ceiling.--thoughts?

 

[herbmaster%]

nvm, looked to your guide 64. must read b4 posting.

 

[Phez_]

so if you jump during pikachus dash-turnaround animation, he will stay facing the way he was initially running (unless you jump too late) This means that if you do a JC grab during pikachus dash-turnaround animation he will run, turnarund and then grab in the direction he was first running. After testing this with all characters, DK and Pikachu are the most notable.

Is this already a thing? or is it just some pointless 'tech' i discovered last night

 

[Kuralesache]

you mean run-turnaround, I assume? dashing is what you do when you're dashdancing, run is the animation you enter after your dash is done.

but yeah that's old news, you don't actually turn around as far as the game is concerned until you start moving the other way. it's true for all characters. as far as I'm aware there's never a good reason to enter the turnaround animation, cause it's super laggy and you can't act out of it except jumping. I don't know the details or frame data on it but basically... yeah, people know about that

 

[Maximusdödus]

Lets talk tech chasing/get up punishing. I know that i lose alot of mileage from not being able to punish people after getting them on the ground. Many times i just dont get anything from knocking people onto the ground and other times gets something sub optimal. I understand tech chasing are very realiant on the certain situation you're in though i do not understand what it is people are looking for when they are standing ontop of someone who is lieing down. Visual cues, sound cues, reads or reactions? How long did it take to improve tech chasing, and what is it that works for you? Axe punishes rolls and get ups like a mad man (Hurr durr... "Axe does") though who else to learn from than the best (lol, more fanboying).

Anyways... As a still sort of new player i would love to know the do's and dont's of all this, and the more subtle things aswell (Although any input would be appreachiated). Ambiguous subject although hopefully it isnt the standard topic to talk about on here.

Cheers guys...

 

[N64]

First I watch for missed tech (for jab reset stuff), and then I try to react to the tech/roll. Some chars have easier-to-notice techrolls, so it's matchup dependant. If I realize I'll miss the tech punish, I'll at least try to get in a safe-but-threatening position for when he gets up. No real trick to it, just being ready and trusting your reactions and instincts.

 

[Maximusdödus]

So how long did it take befor you noticed your chases starting conecting more? Like did something click or was it more of a gradual learning situations/getting beter at learning the opponents patterns?

 

[N64]

Gradual. Part of it was just getting used to 'what insert-char-here looks like when teching in place or left or right' so that I reacted sooner. Part of it was getting accustomed to probable tech preferences based on their char, percentage, and where on the stage they are. Just comes with time.

I don't really know of any good ways to practice this unfortunately. There probably is something out there, but I would just try to focus on it when you do play, perhaps try to create more situations where they have to tech, to get practice there.

 

[soju]

You could also cover a a large portion of their options, say you dthrow on the middle of the stage then start dash dancing on their right side you're covering the tech roll right, tech roll in place, and missed tech. They have less options if you knock em down by the edge or on a platform. Start off with that and your tech chase will improve

 

[herbmaster%]

I've noticed in axe sets that when he's off-stage and has a second jump he chooses to up-air. does upair send pikachu higher vertically, or is it just that he wants to cover himself with a hitbox while he's off stage? Because i've seen him throw out an up-air even when opponents are holding the stage instead of going for him while he's off stage.

 

[N64]

It just covers him. It's very risky for the opponent to try to punish it, as it covers the whole area they'd come in from. And it's quick enough that Axe isn't really committing to much throwing it out, it's just something to cover him while he gets the upB positioning he wants.

 

[flieskiller]

I'll be using Pika as counterpick sometimes against Falcon and the Spacies. Are there any other characters that Pika can be good against?

I have other characters for other matchups (except Sheik...), but knowing Pika can do well against another one will be good for me to know.

 

[Jim Jam Flim Flam]

I'll be using Pika as counterpick sometimes against Falcon and the Spacies. Are there any other characters that Pika can be good against?

I have other characters for other matchups (except Sheik...), but knowing Pika can do well against another one will be good for me to know.

Pikachu is surprisingly good against marth (the matchup is still in Marth's favor though) and any character with a bad recovery can be easily gimped by pikachu. In my opinion the marth matchup is better for pikachu than game and watch, because pikachu can get some good combos on marth and is so quick that he can capitalize off of marth's laggy moves. There aren't really any high tier matchups that I would say are even for Pikachu except falcon. You'll have to start shinin til they're cryin if you want some good matchups against high tiers.

 

[Benny P]

Pikachu is surprisingly good against marth (the matchup is still in Marth's favor though) and any character with a bad recovery can be easily gimped by pikachu. In my opinion the marth matchup is better for pikachu than game and watch, because pikachu can get some good combos on marth and is so quick that he can capitalize off of marth's laggy moves. There aren't really any high tier matchups that I would say are even for Pikachu except falcon. You'll have to start shinin til they're cryin if you want some good matchups against high tiers.

JJFF! i saw you in the mockumentary!

 

[Jim Jam Flim Flam]

JJFF! i saw you in the mockumentary!

REV IT UP BABY

 

[Mittenz]

I'm going to Iowa's regional tourney this Saturday. I'm going to be teaming with an ice climbers player in doubles.

We were thinking that ICs high damage output and stage control and pika's u-smash kill potential, gimp potential, and ability to get in could compliment each other nicely.

Any suggestions on running this team, or general advice on what role pika should take in doubles?

 

[soju]

Pikachu usually runs better in the back lines or by the the edge. You either want to run a;

p-e-i-e or p-i-e-e, with e-p-i-e being your goal

where p=pika, I= ICs, e= opponent.

Pika is generally a stock tank/killer. You have him at the edge due to his edgeguard and ability to separate a team with bthrow letting IC's do their thing. He's also fast enough to support your teammate whereas ICs will have trouble helping if pika is center stage. And the last formation is just good in general as having center control is crucial. Always aim to have someone have some center control preferably ICs

 

[Jim Jam Flim Flam]

Aite so I gotta question: I play against decent Marths pretty often and I usually go toe to toe with them or beat them, but my friend plays Marth and I can never seem to beat him. He uses no tech skill and gets destroyed by people who are kind of noobs, but when I play him it's like he can just wall me out. He sits there and swings his sword and I just can get in. Whenever he just sits there (which is quite often) i used thunder jolt, but he just shields it, and I have trouble grabbing him when he's in his shield because my grab range is ****. I usually end up just L R A start and then Picking Fox and waveshining him off the stage, but I wanna show him Imma real man and I can beat him with a low tier. No matter how fast I approach or how often I mix up my moves he seem to just wall me out. So any tips? Anything at all really, I'm just looking for ideas here. Ask me follow up questions, whatever. Anything is appreciated.

 

[soju]

I'd prolly just spam jolts still, your jolts are what makes you out range him and if he's just gonna sit there you're in a better position. If you need to approach there's many different ways. How is he walling you out? There is an option for everything so instead of listing things I want to hear what is the problem with approaching it's prolly fair/nair but let me know. Also you don't need to prove you're better then someone by beating them with said character.

 

[Kuralesache]

My solution to Marth is to dashdance and wavedash outside of the range of his moves and keep him guessing at where you're going to be, and most importantly to STAY GROUNDED. If you are both moving around on the ground you are much faster than him and you can force him to have to guess where you're going to be. If he uses dtilt, you can nair over it, and you can catch pretty much any of his other ground moves in their ending lag. Just try to get him to use a move, and if he literally just sits there and waits for you to do something, throw out a move that he can't react to. I really like run-up, crouch, d-tilt, cause it flows smoothly out of your dashdance so they don't have much time to react, and if you miss because he wavedashed back or something, you'll have time to put your shield up, get out, and try again. Movement I think is the key to that matchup more than any other, because you have such a huge advantage in terms of movement and a huge disadvantage in pretty much every other way. Use dtilt to harass him, nair or grab for guaranteed damage, stage positioning, and starting combos, and upsmash for your hard punishes and KOs.

Staying grounded is super important because he can't approach you nearly as quickly on the ground as you can escape with dashes and wavedashes. His only moves with extraordinary range (past his regular fsmash range) are wavedash forward -> fsmash, and dash attack, and both of those are unsafe on your shield, and super laggy, so it's a big commitment from him.

 

[Jim Jam Flim Flam]

I'd prolly just spam jolts still, your jolts are what makes you out range him and if he's just gonna sit there you're in a better position. If you need to approach there's many different ways. How is he walling you out? There is an option for everything so instead of listing things I want to hear what is the problem with approaching it's prolly fair/nair but let me know. Also you don't need to prove you're better then someone by beating them with said character.

I usually approach with nair or fair on fd but other stages i try to use the platforms to bait an attack and do a dropdown aerial. If he's at a high precent ill try to wavedash right out of his range and do a jc upsmash, which usually kills him. He just does jabs or ftilts whenever i approach and it seems to beat all my attacks other than upsmash.

 

[soju]

Kuralesache answered your problem pretty solidly and answered your question prolly better than I could.
If he's grounded there's no reason to jump or be above him jab has ok range and ftilt can be punished you don't even need to wavedash back. Think of marth like a bubble and once you're in the bubble marth can do what he wants, but if he misses any attacks his bubble is goal is staying right outside the bubble. Most players will get aggressive throw out something but as long as you're outside the bubble you can punish his whiffed attacks with a quick nair, dtilt, grab, or even usmash.

 

[Jim Jam Flim Flam]

thanks for the advice soju and kuralesache

 

[Phez_]

How do you guys mash A for pikas infinite on Pokemon stadium? Do you use your thumb or index finger? Do you shake the controller rapidly like Axe does? do you claw grip? Do you hold the controller differently like some Luigi players do for their down-b recovery?

For jab resets I usually use my thumb but i find its not fast enough for the infinite.
***In PAL you have to go REALLY fast because of how easy it is to SDI multi-hit moves. eg. Someone can SDI away, and buffer a roll around me if I do it too slowly. At least I can't get chain grabbed by sheik

 

[Jim Jam Flim Flam]

I do that thing where I kinda bounce the controller between my thumb and my middle finger, which I think is what axe does. I'm certainly no expert, but I think that's the fastest way to do it without your index finger.

 

[voorhese]

So a couple things guys:

1. I got a really quick kill on a captain falcon with backthrow off the stage at 0 (making them at like 8%) and then double jumping up and starting my down b, he got hit by the explosion part, and it sent him so far to the right he couldn't get anywhere close to the stage anymore.

2. I had the idea for teams tech (with falco). You know how falco can kill people with shines off the top? Imagine how easy pika could kill people with down b if falco puts %'s I wonder how it would work if he kept holding his shine, like the thunder hits the opponent, they die, and then I take the hit from my own Down b while falco chills up top safe and sound?

3. That got me thinking of other teams tech, one of them is a funny edgeguard. If I jump out as pika and jump back in and down b (not new) I can have a spacie jump up above the ledge and shine the down b, it will give it 1.5X damage and knockback, and when his shine is over he can take the ledge away too

4.The other one would be to double team punish rest by having a spacie jump above puff and shine and hold it, then I can hit the puff with my down b (reflected) and maybe with the hitbox of me getting hit (idk if it has a bigger/stronger hitbox like it does when it's not reflected). This one needs testing, Idk if I still have the explosion hitbox when I am hit with the thunder myself or not, I don't think I do. Either way, there may be some creative uses for this either way haha.

 

[Phez_]

voorhese how do you think of these things

Pikas thunder definitely has some potential in terms of gimmicks

 

[voorhese]

I have severe ADHD haha those all popped into my head while I was trying to do homework. I guess in my sleep I thought about how we could be saved in teams if we had to go pretty low when recovering because our teammate wasnt at the ledge and the opponents were trying to double edge guard. We could save our jump and when we are close to being lined up with the edge double jump thunder and have our partner run and jump up shine first. If its fox they could land a randy shine spike in the process, but either way we can di our own thunder up and towards the stage to give us more time to recover. Our thunder would also maybe hit whoever was on the ledge haha. These are just for fun, obviously.



UPDATE: I tested the 2 shines to thunder on jigglypuff on FD, and we killed a player trying to escape at roughly 20% I didn't have much time to test it since it was at a tourney, but I think killing puff at 20% on FD is pretty good haha I think she will die even earlier honestly. The exact % was 23% (after the thunder hit)

UPDATE 2: I randomly thought about how to actually set this up, pika's upair will put them in a perfect spot for falco to follow them up with shine on the platforms to get extended height on his shine -> shine haha

 

[herbmaster%]

Auburn, Alabama's having their bi-six-monthly on Saturday 25th of April, "Don't Get Rekt 2". The last regional tourny I attended in auburn was AUSOM 10 and @-Chad- won that melee business! I know of three other pikachus in Alabama, but it'd be great to see some Georgia/Tennesee/(perhaps even) Florida Pikachus make it out to this one if they can manage.

 

[Phez_]

I landed the silly side-b edgeguard on falco twice in bracket yesterday

 

[Wreck_94]

Auburn, Alabama's having their bi-six-monthly on Saturday 25th of April, "Don't Get Rekt 2". The last regional tourny I attended in auburn was AUSOM 10 and @-Chad- won that melee business! I know of three other pikachus in Alabama, but it'd be great to see some Georgia/Tennesee/(perhaps even) Florida Pikachus make it out to this one if they can manage.

I should be showing up with the Pensacola guys.

 

[soju]

I was curious as to why people picked up pikachu, as the me now would never have picked him up if given a fresh start.

I landed the silly side-b edgeguard on falco twice in bracket yesterday

It's not silly if it works it was prolly their fault because they most likely tried recovering above the ledge