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Q&A Ask about Pikachu! Hosted by Axe and N64! feat. dkuo!
- Thread starter N64
- Start date
Comet7
Smash Lord
practice makes perfect. use x or y to short hop so you can have more control. i suggest x because it's closer to b.
you can't be holding the jump button for more than 1/30th of a second if that helps you
you can't be holding the jump button for more than 1/30th of a second if that helps you
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The Jets
Smash Cadet
- Joined
- Feb 21, 2014
- Messages
- 54
That makes teaming with ganon sound so fun I gotta try it sometime.
I team with a fox 90% of the time and he gets singled out because of the other team's experience of fox and not with oikachu. Anyone else team with fox much? I need to study teams more and i dont know whayt to look for really
Jim Jam Flim Flam
Smash Apprentice
Pikachu Fox is an excellent doubles team, they're definitely two of the top doubles characters in the game. In general, you want fox to combo characters and force them to the edge or offstage, and pikachu can gimp and edgeguard them well while fox keeps fighting in the neutral. This is a bit obscure, but if you really know what you're doing you can use upair to get your fox teammate closer to the edge when he is offstage. The most important thing is just to communicate with your teammate. Figure out what works between you two and you can beat two players who might be better individually than you.
PonderousSealion
Smash Rookie
As long as you call it Sheikachu you'll do fine.
Phez_
Smash Apprentice
Hey Pikamains! I recently got some sets on stream against some of my regions power ranked players, check them out and be harsh with criticism 
vs Sheik/Falco
vs Marth
vs Falco
vs Game and Watch
vs Sheik/Falco
vs Marth
vs Falco
vs Game and Watch
Kuralesache
Smash Cadet
A few things, in no particular order:
1) Your recovery could use work. You suicide a couple of times because you quick-attack without skull bashing. As a rule, if you are hit into the magnifying glass on the left or right of the screen, always start with a smashed side-b (in case you don't know, smashing side-b gives more distance, same timing as samus super missiles). The only reason NOT to side-b is if you'll be put into lag in a punishable range, but you want to be as close to the stage as possible without being in that range, so that your mixup of recovering to ledge or deep into the stage is impossible to cover.
2) You approach marth with fullhop jolt quite a few times. Against some characters, this can be okay, and it's a habit I get into as well, but marth has a ton of options that not only clang with jolt, but go through it as well. If you use that approach and marth uses an uptilt or fsmash, you will NEVER be able to punish it because you will still be in lag, and he'll hit if you don't drift back. If you want to use jolt to get him to approach, do it from a safe distance or drift back so he can't just punish your landing.
3) Also against Marth, you should utilt or dsmash after shffling through him instead of uair. You don't have very strong followups from uair, and you're forced to sacrifice your positioning every time to make it back to the ground, even when you hit him. With dsmash (my personal favorite) or utilt (which I've seen Axe use a lot) you pop marth into the air, which is awful for him, and you get either a followup or at least a good chunk of damage, and you can put yourself in center stage or just ground yourself underneath him to make it hard for him to get back to the ground. At higher percents you can uair to nair/bair/dair as a kill setup, but in a general neutral situation, other moves cover you a lot better. 2:17 in the marth video is a great example, you just ff to ground and instantly get put back into pressure. On a related note, if you shffl and miss but you're facing him, you can dtilt and that's also pretty good since it clangs with a lot of his moves, comes out fast, has little lag, a lot of range, etc.
4) Wavedash out of shield! I actually can't do it but I'm working on it because with such a ****ty shieldgrab, pikachu needs it to be able to punish people's smashes on your shield. It's super super important!
5) Smash DI falco's pillar combos. The combo at 1:53 in your match vs FC should not work at all. Just get out of there and get into a recovery situation, he can combo you but he can't edgeguard for ****.
6) This is kind of a personal preference, but I really believe that you should use nair to gimp falco's up-b instead of uair. If you use uair you risk messing up (like you did at the end of the first match against MC), but his recovery is so ****ty that nair will basically always take him low enough that he can't survive, and you don't have to worry about his ring of fire so you can just jump right into him and get him with the strong hit. Of course you can just get better at the spike too, but I don't think it's necessary for falco.
7) I think you overuse jolt to edgeguard falco. It's basically a hard read, and you can just make the same read with a nair or fair or ftilt or whatever. I personally only use it vs spacies if I just hit them all the way across the stage and I don't have time to follow up with anything else, but it seems like it's what you default to. If you're just throwing something out to cover options, I think fair is your best bet. It'll clip his phantasm and his jump and it has good priority and a wide hitbox. You lose both your last stocks against MC with a bad jolt
8) I kind of feel like you never grab in neutral. It's kind of risky with pikachu, but you're letting your opponent get away with shielding right in front of you on quite a few occasions. Definitely something that can get you some mileage with guaranteed upthrow combos on like 90% of chars. (hehe, commentators confirmed this for me after I typed it)
9) Not criticism, but holy **** you can DI sheik's dthrow so ****ing far in PAL LOL I'm moving to australia. I actually have nothing to say about your sheik games cause it looks so different from what I'm used to in the US
I think that's pretty much it, I didn't bother with the G&W set cause I don't exactly know the matchup and it's not as important anyway.
One final thing though, this is kind of a guess, but I think one reason you might be ****ing up your quick-attacks so much is because you're not used to how it feels when you hit someone with it. I don't know if it's just coincidence, but a number of your suicides were when you were going through your opponent with the first angle and then messing up your second one. If I'm right, I think you should practice quick-attacking through a character and getting your angles right. I've spent some time on that and have gotten better at my angles as a result. The easiest setup is just to put a character near the ledge and try QA to the ledge from onstage through them. If you can get that timing consistently I think your QA aim will improve in general.
And just cause I don't wanna end without saying something nice, I like a lot of your onstage followups! It's a weakness of mine so it's hard to critique for me, and you definitely get some good hits regrabs that I don't go for enough. Oh, and of course your shielddrops, though I'm sure you get that compliment like 95 times a day
1) Your recovery could use work. You suicide a couple of times because you quick-attack without skull bashing. As a rule, if you are hit into the magnifying glass on the left or right of the screen, always start with a smashed side-b (in case you don't know, smashing side-b gives more distance, same timing as samus super missiles). The only reason NOT to side-b is if you'll be put into lag in a punishable range, but you want to be as close to the stage as possible without being in that range, so that your mixup of recovering to ledge or deep into the stage is impossible to cover.
2) You approach marth with fullhop jolt quite a few times. Against some characters, this can be okay, and it's a habit I get into as well, but marth has a ton of options that not only clang with jolt, but go through it as well. If you use that approach and marth uses an uptilt or fsmash, you will NEVER be able to punish it because you will still be in lag, and he'll hit if you don't drift back. If you want to use jolt to get him to approach, do it from a safe distance or drift back so he can't just punish your landing.
3) Also against Marth, you should utilt or dsmash after shffling through him instead of uair. You don't have very strong followups from uair, and you're forced to sacrifice your positioning every time to make it back to the ground, even when you hit him. With dsmash (my personal favorite) or utilt (which I've seen Axe use a lot) you pop marth into the air, which is awful for him, and you get either a followup or at least a good chunk of damage, and you can put yourself in center stage or just ground yourself underneath him to make it hard for him to get back to the ground. At higher percents you can uair to nair/bair/dair as a kill setup, but in a general neutral situation, other moves cover you a lot better. 2:17 in the marth video is a great example, you just ff to ground and instantly get put back into pressure. On a related note, if you shffl and miss but you're facing him, you can dtilt and that's also pretty good since it clangs with a lot of his moves, comes out fast, has little lag, a lot of range, etc.
4) Wavedash out of shield! I actually can't do it but I'm working on it because with such a ****ty shieldgrab, pikachu needs it to be able to punish people's smashes on your shield. It's super super important!
5) Smash DI falco's pillar combos. The combo at 1:53 in your match vs FC should not work at all. Just get out of there and get into a recovery situation, he can combo you but he can't edgeguard for ****.
6) This is kind of a personal preference, but I really believe that you should use nair to gimp falco's up-b instead of uair. If you use uair you risk messing up (like you did at the end of the first match against MC), but his recovery is so ****ty that nair will basically always take him low enough that he can't survive, and you don't have to worry about his ring of fire so you can just jump right into him and get him with the strong hit. Of course you can just get better at the spike too, but I don't think it's necessary for falco.
7) I think you overuse jolt to edgeguard falco. It's basically a hard read, and you can just make the same read with a nair or fair or ftilt or whatever. I personally only use it vs spacies if I just hit them all the way across the stage and I don't have time to follow up with anything else, but it seems like it's what you default to. If you're just throwing something out to cover options, I think fair is your best bet. It'll clip his phantasm and his jump and it has good priority and a wide hitbox. You lose both your last stocks against MC with a bad jolt
8) I kind of feel like you never grab in neutral. It's kind of risky with pikachu, but you're letting your opponent get away with shielding right in front of you on quite a few occasions. Definitely something that can get you some mileage with guaranteed upthrow combos on like 90% of chars. (hehe, commentators confirmed this for me after I typed it)
9) Not criticism, but holy **** you can DI sheik's dthrow so ****ing far in PAL LOL I'm moving to australia. I actually have nothing to say about your sheik games cause it looks so different from what I'm used to in the US
I think that's pretty much it, I didn't bother with the G&W set cause I don't exactly know the matchup and it's not as important anyway.
One final thing though, this is kind of a guess, but I think one reason you might be ****ing up your quick-attacks so much is because you're not used to how it feels when you hit someone with it. I don't know if it's just coincidence, but a number of your suicides were when you were going through your opponent with the first angle and then messing up your second one. If I'm right, I think you should practice quick-attacking through a character and getting your angles right. I've spent some time on that and have gotten better at my angles as a result. The easiest setup is just to put a character near the ledge and try QA to the ledge from onstage through them. If you can get that timing consistently I think your QA aim will improve in general.
And just cause I don't wanna end without saying something nice, I like a lot of your onstage followups! It's a weakness of mine so it's hard to critique for me, and you definitely get some good hits regrabs that I don't go for enough. Oh, and of course your shielddrops, though I'm sure you get that compliment like 95 times a day
Phez_
Smash Apprentice
Kuralesache
Thank you SO much you legend. I'm definitely taking all of this into account for my next tourney 
Simmons
Smash Cadet
- Joined
- Oct 12, 2014
- Messages
- 47
Can anyone tell me/show me how to replicate the chaingrab on spacies at 0%?
I keep hearing that it's possible at any % below 100, but I've been trying for the past 15 minutes or so, and I can only regrab no DI and slight behind DI. It just seems like Pikachu won't start running fast enough to catch Fox before he lands.
I keep hearing that it's possible at any % below 100, but I've been trying for the past 15 minutes or so, and I can only regrab no DI and slight behind DI. It just seems like Pikachu won't start running fast enough to catch Fox before he lands.
Kuralesache
Smash Cadet
The chaingrab on spacies starts at around 30% - the 0% misconception comes from salty spacie mains who think pika is broken
Jim Jam Flim Flam
Smash Apprentice
"Yo that chaingrab is so gay, I can't even get out of it man, and it goes right to upsmash"The chaingrab on spacies starts at around 30% - the 0% misconception comes from salty spacie mains who think pika is broken
"Pikachu just bodies marth man, it's so unfair, he just goes in their with his nair and Marth can't do anything"
"Pikachu is so damn squirrely man, I hate playing him. He just runs around and never fights"
"Dude that lightning is so stupid, I can never get away from it"
"God I can never kill Pikachu, he just always grabs the ledge"
"Yo up air is so broken it's just a one hit spike at any percent"
Just had to get that off my chest....people get really salty about losing to Pikachu because they don't know the matchup, and they feel like they shouldn't lose to a character that low on the tier list. But he is pikachu. He gets ****ed by almost every top 8 character, especially ICs. His only decent approach option is a move with zero disjoint...
Anyways, sorry about the rant, but I do actually have a question: Wat do against ICs? I'm sure this has been asked a lot, and I apologize, but I couldn't find anything good recently in this thread on ICs.
Usually I just run around like a crackhead on the platforms until I get a good opportunity to separate them with up air, or in rare cases, with Dsmash, but otherwise I feel like I have zero approach options, because my regular approach, Nair, is useless because I am dead with just one grab. I try to nair past ICs, but they always use their wavedash oos and dsmash or grab me. My shield can't really block their moves, the two hammers are too strong. I try to use upsmash, but they can dsmash or grab that oos. I'm just looking for anything, really, I feel hopeless playing against ICs who wobble. Nothing I do seems to work, and I always end up getting ****ed.
soju
SD God
The only character that pika can cg from 0 is falcon(poor dude) and you curl up into a ball and Cry as you try to separate the ICs while not getting grabbed
Comet7
Smash Lord
vs IC's you pick a different character
i've also heard that approaching with fair can work but that's probably really gimmicky
i've also heard that approaching with fair can work but that's probably really gimmicky
Jim Jam Flim Flam
Smash Apprentice
Yeah, I can use fair to dtilt or fair to fsmash in certain situations, but it's pretty rare, because you have to land in front of ICs and that's never a good idea.
As crazy as this sounds, I've been thinking about maybe using Yoshi when I go against ICs. From my experience, and I am certainly no expert, Yoshi seems to do quite well against ICs. I don't know if he beats ICs, but it seems to be something like a 50:50 matchup. I never really use Yoshi in tournaments, but I am familiar with his tech skill and I can move around with him just fine.
Do you think I should keep trying to stick it out with Pika, and see what happens against ICs, or should I just pick another character now and forget about using pika vs ICs?
Kuralesache
Smash Cadet
Honestly I don't think the ICs matchup will ever be more developed, since Axe and Wobbles have played so much... but on the other hand part of me believes that Axe just can't resist playing aggro, and you just have to platform camp ICs like there's no tomorrow. I've decided for myself that I refuse to pick up another character for the matchup, but if any matchup requires it, that would be the one. You have to make a read every single time you come down from the platforms and that's just ridiculous.
I think the future of that matchup might be to kill Nana and then time Popo out so you can't get wobbled. He can't really do anything against an invincible ledgestall, and if they start suiciding to get Nana back that still makes your life a lot easier. That requires you to be up in the first place though, so idk
I think the future of that matchup might be to kill Nana and then time Popo out so you can't get wobbled. He can't really do anything against an invincible ledgestall, and if they start suiciding to get Nana back that still makes your life a lot easier. That requires you to be up in the first place though, so idk
Jim Jam Flim Flam
Smash Apprentice
Dair doesn't really beat crouch cancel. It has a bit of knockback on crouching opponents, and it sends them forward just a bit, but they get out of their knockback in time to punish pika's very laggy dair. Dair is really only useful when an opponent is in the air
Comet7
Smash Lord
you can move around the platforms well. powershielding would obviously help but that's hard. don't get too flustered because that's what falco wants.
Jim Jam Flim Flam
Smash Apprentice
from 0 to roughly 60 percent. at around 60 percent, if you DI up and towards sheik she can get an easy follow up, so I prefer to DI away, because even though she can still get a follow up, it is harder and typically won't lead into as much.
![[大神−ド] Ōkameed](/data/avatars/l/252/252822.jpg?1453736831){kind=avatar}
[大神−ド] Ōkameed
Smash Cadet
Hey guys I'm a pikachu from the UK and I lost a couple sets at the last monthly I ran (yay for TO johns). I have a decent idea of what I did wrong but itd be good to get some outside input, so general comments/harsh critiques welcome.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAbdGmLZ0HY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9G-3eET-gY (i normally win against this guy but played super bad this set I know )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAbdGmLZ0HY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9G-3eET-gY (i normally win against this guy but played super bad this set I know
)
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soju
SD God
Harsh? Okay. Your sweet spot angles are bad, practice that downward angle. Your general stage movement needs to be much crispier imagine you're a soggy dorito compared to a nice crisp tortilla chip. Edgeguarding you seemed to completely autopilot, keep your mind engaged. And you became really predictable, mix up moves approaches recoveries.
I was only able to watch the first video and it seemed like you aren't too experienced with samus I'll watch the other one later
I was only able to watch the first video and it seemed like you aren't too experienced with samus I'll watch the other one later
Jim Jam Flim Flam
Smash Apprentice
I watched the falco video, and you grab the ledge a lot of times when you could just get an easy ftilt edguard. Also, you rarely seem to go for the chaingrab on FD. Even if you can backthrow close to the edge, I would still go for the chaingrab if they are below 60 percent, because otherwise falco can easily get back. On that last fod game you would backthrow falco but you could have gotten a near guaranteed kill with chaingrab to upsmash. Your movement, especially on small stages, is kind of slow and predictable. Soju's "soggy dorito" metaphor is good.
One comment, if a spacie is off stage in their firefox startup animation, you can fair into them and they will drop too low to recover
Take everything I say with a grain of salt, soju and n64 are much more qualified to talk about this than I am.
One comment, if a spacie is off stage in their firefox startup animation, you can fair into them and they will drop too low to recover
Take everything I say with a grain of salt, soju and n64 are much more qualified to talk about this than I am.
[大神−ド] Ōkameed
Smash Cadet
Thanks jim jam & Soju. honestly i was playing horribly in both sets i know this haha. There are vods of me chaingrabbing the same falco to death three times on FD/gimping all four stocks with f tilt etc so do it normally for sure, but i wanted games i played bad in to be analysed if you know what I mean. Sometimes when youre playing bad its hard to get a grab going on falco anyway so when i did i sort of panicked i think.
Movement is a real issue though. I can definitely see what you mean about being predictable.
Movement is a real issue though. I can definitely see what you mean about being predictable.
[大神−ド] Ōkameed
Smash Cadet
Keeping my mind fully engaged all set is one of my biggest diffuculties
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Young17
Smash Rookie
- Joined
- Nov 9, 2015
- Messages
- 5
Anybody know why most Pikachu players almost always full hop up air instead of short hop up air? I feel like short hop up air is safer and faster especially when your opponent is on a side platform and you are under them. I guess you can combo full hop rising up air into bair/nair/dair against floaties or higher percentage fast fallers. However, wouldn't it better to short hop rising up air and then fast fall on the ground to follow up with other combos?
Also, I have hard time edge guarding/ gimping fast fallers on Yoshi's. Does anyone have any tips on this?
Also, I have hard time edge guarding/ gimping fast fallers on Yoshi's. Does anyone have any tips on this?
soju
SD God
@Young17 Bringing up a good point I say that sh uair is exponentially better in most situations. I myself need to practice it more as I have naturally bad tech skill that I always overlook. It's better as shield pressure and platform pressure, but pikachu's uair is all situational as only the first and last hitbox sends people up so it's a matter of what you want. You may sh uair someone above you and get one of your semi spike hit boxes in a situation you don't want because sh uair places you too far below the opponent. It's all a matter of perspective but I agree wholeheartedly that it's a better option overall as its much safer than fh uair.
On yoshi's if a spacies doesn't immediately side b they might tend to either go really low to avoid the gimp or far out to where they think you can't reach em. If they go low you can drop down and attack them, use invincible ledge frames to hit them as they're rising, and attempt to dair/ftilt to hit a missed sweet spot. Far out I'd say if your confident go out there gimp them or nair em if you can, if not go out and fair, it'll give you another opportunity to edgeguard. And I'm sure I don't need to tell you how to edgeguard side b.
@[大神−ド] Ōkameed It's fine brotha we can actually learn more from bad games then we can from good games just process all the things you need or want to work on and make a list
On yoshi's if a spacies doesn't immediately side b they might tend to either go really low to avoid the gimp or far out to where they think you can't reach em. If they go low you can drop down and attack them, use invincible ledge frames to hit them as they're rising, and attempt to dair/ftilt to hit a missed sweet spot. Far out I'd say if your confident go out there gimp them or nair em if you can, if not go out and fair, it'll give you another opportunity to edgeguard. And I'm sure I don't need to tell you how to edgeguard side b.
@[大神−ド] Ōkameed It's fine brotha we can actually learn more from bad games then we can from good games just process all the things you need or want to work on and make a list
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mynameisdog4
Smash Apprentice
Got some matches recorded for once, take a look if you want to https://youtu.be/WvAbam_n9g8?t=4668 . If the link doesn’t work my sets start at 1:18:00 I play two sets in a row, one against Marth and one against Ganon. Both sets I do some dumb mistakes when I have ledge and get hit, but that doesn’t usually happen.
I feel like I have a decent grasp on the Ganon matchup, my approach to it is to just dash dance until he does literally anything and then punish for it. Only major problem I have is I’m actually really bad at edgeguarding Ganon and Falcon.
I’ve really been trying to get better at the Marth matchup. If it makes any sense I’m better against ‘good’ marths than bad ones lol. I think its because the ‘bad’ Marths are the ones that throw out fsmash way too much, and I’m just overall bad at getting around that right now. One thing about good Marths is that I can’t get back from the ledge against them though, its made me work on my invincible ledgedash a ton, and this is the first set I’ve really seen that help me, but the next day I lost to the best Marth in my region pretty much because I couldn't get back to center stage. Beating that Marth is like my number 1 goal in melee right now lol
Didn't play any spacies on stream, but I wish I did, I'm having a really hard time getting grabs against them no. I've been watching stuff and I think I need to go for more tech chase grabs
Sorry for wall of text, I've been trying to improve so I've been thinking a lot lmao
Edit: Also against the Marth I banned FoD but I've since decided that I should problably ban Yoshis
I feel like I have a decent grasp on the Ganon matchup, my approach to it is to just dash dance until he does literally anything and then punish for it. Only major problem I have is I’m actually really bad at edgeguarding Ganon and Falcon.
I’ve really been trying to get better at the Marth matchup. If it makes any sense I’m better against ‘good’ marths than bad ones lol. I think its because the ‘bad’ Marths are the ones that throw out fsmash way too much, and I’m just overall bad at getting around that right now. One thing about good Marths is that I can’t get back from the ledge against them though, its made me work on my invincible ledgedash a ton, and this is the first set I’ve really seen that help me, but the next day I lost to the best Marth in my region pretty much because I couldn't get back to center stage. Beating that Marth is like my number 1 goal in melee right now lol
Didn't play any spacies on stream, but I wish I did, I'm having a really hard time getting grabs against them no. I've been watching stuff and I think I need to go for more tech chase grabs
Sorry for wall of text, I've been trying to improve so I've been thinking a lot lmao
Edit: Also against the Marth I banned FoD but I've since decided that I should problably ban Yoshis
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Jim Jam Flim Flam
Smash Apprentice
Young17
I have often wondered this myself. When I watch axe play he always seems to go for full hop uair, but in my experience short hop uair is generally safer. I think it comes down to the fact that axe is willing to take the gamble that he will catch people with his up air, because if he does catch them and he full hops, he can get an instant punish without using another jump. I would suppose it just comes down to a difference in playstyle. Like soju said, it's just how you want to approach it, I can't say sh or fh is better.
mynameisdog4
Smash Apprentice
Short hop uair out of shield is so good, especially against spacies and falcon
soju
SD God
mynameisdog4
downward ftilt will hit falcon and ganon always unless they get their perfect sweetspot, you relied on fsmash edgeguard alot, not a lot of off stage play, you would hit combos and then sort of let the pace reset to neutral, following up on there were occasional lapses in your gameplay where you wouldnt really do much. Your nair follow ups were good but it became pretty predictable to me knowing you would approach with cross up nair everytime you jumped, be careful against good players theyll eat that up.sorry dont have much else my brain is fried analyzing wise as i watched too many pikachu matches today that arent my own and im personally not a fan of that.
mynameisdog4
Smash Apprentice
Young17
Smash Rookie
- Joined
- Nov 9, 2015
- Messages
- 5
Jim Jam Flim Flam
soju
Thank you guys for your insights; I appreciate it!Also, I sometimes see players like pikachad and axe do weak nair > uptiilt > upsmash. it looks pretty strong but I can't seem to pull it off, anybody know how exactly it works?
Moreover, I have hard time dealing with dash dancing marths; I end up whiffing my nair approaches or get jc grabbed frequently. Whenever I see AXE vs marth match up, marths never get the chance to dash dance; how is he doing this?
Young17
Smash Rookie
- Joined
- Nov 9, 2015
- Messages
- 5
mynameisdog4
I really liked your vs Marth match up. Do you have any tips on approaching marths?
mynameisdog4
Smash Apprentice
Young17
I really like to do run up -> shield until i figure out what they do when I get close. Marth (at least the ones i play) can't get much off the grab so I don't mind the risk of getting grabbed when I run up shield. If I notice they tend to jump/aerial, I'll start running in -> cc dtilt or try to hit them with nair before they get their aerial out. If they tend to dtilt I wait for it and nair them, and if they fsmash I run up -> shield -> upsmash out of shield (or wave dash out of shield -> grab/dtilt).My region is terrible so this might be terible advice and not work at all but that's how I do it.
mynameisdog4
Smash Apprentice
Do any frame knowledge people know if dthrow tech chases on fox can be guaranteed on reaction?
Pud'N
Smash Cadet
Ok so why do lots of people think Utilt is bad? Looking at framedata and the way ive been applying it in games, its a pretty good tilt from what i can see. Better directly as an antiair than up angled ftilt and also sets up for more. Also reduces Pikas hurtbox a little via crouch. I think uptilt is underlooked at.
Also some info on Icies matchup, ive noticed some things to work. Aside from the obvious platform camping you should be doing, crossup nairs followed by a mixup of DD/Dsmash/Insta SH Uair is very hard to deal with as ICs. Dsmash is super duper underrated in this matchup as it has huge potential to poke a sheild and isnt as laggy as youd think. Also as a general rule, moves that hit on both sides of a character give ICs hell (DSmash is also the best move pika has for seperating)
Thunder can be a good edgeguard vs recovering ICs (as well as characters like ganon, falcon, samus, that have a lot of mixups but stay in the same general vertical area) Jumping so that thunder covers the area in front of the ledge upwards and downwards forces these characters to stall their reocvery or get hit, and these characters can struggle with that (sans samus a little, but you can also just edgeguard her like sheik by sniping bombs and going deep)
Also some info on Icies matchup, ive noticed some things to work. Aside from the obvious platform camping you should be doing, crossup nairs followed by a mixup of DD/Dsmash/Insta SH Uair is very hard to deal with as ICs. Dsmash is super duper underrated in this matchup as it has huge potential to poke a sheild and isnt as laggy as youd think. Also as a general rule, moves that hit on both sides of a character give ICs hell (DSmash is also the best move pika has for seperating)
Thunder can be a good edgeguard vs recovering ICs (as well as characters like ganon, falcon, samus, that have a lot of mixups but stay in the same general vertical area) Jumping so that thunder covers the area in front of the ledge upwards and downwards forces these characters to stall their reocvery or get hit, and these characters can struggle with that (sans samus a little, but you can also just edgeguard her like sheik by sniping bombs and going deep)
Jim Jam Flim Flam
Smash Apprentice
Utilt has low priority and most of the hitbox is above pikachu. The only way to hit someone with it is if they are above you, and in hitstun, or if they somehow just jump above you and come down on you with no attack. Up air has a hitbox in front, above, and behind it, and can be used while moving both on and off the stage, it's almost always better than utilt. I try to find places to use utilt, but it's just not very good. The only time I use it is when enemies are at a high percent and I want to keep a combo going to upsmash or another upair.
You are correct that crossup nairs are good against ics, but the issue is that they have such a good wavedash OoS, any good ICs player can escape your nair pressure very easily with wavedash oos to dsmash or wavedash oos to blizzard. Both of those can lead to a wobble or a kill. I have experimented with dsmash, and have found it is very good for separating ICs, but if they have a full shield it isn't strong enough to shield stab, and of course they can get a grab after you dsmash and wobble you to death. Dsmash is a very weak move. It's even harder to get ICs with it if they know to move their shield down. It can work well if you have crossed them up and worn down their shields, though.
You are correct that crossup nairs are good against ics, but the issue is that they have such a good wavedash OoS, any good ICs player can escape your nair pressure very easily with wavedash oos to dsmash or wavedash oos to blizzard. Both of those can lead to a wobble or a kill. I have experimented with dsmash, and have found it is very good for separating ICs, but if they have a full shield it isn't strong enough to shield stab, and of course they can get a grab after you dsmash and wobble you to death. Dsmash is a very weak move. It's even harder to get ICs with it if they know to move their shield down. It can work well if you have crossed them up and worn down their shields, though.