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

oukd

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I like Fox v Pika unless the Fox dashdance-camps literally everything. One of the rare times that a character can easily outmaneuver Pikachu...there's so few options for Pikachu when the Fox is just waiting for you. Thankfully, landing a good hit usually means a massive vertical combo is available.

Some random notes:
  • The most threatening aspect of Pika v Fox is Fox's maneuverability, speed, and unpredictability. Thankfully, what Fox doesn't have over Pika is Pika's massive comboing ability (as long as you know how to escape them) and strong edgeguarding vs Fox.
  • Understand the Fox's defensive game (imo the most threatening aspect of the matchup). Dashdance spacing (try to bait), crouchcancelling (counter with nair crossup to rising uair, I think that breaks cc at low %?), shielding (grab them or nair crossup uair), trading/outprioritizing you (bait and force them to whiff), etc. there's probably a lot of stuff I'm missing. Key point is that Fox usually sticks with a few options to defend against Pika, so know what offensive options counter Fox's defenses. Don't stick with one option per scenario though, each of your options can cover more than one of Fox's options, and each of Fox's options can be covered by more than one of your options...well, that's just smash in general...I'm going off on a tangent here <_<
  • If the Fox is super-aggro and shffls everywhere all the time, you have a few moves that can stuff his aerials and throw his momentum off...dair/ftilt to name a few. Mostly though, you'll just want to outspace them and punish with a grab/usmash.
  • Be very careful of Fox's usmash. It can outprioritize almost any approach if Fox expects it.
  • DI uthrows to one side, SDI uairs to the other side to escape the 2nd hit. Some Foxes catch on to this and start uthrow>bair instead so DI accordingly.
  • I think you can tech Fox's shine if you know it's coming. Haven't tested this yet though...
 

N64

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Just added Fox Matchup to my guide. A bit long, but sums up my advice for vs. Fox. Dkuo's post on it is good (and a lot shorter heh) too.
 

N64

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My usual process so far has been:
1. Open notepad, pick char
2. Stare at notepad
3. "Ok...uh...how do I explain this..."
4. Type like a paragraph over half an hour, till I'm relatively satisfied.
5. Get stuck, save and close
6. Come back later, go to step 2

I feel much more comfortable with question-answer than guide stuff. But yeah, sorry it's been so slow heh.
 

soju

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Winter Game Fest today, been up watching pikachu videos that aren't actually Axe, I realized I miss all the old pikaboard contributors I use to listen to on the boards after seeing some of TDK_Samurai's matches if anyone remembers him. Well, time to do or die today, hear there will be plenty of competition.
 

iRobinhoood

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Winter Game Fest today, been up watching pikachu videos that aren't actually Axe, I realized I miss all the old pikaboard contributors I use to listen to on the boards after seeing some of TDK_Samurai's matches if anyone remembers him. Well, time to do or die today, hear there will be plenty of competition.
Good luck Soju <3
 

indigestible_wad

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I like Fox v Pika unless the Fox dashdance-camps literally everything. One of the rare times that a character can easily outmaneuver Pikachu...there's so few options for Pikachu when the Fox is just waiting for you. Thankfully, landing a good hit usually means a massive vertical combo is available.

Some random notes:
  • The most threatening aspect of Pika v Fox is Fox's maneuverability, speed, and unpredictability. Thankfully, what Fox doesn't have over Pika is Pika's massive comboing ability (as long as you know how to escape them) and strong edgeguarding vs Fox.
  • Understand the Fox's defensive game (imo the most threatening aspect of the matchup). Dashdance spacing (try to bait), crouchcancelling (counter with nair crossup to rising uair, I think that breaks cc at low %?), shielding (grab them or nair crossup uair), trading/outprioritizing you (bait and force them to whiff), etc. there's probably a lot of stuff I'm missing. Key point is that Fox usually sticks with a few options to defend against Pika, so know what offensive options counter Fox's defenses. Don't stick with one option per scenario though, each of your options can cover more than one of Fox's options, and each of Fox's options can be covered by more than one of your options...well, that's just smash in general...I'm going off on a tangent here <_<
  • If the Fox is super-aggro and shffls everywhere all the time, you have a few moves that can stuff his aerials and throw his momentum off...dair/ftilt to name a few. Mostly though, you'll just want to outspace them and punish with a grab/usmash.
  • Be very careful of Fox's usmash. It can outprioritize almost any approach if Fox expects it.
  • DI uthrows to one side, SDI uairs to the other side to escape the 2nd hit. Some Foxes catch on to this and start uthrow>bair instead so DI accordingly.
  • I think you can tech Fox's shine if you know it's coming. Haven't tested this yet though...
The only thing I have to say to this is that fox can sh bair/nair faster than you can uair off the ground, which is their CC/shielding counter to shffle nair to uair. That's my experience anyway, unless I'm timing it wrong.
 

iRobinhoood

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The only thing I have to say to this is that fox can sh bair/nair faster than you can uair off the ground, which is their CC/shielding counter to shffle nair to uair. That's my experience anyway, unless I'm timing it wrong.
Might be timing it wrong because uair comes out pretty fast.
 

oukd

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The only thing I have to say to this is that fox can sh bair/nair faster than you can uair off the ground, which is their CC/shielding counter to shffle nair to uair. That's my experience anyway, unless I'm timing it wrong.
I don't doubt it. What you said works in TAS so I'm sure if you keep using it you'll end up getting punished for it with a nair/bair if the Fox has good reflexes/timing. It's still effective to catch people offguard with though. The key is to mix it up.

You could also tighten the window of vulnerable frames between nair and uair by delaying your nair until much later - the increased stun from the initial nair hitbox also helps.

Also, rising uair is still cc'able at extremely low %'s...didn't know about this until now :urg:
 

indigestible_wad

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Might be timing it wrong because uair comes out pretty fast.
You have to account for the fact that pikachu is fullhoping while fox is shorthopping, and the attacks come out at approximately the same framerate. Add the lag that pikachu gets from falling and landing inbetween and it's definitely possible for fox to have the frame advantage.

Doesn't mean I don't try it. It's still my most common followup in that situation.


I love how pikachu's moveset is geared toward getting a grab. You can get a grab, and by default an upsmash, out of uair, nair, upsmash, utilt, dsmash, and upthrow on fastfallers, and those are just the things that are guaranteed. I've been testing things in training mode, watching the combo counter, and I've figured that if you can get a dash attack to combo after a move, you have a guaranteed grab in that situation. I'm using guaranteed losely though, because I'm not accounting for DI. For instance, you can grab fox out of dsmash between 20 and 40% if they don't DI because they don't go that far, but if they DI in any direction they go too far to catch up to them.
 

soju

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Bah, I need more tournament experience =^= Did horrible due to my mindset, at least me and my friend made it to doubles bracket(mario+pikachu)
 

oukd

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I know that feel T_T

How'd you guys do in the doubles bracket?

EDIT: Hitting someone in front of you with a falling shffl uair flings them behind you and can often combo into a grab/usmash/etc against pretty much any non-fastfaller at low-mid %...with bad DI it'll also work on fastfallers and high % non-fastfallers.

EDIT: Found out something interesting about bair...the initial hitbox sends people in the direction they were hit in while the lingering hitbox afterwards ALWAYS sends people in the opposite direction that pika is facing regardless of what part of the hitbox they're hit with.
 

Spyro

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One thing I noticed is that you should really work on your edge garding.

I also noticed that you put yourself off stage a few times, witch is not necessary, going to the ledge is one thing but puting yourself off stage so he can edge gard you is another.
 

oukd

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  • A lot of times you try to move out of usmash too early and end up walking instead of dashing, not turning around, etc. so be careful about that
  • You dedicate yourself to some unsafe nairs esp. at long range against a standing/dashdancing fox (0:16, 0:55, etc) where the fox can react to a nair approach very easily. you should delay the nair to come out later so that if the fox reacts to your shorthop approach you can fastfall earlier/waveland back/crouchcancel/etc.
  • If you're recovering to the stage and the opponent is edgehogging you, try to recover close to the ground/platform so that you have less airborne lag, but don't up+B into the ground as that'll give you a lot of extra lag as well. (talking about 0:25)
  • You throw out a lot of seemingly random grabs and uairs (0:30 0:56 1:14 etc)...don't be too impulsive <_< speaking of impulsiveness, your ledge options end up being punished a lot so try to mix it up a little.
  • As Spyro said, you should optimize your edgeguarding (along with comboing followups imo). Examples - 0:44 run off fair/nair would have worked, no reason to edgehog a fox that's charging firefox so close to the edge. 1:01 ledgehop nair/bair would have hit. 2:27 falling dair (like you did later) would have cinched the ko a lot earlier. 4:20 run off and attack fox, don't feel hesitant when you see fox/falco in up+B below the stage since literally any move can effectively trade with their recovery. etc.
  • Some accidental dash attacks, missed sweetspots, etc. general tech stuff

I'm a little sick right now so this might not be the best writeup...but yea
 

indigestible_wad

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I can tell you're working on your recovery, but something I noticed is when you go for the up to down diagonal sweetspot, you always do it very close to the edge. Pikachu has a huge sweetspotand when you aproach it too close to the edge you follow the edge for a few frames before grabbing the edge, adding a few frames of vulnerability and effectively making it feel like not a sweetspot imo. THis can be exploited and I've gotten hit because of this more times than I'd like. Play around with it a little more and test the limits of how far out pikachu can go to grab the edge, because it's a lot safer to come in from far away where you can't get git than come in close where you can.
 

Dre the Ace

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Yeah, like I said these few matches my recovery was awful and it is usually a lot better. Also any seemingly random grabs are just failed rising uairs on my part, I've been doing it a lot lately and I'm trying to work on that.

And good looking out on my unsafe nairs, I didn't notice it until you (dkuo) said it. I'll be working on that as well the next time I get a chance. Thanks for the feedback guys, I don't get recorded very often and I'm trying to get as much feedback as I can, so anyone else please feel free to say something.
 

Dre the Ace

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No, it's just a habit of mine to hold down (at least lightly) one of the shield buttons whenever I find myself in a bad position. You can see in my first random grab at 0:30 that the shield comes out briefly.
 

N64

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The biggest issues I saw were habits. It seemed like for certain situations you had 1 preferred response, and you'd occasionally get punished for it once the fox caught on. The ones I noticed the most were:

1. Whenever you're on the edge and Fox comes anywhere near you, you drop->doublejump->uair back onto the stage. This works great if it hits him, because most often it will send him back off the stage while letting you on. It has pretty terrible range in front of pikachu and the hitbox starts behind pikachu before travelling forward and causes your hurtbox to hang a little just above the stage while you do it. This means if he expects it, it's easy enough for him to just fake approaching the edge, stop short, and then punish your uair by either hitting it in landing lag or just beating it with a number of things (usmash being the most notable) once you're out of ledge-invuln. He does this a couple of times, and kills you at least once.

2. Somewhat related to 1, you tend to hang on/around the edge a bit seemingly in hopes that fox will rush towards you and you can catch him with something. This is fine to do occasionally, as immediately getting on the stage from the ledge is punishable too, but again all fox has to do to punish this is fake an approach and calmly punish whatever you try to trip him up with. And for clarification, playing near the ledge but on the stage is fine in general, as you're constantly threatening grab->bthrow and other shenanigans, but repeatedly returning to the ledge (drop->dj regrab, upB stalling, etc.) isn't a reliable tactic. If the opponent sees it, it's pretty clear what your intentions are. In general, wding onto the stage should be your most common return from the ledge, but of course, mix other stuff in (like this option, or upBing straight forward onto the stage, or upBing to a platform, getup attack, etc.) to keep em guessing.

3. When holding the edge and ledgeguarding a Fox, you would drop or jump back and try to aerial him I think every time. I'm guilty of getting in this habit too sometimes, because pikachu can do it pretty safely and it feels good. But there were a couple times where you could have just ledgehogged and it probably would have killed him. If it didn't in those situations, you would have had time to drop->dj uair to pop him back off the stage anyways, or wd on->grab->bthrow. Part of this is working on edgeguarding, so if you go for the aerial every time, make sure you can make them hit and preferably kill him. Fox has enough variability to his recovery that it can be difficult to properly edgeguard with a drop/jump aerial from the ledge. If he's far enough out/down though, his recovery can only get him either to the ledge or barely onto the stage. In this case with proper ledgegrab timing (to refresh your ledge invuln) you can ledgehog him if he goes to the ledge, and still leave the option of wding onto the stage to punish him if he reaches the stage (and you have good reactions).

4. You upB'd to the ledge a lotttt, and liked to hang out off the stage at a distance where doing so was comfortable (same up->diagonaldown trajectory almost every time, occasionally just diagonaldown). This generally made your recovery plans pretty clear, and you got ledgehogged a couple times because of it. Technically speaking it's a pretty safe way of recovering, but obviously punishable if Fox expects it. You can make this a little more ambiguous by getting used to different angles (which allows you to recover to the ledge from different distances, making your intentions less clear), but mostly just mix up where you recover to. Recovering to the stage is less safe, but occasionally just doing it (and not because Fox is already on the ledge) is enough to keep Fox guessing. It's worth it to recover to somewhere where you may get slightly punished (i.e. by like a nair or bair if you go to a platform) once or twice in order to make Fox hesitate a little bit when you're off the edge. Were I the Fox in those matches, whenever you were recovering the main things going through my mind after a couple times would have been "Am I able to safely ledgehog him from my current position?" and "Can I make this ledgehog not look too obvious?" What I SHOULD be asking myself is "Where is he going to recover to?" but you didn't give him much reason to. You seemed to mix up your recovery only out of necessity, when the ledge seemed unavailable. Mix it up, make him guess. Getting ledgehogged kills you, getting hit with an attack because you recovered to the stage a few times usually won't.

5. This isn't so much a habit as a decisional question, but a few times that you would get a rising uair on Fox near the ledge as he tried to recover and you chose to usmash him afterwards. I don't remember if it really led to anything any of the times, but it generally felt like grab->bthrow would have been a better option pretty much every time. It's less damage, but at that percent usmash isn't going to kill and bthrow at least puts him back off the stage and could result in a kill. Just struck me as an odd choice, and seemed a consistent one.

As a last note, and this was a lot less common and may just be my personal preference, but it seemed like Fox was trying to take advantage of your hesitation to hold your shield around him. I know Pika's shield sucks, and downdodge or uair out of shield are pretty good, but often he'd just throw out a usmash if he was next to you or dash past you and turn around to wait for you to jump, then hit you with an aerial or something. It felt like if Fox was on top of you you'd just kinda panic and shield, then jump out after about a second. I would have liked you to occasionally just hold your shield (probably lightshielding to an extent) longer and see what he does. If he commits to a punishing usmash or bair/nair, you shielded it and might be able to get something out of it. If he keeps running around you/waiting for you to jump then yeah you're going to have to drop your shield and do something eventually, but the timing isn't so telegraphed and you can still wd out or jc->usmash (or just drop it and slow walk forward for super pro mindgames!) out of it instead of jumping. If he grabs you while you're shielding, then it's not so bad because it's Fox (as compared to mario or sheik or etc.) His options from grab are uthrow->uair (which you can smashDI if you're comfortable with that) or fthrow/bthrow for no real followup and meh damage, or dthrow for a techchase option (which he's pretty much guessing on the punish). All of those options (assuming you smashDI/avoid the uthrow->uair) are much better than getting usmashed when he predicts your jump. As with anything, don't rely on shield, but it's fine to use it for a while occasionally to tell Fox that he can't just usmash whenever you two are next to eachother.

Otherwise it looked pretty good. You seemed to have a cohesive plan throughout the matches and, with a few tech errors which happen, went through with it. You seemed pretty comfortable handling pikachu and knew what works on Fox. Just try to be a little less predictable and i think you'll do even better.

Edit: Also, about what you found out about Bair dkuo:
That's pretty interesting! Melee has some random stuff in it, keeps surprising me. I doubt it has much strategic worth (maybe!), but it's still pretty cool to know.
 

oukd

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Dayum, dat writeup. You should do one for my videos :awesome:

I tried messing around with the bair and it can link inbetween combos if you use the initial hitbox (hitting them forward instead of backwards) like a nair substitute almost. Still pretty unwieldy, but it's an idea I suppose. I just want to use bair more lol :c
 

oukd

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Sweet, much appreciated :D I had a few links I posted a while back...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_1C_0mvmus vs falcon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxJ2RB_e7mI vs falco (lots of tech mistakes in this one...also I try to CG last stock but mess up every time <_<)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTEf7euJO3A vs falcon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fq4aIaIqtLc vs luigi (I get 4-stocked. vist 2good T_T)

These were all pre-apex practice videos. I'll buy an actual recording setup eventually. Any advice appreciated :)
 

N64

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This is a bit difficult to give advice to. It seemed like there were a number of technical errors, and many times where i couldn't tell if something was a tech error or an intentional decision. Match #3 was pretty solid. The rest were alright with just some interesting decisions on occasion.

Your pikachu seemed a little slow sometimes. I think this is mostly from more reliance on wavedashing than dashdancing, and also occasional missed lcancels and jumps without full dash momentum. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, it just tends to shift your game into a defensive-punish one (which can work in some matchups, but won't in others). Like vs. Luigi for instance, you have to be aggressive a lot, or he's just going to wavedash in on you all day.

I also noticed you rarely tried (or rarely succeeded) in sweetspotting the edge. It's good to not rely on it, but it's still pretty safe to do most of the time. As long as you're not going for it every time, sweetspot ledge->wd on during invincibility is pretty difficult to punish.

You also seemed to rely on uair a lot. It's pikachu best move, but you only occasionally seemed to get something out of it, so you were dealing damage kinda slowly. You might do better with more nairs, or maybe just a little more patience with uair so you get good setup ones instead of mostly trying to trip up your opponent with them.

Work on your tech skill is probably the main thing I can say though. Felt like you had a decent idea of what to do in matches, and you didn't really have any bad habits I could notice, but were kinda sluggish at times and had some noticable tech mistakes.
 

oukd

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Okay, so in short -
  • Work on tech
  • Sweetspot more
  • Switch to using more nairs for more damage building
  • Aggro on Luigi is useful
You're the first to tell me to put more work into my Pika tech lol...conveniently enough I've sat down to do exactly that as of late, so hopefully my tech errors will be minimized.

Also, you bring up a point I wanted to ask - I tend to put wd'ing into my dashdance game a lot just to trip up the opponent/add another degree of freedom for spacing, but idk if there's any particular risk in doing that...? It doesn't seem very punishable since it's pretty fast and pika can move out of it really early.

Thanks again :)
 

N64

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Throwing wavedashes into dashdance game is good, for the exact reasons you gave. It's pretty fast and works to change where you are while keeping your options open. Just watch out for overusing it. Wavedashing is pretty quick with Pikachu, but it doesn't travel very far. It's much quicker to move across a stage with Pika's dash than it is with consecutive wavedashes. Similarly, if you want to make quick positional changes, dashing/dashdancing is still your best bet. Wavedashing just allows you to either keep your options open by putting you back in a neutral stance, or to temporarily disrupt the flow of your movement.

For instance, on the first point (keeping options open), you can dashdance away from someone as they approach, wavedash backwards just as you turn around in your approach, and then forward smash as they whiff their approach option on where you used to be. Or, you can wd forward after a quick dash to allow you to poke someone with a couple dtilts. Stuff like that.

On the second point (changing the pace), this is mostly to allow you to approach or retreat right when you want to. If you're just dashdancing back and forth, your opponent can get into a rhythm of watching for your approach right after every dash back. Since you can only dash a certain distance, he knows you have to dash towards him again within a certain distance of the start of your dash, and can position himself appropriately and have a rough idea of your timing. If you wavedash out of this dash, you've now changed two things. You're in a different position, and you can now dash forward again (or back) at any moment, no longer being confined to the rough timing of dashdancing. Of course, you're also now standing still, so it's just a temporary pace change that you can't wait too long on to take advantage of.

So in summary: good to throw in on occasion to open up more options and change the pace of your movement, bad to use too often because it will overall slow your movement down.
 

oukd

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Ah alright. I kind of like how my wd's are atm but if it doesn't work out I'll remember what you said.

Goddamn N64 you put in mad work with every tip you post lol. Props.
 

Warhawk

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I've been messing around with Pikachu lately and I've been wondering what you can chain his fair into. I've been able to uair immediately out of it before which was pretty cool but not really easy to set up since it has to be a fullhop fair or you obviously hit the ground before you uair. I've also been using it from the ledge to get grabs but I have a feeling that that's unsafe as fair doesn't seem to have much hitstun... Is it possible to autocancelled his fair or something so that you can use his fair to lead into grabs with maybe the only option for your opponent being a buffered spotdodge(which would be unsafe for your opponent I would think)? Is there anything really practical for his fair other than maybe edgecancel combos?
 

oukd

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Fair barely combos into anything...eg shffling fair against someone can't really lead into anything since they leave stun before you leave landing lag. fair doesn't combo

With the right timing you can ledgehop fair ac combo into grab (just tested in dolphin lol) but other than spotdodging they can also cc>punish. Fair from edge itself is pretty unsafe from my experience but it might just be me <.< fair doesn't combo

Fair is pretty good for disrupting certain character movements, and can be used for edgeguarding occasionally. I want to experiment with retreating fair a little more and look into how Samus/Ness incorporate fair into their game and maybe steal some ideas (their fair has more stun though, but I'm being positive lol) fair doesn't combo

edit - ignore this post, it's very very wrong >_<
 

Warhawk

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Fair barely combos into anything...eg shffling fair against someone can't really lead into anything since they leave stun before you leave landing lag.

With the right timing you can ledgehop fair ac combo into grab (just tested in dolphin lol) but other than spotdodging they can also cc>punish. Fair from edge itself is pretty unsafe from my experience but it might just be me <.<

Fair is pretty good for disrupting certain character movements, and can be used for edgeguarding occasionally. I want to experiment with retreating fair a little more and look into how Samus/Ness incorporate fair into their game and maybe steal some ideas (their fair has more stun though, but I'm being positive lol)
Yea I was afraid so... I guess at the very least it can be a nice surprise to use sparingly from the ledge to get a backthrow gimp on like a spacie maybe. Did you try comboing with a fullhop fair to uair though? Cuz I thought for sure that one was good sometimes and all they could do was maybe jump or airdodge and the uair has enough range to cover their jump and airdodge would be really unsafe with Pika right next to you in the air I'd assume. Although how you're supposed to land a fullhop fair I dunno (maybe catch them out of an attack I guess or get an up-tilt setup maybe). I dunno I'm liking Pika though, he has some nice little tricks that are a lot of fun.
 

oukd

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Hm, I may have to take back what I said about ac fair from ledge comboing into grab :( I was lazy in dolphin and didn't fully check...and frame-wise it wouldn't make sense either since there are about the same amount of frames in landing lag as there are in the hitstun for each hit of fair (meaning you wouldn't move fast enough even out of just landing lol) sorry about that -.-'

As of right now my verdict is that fair has too ****ty hitstun for true combos. It isn't a bad idea to use it to surprise people now and again though.
 

indigestible_wad

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Scappoose, Oregon
I've been messing around with Pikachu lately and I've been wondering what you can chain his fair into. I've been able to uair immediately out of it before which was pretty cool but not really easy to set up since it has to be a fullhop fair or you obviously hit the ground before you uair. I've also been using it from the ledge to get grabs but I have a feeling that that's unsafe as fair doesn't seem to have much hitstun... Is it possible to autocancelled his fair or something so that you can use his fair to lead into grabs with maybe the only option for your opponent being a buffered spotdodge(which would be unsafe for your opponent I would think)? Is there anything really practical for his fair other than maybe edgecancel combos?
I use fair to grab from edge all the time. And yes, people do catch onto it, but you can catch onto how they counter. It's also not the most easy thing for them to time right, but it's best if the last hit of fair is 2 or 3. That way you don't have lag fater the attack in the air as well as when you land. Often times I'll see a shield grab, so I spot dodge. I should probably mention that I camp the edge so much with uair that I never see anyone cc'ing against me: they always shield. I mean if they're anywhere near me I just sit there and camp uairs for half a minute. So I guess I personally don't see too many counters to fair besides grab because of that. The point still stands though. Some other options besides grab I use are jab and dsmash.

Honestly I'd like to use uair in the air more often. It "combos" into uair so well, and depending on the fall speed of your opponent, you can either spike them or not. I just don't really see the setups too often though.
 

Warhawk

Smash Lord
Joined
Nov 11, 2011
Messages
1,086
Location
Mt. Pleasant/Highland, MI
Honestly I'd like to use uair in the air more often. It "combos" into uair so well, and depending on the fall speed of your opponent, you can either spike them or not. I just don't really see the setups too often though.
Did you mean that you'd like to see fair in the air more often? Because the next statement sounds weird talking about uair to uair with the way its worded...
 

N64

Smash Champion
Joined
Oct 18, 2004
Messages
2,158
Location
Stalking Skler
Ty for props dkuo.

I like fair. Probably too much. Especially air-to-air fairs. What I like about it in that situation is it semi-holds the opponent in place as you travel through them. This means, if you catch them near the end of the fair (or catch them in a fair where you have little forward momentum), you'll end up just on the other side of them and can double jump rising uair, or you can just uair afterwards without the doublejump and reverse spike them (if the positioning's right). Or you can doublejump nair/bair for more damage, or just land and dash back towards where they are for aggression. It does pretty mediocre damage (but more than uair!) while still leaving your options a little open. And it also gives you like half a second to think about what comes next while fair is hitting them.

What's bad about it is it's smashDI'able to an extent, gets beat out by a lot of stuff, and is only really decent as an air-to-air (imo). You can trip them up with it on the ground, but it's pretty easily CC->punishable and doesn't truly lead into anything (unless they're like DIing up for some reason). I'll use it on grounded opponents (or as an approach to ones on platforms) on occasion to trip people up, as it lasts a little while and can catch them if they're trying to shield your aerial and do something, fair just messes up their timing and can give you a short advantage while they're adjusting. But of course, that's unreliable.
 
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