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

[Phez_]

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 was always interested in Chu because of his speed and is complex Uair, and played him in some friendlies etc. but after Axes performance at MLG Anaheim and Evo last year I realised the potential for Pika and how fun it could be to main him. I think I officially switched to pika when axe beat hbox at MLG

 

[herbmaster%]

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?

I use my thumb and my forearm to mash, though I'd like to test that thumb/middle finger shake. Just now I started mashing. First thought that comes to mind is "God, I hope they SDI out of this. If this keeps up I'm sure to develop carpel tunnel" lol. Speaking of which, I think i'm begining to develop CPS from melee/laptop touchpad. My forearms aren't experiencing sharp pain, but there's sometimes a slightly uncomfortable feeling going on. I'd plan to expect it if you peeps keep playing melee pikachu lol.

 

[soju]

Do you mean cts instead of cps because that's quite a bit different. Carpel tunnel shouldn't be a big problem for pikachu players since there isn't as much high intensity movement as a character like fox. The rapid jab shouldn't be a problem unless you somehow get PS with fire stage like every time. To be safe just do wrist stretches and breaks, forearm pains are usually related to muscle soreness but it's best to just rest if you feel any discomfort.

 

[Jim Jam Flim Flam]

I play a lot of fox and pikachu, so I've accepted my fate. Arthritis here I come

 

[herbmaster%]

I meant CTS, not CPS. I'm not only thinking about wall jab infinites. Don't you think it's strenuous having to quickly tap Y-A for shorthop nairs? Perhaps I'm overly tense when I play, I dunno.

 

[soju]

I stretch so I dont get it as bad, but you dont need to press that hard, just try stretching for a minute before playing and learn how to do a quick tap for the jump

 

[piti166]

Got tired of sheik, played pika in teams cuz of axe. Got way better results with pika than sheik so i main him now.

 

[Kuralesache]

herbmaster, I highly recommend my method of shorthopping as pikachu, by sliding your thumb down the X button. it's way more relaxed, and I can shffl for hours without any discomfort or tiredness or stiffness or anything in my hands. I find it much more consistent as well. I still jump with Y, but shorthops specifically I do with X

it's a matter of preference above all, but if tension in your hand is something you're seriously worried about that might be a good thing to change

 

[PandaPanda Senketsu]

So what is the best way to approach a nair spamming fox? Pretty much he just lasers and when i try to approach he nairs me on reaction. The only time i can get a hit is if he approaches with a nair and i dash dance grab it, but if he never commits first I can never hit him. Does anyone here have any good advice on approaching a very defensive Fox?

 

[dkuo]

cc grab/dsmash/etc at low% is possible
but
youll have to setup a situation where youre cc'ing the nair to begin with
from what i understand this fox probably nairs when he feels adequately threatened
so
you could just run into his space to threaten him > crouch

you can also do other things when invading space with movement, like...run deep into his space, shield, he nairs past you since youre so close, now you can uair oos...and other stuff
etc

dd grab is good but you should feel a little more comfortable with invading his space during dd. maybe sh waveland back to fake approaches if hes THAT inclined to not approach as youre saying

make sure youre good at controlling ground movement if you want to fall back on dd grab

etc
etc
im bad at advice now lol

tldr just figure out what makes the fox tick and play off of that <_<
and dont be scared to threaten with run ins, just know your defensive/counterattack options

also you can see if the fox loses his patience if you just jolt from the other side of the stage lol

 

[N64]

also dd uairs are ok, back of uair can outrange fox nair and also sets up pretty well

 

[Eonn]

Quick question. I own Melee but mainly play Sm4sh. What are the key differences in Pikachu between this game and Sm4sh? How differently does he play? Specific techniques I should master?

 

[The Jets]

Not much DD in sm4sh but pika really needs to stay mobile in Melee in order to find the right approach. Up air, nair and dtilt are often the approaches, so just move until you find an opening for them or something else.

Most Pikachu mains focus a lot on movement when practicing techniques. Don't get hit. It's easier to not get hit in sm4sh.

 

[soju]

It will be a challenge switching to melee with a smash 4 mindset, especially switching to a character your used to, as melee doesn't have all the luxuries that smash 4 has. Pika in melee has a lot of different properties such as thunder uair and bair, the up b has significantly more lag so you won't be using it on stage and many more changes.

My advice, throw out your entire smash 4 mind set while focusing on melee as both games are their own entity. And from personal experience don't try playing the same character in both games if you plan on playing both, it will be so much harder to learn

 

[The Jets]

Yeah like Soju said, the games are totally different. Sole basic fundamentals carry across smash games but when you're playing Melee by yourself or with friends be analytical about everything because those technical differences between the games could cause you to drop matches in sets or something like that.

I don't know how new you are to melee but definitely practice things like L cancels and wave dashes. When youre playing with others try and always implement the Lcancels but being fluid with WD's will come with time.

 

[Phez_]

How do you guys approach the Yoshi vs Pika matchup? Ive had a few sets against my local yoshi main but his punish game and use of yoshi tech is crazy. I *think* its all about platforms becuase of yoshi and pikachus amazing platform movement and shield drop game.

but then when i go FD as a counterpick (in an attempt to limit his movement options), i cant really kill with usmash and he just juggles me endlessly.

Any tips about counterpicking and how to play the MU in general are appreciated

 

[soju]

Your dash dance game is superior abuse it, wait for him to approach, ftilt eggs

 

[The Jets]

I also lose to my local yoshi player, he's quite good. I get a lot of kills with WD Fsmash if I can predict his approach, despite how good he is. If he gets me in an up air, then like 3 more follow it because he's so good at connecting them. I think if I learn to avoid those I'll take a lot less damage.

N64's advice in an old MU guide I think said pika smashes> yoshi smashes and jolts>eggs and I kinda think about that a lot while playing haha. It's really easy to over extend punishes on yoshi because of his parry and/or second jump invincibility. I think Dsmash does a lot of work for damage built up in this MU and it sends him into the air. He's kind of hard to gimp I've found.

I'm interested in continuing this convo because it's a MU I come across more often than I'd expect haha

 

[soju]

Just space with dtilt, do your usual "you attacked eat a shffl or pika foot", realize uair is as useful as fighting any floaty which means it's not, use it for early damage with uair into some thing then cry when you realize yoshi's air game is good and eat 100 yoshi feet. If he double jumps get on that tail butt, if you wanna be that guy you can learn % you can break super armor in training mode.

But srsly just focus on ground game yoshi has weird pika counter mechanics in the air, keep spacing him out till he becomes desperate and he'll try risky stuff then pika flip him ._.

 

[Aquachu]

So i played a moneymatch at Drømmelan 4.5 versus a Luigi player. I was in the lead 2-0, however he clutched it out and won the set 3-2 :/

I was wondering if anyone wanted to critique my Pikachu? What's good, what's bad, what should i do instead etc.
It would be extremely helpful :D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_sjG0W42m8

I failed some JC upsmashes unfortunately, especially sad was one which would probably have sealed the set the third game, also i missed a lethal thunder right before that lol.

 

[The Jets]

Few things I noticed. He couldn't get many approaches that could start a combo, and you were good at picking your approaches for the most part. You did get hit by that goofy downB a lot though. Sometimes you would get CC'd when you approached with a nair or something which is something you really have to be aware of. The other way he would get damage was you over extending combos which would lead to him getting hits and follow ups. That is something luigi excels at. His punish strings were a lot more dominant but that's the nature of the match up in terms of damage. With luigi you want to focus on getting him offstage for the gimp. A few aerials or 1 to 2 hit combos you did didn't do much to land a kill, sometimes you would just sacrifice stage position. Comboing to get luigi off stage should be first priority, comboing for damage should be the second priority in my opinion.

On dreamland last game I noticed this the most. He was doing a great job of covering center stage which made it hard for you to do much to him. DL isn't the best counterpick for the match up but it does allow you to go deep for edgeguards and stuff which is something I feel comfortable doing on DL so I like the stage.

Good stuff though. That match up is weird and I don't completely have it figured out

 

[proxibomb]

Best stages for Pika? It seems like I really well on PS and Fountain, but I've been trying to avoid Battlefield as much as possible.

 

[herbmaster%]

Do you think pikachu have the best mobility in the game thanks to quick attack?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZTN3lEycE8

 

[soju]

Nah his motility is too situational based, his ability to get to the ledge may be the fastest, I still believe falcon has the best overall

Stage wise I don't know anymore, I changed from character dependent to player dependent, like if I have better fundamentals dreamland will be my pick 99% of time even against peach, If I know I need to be on top of my opponent I pick yoshi's or bf, if I don't know I tend to start battlefield for its medium size and platforms

 

[dkuo]

i think fox mobility ties with falcon. falcon has a better dd but fox's low sh and fallspeed is fjfkljflkf

i think ys is traditionally viewed as pikas worst stage but all the stages have their situational uses. even ys is useful against certain chars/playstyles, like campy puffs or something loool

ceiling height for usmash kills: ys << ps << fd << bf < fod <<< dl
conducive for gimping: fod, dl

each stage has its little quirks that are good/bad. its a lot easier to talk about if you have a certain matchup/playstyle in mind

 

[ChivalRuse]

What do I do against Fawks? Just wait for him to full jump and dash dance nair his landing? I feel like whenever I approach, I get bodied.

 

[soju]

Wait for him to do a mistake and try to land that up air, it beats a lot of things out really.

 

[ChivalRuse]

Yeah I like that move. I keep getting destroyed by full hop drill, so dash dance and uair should be good answers.

 

[soju]

if you know hes just gonna drill just usmash him :] buncha FREE! damage

 

[ChivalRuse]

It's still not so easy to position properly in advance.

 

[soju]

It's not easy to do alot of things in this game, but with practice you work out those kinks and they'll become second nature. I could tell you a million and one ways to deal with fox, but I'm confident in that you know how you can deal with him, it's probably just frustrating. I try not to give definitive answers, because somewhere someone has a better option than me for certain situations, this is just that kind of game.

And also you could have a completely different style than me, I'm a spacing/position heavy player and the way I do things might not be right for you.

 

[ChivalRuse]

I probably just need to keep playing Foxes. I have always enjoyed playing Pikachu, but I hadn't tried to use him too seriously until recently.

 

[N64]

A big thing I struggle with as Pikachu vs Fox is you don't straight up beat fox. His hitboxes are better. You do, however, punish harder. Nair in won't always work, but if it does you stay on him and you read that tech or jump and you grab/usmash him and keep hitting him until he dies. He can win neutral more often as long as you win neutral harder.

 

[dkuo]

if you keep eating full hop drills you should probably start expecting it preemptively. but im assuming youre already doing that

this post will be specifically on fox's full hop drill

Spoiler

granted i use falco 99% of the time these days but the same idea applies ~_~

theres only a few places fox can fullhop drill on platform stages (aka not fd, or platless fod), and that is either
1. center stage
2. near the ledge
3. on platforms

1 is the most annoying because fox has center stage control and youre probably being walled out
2 is likely fox's defensive mechanism when cornered which is pretty easy to abuse by reading fullhop and tailspiking or something
3 is ok because you shouldnt be following fox onto platforms anyways unless youre comboing him. and you have uair

im gonna mostly talk about 1

punishing fullhop drill is actually kinda hard since
- youre probably priming yourself to react to the drill but fox is probably starting the drill at the apex of fullhop and fastfalling it
- its almost inevitable youll get dinked if you try to challenge the drill on fox's way down
- same if you try to punish it oos because drill shieldpokes like crazy
- drill cooldown is tiny so punishing its landing is also really tough since fox can mixup a ton of things post-drill (utilt/shine/shield/dash away/etcetcetcetc) that could beat a badly timed landing-punish

ways to make punishing dair easier (note: EASIER does not necessarily mean better lol)
- prime yourself to react to fullhop instead of the drill animation, makes it easier to challenge air to air with uairing below on reaction
- if you want to punish oos try to position self so that fox drills behind you (this is hard). shieldtilt up + back to avoid shieldpoke

easier landing punish
- trading with it using nair/uair is ok vs mid-high%, going in with the intent to trade makes spacing your attack a lot easier
- space yourself outside of dair range and use fsmash (also easier spacing) (being able to pivot fsmash makes this a LOT easier)
- play the post-dair-has-landed mixup game instead (more familiar but less guaranteed)

lastly if youre getting a lot of punishes vs fullhop you might start seeing doublejump mixups or something and thats a whole new ballgame of gimps and spacie tears and whatever

ok ~_~
going to bed now

joe we should play again btw. im gonna be in md during summer and we havent seen each other for like decades or something

 

[ChivalRuse]

I'm hosting a smashfest every weekday of this summer. Come to one of those!!

 

[Phez_]

So i recently got a set on stream vs Alex19 at BAM7 and after studying my other vids i feel i have made big improvements in certain ways.

1. my neutral was more patient and

 

[dkuo]

and? AND?!?!?

 

[Cubelarooso]

and? AND?!?!?

You need to be more patient.

 

[soju]

So start next year I'm starting my "Singlehood of the Traveling Chu" meaning I'm doing a road trip from California to Florida to New York then across the Canadian border back to washington and finally cali again, be prepared

 

[ChivalRuse]

Oh snap. You better do a documentary/video blog.