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

_trix_

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Dec 2, 2014
Messages
147
Location
Chicago
@Simmons It starts at 0% on spacies, but you have to have really good timing to get it before 20%. As in, you have to time your run to be immideately after your upthrow lag ends and space/time your jc grab really well to get it before 20%. If you have 20xx, you can set fox/falco's percentage to stay at 10%(cause upthrow does 10%) and repeatedly chain grab them. It's still by no means a guaranteed 0-to-death, because they can just DI off stage and take their chances. Not many people will do that though, the only person I've ever played that was smart enough to do that was Colbol.
 

Kuralesache

Smash Cadet
Joined
Sep 17, 2012
Messages
53
Location
Ann Arbor, MI
I'll mention my biggest strength - edgeguarding spacies. The biggest thing is you don't angle your ftilts a lot of the time. That's huuuuuge cause you can cover higher side-b's with an upward angled forward tilt and the legendary DAFT can clip them if they go low to sweetspot. After that, you need to practice going out and gimping them. The very instant you land an ftilt you need to run off the stage because the ONLY option spacies have is up-b after that. There's a few things you can do after you're off the stage, but just running off is honestly the most important part to learn. You can experiment from there, cause some moves can be teched, fox's ring of fire will catch some things, shinestalling or a really low firefox can mess you up, weird angles can be difficult to cover if you're late, but if you're out there hitting them it's much much better than staying on the stage and ftilting or fsmashing repeatedly, or even grabbing the ledge as you do at least once.

If you're edgeguarding a high side-b from a spacie, don't use uair. It doesn't last long enough so any variation in your opponent's timing will completely **** you. Use nair, dair, fair (I prefer fair cause it sets up really easy nairs or uairs) if you're shorthopping offstage to read the side-b, or just stand on the stage, f-tilt/nair the side-b and then run off and gimp as above.

You have all the parts, but your edgeguards are super uncrispy, so I think it's something you could work on really easily. It's also my favorite part of the game cause people get soooooooo mad when you gimp well. It's hilarious!
 
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Jim Jam Flim Flam

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Jan 21, 2015
Messages
87
Location
VA BABY
If someone is below the stage, don't feel afraid to jump off, because they only have one choice, firefox. Fox is a pain in the ass because his firefox has a hitbox, but if you hit it in the first 10 frames or the last 10 frames it has no hitbox. You can just walk off and nair falco, it's that easy with him, because his firefox has no hitbox, but fair, dair, and up air work as well
 

Jim Jam Flim Flam

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Jan 21, 2015
Messages
87
Location
VA BABY
is pikachu good for beginners? Just got into the game
If you want an easy character to learn the basics with, Pikachu is certainly not your character. But that's what I love about Pikachu. It's a challenge, much harder than learning to play Sheik or Marth or any other relatively easy to learn high tier. Learning with those characters is like wading in to the water, and Pikachu is like diving head first in to the deep end. So, if you want a challenge, and you enjoy Pikachu, I say go for it. The basic things you learn with Pikachu apply well if you ever want to play a spacie. However, if your goal is just to learn the basics and play a simple character, you would be much better off with Sheik or Marth. Peach is also a good choice for beginners IMO. It all comes down to how you want to play the game. There's a reason that you rarely see Pikachu players - the character is not easy to learn, to get good with, or to perform well with. But that can make the character even more rewarding, and I would love it if you tried it out! I wish you the best of luck in whatever you choose
 

Benny P

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Dec 10, 2014
Messages
465
Location
Coming Soon
If you want an easy character to learn the basics with, Pikachu is certainly not your character. But that's what I love about Pikachu. It's a challenge, much harder than learning to play Sheik or Marth or any other relatively easy to learn high tier. Learning with those characters is like wading in to the water, and Pikachu is like diving head first in to the deep end. So, if you want a challenge, and you enjoy Pikachu, I say go for it. The basic things you learn with Pikachu apply well if you ever want to play a spacie. However, if your goal is just to learn the basics and play a simple character, you would be much better off with Sheik or Marth. Peach is also a good choice for beginners IMO. It all comes down to how you want to play the game. There's a reason that you rarely see Pikachu players - the character is not easy to learn, to get good with, or to perform well with. But that can make the character even more rewarding, and I would love it if you tried it out! I wish you the best of luck in whatever you choose

REV IT UP BABY- i love your passion for a good challenge!
 
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proxibomb

Smash Clown
Joined
Feb 3, 2014
Messages
557
Location
Tazmily Village
is pikachu good for beginners? Just got into the game
Like what Jim Jam Flim Flam said, you'd better be prepared for some hard tech grinding before you being to get good results in matches. I'd highly recommend starting off with a high tier like Marth to understand the game's fundamentals be it mind games, neutral game, all the universal tech you need to know, or the other loads of stuff needed to understand just about every character's basics. I don't know how dedicated you are, but you could always catch up on Melee videos on the web for some easy understanding of the game. Either come back to Pikachu when you feel like Marth has trained you enough, or stick with Pikachu but be prepared for some heavy negative results at tournaments the first few times you go.

Pikachu can certainly be one hell of a character. Start off with this huge guide on Smash Boards for a start. :088:
 
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Young17

Smash Rookie
Joined
Nov 9, 2015
Messages
5
I had an epiphany the other day.

So I tried out Fox because I wanted to learn to waveshine sheik and peach across the map ( the challengers I hate the most playing as pika), but it turns out that I have been wavedashing suboptimally all this time. I found out in order to waveshine other chars across the map, you have to have almost frame perfect waveshine along with the correct direction of the wavedash. When I do this well, I don't see my char poke his head up for a split second. This air dodge angle has to be 22.5 degrees below the horizontal cardinal directrions.

Then, I realized that since pika and fox have the same wavedash timing, my wavedashes were also not going as far and quickly as possible. I feel like this is HUGE thinking all the times that I have been caught during my wavedash by falco's dair and peach/sheik's dash attacks.

So here are my questions.

1. Do all pros wavedash almost frame perfectly at the 22.5 degrees of air dodge?

2. Should the L input for the wavedash be at the 4th frame (when pika is first airborne) or at the 3rd frame (right before the airborne frame)? Do all inputs for melee take 1 frame for execution?

3. Lastly, How do you guys time wavedash out of shield under shield stun? I feel as if you don't know how long the shield stun lasts, it will mess up your wavedash out of shield big time. Is there a way to buffer jump out of shield?
 

Comet7

Smash Lord
Joined
Aug 2, 2013
Messages
1,027
Location
Somewhere over the rainbow
NNID
Comet7
1. yes. by the way, you can test if your wavedashes are frame perfect by rolling to the edge of a stage and trying to wavedash. if you air dodge off the stage, then you missed the timing.

2. 4th. i'm not sure what you mean by that. melee has almost no input buffers, so if you want to do frame perfect stuff, then yes, the windows can be 1 frame.

3. you can buffer jump out of shield by holding the c stick up. you'd still need to know when to time your air dodge though. i just wavedash normally when shieldstun ends. it's not too hard once you get acquainted with how stuff interacts with shields.
 

Kuralesache

Smash Cadet
Joined
Sep 17, 2012
Messages
53
Location
Ann Arbor, MI
Slight correction to above: You have to input airdodge between frames 3 and 4, meaning you press the button on 3, but the airdodge will execute on 4, as long as you are holding L or R. Polling for input happens between frames, so it's kind of hard to think of it as "input on frame x".
I think that's also what you mean by inputs taking 1 frame, so hopefully that answers that too.
 

Diosama

Stand User
Joined
Nov 20, 2015
Messages
309
Location
Montreal, QC
How do you do Pikachu mains? Delighted to meet you all. I am looking to learn the ways of Pikachu.

I am a former Ganondorf main who is looking to add a little more speed to his gameplay, thus, I was drawn to Pikachu. I have been playing Melee for about 5 months now, so while I'm not a total beginner, I still have much to improve on. Coming from Ganon, I am very familiar with edgeguarding and hope to make good use of it with him.

I'm also fond of chaingrabbing, in fact, my first wonder for this thread is what % and what characters I can perform them. Would anyone care to assist or show me the way?

Thank you in advance.
 

Kuralesache

Smash Cadet
Joined
Sep 17, 2012
Messages
53
Location
Ann Arbor, MI
Pikachu's chaingrab is one of the easier ones, but you can improve the percent window with tighter timing. It works on fox, falco, and falcon, and it's easiest on falcon and about the same on fox and falco, though a little harder imo on falco.
On falcon, the chaingrab starts at 0%, and that's a good goal to aim for if you want to say you have a decently consistent chaingrab. On fox and falco, the chaingrab realistically starts at around 30%, though with TAS precision and certain other parameters (that I won't get into) it can start at 0 too. Generally, though, at 0% against spacies I try to go for more consistent punishes and then go for a regrab into chaingrab if possible.
You never have to pivot grab to do pikachu's chaingrab, so all you need to do is practice dashing and jump-cancel grabbing as soon as you are able to move after the upthrow, and react accordingly to DI. You do have to jump-cancel, because otherwise you will be slower and also not keep your dash momentum, so you won't go as far. If you have 20XX it's really easy to practice, otherwise get a friend to DI back and forth on FD for a while with you. Have them spam shine or jump, and practice regrabbing slight behind DI as well as max distance DI. Slight DI is generally the hardest to get because you have fewer cues to react to and have to make more decisions (ie should I turn around, should I dash), so that's what better opponents will do.
 

_trix_

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Dec 2, 2014
Messages
147
Location
Chicago
He can chain-grab spacies and falcon. Starts at 0% on all of them, but getting it at 0% vs spacies is pretty difficult. He can also chaingrab them really well on platform stages, although you need to upsmash/upair/techchase to convert between platforms.
 

mynameisdog4

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Jun 22, 2013
Messages
86
Location
WV
What is everyone's process for edgeguarding Marth? Its actually pathetic how often I let Marth back lol
 

mynameisdog4

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Jun 22, 2013
Messages
86
Location
WV
Yeah the get up attack is hilarious, I just ****ing suck at it lol. I either do it too late and they get their double jump back and fair me or I do it too early and they get ledge. Can't get the timing down I guess. I've been trying to upb stall to refresh invincibility and just roll if they go for ledge or if they land on stage do a bair, but I even suck at that so idk whats up with me
 

_trix_

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Dec 2, 2014
Messages
147
Location
Chicago
I just trade with his up b with nair/bair/ftilt and mix in full hop nairs and upairs if i think hes gonna up b early. You can also trade with dair (should dair from the stage is pretty solid, I need to use that more), dtilt, and even a freaking jab (although that has no use at all rofl.) You can punish him coming on to the stage with a SH bair/get up upsmash too. And of course the janky getup attack everyone mentioned. And of course, if you like to go super balls deep, you can always try and get below him and upair. I think pikachus edgeguarding from the stage is actually really good tbh, you can run off nair/dair to trade with up b, Ftilt him out of his up b, and can run off and SH nair him. So many options, but I still have a lot to learn vs him, as you both have a lot of mixups. I'll probly post a guide on it within the month, once I test out all my new ideas. The one thing you need to remember is that you just need touch him off stage, with basically any move, and you will get a trade and he will die if he's above 50%. Just be wary of going too low and getting hit by the strong hitbox of up b. Also, edgeguarding him is a lot easier if you can up b stall effectively to refresh your invinciblity.
 

xoke

Smash Rookie
Joined
Jan 19, 2016
Messages
8
Location
Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan
Nice to meet you! I'm a new Japanese melee competitor playing pikachu.

In Japanese melee site, there is no character guide which is sufficient to get better and gain enough knowledge about its character.
so these days, I'm reading awesome pikachu guide written by N64, while studying English.
I think this guide is very helpful not only for me but also other Japanese players who is interested in pikachu.
therefore, I would like to take permission to translate this guide into Japanese and post it to Japanese melee site(http://dx.smashbr0s.com/).

how can i make contact with him?I thought here is the best place to catch his eye.
If you're N64, please consider about this request.

If you can't understand what i mean because of my English, please reply to me.
I'll try to explain more specifically.
 

_trix_

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Dec 2, 2014
Messages
147
Location
Chicago
xoke xoke Dude your English is actually really good. That's pretty impressive considering how different English and Japanese is, you honestly could come to America/Britain and speak English right now and have a full fledged conversation with someone, without them even noticing English is your second language. Don'y worry about your English, it's well above good enough. As for the information, I'm 100% sure he wouldn't mind, although you should probably wait for a reply just in case. Also, I'm gonna be writing some guides soon too, and you're welcome to use any of that too if you want. By the way, you can tag him like this, N64 N64 ,to make sure he sees it. I hope you succeed in getting more people to play pikachu. How many people still play melee in Japan anyways? I haven't heard of any recently besides AmSa.
 

soju

SD God
Joined
Jun 11, 2009
Messages
1,186
Location
Being a Scrub
I'll message him through skype and ask, but there shouldn't be any problems.

*Sent him a message, he should check on the boards sometime and reply back
 
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xoke

Smash Rookie
Joined
Jan 19, 2016
Messages
8
Location
Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan
_trix_ _trix_ Thank you very much! I'm really glad to see your comment against my English :)
But I think I cannot speak and listen to English well now. so I seriously hope to study abroad and play ssbm at there.
Anyway I need to improve more and more!

And I see. I also appreciate your kind reply. I'm still reading this guide and I think it takes more time to finish reading.
Also, I wanna read your guide too. and hope to translate it.

Unfortunately, it's really few. I think the number of Japanese dedicated melee players( e.g. who practices melee alone everyday ) is below 100.
but these days, aMSa and other some players are struggling to expand Japanese melee community!
so I also hope to contribute to it by doing something.
 

_trix_

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Dec 2, 2014
Messages
147
Location
Chicago
mynameisdog4 mynameisdog4 I love pikachu dittos. I play them with my friend literally every week, I think they teach you how to have good defense and how to play without gimping.
 

N64

Smash Champion
Joined
Oct 18, 2004
Messages
2,158
Location
Stalking Skler
Hey xoke! Feel free to translate my guide, I'm glad you think highly of it! Just give me credit somewhere (I'm sure you will) and we're good. Good luck with the translating, let me know if you need anything else from me.
 

xoke

Smash Rookie
Joined
Jan 19, 2016
Messages
8
Location
Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan
N64 N64 Thank you for your permission!
but i have one thing should be confirmed.
you said that "Just give me credit somewhere", but i didn't quite understand what you meant.
Do you mean i need to write your name as the original writer on my post?
 

AXE 09

Smash Master
Joined
Dec 3, 2006
Messages
3,825
Location
Avondale, AZ
Wow it's been a long time since I've been here lol.
Hey guys :)

So I've been streaming a lot lately, and it was one of my sub goals to do a matchup guide against high tier characters. I thought since I never actually posted any official guide, it would be a good idea.

Soooooo incoming matchup guides coming soon!
 
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