incoming: letters
As for Ganondorf, Ike, and Charizard, I simply believe they are a tier worst than all the character's above them. Ganondorf is a tier worse than all those in Ike tier cause his range, mobility, combos, recovery is just that much worse. He's unfortunately too similar to his Brawl counterpart.
Your placements on Ganondorf and Ike seem misinformed if you are comparing them to their Brawl counterparts. You should read other parts of this thread (do a search for Ganondorf and for Ike) to see some of the thoughts on them. There's no sense in retreading old ground. You also have Falco in the game's bottom tier when his kill setups and damage output have been praised throughout this topic, and he's been lauded as one of the better characters in the game. It's fine that you wanted to post a tier list here, but if you're going to push your opinions you should at least revisit some of the topics that we've discussed up until this point imo. Not many will be willing to repeat old ideas like I am here with regard to Pikachu. I'll do it once, though, likely, since I'm sure people are tired of hearing about Pikachu after all the earlier discussions.
Not misconceptions, when I see Pikachu having trouble against Zelda then Pikachu is not a Top 5 character by any means. (And yes, he has trouble cause Zelda kills earlier).
Having a relatively even matchup among the lower tiers does not mean that you aren't a top 5 character. Even if Zelda > Pikachu in the head-to-head matchup (which she probably isn't), this doesn't imply that Diddy Kong > Pikachu on a tier list. It is just one part of an argument that could make such a claim.
Anyway, Zelda does have tools that work well vs. Pikachu. She gets out of traps and edgeguarding, and she can punish Quick Attack with up-b, but it isn't a difficult matchup for Pikachu by any means. What high-level Zeldas have we seen vs. high-level Pikachu? ESAM vs. Nairo? ESAM won that, and it wasn't even a tournament set. Nothing in that set suggested that Pikachu has difficulty beating Zelda. We generally saw ESAM up in Zelda's face, using his superior mobility and frame to get in more hits than Zelda was able to dish out in return. Zelda did get some quick kills with up-b, but Pikachu in this MU was just overall more consistently able to apply damage and net the KO (having good smashes isn't enough when you're facing a highly mobile character).
Pikachu's up-smash kills no-DI training-mode Zelda at 98% on FD (Pikachu at 98% too, so Rage applied), by the way. Zelda's f-smash kills about the same at center stage, 10-15% earlier on sides. Pikachu's f-smash kills at 110 center stage with the tip, and it's actually more disjointed than Zelda's own.
His edgeguarding is his only way to kill compared to Brawl. More characters kill more consistently earlier than Pikachu in this game. He really relies more so than ever that the opponent is using a character that doesn't get past Pika's edgeguarding easy.
f-smash, up-smash, onstage Thunder, and dash attack can all kill, but then I already covered that earlier.
Characters actually lost kill options in general, and the best kill moves in the game, such as Snake's up-tilt, Olimar's up-smash, Dedede's up-tilt and f-air, Fox's up-smash, Ice Climbers' death grab, etc. are all gone or nerfed. You have characters like Sheik and Diddy at the top instead. They can kill, but later than the Brawl top tiers. Ness' b-throw is the sore thumb.
He does lack range, so does Diddy
Diddy doesn't lack range. By that metric, everyone in the game lacks range besides sword characters and Rosalina. Fox, Sheik, Sonic, and even Ness who is often praised for his aerial range, have similar range to Diddy.
but Diddy's projectile and side b burst range allows him to overcome his lack of range.
Pikachu's projectile game is comparable to Diddy's. Tjolt creates opportunities to go in, whereas peanuts don't, though bananas are about the same: worse in some situations, better in others (bananas can be caught; tjolts heal Ness, etc.).
Side-b burst is met tit for tat with both f-air (which allows Pikachu to flatten himself into the ground when he lands with it, making him difficult to punish for using it on someone's shield, or even more in front of someone's shield since not hitting the shield is slightly better in this game) and also Pikachu's Quick Attack. Quick Attack is better both for getting out of traps and also for crossing up the opponent. You can react to Diddy's side-b with spotdodge; you can't react to Pikachu's cross-up up-b with anything short of a read.
Pikachu can force an approach but will have a much harder time against characters with more range at neutral than Diddy does cause of the reward Diddy gets off his hits. Diddy gets a lot more reward of his throws than Pikachu does, which makes up for the fact a character is out boxing him and outplaying him at neutral he'll get a lot more damage off his punishes. (He gets a lot more reward and has a lot more KO options than pikachu too. Sure Diddy is the best character right now for a reason, but you compared his range to Pikachu.
at low %s, some random values I accumulated over testing the other day:
Pikachu d-throw to n-air: ~15-18%
Pikachu d-throw to b-air: ~12-21% (character-size dependent, also depends on how many hits you can get in)
Pikachu's d-throw to up-air: ~13%
Pikachu's u-throw to Thunder: ~19%
Diddy d-throw to up-air: ~15%
Diddy d-throw to f-air: ~19%
Pikachu does 1% more damage on d-throw, and they have the same pummel damage (2%) and speed. Diddy's up-air does 1-2% more damage.
Diddy's b-throw does 1% more damage than Pikachu's, but Pikachu has better edgeguarding, and that's generally why you'd want to use b-throw anyway.
Pikachu's up-throw is the only one clearly worse (4% to 10%), but since it can lead into Thunder (reads at high %) and that can even kill, it's still dealing comparable damage (though you'd still use d-throw in other cases).
At higher percents, Diddy's throw followups are generally easier to land because up-air is very good, but Pikachu has more of them, so if you mix up his options he's just as likely to land something, and again, Pikachu's edgeguarding offstage is better than Diddy's, so Pikachu has the additional option of throwing his opponent offstage to rack up damage (this is even preferable at high percents, in fact). Pikachu has miscellaneous other options, too: Pikachu's drag-down f-air to d-smash does ~16%.
Pikachu is way better in disadvantage than Diddy due to up-b and a better recovery.
Pikachu and Diddy are comparable in advantage onstage. Offstage, Pikachu's edgeguarding > Diddy's by a mile.
Pikachu in neutral is comparable to Diddy. Diddy has better grab range, better f-air range, and a larger frame and less safe aerials other than u-air; also worse smashes: his f-smash and up-smash are clearly worse (Pikachu's f-smash being disjointed), and Pikachu's d-smash covers rolls much better than Diddy's, and is less immediately punishable since it's not front-then-back but just hits all around.
When it comes to netting the KO on other characters, Pikachu has up-smash to compete with Diddy's f-smash (I'd argue that Pika's up-smash is better, but more on that another time), and edgeguarding to compete with Diddy's up-air, and then on top of that Thunder and generally superior mobility and body size for sneaking in and getting a KO. Diddy is definitely better than Pikachu at scoring KOs because grab to up-air is still a very strong option as dash grabs have been buffed in this game, and whether or not Pikachu is better than Diddy overall is arguable, but at least this particular argument for it doesn't fly: the difference between them, if there is one and it isn't in Pikachu's favor, is fairly small. Whatever experience you've had dealing with Pikachus, you haven't been playing top-level ones if you think that he can't kill. Killing is not a concern for a seasoned Pikachu. It's a concern for a day-one Pikachu, yes.
Yeah they have similar range, yeah both their range sucks, no Pikachu doesn't have enough good traits to overcome it and be Top 5. Give me a more realistic tier placement please. I can see him as being higher, but he doesn't come close to the Top 10, at least not with what I've seen or experienced of the character.
You're going to have to explain your thoughts on this one. Saying that he relies on edgeguarding and that he lacks range isn't enough. You are challenging the status quo. Top players and most of the people in this thread have placed him in either top 5 or top 10. We've had multiple discussions about how good Pikachu is and it's been suggested numerous times that he's among the best characters in the game, possibly top 3 but more generally accepted as top 8-10. If you disagree with this position, the burden of proof is on you.
I believe games don't go to time yet because people are falling for gimmicks more. (Just like in early Brawl).
Already covered: if games go to time more, then Pikachu will win more than he does now. Lighter characters win more when games go to time because if they aren't losing their last stocks, then they will have less percent than their opponents just due to being lighter. After weight, the most important category is mobility for getting away once you have a percent lead. Which character is generally more mobile in Pikachu vs. X matchups? Not X, I can tell you that much.
In a timeout environment, Pikachu is among the best. However, I do believe that games will go less to time as the metagame evolves, not more, because people will become more certain of their options.
