Competitive play Pikachu tips and strategies? KOs are very difficult.

[VirusDigimon]

Competitive Pikachu mains, share tips of what works and what doesn't work. Preferably if you've been playing Pikachu at a fairly "competitive level"(regarding the current state of the game, of course).

Standard combos:
Up tilts to aerials - Pretty basic. Usually, a couple Utilts, a Uair or two, then a Bair/Fair, but possibly land an Utilt and redo if you get lucky. Only works at very low percentages and at around 30-45%~, you can maybe get a few Utilt and a Uair, but typically nothing more.
Up Throw to Thunder - As far as I know, this is never guaranteed as they can DI from the throw, the horizontal range also seems to be decreased from the past games so any slight DI would make it miss. That being said, it does work a good amount of the time. Ideally at 70-100%~ for a possible spike effect and hit Pikachu's body. Also, at lower percents, they can move out of the way before it hits. I've only seen it once, but someone teched my Thunder spike and didn't get hit by Pikachu's body.
Fair to Fair - Only when opponent is in the air and definitely not guaranteed, but with its priority, they may not have much option, but to try and trade.
Standard tips:
Edgeguard Thunder - Classic Pikachu strategy. Not as great as it sounds, but it's not a bad option. It can be easily passed through by air dodging and ledge grabbing provides more than enough invincibility time.
Fair to Grab - This can work both if they're shielding or if they get hit(varies on how it hits). For some reason, it seems like when followed to a grab, there's no landing lag with Fair. I like this approach a lot, but on the last hit, there's huge hitlag and you can get grabbed consistently or get hit if they have good out-of-shield options. Works great, until they find out the weakness, so I'd say it's somewhat gimmicky. I've also seen Fair to FGrab to Fair and FGrab again, but I personally haven't tried it yet.

I haven't found many uses for Dtilt and Nair(OOS, maybe? I haven't tried). Huge landing lag on Nair and throws them off too far for a combo. I'm not too big on jabbing so is Pika's infinite jab usuable for this game? Skull Bash is also pretty worthless. Hitting with Quick Attack is fairly inconsistent and Quick Attack edge cancel doesn't seem very practical or that useful. I heard diagonal Quick Attack towards opponent works, but I haven't tried that yet either as an approach.

Now, my main problem is killing. I've done tests in Training mode using Mario CPU, same distance. This is data for fully charged Smash attacks for different character. It is based on the thunderbolt effect you get when you land a big hit.

Pikachu
Fsmash
84% to bolt effect on the sweetspot(electric ball), doesn't always kill
100% to bolt effect non-sweetspot, doesn't always kill
Usmash
84% to bolt effect, kills seemed guaranteed. But remember, its hitbox isn't that great(tons of sour spots). You need to hit in front of you. Could also KO if they're above you, but it's very iffy.
Dsmash
126% to bolt effect, doesn't always kill. Enemy may go on the opposite direction and wouldn't have bolt effect, obviously.
Thunder
121% to bolt effect, doesn't always kill. Based on touching Pikachu.
Skull Bash
111% to bolt effect. For the lol, I just tested this. Fully charged, of course.

Again, these moves are fully charged. For non-charged moves, they typically need to be at 140%+(usually more) to start killing.
Now, here are other character's Smash in comparison:

Robin
Fsmash
56% to bolt effect with Levin Sword, guaranteed kill.
Dsmash
72% to bold effect with Levin Sword and 75% from behind, "sour spot".

Toon Link
Fsmash
64% to bolt effect, second hit only. Mostly kills.
49% with both hits, it goes to 63% with damage, but moves the opponent further to achieve bolt effect. So very consistent.

Mario
Fsmash
69% to bolt effect
Usmash
83% to bolt effect
Dsmash
97% to bolt effect

Meta Knight
Fsmash
49% to bolt effect
Zelda
Fsmash
62% to bolt effect
Usmash
88% to bolt effect
Dsmash
96% to bolt effect. Sends them flying in a nasty horizontal angle as well.

So as you can see. Pika falls very short in comparison to the various characters I've tried. You can maybe get a Thunder kill here and there or even a Fair kill, but if you have new strategies on how to kill, that's more than welcomed. You also have to take into consideration properties of the moves itself. Pikachu's Smashes have quite a bit of sour spots. He's basically outclassed with what I listed and I didn't even list heavy hitters(Bowser, Ike, Marth, etc..) as reference.

Edgeguarding is also iffy with Pikachu. Fair doesn't send them off too far, but this may be the best option for out-of-stage edgeguard. Uair is not very practically and doesn't push out. Bair would've been fairly good, except for the fact that it sends the opponent towards the way Pikachu is facing(so towards the stage if you approach backwards). Going out-of-stage to his Bair is a bit difficult without a C-Stick because you lose momentum(and probably situational also). I've also heard of using Bair to drag down the opponent, I've tried this a bit and works good, but still fairly situational. His Nair I actually haven't used much because there's a bit of afterlag and going deep can kill you. And not going deep, there's better options, from my experience.

Anyway, share tips and strategies.

 

[thatoneguy1]

what i usually do for pretty much a guaranteed ko is drag them down with a fair and wall jump into q.a to recover but you have to fast fall the fair.

 

[Volt@ge]

I've also been struggling to find the KO's. They're there somewhere, but it's just finding the chance. I've been experimenting a bit on FG and found that you can sometimes catch people off guard with a QA followed by a Fsmash at decent percents.

If you Quick Attack into them so that you land just behind them, and then back to your starting location with the second portion of the QA, you can often times sneak in an uncharged Fsmash as the knock back from the QA flings them into you. Dunno if that explained it properly, just an observation I've made.

I've pretty much relegated Thunder to Thunderwalling at the edge, or occasionally killing off the top at the full apex of a jump when people are trying to recover high. Rarely does Up-throw/Smash > Thunder seem to work due to even the slightest vectoring.

 

[BraveFantasy]

I'm not a pika main, but I played him a bit in the demo, and he's definitely not easy to kill with. But here's what I ended up doing to get the job done. First off racking up damage is easy. After that's done, get the opponent off the stage and do one of three things. The first is fast falling a fair to drag the opponent down. The second is to jump out and go for a reverse nair, since the backside of nair has more knock back and is much more likely to kill. The third thing just wait on the stage and limit their options of recovery. If they try to recover high nair them back off. Roll? Fsmash. Get up attack? Fsmash if you're in range or dash attack to get them back off the stage. I almost always got my kills with pika during an edge guard situation. Also if they try to recover really high, thunder. They'll jump right into the Thunder spike and get sent back off the stage to their death. But yeah that's all I have. Until I found out about the back side of nair I honestly didn't think pika was going to be competitively viable due to how hard it is to kill, but now I think he has the tools. It just takes a lot of work...Also since you can't get edge guard going off the stage for reverse nairs isn't really that crazy. Pika has an amazing recovery after all.