critique Samurai's pika (updated 1/3/10

[tdk_Samurai]

Its been a while since I last done this, so I thought it was time. If any of you wiser pikas have any advice for my pika, I'm linking a few recent vids of me.

btw, I was trying out ftilt alot on roy for edge gaurding, I know, it wasn't working for me, but I kept trying anyways.

these are all me vs ripple's roy


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VU96ajzVYyI&feature=related (game 1 fod)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lSV4ED_PfU&feature=related (game 2 loud music land)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4H6YZtcFCo8 (game 3 pokefloats)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDB5P3YA2JE (game 4 fd)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1uCS-cnbl8 (game 5 poke stadium) (I know, the thing at the end was not smart)

EDIT:1/3/10
I am adding some vids of a matchup I might actually have to learn for tourney :-)
and just for you zig, I tried playing a little more patient, but I notice I tend to always aproach if I feel someone is too close to me or something, like zone pressuring me.

me vs dart(marth)
game 1 = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1dDKdSvJO8 (i get ***** btw)
game 2 = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sC9qWRIe2Hk

me vs dart(ganon)
game 1 = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yahvR3AEZdw
game 2 = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETVrUoqMhUM
game 3 = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urC8FgawWVQ
game 4 = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMrlxxUOTSU

 

[INSANE CARZY GUY]

first wiat a minute

always do as much damage as you can with a grab at low percents on roy d-throw tech chase it many not be as great as pichu's but you can do a lot of damage and end with up-throw dair for max damage or b-throw to edge gaurd. ROy can't get a decent kill till your at a retarted percent other than with F-smash keep that in mind. roy has the worse recovery in the whole game. don't treat roy like marth by any means. the last match you should have had better di and watch out for grabs they can rack up damage.

 

[Zig-Zag!]

If I could...

I know friendly roy pika blah blah blah

Still, there are a few points. The biggest issue may be your...I dunno...Je ne sais qua. A bit more wonkyness and less simply approaching your opponent like a magnet may really help your spacing. Practice teching and wavelanding off of things like crazy.

Another point of attack might be to vary your approach from the ledge. You tend to shorthop off the ledge with a falling upair more times than not. That may work the first few times, but not the next ten. Work on getting that tail angle juuuuuuust right.

Also, what I tell any and all pikas...practice quick attacking to BOTH ledges 100 times in a row. If you mess up once, start over. You should be able to do it with your eyes closed if you had to.

Also, why wasnt ripple DK?!

 

[elvenarrow3000]

It's "Je ne sais quoi".

I feel like you're using uairs too much. Sometimes you should be using nairs instead, like on edge guards. And you don't edge hog a lot, which is odd.

 

[tdk_Samurai]

zig - yea, I do ledgehop attacks alot, its kind of a bad habit. and yea, I saw you doing that **** with your eyes closed at smym, I'll practice that more, but 100 times without fail is redic. ripple is a roy main now.

arrow - yea, I usually edgehog a descent amount, but I was trying to see if I could space ftilt corectlly to edgegaurd the whole set we played.

ICG - I didn't even know you could dthrow tech chase roy, I assumed he could jump out of it b4 he hit the ground like alot of charachters, I'll keep that in mind though.

 

[INSANE CARZY GUY]

I know you can as pichu but pichu has less knockback on throws so yeah. It's good on fox and falco to if you suck at the up-throw chain throw with up-throw.

 

[Zig-Zag!]

samurai, watch this video of mine:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8lTBj3MB70

I play this match, very, very poorly. The first stock especially, I do nothing but magnet towards my opponent. In this matchup especially, you CANNOT afford that sort of playstyle. Pika rarely can afford trading hits...I feel like your mentality is to dash dance, then short hop nair. You have to dance around and get some good spacing before you commit to a flying nair, or ANY move.

Also, edgeguardig roy is tough, but if the ftilt doesnt work the first ten times, it wont work the next 20

 

[tdk_Samurai]

<3 zig

yea, I know I play not reserved enough, I remember you told me that at smym, all next week I tried playing super reserved at above 50 percent, and went from losing constantly to this local shiek main to destroying him. So in cases where I really wanna win, I will play a little more reserved, not nearly enough though. But in friendlies I do certain things different, like less camping and no chain throws. Next time I play, I will p2w, just for you, and maybe record it.


And yea, I prolly should have learned that about the roy thing, but I didn't know if I was just spacing it wrong or what, but after watching those vids, I think I like dropzone nair against roy.

And yea, you did seem more agressive in that match than what I normally see from you.

 

[AXE 09]

sorry i haven't gotten a chance to watch these yet =( i'll try to watch them later on today

EDIT: just watched all five of them. wow man, i gotta say... i really like your pikachu lol

sad to say, i really suck on giving advice -_- but i really do like your pika. the only things i can really recommend...

after you got a full jump Uair on him, most of the time, you seemed to go for another Uair. generally speaking, you should probably go for another ariel. ANY other ariel. it might seem tempting to do another Uair, but after much experience on my part, i learned that doing another ariel gives better results, mostly for damage. sometimes you can do a double Uair to thunder, which is awesome =) but usually, try to not do a 2nd uair unless he goes too high after the first uair

i noticed that you couldn't really approach him much. if you're looking for a good approach, try a running down tilt. if you miss, there's no consequenses, where as if you approach with a shffl'd nair, if you miss, you can get punished for it

hmmmm.... that's all for now lol. just keep practicing. you're already really good, and i know you have a lot of potential to become even better

 

[tdk_Samurai]

o wow, I didn't even know you watched them axe, I just saw you saying you would, and the thread never got bold as if someone posted something new, guessing because you edited, and didn't post, so I didn't see it untill now.

but thanks and yea, I guess I do upair too much, I'll work on getting rid of that habit.

 

[Zig-Zag!]

Some thoughts on your new vids, Samurau...

- You need a good way to add up damage that isn't simply nair. You did a much better job on spacing on that second marth video, but you comically did almost all your damage with mostly just diving nairs. What I look to use are strategic thundershocks, well placed shuffled backairs (it's really hard to get grabbed out of them, so I use this a ton), and even techchasing with downsmash.

- If you see an opportunity to either get back on the stage or edgehog with a wall timed and/or angled quick attack, but your hands freeze up cause you're scared to try it...that's a bad thing. You should be able to quick attack at any angle on any stock in even game 5 of a double set in the grand finals. Practice.

- I don't know Dart, but he seems to simply attack in place until you approach him in these. Whether that's his strategy, or simply one that works against you, I dont know. This is applicable to every character...but dont just attack! Pika especially is a defensive type character. He's a really fast one, but still shouldn't be setting the offensive pace. Pika likes to capitalize on most characters...otherwise pika gets capitalized on.

Keep practicing!

 

[tdk_Samurai]

Some thoughts on your new vids, Samurau...

- If you see an opportunity to either get back on the stage or edgehog with a wall timed and/or angled quick attack, but your hands freeze up cause you're scared to try it...that's a bad thing. You should be able to quick attack at any angle on any stock in even game 5 of a double set in the grand finals. Practice.

you know me best, and I sure will practice more, your the best zig, thanks

 

[AXE 09]

hmmmm.... just watched the vids haha

some general advice. this COULD be just me. i know all of us have different playstyles, but...

i noticed that you have trouble approaching. most of the time, you would stay on one side of ganon, and it wasn't often that you guys switched spots. basically, i just think you should attack more often. don't wait for him to attack, sometimes you need to be on the offensive end.

again, that's just the way i play. normally, i don't wait for my opponent to make a mistake. instead, i just go in, throw a move, and see how he reacts. this might sound funny but running past your opponent, then doing a full jump Uair when you're past them works suprisingly well. i normally don't get punished for that, and it actually hits my opponent many times

it might sound weird since you're playing a low tier character, but i would recommend being more aggressive. don't be afraid to approach.

oh and also, don't approach in the same way either. if you always approach with a shffl nair, your opponent will eventually read it. always try to mix up your approaches, whether you decide to do a shffl nair, a shffl Uair, run past them and full jump Uair, Running Dtilt, running Dsmash, running up to them and just grabbing them, or just running up to them and shield, and see how they react

another thing, i saw that you didn't really waveshield much. a very good approach is to run at them, shield, wave dash out of your shield forward and Ftilt/Dtilt. this is a good mindgame.

in conclusion... just try to approach more often. that's my advice, but then again, i'm just going off of my own playstyle. my way isn't the only way. you can create your own style

 

[indigestible_wad]

I think you should uair gimp more. You could have gotten fifty percent more kills if you had gotten them off the edge and spiked them. When the opponent goes off the field, follow them, don't just grab the edge. It'll also help you practice your upB onto stage.

 

[tdk_Samurai]

It'll also help you practice your upB onto stage.

lol true :-)

 

[INSANE CARZY GUY]

running grab? That really works with pikachu? Hey axe I know run away bair in place works with falcon and it's kindof funny how they just run into it sometimes but do you know if you could do that with pikachu. And you should include full hop B that works really good with pichu.

 

[AXE 09]

shoot my bad. i kinda assume that everyone JC grabs with pika when they run lol. i should've been more specific.

and you probably could do that with pikachu, but just probably not a Bair. if you miss, it sux really bad lol. maybe another move

 

[INSANE CARZY GUY]

Why not bair? really lagy or what? pichu's is 7 frames.

I was thinking about pikachu haveing the worse grab range and just thought wow that's like getting hit by a running shine from falco.

 

[N64]

Some of this is kinda char-specific, but yeah.

WD out of shield more. Axe, touched on this a little, but it's really useful for pika (especially against marth) if you know all your options out of shield. WD forward can close the gap on some of marth's laggier moves, and usmash oos can work well if you ever get close enough, just be weary of the pushback from his attack so you don't whiff your following usmash.

Against the marth you seemed to get out of most combos relatively easily, but he baited you often and you seemed to take a lot of damage from just single hits. Watch the match and see where he hits you and ask yourself "could I have done something differently to space myself and avoid that hit?" I know you want to get in on marth, as you should, but a better understanding of his range and options in any situation (and how you can get around that) really helps make that happen.

Also edgehog marth. Try to get it so that when he's recovering near the edge you still have some invincibility so he has to decide if he'll: upB early and try to make it to the stage, upB early and hang back in an attempt to trick you into getting onto the stage while he grabs the edge, upB to the edge normally, or stall as long as possible and upB to the ledge. Nairing at the edge covers all of these if you time your invincibility well. He seemed to make it back to the stage quite often where you could have prevented him from doing so. Marth's recovery is somewhat predictable, so abuse it.

Against the ganon, be weary of running out of space to move. It seemed you would stay back and look for an opening (which is fine) but the ganon would slowly close the distance between you until you didn't have room to even dashdance, meaning your approaches become pretty predictable and his approaches become difficult to avoid. Sh fair through him or just running past him at the right time helps with this, you want to keep open space. On some stages you can upB to a platform above/behind him and get around him without leaving yourself that open. I think you should jolt and fair more against ganon (advice i'd give to everyone) but those two really limit his options, and can often allow you to start a combo on him.

Against the roy, you can afford to be a little more defensive. roy is pretty bad at approaching, so you can often jolt spam to force an approach (which you can dodge and punish then run away and jolt again) or throw out dtilts, as there's not much roy can do about them. If he approaches from the ground, he gets hit by dtilt (as long as you're not to repetative/predictable about them) and if he tries to jump over them you can cc his aerial and usmash or grab or a lot of things. roy has to approach you eventually, same as marth, but he doesn't have a scary tipper or floaty jump to poke at you with aerials as well. Once he's used to your defensive style, do a couple approaches while he's focusing on getting in, and try to just leave him stuck, frustrated about the projectiles and defensive game, and worried that he always has to be at least a little defensive himself as you can close the gap quickly.

 

[tdk_Samurai]

Against the marth you seemed to get out of most combos relatively easily, but he baited you often and you seemed to take a lot of damage from just single hits. Watch the match and see where he hits you and ask yourself "could I have done something differently to space myself and avoid that hit?" I know you want to get in on marth, as you should, but a better understanding of his range and options in any situation (and how you can get around that) really helps make that happen.


Against the ganon, be weary of running out of space to move. It seemed you would stay back and look for an opening (which is fine) but the ganon would slowly close the distance between you until you didn't have room to even dashdance, meaning your approaches become pretty predictable and his approaches become difficult to avoid. Sh fair through him or just running past him at the right time helps with this, you want to keep open space. On some stages you can upB to a platform above/behind him and get around him without leaving yourself that open. I think you should jolt and fair more against ganon (advice i'd give to everyone) but those two really limit his options, and can often allow you to start a combo on him.

thats actually a really good idea, I've studied vids to see if I can detect habits, but never thought of that.

@the space to move - I know man, I was thinking that the whole time I was playing him, I was like gtfo, I want more room.

& tyvm for all other advice.

 

[Zig-Zag!]

Can you believe I didnt know HOW to wavedash out of my shield with *any* character until I watched Axe's videos really closely and realized I never did? This really helps spacing. It also helps explain Luigi's stupid tilts.