Let's talk about 3.5 Pit

[Sharkz]

There's been about 3 posts on this board since 3.5 came out. It's about time to hear your guys' thoughts on 3.5's Pit. He's different, but I'm excited to learn what new tricks he has up his sleeve as well as ways to work around what he doesn't have anymore. Think he's been hit too hard? Think it's just right? What tricks have you discovered with him right now? Have you found any matchups that have been drastically changed? I want to hear what y'all think.

 

[Sharkz]

Oh, here's a cool trick. I'm assuming a few others found out about this too.

As most of you know, once you use his glide 3.5, he loses all but one jump. In 3.02 when you used glide starting from the ground, you could refresh glide again once you acted out of it. This has also been removed. But, if you start glide from the ground in 3.5, when you act out of it you actually keep all of your jumps, you just lose your glide. This also works when using glide to edgeguard. You know when you run off the stage and immediately side-b to grab the edge? Once you grab the edge, you keep all your jumps AND your glide. So use that to your advantage to throw off your opponent.

 

[sagemoon]

My thoughts about the changes:

Let me start off about what I think made pit OP in 3.02. I believe his recovery and combo game was just too good. By the end of 3.02, a downthrow would lead into a combo that set up for an easy edgeguard against most of the cast, even with the general good recovery of everyone. The changes aimed to fix this, knockbacks were changed, and the downthrow changed to make pit not so easy mode in the combo game. However, one of pits weaknesses were in his neutral game (Not a weakness per se, just not OP like the rest of his kit). Spamming arrows was one way to get around this, but it's predictable. Now here is where the changes really hurt Pit this patch. 8 frames to grounded arrows and 5 frames to start of downtilt, 3 frames to start WoI (air), 5 frames to fair (2 after lag cancel). 17% slower glide. With all of these together, it really slows pits approach down, weakening his neutral game significantly. I think they intentionally hit his approach game, trying to limit the number of safe options, but now pit went from having multiple options to almost none. Of all of these, the frames added to the glide (in addition to the slow) are the most detrimental. Glide used to be a good cross up to catch your opponent off guard. It was a way to punish someone from a distance. They likely made this change to stop pit from getting a free back after grabbing the ledge, but imo, the speed should be reverted to what it was. it's too easy to see it coming now.


That being said, it's hard for me to tell the effects on pit overall relative to the rest of the cast. My roommate is a mario player (which was already one of the more difficult matchups, and mario was mostly unchanged except for fireballs and recovery) and I haven't been to a tournament yet to see vs the rest of the cast. Pit isn't a terrible character or anything, he just feels slow now. The nerfs definitely knocked him down from top tier to mid-high tier though, which was the goal.

 

[AntiPrompt]

I'm really disappointed with what they did with downtilt and downthrow. Dtilt is essentially un-usuable now, especially in the neutral (which is really the only context in which it was regularly used), where it more or less requires a read to connect. Downthrow was just gutted. It may seem good at first, but once people start to catch on that it can be DIed away, it won't be possible to follow up at all. His downthrow did need a reduction in utility--as people said, it could combo in nearly every scenario--but now it's not viable whatsoever.

 

[Sharkz]

I'm really disappointed with what they did with downtilt and downthrow. Dtilt is essentially un-usuable now, especially in the neutral (which is really the only context in which it was regularly used), where it more or less requires a read to connect. Downthrow was just gutted. It may seem good at first, but once people start to catch on that it can be DIed away, it won't be possible to follow up at all. His downthrow did need a reduction in utility--as people said, it could combo in nearly every scenario--but now it's not viable whatsoever.

I disagree, I feel that it's a fantastic throw for tech chases on heavier characters. I haven't had time to mess with it on lighter characters though.

 

[5th4ce]

I am actually starting a pit, any tips to get a good neutral game? I didn't play pit prior to 3.5 but his arrows feels useless, I hit but still can't follow up because of the endlag.

 

[AntiPrompt]

I disagree, I feel that it's a fantastic throw for tech chases on heavier characters. I haven't had time to mess with it on lighter characters though.

In my experience, Pit isn't fast enough for those sorts of tech chases--your opponent could just roll away, or tech in place, and Pit wouldn't be able to regrab, at least not on reaction, before he/she threw out an attack. This is admittedly conjecture; I'll try it out soon. If it works, that would be fantastic.

There's a lot of combo potential on lighter characters, but only if you catch them not DIing away. Downthrow has some issues.

 

[Marth Regalia]

I've been playing Pit since the mod was released, what noticeable buffs/nerfs did he get?
I'm gonna be so mad if they nerfed him badly.

 

[Scizor44]

Personally, I believe that the nerfs they gave Pit were needed, but definitely not in this way. The added lag on arrows and the dtilt nerf makes me mess up a lot, as I'm used to the old timings. The way he is now I'm finding it difficult to play due to timing issues. Also, the only use I can find for arrows are as a shorthop arrow approach, then grab or techchase grab. It really frustrates me how bad dtilt is now, it used to be my goto option in neutral and now I have nothing I can do other than throw out fairs (which I'm also messing up with because of the added landing lag).

 

[Spoopy]

Pit went from a really good (a bit too good) character to a character that's not even worth trying to play. His entire moveset got nerfed. Even things that didn't need a nerf got it. I'll admit that he did need a nerf, but not as intense as this. Mewtwo was a prime example of a character that alot of people thought he needed heavy nerfs, but with slight nerfs here and there and the removal of his teleport hover stuff, he became balanced. I'll never understand why Pit was nerfed to oblivion and hopefully Pit will return to atleast higher tier than where he's going to be right now in a future patch.

 

[Marth Regalia]

This saddens me.

I guess I'll have to go back to Roy until they fix Pit.

 

[oathkeeper005]

Disclaimer: Ive only had a little more than one day to mess around with the New Pit, and Im not a great player to begin with. These are the really significant changes though I feel I can talk about though.

Side B:
I think the Recovery Nerf mostly makes sense. The only real Issue I have with it is that When Pit uses his glide, and the one jump he has to cancel it will always be his "worst" jump. I think It would make a lot more sense for his Jump to be his Last unused jump that than his worst. Basically If he glides right away he could jump out with his "first" Jump witch is also his highest. This would also give some sort of incentive to think about when to glide vs using jumps and then gliding. Regardless I feel the current jump out glide is rather pitiful. I will definitely miss having the stronger initial forward momentum boost and would prefer having it back but I will likely be able to live without it as it just mean using glide offensively is worse if not just bad ( Im not sure if Pit will keep his unused jumps if he gets Hit out of a glide, if anyone would like to inform me it would be appreciated, if that was the case then offensive gliding is a lot worse).

Ground to Air:
Dilt, Dtrow, and Arrow Nerfs seem to be to worst part of his changes as a whole. any one of these in particular is not the biggest deal, but all three nerfs together have made it so he seems to have a VERY hard time "reliably" getting people in the air in a way that he can convert into his trademark aerial game. The only reliable way Ive found that still leads to easy follow ups is shorthop Arrows (something I used a lot before but was more a defense against powersheilding/reflectors and as a mixup).

Up B:
From what I've messed with it seems to have much less control over turning as well as being a bit faster to rise. Having less control means that it will be much harder to use offensively, especially when getting people into favorable air positions to use it is harder. using it for Recovery might also be a bit harder but that's not as big of a deal, just thought its worth mentioning given his other recovery nerf. I'm not sure What to make of the fact that it acts the same from the ground as it does in the air now.

There's a bit more I could talk about but I'm not sure I've had enough time to really have a good impression on him outside of those. Overall all though He feels like a much more limited character though. Perhaps he had too much good going for him before But I do feel this was a bit too much. Then Again I might just be spoiled from 3.02

I love pits overall playstyle so I will at least try to make him work in this version. but I'm looking into alternate characters as well just in case.

 

[Peacanator]

I think I'd like to point out something which may or may not have been discovered already. When I first played Pit in 3.5 I could not combo properly, especially the up airs to up b. I was practising over and over for about an hour just trying to get that one combo and made only 15 out of a billion. Here's where it gets good: Pit's sweet spot of his up air can now combo if the opponent is hit right at the centre of the circle (up air). In addition to that, if they are at higher percent and fly too far upwards you can instead opt to go for a sour spot on the edges of the blades/circle/uair/whatever. Remember that the exact hurtbox for the combo-able sweet spot is where his hand is at when spinning his blades. Hope this helps some.

 

[Peacanator]

Found something out which got me really hyped and is making me main Pit again. His forward air combos are back! To test it out for yourself, get a Link at 65% in training mode and go for a SHFFL'd down air. He'll be sent flying sort of in a diagonal angle. Then, go for a forward air but, hit Link with the uppermost hitbox without sending him backwards. This will allow you to follow up into another fair, a nair (combos a lot easier now), or an arrow depending on their DI (yes the cpu DIs in training). After that first fair, you will always need to jump again to follow up; however if you mess up and hit him with the centre of the move, there is a possibility of getting the next hit if you don't jump. This does not work very often but go for it if you can. That's all there is so far, I hope Pit is actually good in this game because I'm maining him now

 

[Scizor44]

Just a few quick things I'm noticing about the new Pit that may actually be good:

• As Peacanator said, Nair is actually better. Before it was only useful as a hitbox to stop quick characters like Pikachu and Falcon, but now it can be used for combos.
• It may just be me, but dair's spike hitbox seems to be better on the new Pit. It may just be because I'm using fair less though... You can read an opponent's jump from ledge with a shorthop dair to get a nice quick KO.
  
• Up tilt seems to be more reliable. This may be a nice replacement for uair and dtilt at lower percents or on fastfallers for juggling.

 

[ShadowSlashX]

I feel like it's easier to hit the sourspot on the Uair to juggle. I've also been hitting more Fair combos at lower percents.

With the down throw nerf, I've actually been trying to mix it up with Up throw, and it can combo pretty well against floaty characters. Depending on DI it can lead to various combos. Ex: they DI behind, and you can do full hop sour Bair to sweetspot Bair for a finisher/get them off stage. Can make both hits sour to get some follow ups.

I've used down throw together with dtilt or dash attack, then going for another dash attack to get them above me and Utilt(which I like much more now) and then sour Uair into whatever aerial from there. Chain grabbing Dthrow is possible against some characters but is easily DI'd out of. I use Dash Attack when they catch on.

The glide momentum nerf hurts since I was just starting to implement it into follow ups, but I still use it often when above the stage to follow up with aerials up high.

Overall, I feel Pit is still good. I only started playing PM in October, so I got used to 3.02 Pit but I can quickly adjust to 3.5. So far the best combos I've been able to do have been with 3.5 Pit.

 

[ObsidianFH]

I've been having trouble getting the side smash to link properly. I'm hoping this is addressed with bugfixes later on.

 

[666blaziken]

This saddens me.

I guess I'll have to go back to Roy until they fix Pit.

I think you just have to use him and adapt to the changes. Learn how to use him as he is, so when/if he gets buffed, you will be ahead of the game because you used pit in a weakened state. Or hopefully, you discover something new and you actually realize he is still a good character. While I don't main pit, here is what I found out about him
if you fast fall nair, you can L-cancel it and get a super easy grab. From there , you can mix up his up throw with his down throw to shake the DI up. That's all I really know at the moment,

 

[Demojay]

Does anyone have any videos for 3.5 Pit?

 

[5-oNe]

I tried to stay away from the boards for awhile because I knew there would be a lot of down talking the new pit.lol. But he is still God like. He is just a different kind of God like. I think everybody got too settled into his 3.02 version and wasn't ready for a little bit of a different style. U can still do uair combos into up b. It's just not automatic anymore. Dthrow is still really good. And pit is def quick enough to tech chase. And u only have to tech chase if di down and away. If the di any other way u can re grab like forever.lol. Or combo. And he chain grabs a lot of the more floaty characters. And still chain grabs spacies, his arrows are still great. And just a tip because a lot of ppl talk to me about how laggy his arrows are now. Just jump and shoot arrows instead of sitting on the ground spamming them. U will see how much less lag there is when u jump and shoot them. But your aim has to be a bit better...I'll starting posting videos in the pit video section. Sadly I don't have any videos from sweet prologue over the weekend since pm wasn't recorded. But I put on a show with pit.

 

[Sharkz]

When you talk about cging spacies, do you mean with uthrow? And also, how do you prefer to approach in neutral, and do you believe nair is a good option in approaching at all? I seem to use it a little too much but I'm not sure if it's a bad thing.

 

[5-oNe]

Yeah uthrow chain grabs from like 20ish to 80ish. If they di behind you it is the hardest to react to because it's a tight frame window to reach them. But if u don't think you can reach another grab there is always usmash or dash attack. And uthrow sets up more reliably for kill options than dthrow against Spacies. I think nair is a lot better than 3.02 but it's still risky in neutral. I would use it very sparingly in neutral. Just to throw the opponent off every now and then. For a neutral I do a lot of the same aerials tricks in neutral. Usually retreating short hop fairs or dairs. Or full hops with 2 aerials. Just to show hit boxes and if they run into one then that's the opening I need. But I think dash dancing and retreating short hop arrows is pits best bet until u can land a grab.

 

[5-oNe]

Just a little thing too. Pit has an invincible wave land from the edge

 

[666blaziken]

Just a little thing too. Pit has an invincible wave land from the edge

So he has captain falcon's perfect ledge camp thing?

 

[5-oNe]

So he has captain falcon's perfect ledge camp thing?

Not like falcon. Because their jumps are different. More like how fox can invincible wave land onto the stage and u smash. Not exactly like fox but that's probably the most similar one.

 

[Sharkz]

Yes, he can waveland on stage and jab before invincibility wears off if you're frame perfect.

 

[Fragturtlebomb]

I think I kill people with f-air and u-air more than I do with up b in 3.5.

 

[5-oNe]

You can still string uairs into up b. And dtilt can lead to an up b kill

 

[Lopopka]

I've been having trouble getting the side smash to link properly. I'm hoping this is addressed with bugfixes later on.

yeah me to haha, It works fine on the heavier characters just on the lighter ones the first hit will raise them up too far causing the second hit to miss even if you wait the second hit out a bit , haha its kinda lame, because theyre light i would just stick with upsmash xD

 

[Peacanator]

Just a little thing too. Pit has an invincible wave land from the edge

That's hackdashing. It's a 1 frame input I believe so that's not even an option to do.

 

[robosteven]

grounded up-b is good now so that's nice

 

[Peacanator]

Honestly I feel like 3.5 Pit has so little combo potential judging based off of his move set. U-air might have less hitstun on it because it's quite easy to jump out of it so doing u-air to up-b is extremely rare to pull off. Fair just seems weird and is hard to get the right hitbox. Pit's ground game is kind of the same; dash attacks, dairs, d-tilts, etc... In general I think Pit's combo game is extremely weak. I haven't seen any Pit players in tournaments for 3.5 yet so idk what he still has to offer but Pit, I feel will most likely become a spacing character.

 

[5-oNe]

That's hackdashing. It's a 1 frame input I believe so that's not even an option to do.

U have more than one frame. And it's not hack dashing. It's hax dashing just from melee of how hax would use it to dance around the ledge with falcon and how he now uses it with fox.The term is simply named after him...also it's completely viable if u can do it. Check out that new debug mode. U can actually do it to the point where u can wave land on and up smash and be invincible the entire time.
Also pits combo game is still very strong and it's just a little different than what it used to be. I just believe pit players were too used to the old pit and just weren't ready to adjust. I still have been placing pretty high. I actually have a top 8 round robin tournament this weekend.its with players with the most accumulated points from placing high in tournies over the last 2 months in the Midwest. I also got 4th at sweet prologue a few weeks ago beating people like anther, who is the best pm pikachu. Pit Is still very good. Just have to kinda wipe the slate clean of the old pit and relearn him like he is a new character.

 

[robosteven]

I think he's still ok. His d-tilt is gross now though.

I've been having some sucess using nair or dair as combo starters, it's just that his ground game seems kinda poopybad now. Ah well, at least he still has dash attack and up-smash.

 

[5-oNe]

Also I'm going to do a lot of traveling around this year just to different scenes. I would love to know where some of you guys are from so I can make these some stops on my list.

 

[Juushichi]

Come to Ohio. : ) Get the Hanky Panky experience. also good **** beating Anther 5-1.

 

[Peacanator]

I think he's still ok. His d-tilt is gross now though.

I've been having some sucess using nair or dair as combo starters, it's just that his ground game seems kinda poopybad now. Ah well, at least he still has dash attack and up-smash.

For me dash attack and up-smash is all he has lol. It's so hard to follow up without them and maybe d-throw or up-throw. I guess spamming up air works since you can convert into fairs but other than that there aren't many options (that I know of).

 

[robosteven]

is it just me or is up-tilt really good now

I've had a lot of success using raw juggles out of up-tilt followed by uair or fair or whatever.

also does anyone use glide-attack? like glide to z button attack

 

[Peacanator]

U have more than one frame. And it's not hack dashing. It's hax dashing just from melee of how hax would use it to dance around the ledge with falcon and how he now uses it with fox.The term is simply named after him...also it's completely viable if u can do it. Check out that new debug mode. U can actually do it to the point where u can wave land on and up smash and be invincible the entire time.
Also pits combo game is still very strong and it's just a little different than what it used to be. I just believe pit players were too used to the old pit and just weren't ready to adjust. I still have been placing pretty high. I actually have a top 8 round robin tournament this weekend.its with players with the most accumulated points from placing high in tournies over the last 2 months in the Midwest. I also got 4th at sweet prologue a few weeks ago beating people like anther, who is the best pm pikachu. Pit Is still very good. Just have to kinda wipe the slate clean of the old pit and relearn him like he is a new character.

Maybe a hiatus on Pit would be good lol. But seriously, Pit feels a lot more technical than he did in 3.2 which is I guess all the more impressive when you play "well" with him.

 

[Lopopka]

is it just me or is up-tilt really good now

I've had a lot of success using raw juggles out of up-tilt followed by uair or fair or whatever.

also does anyone use glide-attack? like glide to z button attack

lol i knew someone else in the world did besides me, i pretty much either z out of glide or dair!