** OLD ** Official Pikachu Critique Thread

[KayLo!]

As for the d-air camp, try going clear under (cuz MK is not likely to come falling d-air on you... it lags him slightly) and u-airing him. If not, an occasional QaC through and down-back will get the MK flustered sometimes when doing more d-air spam.

Apparently bair works well vs. dair-camping MKs. According to gallax and Anther, anyway.

 

[Legendary Pikachu]

Apparently bair works well vs. dair-camping MKs. According to gallax and Anther, anyway.

That too ^_^.

 

[bigman40]

K, I have MUCH BETTER matches now that I have had to go backwards to move forwards with my pika (dumb **** ain't it? I had to go back to when I first mained pika to play better). I nearly beat Biglou's Snake, but I went dumb and let my "need to kill" habit get the best of me I'll have them later this week due to my desktop being out of condition until I receive my parts.

 

[VLD]

Apparently bair works well vs. dair-camping MKs. According to gallax and Anther, anyway.

I find bair to be very satisfying, and the frustration of the opponent always keeps them coming back from more

 

[~Radiance~]

Alright. I finally got some videos to put up here. I feel like I've plateaued on my pika ability, so hopefully I can get some advice on how to start going back up again. Hopefully YouTube will be done chewing on them when someone goes to look at these.

Warning: They're all WiFi, and I don't have the homebrew channel on my Wii (yet, new SD card reader should allow me to rectify that), so all I have is the "live"recording. I'm still learning the tools I'm using, so a couple are a little off-sync with the audio.[/videographyjohns]

These were just a bunch of friendlies (though we were both going for critique material, so it should be reasonably demonstrative of our abilities), so there was no stage strategy (at least on my part), just "pick one and hope you get it."

ElNoNombreHombre vs. Sonic Storm

1. Round 1 - Pikachu vs. Sonic at Smashville
2. Round 2 - Pikachu vs. Pokémon Trainer at Pokémon Stadium 1
3. Round 3 - Pikachu vs. R.O.B. at Yoshi's Island (Pipes)
4. Round 4 - Pikachu vs. Sonic at Final Destination
5. Round 5 - Pikachu vs. Sonic at Delfino
6. Round 6 - Pikachu vs. Sonic at Battlefield
7. Round 7 - Pikachu vs. Sonic at Final Destination

Spoiler

And not to worry about having to critique wining videos... sheesh. I'm 1-9 against him when recording our fights.

If you're only going to look at one or two, my recommendation is rounds 1 and 5 (despite the video hiccup), in that order. I feel those are probably closer to me playing at my best (which isn't saying much). The last two were just... bleh.

Thank you in advance.

yea wifi dont do it justice so not a ton i can say since u had mistakes that were due to wifis lag :/

One thing i noticed though, if you are trying to fill your SH's with moves, dont fill them with nairs. You want to keep nair as fresh as possible so that when it comes time for killing you have it as an option. You can refresh it by using other moves but i would suggest trying to use it only when u need to or for the kill. for filling the sh try using uairs or fairs while DI'ing away from your opponet.

 

[Frio]

Thanks for the advice guys. i normally don't QaC over the ledge like that but I was kinda just messing up there :/

 

[Pika_Cam]

This is all I have for right now. This mk player usually beats me, but the replay where he did was saved on another wii and I haven't been able to retrieve it. Also, sorry for the quality at some parts.

Cam (pika) vs Popsofctown (mk): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fq3CGL0J1tk

 

[KayLo!]

Just a quick rundown of what I saw:

- Sometimes you completely pause while you play. Keep moving, it'll speed up your game.
- Your grab game and combo game are generally pretty good.
- When MK tornados you, tilt your shield up. This'll come in handy vs. better MKs who'll use nado for shield poking. I think you tilted it once the entire match.
- Don't try to spotdodge spam his dtilt. His dtilt will always win.
- SDI out of his jab more quickly.... that's just unnecessary damage you were taking.
- When you come back on a new stock, abuse your temporary invincibility! You just stood there and let it wear off (second stock).
- You rolled an awful lot second stock when MK was at high percentage. Might be a nerves thing?
- .....And rolling led to your death.

Overall, you just need to speed up your gameplay a bit and get rid of those dead pauses where you sit there, think, and do nothing. I liked your aerial use vs. this particular MK, especially uair and bair. You also seem to have a fairly good idea of what Pika's combos are, although at low percentages, don't forget that we have fthrow > usmash and dthrow > nair.

You get sloppy when you're nervous. Your last stock, when you'd lost your lead and it was an even game again, you started to make a lot of silly mistakes. You rolled more often, and you threw out moves that weren't as well thought out. It's important that you stay focused and don't go into panic mode.

 

[ElNoNombreHombre]

yea wifi dont do it justice so not a ton i can say since u had mistakes that were due to wifis lag :/

One thing i noticed though, if you are trying to fill your SH's with moves, dont fill them with nairs. You want to keep nair as fresh as possible so that when it comes time for killing you have it as an option. You can refresh it by using other moves but i would suggest trying to use it only when u need to or for the kill. for filling the sh try using uairs or fairs while DI'ing away from your opponet.

Wow! I did not expect another critique so long after I posted the videos. Thanks.

Yeah wifi can really muck things up, but hopefully this semester the Brawl club won't have room reservation drama again, so I should hopefully get some non-wifi matches up soon (hopefully that will preven scaring everyone away from critiquing them).

I will keep your suggestions in mind, though the backward DIed fairs is a contributing factor to my excessive bairing. I think I'm getting ahead of myself when I try to do it.

 

[bigman40]

Vs BigLou
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7xIWv7GBrI

Vs AntiC (Mainly training matches for him)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-VDqQziI3A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWBgbFIjab4

The matches vs BigLou are the main ones you guys can look at. I was fooling around a little more in the other set cause I was tired and the snake was trying to get better.

 

[gallax]

hey bigman...they are all of you vs AntiC. lol. even the biglou ones are not of biglou.

but i only watched the first l20 seconds of it cuc my youtube player freaked out but i already noticed two things that you should be aware of:

1) never tjolt and DI towards snake cuz you have lag and its a free ftilt/grab

2) when you are on the ledge its so hard to get punished if you play your cards right. like when the snake was holding down his jab button you can qac through his legs and get past it without taking damage. this also puts you in a much better position to get away and tjolt some more. if you jump off and tjolt the jab it will get canceled by the jab and it leaves you open for an attack from then snake. if you do feel like tjolting you should learn to drop down and tjolt under the stage and let it wrap around.

 

[bigman40]

hey bigman...they are all of you vs AntiC. lol. even the biglou ones are not of biglou.

Will be fixing that within the next hour.

 

[gallax]

haha cool. i got to watch some more of your footage and i will say that i see a huge improvement in your game.

the one part i saw that was iffy at first but then i realized what happend was when you were going to grab the snake at like 1:00ish and he baird you. its hard predicting thebair when they ff it at the last second so what i do is just shield and wait until the snake lands. it works better cuz if you drop your shield too soon then the delayed bair will hit.

also i noticed that before you died the first time you had snake trapped in the air after he cyphered and you MESSED IT UP BY TRYING TO ATTACK HIM IN THE AIR!!!!!!! COME ON BIGMAN!!!! haha. its ok dude. dont do that to snake. 90% of the time snake will try to airdodge into the ground or b reversal a nade. when he airdodges you win. predict wheres hes trying to land and get hit. if had done that you could have gotten another free grab or even a fsmash. i would have tried for the fsmash(but remember to be facing snakes front and not behind him)

overall, i liked what i saw .

 

[bigman40]

Thx. I just got the other match up now, so you can see that one better. I had such a good lead, then lost it cause I couldn't kill him >.< My biggest pet peeve when playing Pika and Yoshi.

 

[VLD]

Respect for pikas that don't abuse tjolt to rack up %
...bigman
Nice display of technical skill, dancing around and such, and being random, pika looked like he was having fun.
You couldn't kill him because you couldn't land a smash on him. You could only hit him with aerials and tilts.
It's tough though because that snake likes to jab 'n grab, pretty good at it too. If you could use your mindgames to mix in a few more smashes, it might help, I did see openings for it. It sounds too easy, but it's also easy to forget about them.
You also spend a lot of time approaching from above. Snake likes aerial pikachus, BAMM bye bye! (He got you sooo many times with that uptilt!)
Downtilt is useful.
Note taken: those were friendlies. It looked like Pika had a bottle of Mountain Dew before he went to battle! At 3:40..whaaat, wow it worked.
Overall nice job.

At the same time, I'm kinda giving myself a pep talk on this one.

 

[Roller]

Ok. I haven't Helped out with critiques in a longgg time. So. Here we go.

Bigman- I didn't have a lot of time so I only watched first match on the first vid you posted. So keep in mind this is all going off of that one game.

First thing, too much smashing, utilize your tilts more. The tilts are faster and the better choice in most situations before they are in kill range unless you want to use them for spacing.

Next, mix up your strategy a little more. I saw a whole lot of Dair, Fair, Tjolt, smash. Like I said, tilts are an invaluable asset of pika's. Also, use more Uair, great attack to build up percent and mix in little combos with early. Which leads into my next point, do some little combos. Dthrow->Utilt->Utilt/Uair etc. Get the most out of each time you hit them.

That's all I have for now, might watch the rest of the matches and add more later.

 

[VLD]

Ok. I haven't Helped out with critiques in a longgg time. So. Here we go.

Bigman- I didn't have a lot of time so I only watched first match on the first vid you posted. So keep in mind this is all going off of that one game.

First thing, too much smashing, utilize your tilts more. The tilts are faster and the better choice in most situations before they are in kill range unless you want to use them for spacing.

Next, mix up your strategy a little more. I saw a whole lot of Dair, Fair, Tjolt, smash. Like I said, tilts are an invaluable asset of pika's. Also, use more Uair, great attack to build up percent and mix in little combos with early. Which leads into my next point, do some little combos. Dthrow->Utilt->Utilt/Uair etc. Get the most out of each time you hit them.

That's all I have for now, might watch the rest of the matches and add more later.

HAHAHAHA
I missed that vid. You missed the one against snake

 

[Kantō]

FINALLY, i got some new vids and it sucks because i missing one match out of the set and the one match where i win is cut off at the end by like 5 seconds....but thats okay, this thread is for critique so it doesnt matter. here is the links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EeSUhvymBA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcJSv4J9Rn0&feature=channel

 

[Kenrawr]

Vague, but hopefully helpful advice.

I only watched the first video because I'm lazy like that.

Too much dsmash - If the snake is grounded just don't go for them. It's easy to sheild and punish for them.

Try to mix it up more with fsmashes and grabs when they're trying to land to keep the snake off of the ground.

When you grab at a low % don't pummel, just go straight for the CG.

Don't skullbash onto the stage.

LOL@that first death.

 

[~Radiance~]

Wow! I did not expect another critique so long after I posted the videos. Thanks.

Yeah wifi can really muck things up, but hopefully this semester the Brawl club won't have room reservation drama again, so I should hopefully get some non-wifi matches up soon (hopefully that will preven scaring everyone away from critiquing them).

I will keep your suggestions in mind, though the backward DIed fairs is a contributing factor to my excessive bairing. I think I'm getting ahead of myself when I try to do it.

if your trying to DI your fairs backwards us the c stick to do a fair and just pull back on the analog stick, itll stop u from doing bairs (i used to have the same problem)
also, bairs are good for punsihing sometimes, just be sure that A) all hits of a sh bair connect so u dont get punished or B) fh ur bair so u have no lag

if u try that ur bairs will become more practical, just be aware that if they shield the whole sh bair, your getting punished

 

[PUNK9]

FINALLY, i got some new vids and it sucks because i missing one match out of the set and the one match where i win is cut off at the end by like 5 seconds....but thats okay, this thread is for critique so it doesnt matter. here is the links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EeSUhvymBA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcJSv4J9Rn0&feature=channel

Ok, Bry, I watched only the first one Since I am about to go to the movies. lol

First thing I noticed, that K-9 pointed out, To much D-smash. Like the FF F-air <D-smash good, but not all the time, If you are doing FF F-air you can grab, jump, F-smash, F-tilt, D-tilt instead of D-smash

Next thing, [Raz told me this one] Don't use side b to recover all the time, Now, I only use side B. Only to MC if I think I'm about to die. Or, if I'm realllly low under the stage, and I need to save my jump till I get closer to the stage. Side B is SO punishable due to its lag. [Again from Raz] Recover low. Pikachu has an AMAZING recovery, Abuse it. Its the safest way for Piakchu to recover.

Hmmm, Use more N-air, I saw I think one time, You Buffered a N-air out of a SH, I thought It was pretty sexy. lol

When Camping Use SH retreating T-jolts. Don't appraoch with SH T-jolts.[the first like 10-30 seconds of the match]. Becuase of the T-jolts lag..
And thats all I can think of.

Hope it helps ;D

 

[Kantō]

thanks for the help guys, ill have more vids from this weeks tourney up after this week.

 

[Arikie]

I recently went to a tournament and I used pikachu alot, I'd like to get some critiques on the videos. after they get critiqued I might post them in the video thread if you think there good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYjgEjgS4xM Hamb-ddd

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaE6KYjqsqA sake-snake

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6lVu3fvlg0 Rip-wario

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xVDeUXp0bU c@nip-snake

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WapsByi4AAM goat(name?) diddykong
I need alot of help with this matchup....

The diddy kong match was slightly humiliating, but I think my other matches were ok.

 

[Roller]

Arikie- Watched the first video so far. Way too heavy on the dsmash, your opponent was clearly picking up on it after the halfway point and punishing it.

Also did a few too many thunders, but those I wont hold against you in this particular match. Seeing as he was godawful at avoiding it.

Another big thing, you have aerials other than just fair. Keep that in mind. Nair can be a great move to knock them off the stage/kill; Uair is great for racking up damage with little combos.

You also need to use more tilts. I don't think I saw a single one minus the occasional d-throw -> Utilt. Fast falling fair into d/f-tilt can be useful; they are also good in a ton of other situations. They are faster and have less cooldown lag than your smashes, making them harder to punish when spaced properly.

That's all I've got for now. I'll watch the others though.

EDIT: Watched the snake match. Again, similar advise. Something else I noticed, work on timing your thunders better when edgeguarding. You tend to do them a little too fast. Hold off a little and try to figure out how your opponent likes to get away from them, once you get a read on his evasive techniques you will have much more success with it than just doing it right away.

EDIT 2: Definitely need to work on reducing your D-smash usage. He punished you for that way more than he should have been able to without you catching on. The Dsmashing is ultimately what cost you the match. He got so many F-smashes in on you because of it. I'd also say you were using Fair a tiny bit too much at first. Your thunder timing/placement was better that game though.

 

[Arikie]

-

Thanks, I don't know how I managed to pick up all those bad habits but I'm going to lose em.

 

[Roller]

I just watched the diddy match.. Rough beats man. To your credit that was a pretty good diddy. I have trouble with the matchup myself. One thing I noticed though was that your first death could have been avoided (atleast for a few more seconds) had you DI'd better. I'd check out DI'ing in the pika guide Kaylo put up for the best ways to DI in given situations. I'm pretty sure she has it up there.

And I wouldn't beat yourself up to hard about the habits. A lot of players have those same exact ones. As long as you're aware of them now and start weening yourself off of them I'm sure you'll get even better in no time. =)

Also. 3000th post!!!!11!1!!!!1!ONE!!!1!1!

I @re teh Mast3r!

 

[Arikie]

I just watched the diddy match.. Rough beats man. To your credit that was a pretty good diddy. I have trouble with the matchup myself. One thing I noticed though was that your first death could have been avoided (atleast for a few more seconds) had you DI'd better. I'd check out DI'ing in the pika guide Kaylo put up for the best ways to DI in given situations. I'm pretty sure she has it up there.

And I wouldn't beat yourself up to hard about the habits. A lot of players have those same exact ones. As long as you're aware of them now and start weening yourself off of them I'm sure you'll get even better in no time. =)

Also. 3000th post!!!!11!1!!!!1!ONE!!!1!1!

I @re teh Mast3r!

The thing about the habits though, I seem to be able to play without them ( and much better) at times, but sometimes they re-occur and I don't realize that I am putting myself in a bad situation repeatedly.

I wasn't very focused at the tournament.
I wish I was more consistent

I watched that diddy player own a lot of other people in friendlies before the tourney.

 

[J4pu]

you have a shield... spot-dodging is not your only defensive option.

 

[Anther]

I want some critique.
I know, it was a scrub MK that pauses constantly... but maybe he'll learn what he's doing someday.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhwg8Q1I_SI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDUC7OeUv1M&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mdu7bUmdrUk&feature=related

 

[gallax]

anther im loading your last video right now. omg dude i cant watch these. they are way too much for me. im gonna have a heart attack. i need to fastforward. everytime u get hit im dying inside. please win this last one or im gonna have to hunt down m2k and end his life.

EDIT: AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! anther u are the fu@king man!!!!! i need to calm down cuz im gonna have a heart attack srsly. whew.....................................................................................ok im calming down anther. god those were some sexy moves.

EDIT 2: i hate you anther. you lost the set. get me all excited and then use your tricksies.

EDIT 3: not only were those friendlies...u never played m2k in the tourney!!!!! u lost to lain twice!!!!!!! anther!!!!!

 

[bigman40]

Great to see top players playing w/o idiots sitting there, waiting for them to mess up so that they can blow it out of proportion (in this case, most of SWF are the idiots). Thoroughly enjoyed watching that set M2k and Anther. Keep it up

 

[gallax]

Great to see top players playing w/o idiots sitting there, waiting for them to mess up so that they can blow it out of proportion (in this case, most of SWF are the idiots). Thoroughly enjoyed watching that set M2k and Anther. Keep it up

was this directed towards me????

 

[KayLo!]

Oooo, Anther vids. I'll watch these..... when I'm not about to pass out.

Gallax, you all right over there? ;;

 

[gallax]

haha. yeah im cool. those were exciting vids. it took me like half an hour to get my bp back to normal though.

 

[bigman40]

was this directed towards me????

No. It's directed to other people, like the time when Ninjalink/Ally/ADHD beat M2k and they blew it out of proportion.

 

[gallax]

ah. lol. just making sure cuz i didnt know if my reaction was blowing shiz oop. i was just super into the fight.

 

[KayLo!]

New video/critique thread:

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=265539

Use that one.