GENERAL INFO
Olimar is a character that is fairly easy to use, but is relatively hard to master. His attacks and his combos may seem simple, but to maximize his combo and killing abilities you must learn to micromanage your Pikmin so that you can use the abilities of each individual Pikmin quickly and efficiently, as well as making sure you have the abilities you want in the first place. Knowing when to move your Blue or Purple Pikmin to the front of the line may decide whether or not you take your opponent's stock.
On top of having to micromanage your Pikmin, Olimar is a character that demands precision. Moving your Purple to the front and missing your kill hit with him means that, unless there is another Purple next in line, your plan is screwed and you'll have to create another opportunity to kill again. Precision is also important when using Pikmin Throw (Side-B) and F-Smash. If a Pikmin fails to hit the opponent and goes offstage, you may not be getting that Pikmin back. Or in the case of a Purple Pikmin Throw or F-Smash in general, going offstage is the end of that Pikmin period.
After learning to deal with these two quirks, Olimar becomes a very strong character capable of filling most any role. He has disjoints, chaingrabs, killing throws, long and damaging combos, and a very strong projectile in Purple Pikmin Throw.
CHARACTER STATS
Difficulty: Intermediate/Advanced
Style: All-Rounder
Defensive Power: Olimar has a weight of 90 (same as Peach, Zelda and Sheik), and a fall speed of 1.9 (same as Bowser, Pikachu, Pit, and Sonic). These two facts, combined with the fact that he's small make Olimar very difficult to combo, and very difficult to kill for most characters. His recovery is also fairly strong as his Neutral-B in the air will give him a small amount of height which can be used for long distance recoveries as well as mixing up short distance recoveries, and his tether is fairly reliable (so long as you have at least 3 Pikmin) and is the only tether in the game that can hit opponents off the ledge and still grab on, often times resulting in a stage spike.
Olimar also has a fair amount of OoS options in his N-Air and F-Air, as well as his grounded Up-B in rare cases. His spotdodge is quick, however it should be noted that his shield roll is terrible.
Olimar is also very easy to tech chase, as his tech roll goes almost no where.
Offensive Power: Olimar has plenty of ways to deal damage, and his Pikmin attacks overall deal more damage than a lot of characters in the game. His ability to land a killing move can be trick though, especially without a Purple Pikmin, and he often times has to rack up more damage than most characters for moves to kill outright in the first place.
Approach Strength: Olimar's fairly quick movement coupled with his fast and disjointed F-air makes approaching with Olimar fairly easy, so long as the opponent's attacks don't outrange him. When he has a Purple Pikmin, his Side-B also turns into one of the strongest projectiles in the game, being able to outprioritize many different attacks and projectiles, allowing Olimar to keep moving forward. Other Pikmin are also able to block projectiles in Olimar's way which allows him to gain ground while the opponent is still recovering from their ranged attacks.
Combo ability: One of Olimar's greatest strengths is that he can combo characters for a long time so long as they are above him, and Olimar has many attacks to start his U-Smash and U-Air juggles. The fast falling characters get hit by this extremely hard as well, letting Olimar easily deal around 70%+ damage, even with proper DI. Couple this with platforms and Olimar's U-Air becomes a great hassle since the Pikmin's hitbox is about as big as Olimar himself and travels about 2 Olimar's away from him making it very easy to beat out other attacks.
N-Air is also a great juggle attack, and both of these attacks combo well into F-Air or B-Air to take opponents off the stage.
Key techniques:
Pikmin Order AKA Whistle- This is one of Olimar's key moves and it's very important that you know how it works, so here's an explantion.
1) Olimar plucks 4 Pikmin that come out in the order of Yellow > Purple > Red > White
2a) If Olimar hasn't whistled yet, or if his last whistle put Purple in front, then that means that it's Red's turn to go to the front of the line and the whistle will reorganize his Pikmin like this: Red > Yellow > White > Purple.
2b) If Olimar has whistled once, then that means that it's Yellow's turn to take the lead. Which would reorganize step 1's list to be: Yellow > White > Purple > Red.
This is important to note, because good organization through Whistle and your Pikmin attacks can lead to you getting the Pikmin you want to the front faster.
As an example of good Whistle organization, let's say your lineup is Red > Blue > Purple > Purple, and it's Blue's turn next Whistle.
Whistle once to make the order Blue > Purple > Purple > Red.
Next use ANY Pikmin attack to change the order Purple > Purple > Red > Blue.
Now you can use both of your Purple Pikmin, then Whistle ONCE and both Purple Pikmin will be the next in line again. This is because the Whistle saves whatever the last color you were on, regardless of how you use your Pikmin. It also saves whoever's next in line after Olimar uses a stock.
