Olimar is a pretty crappy character, right? I think we can all agree that right now his gameplay is extremely uninspired and is like a strange amalgamation of several other Brawl and P:M character styles that plays in a VERY funky and simplistic fashion. I think Olimar by every means necessary needs to MAINTAIN his simplicity. That's the only reason I picked him up as a character and (for now) my main. He's simple enough that I think I've near perfectly etched out what his metagame will be 2 years in the future if he's not changed, and that's /good/ for Olimar, I firmly believe in him being a simplistic character, but he doesn't have enough options. I can describe what I think his metagame will be at a mod or civilian's request.
I first want to point out that it was utterly INGENIUS to make it so that you can't B Reversal his air pluck and to make it like a DJ with heat up (the opposite of cool down). I think this move needs to be an aerial mix up option for Olimar, that makes him dash up in the air (like he does now; possibly add ability to angle it) while plucking and makes him automatically fastfall afterwards (possibly even faster than his regular fastfall), while maintaining the lack of B Reversal. I also think that it should have a hitbox, just for kicks. This partially solves Olimar's lack of approach and also makes his recovery (in tandem with the following change I list in the paragraph below) good but not perfect.
OLIMAR'S WHISTLE should have one-hit heavy armor (armor with conditions of failure/removal in addition to grabs and cutscene attacks/supers) from 40/50%-100% on the ground (this makes crouch canceling and it go near seamlessly into each other, but make sure that there is a margin of around 10-20% where Olimar can be scooped up), and always have one-hit super armor (multi-hits break it) in the air. If you use it in the air, it only works the first time, restoring it's super armor once you hit the ground. This greatly assists his recovery, approach, living power, and his options in general. Also, for the love of God and everything holy, MAKE THE WHISTLE CHANGE PIKMIN ORDER ACCURATELY. If you do it several times in the air, sometimes it makes your order all messed up and janked, and I can't order my Pikmin that way (this jank is actually is good thing if you combine it with the suggested changes of White Pikmin in the paragraphs below, as the semi-randomness would make it so you can react but the foe can't do anything until after they're hit).
Olimar's Pikmin (not their order or pluck rates) are the MOST UNINSPIRED part of him right now.
YELLOW PIKMIN should always do multi-hits for his attacks (even Up-B, but maybe not B-air), maybe even making them not latch onto foes from Pikmin Toss, but instead just act as a multi-hit projectile. Possibly make it so that they heat up and cool down the same as the other Pikmin, but on contact they start doing their multi-hits and stay out longer because of the hitlag. This will greatly add to Olimar's combo game when he does things like his F-Smash, D-Smash, U-Smash (it'd be like Roy's), and a landed F-air into grabs (which I will get to later). His combo game stinks. Don't deny it. He needs this. I also think that Yellow Pikmin, if active-damage projectiles, should do hardly any shield damage but should have a decent amount of shieldstun, which would improve his anti-shield game (grabs won't cut it, they're not that good). This isn't broken because Olimar throws Yellow Pikmin at high angle, not to mention that Yellow Pikmin move so slowly, which makes throwing it at shields kinda difficult. If this last change is implemented, possibly make them even SLOWER (similar to Lucario's Super Sphere, but arcing and much smaller) in the air than they are now, make them only have Brawl Diddy's Peanut hitstun (and likewise Wolf's sourspott N-air) on each hit and move slowly, stopping their movement and active hitstun when ### amount if hits on a foe is done. Make them ignore Olimar's command until landing upon the ground, being hit (think Din's Fire level of priority), or hitting the foe the right amount of times. This makes Olimar's Recovery nerfed and potentially self-screwable while still giving him a great attack.
The only change for PURPLE PIKMIN I can think of that other people haven't mentioned (I'm looking at you, Purple Pikmin Pikmin Toss with momentum) is that Purple Pikmin D-air should have the same basic properties as DK's Headbutt (plow into ground on grounded foes and meteor/spike on air foes). Actually, I take that back, I thought up another: have All of the other Pikmin do spikes if sweetspotted (meteor on sourspot), but have Purple Pikmin D-air be a POWERFUL meteorsmash when sweetspotted and an okay spike if sourspotted. One more: Purple Pikmin should do a lot of shield damage and also have a lot of shieldstun out of Pikmin Toss. This gives Olimar just a little bit of situational shield pressure (if this is combined with previously mentioned Whistle jank, then the foe won't know if to shield or to jump and dodge when they predict a Pikmin Toss).
WHITE PIKMIN gave me the zaniest idea that's still amazing at the same time: reversed knockback. Give White Pikmin the opposite direction of knockback on all attacks. D-air would hit upward, U-air would hit downward, F-air would hit backwards, B-air would hit forwards, F-smash would be backward, U-Smash would be downward, and I think you get the picture. This improves combo game once more, and as I said with the Whistle's janked up order-changing, could make it so the opponent doesn't know what DI to do and you won't have to because you have more time to react to it than he does. I also think, that if it's not like this already, that White Pikmin should lose HP for every hit they land on the foe when Pikmin Tossed onto them, and that like Zelda's Transformation and Din's Fire relationship, they should explode (possibly make it weaker than the normal explosion) when you recall them with Whistle, making Pikmin Toss that much more useful. White Pikmin should have less shieldstun and shield damage than Red and Blue Pikmin, and if you space White Pikmin aerials to the leave/bulb/flower on their head, they should inflict a Lip's Stick flower to the foe.
RED PIKMIN are pretty much good as is. Make them the standard, average Pikmin.
BLUE PIKMIN actually have slightly longer range on grab than White Pikmin (assuming idle animations don't change hurtbox of characters)--this is not a change, just interesting--I tested it in Training Mode today. I think they should have less lag after grabs (this makes sense with the lower paragraphs regarding grabs). Blue Pikmin, in honor of their visual water effects (please forgive misuse of affects and effects), I think that at the sides of their hitboxes, they should have relatively strong push effects. If they get Pikmin Tossed onto the foe and push them VERY slightly each time they smack (you could amp up the push if you co-related it to a smaller beats-per-minute of his whacks), and possibly leave a small and weak stream of water behind them when Pikmin Tossed.
EXTRA PIKMIN STUFF: I'm thinking that maybe having one of the Pikmin (if Red is to maintain neutrality like Sweden, it can't be him) could have a Diddy's Monkey Flip style grab when Pikmin Tossed, so that the foe is temporarily detained. Obviously this is not necessary, but just a cool idea.
PIKMIN GRABS are NOT okay the way they are now. They have the Melee Kirby effect of foes escaping halfway through the throws (and sometimes the grab itself, I'm pretty sure) at low percents, which is dumb and should be stopped, because one of Olimar's greatest assets is his grabs. I think the Pikmin when doing grabs should move advance MUCH faster and go just a bit further. Here's the catch: when Pikmin MISS a grab, they enter the lay down animation (also known to me as the Mating Pose) and IGNORE COMMANDS FOR 3-7 SECONDS (make them vulnerable or invulnerable when lying down as deemed necessary for balance). This makes his recovery self-screwable and prevents spam of grabs. It might also should damage his Pikmin by 1/3rd of their health. I also think that Pikmin should be able to be hit out of their grab animation, maintaining punishment of foolishness while still being great moves.
PIKMIN TOSS (regardless of Pikmin) should have less cooldown after each toss on the ground and maybe give just an itsy bit of forward momentum/increase the distance of his Wavedash when used during the sliding (maybe only increase it if used at the end of it if you want it to not be OP). This increases his mixups on-ground and lets him be even more slippery and agile.
OLIMAR'S D-TILT should have some level of armor, possibly correlating with the CC and grounded Whistle armor. This move stinks and has no purpose. It needs one. Badly. If it has armor, then he has another approach option, which Olimar could greatly use since he's stuck in a mediocre mix between the two in his current state.
OLIMAR'S F-TILT should carry ground momentum from Wavedashing/landing and have a bit more priority. It could also be able to act as a lasting-hit N-air (think Mario's and Luigi's) that goes offstage like Diddy and Donkey Kong's dash attacks.
OLIMAR'S N-AIR is useless right now. Period. You can't expect to land this move that has total lack of range, hold-in (the effect that lets you hit will all of the hits of Roy's U-Smash, Pikachu's D-Smash, etc.), and power, could be like Pichu's Melee N-air, where spins in a forward somersault, except Olimar would hold a Pikmin. This move wouldn't be near as good as F-air or B-air for spacing, obviously, but it'd be a good move in teams and it would be a good get-off-my-back move.
OLIMAR'S NOLIMAR ATTACKS should still have hitboxes. Seriously, they should. Just be really weak and unusable.
I haven't read the previous pages, so I don't know which changes would go well with these, but if you do these changes, Olimar will be absolutely ADORED among competitive Smashers, as his inspiration/creativity and his application and simplicity thereof will be phenomenal. You could even go the distance of making Pikmin affect his weight/fallspeed, making him fall faster automatically whenever he uses Purple Pikmin in the air (could make their landing cool down 1-4 frames longer, which would fix it but not traumatize Olimar's movement) and making him go less far and fall faster when he gets hit while using them on the ground (maybe only on the heat up of the moves, and not after he tosses them far), and making White Pikmin make him more floaty in the air and less heavy on the ground. You could also do this simply from having that Pikmin in front rather than when using them (changing to the next Pikmin effect after the order is changed). You could do this with all of the Pikmin, obviously, but primarily it'd be White and Purple.
You could also decrease the maximum health of a Pikmin by whatever %, make their health revive by whatever % when they change from Leaf to Bulb and Bulb to Flower, or not include the latter of the two changes and make the phase-change more powerful. Think Yellow Pikmin doing an extra hit or two at Flower as compared to Leaf, Blue Pikmin having stronger water effects, Purple Pikmin doing more shieldstun (but not too much), White Pikmin pummeling faster, and Blue Pikmin restoring from a missed grab faster, and Red Pikmin just being more powerful.
If I can find an email address for P:M, as well as a Facebook page, I will be sending this post to both, as I REALLY want Olimar to be a varied but simplistic character that has a decent amount of options and fast movement. It took me 1 hour and 37 minutes to write the words (not the colours) in this post, so please at least look it through.
EDIT: I also want to point out that if you don't use grabs or Pikmin Toss, running around with only one Purple Pikmin is a legitimate strategy with the CURRENT Olimar. You can pick one out in moments of silence (opportune moments when the foe can't attack you) and throw it off it's not purple, and just keep rinsing and repeating (possibly keeping one Blue Pikmin for maximum grab range when needed). I honestly think that this strategy and the "whatever I get" strategy will compete with each other, both with the changes I suggested AND in the current Olimar version.
