Pikachu discussion

[The Star King]

Yeah I've known about it for a while. Sheer probably remembers it since I've used it against him quite a bit. It's a funny gimmick.

 

[Combo Blaze]

yet another way for pika to recover
****

 

[clubbadubba]

If pikachu gets to grab the ledge its already too late.

 

[Pfrog]

Thanks for the quick and helpful responses. I will try to learn falcon as my main. Out of curiosity what are the best ways to approach in pika v pika? If I approach from the air it seems like he can utilt or uair to stop me or if I dash into him he can just spam thunder bolt so I have to jump over them anyway.

 

[clubbadubba]

I will try to learn falcon as my main.

One more for the hoard, I love it.

Out of curiosity what are the best ways to approach in pika v pika? If I approach from the air it seems like he can utilt or uair to stop me or if I dash into him he can just spam thunder bolt so I have to jump over them anyway.

1) You need to be using short hop aerials. If you are full hopping and then just coming onto him he has to much time to counter you.

2) That being said, going all in with even a short hop aerial is dangerous without a setup. Its safer to spam short hop bair or short hop double uair, making sure that even when you're "approaching" that you are moving away from him as you land so its harder for him to defend or punish after you land.

3) If his defense when you dash towards him is to neutral b the ground, you should destroy him. Run towards him, when he neutral b's SHORT HOP over it and easy free aerial hit should result. If it doesn't then you were too far away to begin with and try and close the gap a bit in the neutral game.

4) Pika's uair is godlike, so in general avoid being directly above another pikachu. Your dair will not win if he plays it right, so getting in that position does you no good. If you find yourself in that position, don't just ff dair him cuz you'll lose, instead get yourself out of that situation.

 

[stylisland]

So I was trying to learn Pika's Double Up Recovery and on semi-rare occasions he would go up once and face to the left. I was under the impression that if you Up B with Pika straight up he always faces to the right. If that's true what was happening?

Edit: I figured out how it was happening but I still didn't know it was possible. If you press up B release then up and slide to the left on the stick Pika will face left, also works going down.

 

[MrMarbles]

i wasn't aware of that. wouldn't inputing left just cause pika to zip left after zipping upward? (by zip i mean the up-b animation but i dont know what to call it)

 

[stylisland]

i wasn't aware of that. wouldn't inputing left just cause pika to zip left after zipping upward? (by zip i mean the up-b animation but i dont know what to call it)

It's kind of a light input like a tilt, when you do it you can kind of "feel" it. I would record it if I had the means right now. I was able to do it on dreamland going Up and down on the right side to regrab the ledge which could be useful since I didn't think that was an option but it's a risk I SD'd a lot. Also I was playing with a controller so I don't know if it's possible on KB. If you practice it in training mode I'm sure you'll see what I'm talking about.

 

[MrMarbles]

It's kind of a light input like a tilt, when you do it you can kind of "feel" it. I would record it if I had the means right now. I was able to do it on dreamland going Up and down on the right side to regrab the ledge which could be useful since I didn't think that was an option but it's a risk I SD'd a lot. Also I was playing with a controller so I don't know if it's possible on KB. If you practice it in training mode I'm sure you'll see what I'm talking about.

i will definitely check that out when i get the chance

 

[stylisland]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RE6LXBGpwhU&feature=youtu.be

Sorry it's filmed so ****ty I filmed it with my phone holding it between my chin and chest

 

[Sangoku]

Here's a video showing it. I did it in 5 minutes with speakers off, so I don't even know if it has sound and the video quality is mediocre. Explanation is in the description, but I'll re-write it here.

So basically, you're just inputting left so slightly that you don't notice the angle. Your pikachu is actually not going completely vertical. Going 1 left and 128 up: tan(x)=1/128 => x=0.4476°. Such a small angle is not noticeable and makes you think you go vertically.

So in practice, to face left, just input left as slightly as you can (but above your deadzone, 1 would never work with a deadzone of 5 obviously).

 

[stylisland]

Here's a video showing it. I did it in 5 minutes with speakers off, so I don't even know if it has sound and the video quality is mediocre. Explanation is in the description, but I'll re-write it here.

So basically, you're just inputting left so slightly that you don't notice the angle. Your pikachu is actually not going completely vertical. Going 1 left and 128 up: tan(x)=1/128 => x=0.4476°. Such a small angle is not noticeable and makes you think you go vertically.

So in practice, to face left, just input left as slightly as you can (but above your deadzone, 1 would never work with a deadzone of 5 obviously).

The weirdest part is now if I press Up B release then just let it go with no input at all it'll still do it facing left. Does this mean I broke my stick slightly? It does the same for down too, every time I go down it will face left. I can get Pika to face to the right by doing the slight turn with the stick. Is this common knowledge because I've never seen it in a video or match, at least to my recollection. I also plugged in another stick and pika was still automatically facing left.

 

[Sangoku]

Try re-calibrating it in windows. If it doesn't change, try downloading the TAS input plugin and see if it is 0 as the x-axis. If no, then you "broke" your joystick (recalibrating would probably fix it though). If yes, then you shouldn't be facing left.

I don't know if it was common knowledge (I knew it lol), but I'm pretty sure I've seen Banze do that (which I thought was risky).

 

[stylisland]

I'm playing offline I have a mac therefore I can't play online

 

[Sangoku]

Who talked about online?

I don't know how to calibrate in a Mac though.

 

[stylisland]

I'm sorry, I meant offline on console. Unless you can calibrate your controller on a PC for console and you knew what I meant then I'm sorry for that as well.

 

[Sangoku]

Oh yeah that makes sense lol. Is the hand moving on its own in the character select screen?

 

[stylisland]

No it doesn't, nothing is notably out of the ordinary. Except the fact that pika will face left on Up-B's now. Unless I try to make him face right, which is a little difficult but not impossible.

 

[Sangoku]

Weird, I don't know. You're sure you let go quickly enough so that the joystick is already in neutral position before Pikachu even starts moving? If not and you keep up or down pressed, it's probably that you're not perfectly accurate in your up/down and go unnoticeably (is that even a word? ) left. I know I sometimes suicide while Up Bing down on the left ledge.

 

[MrMarbles]

i had no idea pika's up-b was that precise. i always figured there were only like 16 or 24 possible directions

 

[mixa]

It' funny, the exact same thing was discussed/explained here yesterday. edit - it doesn't need to be a pure left in 64, it seems.

Banze does a lot of those, though I'm not sure how vertical they are.

 

[stylisland]

Weird, I don't know. You're sure you let go quickly enough so that the joystick is already in neutral position before Pikachu even starts moving? If not and you keep up or down pressed, it's probably that you're not perfectly accurate in your up/down and go unnoticeably (is that even a word? ) left. I know I sometimes suicide while Up Bing down on the left ledge.

Yeah I release Up right away and it'll still go to the left. I guess I can live with it though I mean I can get Pika to face right and I guess the turn left automatically may catch some people off guard.

 

[Shears]

I used to have the same problem. At first I thought there was something wrong with my controller, what I ended up realizing was my thumb was slightly to the left and not perfectly straight up. If your pika is facing right he will turn left if the joystick is any degree to the left even if you think its straight up, it may be just a slight degree to the left but still left. He turns around in motion so its not about how the stick is when you release it, but how the stick is when his direction is determined. Your hands natural motion is to slightly pull left because you are using your left hand. If you were to somehow get a right handed joystick for your n64 the same problem would occur but to the right. This can be used to your advantage because you can easily sweet spot the ledge when directly above or below it but not facing it. Just use this "pivot" up-b to turn around and burgle the ledge from your opponent.

 

[Sangoku]

Just to clarify for any potential reader, the above post is not true. It doesn't matter what you input as long as it's registered as an Up B. It can be Up left, Up, or Up right. This will only register the Up B move. Then you need to choose the direction and that is influenced by what you input between the 20th and 21st frame after the Up B has been input. If you don't input anything between these frames (20-21), then Pikachu will go up and face right by default. So yeah, basically the initial direction input doesn't influence the direction during the Up B, which is determined later. Which means that if you let the joystick go back to its original position quickly enough, Pikachu shouldn't be facing left, except if the neutral position of your joystick is a bit left.

And after further testing, it looks like it's actually kinda easy to go left. If you input anything <-60 on the left axis and between -10 and 10 on the right axis, the actual angle isn't registered and Pikachu will go up and face left. (If you input exactly (60;0) he will go double vertical, as we know). Again this comforts the view that your joystick is going a bit left in its neutral position.

 

[Shears]

My post is validated by your technical description, not disproved by it. The direction pikachu faces is determined at the time when up-b's direction is determined (this is different than when the up-b move is registered to begin, which is where I believe you misinterpreted me). Frames 20-21 which you technically pointed out do not occur as pikachu is moving, but when he is stationary and direction is being determined. These frames fall into the set where pikachus up-b direction is determined and it is within these frames where pikachu can be turned around if the joystick is any bit to the left. Saying I am wrong and then rewording what I said with technical information only to reiterate my point, does not make me wrong. Please take careful time to read posts.

 

[Sangoku]

Yeah I probably misinterpreted your post, sorry.

"my thumb was slightly to the left and not perfectly straight up. If your pika is facing right he will turn left if the joystick is any degree to the left even if you think its straight up, it may be just a slight degree to the left but still left. He turns around in motion so its not about how the stick is when you release it,"

This part confused me, because you talked about "straight up" while the joystick should be neutral by then, so it is about "how the stick is when you release it", unless you don't release fast enough, as I said in an above post. And the 20-21 frames is the transition between Pikachu not moving and starts moving (actually one frame earlier because of frame delay, as usual). Anything you do while he's not moving doesn't matter.

Anyway, as you said we're both agreeing on this, so everything is fine.

 

[Shears]

Haha peace has come to the world.

 

[Shears]

I was thinking about pivoting with pika and what the best option would be. I usually punish with a pivot grab to either a fthrow or bthrow depending on damage and stage position, but recently I was thinking about the effectiveness of pikas usmash to thunder snipe. Does anyone pivot usmash to thunder snipe? With a lot of characters on the 3 stages, you can get kills around 100% while with a throw you depend on edgeguarding which isn't a certainty. Even if shielded, the stun from the usmash will allow a follow up with a grab or another usmash so you can still realistically get that pivot grab in either way. If the player gets off a roll away you wouldn't exactly be able to chase it using usmash instead of grab, but if they roll in, the back end of the usmash hits and can be followed with a bair to get the kill as well. What are peoples thoughts on this/what do people usually do with their pivot game?

 

[mixa]

U-smash to jabgrab at 0% is a true combo on Fox/Falcon and is cool as hell: http://gfycat.com/FlatThunderousGoral

 

[Cobrevolution]

mixa when you jabgrab with any character does it increase the range of the grab? that is, if the opponent is far enough that a grab will not hit, but a jab will, will the jabgrab thus allow the player to get the throw?

 

[mixa]

The only jabgrab character I play is Ness, and for him I'd say it's the opposite, i.e., in the same scenario, grab will connect, but jabgrab won't, because the jab pushed the opponent farther away than the grab can reach. At certain %s it's impossible to jabgrab with Ness.

Pikachu's grab has more range than his jab, so no.

Don't know about Mario and Luigi. But I'd go with no as well.

 

[Shears]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought the way jabgrabs worked was the grab starts before the jab finishes. The jab comes out, then during the jabs cooldown there are iasa frames where the grab can come out. Because pikas body is pushed forward during the jab, if the grab was to come out as his body was still lunged forward, wouldn't the grab reach further than if he was standing? Heres some algebra.

Pikas standing position is x. so P=x
The jab lunges pikas body forward a distance of Y(t) where Y is a positive number dependent on frame, t, since pikas position changes throughout the jab (we are assuming forward direction is positive).
So pikas position during the jab is x+Y(t). so P=x+Y(t)
At a certain t, the jab can be interrupted, and pikas grab will come out, where the hitbox of the grab is a distance z from pikas body in the positive direction.
So pikas grab is at position P+z. so G=P+z
Using the substitution property we get Gs=x+z at standing and Gj=x+Y(t)+z in jabgrab
By proof of induction, if Y(t) is always positive, and the property of addition between two positive numbers is a number greater than either of the two being added, then x+Y(t)>x and so x+Y(t)+z>x+z meaning Gj>Gs.

This is all assuming the jab can be interrupted and the grab doesn't reset the characters position back to x.

 

[mixa]

yeah, the grab resets the character's position back to x. else, characters would move forward with jabgrabs. you can frame advance this jabgrab gif by clicking the red arrow in the bottow right corner: http://gfycat.com/LikableDenseDore

Pikachu also suffers from the problem I described for Ness, see below.



more on jabgrabs, because most of this was done already:

A jab can be cancelled into a grab 1 or 2 frames later after the jab input. In other words, if frame 1 is when you input A (jab), you have frames 2 and 3 to input grab. With all characters.

The reason jabgrab is only useful for those 4 characters is because they're the only characters whose jabs have hitboxes that come out on frame 2. The rest of the cast has slower jabs.

One application of this is the following:

On Peach's Castle, if you're Pikachu vs a Mario, DK, or Pikachu, and the ports selected by the players are 1P 3P (common ports in tournament), you can, at the very start of the game -- when the screen displays 'GO!' -- buffer A and turn that into a jabgrab with precise timing. Or you can buffer a grab.

Obviously this is not news, but I'm not sure the Pikachus who do that know that it only works vs 3 characters and that you can buffer A (or grab).
From that 1P 3P position, Pikachu's grab connects vs all characters, but if you jabgrab, it'll only connect vs those 3. And if you do it against any of the 9, they'll be in frame advantage.

[collapse=Jabgrabs successful vs Mario, DK, Pikachu]

[/collapse]

[collapse=Jabgrabs won't connect vs Fox, Kirby, Puff, etc]

[/collapse]

 

[MrMarbles]

wow i actually never knew you could buffer before the start of a match i always thought you had to time a move after the start so thats awesome info to know. Also good stuff about which chars the jab-grab works on from the start of a match i never knew that

 

[Chaostatic]

Any advice for the Falcon match up? Despite playing falcon often (my good friend is a Falcon main), I really dislike this match up.

I know you guys don't know my skill level, so don't worry about that, any bit of advice is fine. I just want to hear what other people have to say.

My main problem is approaching. Falcon is the only character I don't feel comfortable approaching with Pika. Also, I know that Pika has a LOT of ways to edge guard falcon? Which way do you guys think works the best?

I'm not terrible at the match up, but there's always room for improvement.

Thanks guys!

 

[Maliki]

Um don't get grabbed

 

[Sangoku]

This is a perfect example of what I meant in the social thread. Someone asks a question about a matchup and those who would be able to answer don't and those who aren't able to are willing to.

 

[Maliki]

Okay sangoku I think that don't get grabbed is pretty good advice. Pika on falcon match up is terrible for pika and there is barley anything pika can do. All I can think is space until you get a grab and than throw him of the ledge to edge gaurd but I'm not even sure if that's the best option. The match up is really hard and you have to out space and camp the opponent to get first hit so dont get up smashed or forward throwed. Work on getting better spacing if you want to do good I guess

 

[mixa]

I don't feel comfortable approaching with Pika

As Pikachu, this is how you approach Falcon, or any other character, really: http://center2.gfycat.com/WhisperedShallowHound

Also, I know that Pika has a LOT of ways to edge guard falcon? Which way do you guys think works the best?

Watch vids. I guess some people just (re)discover stuff on their own, but watch vids.

I remember Kero's edgeguards being interesting. Here's a set from the wonder twins of New York: RBR # 13: KeroKeroppi vs Stranded Loser's Finals

When you think Falcon will overshoot but he doesn't, you can still put a f-tilt out there, like Kero did here.

Use the up-B to the ledge while edgeguarding (not the best example but hopefully you get the idea).


There's more nuance to that but 1. I don't know your skill level so your question is vague 2. I don't play Pika.
And I agree with Sangoku. However, it's always seemed natural to me that the skilled don't discuss, so I've grown used to it. Discussion is better than no discussion, even if Isai were to pop in at the very end, quote everyone and say 'ur dum'. :3

 

[Maliki]

That whole match up is just bad edge guarding is so hard. At high damage you can f smash low maybe d tilt or f tilt some times you can go of the edge after them but you have to be careful