PIkachu Patch 1.06 Notes

[mercy]

PIkachu has a move that juggles, breaks combo, and kill reliably at percentages < 100%? If not, then he cannot possibly be the new Diddy Kong

 

[ZTD | TECHnology]

If it turns out Pikachu is the new "Diddy Kong" to the community I might just give up. I feel like a lot of people will start to argue about Pikachu, Wario, and Luigi now. Truth is, we don't need anymore nerfs, we just need to buff other characters in the roster. I'm fine with balancing, but now I'm afraid of the game eventually becoming slower paced because of everyone getting nerfed.

Outside of the ledge mechanic change to Pikachu, he the same character that he was before the patch. He shares an expansive combo game, good rushdown abilities and a strong neutral game with Pre 1.06 Diddy. But that's about it. He requires more work, technical profiency and finesse (higher skill cap will scare away frauds). In addition,he has no "easy" kill options. You have to work for it. He's far from Diddy in terms of overall theme of playstyle.

 

[Reaper Talk]

Okay, I really need to work on my wording.
I know this isn't relevant to the actual patch so this will be my last post on the subject.
When I said "Pikachu is the next Diddy" I wasn't referring to his gameplay style.
There's always that one character people complain about in a fighting game, and lately I feel Pikachu is getting more hate (this is strictly based off of what I've seen on the internet).
I know a lot of people wanted the Pikachu QA lag cancel on platforms to be patched out, which it wasn't.
Pikachu is by no means broken, I just feel like Pikachu is going to be complained about more often now that Sheik and Diddy got nerfed.

 

[Angiance]

People can complain about Pikachu all they want, they don't realize that he is the hardest character to use in the game. He can overwhelm the opponent with attacks, but my God-the amount of precision, speed, and consistency required is incomparable, and what balances it all out

You have to literally stay on your opponent's ASS just to do well with Pikachu

 

[LunarWingCloud]

Yeah Pikachu is not at all easy to be great with. That is gonna turn away a lot of potential top level rep.

 

[AncientCode42]

As a Pikachu main I can't tell you how annoying it is to constant have to be on edge because of the kill struggles. I mean when my opponent is at high % it's so hard to do anything a lot of the time, so I'm constantly on the run hoping the kill will come in the next blow. It pains me to see that Pika's KO options are lacking this time around, all because people wouldn't stop complaining about him being "cheap" in Brawl, when he really wasn't.

I know this isn't the exact reason, but still it got annoying. Especially when Thunder isn't a cheap move, but yet complain it's cheap. Typical whiny fans. -.- I may not be competitive yet, but I can at least admit my mistakes.

Despite things I love Pikachu's style, I still find him more fun to play with than previously. But man are those KOs hard to get. :/ I hope I"m not the only one who thinks all of this.

 

[NachoThePikachu]

I find that KOs are difficult to get after an opponent is at 120+ damage. Typically, if I can get a thunder combo going on an opponent at 100% near the edge and they don't see it coming/can't DI, I get my kill and I'm good. Once I can't get my thunder combo, I have the same problem.
Edge guarding with Pika is fairly safe, if you tried to get kills that way. F-Airs are useful for keeping an opponent offstage, and if you can get a recovery to fail it's highly unlikely that Pika wouldn't be able to make it back to the edge. ouo
Otherwise, yeah I can see where you're coming from. XP

 

[AncientCode42]

I find that KOs are difficult to get after an opponent is at 120+ damage. Typically, if I can get a thunder combo going on an opponent at 100% near the edge and they don't see it coming/can't DI, I get my kill and I'm good. Once I can't get my thunder combo, I have the same problem.
Edge guarding with Pika is fairly safe, if you tried to get kills that way. F-Airs are useful for keeping an opponent offstage, and if you can get a recovery to fail it's highly unlikely that Pika wouldn't be able to make it back to the edge. ouo
Otherwise, yeah I can see where you're coming from. XP

From the sounds of it, it sounds like Pika is either bad or not a tier material character.. I've heard many controversial things. Well I'm still trying to learn competitive play, so there's that. But I can agree with what you stated.

 

[NachoThePikachu]

Not tier material?? Hah! Pikachu may have a little more trouble with his kills, but I assure you, he's competitive gold and definitely tier material. His combo and air game is amazing, and even if you can't get kills as easily I can't tell you how many times I've watched a competitive Pikachu user do some crazy stuff off stage to get a kill. His recovery is one of the best and I have yet to see pika fail to get back to the stage after edge guarding. @u@
That's the great thing about Pika, he's harder to use but once you can master him, he's amazing. :3

 

[AncientCode42]

Not tier material?? Hah! Pikachu may have a little more trouble with his kills, but I assure you, he's competitive gold and definitely tier material. His combo and air game is amazing, and even if you can't get kills as easily I can't tell you how many times I've watched a competitive Pikachu user do some crazy stuff off stage to get a kill. His recovery is one of the best and I have yet to see pika fail to get back to the stage after edge guarding. @u@
That's the great thing about Pika, he's harder to use but once you can master him, he's amazing. :3

You are totally right. I guess I was just worried a bit and said that out of freaking out, I would hate for my favorite Smash character and main to be low tier. XD But yeah You are right about everything you said, although I'm not the best yet. I'm still learning to be competitive. XD

 

[Dashie]

I know this isn't the exact reason, but still it got annoying. Especially when Thunder isn't a cheap move, but yet complain it's cheap. Typical whiny fans. -.- I may not be competitive yet, but I can at least admit my mistakes.

Thunder isn't broken, nor cheap... Uh in competitive play.

Other than that #CASUALSCRUBS
I guess they find the move janky.

Although in general terms it is fun to pick on and I'm a dedicated pika main.

 

[Dark 3nergy]

Pika is probably best in the game now, legit. I'll be winning CEO

I'd have to agree whole heartily. I have yet to land myself in a match where I feel my Pikachu couldn't handle it with his current default move set.

I say that very cautiously though..as any frame or hitbox adjustment on any of his moves I feel will tip the scales in another MUs favor. However I feel hes justifiably balanced and the technical gated-ness of his high level play style will keep Nintendo/Namco Bandai from toying with him. Since lets face it, thats what happened to Diddy Kong. People cried wolf HARD.

 

[JayWon]

People can complain about Pikachu all they want, they don't realize that he is the hardest character to use in the game. He can overwhelm the opponent with attacks, but my God-the amount of precision, speed, and consistency required is incomparable, and what balances it all out

You have to literally stay on your opponent's *** just to do well with Pikachu

lol Pikachu is not the hardest character to use in the game. Have you tried controlling Palutena with Lightweight? And you can't afford to accidentally do a tilt or whiff a grab cuz you're punished to the the max. Palutena doesn't have easy automatic pressure like Villager just sending out his Lloyd or Pikachu sending out a thunder jolt. And a lot of Pikachu's moves are safe to just throw out. Almost all of Palutena's ground moves you have to make it count. And I don't think precision is associated with Pikachu other than QA canceling and Thunder spike but even then those are very lenient. Precision is more appropriate for characters like Zelda. But speed and consistency I agree.

Pikachu is a great character that ends up doing most of the approaching cuz most other characters obviously are overwhelmed and struggle when dealing with Pikachu and thus end up being defensive. And yes Pikachu has to work hard and persistent and has a lot of button inputs. But Pikachu is not the hardest character to use in the game. And it's not hard to win with Pikachu either. He's super unpunishable and very safe but the times top Pikachu players lose is because you can see they don't have patience and just hate not being overly aggressive, cuz Pikachu can afford to always be overly aggressive if precision is mastered. It seems like the better one is with Pikachu, we just all end up can't standing being campy with Pikachu, unlike Shiek mains and her needles and Rosalina.

But Pikachu is definitely not the hardest character to use in the game.

 

[Angiance]

lol Pikachu is not the hardest character to use in the game. Have you tried controlling Palutena with Lightweight? And you can't afford to accidentally do a tilt or whiff a grab cuz you're punished to the the max. Palutena doesn't have easy automatic pressure like Villager just sending out his Lloyd or Pikachu sending out a thunder jolt. And a lot of Pikachu's moves are safe to just throw out. Almost all of Palutena's ground moves you have to make it count. And I don't think precision is associated with Pikachu other than QA canceling and Thunder spike but even then those are very lenient. Precision is more appropriate for characters like Zelda. But speed and consistency I agree.

Pikachu is a great character that ends up doing most of the approaching cuz most other characters obviously are overwhelmed and struggle when dealing with Pikachu and thus end up being defensive. And yes Pikachu has to work hard and persistent and has a lot of button inputs. But Pikachu is not the hardest character to use in the game. And it's not hard to win with Pikachu either. He's super unpunishable and very safe but the times top Pikachu players lose is because you can see they don't have patience and just hate not being overly aggressive, cuz Pikachu can afford to always be overly aggressive if precision is mastered. It seems like the better one is with Pikachu, we just all end up can't standing being campy with Pikachu, unlike Shiek mains and her needles and Rosalina.

But Pikachu is definitely not the hardest character to use in the game.

He is because he has an extremely high learning curve-the characters you just mentioned are much easier to learn

Pikachu is very, very, very powerful, but it takes an incredibly high degree of knowledge to utilize his power to the point of him being top tier. Pikachu is essentially low-mid tier until one breaks a certain level of skill and control with him

 

[Kaladin]

He is because he has an extremely high learning curve-the characters you just mentioned are much easier to learn

Pikachu is very, very, very powerful, but it takes an incredibly high degree of knowledge to utilize his power to the point of him being top tier. Pikachu is essentially low-mid tier until one breaks a certain level of skill and control with him

That can be said about any high/top tier character in the game, the level of skill required simply varies.

 

[Angiance]

Yes, but many characters have a simple routine you can learn and do well with-Pikachu has no routine, you have to think about every single attack you're about to put out, and they must be precise-couple this with the fact that you must attack your opponent consistently at a very, very quick rate and you've got a very hard to use/learn character

 

[JayWon]

Everyone has the tendency to be bias. Both Palutena and Pikachu are my primary mains, and from my personal experience/biases, I think Palutena is much harder, much more technically demanding, and not very intuitive to play either. Pikachu is standard character with moves that does what it should do with great start/end frame data.

Palutena is not much easier to learn than Pikachu. I admit what I stated about how much harder Palutena is than Pikachu is an opinion which I believe to be quite valid but at least I'm aware what I'm saying is bias and not definitive fact. Angiance on the other hand... bro I've been seeing you a lot on pikachu's forums lately and you state everything not only as the absolute truth but way too personally as well. Kinda contradicts itself doesn't it?

 

[Angiance]

@ JayWon
Pikachu is very hard to use, yes-yes he is

Also: please adress me as female

 

[Dashie]

When using Pikachu you can mess up really easily as well.
For instance if you miss a sweet spot with quick attack on a ledge you can SD, or can miss recovering back onto a thin stage barely.
If you do an aerial to fast while trying to edge guard your momentum could be to fast to quick attack back to the stage and SD.

If your not precise with your offensive options your could get heavily punished.
I personally find it very important to cooperate defensive play as well to aid in mind games.

I find that people can call Pikachu OP when I use him, although when they try they fail pretty hard to understand how to use him.

 

[AncientCode42]

Even though I'm a Pika main I do mess up at times. I'm still actually learning Pika, plus I'm new in terms of competitive play. Trying to improve my skills. Although I must say he has such amazing potential in this game, the amount of combos he can rack up, faster speed and such. However. I noticed how spot on you have to be with your moves which can make things annoying.

With a Custom Pika I like to use Thunder Wave and Heavy Skull Bash (it actually makes the move not useless.) Although I wonder has anybody used Pika's Meteor Quick Attack, is it good? I'm planning on using it.

 

[Angiance]

@ AncientCode42
Heavy Quick Attack is completely useless. It comboes into nothing, can't be comboed into, kills our recoverability and-look, just don't use it, Quick Attack is one of the best specials in the game-just stick with that

 

[[FBC] ESAM]

Yeah, normal Quick Attack is one of the best moves in the game, no real reason to change it.

I just agreed with Angiance. Huh...

Pika definitely has a high learning curve but he isn't the MOST difficult character to play (I would probably give that to greninja). He does have his BnBs of utilt uair fair, fair strings, and kill set-ups and fairly simple edgeguarding. It is hard to keep on the pressure as him though, which is why I don't see many other people besides...myself doing it.

 

[Dashie]

Even a high level player like Kenny can fail to execute a quick attack.
https://youtu.be/uAYKr3BKcPw?t=8m18s

My mentality started to crumble when I tried vsing the top player in my region in tournament (can view the vid in the pika video thread (latest post atm)).
I was hoping to have an easier match as my first one though because I kinda saw it coming.
Although that could be something with any character.
Something I need to work on.

 

[Kenrawr]

Even a high level player like Kenny can fail to execute a quick attack.
https://youtu.be/uAYKr3BKcPw?t=8m18s

I was really drunk >>

edit: But yeah it can be pretty easy to be clumsy w/ Pikachu.

 

[Dashie]

Haha well that's interesting ><
I wonder how awesome it would feel to play smash drunk xD

 

[[FBC] ESAM]

Not a fan of it personally at all lol

 

[Kaladin]

Not a fan of it personally at all lol

What 'it' are you referring to?

 

[Kenrawr]

Haha well that's interesting ><
I wonder how awesome it would feel to play smash drunk xD

It's awesome till you lose. Specially on a recording setup.

Not a fan of it personally at all lol

Yeah, do not recommend.

Edit: Enough drink talk. I didn't mean to derail the thread.

 

[[FBC] ESAM]

Am I the only one that feels like the thunder cloud hitbox is smaller?

 

[Thor]

People can complain about Pikachu all they want, they don't realize that he is the hardest character to use in the game. He can overwhelm the opponent with attacks, but my God-the amount of precision, speed, and consistency required is incomparable, and what balances it all out

You have to literally stay on your opponent's *** just to do well with Pikachu

No no no no no.

It's hard to play bad characters, not good ones. Sure, it's hard to play Fox in Melee, but Bowser is a zillion times harder to play at a top level, because every single commitment costs you so much more than it does with Fox [Fox doesn't even have a useless move, rapid jab is bad not near the ledge but that's about it].

Smash 4 Pikachu is NOT the hardest character to use in the game, not even close. To be quite honest, if you just accept that you don't attempt to do swaggy things with Pikachu (like ledge cancel his QA into aerials), Pikachu is still an incredibly strong character [it's easy to land with QA which is really its best function besides recovery] and you have a ton of tools to work with. Compare that to trying to fight Sheik playing as Falco, and you'll see that Falco is way harder to play against a competent opponent, because you just have so many fewer tools to work with [bair all day I guess?]. And there are characters worse off than Falco.

Pikachu MIGHT (might) be the most technically demanding IF you try to maximize flash with QA, but that's really not that necessary for most of the game, and the fact that there are other characters who have fewer options to work with than a Pikachu who doesn't use QA except to get to the ledge indicates he's far from the hardest to play competently.

You're suffering from a lot of character bias here.

 

[[FBC] ESAM]

QA ledge cancels ARE pretty important overall.

 

[Angiance]

Let me rephrase my statement: Pikachu is one of the most technically demanding-but I mean, it takes a lessened amount of understanding to perform well with other characters, not that I'm saying he is THE most

 

[[FBC] ESAM]

I don't think Pikachu is particularly demanding in terms of technicality. You just kinda...need to hit your QA angles. Sheik is probably more technical with her SHFF fairs and such.

 

[Thor]

QA ledge cancels ARE pretty important overall.

I mean they are, but... at the end of the day if you only use QA into the ground [or on platforms] and to recover, you're still playing an at least decently viable, certainly top-half-of-the-cast character. Great boxing is still there and you still have an insane gimp game and recovery, you just are less mobile...which is still a big deal, but it's... just like being every other character without QA?

Don't get me wrong, QA is amazing, worth learning those cancels, etc., but at the end of the day, I think Pikachu is a strong character outside of QA on-stage tricks, and it's QA's utility that makes Pikachu among the best [if not the best outright].

 

[Angiance]

By technically, I mean like-fundamentels I guess

A lot of what is done is fundamentals and such-where a lot of other characters have gimmicks or such and such

And Cloud's hitbox is tiny anyways

 

[[FBC] ESAM]

His fundamentals aren't super hard since he gets so much off of every hit. He doesn't have to play a strong neutral game for the majority of the game. Also, having T-jolt approaches is pretty nice and it dumbs down the neutral game a significant margin. Pika isn't an EASY character but he damn sure isn't the HARDEST.

 

[Angiance]

...well then, I've no clue what I'm trying to say-he's definetely not a pick up and play, that's for sure

 

[[FBC] ESAM]

No character really is though. Some characters rely more on smash fundamentals like Diddy and Mario, but to play any character well you can't just pick them up. Pikachu is no exception and probably on the harder spectrum. He isn't all the way at the end of it, though.

 

[Angiance]

Well okay then, that's understandable. I'm still developing fighting techniques for him myself though-tough little mousey~

 

[Dashie]

Yeh any character is hard to use.
Some you can adapt to and take their style easier than others, of course depending on who is trying to play the character.
Depending on how motivated you are towards the character, time spent on them any other things.

I also use Charizard and Peach (and most other characters)
- Charizard is more basic and straight forward as a heavy hitter (least technical)
- Peach isn't all straight forward and can link into interesting things although I find her more stable for me to use at times (somewhat technical
- Pikachu is the most technical and I've learnt off of other characters to learn how to hold back more

It's not more of each character itself but as the whole game as a piece.