Q&A Pikachu Q&A Thread (Ask a Quick Question, Get a Quick Answer)

[Angiance]

Well, here's the thing: if you drag them down from the air with Falling F.Air they stay on the ground upon landing; if you connect Falling F.Air as they're on the ground it will pop them up.

Falling F.Air will be less likely to convert into anything if they aren't popped up, so...

 

[isaiah :)]

my favorite trick is the FF Fair -> grab Dthrow - upair -> FF (if they are close to the ground still) Fair lol

 

[Angiance]

That's a very common extender of ours, but it's a favorite of mine as well

 

[isaiah :)]

if you dont get shielded the second time a UPsmash would be a perfect mix up

 

[PMMikey]

I'm new to pikachu and was wondering what are some simple setups that I can do?

 

[Kaladin]

I'm new to pikachu and was wondering what are some simple setups that I can do?

Falling fair to anything you want, particularly grabs.

Grab realese near the ledge into ariels- particularly bair or nair.

Uthrow to thunder- even if they DI, you can jump towards them and kill them off the top with thunder.

Dtilt trip to running usmash.

QA into ariels.

Fthrow to fair

Dthrow to any ariel you want- I do Uair (Uair) Nair Bair then dash attack or regrab depending at low %s a lot.

 

[Jaguar360]

I'm new to pikachu and was wondering what are some simple setups that I can do?

U-tilt sets up into more U-tilts at low percents. You can generally get 3-4 in a row, depending on the character. Followup from there with U-air > F-air or B-air. At mid percents, you can get the U-air to F-air/B-air followup.

D-throw to U-air is guaranteed at low-mid percents. You can try for an F-air or B-air afterwards. At very low percents, you can get an U-tilt of of it and do the above.

D-throw to Thunder is an alternative to U-throw to Thunder that is super underrated and that I haven't seen anyone use other than myself. The two setups work better on different characters. D-throw usually works slightly later than U-throw, but is harder to escape for most characters.

GenericHandle covered anything else I thought of.

 

[isaiah :)]

I'm new to pikachu and was wondering what are some simple setups that I can do?

first let me give you this advice, Tjolt isnt to be spammed. please.

 

[Kaladin]

Oh, also- ledge tumps are amazing as Pikachu. If someone regrabs the ledge, you get a free Fsmash. Otherwise, I like to climb back up after a trump, and bair them if they go low and nair or fair them if they go high.

 

[Kaladin]

@ PMMikey one more thing- if you fullhop Tjolts, you can run behind them for a gauenteed grab or ariel. If they shield it, you grab them. If they get hit, you grab them. If they jump, you smack them. It's a great tool.

 

[PMMikey]

This has probably been the most helpful thread ever

 

[Eonn]

I haven't read through this thread yet, so sorry if this has already been asked. I'm fairly new to Smash and just picked up Pikachu a couple nights ago and have a few questions.

1. What's the best way to train solo? What techs/movements and setups/combos should I master first? (I get wrecked in FG and by level 9 CPUs).

2. Best way to punish? I often shield but they avoid the grab or block an uptilt or nair, or they are just out of range.

3. What do I do against ranged/disjointed characters such as Link, Marth, and Megaman?

4. How do I land smash attacks? They seem to be very predictable as Pikachu. I often try to usmash out of shield but I end up getting punished.

5. What aerials cancel and in what situations? I know dair can cancel but the timing seems super strict and it's difficult to do with the c-stick. None of the aerials seem to cancel when fast falling though (fair has low lag but it's still noticeable, while dair, bair, and uair are just atrocious) which I have a habit of doing from playing Fox and Sheik.

Sorry for the wall of text, thanks for any help I get! :D

 

[isaiah :)]

I haven't read through this thread yet, so sorry if this has already been asked. I'm fairly new to Smash and just picked up Pikachu a couple nights ago and have a few questions.

Sorry for the wall of text, thanks for any help I get! :D

their is a guide on the guide section on move reading, for learning the nest punish you should know how to avoid your opponent first, since you said you're losing to everyone that is.
- different training helps develop different aspects of you as a player, for example, training in the lab will help with help build your combo consistency among other things,
-training against other players will help you develop your move reading skills
- and training in against CPU's can potentially help you get better at an assortment of technuiqes like Power Shielding.

3. against projectiles you have a number of ways to avoid them spanning from QA over and under them to just power shielding.
4. you have to commit to pikas Fsmash, so you have to read your opponent in to it or force them in to it

 

[iCaptainn]

Pacman. Dead. Diddy kong. Dead. Ness. Dead. Toon link. Dead. Luigi. Dead. Sonic. Dead. Fox. Dead. Kirby. Dead. Villager. Dead. Legit about to just kill some small beings.


Whhhhyyyyyyyyy is Pikachu destroying every single character I try. Literally anyone I pick he goes on a damn rampage and zips around and bolts the heck out of me and does these ridiculous combos. I can't take it. How can I even beat this thing. Fuming atm.

 

[Kaladin]

Pacman. Dead. Diddy kong. Dead. Ness. Dead. Toon link. Dead. Luigi. Dead. Sonic. Dead. Fox. Dead. Kirby. Dead. Villager. Dead. Legit about to just kill some small beings.


Whhhhyyyyyyyyy is Pikachu destroying every single character I try. Literally anyone I pick he goes on a damn rampage and zips around and bolts the heck out of me and does these ridiculous combos. I can't take it. How can I even beat this thing. Fuming atm.

WE HOLD THE ULTIMATE POWER OF THE CHU! YOU CANNOT WIN! YOU CANNOT ESCAPE! YOU WILL FALL!

In all seriousness, pikachu can't really kill in the air and is stupidly light. Use those to your advantage.

Of the characters you listed, luigi has the best MU against pika... Go to the MU thread and see what it says about luigi, and do what we don't want you to do.

 

[LunarWingCloud]

So after looking up every character's tier list placement and how they fair competitively across every Smash game, I learned something.

Pikachu gets away with murder. The only characters who even come close to being as consistently good from what I read are Fox and Peach. Every other character is either never really top/high tier material or is bad (comparatively, not to say unusable) in at least one game.

 

[isaiah :)]

so how does pika get away with murder? his MU ?

 

[Antonykun]

so how does pika get away with murder? his MU ?

He's saying that Pika is the only character in smash history besides a few Brawl newcomers to be good in all his games

 

[LunarWingCloud]

Brawl and Smash 4 is only 2 games as opposed to 4. I mean poor Marth and Falco, were great in both Melee and Brawl, but got hit pretty hard here.

 

[isaiah :)]

oh yeah pika has been pretty much a great character since smash64

 

[Angiance]

@ LunarWingCloud
I unno, his Melee form definitely has some weak points-and before you bring up Axe: Axe is a very powerful player, and it is more -him- than it is -Pikachu-

 

[Eonn]

I'm having a lot of trouble killing with Pikachu without gimping. Any good kill setups for a smash attack, apart from trying to hard read a roll or something? Thanks.

 

[Kaladin]

I'm having a lot of trouble killing with Pikachu without gimping. Any good kill setups for a smash attack, apart from trying to hard read a roll or something? Thanks.

Apart from baits and falling fair into things, there's Uthrow to thunder. Dair and Ftilt also kill near the edge, which you can often get raw.

 

[Angiance]

@ Eonn
N.Air can cause knockdown from about 35%, (if they don't tech) which you can use to get a jab lock into a semi-charge sweetspot F.Smash

D.Tilt can cause knockdown as well from about 85%, which also goes into a jab lock > F.Smash. D.Tilt is also an amazing setup for fh T.Jolt at high percent-the fh T.Jolt will serve as a powerful form of stage control from that point, as well as a powerful landing trap; D.Tilt > fh T.Jolt > Dash U.Smash

 

[LunarWingCloud]

@ LunarWingCloud
I unno, his Melee form definitely has some weak points-and before you bring up Axe: Axe is a very powerful player, and it is more -him- than it is -Pikachu-

I wasn't going to bring up Axe and even without mentioning him Pikachu still has a lot of different things in his favor

 

[Thor]

Sort of random, but is uthrow -> thunder spike and sweetspot at the base guaranteed if you read their DI [and of course they're in the right percent range] or can they DI the spike enough to not get hit by the base? I've played against some people and they told me they can't DI the spike at all, or at least not enough to not get hit by the base, but is this true? If so, yay, if not, this disappoints me somewhat since I really like that setup.

Also I do dthrow thunder if it seems like they enjoy DIing uthrow behind me, since then Thunder strikes me as a little bit easier to connect.

Spoiler

Pun was intended. Sorry

 

[Angiance]

@ LunarWingCloud
No, he does not. He has three key things in Melee: N.Air, U.Air, and D.Tilt. Of the three options he has, U.Air is the only one that is truly solid

 

[Legato]

Random question: How do you guys QA? I typically slide the control stick around, and I'd say I'm relatively consistent, still a little shaky when going deep on edge guards. Any of you cut the control stick abruptly?

Also random snippet of melee info, Pika has extremely fast air mobility, and his recovery in melee is phenomenol when compared to the cast. I am sure you saw how deep AXE could go on a fox and still make it back. Besides that, melee pika's neutral is severely lack luster.

 

[Kaladin]

Random question: How do you guys QA? I typically slide the control stick around, and I'd say I'm relatively consistent, still a little shaky when going deep on edge guards. Any of you cut the control stick abruptly?

Also random snippet of melee info, Pika has extremely fast air mobility, and his recovery in melee is phenomenol when compared to the cast. I am sure you saw how deep AXE could go on a fox and still make it back. Besides that, melee pika's neutral is severely lack luster.

Good question. I just kinda do it, I'll have to watch my hands next time I play.

 

[Eonn]

@ Eonn
N.Air can cause knockdown from about 35%, (if they don't tech) which you can use to get a jab lock into a semi-charge sweetspot F.Smash

D.Tilt can cause knockdown as well from about 85%, which also goes into a jab lock > F.Smash. D.Tilt is also an amazing setup for fh T.Jolt at high percent-the fh T.Jolt will serve as a powerful form of stage control from that point, as well as a powerful landing trap; D.Tilt > fh T.Jolt > Dash U.Smash

Thanks! By the way, how do you FSmash out of a jab lock? It sounds like a really stupid question, but after I get three jabs in and try to smash (doesn't matter if I'm csticking or manually performing them) Pikachu just jabs again and the opponent gets up.

 

[Thor]

Someone want to explain to me what I'm supposed do in neutral? I mainly t-jolt and look for a grab or a chance to SH fair/dair but I think I'm doing it wrong. I feel like I should be trying to land a utilt but I'm not sure how to set that up.

Grab combos - dthrow -> fair, fthrow -> dash attack, uthrow/dthrow thunder at KO percents. What else should I be doing?

Also can someone explain why dtilt is good? I feel like I dtilt someone and then I try to rush in for grab or whatever but just get jab combo'd away [or grabbed myself]. Yet I've read a few different times "space with dtilt" and I assume that's supposed to do something, but I don't know why it's supposed to be good.

I've been playing more Pikachu [may use him at a tournament tomorrow] and I think it's best to just ask the questions that make me look dumb now so that I'll be using Pikachu's moveset more effectively later on.

 

[Pikabunz]

Dtilt keeps us low, has range, and has very little end lag. All that makes dtilt a really safe spacing move. Dtilt won't ever guarantee into anything unless it trips though because its hitstun is garbage. So the best we can do after getting a dtilt hit is to do some mix ups. Dashing in for a grab seems like the most obvious option, but like you said, the opponent can just spam jab or try to grab you to counter that. So you just need to pick an option that would beat that like fsmash, sh dair, or sh ff fair into whatever. But that doesn't mean you should stop going for grabs after a dtilt, because sometimes your opponent will start shielding or do a back roll when they think you're going to do something else. At higher percents is when dtilt will start knocking your opponent into the ground which is when you want to start doing tech chases or punishing missed techs.

 

[Angiance]

@ Thor
The primary use of D.Tilt is for stage control, since the opponent reeeeeeeeeeeeeeally isn't going to stay unaware of it by any means-it is MASSIVE stage control too-it gets to a point where you can just walk forward and your opponent (without you even performing D.Tilt) will react to it's range as if you have the force or something by like, trying to jump at you or dash at you or out space it, each can be countered fairly well with Falling F.Air/Reverse U.Tilt/sh D.Air, etc.

Also...

While it's hitstun is lacking, it still gives us a slight frame advantage and more stage over our opponent-plus, from 0% you can do D.Tilt > U.Tilt > U.Smash as a true combo for a quick 25%

@ Eonn
Go into Training Mode and practice the timing for it there. You just need to wait a bit after the third Jab so that your input doesn't cancel Jab into another Jab

 

[Kaladin]

It's fair to say that Pika usually gets ~30% off of a grab, yes? So, once you get that second grab at 35-40%, what combos do you guys usually go for? At this percent, I usually get Dthrow Uair Bair or Dthrow Uair Nair or I just go for Fthrow Fair. This works out fairly well, but do I have better options?

 

[Angiance]

@ Kaladin
From that percent (35%) you can actually go for 3 U.Airs into Cloud, but if they DI away it's an U.Air into a Falling F.Air for a reset

 

[NAKAT]

So Pikachu vs. Sonic. What do you guys think?

 

[Kaladin]

So Pikachu vs. Sonic. What do you guys think?

Well, we do have a MU thread. I think Pika wins if he stays in shield a lot and doesn't do anything too unsafe, but I'm no expert.

 

[Pikabunz]

I think it's a bad MU for us, but I haven't played the MU since before the patch. ESAM says we win it though.

Sonic:

The basics would be that this MU is very....very...slow. Pikachu is AMAZING at covering landings so you pretty much let sonic do his sonic thing of spinning and springing, then punish whatever he does on landing. Pikachu gets a lot of damage off of single hits (Like F-smash, or actual combos) so you can pretty much keep up with whatever Sonic dishes out. Another REALLY important factor is that we have QA so we don't have to land in obvious places where Sonic can just kinda hit you for free. QA is SO versatile and sonic has a really tough time hitting you...ever...if you use it correctly. Pikachu also has really good maximum aerial velocity so if you ever see him release a spin dash you can kinda jump forward and air-dodge and it is REALLY hard for him to hit you. Mix this up with typical rolling through and shield and sonic has a hard time doing anything.

If he isn't spin dashing you can do your typical fair/dair pressure. I think FH dair beats any spindash/aerial sonic has?? Not 100% sure, haven't played one since KIT where i played a bunch of friendlies against StaticManny. In terms of killing, both of us do a pretty good job. Pika can punish Sonic F-smash with dashing U-smash, and also we can punish his landings with F-smash. Customs help a lot since we don't really get pressured by hammer spin dash too much but we also can punish his landings/trade with HSB which will kill HELLA early.

 

[Angiance]

@ NAKAT
I would say 60:40 Pikachu~

 

[Syde7]

Hey guys & gals. Current ROB & Sheik main with an interest in picking up Pikachu. Been playing a bit as Pika recently, and really like the way the char feels and such. But, I do have a quick question... what are some general "strategies" for Pika in the neutral. I really don't know/can't figure out his options in the neutral outside of looking for a grab at low %s, possible Thunderjolt approaches, or FF F-air into stuff.

Thx in advance.