Pikachu

[E-ColeWorld]

Yes it is buffed. Im actually loving this demo right now

 

[Pikabunz]

Are you guys comparing him to Melee? His fsmash is still very strong when not staled. I killed Mario with it at about 100%. It's probably his strongest KO move. Everything else he has is weak.

 

[E-ColeWorld]

im actually comparing it to brawl. and Pikabunz was it relative to the edge or/and low ceilings? When i was watching them play he used it a couple times but he wasnt spamming

 

[Soul.]

Lol. F-Smash is "nerfed"? Didn't it get a slightly larger range?
Anyway, maybe Up Smash is one of Pika's best K.O options...well, that's why I said maybe.
Is NAir still its best aerial K.O option?

 

[E-ColeWorld]

nair is his best killing aerial

 

[Pikabunz]

Dsmash was super nerfed compared to Brawl. It can't even kill at 140%

 

[E-ColeWorld]

Dsmash was super nerfed compared to Brawl. It can't even kill at 140%

it really never did kill because of SDI. now there is hardly any. at least what people say

 

[Choice Scarf]

So Pika has problems killing on top of its low range and damage? Are we going to have to gimp literally everyone?

How quickly do moves recover from staling? Maybe if we keep one "kill" moves in reserve it wouldn't be so bad.

 

[CatRaccoonBL]

So how is Pikachu looking over all? I'm quite curious.

 

[Sapphire Dragon]

He looks quite amazing. There is no more lag when doing sh jolt like there was in the original demo. His skull bash is faster and can be done multiple times in the air making his recovery even better. His moves in general feel reworked and more flexible, if that makes sense.

As far as QAC goes, nothing can be confirmed until more testing is done, but it appears to be only possible if you QAC on the very edge of a platform. Attempting to QAC on any other place besides a platform edge hasn't worked for me. Thankfully even if you fail at a QAC there is no lag to punish you. Hopefully I'm just a scrub but that's as far as I can test for now.

I actually have a headache from doing so much today, lol

 

[Leaf.]

Not counting SDI, it can't kill at all.
Pikachu's already poor kill power was nerfed from it's already mediocre state in Brawl.

Up Smash and Forward Smash can kill, but there doesn't really seem to be anything too reliable to set them up. Forward air might be able to set Up Smash up, but I can't really do too extensive testing on it since I don't have anyone to play with until next Friday.
At higher percents (It looks like 150%+), the outer hitbox of forward tilt and Pika's dash attack might start killing. But by that time, it's too late in the opponent's stock. Other things that could kill (Thunder, Nair, I think were the only two other things that could kill) don't really knock back much at all and aren't viable kill moves. Even Thunder2 (Basically Thunder3 now I guess, the hitbox that spreads out from Pikachu when the electricity hits) has been nerfed down. It's range is half of what Brawl had and the knockback wouldn't be able to kill until around 90-100%.

I can't seem to connect with combos sometimes, but that's probably because I'm slow because the game is new. But the character feels pretty smooth. Jolts work about the same exact way they do in Brawl (It's easy to double jump before you hit the ground). I haven't managed to QAC yet (Not really trying too hard) but I've done the exact same ledge cancels that Brawl had when you QA off of any edge. I'm not sure how Neutral Air/Up Air follow ups work with QAC yet because I haven't done it, but with N-Air not killing anymore, it doesn't matter as much if QA -> Neutral Air is a true combo.

Frame 1 Thunders are cool and will be useful, especially since it seems like holding down is going to be what matters as far as any DI goes in this game. Skull bash is still trash and I'll still laugh when I start charging it and tell people "Don't get hit by this" and they get hit by it, and it's not even gonna kill until a super late percent. Recovering with it also feels just exactly the same as in Brawl. Pika's range looks about the same as Brawl (Not really all that good) and he'll probably have issues with disjointed characters and killing, just like in Brawl.

 

[E-ColeWorld]

thunder goes through top platform on BF but not the others

skull bash is actually better for recovery than brawl. its still the same ole move but you can spam it faster and wont have as much lag in the air when recovering with it.

So Pika has problems killing on top of its low range and damage? Are we going to have to gimp literally everyone?

How quickly do moves recover from staling? Maybe if we keep one "kill" moves in reserve it wouldn't be so bad.

the stream i was watching it seemed like a lot of characters had problems killing

 

[CatRaccoonBL]

You guys are sending me mixed signals. Especially from the videos I watched. Is he good or not? Guess we won't find out for a while. >.>

 

[E-ColeWorld]

You guys are sending me mixed signals. Especially from the videos I watched. Is he good or not? Guess we won't find out for a while. >.>

Well im speaking for myself and i know he is good. I cant speak for others

 

[Leaf.]

I'm not sure if he's bad, but I'm incredibly skeptical thanks to the much worse kill power and overall nerfs he seems to have. Stuff isn't doing as much damage and he needs much higher percents to kill than before.

And with QAC gone, that's a lot of problems this character has. x.x

 

[Choice Scarf]

Just speculating from all of the streams - I'm guessing he'll be good but will probably have a rough time doing so.

Compared to Pika in Melee/Brawl/PM, it sucks that all of Pika's original kill options (U-smash, Thunder, Nair, F-smash) look nerfed, so he's basically stuck having the effort he's always needed to perfect spacing and movement with even less reward of easy or traditional kills. I think semi-charged U-smash and F-smash can kill at "normal-ish" percents, but I'm not sure of what combos can work since the game has lowish hitstun and Pika has low damage in the first place.

It's not like Pika is bad though. Pika's aerials almost all auto cancel, so he has enough speed to get hits in. It will take a lot of hit and run tactics with Uair, Fair, tilts, and so on for staggered combos and whiff punishes, and a lot of it to build enough damage. In terms of attack output, Pika looks better, and despite the lower damage Pika should be able to enough pressure in the neutral game. It would be great to redevelop QAC to augment this as well.

What will make or break Pika is finding reliable ways of getting the opponent offstage where they're vulnerable. Pika's ability to edgeguard still appears a major strong point but it will need to adapt to the new mechanics. A lot of characters have strong recoveries, but most seem within the range of predictability that they can still be gimped. For example, Pit can go far, but only in a straight line, so he's probably vulnerable to taking damage from an offstage aerial, t-jolt, or b-reverse thunder. I think Pika's F-smash can be angled down as well, which should help cover the ledge sweetspot and send the opponent downward.

So TL;DR Pika will need a lot of effort but he should still be viable. We should explore the stale mechanics, the new ledge mechanics, the custom moves, and all the other Pika's hidden tricks in the mean time. I'm still going to have faith Pika will be alright, though I may just keep Pika as a secondary since it will probably mess up my PM play.

 

[Leaf.]

Jolts are still really nice for edgeguarding as they always have been, but the ledge mechanics are going to make things difficult.
Forward Smash can't be angled.
But Down Smash still does the same thing where it can reach people on the edge and stage spike them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDMKcaGYoVg#t=66 This, but with Pika's D-smash.

 

[Choice Scarf]

Good to know the D-smash angle spike is still in.

I've seen F-smash angled at least upwards, so I assumed it could go downwards to. To be fair, I guess the angle isn't that high up, so maybe that won't be effective as I hope it is.

Okay, less speculation, more analysis time. Here's some vids:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0tI4P3rS7M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8O2IwHNZrI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPC5Dt8MWnw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhF8awcQXyo

• Bair has potential to kill offstage, probably not optimal but at least you can recover from deep with it
• Quick attack has more knockback than usual on the end of QA2. Possible ledge stealing applications?
• Skull bash still sucks damage wise, but the hitbox covers his head now and can "clank" with Mario's fireball. F-tilt is probably better for that, but the hitbox thing has always bothered me so I'm happy with that.
  
• QA into the ground could just possibly just have significantly less landing lag and not QAC. Not sure about that.

 

[Soul.]

Meh. All these nerfs and Pikachu still ends up being a good character...like in Melee, for example.
Pikachu is going to be fine, guys. Even if it has a tougher time K.O'ing this time, it has enough tools to pull its weight in a match.
It's still a bit early to tell if it's going to be viable or not. We haven't seen the rest of its custom specials either, except Self-Generation and Great Thunder.

Good to know the D-smash angle spike is still in.

I've seen F-smash angled at least upwards, so I assumed it could go downwards to. To be fair, I guess the angle isn't that high up, so maybe that won't be effective as I hope it is.

Okay, less speculation, more analysis time. Here's some vids:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0tI4P3rS7M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8O2IwHNZrI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPC5Dt8MWnw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhF8awcQXyo

• Bair has potential to kill offstage, probably not optimal but at least you can recover from deep with it
• Quick attack has more knockback than usual on the end of QA2. Possible ledge stealing applications?
• Skull bash still sucks damage wise, but the hitbox covers his head now and can "clank" with Mario's fireball. F-tilt is probably better for that, but the hitbox thing has always bothered me so I'm happy with that.
  
• QA into the ground could just possibly just have significantly less landing lag and not QAC. Not sure about that.

Quick Attack has less lag. That's good I suppose.
Skull Bash was always bad except for recovering. I heard it can pull a Green Missile in that it can cancel the charge.
Back air can K.O? I didn't know.

 

[NobleClamtasm]

While I'm a bit worried about Pika's nerfed kill power, wouldn't custom moves help alleviate this? Great Thunder, for example, seems to be a finisher when hitting with the bolt rather than the explosion. If this Thunder still activates quickly like normal thunder, wouldn't this be just the thing Pika needs?

Also, I'm curious as to what his custom forward B attacks are, as that can also potentially help him.

 

[Psyant]

The lack of kill power is really worrying for me. He already does low damage per hit as it is, you don't need people living to 140% all the time. Really hoping one of his alternate specials can help solve the problem.

 

[CatRaccoonBL]

I will say, (as a beginner competitive player who probably doesn't know what he is talking about but is willing to learn) , it seems like everyone lives longer because of the bigger blast zones. Every character seems to be having a slightly harder time getting kills early.

So maybe it's more an indirect nerf? How easy is it to kill Pikachu for example?

 

[Choice Scarf]

Relatively easy mostly because Pika's a lightweight, so he's more susceptible to horizontal kills. However, he has the benefits of having speed and small hurtboxes (small size) to dodge attacks and whatever he does survive he can usually recover thanks to skull bash and quick attack.

 

[NobleClamtasm]

I will say, (as a beginner competitive player who probably doesn't know what he is talking about but is willing to learn) , it seems like everyone lives longer because of the bigger blast zones. Every character seems to be having a slightly harder time getting kills early.

So maybe it's more an indirect nerf? How easy is it to kill Pikachu for example?

First of all, I should say that I've never played the game, and I'm stating this from the gameplay footage and livestreams I've seen. Second, the metagame is still extremely young, and things might change as when we understand more of the game
Right now, certain characters have a ridiculously easy time getting kills. For example, all Bowser has to do once his opponent hits ~110% is Koopa Claw for a star KO. In addition, heavyweights benefit greatly from the bigger blast zones due to their survivability. I've seen Bowsers and Dededes survive up to ~200% against certain characters.

I'm not saying that we will be seeing a heavy dominant meta, but I feel that once we have a better understanding of the ledge game and how to edgeguard, we'd see more low percent kills and characters like Pikachu will become more viable.

 

[Leaf.]

Things will definitely change with time. Pika could have godlike combo game that we can't really do right now thanks to it being new physics on new controls and all that. People will get faster and better and we'll learn a lot of new things/possibly find new hidden stuff.
Characters with easy kills/good power are going to be dominant early in the meta though because we don't know anything yet and aren't good at things like combos. I can kill with the other characters a lot easier/earlier on this demo right now, but we'll just see in time what will happen. I'm not giving up 100% on Pika right now (I'm not a sellout, I swear x.x ) but it's a bit foreboding right now with how Pika looks.

 

[DrRiceBoy]

I've been playing the demo and it seems to be pretty hard for me to kill. On the other hand, Pika's new dash-attack is pretty boss and he seems to be faster than ever. His recovery is the same as ever, really damn strong. Fair, dair, and dsmash feels like it has more hitstun. (don't quote me on this, not 100% sure.) He deals damage pretty quickly and can combo pretty well. Overall, his aerials, tilts, specials, and smashes are still pretty solid. He's definitely nerfed from previous iterations though.

Also, new Thunder IMO is pretty weak. Doesn't linger as long as before, and the hixbox seems shorter and smaller. (RIP in pepperonis Thunder spamming)

 

[Leaf.]

I've been messing with a technique from Brawl called scarring, where you Quick Attack into a grabbable ledge and go through it to be instantly on the stage.
It seems like it works (A bit harder to do but that's probably because of the circle pad) but you have the ending lag of a Quick Attack so you can't instantly act out of it. With the different ledge mechanics, you can't grab a ledge, drop from it, and instantly QA into it to do it, you have to wait about a second to where you would be able to grab the ledge again. It's possible to drop from a ledge (easier if you just press back, and not down, to fast fall) and then use your double jump to reach it again, but it's much slower than doing it in Brawl, and you have more lag before you can act out of it.
I've managed to get it work on both Battlefield and FD, but it's a bit harder on FD, it feels like.

 

[CatRaccoonBL]

I was initially going to potentially drop him as a serious main, but after playing him so many times in the demo and really feeling him out, I think I'll give him a much bigger chance.

I say that because they are just computers, but even still gimping them is pretty fun with Pikachu. I need to try with actual people though.

 

[Leaf.]

Gimping is fun, and using back air properly is going to be key in getting those gimps. With changed ledge mechanics, it's going to be hard to get those gimps.

 

[CatRaccoonBL]

Gimping is fun, and using back air properly is going to be key in getting those gimps. With changed ledge mechanics, it's going to be hard to get those gimps.

I will say, getting that back air in though is so satisfying. Watching the opponent go flying after the multi hit attack while you safely get back to the stage...it feels really good.

 

[MM720]

I'd like to note that his dair is a better move than some think. It deals very good knockback and it sends them at a trajectory that makes it easy for you to slam them into the walls of the stage while they're recovering, making for a good edgeguard. You can also just try and hit them while they're on the ground with it if you have trouble finishing them off with smashes.

Also Downsmash is underpowered. It has good range but you lag quite a bit if you miss... FSmash is a good all-around move. Upsmash I can't say too much about, but I get the feeling that it's harder to sweetspot and isn't as reliable as it used to be.

 

[Pikabunz]

Has anyone ever notice that fair and bair can drag opponents down with you if you fast fall with it? It doesn't work all the time but you can easily bair someone off-stage and drag them to the bottom and recover while they can't. It could be a cpu only thing. I'd like to see this done on a human opponent.

 

[Dvorak]

Pikabunz I've been playing with my friend on the demo and it feels like if you can get stage spike with bair it is a pretty decent gimp. Since the ticks on it are when you first land it, its really hard to tech, well at least my friend says its hard to tech. Also you can do the same with fair as long as you are under the stage. But to me it feels like pikachus kill potential comes from gimping. Also when the Wii U version comes out aerials will be a lot easier to land. Can't wait for dat c stick.

 

[Pikabunz]

I'm not talking about stage spikes though. I mean bair can send your opponent downward like a spike move. But I'm thinking it might be because the cpu is using super sdi downward to get out of it.

 

[Dvorak]

If you get low enough yeah they wont be able to recover. Unless its villager his recovery is actually insane.

 

[Hoenn]

In brawl if you quick attacked into a platform and held down, you would sink through the platform, I'm pretty sure I saw someone do that, try it out, QAC using that method is still a very valid movement option

 

[Pikabunz]

It doesn't work.

 

[Ryuutakeshi]

His movement on the ground is really good, and you can instantly turn and tilt/fsmash/shield/roll/run/jump at the end of his initial dash animation. Faster than normal pivoting it seems.

When I first tried Pika he felt weird to me, but now I really think he's pretty awesome. Which is good because I might get weird looks if I'm not maining any of the pokemon .

 

[Shadocat]

If this hasn't been mentioned already, b-air is a really good move for edge-guarding and just a better move overall than it was in brawl.

 

[S2rulL]

Really loving the feel of Pikachu in SSB3D, but I just wish they would give him back his bair from 64. Love seeing his stubby little legs kicking people in the face. Also, Hoennchu or die.