Pikmin Teir List?

[extremecoopster]

Hey, I got curious about how you guys feel about what Pikmin you think are the best to worst and why you think it should be placed well. I am not sure at all whether this list would have similar rankings all around or be completely controversial. We are not going to have a voting system due to the fact that we only have 5 entrants (Please don't be that guy who brings up Winged Pikmin) and most of us know the usage of each one very well. It would be set up like this:

Purple Pikmin: A tier, very useful for lots of things. You can use them to gimp, anti-gimp, destroy approaches, rack up great damage with aerials, and sometimes get a very good finisher on them with Bair or Usmash. Their only problems are the horrendous grab ranges and smash distances, as well as weighing you down more on up-b, but all those can be prevented.

White Pikmin: B Tier, I consider the White Pikmin only a bit less useful than Purples. Their one shining strength is their ability to rack up HUGE damage with side-b and pummels and at an even further range. Usually throwing this guy during any jump will most likely send him plummeting to his inevitable death, so make sure to land him on your opponent with side-b on the ground for CRAZY damaging (3.7% per hit!!!) When I throw this baby on an enemy I try to go for a grab and a dthrow combo to stall out time. The White Pikmin annoys me because in the Pikmin series they had LESS damage per hit, one-half of a Red's, but that is a minor complaint for this godly damager. Besides that and his ability to let you combo at medium percents, he kind of sucks. So keep your Yellows, Reds, or Purples ready to do close range damaging.

Yellow Pikmin: C Tier. The reason I am putting this guy here is the fact that he can get you some nice damage at almost any percent, not necessarily the Purples aerials or the Blues throws, but you do not need to sacrifice a Pikmin to the Gods of the Offstage Boundaries in the middle of a fight to get coverage in any area. (Unless you are at neutral where I find sacrificing him for a White completely OK) He also has a 25% bigger hitbox as a note. Not to mention, his arc combined with the trajectory of a Purple and a Red/Blue Pikmin can almost guarantee a hit from any one of them after a short hop. He is your average Joe, very balanced

Red Pikmin: C Teir. (Being even with Yellow Pikmin, you should not get mad at me for putting him here. He is NOT the 2nd worst. I think he is EXACLY as good as the Yellow.) A red is basically lesser Purple I guess. He has nice air moves and the best Fsmash both for Olimar and THE ENTIRE GAME!!! Yes, a Purple is more powerful at smashes, but a Red Pikmin is your most reliable killer undoubtebly. He has the 2nd weakest throw (Next to White, but their godly pummels make up for it) but remember, less knockback just means more combo potential.

Blue Pikmin: D Teir. Blue Pikmin are not horrible, they just cannot live up to their standards. They have good grabs, but stink in any other factor. Combo potential? Trash. Smashes? Less than OK. Air moves? Bad. Kill potential? The most reliable at high percents. If Olimar was not a character that grabbed so often I would place him lower. He does have notably higher HP so he will survive slightly longer with side-b, but that is pretty much it. Speaking of which, he would not be as effective against some characters like Pikachu compared to Yellow Pikmin in survivability... so...

 

[Kon]

I also like the ridiculous range of the pivot grab with a white Pikmin.

Purple is risky for smashes as you mention. You really have to be completely sure to hit with purple, otherwise you will get punished. The best situation is having two purple Pikmins and keeping your ennemy with Pikmin throw away.

I also have a question about purple Pikmin: do purples have the best aerial priority?

And something I noticed a couple of times already with yellow Pikmin: Yellows seem to have "super armor" during smash attacks as they can go through many moves and hit the ennemy. (note: I mean the yellow Pikmin has some sort of super armor, not Olimar/Alph) And as the throws of the yellow Pikmins(as most pikmins except the blue ones) have less knockback, you can easily follow up a throw and do damage this way.

Blue Pikmins are in my opinion the most "useless" for building up %. The reason is the following: The throws are often too strong to combo into something, so a grab with a blue Pikmin is only useful as a killmove and therefore limited in what you can use him for. He's average for Pikmin throw and average for smashes and aerials. Therefore he isn't bad, but I feel like the other Pikmin colors are more useful.

Red Pikmins are in my opinion in general even better than purples(except for Pikmin throw) as they also do enough damage with aerials and smashes while still having a good range with the smashes.

Just my two cents

 

[Roy Renard]

I really think Red Pikmin went from being Bottom Tier in Brawl to being arguably the best Pikmin in this game. Before, Blue had basically the same dame output and knockback for smashes, with the added benefit of having great kill throws, so it was better to just throw away reds and arrange an army of Blues and Purples. In this game, Reds have great range and huge kill power and damage output in terms of smashes and aerials, coming only second to Purples; however, Purples have horrendous range and are terrible for your smash-keep-away-zoning game, so I usually keep a couple of Reds with me when my opponent is at high percentages, along with a Blue for the up-throw kill. Yellows are meh, although they usually eat throw all kinds of projectiles, including Diddy's bananas, so they are pretty great to use in forward smashes against the classic Diddy that throws the banana right to your face and then rushes in for the grab (although I'm not sure if it's only the yellows that outprioritize projectiles). Whites are made only for throwing and getting the grab or pivot grab at low percentages, after that, you should just throw it at the opponent, either to rack up damage, or to just discard it in favor of another color. So, in summary, I think Purples are kind of overrated in this game, as they are hard to get the hit with, although they still have the multi-purpose usefulness in that side-B with knockback to throw off your opponent. Blues are pretty great for the throw at low percentages and even if they make it harder to do a follow up with down-throw at higher percents, they do a lot of damage, especially with backthrow, which I tend to do, even if it doesn't kill anymore and, of course, the up throw at kill percents, which is godlike, considering that Olimar still has one of the best grab games of the whole cast.

S Tier: Red
A Tier: Blue, Purple, White
B Tier: Yellow

 

[extremecoopster]

I also like the ridiculous range of the pivot grab with a white Pikmin.

Purple is risky for smashes as you mention. You really have to be completely sure to hit with purple, otherwise you will get punished. The best situation is having two purple Pikmins and keeping your ennemy with Pikmin throw away.

I also have a question about purple Pikmin: do purples have the best aerial priority?

And something I noticed a couple of times already with yellow Pikmin: Yellows seem to have "super armor" during smash attacks as they can go through many moves and hit the ennemy. (note: I mean the yellow Pikmin has some sort of super armor, not Olimar/Alph) And as the throws of the yellow Pikmins(as most pikmins except the blue ones) have less knockback, you can easily follow up a throw and do damage this way.

Blue Pikmins are in my opinion the most "useless" for building up %. The reason is the following: The throws are often too strong to combo into something, so a grab with a blue Pikmin is only useful as a killmove and therefore limited in what you can use him for. He's average for Pikmin throw and average for smashes and aerials. Therefore he isn't bad, but I feel like the other Pikmin colors are more useful.

Red Pikmins are in my opinion in general even better than purples(except for Pikmin throw) as they also do enough damage with aerials and smashes while still having a good range with the smashes.

Just my two cents

I prefer actually only one Purple. I mostly just think having one side-b, longer fsmash, and better grab at your disposal as spacing moves are better than pretty much having a limited, but more mobile option.

 

[Kon]

I prefer actually only one Purple. I mostly just think having one side-b, longer fsmash, and better grab at your disposal as spacing moves are better than pretty much having a limited, but more mobile option.

Well there are characters where I feel like my chances are better with two purples. Yoshi i.e. is so annoying but at least with two purples you can stop his approaches and force him to space with his eggs. However in this matchup you still should have someone to catch Yoshi with pivot grabs after he misses with an aerial. So yeah, perhaps two purples isn't the best option. Still I feel like sometimes two purples can be good for keep away.