[FBC] ESAM
Smash Legend
One of Pikachu's most known gimmicks is the QAC, or Quick Attack Cancel (Pikachu's most common ISJR). Many beginner Pikachus flock to this and ask how to do it as if Pikachus game revolved around it. QAC has both very positive and very negative aspects towards it, and you should learn it carefully before thinking of applying it in a real match.
Things to learn:
Angles (45, 22.5, 11.25)
Distances
Positionings
Positives:
Fast
1. Good for Mindgames
2. Good for edgehogging
3. CAN set up combos (Unreliable)
4. Unpredictable
Negatives:
1. Extends your hurtbox (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Egx...7A539C9&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=25= skip to 3:22)
2. Really low priority
3. Moves with lingering hitboxes will hit you with it
4. Phantom Lag
5. If opponent is on the ground, they can always shield before a uair
6. High risk low reward.
I'm going to explain #4. Normally Pikachu has (I think) 15 frames of landing lag. When you QAC, that lag carries over to the next time you land. If you get hit out of your QAC with a low-knockback move and you land, your 15 frames of ending lag will then commence.
I'm going to explain #6. Quick Attack itself doesn't do much %, 2-3% fresh. However, if somebody hits you out of it, that will normally do 6-7%, PLUS the punishment of when you land. The reward is mindgames and maybe throwing yoyour opponent off-guard for a few seconds, but the risk is getting a decent amount of % and your opponent getting serious momentum.
So, before you guys get all hyped about QAC, get to learn it first. One of the reasons I seldom use it is because I always get punished for it by my brother and Seibrik. I never got really good at QAC because of it. Anther uses it a lot, and wins a lot of matches with it. However, when people punish his QAC, he normally loses (Mikehaze at MLG). QAC can be very useful. It has times where it is perfect, and it has times where it is the worst thing you could possibly do. To use Pikachu at his highest level (Which nobody does yet) there has to be a balance between knowing when to use QAC and knowing when to not. This also applies in Match-ups themselves (Marth and Luigi have a lot of big lingering hitboxes, so QAC is fairly useless. However, against Falco or Wolf, QAC is much more applicable).
In order to use QAC effectively, you must know when you won't get punished for it and what characters it can beat. You need to know when to lay off of it and win with your other aerials.
Comments or anything I should add leave below :D
Things to learn:
Angles (45, 22.5, 11.25)
Distances
Positionings
Positives:
Fast
1. Good for Mindgames
2. Good for edgehogging
3. CAN set up combos (Unreliable)
4. Unpredictable
Negatives:
1. Extends your hurtbox (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Egx...7A539C9&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=25= skip to 3:22)
2. Really low priority
3. Moves with lingering hitboxes will hit you with it
4. Phantom Lag
5. If opponent is on the ground, they can always shield before a uair
6. High risk low reward.
I'm going to explain #4. Normally Pikachu has (I think) 15 frames of landing lag. When you QAC, that lag carries over to the next time you land. If you get hit out of your QAC with a low-knockback move and you land, your 15 frames of ending lag will then commence.
This allows you to get punished hard by some characters (MK D-smash, Marth F-smash, DK D-smash).The phantom lag is 15 for soft landing and 24 for hard landing. 90% of the time you're gonna get the hard landing lag.
I'm going to explain #6. Quick Attack itself doesn't do much %, 2-3% fresh. However, if somebody hits you out of it, that will normally do 6-7%, PLUS the punishment of when you land. The reward is mindgames and maybe throwing yoyour opponent off-guard for a few seconds, but the risk is getting a decent amount of % and your opponent getting serious momentum.
So, before you guys get all hyped about QAC, get to learn it first. One of the reasons I seldom use it is because I always get punished for it by my brother and Seibrik. I never got really good at QAC because of it. Anther uses it a lot, and wins a lot of matches with it. However, when people punish his QAC, he normally loses (Mikehaze at MLG). QAC can be very useful. It has times where it is perfect, and it has times where it is the worst thing you could possibly do. To use Pikachu at his highest level (Which nobody does yet) there has to be a balance between knowing when to use QAC and knowing when to not. This also applies in Match-ups themselves (Marth and Luigi have a lot of big lingering hitboxes, so QAC is fairly useless. However, against Falco or Wolf, QAC is much more applicable).
In order to use QAC effectively, you must know when you won't get punished for it and what characters it can beat. You need to know when to lay off of it and win with your other aerials.
Comments or anything I should add leave below :D