The dreaded high percent situation

[NobleClamtasm]

I think we've all experienced this before. You've racked up a good 120% on your opponent, and all you need is a solid U-smash, F-smash or thunder to finish off the stock. This may be simple at first glance, but in reality, all your opponent has to do is to spam shield and bait attacks to easily hold onto their stock. This issue is best showcased perfectly within the entire set between Zero and ESAM during CEO 2015:

In case you didn't know, shields are strong in this game. Really strong. You can act out of it with tons of options almost immediately, and its fast recharge time means that you shouldn't ever worry about it breaking. There's a reason why running shield is one of the best and safest methods of approach.

Unlike the other top characters, Pikachu does not have any method to punish shields in high percent situations. The luxury of throw-to-kill setups are common in other top tiers for this reason, and lacking such an option is a huge detriment for Pikachu IMO. Ness has the backthrow, Luigi has the downthrow -> cyclone and ZSS has the downthrow to Uair. For Sheik and Fox, even if the follow up from Dthrow to Uair isn't guaranteed, they still have an easier time than Pikachu, since they can bait airdodges and catch them with Uair or Bair for the kill. Pikachu's aerials, on the other hand, while having amazing priority, can barely be considered reliable kill moves unless used used off-stage. Even Pikachu's strongest aerial, Bair (I hate this move) can send the opponent towards the opposite direction if you don't land it correctly. Here is what I found to be the best ways to land Pikachu's kill options:

• Upthrow straight into Thunder.
  • Pray they don't DI. (This won't work against a semi-competent player)
• Downthrow stright into Thunder
  • Only works if they DI behind you, and it is difficult to condition your opponent to do so
• Upthrow, read their DI, kill with a sourspot thunder off the top.
  • Even if you get the correct read, good luck hitting the 10 frame airdodge punish window
• Randy Up-smash
  • Not only is it risky as hell, but Pikachu's run speed is not fast enough to be reliable as Fox's run Up-smash, not to mention its crappy range compared to Fox, Luigi and Mario's Up-Smash
• Punishing as the opponent lands
  • A coinflip at best. Your opponent can fastfall -> shield to block and punish your Smash attack, or fastfall -> roll to avoid grabs. They can also throw out an aerial to stuff out an attempted Smash attack
• Punishing ledge options
  • A coinflip, once again. Regular getup has a two frame punish window before a shield can be activated so good luck hitting that
• Hard read on a spot dodge or roll
  • • Yay, more coinflips

Is there something I'm missing here? I find it hard to believe that Pikachu is top 5 material if he can't get passed shields, the strongest option in the game. The other top tiers, on the other hand, have laughably easy throw-to-kill setups in the form of Dthrow -> blahblahblah, and can rack up damage just as easy as Pikachu. I personally think that Pikachu is overrated as hell, and I'm certain that our tier placement will drop once players start abusing shield against the matchup.

Inb4 edgeguarding
Edgeguarding is difficult in this game. Sheik is impossible to edgeguard. Using Bair to challenge recoveries only works sometimes (did I mention that I hate this move?) adding to the fact that it sometimes hits in the wrong direction (Even thunder can hit the opponent towards the wrong direction lol). Most characters have high, medium and low recovery options to mixup their recovery, so once again more reads and coinflips are required. The ledge-trumping mechanic and the magnetic ledges don't help either.

Sorry for the rant. I wanted to get this off of my chest for a while.

tl;dr - How do I land my kill moves if the opponent can easily camp behind shield to avoid dying until 180%, where my upthrow will barely kill, while at the same time I am at risk of dying at 80-90% thanks to the wonderful rage mechanic, (which even screws up our early percent combos, might I add). What do?

 

[Ritronaut]

This is why I think Pikachu isn't top 5. Yes, he has a very hard time killing when the opponent is safe on shield. Your best option here is to grab their shield throw them off stage and gimp them since they lose their shield option in the air. Yeah, edgeguarding is hard, but that's the struggle. To kill with pikachu you need either a hard read or a gimp. His upsmash is pretty good though, it's fairly fast but admittedly doesn't have range. Also maybe we should be practicing up throw to thunder and reading their DI because those seem very reliable to kill. I wonder if they're true combos if you perfectly read their DI. Maybe perfect pivot down B?

This is also why i think Pika is number one in customs. His killing problem is instantly solved.

 

[Coro_]

I feel that while Pika isn't top 5, he's capable of challenging the top 5, if that makes sense.
Remember, no one has a tool quite like Quick Attack in the cast, so I think that's why people keep rating him high, since it's potential is staggering.
Considering that general consensus is currently that Pika has no bad matchups (at worst even matchups) plus the potential of Quick Attack, is why people rate him so high.

In practice though, landing the kill really is quite a struggle. I guess that's where it comes down to player skill and ability to read :/

 

[Gibbs]

Don't get hit, get them to 200% then kill them with the strong hit of nair. So what if we can't throw hitboxes at shield, grab them and throw them off the edge, then either edgegaurd or punish their landing option. The whole point of pika's character design is that he excels at safe neutral with high mobility. With most characters saying just add more percent would be an insult, but if two people of equal skill in the neutral are playing pika vs almost anyone but sheik, then the pika player should be at a much lower percent. Our neutral is just that good.

 

[JayWon]

You forgot Dash attack and D-air can kill at high percents

 

[Ritronaut]

You forgot Dash attack and D-air can kill at high percents

shield

I feel that while Pika isn't top 5, he's capable of challenging the top 5, if that makes sense.
Remember, no one has a tool quite like Quick Attack in the cast, so I think that's why people keep rating him high, since it's potential is staggering.
Considering that general consensus is currently that Pika has no bad matchups (at worst even matchups) plus the potential of Quick Attack, is why people rate him so high.

In practice though, landing the kill really is quite a struggle. I guess that's where it comes down to player skill and ability to read :/

Yeah I agree here. QA is arguably the best move in the game which makes him incredibly good. He isn't top 5 but he can beat anybody if you're good enough.

Don't get hit, get them to 200% then kill them with the strong hit of nair. So what if we can't throw hitboxes at shield, grab them and throw them off the edge, then either edgegaurd or punish their landing option. The whole point of pika's character design is that he excels at safe neutral with high mobility. With most characters saying just add more percent would be an insult, but if two people of equal skill in the neutral are playing pika vs almost anyone but sheik, then the pika player should be at a much lower percent. Our neutral is just that good.

QA wins us neutral incredibly well and we should have a big lead, but Pikachu can not combo after maybe 100%, and it gets tough to rack up damage. I guess then we have to be sheik and camp with jolts? I suck at playing campy and defensive (i don't know how i manage to play rosa) so I don't usually do that, so maybe that's the answer? Then again jolts are a lot easier to avoid than needles. Usually my gameplan is kill asap so i can combo their next stock. Also with pikachu being one of the lightest characters in the game its hard to get your opponent to kill percent while you're not near it. (all these are my opinions and thoughts, it probably may not apply to you) But most of the time i get a good lead on my opponent then struggle to kill as they play catch up. I think I'll start spamming jolts if that happens, and force them to approach me or gather percentage to kill at 200%. Unless they're sheik. Sheik's needles are nasty.

 

[Coro_]

I'm one of those who sometimes slip into dirty campy defensive pika and I can rack up damage on quite a few people with the simple tjolt mixup, so I guess it does work?
Just be careful how you do full-hop tjolts I guess.

 

[Thor]

This is why I think *garbled* isn't top 5. Yes, he has a very hard time killing when the opponent is safe on shield. Your best option here is to grab their shield throw them off stage and gimp them since they lose their shield option in the air. Yeah, edgeguarding is hard, but that's the struggle. To kill with pikachu you need either a hard read or a gimp. His upsmash is pretty good though, it's fairly fast but admittedly doesn't have range.

You... just described Sheik if Sheik were a male?

--------------

Pummel them a lot and fthrow or bthrow them for extra percent, then kill Sheik with uthrow at around 170% [different for other characters]. Unlike Sheik, our uthrow actually kills at some point [Sheik's ftilt can kill at like 190 or so, but she doesn't even have a single throw at KOs].

 

[young grasshopper]

customs, t-wave is absolutely amazing

 

[Ritronaut]

You... just described Sheik if Sheik were a male?

Sheik has down throw up air, a really good kill set up at higher percents, a ridiculous fair, and needles. Her fair kills at the ledge at around 170% and her options at high percentages are a lot better than ours. You can't really compare the two.

 

[RunawayPanda]

At about 120 or so (depending on the weight), I recently started going for brawl thunder to kill off the top. It doesn't matter if they DI, if DI up or behind, hit them with the thunder cloud, DI away and hit them with brawl thunder.

It is true that killing with pikachu can be a real struggle sometimes, but it gets a bit easier the more often I play pikachu.
With some rage you should be able to kill on the side of the stage with nair or fair at like 140 which also isn't too bad

 

[Thor]

Sheik has down throw up air, a really good kill set up at higher percents, a ridiculous fair, and needles. Her fair kills at the ledge at around 170% and her options at high percentages are a lot better than ours. You can't really compare the two.

"Her fair kills at the ledge at around 170%"... that's called having kill problems. And ours does earlier than that [or at least our bair does]. We also have a meaty aerial in dair that she doesn't that eats spotdodges for breakfast.

Dthrow uair is highly percent specific, doesn't true combo on some stages at kill percents [it does on Halberd vs Kirby as an example, but not on some other stages like Battlefield], so Pikachu can always double jump out with correct DI at kill percents on large stages (As far as I've seen). The Vanish mixup is nice but it's an airdodge read, and we have those with dair and the base of thunder. I usually find myself living to over 150% vs Sheik if I'm careful.

Needles aren't going to secure a kill. You can do the bouncing fish setup, sort of, but that's situational as well [works if you force them offstage, but if we force them offstage, we have 4 aerials good for gimping and thunder, so...]

 

[Ritronaut]

"Her fair kills at the ledge at around 170%"... that's called having kill problems. And ours does earlier than that [or at least our bair does]. We also have a meaty aerial in dair that she doesn't that eats spotdodges for breakfast.

Dthrow uair is highly percent specific, doesn't true combo on some stages at kill percents [it does on Halberd vs Kirby as an example, but not on some other stages like Battlefield], so Pikachu can always double jump out with correct DI at kill percents on large stages (As far as I've seen). The Vanish mixup is nice but it's an airdodge read, and we have those with dair and the base of thunder. I usually find myself living to over 150% vs Sheik if I'm careful.

Needles aren't going to secure a kill. You can do the bouncing fish setup, sort of, but that's situational as well [works if you force them offstage, but if we force them offstage, we have 4 aerials good for gimping and thunder, so...]

I never denied that sheik struggles with killing... Her fair gives her a crazy good option in neutral, and Pikachu doesn't have a very good option in neutral at high percents (quick attack can be challenged by a hitbox at high percents and is risky) . Sheik's fair is a lot better than ours. Also down throw up air is still a good kill set up and it can be guaranteed and people DO get it quite often, and if not, usually they just gather percent with fair and needles until fair kills. The vanish read is just something that helps sheik kill, in case you read an air dodge.

Never said needles secure a kill... They gather percent incredibly well at high percents, something pikachu doesn't do as well as sheik. Pikachu has better smashes than sheik, thats it, but against a foe who shields a lot, sheik will do a lot better.

 

[Thor]

I never denied that sheik struggles with killing... Her fair gives her a crazy good option in neutral, and Pikachu doesn't have a very good option in neutral at high percents (quick attack can be challenged by a hitbox at high percents and is risky) . Sheik's fair is a lot better than ours. Also down throw up air is still a good kill set up and it can be guaranteed and people DO get it quite often, and if not, usually they just gather percent with fair and needles until fair kills. The vanish read is just something that helps sheik kill, in case you read an air dodge.

Never said needles secure a kill... They gather percent incredibly well at high percents, something pikachu doesn't do as well as sheik. Pikachu has better smashes than sheik, thats it, but against a foe who shields a lot, sheik will do a lot better.

Pikachu still has a better grab game, and thunder jolt still forces them to come to us - Sheik needles do 1% per needle unless at point-blank, which isn't where she'll fire them more often than not.

Pikachu's SH dair is still strong, dtilt is still safe on shield and still forces people to tech or double jump [that means we have a landing to cover!], and Pikachu has run up shield against most of the cast, with OoS nair being fantastic, and grab being effective. We also have an incredible pummel to rack up a lot of damage with every grab at high percents, unlike with Sheik where her slow pummel allows her maybe 3 pummels (or less vs fantastic mashing) per grab at very high percents.

Sheik's fair in neutral is good, but people can outspace or punish it, the same as any other move [although doing so is admittedly difficult with Sheik]. Pikachu's fair may not be Sheik's fair, but it still has a nice disjoint and we can cross over quite effectively, as well simply fading back, and use it to help take stage.

Quick Attack can be challenged, but you can also mixup quick attack angles to make people whiff and punish accordingly, or else throw them off so they are less likely to do something about it. I also frankly don't see people effectively challenge Quick Attack often - if you have a video of someone doing so, that's great, but with the exception of one video where I saw ESAM do it very obviously against ZeRo and get punished, I can't think of a time I've seen it be effectively, consistently punished - even when I go Sheik vs a Pikachu, with her excellent 3 frame nair and great hitboxes on usmash, contesting it is difficult unless they are obvious [although I've punished a QA with Vanish due to it being obvious to me, which is something to avoid].

Sheik does well vs shields yes, but Pikachu still has the tools to secure KOs at high percents, although working for them can be tedious.

 

[busken]

This is why Custom T-jolt is so good for pikachu b/c if u get it's a free kill and can be used to approach and zone.

 

[Jmacz]

I know we had a thread for this the other day and everyone was saying a buff would make Pikachu to OP. But let's just say they buffed either Nair, Fair, or Dair so it killed at 120-130% how OP would that make Pikachu if at all? I feel like that's the one thing he's really missing. No one is scared to challenge you in the air unless they are at like 180+ because nothing we have will kill them until Nair at like 200% or something.

 

[RunawayPanda]

I know we had a thread for this the other day and everyone was saying a buff would make Pikachu to OP. But let's just say they buffed either Nair, Fair, or Dair so it killed at 120-130% how OP would that make Pikachu if at all? I feel like that's the one thing he's really missing. No one is scared to challenge you in the air unless they are at like 180+ because nothing we have will kill them until Nair at like 200% or something.

RIP brawl nair

 

[Gibbs]

I know we had a thread for this the other day and everyone was saying a buff would make Pikachu to OP. But let's just say they buffed either Nair, Fair, or Dair so it killed at 120-130% how OP would that make Pikachu if at all? I feel like that's the one thing he's really missing. No one is scared to challenge you in the air unless they are at like 180+ because nothing we have will kill them until Nair at like 200% or something.

Lol if Nair killed at 120% it would be super broke. The strong hit is on frame 3. This would be arguably a better OOS option than boost kick since there's no DI mix up possible. Ness has a kinda OP OOS nair that doesn't kill till 140% with rage. And that move doesn't hit till frame 7, so its twice as slow.

 

[Deleted member]

Most has been covered here, but one more thing I thought I'd add. If you get a grab with pikachu at high percents, pummeling, down throw and repeatedly protecting against the landing with uair can be highly effective in certain matchups. If an opponent spams shield, be safe and take what grabs they give you. It should only take a couple of these until things like nair, fair, and dash attack kill. Its not IDEAL, but its another option. Mixed with more tjolt camping at higher percents, and opponents will often get frustrated and leave themselves unsafe.

 

[Jmacz]

Lol if Nair killed at 120% it would be super broke. The strong hit is on frame 3. This would be arguably a better OOS option than boost kick since there's no DI mix up possible. Ness has a kinda OP OOS nair that doesn't kill till 140% with rage. And that move doesn't hit till frame 7, so its twice as slow.

I never said it had to be Nair, what if it was Dair? Increase the knockback growth and to balance it increase the end/start lag, decrease it's active frames, or make it so it doesn't auto-cancel. I when I said killing at 120-130% I meant near the ledge, probably should of said that.

 

[Ritronaut]

I never said it had to be Nair, what if it was Dair? Increase the knockback growth and to balance it increase the end/start lag, decrease it's active frames, or make it so it doesn't auto-cancel. I when I said killing at 120-130% I meant near the ledge, probably should of said that.

I would never trade Dair's auto canceling properties just so it killed at 120-130% near the ledge. Which is still really late.