The Importance of QAC

[gallax]

So i recently attended my second tourney ever and played many good players in brawl. i even got a chance to play M2K(who mains MK and won all four smash events with ease). i did pretty good for my second tourney, even though my nerves got the best of me. There were two turning points in my game play though as i progressed more in this tournament. The first was when i realized why pikachu is so unused. The second was when i kept losing with my pika. Let me go through the scenario and then say why the QAC is of utmost importance.

i got paired in a pool with 3 snakes. Two mained him and one had him as a secondary. The beat the guy who didn't main him, but had a little more problems with the other two. The first one was called Nice1. In the end i won the match, but i believe its because he was inexperinced at fighting pikachu. The last one was the best snake out of the three. His name...garbonzo. Everything I did he already knew what to do. He reacted the right way everytime and completely destroyed me. (this is the first game) ESAM watched this match and he can tell you that i did horribly. The second game started off just like the first. When you do a fair against a snake they are able to immediately use a ftilt and punish you greatly. This is one of my main ways to approach and it wasn't till after i played him that i needed to fair in the air and back out of range instead of landing and trying to do a dsmash or grab. So i decided that i really needed to switch my playstyle. The only thing that i could think of that could help me to be this guy was mindgames.

What is it that allows pika to do this? The QAC is what. Now i practiced and practiced before the competition and during on several matches the QAC so i was already prepared to use it and able to efficiently. So this wasn't just a spur of the moment lets learns QAC. This became my tool of survival. When i was on the edge, when i wanted to attack, anything and everything was centered around the QAC. Even though i still lost the match, i put up so much better a fight and gave him such a challenge that anybody who lost would still have been happy cuz the lost still felt like a win after what i had done.

all you people need to start incorportating the QAC as much as you can into your playstyle. it gives you unpredictability and a fighting chance against pika's hardest matchups. i played m2k a little while after i realized this. he has by far the best MK in the country at the moment imho. just look at his brawl record and tell me otherwise. now im not gonna say i won because i still lost. but i got him down to 2 stocks and ended at around 120%. now this may sound bad, but he did the same against florida's best snake player. and snake is supposed to destroy MK!!!!! do you know why i did as well as i did? it was because i was able to incorporate the QAC efficiently into my game. one of the most annoying thinfs MK does is his shuttle loop>A(cancels the landing lag)>dsmash/w.e is fast. the QAC get me behind MK almost everytime and punish this move. it is so essential to your game and i believe that when someone masters this move(that means incorporating into their game too) they will be so goo and so hard to beat that it will send them to one of the top players in their state.

 

[Piman34]

thanks for update about your experience, and it seems like you had a good time, regardless of the results, that being said i have some things to add...one about how you say pika is unused, and well you never really said why, and i was curious, and I mean i agree, he isn't used as much as other characters, and I believe that his potential is one of the greatest, and that is so because of his unpredictability. you addressed this when talking about the use of the QAC, and while vital to a top level Pika player, I also feel that it shouldn't be your only tool, since while you may use the QAC to mindgame, the tech in itself can be predictable, so you need to find other ways to confuse your opponent too...such as traversing the field underneath or utilizing the stage you are on to your advantage, something like that, just so they have to keep on their toes, cuz you change how you do things often enough. And the info about the fairs and stuff is def. helpful, yet i wonder if maybe we all should learn to adapt better instead of having a style per sé that we use, you know try to mix it up so that its hard to replicate yourself, giving your opponent that much more trouble trying to anticipate. Just my opinion, but im glad you got to play one of the best people to play, i am so jealous and you will be sure to hear about that :D

 

[gallax]

oh, sorry bout not explaining the unused pika thing. its like this. pika takes finess and skill to use. combine this with extremely light weight and a game where playing defensively is key, it turns pika into a character that he shouldnt be. there is no wavedashing so the better players will not always suffice.

any and every mistake i made was capitalized upon and almost always led to my death. i once QAC next to a G&W and didnt hit the jumo button, which made me just stand next to im for a brief moment. well this mistake cost me my life. befre he hit me i looked at my percentage and saw i was at 68%. i had one stock on him(he had one life left). he usmased me and killed me. i returned and started to wreck havoc again. got him up to around 110% while i was at a mere 35%(around). he decideds as a last shot to use his hammer and pulls out a 9 and instant kills me. overall i would say he gave me around 200% damage(not including the end hammer). i must have doubled this yet still lost. this is because pikas best kill moves are nair/fsmash/usmash/thunder/dsmash(if not knowing how to DI properly out of). against G&W the thunder is useless. these kill moves need to be saved until needed to since they can deplete their power, but i needed them to rack up the damage since those are the best pika moves. the fsmash is most important for range. sure i used my tilts, but the fsmash came in much more handy. the usmash became predictable so i had to recondition the player to expect a SH nair when begin run at but i didnt use it in time to kill the G&W. and...almost everyone at the tournament could DI out of the dsmash in three-four hits so its was almost rendered useless. one guy actually got out of it in 1 hit. took 3% damage.

it takes so much time and effort to win with pika that people look at him and say "why would i do that when i could play with someone else, kill faster, and be killed at higher percentages?" snake can rack up 25+ damge with his ftilt alone. DDD can CG almost anyone any amount of times at any percent. MK has his tornado. you look at pika and think well this character may be good, its just not fun to use against really good players.

 

[Piman34]

True, however be that as it may, I also think because Pika is more of a selective character, and well let's face it, he's just cute too! But anyway, because he is more selective, I think the people playing him have a rare opportunity to make a name for him. Sure there are the spammy Pikas who ruin our image, but at tournaments is our place to shine...and you're right, mistakes can cost you a match, but everyone is human, and recently, I learned that playing offensively while waiting for your opponent to mess up is alot easier and more viable than trying to pull off insane risky things that end up killing yourself. As for stale moves, I think grab-attacks can help to reset that counter if you will, instead of throwing, just hit him a few times, pushing back the attacks that were staled. Just an idea anyway. And as well as being a character who has a chance to prove himself, I feel that if you do well with Pika, like you said in your example, even though you lost, you put on quite a show, and still felt proud, if people can do that, his name will be feared but most importantly, the time and effort put in to playing this character will be worth it to the player. Thus, in turn making the Pika community better as a whole if people who enjoy playing a character for more than the sake it is top tier can play it well and show that to others. Anther has done a great job of giving a name to fear for the electric mouse players, but he is only one guy, and we all need to do our best to represent...yeah we will have bad experiences, but we need to learn from them, which it seems you have done, and pass that knowledge along to fellow players. After all, isn't that what SWF is for? To build a community of fellow smashers and bring justice to each character in their own way.

 

[mateo101]

i dont use quac, and I can hold my own vs anther o.O

i dont play like most players though

 

[Piman34]

Pika dittos really aren't a test of skill though, I mean honestly

btw: fight me more mateo, I like fighting sheik even though I lose, but my friend plays one so I need to learn :D

 

[Anther]

I find the most important use for QAC is using it evasively and occasionally using it as a scare tactic. If you haven't used it all match and don't flub it up, it works as a great surprise into nair (Which also gets me killed the most because of how vulnerable you are when you mess it up..).
It does sometimes feel like sux to play as pika, and his style is very acquired taste IMO because of how often you have to change it up, and certain matches do seem very unfair (well, Metaknight >=/ ).

QAC is mad important for getting you out of so many bad situations though, no johns... actually, Quick attack is just pika's greatest asset XD... (besides his general evasive nature and damage building potential). If you aren't good at controlling quick attack you should. You don't have to be overly crazy with it but it's nice to be confident that it's not going to kill you.

 

[therofl]

QAC offensively sometimes sucks balls. it really depends on your opponent. if you try to QAC into a snake and nair... he can simply shield it then uptilt and **** you. I personally find that I usually use QAC defensively to get back on the stage and position myself for an attack. i do use QAC for thunder positioning and tjolting. i just think in general, QACing into an opponent is dangerous if he/she knows what he/she is doing

 

[[FBC] ESAM]

I agree with therofl. People who are used to pikachu and what he can do, and have good reaction time, can punish pika so bad for using QAC as anything more than a running tactic. DDDs can grab you to tech-chase to lots of stuff, snake can shield, grab, d-throw, and tech chase a forward or up tilt, MK can do MK stuff (I dont' think i need to explain more than that) and it is so easy for most characters to hit you out of it, even if you do it perfectly. Of course you will get lucky and use it without them knowing and hit them with a nair or uair, but you play a risk/reward game that usually isn't in pika's favor. QAC is good, but if you overuse it, the player will adapt and **** you for it.

 

[Piman34]

Yet you all agree it's a skill most definitely worth knowing and mastering yes? I think that was gallax's point, is to make it one of the main things to hone from your arsenal

 

[mateo101]

hhm yea well i can hold my vs alot of "pro playerz" i just used anther as an example because i figured everyone here knew him ;o

and sure pieman, im not 2 sure who u are on my friends list butt ill play u whenever

i should learn how to quac though D=

 

[Piman34]

My name is ELMO! woot lol go elmo

 

[Onomanic]

Very cool story. B) My third main is Pika so this was pretty neat to read. Good story.

 

[Scissors Sir]

I feel QAC is useful. I don't feel it's necessary to be successful with pikachu though.

What I'm about to say isn't a personal attack on anyone in particular...

If QAC is the deciding factor in whether you're winning or losing matches/sets, it might be time to sit back and look at what you're doing overall with pikachu.

 

[Roller]

I thought all of this was obvious...guess not.

And scizzors, you sound like a man who hasn't mastered QuAC, I felt like you did once...Then I learned...

 

[gallax]

the point of this story was to show that although i didnt use the QAC that much before the ***kicking i got from garbonzo, it s still important to have in your arsenal. the matches i won before fighting him i rarely used the QAC for offensive. it was for recovering, getting away from tricky situations, etc... It was when i needed something to change up my game since the gameplan i was using wasn't working. i was using it for mingames mostly. but even still, i felt better about the match cuzi at least gave myself a chance. i am not saying that you must use it extensively in a match by any means. i am saying though to all those out there who believe that the QAC is really not important and do not see anything that could be benefited from learning/mastering it that they are wrong.

 

[[FBC] ESAM]

Of course you should learn and master it, but it is still only applicable in only a handful of situations, and can rarely be used offensively because you will get punished if the player is good enough.

 

[gallax]

of course its situational, but there are many situations in which its applicable. but the more you use it the more uses you will find, hence more situations. by no means should you solely focus on this move in your match though. not with the many other moves pika has in the arsenal

 

[Scissors Sir]

And scizzors, you sound like a man who hasn't mastered QuAC, I felt like you did once...Then I learned...

Mastering something and knowing when to use it are two different things

Do you know who I am?

I'm not gonna sit and explain every little thing that goes through my head during a match

You know what it feels like to be questioned by people I've indirectly proven myself better than?

I'm top 10 in my area btw...(NYC)

The things I post aren't the only things that are part of my "game"

I'm not angry. Just a tad annoyed....

 

[Tagxy]

I feel QAC is useful. I don't feel it's necessary to be successful with pikachu though.

What I'm about to say isn't a personal attack on anyone in particular...

If QAC is the deciding factor in whether you're winning or losing matches/sets, it might be time to sit back and look at what you're doing overall with pikachu.

I think that can be better phrased. Being capable of using QAC can depend on how succesful you want to be. I think since its usefulness has been discovered people have sort of treated it as a crutch, and in that case it shouldnt be the deciding factor of whether you win or lose. But incorporating it into your overall pika strategy should definitely improve a persons overall game as one of his better tactics. And against certain characters (like Snake) it is a real God send. Otherwise, at the very least its helpful at keeping pika unpredictable when used correctly.

 

[BubbleTea]

great info. Thanks!
*goes to practice* ^_^