Social The Pichu Social & General Discussion Thread

[kingPiano]

But the real reasons people play pichu are because they are really depressed and have that tiny guy issue. We'll lie to the end of time about why we really play as pichu. But I'm known for bad sandbagging locally...

Perhaps you play because you have a little guy mentality and you're depressed, but I play Pichu for money matches. People are always willing to money match a Pichu cause they think it's easy money. I usually make more money of the collective fools than the 1st place winner does off the pot.

 

[the muted smasher]

I'm just low energy high energy. But it's funny if You think You aren't playing little guy either.

Lot of people pick up pichu cause screw those higher tiers I can beat everyone pichu is great.

It's like inherently hating tall people which I used to xD and now I'm near 6 feet tall xD

 

[DerfMidWest]

Ok so Derf you are in a particular spot that puts you in proximity to VaNz, now his Zelda I don't think I could beat. You probably face the most difficult Zelda main possible, he plays aggressively and seems spontaneous. It's like us all saying oh Bowser is easy for Pichu and then you living next door to DJ Nintendo and getting rekt daily, so you might think it's an impossible matchup. VaNz skill just might be higher than yours with his character.

Cosmo's Zelda I'm fairly sure I could beat, but would probably lose more
The Lake's Zelda I could beat
Both I don't expect to be landslide, but close in stocks


Now also you have to think about how rarely a Zelda main shows up in tournaments, and how it's even more rare to have Pichu - Zelda matchup. I've seen more Kirby's, more Bowser's and more Ness's. Zelda's matchup not even worth putting that much time in nor are you often afforded the chance to face good Zeldas.

I've only faced 5 Zeldas, 3 were bad and 2 were on Lake's/Cosmo's level (I saw them beat high tiers from players that placed well)
I've been able to beat all of them without much difficulty.

Based purely on it being a double blind (neither player having exp with the matchup) I think Pichu strongly has the advantage because they just don't expect the speed and rate at which aerials can be spammed, the constant pressure and edgeguarding, and the great grab game. People just think, oh it's Pichu that joke character. Meanwhile Zeldas are pretty damn easy to read and you know the moves and set ups they are going for if you've ever played with her for even an hour. IMO Pichu takes more time to figure out the moves and combinations that are deadly, unlike Zelda "oh lightning kick....that's the move I will use a lot."

Uh... I've played TheLake's zelda plenty of times, I don't think you understand how good he actually is...
I don't think there are many Zeldas on the Level of TheLake, much less Cosmo.

Now like I said, you could have some secret to playing the matchup that all us other pichu's just haven't figured out yet, although your strategy sounds like the way I used to play when I was starting out, but again, until you can really start to prove that with frequent victories over notable Zelda players, I don't think I can agree.

Also keep in mind that there is such a thing as a skill curve. Matchups that are more even or favorable at a low level that significantly shift as you move to higher levels of play.

I'm sure people have asked this here before, but why do you guys pick Pichu over Pikachu? I'm pretty interested in knowing why. I never really liked the fact that Pichu can hurt himself, but he seems fun enough. I'm not trying to make it a tier thing, I mean I play Bowser, so I can't really talk.

The two characters feel different enough to play, even though they are very similar.
But Pichu has a walljump can can do flashy things with his upB aside from edgecancel stuff. I find Pichu much more fun to explore from a technical standpoint, even though he's a piece of **** and almost everything I experiment with isn't applicable to real play (at least at this point in time).

 

[Comet7]

so fox / falco on FD for theoretical 0-deaths. basically, pretending to be marth.

1. from grab i could tech chase until chaingrab % or until chaingrabs are a bit lenient which would be 3 or 4 grabs with some pummels.
2. CG until around 85% (end %). i could probably also get them around 90-95% if i pummel to reduce the effect of stale move negation. from here and maybe a bit before % wise, this goes all sorts of directions, which is where i'm not completely sure about what is optimal to do from the raw CG.

Down throw tech chase:
3. down throw tech chase with 2 or 3 pummels that will get them around 95-105%.
4. i know fox will die from up smash after down throw and pummels, but i'm not so sure against falco. otherwise, a conversion from dash canceled up tilt, nair, up air, or whatever option is appropriate.

Up tilt:
3. up tilt them out of the CG. the problem i have about this one is that up tilt comes out at the same frame of grab and is only above him on frame 11, and on frame 7 is pretty much the size of his grab box except it it's sort of more toward the inside of him... this makes me concerned about fox shining out. i'll assume that the CG would have the end % be around 5% lower.
4. nair/dair or up air to nair/dair, but i don't know if the up air combo would be worth it because of the added height it will give fox to recover with.

i think up air might also be a better option at percents slightly higher than when the CG ends since it comes out just as fast as grab but the hitbox goes higher. or probably at the ledge if they DI away from the stage in the middle of the CG or whatever % really, but a lot of other things can go there instead, probably f tilt if we need something really fast that has range and actual knockback. i'd put nair here but the hitbox may be finicky in this situation due to being in the air and probably needing a bit more horizontal range than it provides. i also don't consider up smash that good of an option out of it because of the slower hitbox possibly not connecting at kill %'s and then the combo could be dropped which defeats the point of 0-deathing...

if anybody has exact percents of when the chaingrab starts and ends on fox and falco that would be nice.

does down throw to down smash work on the spacies at a relevant %? i should also test when f tilt knocks spacies and falcon (maybe some other people) far enough to not be able to double jump to the ledge is.

 

[the muted smasher]

Every time I play with d throw or play someone that uses d throw they get burned for it. The only training mode combo I ever could get as upwards f tilt on gannon at like 170%

also I really don't know if we could even throw tech chase falco to be honest.

We need fox/ at 25% or they can di out.

 

[Comet7]

are taunts a viable mindgame?

 

[DerfMidWest]

from 0%, I usually like to start a cg by using uthrow->usmash->regrab a couple times, then mix in utilts and uair regrabs at mid percents to tac on a little extra damage without pummeling.

usually at 80%-ish I just try to nair to either get them on the ground or offstage and follow up from there.
You can also fair as a mixup and get a regrab.

above 80-90%, uthrow should not actually combo into utilt, but you can just follow up their escape and utilt that, which leads into a bunch of other stuff.

dthrow tech chasing fox on reaction is pretty difficult unless you're on a platform. Falco is even harder/not something I would never go for unless you get a hard read.

 

[Comet7]

guys, my shaq avatar has been giving my pichu power. in fact, it ran into a fully charged tipper f smash on a recorded match! i should stop trolling people who know the matchup!

 

[herbmaster%]

at tipped off i got bopped by a few people and was feeling kinda down so i decided to run pichu the rest of the night and had a blast. <3

 

[Comet7]

did shaq bless your pichu as well?

 

[herbmaster%]

Must have. He made me feel like the tallest baby mouse of the litter. bless that man.

 

[DerfMidWest]

Nair->dtilt on platforms is amazing in regards to combo stuff.
I did a really cool cross platform combo on FoD in a Pichu vs Roy MM.
I wish it was recorded. **** was hype.

 

[Comet7]

i have another question about up throw stuff against spacies. if i up throw a spacie at mid %, and they DI away, how viable would f smash be over stuff like nair if they are going to be off stage? i think it would be okay as long as there aren't too many of the early hits so that they could SDI (or even ASDI) back on stage, since the knockback would make it impossible to recover after a ledgehog.

 

[the muted smasher]

No di f smash isn't bad, cause You Need to give them as few hits as You can

 

[DerfMidWest]

you could throw fsmash out, but I think there are probably better things you could do.
It seems like a bit too much commitment for me, and only covers a few options.
Honestly just waiting and reacting to hat they do is probably the best way to go about it.
Or nair.

 

[Comet7]

maybe i just haven't done enough edgeguarding, but i feel like i may not be able to cover all the options if that happens. otherwise, i'd nair and call it a day.

if i wait, then i'd have to react to either...
shine stall to double jump sweetspot
shine stall, double jump illusion
shine stall, double jump fire fox
double jump sweetspot
double jump away illusion
double jump away firefox
double jump wall jump into air dodge / illusion
regular air dodge onto stage

i guess i could cover those with down tilt (f tilt might last too long?) to cover double jump stuff, grab > back throw to cover air dodges on reaction, but that still leaves me open to the guessing game that fire fox / bird presents. i'm unsure of having good enough reaction to covering the ledge with down tilt and also being able to cover them going high.

 

[the muted smasher]

Real talk tho because the chain throw only lasts till about 90% with no di ending it earlier for an auto nair combo might be more legit then up-smash thunder or upair dair

 

[DerfMidWest]

maybe i just haven't done enough edgeguarding, but i feel like i may not be able to cover all the options if that happens. otherwise, i'd nair and call it a day.

if i wait, then i'd have to react to either...
shine stall to double jump sweetspot
shine stall, double jump illusion
shine stall, double jump fire fox
double jump sweetspot
double jump away illusion
double jump away firefox
double jump wall jump into air dodge / illusion
regular air dodge onto stage

i guess i could cover those with down tilt (f tilt might last too long?) to cover double jump stuff, grab > back throw to cover air dodges on reaction, but that still leaves me open to the guessing game that fire fox / bird presents. i'm unsure of having good enough reaction to covering the ledge with down tilt and also being able to cover them going high.

so in the specific situation you are talking about, generally, run off nair or straight ftilt/dtilt should work the best.
I'm a fan of jab too.

You don't have to cover every option they have, so long as you start adapting to the ways they try to recover. Once you start recognizing the situations better, you'll have an answer for their position.
That's about the advice I can give on that subject unfortunately, it really just comes down to recognizing your position relative to your opponent and how your positioning influences them.

Real talk tho because the chain throw only lasts till about 90% with no di ending it earlier for an auto nair combo might be more legit then up-smash thunder or upair dair

I'm usually a fan of nair. Or bthrow right before they can escape depending on position.
CG->thunderflip will not kill, but it keeps them in a bad position, which is ok.

You can also fair->stuff, which is alright every once in awhile. In general I like fair a little more against ffers.

Usually nair either leads to them being in knockdown or offstage, which are both horrible positions. In general, pichu's whole combo game is about getting your opponent into bad positions, so this is workable.

 

[the muted smasher]

Yeah but it makes the chain throw kind of pointless if You can't really make anything of the percent You added.

Fd is a good stage vs ffers for the nair game not the chain throw : /

 

[DerfMidWest]

Tbh, I think FD is a bit of a gimmicky stage for pichu against FFers.
I think falcon annihilates him there, but no falcon players seem to want to play correctly, so it ends up working out ok.

Cgs aren't pointless, but with pichu it honestly doesn't get him very much. Just percent, and you get in their head, which are both useful tools, but you really just need enough to get them off stage or in another bad position you can punish (in knockdown, on a platform, etc.), since you can't ever kill off a cg with pichu.
Except sometimes you can raw dsmash and it sends people at a weird angle, but uthrow->dsmash only works on certain DIs, I like it for people who try to slight DI behind.

 

[the muted smasher]

It's hard to right away call out falcon mains for being campy but if You can just slowly work at him. But i won't lie I've gotta wreaked by a fox who straight up dd camped on ys for 3 minutes before I approached. Next match I did better but holy crap.

 

[DerfMidWest]

Fd is a lot bigger than ys. Falcon gets way more off the space (fox too).
On top of that, especially on FD, falcon has guaranteed 0-death combos on several characters, including pichu, that can cover all DI options.

He also CGs pichu harder than pichu CGs him.

 

[the muted smasher]

Midwest is so campy the most aggro players I saw placing at jab3 was samus sheik and marth

 

[DerfMidWest]

Midwest is so campy the most aggro players I saw placing at jab3 was samus sheik and marth

We have a lot of super campy players, but very few who are actually capable of camping the way they need to in order to preform well on a national scale.
The midwest kinda just sucks and has a lot of catching up to do as a region.

 

[Comet7]

wait, when does pichu's CG on falcon end? i though it was guaranteed to kill from up smash after the CGs.

 

[the muted smasher]

About 60% but they don't need to know that xD

 

[Comet7]

well, i happen to be bad at the CG before then. i guess i'll stick to tech chasing.

i also just realized that there is nearly no use for dash attack at all since i can just cancel the run with a crouch and jab... at least it's a panic option with actual knockback (i think 2 frames of crouch + 2 frames for the jab hitbox)... at least it's 1 frame earlier than nair lol...

 

[DerfMidWest]

I recommend learning the cg from 0%. It's hard as balls and something I can't do on all DI options without practicing for like 5 minutes, but it makes a huge difference.

Also lemme tell you about how boss dash attack is.
In the ditto, dthrow->dash attack is amazing. (works on a lot of weird floaty characters actually).
Why it is amazing is a secret that is only shared among a select few, but it's dope.
Generally for the panic edgeguards, I prefer dash canceled dtilt. Jab is awesome too, since it can't be teched, but you have to deal with it not having a weird disjointed hitbox.
Dash attack is still good in those positions, but the cool down is what makes it iffy.

in general, dash attack sucks. I sometimes use it to sneak under aerial opponents coming down on me though. Like if ganon jumps at me with a fair and I'm DDing, and utilt won't connect because of how I'm spaced, dash attack will often sneak under the fair.
stuff like that.

 

[ChivalRuse]

Wow . This thread still exists without InsaneCarzyGuy fueling it?

People talk a lot about how Pikachu is like a "worse Fox". Pichu is basically like a "weak, joke-shadow of a Fox". Nair is amazing. Up-smash is solid. Grab is acceptable. But what else is there? It's hard to make an argument for using Pichu in any context other than to troll.

 

[Comet7]

good tilts, down smash is good for its niche uses, and jolts are good. pichu also has a better bair than pikachu but that's not notable anyway.

and he has anime eyes and better taunts.

 

[ChivalRuse]

F-tilt's pretty garb. D-tilt has nice range, but is CC food. Utilt has horrible range and not the best knockback. It can be sometimes a setup to up-smash on fast fallers, I guess. But not likely to work much outside of throw setups.

 

[Comet7]

you'd be surprised by how f tilt can be used. it's weird like pika's because it clanks with a lot of stuff which gives it some use in close range and gimping. up tilt has a good amount of upwards disjoint and has about has much horizontal range as down tilt. up tilt can be occasionally be used to space vertically, and leads to both up smash (fast fallers and low%), nair/dair, and up air (which leads to nair/dair).

oh i forgot to mention that his grab range is barely bigger than fox's, which is nice.

 

[the muted smasher]

Pichu is 3rd shortest grab range above ness/pika below bowser

F-tilt is weird in it gets more disjointed the longer it stays out.

Idk how much less disjointed pikachu, s bair is but if it's the same it's better just because jank landing hit and missing the l cancel vs marth. Otherwise having a shorter l cancel on a move You won't really shffl with is meh and we'd all preffer bair range for oos than end lag.

Pichu really is better at approaching than pika cause da empty, disjointed nair(unlike pika) and frame advantage.

But if we could slap the two together for their better merits they'd be better than falcon easily and lord knows pika could use the better empty/nair/shield/size/grab range vs ics to make things start to work.

Wow if pichu as heavier and had something to do besides nair when You jump over him as a floaty

 

[Comet7]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CN96NwVTOzk

bigger than fox

pichu's bair is literally pikachu's bair with 3 less frames of l-canceled landing lag.

 

[the muted smasher]

Pikachu, s longer l cancel is nice because if You miss it You duck to low for many to grab so it's a fun gimmick vs like marth. Also again there is a ground hit. The extra lag helps

Also that video is so bad xD and if You really Wanta play that grab range card go do a boost grab as fox and come back to me on range. Pichu, s grab range is a little more than we need but isn't enough to be what would make it good.

 

[DerfMidWest]

TBH, Pichu plays a lot more like a crappy sheik than fox. He can just nair plane.
As far as pichu's moveset goes, they all have uses. The moves aren't the problem, it's the lack of range and pichu bum ass weight.
he could be a little faster too, but that's w/e.

As for the grab range, Pichu's isn't actually bigger than fox's, it's just further in front of him and pichu's tiny frame gives him the illusion of having a giant grab range.

Anyway, lemme tell you guys about edgecancel combos. I been doin this **** forever, but its so good and nobody else does them, so I'ma drop some knowledge right quick.
So when you edgecancel pichu's dair, you still get the dair quake, since it's hitting the stage. dair quake has fixed knockback, and is untechable. I'm a huge fan of this for edgeguarding in particular because you can straight edgecancel dair->nair and they can't do anything about it.
You can uair too, if you wanted to go for a longer string or something.

Fair is also incredible when edgecanceled (Not just for combo purposes). So edgecanceled fair with pichu acts very similar to fox's edgecancel drill, but without being a spike. It's very similar to dair, but instead of using it for something like an opponent riding the wall underneath, it's a lot better at intercepting horizontal recoveries (I like it for things like spacies sideB).
Normally, at higher percents, I would just straight nair instead, but there are some weirder percents where nair won't straight up kill, which is when I like edgecancel fair->uair, after which you can just follow their DI.
Another one I've been doing is edgecancel fair->jolt. Which is a lot more fraudulent, but it works more than it should. From the jolt, since you still have a doublejump, you can rising nair, or do whatever you want really (I like falling uair->walljump nair if they DI the jolt in, but that only works on FD and FoD).

On battlefield, these same concepts get more interesting since you can straight combo people underneath the lip. you can get away with things like edgecancel dair/fair->turn around jolt (towards the stage)-> rising nair (or uair to spike off the top). You can do some dumb stuff.

weak bair (you can also use nair if you really wanted to) also has a lot of viability for this kind of stuff at low-mid percents, but it doesn't have fixed knockback and is techable.

Another one I've been playing with recently on battlefield is edgecancel AI Nair->stuff.
Double nair definitely works and it looks cool af. I think AI nair->uair should work as well, but I haven't really been successful with that one. All the other aerials are too slow for it to combo directly though.

AI nair combos are just great in general, I'm really trying to get consistent with those because they are dope.

 

[the muted smasher]

Really if I had to compare pichu to anyone, it might be falco in respect of You have to watch what they're doing with their short hops and sh mix ups paired with an oh-kay movement game.

Just hammer on shields till You get what You want or just use the threat of scary approaches to make them approach first.

I wouldn't say fox cause he can be souly movement, grab, platforming, or bairing based for play style. Falco walls with offense more directly so I can relate

 

[ChivalRuse]

Does Pichu have any answers to crouch cancelling aside from grab? Most of his moves don't really break CC (unlike Pikachu who can use uair for that purpose).

 

[DerfMidWest]

Does Pichu have any answers to crouch cancelling aside from grab? Most of his moves don't really break CC (unlike Pikachu who can use uair for that purpose).

Pichu's dair on CC true combos into grab.

 

[the muted smasher]

Super low nair/cross up will always be An answer along with empties.

At 60% vs peach nair won't knock back but dair will and if they cc it thunder combos them for a free whatever

Upair breaks cc at insanely low percents too