*UPDATED* Kill Set Up with Pikachu (and other misc.)

[JayWon]

Hi, I'm new. Just joined. (Edit: Sorry, please bear with me. this guide is sloppy and all over the place, working on it)
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GRAB RELEASE KILL SETUP (VIDEO NOW AVAILABLE BELOW!)
After 100+ percentage I grab and pummel as much as possible til they mash and break free. The opponent will break free at a perfect distance for a Fsmash. You can also Ftilt (more knockback/damage) or Dtilt (faster/more range) but this isn't going to kill. There's a good chance the opponent will still be mashing buttons/expecting a throw and not be ready to react when they are released.

However, when the meta develops, after the grab release, it'll really become a reactive rock-paper-scissor scenario because they can either shield, roll towards you, or roll backwards. If they are able to react and roll towards you, you can time a USmash (more kill potential) or DSmash (longer hitbox safer-ish but long ending lag). If they roll away you can uncharge/charge-timed skull bash (surprising, knockback really depends on the amount of charge, but not the best), or quick attack into them (constant pressure) with more tilts or possible USmash, or try short hop forward aerial (kinda too far away though to do effectively), or most effectively you can dash attack.

After the opponent kinda gets the feel of what to expect after a grab, you can surprise mix it up and do the classical Uthrow into Thunder (not guarantee they can DI and spam air dodges).

Please continue to the video down below.

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This video is against real people and starts off "entertaining" and has examples of utilizing Thunder, and the GRAB RELEASE KILL SET UP I mentioned above as well. (Examples shown throughout video and a concentrated section towards the last quarter of video).
For Glory Pikachu video compilation

Pikachu's grab game is honestly amazing.
and he pummels ridiculously fast!
Here are my suggestions for throws:
0- 40%: I recommend Down throws, it's much easier to connect aerial combos after. Make sure to pummel 1-2 times. Forward Throw is great as well followed by a dash attack at low percentage, you can also follow up with a Foxtrot Forward Smash.

40-100%: If you want to maintain pressure and rack up more damage throw the opponent towards the middle of the stage with either a Back or Forward throw (whichever direction that will throw them inward). Make sure to pummel 3-4 times. Analyze where the opponent will land and Quick Attack towards them. Depending on the spacing and where you landed after the quick attack and where he landed, use whatever attack is appropriate.
Alternatively, If you Forward throw the opponent towards the middle of the stage, you can start charging your skull bash immediately and you're goal is to release skull bash and hit the opponent right before they hit the ground (short hop distance) before they can shield.

If you happen to grab them near the edge, throw them out and get ready to gimp and edgeguard. If you grab them RIGHT at the edge, pummel til release and follow with a B-air to gimp.

100-130%: There are a lot of options now. Abuse it. Around this percentage, the Up throw will launch the opponent high enough where Thunder spikes down. If you're fighting against Bowser, DK, King Dedede, I don't think they can DI out of it. When playing with a new opponent for the first time and/or after the first Up throw. immediately Thunder, there's a good chance it'll surprise them and they will not be ready to DI. The next Up throws, be patient, wait a split second, walk and follow where they DI and Thunder.
As I explained in detail above, you also have a great option for a GRAB RELEASE KILL SET UP. Pummel as much as possible til they break free. Immediately Fsmash. Sm4sh is at the early stage of life and honestly everyone online I played were all caught by surprise and were not ready for it. But after the game develops and people get better, like I said earlier in my post, it will probably become a reactive rock, paper, scissor scenario (please read post above).

~130+%: Make sure you Jump before you thunder. I'm not quite sure but it seems like the opponent has a hard time DIing left/right at very high percentage? Just Jump and thunder and they'll die. You can also do the pummel til release and Fsmash.

Most importantly of all. Always switch it up. After discovering the GRAB RELEASE KILL SET UP into FSmash, and training my opponent to react to that, I noticed many now forget to DI when I Up Throw into Thunder. They just have more things to worry about and it's really impairing they're reaction times. Also in the video if you notice (against greninja) I change up the pummel rates and it's just kinda dead silent sometimes. I feel like it creates a lot of tension and stresses the opponent out if everything is always different.

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SIDE NOTE:
-Oh, if you didn't notice/know (~20 seconds in against Shiek video above) there is an example where you can time your neutral B and dash inside it. Time it so pikachu runs ahead of the thunder jolt, the opponent cannot shield grab you. Honestly, running with a thunderjolt is a very strong approach option.

-I would like to mention Skull Bash is not just for mobility. Think of Skull Bash as a long range F-Smash (which you can even do in the air! Great against floating Peach). Remember all the times you whiffed a F-Smash because it was out of range? Skull bash would have hit. A charged Skull bash can destroy Wario's Bike.

*QUICK TIP* I also like to mention, just how important it is to master Quick Attack. Before you decide to implement a Quick Attack, ALWAYS pinpoint and look at the exact location you want to land. This will help tremendously.

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Pikachu Beginner Combos against Computers:

This video contains basic combo ideas and gimp examples using Level 9 CPUs.
Fastfalling to a Nair sweetspot can be effective and work at very low percentage, but be careful, Pikachu's Nair does not have that much of a strong priority. This video is for pikachu players who are new! Hope this video gives you some general potential impressions to start your Pikachu journey.

 

[Pazx]

Some decent tips, and I'll be sure to check out Pika's grab release follow ups, but in the future definitely don't do this.

 

[JayWon]

Some decent tips, and I'll be sure to check out Pika's grab release follow ups, but in the future definitely don't do this.

I needed 10 posts before I could post a link. Now that I do, I'm sure you don't have to worry about me doing that again in the future.

 

[~Radiance~]

this iteration pika has a gimp heavy game in order to offset for his awful kill power. I liked your setup at the intro for ff fair since it pulls down in this game. Unfortunatley a lot of the time the computer is airdodging after being hit, then trying to recover so its hard to tell if some legit will gimp, but the premise behind it is solid and still serves as a good gimp. very nice vid, your tech skill is very solid.

 

[Wishy The Star]

Thanks for these tips, I've been thinking about playing Pikachu more and I have a feeling this will help. :3

 

[Mochaburp]

This is my first Smash game using Pikachu, so getting all the tips I can is super helpful. Thanks for posting these finds

 

[LucasBlitz]

Useful tips. Thanks!

 

[JayWon]

I updated this post and added a new video so make sure to check them out! Please note the percentages and such are approximations/generalizations. Feel free to find specifics and let us know if you want on your own.

 

[Kai_64]

Pretty cool stuff

 

[Volbard]

I dig that second video, thanks for posting it!

 

[~Radiance~]

make sure when you hop your jolts that you do it off of a fh not a sh, otherwise it has awful landing lag and leaves you really vulnerable

your fsmash game is nice, i really feel like dthrow uair to ff charge fsmash is a super good option still because air dodging got nerfed and its range is good. super safe and easy to punish with.

 

[dettadeus]

it's not even that you have landing lag with sh tjolt, it's just that the animation doesn't cancel - it transitions to the equivalent frame of the grounded animation. when you full hop it, the animation ends just before you touch the ground (you can jump right after) and so it has the illusion of having less lag.

 

[Angiance]

SH T-Jolt, in my honest opinion, is plain better

Ground Jolt is a lot more powerful for controlling the stage, and being able to set it out faster while also being able to move around (SH T-Jolt) is a fairly potent spacing option

FH T-Jolt kinda leaves us more open since it takes longer for the Ground Jolt to come out, and we can lose a ton of stage to the opponent over firing just one, since the opponent can kinda just dash forward the whole time the Air Jolt is falling from a FH, which is a very large window to take stage over us; with SH T-Jolt the opponent CANNOT just dash forward, they HAVE to at LEAST jump to avoid it, completely halting their momentum

We can land with no lag, however, what no one takes into account is, we are stuck in the air longer; we can get punished/lose stage while we're falling from the air

F-Air covers the area that Air Jolt covers much, much better in my opinion

From this point, I fully disagree with any and every Pikachu promoting FH T-Jolt. It's slow, easy to punish, and cost us too much stage

Bell A. Rohzn~

 

[dettadeus]

do you even play this game

or like... pikachu? at all?

if you do sh jolt then you get stuck on the ground halfway though the animation. you lose all your mobility and are stuck with no defenses for upwards of 45 frames. if they perfect shield it, spot dodge it, or roll past it, you are still stuck for probably 20 more frames. immobile and unable to shield or throw out a hitbox. if you full hop, you still have complete control over your horizontal position.

grounded jolt is even worse, because you are stuck in one spot from the getgo.

 

[Angiance]

For clarification: when I say "Ground Jolt," I'm reffering to a jolt that travels on the ground, NOT standing T-Jolt; Air Jolt being a jolt traveling in the air

As I stated above, when you FH your T-Jolt the opponent can just dash at you the entire time the jolt is in the air, giving them *more stage* vs us; with SH T-Jolt (which can be done from very far) the opponent AT LEAST has to stop their momentum to deal with it

Also stated above: FH T-Jolt allows us to land with no lag, HOWEVER, we are *stuck in the air longer*, which is fairly punishable. With SH T-Jolt the Ground Jolt is out faster, which means it will *interrupt the opponent earlier* than FH T-Jolt, granting us more prominent stage control

 

[~Radiance~]

this is prob responding to way old posts, but i disagree. sh jolts are meek because they leave you vulnerable and in the jolt animation. the reason fh jolt is good is because you retain mobility, and can thus space the jolt backwards as to not get hit. if you are jolting close enough for someone to jump over and punish you or just shield it and punish you, you are not using jolts the proper way. they are a camping projectile that is meant to be used from far away and can set up for follow ups if you run with them, they should never be used that close to people.

 

[Angiance]

With a SH T-Jolt, you still have the ability to adjust your spacing as he is in the air. It puts us in the remainder of T-Jolt's recovery lag on landing, but since Ground Jolt is out earlier than we land, the opponent's flow will be interrupted, and we will be far enough for it to not really be punishable

It's actually fairly good for spacing, FH T-Jolt is only legitimate if you're very, very, very far from your opponent; SH T-Jolt is much more flexible

Example: on BF, guess what you can't do effectively most of the time due to platforms...FH T-Jolt

 

[~Radiance~]

If other pikas from brawl were in here still im sure theyd have more input, but sh jolts are really not good at all. gl against anyone who can powershield. fh jolts are a camping tool that you use from far away, jolts are situational and never should be sh'd, especially with the buff to rolling in this game

 

[dettadeus]

please just ignore him lol, i've had hours long arguments with him on skype and he doesnt even own the game yet.

 

[Angiance]

Technically, Power Shield counters practically *every* option, if used accurately

@ dettadeus
Y'see, what you *don't* know, is that I have plenty of experience playing top players on Wi-Fi, like Kami (the guy who beat you up), Ryuga, and many others

 

[dettadeus]

I mean I've played armada, wobbles, mjg, delux and zero in person (mjg and lux quite a bit since they're only an 8 hour drive away) just to name a few but that doesn't mean I can advocate a bad option in a game I don't own lol.

Also you should watch Captain L's sets in the video thread and see his jolt usage, maybe another pika placing top 3 with good jolt usage will sway you

 

[DeLux]

Smash 3DS has top players?

 

[Angiance]

*facepaw* I was saying I'm not inexperienced, to counter you saying "doesn't even own the game," duh~

@ DeLux
I was reffering to Brawl Wi-Fi, not SB4

Anyways, T-Jolt isn't even that great, so it's whatever

 

[dettadeus]

yeah but... it doesn't matter if you're experienced or not because you don't actually play this game (yet?). experience in one game does not always translate directly to experience in another. is mango a god at smash4 because he's good at melee? don't answer that. the answer is no.

also nobody agreed with you in brawl to begin with, as is evidenced by the fact that top pika players like ESAM use full hop jolts extensively and never use sh jolts. obviously they're just wrong though and the fact that they place high is a factor of their opponents not properly punishing such a bad option as full hop thunder jolt though.

 

[Angiance]

For one, SB4 is built off of Brawl; Melee is it's own game essentially

For two, I said it's whatever~

 

[Nocally]

If other pikas from brawl were in here still im sure theyd have more input, but sh jolts are really not good at all. gl against anyone who can powershield. fh jolts are a camping tool that you use from far away, jolts are situational and never should be sh'd, especially with the buff to rolling in this game

Retreating sh´d jolt (to down tilt or whatever to stop approaches) seems to be working nicely for me, some characters/players who rely on close combat has a difficult time to set the pace of the match when their approach options is disrupted/limited to shielding/rolling/jumping.

every technique has it´s weaknesses, but sh jolt is not useless at all, the lag from a retreating one makes it so you usually can follow up (and maybe even wait) on your opponent.

 

[~Radiance~]

not to beat the already dead horse, but although i wasnt a "top" pikachu, i was ranked in cali when i was active and provided a decent amount of thread writing and research to pikachus meta. Im not quoting that for pretentious reasons, but moreso to illustrate that Ive had a lot of practice, and i know that FHing jolts is the superior option because you can jump before landing on the ground after FH jolt, allowing you do fair or dair offensively, and the smiple fact that when using jolts you do it from far away and always retreat, or do it and move offstage as you fh for safety. KayLo! wrote a thread about how to properly FH jolts, its important and its the only way you should ever use them aside from the occasional sh jolt as a mixup.

tl;dr plz for the love of god dont sh jolts, its so punishable

 

[Smash Bro]

Hm, interesting tips. I'm curious to see how these strats might change now that Pika's been buffed a little, but I definitely want to try those grab setups.

 

[Boots12]

I'd be really interested in reading this FH jolt article you're talking about.

Also has Pikachu's grab changed in this game? I'm really struggling to grab people. Given as these grab set ups are the only way I've been able to reliable kill people it's a little frustrating, haha. I keep ending up with a really "long" grab the just missed and then trips me.

Any advice on how to set up these Kill Set Ups would be extremely appreciated!

And I just wanted to say thank you for the thread! I was so sad to see pikachu's kill moves nerfed, but this thread has been crazy helpful, thanks!

 

[~Radiance~]

pikachus stationary and running grab has high vertical reach and less horizontal reach. his running grab, like eveyrones running grab, has less range horizontaly, so you have to rely on his ground speed to make up for the range.

With the Wii U now being out, I am planing on recording some matches with a friend sometime tomorrow. ill get them uploaded when i get a chance so we have some references on good controls.

 

[Boots12]

Okay, that would be great, thank you!

I look forward to seeing some more videos coming out now that Wii U is up.

 

[Boots12]

So I've been trying the grab release to f-smash set up and I keep getting messed up by something. I have no idea what's doing it, but whenever I release after pummeling a while, I try to f-smash, but the animation isn't the same. It's not an f-tilt, and it's not an f-smash, it's like pikachu twists around and tries to kick with its back legs. This attack has much less range than the f-smash and always misses. I have no idea how I keep doing this, as sometimes the f-smash works perfectly and sometimes it doesn't happen at all.

 

[dettadeus]

if he's kicking with his hind legs it's an ftilt. no other animation does that lol.

 

[Steam]

I just came in here to say detta should take purple text's advice and SH jolt in tourney, especially against me. I could use the free Auraspheres and roll -> forceplam kills. I mean he has experience against notable wifi warrior #1 and notable wifi warrior #2, he can't be wrong.

 

[Boots12]

How did I not see that before? I could've sworn his ftilt was a head jab (which I now realize is his neutral). Yeesh.

Thanks.

 

[Angiance]

I just came in here to say detta should take purple text's advice and SH jolt in tourney, especially against me. I could use the free Auraspheres and roll -> forceplam kills. I mean he has experience against notable wifi warrior #1 and notable wifi warrior #2, he can't be wrong.

Try me~

 

[dettadeus]

Try me~

do you have the wiiu version so you can actually play or are you still making callouts you can't back up without random "wifi warriors" doing your work for you?

NID Dettadeus, available for wifi basically all week

 

[Angiance]

do you have the wiiu version so you can actually play or are you still making callouts you can't back up without random "wifi warriors" doing your work for you?

NID Dettadeus, available for wifi basically all week

Ohhhh, you mean the "random wifi warrior" that consistently kicked your ass? It's fine to leave that part out, since you wanna make yourself look so good...I guess~ ^ u ^

 

[dettadeus]

so

you're telling me you dont have the game

ok

i mean i'm honestly wondering if you have the game so we can play and you can stop saying "wow my friend beat you at 3am so you are terrible even though you beat him with your real main and managed to win by time out with pika" as if it makes a difference

 

[Steam]

Ohhhh, you mean the "random wifi warrior" that consistently kicked your ***? It's fine to leave that part out, since you wanna make yourself look so good...I guess~ ^ u ^

Wifi is a great practice tool, not so great for legit competition because it's a completely different game... giving someone **** over wifi sets is dumb. Detta shows up to real events and does well, afaik most wifi warriors don't attend anything and if they do they often get bopped because their playstyle molded around the lag. for example okami who was always top 5 on AiB's ladder and never made colorado's PR when he started attending offline...

but I'd be happy to play you, I'll admit I'm wrong if you can actually make SH jolt work.