What should I NOT expect from Pit ?

[Phyras]

Hi !
I'm a long time smash bros player and I want to step up from the "DF, 3 stocks, no items" friendly metagame.
For few weeks i've been eating a bunch of smash bros content to understand what mean slangs like Neutral game, Ledge trapping or mix-up.
Now that I can keep up with forums like this one, I think it's time to put some thoughts into my main : Pit.

What is Pit ? His range doesn't compete with sword wielders and his speed doesn't compete with rushdown characters.
He looks like an all-rounder but doesn't feel as efficient as Mario or Yoshi to grind damages or KO, yet I feel Pit would got the upper hand on both characters.

It feels like Pit options can cover many situations, yet people barely put him in the upper part of the tier list.
I don't have the hindsight to pinpoint things I barely understand, so I'm asking you what are the things Pit can't do, or struggle to achieve ?
What are the weakness I should get covered before putting time on strengths ?

 

[Burando]

I’ve only just picked up Edgelord Pit recently, so I don’t have the more experienced answers you might be looking for, but for lack of any responses (and oddly no competitive discussion thread here) I’ll share my thoughts.

If you’re in advantage you’re going to be off stage. His recovery has so much range that you can afford to use all 3 mid-air jumps offensively. I have and would recommend dedicating a chunk of time in training on fighting off stage. You’ll find the characters that often give you a hard time when fighting on the ground will be at your mercy when you’re fighting away from the ground.

It’s not about what Pit can’t do, it’s what can Pit do that other characters can’t. That’s my two-cents. I’d also love some more experienced feedback.

 

[CodakTheWarrior]

A high tier character lol

 

[MERPIS]

A good character at all lol

 

[Green Spiny]

Some observations after trying to pick up Pit / Dark Pit for a few days. His biggest weaknesses are a lack of safe approach options, weak out-of-shield options, and limited combo potential.

Even though he has four jumps, low air speed and average range make pressure against fast characters difficult. Crossing up shield is hard and many attacks backfire due to low hitstun. His DAir, one of his safest options, actually punishes him if he sweetspots it at low %.

His combo potential is also lacking. Besides a few followups into NAir and dash attack at low %, and his DAir spike combos at mid-high %, he can't string together blows like most middleweights can. In the end, he's very reliant on winning the neutral.

Now, there ARE things I like about him! He has varied KO options, good offstage play, super armor mixups, and a fairly well-rounded kit. I'd like to see his Down-B buffed (less starting or ending lag) and his air speed buffed perhaps. Will keep trying to improve with him.

 

[Call_Me_Red]

Some observations after trying to pick up Pit / Dark Pit for a few days. His biggest weaknesses are a lack of safe approach options, weak out-of-shield options, and limited combo potential.

Even though he has four jumps, low air speed and average range make pressure against fast characters difficult. Crossing up shield is hard and many attacks backfire due to low hitstun. His Dair, one of his safest options, actually punishes him if he sweetspots it at low %.

His combo potential is also lacking. Besides a few followups into Nair and dash attack at low %, and his Dair spike combos at mid-high %, he can't string together blows like most middleweights can. In the end, he's very reliant on winning the neutral.

Now, there ARE things I like about him! He has varied KO options, good offstage play, super armor mixups, and a fairly well-rounded kit. I'd like to see his Down-B buffed (less starting or ending lag) and his air speed buffed perhaps. Will keep trying to improve with him.

I disagree with almost every point you've made.

-Safe Approach Options: Auto-cancel Nair, fade back Fair, dash attack, and dash grab are all very safe. It's not always easy to cross up, but against most of the cast it's not particularly difficult to dance around them using Nair (which eats shield, so eventually they will be poked).

-Out-of-Shield: Nair is incredibly safe and covers almost every close range option. Up smash is situational, but it has it's place. And Pit's grab is very fast, even if it doesn't have a great range out of shield.

-Combo: His combo game isn't the best out of everyone, but it is by no means bad. All of his aerials have the potential to combo into eachother. It's possible to get a Fair chain all the way to the blast zone. Juggling with Up Air is incredibly easy. And down throw sets up into everything depending on percent and DI.

-"varied KO options": yeah...like F smash or a gimp...or sometimes side B...?

Overall I think Pit is a solid character, his only true weakness being a lack of kill power. I think in the right hands he could pose a true threat. He reminds me of Shiek in Smash 4, but instead of speed he has air game. I notice most people sleep on Pit, but I honestly think he's a force to be reckoned with.

 

[MERPIS]

A good character at all lol

 

[Phyras]

Thank you all for your advices,

-"varied KO options": yeah...like F smash or a gimp...or sometimes side B...?

I don't really know when a move become a "KO option", I mean with 200% any move is a KO option.
Watching some Pits making their way in tournaments, there's the moves that you'll find taking a stock from the stage:
- F smash above 100%, commentators always praising the move.
- Bair sweet spot and the down smash second hit, with little more percents required.
- Fair and Forward throw can also kill around 130%.

Beside of down throw, down tilt kept the good reach from the previous game and mostly combo into Fair.
Finally, I saw Pits just snipping people out of stage and taking their recovery like inquisitors would take Jerusalem...

 

[Corthos Fellrin]

Thank you all for your advices,

I don't really know when a move become a "KO option", I mean with 200% any move is a KO option.
Watching some Pits making their way in tournaments, there's the moves that you'll find taking a stock from the stage:
- F smash above 100%, commentators always praising the move.
- Bair sweet spot and the down smash second hit, with little more percents required.
- Fair and Forward throw can also kill around 130%.

Beside of down throw, down tilt kept the good reach from the previous game and mostly combo into Fair.
Finally, I saw Pits just snipping people out of stage and taking their recovery like inquisitors would take Jerusalem...

Safe Approach Options: NAir and A well spaced Fair is fine. Dash grab and attack aren't safe by any means. Please don't do those two. You are better off dashing back and forth.

Out of Shield Nair is pretty normal.

Combo Game: You are better off doing two piece combos like the basic down throw into up smash or an aerial. There is also Up tilt into Nair and Up air at higher %. There are combos that involve Nairs and Fairs, but they can DI away and it's over. You could dash grab to mix them up. There is also falling Nair and Fair into Dsmash.

Kill Options: *Insert Laugh track* ... But seriously you are better off gimping and edgeguarding in genreal. You only have a few setups: Dair into Upsmash, Falling upair to Upsmash, and Falling Fair into Fsmash... tho that one isn't consistent. If you are Dark Pit, Dark arrow kills are lit just sayin'.

Pit needs help... buffs... don't expect a good time, you have to work for everything. Once they are off stage, you better have an arrow ready or you better jump out there and slap them.

 

[Vistra31]

Pit can move fast. Pit can rack up damage now that jab is buffed. Pit can take advantage of multiple recovery options. Pit can't kill at far range and cannot out range so you're better off up close. Pit wins easier if you play off stage chasing opponents for kills with fair into fair or even fair into nair. Only use arrows angled up instead of chasing until the very point they are on a platform so you can take advantage of uair or nair. Pit also has great ledge getup options with fair or nair or even getup attack. What you shouldn't expect from Pit is attacks that cancel an opponents attack like King K. Rool side B or challenging opponents as they use a move the same time as you. unless you use side b Try and get your attacks out first and you'll win said matchup.

 

[J.B.]

Killing has always been the main issue for me at tourneys. Online it's pretty easy because it seems like most of the folks I run into don't know the character and fall for F-Throw tricks by the ledge over and over. Tourneys out here, I've constantly found myself in situations where I can be up 60% and still lose a stock first because so much of his killing technique requires reading.

• Arrows off ledge require guessing where the opponent is going to be.
• F-Throw at the edge requires reading getup options or pressuring an unawares opponent to the ledge.
• Aerials off ledge require avoiding most recovery covers (ig you'd call it) because they loses to a lot of other aerials and D-Air specifically doesn't last long.
• D-Smash sucks, and U-Smash and F-Smash have some startup.
• Orbitars are slow as hell, so I don't bounce back Shadow Balls and etc. very often.
• He has no really cheesy options; I hear people calling him "honest" a lot.

Otherwise, I don't have any problems with him. He's not super fast, but he's fast enough for what I use him for (players that zone out my Inkling). His combo game is good enough. D-Throw/D-Tilt > N-Air > N-Air works on a lot of people. D-Throw -> U-Smash at low percent. Chars I can't pure out-range him with, I can harass with arrows.

 

[CoyoteFlavoring]

You can expect to cry when you main Pit.

I'm not very good but what you described sounds like the exact reason he will not be top tier. He has a lack of kill confirms.

It's easy to rack up % with Pit(s) but losing your last stock when your opponent is at 189% etc gets frustrating.

The only thing that keeps me coming back to my boy (never left) are the beautiful Dair Spikes on all the stupid FE toons.

 

[TreeChopperVillager]

Hi !
I'm a long time smash bros player and I want to step up from the "DF, 3 stocks, no items" friendly metagame.
For few weeks i've been eating a bunch of smash bros content to understand what mean slangs like Neutral game, Ledge trapping or mix-up.
Now that I can keep up with forums like this one, I think it's time to put some thoughts into my main : Pit.

What is Pit ? His range doesn't compete with sword wielders and his speed doesn't compete with rushdown characters.
He looks like an all-rounder but doesn't feel as efficient as Mario or Yoshi to grind damages or KO, yet I feel Pit would got the upper hand on both characters.

It feels like Pit options can cover many situations, yet people barely put him in the upper part of the tier list.
I don't have the hindsight to pinpoint things I barely understand, so I'm asking you what are the things Pit can't do, or struggle to achieve ?
What are the weakness I should get covered before putting time on strengths ?

What not to expect: A Good Side B

 

[Kiligar]

What not to expect: A Good Side B

Side B needs a buff, definitely. The super armor is a joke, it has three main flaws: first, when connecting with an opponent’s hit box it loses super armor for a frame. I’ve died to this so many times, particularly on get up electroshock off ledge. The second is how it comes out frame 11. On the air and the ground, I’ve seen many pit players input side B and die, as you can see the animation start up but there is no super armor. It only lasts till frame 26 as well. Finally, the move doesn’t get the kills it needs. It requires the riskiest of reads and when it does hit, middleweights don’t die at 115% without rage, which is just not good. Specifically upperdash, but also electroshock mid stage. Here are my proposed buffs: Get rid of the one frame of vulnerability, have the super-armor come out frame 7 and last until frame 30, decrease lag on the ground to 65 FAF from 80, and in the air to 75 FAF from a disgusting 105. Finally, increase base damage on the air and on the ground from 9%/11% to 11%/13%. As for any non pit main who thinks this would be overkill, the move would still have plenty of counterplay. Blocking is an easy hard punish, so is spot dodge, and jump leads to a smaller punish. Roll is 50-50 unless the opponent rolls through the move, which is very easy. Finally, the frame data changes affect super armor, not hit boxes, so you can still be grabbed out of the startup, and extremely quick frame 3-5 moves can hit before the super armor, just not a Smash attack. The lag changes mean it would still be very laggy, just not enough for a Ganon/Dedede/Bowser to drop their shield and hit you with a forward smash.

 

[CoyoteFlavoring]

I just assumed it was heavy armor with how often it gets punished, didn't know about the vuln frames after hit detection.

 

[Kiligar]

Hope 3.0.0 adresses this but we’ll have to see. The pits are decent characters that are near perfect, but some parts of their moveset don’t function correctly, such as forward tilt, and upward shot arrows knock back.

 

[LightKnight]

Hope 3.0.0 adresses this but we’ll have to see. The pits are decent characters that are near perfect, but some parts of their moveset don’t function correctly, such as forward tilt, and upward shot arrows knock back.

He got a ton of buffs transitioning into Ultimate but I agree he could use just a few more or so. Hopefully that should allow him to more easily go at least even with the vast majority of the cast.

 

[Kiligar]

He got a ton of buffs transitioning into Ultimate but I agree he could use just a few more or so. Hopefully that should allow him to more easily go at least even with the vast majority of the cast.

Pit’s up smash was nerfed way too much. It’s way too weak now, in a game where characters have up smashes that kill at 90, his doesn’t kill at 110. Let’s not even talk about stale up smash, as if you hit a fresh one at 110 on a semi heavy character like ROB/Link/Yoshi, then hit a second one after the opponent lands on a platform, they don’t die to either. The move has 0 range on the back and very little on the front, meaning its purpose isn’t multi-faceted like Mario’s, Link’s or even Rosalina’s. The move is also not a true disjoint, since Pit’s head moves upward as he does the attack, making it somewhat contestable with disjointed dairs (Cloud/Link/Corrin). Up-Smash also is fairly laggy. Long story short, this is one of the dysfunctional moves, as it often struggles to take a stock. This is especially bad on a character that’s not particularly good at taking stocks.

 

[LightKnight]

Pit’s up smash was nerfed way too much. It’s way too weak now, in a game where characters have up smashes that kill at 90, his doesn’t kill at 110. Let’s not even talk about stale up smash! Long story short, this is one of the dysfunctional moves, as it often struggles to take a stock. This is especially bad on a character that’s not particularly good at taking stocks.

Good to know, I don't yet own the game so I've been going off observations and only a few times of playing him in Ultimate.
It'd be nice to see all his smashes get touch ups. I'd be happy if his up smash KO'd most at around 100 and was a reliable(true) disjoint.
Some buffs to his up-tilt would be nice too for it to be a move worth using. Otherwise it seems your just using an unreliable move so that up smash doesn't stale. I know some people want buffs to his side tilt which I'd certainly appreciate too.
And while down air's spike box has supposedly been made more reliable maybe it could be made even more so? Or I'll just have to get the game and get use to the positioning.