Pit Matchup(Last Update 06/18/09)

Pit



General Discussion

If you are hungry then this matchup is for you since pit is made out of spam. If you're a vegetarian then you are sol. Pit is a character who uses his projectile(arrows) and will do anything to stay out of close range with anyone who has a better ground/air game than him. Using pika means comboes and pit players usually recognize this and will spam against you. But, we are small and that is deceptive which helps bringing the pit to advance sometimes.

Pika's Advantages

1. Small and harder to hit with arrows
2. A better aiground/air game
3. The wrap around tjolt

Pika's Disadvantages

1. No reflector
2. Doesn't have wings or red bull

Strategy for Winning

Dealing with Arrows

The first and very most thing that you are going to learn when playing pit is how to predict arrows and then you need to learn what to do against them. Basically, you can either shield/spotdodge/manuever around them. This may sound easy, but pit can shoot his arrow at different times and can move the arrow to hit basically anything he wants. Arrows will stay on a straight path unless forced by the pit player.

Pit players can change the timing of the arrows. To do this they hold onto the b button and let go whenever they want. There is a 3 second timer, I believe, but it can be extended if the pit turns around or changes the aiming of the arrow by aiming up and constantly does this. You will see the pit charge an arrow then aim up then back then at you then up etc... It gets frustrating. Just wait till he turns to you and react when the arrow is shot.

Playing pit will help you learn how to powershield better than playing any other character imo. Imagine trying to shield 100+ arows in one match and trying to shield all of them without depleting your reflector. It gets tough if you don't approach a defensive pit. You need to powershield his arrows and learn to not keep your shield up against his arrows. Spotdodging is fine but i wouldn't recommend to keep using it. The sole reason being that pit can change the timing of his arrows so spotdodging is harder than shielding.

Another thing you can do is mix up the way you approach pit. Dash run>shield is fine, but you have another option which is great and important to use. This is ducking/jumping. By incorporating ducking/jumping into your approach the pit player will always be more wary of how to use his arrows and will have to predict where you are going to be and angle his arrows to adjust. A crouching pikachu can only be hit by an arrow if its angled.

Ground/Air game

General Pika Ground Gameplay

Pika outranges pit on the ground. Our fsmash is a great spacing tool and so is dtilt/ftilt. I would recommend dtilt at lower percents since it won't knockback pit that much and it enables you to stay close to pit and not allow any arrow spamming. I would also suggest saving the fsmash for killing and to not deplete it since pit's will try and stay away from you when at higher percents. So when you do get close and you land a fsmash, it will kill them. But if you want to use fsmash for spacing, then go for it.

When you get close you are going to want to grab pit. Fthrow>usmash is good until the his percent is at about 20-25%. From there I recommend using dthrow and then trying to combo from there. I would never use uthrow unless trying to get the thunder kill, which means try it only at 95%+. Bthrow throws the pit away from you and we don't want that.

You dsmash is going to be really useful in this matchup. Pit players will spam arrows until you get close and then roll behind you when you shield. From there they will grab or fsmash. Be sure to shield the ENTIRE fsmash since there are two swipes. Spotdodgin the initial swipe will get you hit by the second swipe. Do not roll behind pit as you will eat a dsmash. But, if you are reading this then you will have a way to counter this. DSMASH!!!! When you get close and he starts to roll, dsmash the sucker. If you think you can't get it off in time, shield then jump oos shield>dair. He will quickly learn to stop doing this.

NOTE: THe tjolt shouldn't be used that much. It is out spammed by arrows and has lag which is easily punished by pit.

Pit's Ground Moveset

Pit's ground game consists of a ftilt, dtilt, fsmash, dsmash, side b, and jab. The slowest out of these are his ftilt and jab. If you get hit by his jab or see it being used, DI out immediately. If you don't get sucked in by it, which it will if it hits, fsmash him. Do nt attemp to grab or tilt for there's a chance that it will outprioritize us. Other than that his moves are pretty simple and really do not have any setups other than upb>cancel>ftilt which can be surprising. Pit does not have any kill moves and will spam all of these in a match. They all have pretty nice startup time and low lag. The best kill move out of these is a tippered dsmash and a tippered ftilt. But they kill at well above 100% ( around 140% be wary).

Pit's side b and shield can reflect our tjolt and thunder. Up close, the side b is a damage racker if not DI'd out of. If this happens immediately DI up and away. Spamming tjolts is not going to be one of our best strategies here, so try not to get to tjolt happy since it can be reflected. If you can, roll behind the pit ayer if he uses his side b and it doesn't hit or fsmash him. There is a good amount of cooldown lag if whiffed adnd it can be punished. His weaknes when using this move is his backside, same with reflector. It is unprotected.

When hit by the dsmash/ftilt, DI up and use the uair>skullbash to momentum cancel. Everything else uair>fastfallAnd DI downwards. This applies only to his ground game though.

Pit's Air Moveset

A good pit payer will utilize everyone of his air attacks. But, some pit players will save their bair for a kill move. The fair/bair are pretty much the same move in terms of hitbox and spacing, but bair is easier to kill with. They outprioritize our attacks so if you are in the air, remember tha pit can use his fair and destroy us. Do not get above since you will eat an uair also. So if you are being hit and you do not know where to DI, never DI above pit. DI away from him.

Pit has 6 jumps(if wrong then PM me and i will change it) and then a recovery that can get him from one side of the stage to the other, no problem. If a pit is near you and staying in he air, just wait till he is about to land. He has to land sometime so do not approach him. When he is about to land run underneath him or qac and punish with an usmash or grab or whatever you think will hit him. I suggest an usmash right before he hits the ground. Surprises them everytime. Pika can be fast so use it.

When pit is off stage or on the ledge is when you can expect to see a predictable pit and be able to punish, somewhat. They have jumps and a glide so they aren't worrying aobut being gimped. So expect to see arrows coming at you when they are grabbing the ledge or floating in the air. Just jump ove them or shield. It doesn't matter. What does matter is when they are trying to get back or ledge hopping arrows. If they are ledge hopping aerials just FH tjolt and you will take care of it real quick. Be sure to watch out for the ledgehop fair when pit is getting back on stage fyi.

When the pit player is away from the stage and in the air and using arrows, you are golden. Just wait for the pit to try and glide back to the stage and jump back. If they glide back use your thunder to make a wall. If missed they will usually try and recover to the other side. What you can do is use a tjolt to wrap around the underside of the stage and try to hit them that way. If the thunder hits then they will recover on your side of the stage. Harder to edgeguard now but not impossible. Just wait to thunder or charge a fsmash for when they try to grab the ledge.

Kill or be Killed

This matchups will depend on you not getting hit by arrows and pit trying to stop you from getting close. Whoever can manage better will win. However, we do have a better advantage since we actually have decent kill moves like usmash and fsmash and utilt and thunder. Pit, well he has a fsmash and dsmah and bair and filt. But, most of the time his moves are staled by the time we are in kill percent and you only really have to worry about his dsmash and bair. These ae easy to avoid is you realize to not roll or challenge pit in the air at higher percents. WE outrange pit so fsmash away if you don't want to die for spacing.

My favorite kill move against pit is the fsmash and utilt>thunder sometimes I can get a DACUS in. You want to look for when the pit is coming in from the air and trying to hit with an aerial when using the DACUS to kill. Utilt>thunder is harder to pull off but great if you save using it to mix it up with mindgames.

A note about gimping pit for when he has used his upb and his wings are blue. Try everything can to hit pit. By hitting him it will stop his upb and he won't have anymore jumps or recovery moves. Tjolt is great for gimping and so is any aerial that hits. Thunder will send them upwards and maybe with enough force to help them DI back to the stage.


Helpful Video's

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Overall Matchup

55:45 in favor of the chu

I'm typing this post for two reasons.

The first is that I actually will be able to contribute to this thread, as I main pit, second pika, and have two friends of mine that second pika. I'll make sure to get one of my friends to play me a bunch with his pika, and I'll think over the results of that with what I already know about the two characters. Unfortunately, my other friend I only see at school, which is currently on break, so no luck there. Expect a follow up post in a week's time.

The second is that I feel that galax1117 is being irresponsible, or at the very least making a poor decision. As a lurker of the Pika board I'm quite aware of the level of activity that we can rely on. I do not see how this level of activity warrants opening seven new/update character match ups. I understand you want to finish/update the character chart, however it doesn't make any sense to have all of these threads open when we do not have the current level of participation to make use of them.

I'll point further to the Yoshi match up discussion I very briefly threw in my two cents for. The general match up summary has not been written yet, and galax seemed to have all the information he needed about a month ago. For me at least, the match up summaries are much more important than any number ever could be.

At this point I feel it's not only necessary for me, but irresponsible for me to continue if I don't give galax the credit he deserves for running the character match up threads, and in general being a responsible poster, not only here, but elsewhere on the boards. This is in no way a personal attack galax, I just disagree with the choice you made, and feel i need to speak strongly against it in an attempt to change it.

Going back to the Yoshi discussion, I'd like to point out this post by thebadnewsbear06:

"Oh shi........

Dang. If I would have know that we were gonna do this match up, I have recorded some more current videos with Bwett. I'll record some with him next week."

Here we had a person with a wealth of pika experience (not sure if he still mains pikachu), who played against one of the best yoshi's in the US, who did not comment on the match up. Although, this level of participation is not a rule, it is a pretty decent example of the pikachu boards. We have a similar participation problem on the Pit boards, so do not feel I am condescending, more like recognizing a similar though different problem. Again, i'm not criticizing individuals, just reminding everyone how active the pikachu board is.

I'd suggest taking a more realistic approach, and closing five or six of the newly opened match up discussions, and getting back to those when we have enough input on the other match ups. Otherwise I feel they will slowly fall off the front page and not get done.

If you still disagree, fine, obviously I don't have any pull here. At the very least I ask that you write the Yoshi match up summary or ask for more input, because I'm interested to see what the final thoughts on the match up are.

I don't think it hurts to have the thread created as an empty vessel that can be bumped up later if need be.

Against Pit, I suggest approaching diagonally because he can punish horizontal approaches with arrows and side b.

yeah well i opened them up cuz i really dont need help on CF, link, fox, etc. i wanted mainly to get pit and PT out there. i have discussed with the pikas about samus and sheik to know what they do. if you feel that opening them up was a waste then you should realize that no new thread has started in a while, and most that do get started are locked. that being said, even if i waited lets say a month after opening up two threads and then posted two more new threads they will most likely still be seen next to or near each other on the same page. i want to get them here so i can finish writing them. i finished bowser last night and now am running down the list of who needs to be finished. they info is there for you to read if you want. my writups are summaries of what has been written. if you can take the time to go to that matchup and do not want to read what people have said then well its your fault. dont blame me for not writing it yet.

i try to get discussion going but most of the time its the same as what happened with bear. the best i can do is leave it up until someone asks me to write it or i decide that no one is going to post anymore.

i did not open them to start a frenzy of activity on the boards. i opened them cuz i figured i need to get them done now. i highly doubt that much was going to be said on those matchups anyway even if posted at a later time. i only ever expect 4-5 seriouos posts per matchup. and they are usually from esam/stealth/klo and two others for randomness. im not trying to push activity. im trying to get it done. period.

so if being irresponsible is making the threads to the remaining matchups so that you can then write the matchup well then i have committed a bad judgement call. IM SORRY.

will give my input later, i have a lot of exp with pit. ill also get ky to talk, since he is my rival in this matchup lol

I never liked Pit.. they make me suicide as Pikachu then CP them as Ike and fsmash them and laugh at their face.

EDIT:

alright alright... I'll edit the spam


From the somewhat old Pit exp i have...

He's got two reflectors down B and side B.. side - B is a pretty good counter approach for spam.

Side B only reflects on the sword part, he's completely open at his body. Same with the mirror. So reflecting thunder means they need to hit thunder with the mirror/sword hitbox.

and swords suck.. stupid range advantage Pit has. So you have to hit Pit before he gets his sword out.

Thunder can force his glide to end early but meh most Pits won't glide into a thunder.

Arrows will be aimed, but you can duck under them when unaided in trajectory. Arrows are mind games so can't say much besides do your best to read where is aiming them.

2nd edit:

Rouge Pit.. lol I always went Ike against him... My sword is longer lol..

please keep the discussion MU related. unless you want to contribute to this thread then do not post.

so i finished the pit matchup. feel free to read and post anything that i might have missed.