Pikmin Order Whistle - How exactly it works! (and applies to recovery)

Okay, we've got this all figured out. Thanks to Yakt-NJ for the help.

Your pikmin will queue up in this order:
red, yellow, blue, white, purple. We'll call this the hierarchy.
Like colors will queue together if they can* and the first time you whistle in a match, your red pikmin will jump to the front of the line with the rest following in order of the hierarchy. If you whistle again and again the pikmin will cycle through in the order listed above (skipping missing pikmin of course).

Once you start attacking with your pikmin, whether it's a pikmin toss or even just a smash, they will be out of order (even if they didn't get mixed up!) so that when you whistle again, the color of the second pikmin in line won't be the ones called to the front of the line, instead the color called to the front will be whichever color pikmin follows after the last one that was called to the front the last time you whistled (but if that color pikmin is currently unavailable it will skip to the color after). We'll refer to this as your whistle order. Your whistle order will start at red at the start of the match and will be constant until you whistle again (no matter what you do with you pikmin in the meantime).

So here's a quick example:
At the start of a match, you pluck your pikmin and let's say you come up with this queue: red, white , blue, purple, red, purple.
Now your whistle order starts at red, so no matter how you mix up those pikmin, the first time you whistle, your queue should* look like this:
red, red, blue, white, purple, purple.

After this whistle your whistle order would normally go to yellow since that's next in the pikmin hierarchy, but you don't currently have any, so instead your whistle order would jump to blue and your blue pikmin would go in front:
blue, white, purple, purple, red, red (notice how the hierarchy wraps around).

Now, again, you can do whatever you want with these pikmin to mix them up, but the next time you whistle if you have a white pikmin (even if your old one died and you plucked a new one) your whistle order will jump to white since it comes after blue in the hierarchy.

Why is this important?
The best answer right off the top of my head is recovery. If you set your whistle order to white** and leave it there (by not whistling again), if there are any purple pikmin in your queue (or near enough to respond to the whistle) they will jump to the front and you will be able to use it to knock off anyone that is edge hogging you. You will then be able to use your tether to recover.

You don't have to leave your whistle order at a certain color though. You may want to use your whistle armor, but in this case you can simply figure how many times you will need to whistle to get your whistle order back to purple. You can whistle much faster in the air, so hopefully you will have enough time to whistle the appropriate number of times to get a purple pikmin in front to toss at the edge hogger. However, the fewer whistles you have to do to get your purple pikmin up front, the safer you'll be.

Addendum
It's important to note that if your whistle order is at yellow, but your yellow pikmin don't jump to the front for some reason*, and blue jumps to the front of the line instead, your whistle order does not change to blue. Meaning the next time you whistle, blue pikmin will jump to the front of the line again.

The quick and easy version:
Just remember which color went to the front of the line the last time you whistled, and the color following that in the hierarchy will be the first in line the next time you whistle. It's that easy.


* = pikmin can get hung up doing other things and occassionally won't line up properly.

** = It need not necessarily be white, but whatever color in the hierarchy comes before purple excluding the color of pikmin you don't have, so if you only had yellow, blue and purple pikmin in your queue, setting your whistle order to blue would ensure that you would get purple pikmin the next time you whistled (unless you pulled a white pikmin in the meantime, in which case you would have to whistle twice).

my original post said:

I cannot find a consistent pattern for how to tell who will be first in line after using Olimar's down b when the Pikmin are out of order. Here's what I do know:

• Sometimes Pikmin get stuck in another animation trying to catch up and won't arrange properly until you whistle again.
• The order they go in is Red, Yellow, Blue, White, Purple.
• Like colors will try to queue up together.
• Using the whistle while the Pikmin are out of order does not necessarily make the next in line, the next in the order, or the current Pikmin the first Pikmin in line.

It looks like the line might be determined on how they can get in the proper order with the least movement possible, but I haven't confirmed or debunked that (that would just take a minute, but I didn't think of it while I was playing with it last night).

The problem is that when I have a bunch of Pikmin all out of order, I have no idea how many times to whistle to get them in the line order I want. Instead I have to whistle, jump to see the new line order and then whistle again the appropriate number of times. Since you can blast off a couple whistles pretty quickly, it would be nice to know what you're line is going to look like after you whistle the first time.

Click to expand...

Well you cant really tell what order will happen but if you do normal jump and use pikmin order you can see whos going to be infront of your line in the falling animation. I hope that helps a little.

I'm not convinced that there isn't some method to the madness. I imagine someone will be able to figure it out. Also, as I mentioned in my last paragraph, I know that jumping helps see who's next, but I want to know before I start whistling.

dmauro said:

I cannot find a consistent pattern for how to tell who will be first in line after using Olimar's down b when the Pikmin are out of order. Here's what I do know:

• Sometimes Pikmin get stuck in another animation trying to catch up and won't arrange properly until you whistle again.
  [*]The order they go in is Red, Yellow, Blue, White, Purple.
• Like colors will try to queue up together.
• Using the whistle while the Pikmin are out of order does not necessarily make the next in line, the next in the order, or the current Pikmin the first Pikmin in line.

The problem is that when I have a bunch of Pikmin all out of order, I have no idea how many times to whistle to get them in the line order I want. Instead I have to whistle, jump to see the new line order and then whistle again the appropriate number of times. Since you can blast off a couple whistles pretty quickly, it would be nice to know what you're line is going to look like after you whistle the first time.

Click to expand...

Haven't you answered your own question? I find that when I order the Pikmin, my reds and yellows end up in the front of the line which is sometimes what I want, and sometimes it isn't. Obviously if I need to chain some attacks together this is great, but it isn't optimal for playing the ranged game when I want to get rid of my whites and go in for the grab as soon as possible.

Something else I noticed is that as soon as you throw a single pikmin, blowing the whistle will perform the re-order operation rather than bringing the next group to the front of the line. It seems that as soon as any Pikmin dies/is thrown, your order is disrupted and further use of the whistle will re-do the line and not bring the next color group next to you.

I'll look into this a bit more. Hope I helped!

Is that line for real? All I wanted to know was what order they line up in so when I am returning I know where my purple Pikmin are in case I need to throw one. Usually I'll whistle, look, and before I can whislte to them I'm dead, so that'll help.

Hmmm... interesting.
Didn't quite know that the whistle did anything.

Vote: Olimar's Down-B = Most Useless Attack EVER
Wait... no. At least we're not stuck with a FLUD.

MenoUnderwater said:

Vote: Olimar's Down-B = Most Useless Attack EVER
Wait... no. At least we're not stuck with a FLUD.

Click to expand...

Are you serious?

Ever heard of the Whistle Armor? The whistle is anything BUT useless. Imagine having 999% and Ganondorf is about to Warlock Punch you and for some reason you're unable to jump or run. You'll probably die right? Well, with the whistle, you're not going to. It's a secondary effect, you can say.

Yakt-NJ said:

Haven't you answered your own question? I find that when I order the Pikmin, my reds and yellows end up in the front of the line which is sometimes what I want, and sometimes it isn't.

Click to expand...

No, they follow that order, but sometimes when I whistle let's say a white pikmin is first in line. It will follow the order, but starting with white so it will go white, purple, red, yellow, blue. I know they line up in that order, but I want to know who will be at the top of the order.

Also, please don't use this thread to discuss how useless the whistle is. Besides it having super armor and often being necessary for recovery, if we can figure this out, it might be even more helpful.

Lol @ Olimar's whistle being the most useless attack.

Someone doesn't know how to manage his Pikmin properly. It's the key to maximizing Olimar's effectiveness.

dmauro said:

No, they follow that order, but sometimes when I whistle let's say a white pikmin is first in line. It will follow the order, but starting with white so it will go white, purple, red, yellow, blue. I know they line up in that order, but I want to know who will be at the top of the order.

Click to expand...

After playing some more last night I see what you mean. I'm starting to think it might have to do with the Pikmin that you have in front or back when you use the whistle. I'll head into training mode right now to check it out.

EDIT!!!
Update! I did a bit of testing and found out that after you toss Pikmin around for awhile and then use the whistle to get them back in line, the first color in line always seems to be the NEXT color in that order which you posted. Here's an example.

I start with a white, a purple, and a yellow. I pluck two red pikmin and one blue one. So my starting order is this:

[White, Purple, Yellow, Red, Red, Blue]

When I whistle, my red pikmin become first in line (red is always the color to be put in front on the first whistle of the match), followed by yellow, blue, white, with purple last. If I throw my first two reds, the yellow, the blue, and then the white, the new order will be:

[Purple, Red, Red, Yellow, Blue, White]

Since my PREVIOUS whistle moved my reds to the front, I expect my next whistle to bring my yellows to the front. The order will then be:

[Yellow, Blue, White, Purple, Red, Red]

If I throw the yellow and blue and they happen to die, I'll have [White, Purple, Red, Red]. A whistle now will bring the next color in the order to the front. Since the last color to be moved to the front was yellow and my blue is dead, my white will remain in the front and the order won't shift at all. If I then throw the white and the purple and they both survive, my next whistle will bring the purple to the front, followed by the reds, with the white in last. This is the great part. Say I just got knocked back. I remember that my last whistle put whites in front, so I know that I have to whistle exactly one time in order to get the purple I may need to recover. The final order:

[Purple, Red, Red, White]

So, at a fundamental level, the color that your whistle appears to put in the front of the line follows the same order that the Pikmin themselves line up in. The order gets botched up a little bit when you pluck new Pikmin due to the random arrangement, but you can always count on your whistle to follow the same order as the Pikmin. Keeping track of what your last whistle put in front could prove to be very important. If you know you're going to get knocked back, and your last whistle brought blue pikmin to the front, you're in luck, because your next one will give you a purple to work with.

This is what I've found out so far. I'm going to keep playing around in training mode.

I thought that might be the case, but I couldn't reproduce it, but I was doing it by plucking new ones each time. I will try again and see if I can confirm this. What I want to see is if I pluck some pikmin and then whistle, if after tossing all those pikmin and plucking new ones and then whistling again puts in the front of the line the color of pikmin that was next in order after who was put in the front of the line when I whistled with my last group of pikmin. That's very confusing, but basically, if every time you whistle your're basically calling the next color in the order to the front of the line, this would be so easy (like you said, just remember that the last whistle brought up white and then throw all you want the next whistle will bring purple). I'll play with this some more tonight.

I feel like there must have been a thread before in which this was all discovered because it seems so important to his game...

dmauro said:

I thought that might be the case, but I couldn't reproduce it, but I was doing it by plucking new ones each time. I will try again and see if I can confirm this. What I want to see is if I pluck some pikmin and then whistle, if after tossing all those pikmin and plucking new ones and then whistling again puts in the front of the line the color of pikmin that was next in order after who was put in the front of the line when I whistled with my last group of pikmin. That's very confusing, but basically, if every time you whistle your're basically calling a color to the front of the line, this would be so easy. I'll play with this some more tonight.

Click to expand...

This seems to be the case. If I have a party of six pikmin and I whistle, and yellows jump to the front because it's their turn, and I kill all six pikmin and pluck new ones, no matter what kind I have, the next color in the order will be first (In this case, that means blue if I have them.)

Additionally, it seems that the first color that the whistle will bring to the front at the start of the match is red.

Awesome, that's so easy. Okay, so what happens if your next whistle would bring blue to the front of line and you don't have blue. Then white would go to the front of the line, but does that mean that the next whistle will bring white to the front of the line again or will it jump to purple?

So basically, can I whistle four times at the start to make purple my next in the whistle-call-to-front-queue regardless of what pikmin I have?

Yakt, I see you're in NJ. I'm in Brooklyn. We should do some Olimar vs Olimar matches
0044 2446 6260

So then, is the key simply remembering the order Red, Yellow, Blue, White, Purple? My first whistle of the match will put red up front, the second yellow, etc. etc?

So then, is the key simply remembering the order Red, Yellow, Blue, White, Purple? My first whistle of the match will put red up front, the second yellow, etc. etc?

Click to expand...

This seems correct!

Awesome, that's so easy. Okay, so what happens if your next whistle would bring blue to the front of line and you don't have blue. Then white would go to the front of the line, but does that mean that the next whistle will bring white to the front of the line again or will it jump to purple?

So basically, can I whistle four times at the start to make purple my next in the whistle-call-to-front-queue regardless of what pikmin I have?

Yakt, I see you're in NJ. I'm in Brooklyn. We should do some Olimar vs Olimar matches
0044 2446 6260

Click to expand...

I don't think you can do that.. I just tested it out and when I had blue next in the whistle queue and no blue pikmin, a white obviously came in its place. Now, since white is after blue, we would think that whistling again would bring whites to the front again. This is not the case. Since I didn't have that pikmin color in my lineup, it completely skipped blue. So basically if you start the match with red, yellow, blue, and you whistle four times, your configuration will go RYB, YBR, BRY, RYB. If you then pluck a purple, whistling will simply bring the yellow to the front. Colors of Pikmin that you don't have aren't taken into account at all, it seems.

Yeah, we should play sometime. I'm on my roommate's Wii at college, so it's his friend code that I'd be giving out. I'll add ya to his friends list. His code is 5026-4154-0984 and you can name it Yakt-lehigh or Yakt-Z (roommate's name is Zubair). I'll try to catch you for a match later.

Hm, with all that switching, it doesn't seem that crucial to even remember that order. At least that's how it seems to me. With so much going on I mean. I really can't tell if this will benefit me in any way.

I just verified everything and I am updating the first post right now.

Oceanborn said:

Hm, with all that switching, it doesn't seem that crucial to even remember that order. At least that's how it seems to me. With so much going on I mean. I really can't tell if this will benefit me in any way.

Click to expand...

After playing a bit more today what you're saying definitely makes sense. Keeping track of the order is as easy as whistling once and seeing where your whistle currently is, but when you need to switch to a specific color quickly or you are trying to use whistle armor, the advantages brought about by knowing how your whistle is going to act can be lost.

Nonetheless, it still helps to answer some questions about the so called "randomness" of Oli's whistle which is in fact not random at all.

I never knew there was a set order, thank you for this :]

Kashakunaki said:

Is that line for real? All I wanted to know was what order they line up in so when I am returning I know where my purple Pikmin are in case I need to throw one. Usually I'll whistle, look, and before I can whislte to them I'm dead, so that'll help.

Click to expand...

i see that your thing, says your in ACE, is that the same ACE clan from the smashbros64 karilla emulator thing?

because i was in ACE.. and that would be cool if i was in ACE for brawl!

Well done guys, this is truly good work, not only concrete knowledge but even some venture into application. Sorry I missed out on the fun of working it out, but well done. Whats next? And you may wanna nudge Echo to see if this can't be copied or at least summarized in that big sticky thing up top, I at least feel its fairly relevant, perhaps a summary and a link to this thread or something.


-True

Now I understand the whistle order more, thanks for postin this NJ.

Also, it's important to note that if your whistle order is at yellow, but your yellow pikmin doesn't jump to the front for some reason (getting caught up like they sometimes do), and blue jumps to the front of the line, your whistle order does not jump to blue. Meaning the next time you whistle, blue will jump to the front of the line again.

dmauro said:

Also, it's important to note that if your whistle order is at yellow, but your yellow pikmin doesn't jump to the front for some reason (getting caught up like they sometimes do), and blue jumps to the front of the line, your whistle order does not jump to blue. Meaning the next time you whistle, blue will jump to the front of the line again.

Click to expand...

Generally I found that at least one of the yellows you have will always get to the front. The weirdest inconsistancies have occurred when I have a yellow in front and another yellow towards the back and my whistle order is at yellow. When I whistle the yellow in the front will stay there as expected but the yellow towards the back sometimes won't make it. Then the next whistle will bring blues to the front and the rest will generally hop into the correct order. Seems to be a problem mostly after using a few attacks, but only really applies if you have two ore more of thes ame color. Seems to happen the most when have two of one color.

@True, Since you can determine what your whistle order is at any time during the match just by using it once, the most obvious application seems to be knowing how many times we need to whistle to get a purple in case we get knocked out. Obvious other applications involve being able to determine the precise number of whistles needed to reach the color of your choice by using the move rapidly in the air. It might be cumbersome to keep track during a match but it's worth considering and practicing. It definitely helps me to know after using a string of aerials what my next whistle will bring to me and if I'll have to do it more than once.

Whistle armor kinda throws a wrench in the works because the goal there is to hammer the move a bunch of times with the hope of not getting knocked back. I'm interested in seeing how this develops.

idk how many of you guys play pikmin, but the whistle works almost exactly like it does in the game. the order goes red, yellow, blue, white, purple - red starts, every whistle moves the order down the line, skipping pikmin that aren't in the line (which you already know, but here's what you don't). even having to double whistle for pikmin (what i call it, it's when my pikmin would be fighting and the pikmin behind them would skip in line, in the game, most of the time this happened when pikmin were clearing an obstacle or fighting) is prevalant in Smash. when ever you notice a pikmin skip (which is probably what is confusing you guys in testing) happen, the best thing for you to do is double whistle so that you don't get thrown off, because being depending on your whistle and having it mess up (as i noticed by playing Pikmin) can not only be confusing and frustrating but it a lot of the time will screw you up. what it does is it makes up for the skip that sometimes happens when your pikmin latch or are used in smash attacks, by keeping your whistling in line with the current order, because mess ups occur most of the time around yellow and occasionally white (due to them having higher and faster/farther trajectory respectively), and whistling one less time than you need to is the difference between countering an edge with a purple or doing 5% damage to them with a white and dying.


and to above poster who said it wouldn't be useful, are you kidding? because it can be so difficult at times, it only makes it that much more useful as only skilled Olimar users will be doing this a lot. it also makes it difficult for your opponent to read Olimars if they themselves don't play as one, because using the whistle makes any Olimar play style more efficient, being it a campy one or aggressive.



some other uses, assuming you master whistling:

against characters with crappy range, Olimar can do far more damage with purple and red Pikmin. this means that you can play mind games using the whistle, since in the line, Purple can come before Red (if you think about it like a circle), attacking first with the Purple, whistling, backing up and finishing with Red. call it a Purple-Red Feign i guess.

you can reuse Pikmin multiple when throwing them if you already know you missed. call it Throw Reordering.

Example: your Pikmin order is Red, Red, Yellow, Yellow, White Purple, whistle marked at Purple. You can do many things here.

Move: throw Purple, Red, Red, Yellow, Yellow, whistle (reset to reds), throw Red, Red, Yellow, Yellow, whistle, throw Yellow, Yellow. You can reset this by triple Whistling to bring Red back to the front, or how ever many whistles you need to skip Pikmin.

what this does is you are constantly forcing the enemy to be latched by a Pikmin unless they do a huge hop, because Yellow Pikmin have higher vertical trajectory while other Pikmin would be latching ground movement, and you are also whistling Pikmin back at the same time to help avoid Pikmin death. from here, you can either do a latch grab assuming you have Pikmin latched onto your enemy, or you can (if they hop over all Pikmin) juggle them. See NC-Echo's last page in his guide for the strat I have for juggling. you do NOT jump while throwing here, because then you're influencing the Pikmin trajectory and not creating a wall with your Pikmin throws.

a second one to do, which is more useful when throwing against characters that are good at killing Pikmin, is double throwing. Basically what you do is you throw 2 Pikmin, preferably anything but whites, let them both either latch or miss, and whistle back immediately, which lets you get about 5-10% on the enemy and it's possible to save your Pikmin. Never throw more than 2 Pikmin though, in this case at least, because these kinds of enemies put you at a significant disadvantage since killing Pikmin is no trouble at all for them and whistling doesn't guarantee that Pikmin will live.

Yakt-NJ, I think you might be using your whisle armor inefficiently. You should really only be using it once and just timing it properly. If you anticipate that you are going to use whistle armor instead of air dodging, you can work that into your plan so that after you do the whistle armor you have a red ready for a f-air or something.

For those that don't know, always short hop before you whistle (unless you're just going to do it once) because it has much less lag in the air. You can do at least four whistles on a single jump (I haven't really tested how many you can do in a short hop vs. a full jump).

Great tips, Mercury. I like the smash fake out going from purple to red, although it will probably only work once if it does

After reading the majority of this post i have a question, and i apologize if i skimmed over my answer without noticing.

When you die, will the order reset to red always being whistled to the front first, or will the sequence just continue where it left off? Im at work right now otherwise i would test this myself, if i dont get an answer by then, i will test it and update my post.

Edit: typos

Raisinbran10488 said:

After reading the majority of this post i have a question, and i apologize if i skimmed over my answer without noticing.

When you do, will the order reset to red always being whistled to the front first, or will the sequence just continue where it left off? Im at work right now otherwise i would test this myself, if i dont get an answer by then, i will test it and update my post.

Click to expand...

the whistle rotation only resets when you go through all of your pikmin colors, and yea, you'd think that they'd only fall for it once, but as long as they don't realize what i am doing - because my line doesn't always have to be linear until i whistle, and sometimes i might have a white before my purple or any color and only whistle as i set up for the feign where it's hard to read - i can do it the whole game. (PS, a good time to use this is when your whistle is set with purple pikmin next, which you should be doing at high %s anyway for edge guarding... you can just double whistle for red)

Raisinbran10488 said:

When you do, will the order reset to red always being whistled to the front first, or will the sequence just continue where it left off? Im at work right now otherwise i would test this myself, if i dont get an answer by then, i will test it and update my post.

Click to expand...

When you do what?

Your whistle order never resets until you start a new match. It won't be back to red until you whistle the number of times it takes to get back to red as it cycles through the hierarchy of pikmin colors. Even if you toss all your pikmin out and get new ones.

Sorry typo, "When you DIE" ill edit my post.

Actually, I don't recall for sure, but I don't believe so. Anyone around to do a quick test?

this is an ok guide

my head hurts when i think about incorporating whistle management into my game. i guess i'll have to play more...

does anyone find that dodging a whole lot, tossing pikmin whenever you have the opportunity, and smashing whenever they get close is a good strategy? it seems to work.

nelohalo said:

does anyone find that dodging a whole lot, tossing pikmin whenever you have the opportunity, and smashing whenever they get close is a good strategy? it seems to work.

Click to expand...

Yes, obscenely well. Doesn't seem to make other players too happy though...

I will be home from work in about an hour. at which time i will see wether or not dying effects the order of your pikmin or not, and i will post my results. I will also finally copy down my friend code and put it in my profile if anybody is interested in playing tonight, so PM me.

Ok guys, tested, and here was my process and my results.

Took olimar to training.

The game started me with a red, yellow, blue, in that order (this coincidence or is it always that way)

I pulled 3 more, i got a white, red and yellow, again in that order.

So my pikmin are now red, yellow, blue, white, red, yellow.
After whistling, they arranged in the predicted order, which gave me Red, Red, Yellow, Yellow, Blue, White.

At this point i threw all 6 off of the edge of the stage, and pulled 6 fresh ones.
White-Red-Yellow-White-Yellow-Red
Whistled and as planned got: Yellow-Yellow-White-White-Red-Red

So far so good, TC's theory holds up.

Now olimar says bye to the world, and leaps off of the stage.
Upon re-entrance i pulled 6 more.
Purple-Blue-White-Yellow-Blue-Red
Whistled and got: Blue-Blue-White-Purple-Red-Yellow

So it seems that dying does not restart the process, but just to be sure, i threw all 6 off again, and pulled 6 more.

Blue-Purple-Red-Blue-Yellow-Red

Whistled: Purple-Red-Red-Yellow-Blue-Blue

It is definately 100% true that dying does not restart the order, your sequence will continue until the end of the match.


TC I, along with the rest of the community would probably appreciate it if you would edit your first post to include this, that way they don't have to go through 3 pages to find the answer. Thanks, and again good find on the order.


EDIT: I just restarted training again, and started with a purple, white, and red pikmin, so i guess that was indeed just coincidence when i started my test.

This color hierarchy seems to apply to the type of damage dealt by the Up-B attack as well. For example, if you have a Red Pikmin and you do an Up-B, it'll do fire damage. If you have no Red Pikmin but at least one Yellow, it'll do electricity damage. If you have no Red or Yellow Pikmin, it'll just knock your opponent back...etc. I'm not entirely sure about this as I don't test things in training mode, but when I fight online, it seems to do that.

Ultimatum, your up b attack damage is based on whichever pikmin is next in line, just as the rest of your attacks are.

I thought that, but even when I have Reds somewhere in the middle of the line and Yellows on the edge, I still seem to do Fire damage. Meh, I'll check it in Training Mode today if I have time.