BBR Weekly Character Discussion #10: Pikachu

I want Pichu back.

thats getting annoying here. u post when u can, not early cuz you think ur opinion should be read before everyone else's.

pika's one of my 2ndaries, so to state the obvious: chainthrows, potential campyness, and multitude of KO options(up and f.smash, uptilt-thunder, n.air, up.air-n.air, thunderguarding) his speed definitely compensates some for his lack of range. If he is allowed to play projectile game + campyness, he can often control the pace, and when the opponents closes the gap, his agility allows him to catch people off guard. not to mention recovery abilities to make it back from anywhere.
marth seems to be one of his bigger issues, (i've also heard lucario, but i'm not so sure) but he generally holds his own to the cast. albeit few people have experience against the rare, good pika layers.
he is **** light, but that might just from me maining DK vs few pika players i've fought. i'd prefer more experience in the matchup to call favor, but the chainthrow-combos give pika an early lead for DK to play catchup, which he often can cuz he'll live twice as long.

i'd say pika is as good as G&W, which is slightly above kirby. Pika doesn't have anything "broken" unless u count his chainthrows, but no range in the air is probably his biggest fall.

Pikachu is really good. I don't think his "problem" with Marth is really that bad, though he does give him a little trouble. Pika goes even with or has a minor advantage/disadvantage against most all of the "top tiers" and oh yeah, he completely obliterates Falco. He has the tools to handle just about any situation, a fantastic recovery, excellent damage racking, and average kill power.

I think Pikachu should at the very least be at the top of B tier-- he's much more viable overall than DeDeDe since he has pretty much no seriously "bad" matchups, yet he can shut down a few characters, such as the spacies, and poses a significant threat to Snake, MK, etc.

I'm not sure that I think his lack of representation should really hold him back all that much, since we all know what is capable of from ESAM and Anther.

I could easily see Pikachu at the lower-end of A-tier and would personally prefer him there, as I feel that he is a significantly better character than all of B-tier except Olimar, who should probably also move up to the bottom of A (I think A should be a larger tier-- honestly we could probably cut an entire tier out of the list and merge a lot of characters up or down IMO).

Hilt said:

It was a joke, lol.

Pikachu is definitely placed well on the tier list. I don't feel he should go up or down at all. He has solid matchups against the top tiers, having one of the better matchups against Meta Knight, doing well against Snake, beating Falco and DDD, and fairing well against the other top and high tier characters. He does have a problem against Marth, however. Pikachu doesn't have many matchups that regularly hinder his placements at tournaments. It's just a case of him being as under represented as the rest of B tier.

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I disagree with what is in bold. In my opinion, Pikachu should place above King Dedede.

TheMike said:

In my opinion, Pikachu should place above King Dedede.

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Most definitely.

*cracks knuckles* Here we go.

Pikachu, In my opinion, deserves to go up at least 1 spot in the tier list, above Dedede. He has pretty good match-up ratios with the top tiers (45:55 with MK, 50:50 or 55:45 with snake, 45:55 with Diddy, 65:35 with Falco, 50:50 with IC, 45:55 with Marth [will explain those 2 later], and 60:40 at least with D3). His CG alone obliterates a lot of characters (Falco, D3, Bowser, DK, Snake, Fox, Sheik, Charizard, Ganon, Falcon) and he has a very potent approaching tool in his T-jolt. Once Pikachu gets in he is one of the most effective damage rackers in the game (fair combos, low % grab combos or CG) with 3 applicable moves that jab lock (D-tilt at low %, QA at all %s, and Jab at mid-high%). Pikachu has the speed to effectively keep a good pressure game and has one of the best space control in the game with his T-jolt and thunder.

He has one of the best recoveries in the game and one of the better edge-guarding games (More for damage than for gimping, but that is a potent ability as well). Even off stage he can manipulate where the opponent has to go with his T-jolt, making them waste their DJ or stay out until it passes.

Pikachu is also unique on the ledge. On the bad side, Pikachu has 12 less frames of invulnerability on the ledge. On the good side, that allows Pikachu to get off the ledge 12 frames earlier, making grab ledge-> fall of ledge attack a good and easy way to edgeguard. The bad side is that for characters that need to be edge-guarded by using the ledge invulnerability (Diddy Kong and Marth come to mind), Pikachu has to have near perfect timing to gimp them. Pikachu also has one of the best ledge pressuring games. If people are refreshing their invulnerability, ie Marth ledgedrop fair up-b, he can shoot a T-jolt down there and maneuver space so that Marth will either get hit or have to miss the edge which allows for damage. He also has D-tilt which hits people off the ledge and a powerful F-smash for ledge reads (Roll, get up attack, normal get up). If Pikachu is scared of his opponent ledge-jumping (Not ledge hopping) he can FH a T-jolt, land, and react accordingly. It is really easy to control space as Pikachu.

Not only does Pikachu have a good running speed, he also has the maneuverability of Quick Attack Cancel, Pikachu's ISJR. It allows Pikachu to catch up to his opponent extremely fast, as well catch people's landings with a QAC nair. The fact that QA has so many angles can allow Pikachu to recovery amazingly as well. Instead of being forced to the ledge or to blatantly overshoot it and fall with lag like most characters have to, Pikachu can QA from offstage onto a platform, and then QA farther onto the stage to get away from the edgeguarding.

Pikachu also has a very good momentum cancel in his uair and skull bash. If you skull bash to momentum cancel, you will rise up slightly, but it will completely get rid of horizontal knockback. For vertical knockback, Pikachu's Fastfall is also pretty good so he will survive much longer than most people in his weight class. That doesn't mean I'll be surviving DK's D-smash at 110 though...

Pikachu's most glaring flaw is his lack of spacing. His longest range moves (aside from projectiles) are D-tilt and F-smash. However, in my experience I never really worried about that because of all the ways Pikachu can get in. He can run with his T-jolt, QA mindgame in (Which I am starting to do more) and just using his speed and aerials couples with T-jolt can be devastating to people who don't have Up-b OOS with invulnerability.

Pikachu's kill potential is pretty good IMO. Not the best like Snake's or DK's but very solid. F-smash is a strong killer, as is thunder (Blue). U-smash and U-tilt are fairly good on their own, killing mid weights at ~120% and ~140% respectively. Thunder drops these numbers by a good 20%, making 100% danger zone for many characters.

Pikachu's match-ups are really really good. Although a lot of Pika's don't think so, I think that Marth isn't Pikachu's worst Match-up and neither is Metaknight. Pikachu's hardest Match-up is Lucario. He has an extremely effective keep-away game, can outcamp him, and forces him to approach. When Pika does approach, Lucario can F-smash or fair to keep him out. Fair cancels out T-jolts as does aura sphere, and Pikachu doesn't have any sort of anything from grabs. F-throw U-smash, guaranteed on nearly every character, does not work on Lucario, and neither does D-throw nair. Because of this, Pikachu has a hard time damage racking.

Even after Pikachu gets the damage in, it is hard for Pika to get in the kill move. Lucario can effectively keep him out, and the only option is to get little hits and hopefully hit him off the level. Lucario will normally survive until at least 120%, and that is when aura is really scary for a Pikachu. Maybe it is because of my match-up inexperience and the fact that I basically only played the best Lucario, but the match-up seems horrid.

Marth really isn't that bad. SH double fair, Marth's normal keep-out game, is very punishable by Pikachu. He can shoot T-jolts to pressure Marth, and then shoot them at Marth's feet to make marth either shield or hit them. That leads to pikachu being able to get in with a FF Fair. If the marth wants to up-b, Pikachu can shield and punish. If not, Pikachu can get a nair in or a grab. Once Pika gets in...it is unfortunate for Marth. Pika can also just camp. Even though Marth can cancel the Jolts, it'll constantly have marth swinging away, and eventually he will slip up and let a few through. If not, the pressure is still nice. Pika can also punish a shielded DB with nair and grab. F-throw U-smash doesn't work at 0, but it works at 10% until like 30%. Still a nice damage racker.

IC...I don't understand why people think this is a bad match-up. Maybe because he can't space his melee moves? I honestly don't know, but I have always seen this match-up as even. Pikachu can completely molest nana when they are separated. If D-smash separates them...nana is dead. Because of her AI of always returning to popo, she will run right into thunder. Her DI will set her up into another thunder and possibly a third thunder if necessary. FH nair works charms on IC fishing for a grab, and T-jolt can skip over ice blocks and obviously goes through blizzard. Pikachu also has a very potent edgeguarding tool against up-b. WHen nana goes and grabs the ledge, pikachu can fall off either with a nair or bair and hit popo on his way up, which ends the stock. For Squall, Pikachu has Thunder to hit them out of it. If not fishing for grabs, Pikachu and Ice Climbers have about the same spacing with their attacks (Hammer vs tail). Pikachu's are much faster and can combo much better.

So yeah Pikachu should be 7th or 8th. He should definitely be higher than he currently is.

I'm glad we have ESAM here to post all this. I don't know enough about pikachu but I agree with what he said. I'm really interested to here how pika v IC is 50:50 though.

Excellent write-up, ESAM. Very well done, you covered all the essential points and had great detail. I enjoyed reading it

I agree that Pika vs IC's is just fine. I'm not sure why people think it's bad for him, he does great in it. I've seen Anther play Lain and other IC's plenty of times and it always looks even, unless the IC is bad and then Anther destroys them.

I agree that 7th or 8th would be a bare minimum for him. I think A-tier is well-deserved as well.

Summed up:

Its hard for IC to get grabs due to speed of attacks/running speed/T-jolt. Pikachu destroys nana.

Here are vids!

Me vs Cheese
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JowKoU1QLVA

Me vs Snipa
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIvp0isXmKU (Last stock of last match is an example of how hard I can **** them)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1PuVoqNkQc

I backup what ESAM said 100%. Esam's post + 1

Not because he's ESAM but because I agree with all that analysis. It is spot on, especially the matchup ratios with top tier characters. It's true that Pikachu has a strong weakness in spacing, but IMO he makes up for it in his excellent combos/chain grab, speed, and the ability to control where his opponent is going to go. I find him excellent at this and making up for this lack of range.

I spent awhile trying to learn Pikachu as a way to beat MK players since the matchup isn't so bad. I got bored of the character, but I learned a lot and I felt like he's a good character to use agianst top tiers because he's not too common, so they wont know the matchup, but yet all those matchups are very winnable even when they do.

Something I forgot about...

Pikachu is great on a diverse set of stages. He is good on flat levels like FD, SV, and Pictochat because it helps his F-throw CG. He is good on levels with platforms like BF and Lylat because his mult-hit moves (Fair and bair) can push people off and get damage as well as poke with uair. He is good on levels that constantly move such as Rainbow Cruise and Delfino because of his amazing mobility both on the ground and in the air (QA). He is good on levels with walk-offs such as Delfino and Castle Siege because of his CG and his B-throw. He is good on levels with walls such as PS1 and Green Greens because he can F-throw against them to footstool to QAL (Quick Attack Lock) which can be silly. He is good on levels with multiple ledges such as Norfair because of his QA and the odd property of his (Look at my previous post to know what I'm talking about) and because he can control space.

The only level Pikachu isn't good on is Brinstar. The shape of the stage interrupts CGs, the Bubble thingies mess up T-jolt pressure, and the small sides hurt Pikachu more than the help him.

I think Yoshi's Island is good against him as well - it interups chain grabs for being unflat as well, and the platform offeres protection under the thunder. Not great, but a good selection, unless I'm mistaken.

I've heard Luigi's Mansion is pretty bad for Pikachu?

Good read btw, ESAM

Luigi's mansion is ok, you just can't rely on thunder for kills.

Yoshis can mess him up, but at the same time help him. Characters that JUST BARELY get out of F-throw CG range like MK can be CG'd up the slight slopes. Characters that he can normally CG that barely get out like ZSS and Sonic can get out on the down slopes. It also messes with QAC. It isn't a great level for Pika, but it is nowhere close to a Counterpick against him.

Pikachu's T-jolt is extremely east to punish IMO because of the ridiculous amount of lag pikachu goes through.

But we can also move while we are doing it and have different ways to shoot them (On the ground, SH, FH). I mean obviously don't spam the hell out of it, but they are one of the better projectiles when used with some smarts.

I agree partially with that. Yes if you do shoot the thunder jolt and they don't hit you during the animation, then you have a really really good follow u p because your projectile is out and you can control your character while it's moving forward which can cause frame traps.

I should've explained my before post a little better.

If you are smart you shouldn't be using a laggy move when your opponent can punish you, so that is a non issue imo. It doesn't make it bad.

That's true in a sense. The move has enough lag though that you can really only use it when accross the stage or you can be hit.

The good thing about pikachu though is that he can just up-B to the other side of the stage and start doing it again ahaha.

I'll bow out at this point. You obviously know know about your character than I. BTW one of the reasons I say all of this is because I play Ice climbers and I can just desync and Ice block and run forward with popo. The ice block cancels the thunder bolt so Popo can hit Pikachu

Thunder jolt has enough range that you can reasonably use it without ever being punished. Laggy moves are only bad when you need to be in range. When was the last time u punished a samus for using a full charge shot for example? Yet it's got massive lag. I do see what ur saying though, it's got enough lag to prevent pikachu from using it comfortbly at mid range.

Since Dedede and Pikachu seem to be the ones being most closely compared here, let's pull up some data about the performance of the two of them. It appears that Pikachu is much less represented overall, and the #1 and #2 Pikachus are quite impressive. However, Pikachu falls off hard after this, Diddy Kong-style.

NOTICE: if a player plays, for example, Dedede and Meta Knight at a tournament, that player will get 50% points as each one. This seems to often be the case with Dedede, much more so than with Pikachu. Just look at the names.



[The above, as usual, is a listing of how many points each player has scored for the character for Ankoku's character rankings list in the 6 months up to and including May 2010.]

Raz and razek are the same people btw in that chart above.

I dont think pika should go above ddd. DDD is easier to learn and use at a higher level. TO use pikachu you really have to be smart and a well rounded player. The means crossovers and how to be safe when approaching or even how to approach. You can really represent ddd's play through a flowchart, thats how simple yet effective it is.

I agree with what esam said, mostly. The one thing that i really wanna agree with is that marth vs pika isnt that bad at all. I do want to stress that lucario is a bad matchup and ptoentially the worse. But i would also like to say that ness and peach also have an advantage against pikachu. And in terms of having more favorable/even/bad matchups, i think ddd still fares better than pika.

Thanks gallax, that is now fixed in the data. Not going to fix the .png of the chart above, though; do it in your head please.

Np. It doesnt really make any difference though tbh lol. The chart clearly shows ddd beats pika in popularity.

How does "Easier to use at a higher level" influence a tier position? Ness and Peach I feel are even, not in either person's advantage. I mean yeah, it is weird to play, but once I learned the Ness MU I beat Shaky more than the other way around. I still don't have much Peach EXP but I can tell that it can't be too difficult.

Pikachu is like Marth in that he does "pretty well" in just about any matchup. He doesn't have any great weaknesses, but outside of some chaingrab shenanigans, he doesn't really dominate many characters, either.

Eh...He might be worth moving up a spot or so. Pikachu still has some trouble.

Yeah, ease of use shouldn't be a factor (I saw this mentioned in the Marth thread as well). If a character is hard to play and is already seeing success, that's a reason to raise his position if anything as there clearly is some untapped potential people have to catch up to. Even that's somewhat speculative though and hard to translate into tier list movement.

I'm also a bit wary of the constant usage of Ankoku's data. While it's a decent reflection of trends in the American metagame it's by no means complete because people have to actively enter their data in it and it's been pointed out to me not even all American TOs do so (though I'd assume the major events always make it). To name an example of where it might be wrong: two of Europe's top performers use Marth extensively, but I know for a fact many Europeans don't give Ankoku their data (I know we as Dutchies haven't done so several times because the awareness just isn't there), so his score will no doubt seem lower than it actually is. I'm not making a case for Pikachu regarding that, but don't treat the data (as valuable as it is) as the end-all for all arguments.

If I'm to interpret what Crow showed us it suggests Pikachu heavily relies on a few top performers, while the most succesful Dedede players don't get as much points as the top Pikas. If this is indeed because they use other mains as well, this makes the comparison somewhat questionable as you could argue Pikachu is more viable as a main than Dedede is.

Why am I in that? Or is it a different count? I've never used anybody besides Diddy Kong in a tournament match.

The reason that Pika is better than D3 IMO is that multiple characters are stupidly difficult for D3. In that list is MK, Pikachu, Falco, Toon Link (I think...), Olimar, and Luigi (Since the infinite doesn't technically work). Pikachu has MAYBE one match-up that does that, and it is lucario. D3 does destroy more characters, but Pikachu has more solid match-ups and advantageous Match-ups than does D3. I also beat 2 top tiers while D3 arguably]/i] (It goes back and forth when CO18 beats Ally) has one that he beats. He pretty much loses to every other top tier other than snake.

Count said:

Why am I in that? Or is it a different count? I've never used anybody besides Diddy Kong in a tournament match.

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I believe it's a different Count.

TheReflexWonder said:

I believe it's a different Count.

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Ah okay. Now that I think about it I believe I've seen videos of him. My mistake, just threw me off at first ^_^

ESAM, you forgot to add Ice Climbers to that list. And Luigi doesn't give difficult to DDD at all imo.

*shrugs* I was going by Big Lou beating Atomsk. My bad.

IC doesn't give D3 that hard of a time. He is stupid at killing nana...and FH dairs separate and ugh...irritating MU

D3 can chaingrab Luigi (my crewmate BSC does this consistently) and can edgeguard him to hell and back. Also, D3's keep away tools are really good. Once it comes down to edgeguarding (the part Atomsk failed at vs. Big Lou), it's ugly for Luigi, but it's not at all a hopeless MU.

Onto Pikachu.

I used to think the character sucked, but he's getting more and more popular. In addition to my sparring partner being a pokemon fan (Lucario main, but plays Pika for fun and has won sets with him in tourney), Atomsk, Anti, Ninjalink, and several other players in my region have developed Pikachu's. I have not had a chance to fight them with my Marth, but I've learned a lot about the character.

Pikachu should NOT have a problem with SH double fair, however, SHDF is so 2008. Pikachu actually suffers a lot against Marth's pressure game, unless he spotdodges, but then Dancing Blade takes care of this exceptionally well. Pikachu has to take a lot of risks to approach Marth, while Marth takes few against Pika. The saving grace in this MU is that Pikachu has reasonable shield pressure on Marth has well, and enough speed with good enough frame data to actually get in and fight Marth. Additionally, Pikachu doesn't really get ledge-trapped, because Quick Attack is an amazing recovery and escape. Countering Skull Bash ***** Pika, so he should avoid using this to recover when possible, but it shouldn't be necessary with good DI.

I think it's 6-4 Marth, and rofl @ SHDF. People still do that?

Pierce7d said:

rofl @ SHDF. People still do that?

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It destroys me.

How do I deal with it?

What character are you using?