Thanks for actually participating
. Let's see:
Notable opponent
Wasn't punished
(in that one situation you mentioned; otherwise, not so much)
Wouldn't be addressed
(in the situation you mentioned, at least, Anther managed to tech before grabbing the ledge)
In neutral
(not exactly neutral, but I really meant "when Pikachu's not on offense" anyway)
Without also spamming DD/SHFFL ☐
That would've been pretty good, if it was actually spamming QAC.
At 0:40 in particular, if QAC worked as proposed, and Anther had recognized that he had it there, I would have been excited and amazed at his creative use of it in an unusual situation. That situation was not recovery, mind you; it was Pikachu incidentally on the ledge at low percent.
Of course, if we look at the rest of the 26 minutes, Anther actually used QAC rather sparingly, and fails on most of the criteria.
It's not like the ledge is impossible to get off of: most characters could ledgedash -> spacing move/dash attack, many could ledgedash -> buffered roll, some could ledgehop -> aerial/quick projectile, and a few would've preferred to stay there. Plus there are moves that would be comparable to QAC in that situation: Illusion/Phantasm/Flash, Luigi Cylcone, Quick Draw, Cutter Dash, Withdraw, Teleport, etc. Except all of those options would still be available even regardless of whether the user had touched the ground. Sago also gets up as often (with stuff that would still work in 3.5), and Anther himself uses quite a variety of tactics in that set when on the ledge, not just QAC. All this stuff, including QAC, can be baited, read, and punished.
Anyway, I'm not sure where you're getting that being near the edge is supposed to necessarily mean doom. Especially with things like Bthrow -> Fsmash from Marth, Bthrow -> Fair from Sheik, B/Dthrow from many characters in general, run fast -> crossup shine from Fox, spaced aerials from Jiggs, Fortress Hogging, retreating for invincibility as Luigi, or command/suicide grabs. I can definitely see that usage falling under "great degree of control over their character due to the technical skill that they've achieved," though.
Strict interpretation of the design goals can lead to poor decisions, especially when combined with superficial understanding of a character. To illustrate:
We should homogenize Pika's Uair hitboxes. After all, off-stage edgeguarding is supposed to be risky, yet Pikachu doesn't fear it too much. The tail spike isn't used for anything else, anyway, and Uair would still be great for juggling. Plus it's different from what other characters have, is spammed
all the time, is basically unpunishable, centralizes Pikachu's game, can reverse the match's momentum from the ledge, and Pikachu would still have other cool stuff.
Please,
please stop justifying the nerf as if anyone thinks it didn't need nerfing.
I want to avoid things getting too heated, so I'd like to stress:
I'm not saying you shouldn't enjoy him as he is, I'm just explaining why others don't, and what could be done so that they do.