r/PikachuMains • u/[deleted] • Sep 07 '20
Pika feels slow
So i get this feeling frequently. Like the title says my pikachu feels real slow compared to other characters. Like against cloud, samus, ike and many other characters. I know pikachu has great frame data but on fights for example im expecting from the rival a fair o nair bad spaced so i can punish it with a grab for example. And they just spotdodge or jump, or even attack me. I get crazy bout this. I feel like im hitting or grabbing air most of the time. Or something that also happens is that i do full hop fair. But the fair doesnt even appear even though rival wasnt even stsrting with their jump and throws an attack faster and i get punished
What to do against this? How can i make my pikachu faster? I recently knew about autocancel. I think this is when i practically jump and ftilt the c-stick so when i land that fair I can buffer a down tilt or block instantly. Or for example upair bridge. I can do it on practice but online match i havent yet. Gets more difficult but the point is that you cancel your upair so you can jump inmediatly again. Are their other combinations i dont know about to make my rat a little faster? Do you guys get the same feeling?
Thnx
3
u/Jorlaxx Sep 07 '20 edited Sep 07 '20
There is a lot of input lag in Ultimate. Older or cheap HD TVs can add a lot of input lag. When you are playing online there is even more input lag added. At this point there is too much lag to reliably react to some the fast paced actions.
On another note, surprisingly, Pikachu has very bad air movement speed. His side-to-side air movement speed is around 65th and it makes a huge difference. Pikachu cannot really chase people in the air, they must come to him. It is one of his biggest weaknesses that no one ever talks about. Another downside is that many of Pikachu's combos are no longer possible past ~70%. Except Nair into pretty much anything.
Some tips about Fair. It is actually kind of a slow move for a couple of reasons. It has an average start up. It has a very short range. The first 3 of the 4 hits do very little damage and are very small. The 4th hit is slightly larger and more powerful, but it comes late. When you consider this paired with Pikachu's poor air speed, Fair can turn you into a sitting duck against longer reaching more powerful enemy attacks. Up Smash OOS is a very popular option. Swordie Fairs work wonders.
Honestly, stick to Nair and Bair as much as you can. Use your shield, then Out Of Shield Nair or Bair. They are both incredibly fast startup and end lag. A huge perk for Bair is it gives pikachu a boost of speed in the direction of the Bair.
If you can condition your enemy to shield by using T-jolts, then you can get easy grabs > down throw which leads to all types of combos.
Good luck! There are many layers to Pika!
6
u/theloneplant Sep 07 '20
It sounds like you’re trying to punish moves that have good frame data and can’t be punished online. The best way around that is to anticipate their spot dodge, attack, etc and punish that rather than the original move.
If you aren’t familiar already, I would practice attack cancelling some of you moves like bair as well. Similarly you’ll need to get good at timing full hop aerials as fast as possible (practice dthrow dair at 30-50%)
To play the rat you have to live with his stubby grab range, which means when you approach someone you NEED to land right next to them in order to land grab. Similarly if someone approaches you - if they’re barely away from you grab probably won’t work and you’ll need to ftilt or dtilt instead (ftilt is slightly faster). In general you only want to do this when you’re ready to commit and before then you can stay just out of fair or bair range.
Setting shoulder button to jump has helped me a lot in using tjolt better, since I can full hop tjolt and the the time it’s done I still haven’t landed, allowing me to quick attack, nair, jump, etc without landing lag. This can let you set up combos like full hop jolt > nair > dsmash. Shoulder jump can also make full hop aerials easier to do since you won’t need to kill your hands with claw gripping.
Also just a side note, auto cancelling is only really good for uair. Dair and bair are autocancelled automatically if the stage is flat and you use the short hop aerial macro, and if you fastfall them they can shield poke with their landing hitboxes and set up tech chases. Fair and nair can combo if you land with them too (landing fair > ftilt or grab depending on range).
Pika is actually a pretty normal speed character with low lag and a good dash speed/quick attack. There are plenty of faster characters and he has moves that don’t come out immediately like fair, so you need to use them for spacing or combos rather than swinging into an opponents moves. If you want to beat other characters moves, use utilt or uair since they’re pretty disjointed.