Pit (PM)

Pit is a playable character in the Brawl mod Project M. He has been buffed for his Project M appearance.

Pit ranks 35th out of 41 on the official tier list, putting him near the top of the D tier. This is a large drop from his Brawl tier list position of 17th out of 38. However, in the official Project + tier list, he has improved considerably, ranking 22nd out of 42, landing near the top of B tier.

Attributes
Hence the name of his game, Pit is primarily based off Icarus, a man in Greek mythology who made wings to fly. This is a trait that Pit inherits via the Wings of Icarus, with said wings allowing him to fly as a recovery move. His power of flight is one of many aspects that make Pit a formidable opponent.

Aside from wings, Pit also has weapons granted to him by Palutena. One of them is a bow that contains magical arrows which allow Pit to not only shoot, but also control the direction that they travel, which serves as a perfect out-of-range attack. The other is a shield that allows him to reflect projectiles with full power, and reflect enemies to the other direction.

With a fast and long dash dance, multiple double jumps, and an excellent, low short hop and a fantastic fast fall (his SHFF is 21 frames, tied for 8th in the cast; this is slightly better than Captain Falcon's), Pit is a very maneuverable fighter indeed. In addition to his gifted movement, Pit possesses a large shield, good spot dodges and a slightly disjointed hitbox; his Bow can be separated into two small blades to slice his opponents. Pit's detachable bow possesses sweetspots at the hilt of his blades, and sourspots at the tip; with the exception being his down air, which has a spike at the tip of the backswing. Therefore, Pit is a character that is very versatile; good movement, a disjoint, a long recovery, a strong projectile, and potent edge guarding all come together to make Pit a force in the right hands.

Due to Pit's fast speed, and projectile, his SHFFL spacing game can be used effectively; while his aerials are poor against crouch cancel, if Pit can open up his opponent's movement with the threat of his dash dance, arrows, and grab game, Pit can utilize his aerial attacks for quick pop-ups. If Pit suspects his opponent will shield, cross-up neutral airs and down airs can be used. In addition, Pit's forward air is +1 on block, allowing for effective shield pressure in conjunction with the multi-hit neutral air, jabs, dash dance, down tilt, up smash, down smash and grab.

Despite these great strengths, Pit suffers from poor tech rolls, a low weight, a long jump squat, and a recovery that can be susceptible to being gimped. If Pit is hit out of the Wings of Icarus, all he has left is his Shield Bash, which grants little more distance than an air dodge. Furthermore, Shield Bash incurs 40 frames of landing lag; it isn't wise to land on stage with it too often. To avoid being gimped so easily, Pit can use his multiple double jumps, Wings of Icarus, Palutena's Bow, and forward, neutral and up aerial attacks as resources to return to stage more safely.

Pit's most notable weakness is his lack of kill power. Outside of edge guarding, or carry-offs with his forward aerial and arrows, Pit often struggles to combo into his few kill moves, outside of DI mixups. Pit's back aerial attack, Shield Bash, and forward smash are his main kill moves, but each of them have issues. The aforementioned Shield Bash incurs a large amount of lag if missed, and leaves Pit helpless upon the whole descent. His forward smash, a move where he slashes two times, unfortunately can be very easily crouch cancelled and shielded in between the linking hit and the finishing blow, making it often ineffective outside of reads. Lastly, his back aerial doesn't have many set-ups to use it, so it is mostly used for finishing combos early or as a raw kill move at mid-high percents.

Another weakness of Pit's is his combo game at low percents against heavies or space animals; Pit must mostly rely on his down throw to tech chase opponents (and chain grab some opponents if they DI incorrectly), as his up smash does not link properly, his down tilt is slow with low range (albeit with high reward from its meteor hitbox) and his down smash can be crouch canceled until moderate percents. Pit does have a serviceable dash attack; while it can be crouch canceled, it can be used in conjunction with his down throw if the opponent DIs away to pop them up for up tilt, regrab, jab, down smash, down tilt, up smash, an aerial, or even another dash attack.

However, an aerial opponent or an opponent with moderate percent is very liable to being up air combo'd by Pit, which is very devastating; it can lead to edge guards through DI away on up air, or the use of forward air, back air or neutral air, and he can combo the opponent into his Shield Bash for a kill, usually through the use of a late up air.

At high percent, Pit can force a DI mixup with his down throw and forward throw; if the opponent DIs out, the forward throw will send them very close to the blast zone, where Pit can shoot arrows and attempt to gimp them with his forward or back air. If the opponent DIs in, the the down throw will often confirm into a Shield Bash to kill off the top at around 110%.

Overall, Pit has an impressive neutral game, but fails to find kills easily and can be combo'd relatively well by the rest of the cast. His moves can be tricky to use, as they rarely garner substantial advantage on their own, and he relies on DI mixups to effectively combo his opponents. Still, Pit can be a formidable character choice if the player can read and condition their opponents' habits, and be wary of the earliest available kill windows.

Changes from Brawl to PM
Pit was significantly buffed from Brawl to Project M, as the faster paced physics combined with his versatile mobility now give him much more options to combo, though he was slightly nerfed in his defensive game, having weaker projectiles and a shortened recovery. These buffs initially made him one of the best characters in Project M, which was most prominent when and  began to dominate with him in the 3.0 era. As a response to these results, Pit was heavily nerfed in 3.5, with all of his combo starters and extenders becoming laggier, weaker, or gaining more knockback at combo percents. While he still remains buffed from Brawl, he is now considered a mediocre character in the current metagame due to other characters now far surpassing him in strength.

Moveset
Up to date as of version 3.6.

Notable tech
Labbing Discord Tech Post

Notable players

 * - Ranked 5th on Illinois Power Rank
 * - Ranked 24th on PMRank 2017.
 * - Ranked 1st on PMRank 2018, placed 3rd at Undertow with mostly Pit.

Project M
Pit's alternate costumes remain largely unchanged from Brawl with the exception of his red costume which was altered to be less pale pink, and his black costume, which has been adjusted to look identical to Dark Pit.

He also has a costume based on his appearance in Kid Icarus and Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters, in addition to the trophy of Pit which was present in Melee. This costume has a "fallen angel" recolor (similar to Pit's "fallen angel" costume from Brawl) in 3.6. Pit's red costume has also been modified in version 3.6.

Project+
Pit received new recolors based on characters in Kid Icarus: Uprising.
 * Orange: Referred to as "Fruit Pit" in the credits.
 * Dark Green: Inspired by Viridi.
 * Violet: Loosely inspired by the Eggplant Wizard.
 * Brown: Inspired by the Centurion army.

In Project+ 2.3, his classic costume was significantly revamped with better physical features and accessories, including a new bow and blades. It has been given new recolors for team battles, with the "dark" costume removed.
 * Red (NES):
 * Green (NES): Based on Pit's appearance on the original Kid Icarus when having an Arrow Strength of 2. Also loosely based on Palutena's color palette.
 * Blue (NES):
 * Yellow (NES): Gives Pit a more accurate portrayal of his appearance in the Captain N: The Game Master series.



Z-Secret Costume (Eggplant Pit): Inspired by the effects of the Eggplant Wizard, which turn Pit into an eggplant if it touches him. It is a variant of the Classic Pit costume, with a purple color scheme and his head humorously replaced with an eggplant.

R-Secret Costume (Three Sacred Treasures): Pit dons the three sacred treasures that are used to defeat Medusa and Hades throughout the Kid Icarus series.

Trivia

 * Many elements of Pit's appearance in Project M and Project+ are inspired by Kid Icarus: Uprising, the original Kid Icarus, and the myth that the games draw inspiration from. Icarus was a man whose makeshift wings were melted by the sun before he plummeted into the sea:
 * The Wings of Icarus burn as Pit loses gliding momentum, which is a side effect of using the Power of Flight in Kid Icarus: Uprising. Similarly, the wings also glow purple when wearing the dark costumes, which is based on the effect of Dark Pit's wings after he absorbed the spirit of and could fly indefinitely without trouble.
 * Pit's alternate costumes reference Kid Icarus lore as a whole. The NES costumes also have different facial expressions, with Pit always smiling (reflecting Pit's silly yet kind-hearted nature) and the dark costume (prior to Project+ Version 2.3) always frowning (reflecting Dark Pit's more aggressive, stoic and serious nature).
 * Pit's render in Project+ seems to reference his official artwork in Kid Icarus: Uprising.