Pichu (SSBM): Difference between revisions

Pichu is currently ranked 22nd in the D tier. Pichu has solid overall movement, complemented with some very quick attacks. It also possesses a surprising amount of power for its weight class, with good [[chaingrab]]bing ability and a handful of strong finishers, some even more powerful than those of its counterpart, Pikachu. However, all of Pichu's strengths are severely outweighed by its weaknesses. It has abysmal range and very poor endurance due to its light weight, and is unusually prone to chaingrabs itself despite its small size, due to the unusually high amounts of hitstun it sustains as a result of being the game's lightest character. It also takes [[recoil damage]] from its electric-based moves, including its own recovery move [[Agility]], further hampering its defensive game. As a result, Pichu suffers from abysmal matchups; it was historically considered to have the worst matchup spread in the game with no winning matchups at all, with this perception only marginally improving after recent metagame developments.

To unlock Pichu, players have to complete [[Event 37: Legendary Pokémon]] or play 200 VS. matches.

 

Upon completing either criterion, the player will fight against Pichu on Pokémon Stadium, with "Battle Theme" playing.

**{{buff|Down smash is more reliable due to consisting of a single hit and it is a semi spike (70° → 160°, sending opponents behind it, like the first hit of Ganondorf's down smash). It also has intangibility on frames 7-10 and it deals more damage than the final hit of Pikachu's down smash (3% → 13%) making it stronger despite its decreased knockback (70 (base)/170 (scaling) → 30/70).}}

While still considered to be an awful character and unused outside of [[sandbagging]], players began to recognize Pichu's strengths, namely its agility and decent set of normals. Several professionals, such as {{Sm|Mew2King}} and {{Sm|Armada}}, believe that while Pichu is still unviable, they believe that other characters, like {{SSBM|Kirby}}, {{SSBM|Zelda}}, and {{SSBM|Bowser}}, are even worse than it, [http://www.eventhubs.com/news/2014/may/02/kirby-and-zelda-are-two-worst-characters-melee-pichu-highly-underrated-mew2king-discusses-his-super-smash-bros-tier-list-pt-1/ ranking it 19th] and [https://youtu.be/17n7Tcjrifg?t=264 22nd], respectively. Pikachu's rise in the competitive scene also helped Pichu's ascent out of the bottom tier, with players noting that Pichu shared a few of the tools that ultimately made Pikachu a solid pick. Despite Pichu's theoretically worse matchup spread and barren results, most players believed that the former was attributed to a different metagame and the latter has other bottom-tier characters also fail to achieve significant results.  

With its strengths being recognized better, it is currently ranked 22nd on the current tier list. While universally not considered a contender for the worst character in the game, Pichu is still considered to be non-viable choice in the metagame with a terrible matchup spread, with its playerbase and results only marginally improving.