Pichu should not have been nerfed at all. Pichu would have fallen off regardless of the nerfs as the meta inevitably grew more defensive. Making his hurtbox bigger and increasing his self damge were extremely unnecessary nerfs for the already lightest character in the game. (The f-tilt hitbox nerf was kinda justified though)
@@Lardo137Nintendo still generally did a pretty good job balancing the game (when they were still balancing it before the later DLC character came out)
Uh..... Did you play pre-patch Pichu??? Maybe not as drastic as they did, but the nerf was justified. Dying at 80% to move that 2-framed for free was a bit wild and free. Yeah, there are some 2-frame moves that kill early like Dedede, dash attack, but they're generally really hard to line up. With Pichu it would be like if Mario Dash Attack killed at 80%.
I played a game as dk once online against a pichu. He cooked me to 130 uncontested, then I hit him with arial down b into downtilt giant punch and it killed him starting from 0. The second stock went exactly the same and he quit. He probably won 30 out of 32 exchanges and lost the game
@@actuallymario7676As a casual Pichu player, it does!... Good enough to make switching to a better character so much easier. My competitive Sora and Isabelle move like no other.
2:14 A bigger hurtbox is always a negative for reasons I don't think need to be explained. Mewtwo, Ridley, All Heavies: Allow us to introduce ourselves.
@@SamuelJohnsonYT tekken doesnt have weight differences, although kazuya is susceptable to a small amount of combos that only work on the male characters because theyre bigger
as someone who's mained pichu since ultimate came out, and as you put: it was the meta, it was always the meta. the nerfs and FP2 only exacerbated his inevitable downfall but he's still my favourite fighting game character of all time
imo Pichu should ONLY take damage if he successfully lands the attack... That's how it works in actual Pokemon, and it would be far more balanced. Why can't they do that here?
If anything, landing an attack should prevent the self damage, since he can use the opponent as a ground. If he misses and is reckless he should take damage. By that logic, his pummel should do no damage, because both him and his opponent are always grounded.
From the pokemon sun Pichu dex entry "It is not yet skilled at controlling electricity. If you take your eyes off it, it may shock itself." So yes, the self damage when you don't hit is game accurate. Pichu is not good at using electricity so that's why it hurts itself.
@@Ivan_Santos-Perez true, but this is smash, compromises are made for gameplay purposes. Take Young Link for example: his shield burns in OOT when attacked by a fire attack, this doesn't happen in Smash.
I still think that pichu's style COULD work, but nintendo blew it up when they made it harder to follow the cardinal rule of glass cannons: "bad HP doesn't matter if you don't get hit". While this can be annoying from the perspective of certain players, what makes pichu different is that he has to engage and he has to make the engagement count. IMO, pichu should have been reworked to maximize the reward from getting in and getting those hits, while maybe still nerfing that side tilt. Maybe up throw to down B being true at higher percents instead of DI-able would feel fairer. As a casual player who loves pichu, I really struggle to take a stock even though I'm winning neutral and it often costs me matches
I don't think that anybody would have been able to predict where the meta would land so early in ultimate's lifespan but I do think that Pichu would have fell in the tier as the meta progressed even if he wasn't nerfed (being larger than Pikachu was so undeserved as a nerf)
What you said about Pichu and perception applies to so many characters in this whole game imo, pit included (same guy who commented there hey). Imo i think people aren’t realizing how under repped or under developed most characters are when in reality it’s more than likely the character is actually quite strong or at least stronger than one expects.
I'm surprised there was no mention of SDI. Didn't players used to get hit by Pichu's combos more consistently because no one knew how to SDI his attacks initially.
yone_pi has been getting some crazy results with the character lately, not only top 8ing with solo pichu at a major(sumabato sp 47), but even beating and getting an upset on top 4 player MIYA in such a disadvantageous matchup. while yes, pichu is indeed a shell of his former self and the disadvantages he has shouldn't be ignored at all, i feel like a lot of people have undermined his still existing strengths for a long time, and now that people like yone_pi are showing that the character still has a lot of potential in today's metagame, i feel people have slowly but surely began to understand that pichu still has a chance to thrive in the meta when in the right hands, and although you can say this for a lot of other characters, i feel it's especially fascinating for pichu since he's been pretty nonexistent in the scene once the nerfs hit him for such a long time, and it's nice to see people's perceptions on the character finally starting to change after these new peaks in results.
Im going to say that regarless of what characters does one play, is important to have at least a broad gameplan against pichu, since him being a small rushdown fighter means knowing how to fight him helps cover many aspects of other quick/tiny characters
Pichu got by far the most Smash 4 ass nerfs out of anyone in the cast. Of ALL of the characters they could've nerfed it's this guy. Keep in mind the same meta where they were complaining about Pichu was the same meta where pros would unironically get sucked in by Chrom's up b and complain about how broken it was, Ike was somehow a Top Tier, and Game and Watch was... "low tier."
I honestly think that without the nerfs, his recoil would not be enough to offset his strength. Sakurai nerfed the baby to the ground and made him marth level mid
as a day one pichu player thank you for this video. everything you said I've been telling people for years. and I'll always have a small grudge against Nintendo for nerfing pichu so hard. he couldve been maybe high tier at best today but they made sure he's not climbing out of low mid tier
I think the main problem is is that he’s to light. Sure he’s small and agile but that doesn’t do much when you die to one fsmash at 40% Also just him being the worst version of pickatchu becuase pikatchu just has every good thing about pichu minus pichus self damage which is just a major downgrade
Honestly I wish more people played Pokémon characters man! Yes Pikachu in my opinion is the best Pokémon but if most people know that why don’t ppl pick him up, it’s cuz he’s hard 😭guys please make more Pokémon characters I love the series to death
I view pichu as literally any hit will kill and my self damage doesnt matter since it gives me rage. They dont exactly have the tools two make the opponent approach but they can punish like a mf
If nothing else, Pichu’s fun to play and the matchup spread complements my main Joker’s matchup spread fairly well. I’ve only started playing Pichu very recently, though, so I’m still pretty bad
For me, his recovery is what's kind of a deal breaker. Sometimes it wont recognize the directions I'm inputing and he'll only zip across once and not jump far enough to grab ledge, or he'll miss ledge all together and get severly punished. At least Pikachu does damage when using his up b, but pichu's recovery does not work for me and this is coming from someone who mains Ganondorf.
Ok, so after carefully listen to your video I think what might potentially help would be if he had easier ways to set up into his combos from range. Maybe it would make sense to give his up b a token amount of damage and hitstun so that he can use it as part of his combo game or something like that. This way he wouldn't need to fight himself through swords that have way too much range for him to handle. It might just be me but whenever I tried to play him, I always had the need to stand right inside my enemies just to hit with anything. I always found it a bit annoying that his upb is in this regard so much worse than Pikachus. But I am pretty casual, so maybe I am overlooking a reason why that might be broken.
The types of people who watched this video 1. Came to make a comment 2. Wanted to see if there was more to Pichu But there is a 3rd mysterious and unknown option 3. I just love smash bros
It's honestly not surprising PIchu isn't super popular considering Pikachu's not super popular either Pichu's easier to play, but is far riskier as a character considering there's barely any room for error and, unlike Pikachu, can get camped out due to thundershock damaging itself.
I wonder if you spam electric moves against Luigi can pichu get himself to non zero to death percent it sounds like I weird strategy but I wanna know if it could work
i wish Pichu was "good." It's one of those characters you see and think "oh, it must be compensated for that weakness!" No, it's just a worse Pikachu with weaknesses... Doesn't help that NINTENDO can just do "update patches." Imagine ten years from now, NINTENDO just stops supporting updating the 3DS, Wii, and Nintendo Switch systems. Then players have to "uninstall" and reset their games to the old default version just to experience the game with friends. And don't get me started on Pokemon X and Y, from what i remember they were literally unplayable until you downloaded that first patch. i'm boycotting NINTENDO except the Sonic and Sega stuff.
If the meta is geared more toward punish-game now, why aren't top-tier punishers (as in they're top-tier AT punishing, not top-tiers that are punishers) like Greninja and Falco seeing more airtime?
Ah Pichu, the damage he can deal a crazy load of damage. Hes not bad but hes not great either. But i aint playin sombody that tortures emself and whos death is allways near. Vilager vid when😂
Pichu having a larger hurtbox than Pikachu, despite being physically smaller is honestly ridiculous
1st
What's sad is he probably would have slowly dropped out of top tier even without getting hit with the nerf bat. Justice for Pichu.
Why don't people play Pichu? He's the heaviest character in the game and heals himself.
I read the beginning and I was so confused cause this whole video is telling you why, but then I read the rest 😭
Pichu having a larger hurtbox than pikachu is a warcrime
Pichu should not have been nerfed at all. Pichu would have fallen off regardless of the nerfs as the meta inevitably grew more defensive. Making his hurtbox bigger and increasing his self damge were extremely unnecessary nerfs for the already lightest character in the game. (The f-tilt hitbox nerf was kinda justified though)
Nintendo overestimated the competence of their players.
@@castonyoung7514 More like Nintendo's competence when it comes to balance decisions is nonexistent.
On too of that, it took a good player to actually make him a good character.
@@Lardo137Nintendo still generally did a pretty good job balancing the game (when they were still balancing it before the later DLC character came out)
Uh..... Did you play pre-patch Pichu??? Maybe not as drastic as they did, but the nerf was justified. Dying at 80% to move that 2-framed for free was a bit wild and free.
Yeah, there are some 2-frame moves that kill early like Dedede, dash attack, but they're generally really hard to line up. With Pichu it would be like if Mario Dash Attack killed at 80%.
Pichu proved his point. He was the best, number one, and yet still everyone thought he was worse than Pikachu because they never saw his potential
Because he's the lightest character in the game and hurts himself kekw 🤓🤓🤓🤓
Bro you talk like he wasn’t top tier even WITH those issues
@@nothingnesslol9538r/whooosh
@@nothingnesslol9538 Completely missed the joke.
@@bassicallyandreA joke made within less than a minute of the video. Damn.
People really don’t watch these videos before commenting…..ya hate to see it.
I played a game as dk once online against a pichu. He cooked me to 130 uncontested, then I hit him with arial down b into downtilt giant punch and it killed him starting from 0. The second stock went exactly the same and he quit. He probably won 30 out of 32 exchanges and lost the game
I used to play Pichu and it got to a point where I would have to play perfectly to win. If I messed up once I was just dead.
Polishes neutral game though
@@actuallymario7676As a casual Pichu player, it does!... Good enough to make switching to a better character so much easier. My competitive Sora and Isabelle move like no other.
2:14 A bigger hurtbox is always a negative for reasons I don't think need to be explained.
Mewtwo, Ridley, All Heavies: Allow us to introduce ourselves.
isn’t kazuya a heavy
@@nothingnesslol9538 Yes. I personally think he shouldn't be, and I know he doesn't struggle with this problem as much.
@@E_Fig05I'm pretty sure he's also heavy in his own game dude
@@SamuelJohnsonYT tekken doesnt have weight differences, although kazuya is susceptable to a small amount of combos that only work on the male characters because theyre bigger
@@a_shrxydud even if it doesn't have weight differences it's still a fun game
High Risk, Average Reward
as someone who's mained pichu since ultimate came out, and as you put: it was the meta, it was always the meta. the nerfs and FP2 only exacerbated his inevitable downfall
but he's still my favourite fighting game character of all time
pichu mains shaking and crying rn
Eh.
imo Pichu should ONLY take damage if he successfully lands the attack... That's how it works in actual Pokemon, and it would be far more balanced. Why can't they do that here?
If anything, landing an attack should prevent the self damage, since he can use the opponent as a ground. If he misses and is reckless he should take damage.
By that logic, his pummel should do no damage, because both him and his opponent are always grounded.
From the pokemon sun Pichu dex entry "It is not yet skilled at controlling electricity. If you take your eyes off it, it may shock itself." So yes, the self damage when you don't hit is game accurate. Pichu is not good at using electricity so that's why it hurts itself.
@@Ivan_Santos-Perez true, but this is smash, compromises are made for gameplay purposes.
Take Young Link for example: his shield burns in OOT when attacked by a fire attack, this doesn't happen in Smash.
I miss Pichu's old side tilt... As a Pichu main, it was very satisfying to land. :(
I still think that pichu's style COULD work, but nintendo blew it up when they made it harder to follow the cardinal rule of glass cannons: "bad HP doesn't matter if you don't get hit". While this can be annoying from the perspective of certain players, what makes pichu different is that he has to engage and he has to make the engagement count. IMO, pichu should have been reworked to maximize the reward from getting in and getting those hits, while maybe still nerfing that side tilt. Maybe up throw to down B being true at higher percents instead of DI-able would feel fairer. As a casual player who loves pichu, I really struggle to take a stock even though I'm winning neutral and it often costs me matches
I am a Pichu main, one of 7 at best. Love my little buddy
I don't think that anybody would have been able to predict where the meta would land so early in ultimate's lifespan but I do think that Pichu would have fell in the tier as the meta progressed even if he wasn't nerfed (being larger than Pikachu was so undeserved as a nerf)
What you said about Pichu and perception applies to so many characters in this whole game imo, pit included (same guy who commented there hey). Imo i think people aren’t realizing how under repped or under developed most characters are when in reality it’s more than likely the character is actually quite strong or at least stronger than one expects.
I'm surprised there was no mention of SDI. Didn't players used to get hit by Pichu's combos more consistently because no one knew how to SDI his attacks initially.
Pichu is so frustrating to play bc he feels so good and then you get hit once and blow up
I love this guy and I hope he gets in the next smash game, despite how unlikely it is.
yone_pi has been getting some crazy results with the character lately, not only top 8ing with solo pichu at a major(sumabato sp 47), but even beating and getting an upset on top 4 player MIYA in such a disadvantageous matchup. while yes, pichu is indeed a shell of his former self and the disadvantages he has shouldn't be ignored at all, i feel like a lot of people have undermined his still existing strengths for a long time, and now that people like yone_pi are showing that the character still has a lot of potential in today's metagame, i feel people have slowly but surely began to understand that pichu still has a chance to thrive in the meta when in the right hands, and although you can say this for a lot of other characters, i feel it's especially fascinating for pichu since he's been pretty nonexistent in the scene once the nerfs hit him for such a long time, and it's nice to see people's perceptions on the character finally starting to change after these new peaks in results.
Im going to say that regarless of what characters does one play, is important to have at least a broad gameplan against pichu, since him being a small rushdown fighter means knowing how to fight him helps cover many aspects of other quick/tiny characters
this character is awesome with his longer range, good neutral game and micro spaceing and THUNDER
They could have easily kept the f-tilt the way it was and everyone would have learned to adapt.
With so many broken characters they had to reverse the nerf to the hurtbox
It's a shame, when the game came out he was one of the best and funnest characters in the game
I just watched my friend from High School beat Hbox at Riptide with Pichu. THICC NICC IS THE GOAT
Pichu got by far the most Smash 4 ass nerfs out of anyone in the cast. Of ALL of the characters they could've nerfed it's this guy. Keep in mind the same meta where they were complaining about Pichu was the same meta where pros would unironically get sucked in by Chrom's up b and complain about how broken it was, Ike was somehow a Top Tier, and Game and Watch was... "low tier."
It’s not pichu who’s bad at the game it’s us who is,well at least the ones who are bad at the game
I honestly think that without the nerfs, his recoil would not be enough to offset his strength. Sakurai nerfed the baby to the ground and made him marth level mid
Og pichu needs to come back they gutted h8m so much in the first patch
as a day one pichu player thank you for this video. everything you said I've been telling people for years. and I'll always have a small grudge against Nintendo for nerfing pichu so hard. he couldve been maybe high tier at best today but they made sure he's not climbing out of low mid tier
It's simple! The existence of Pikachu!
Game N watch's air drift lets him survive way longer than he should compared to the others
I think the main problem is is that he’s to light. Sure he’s small and agile but that doesn’t do much when you die to one fsmash at 40% Also just him being the worst version of pickatchu becuase pikatchu just has every good thing about pichu minus pichus self damage which is just a major downgrade
Honestly I wish more people played Pokémon characters man! Yes Pikachu in my opinion is the best Pokémon but if most people know that why don’t ppl pick him up, it’s cuz he’s hard 😭guys please make more Pokémon characters I love the series to death
I can't wait for Why No One Plays Super Smash Bros Ultimate
He was dropped due to the lost of his early side tilt being heavily nerfed
For why everyone plays, I feel like we’re due for Diddy Kong or game and watch
Please watch the video before commenting. Thank you! :)
Commenting the please before you video. Thank watch ⛷️
Esam may have said it best: this character is fkin stupid because you take 17 seconds til you're out of the combo, but he dies at 6%.
If you ever do one for Chrom, I'm gonna guess he's gonna go on the why no one plays category considering how has a horrendously exploitable recovery.
Forward tilt
I didn't know Pichu was a HE since i dont remember if Pichus also has that heart on their tails like Pikachus if they are females 😮
Pichu should never have been nerfed and I will die on that hill
I view pichu as literally any hit will kill and my self damage doesnt matter since it gives me rage. They dont exactly have the tools two make the opponent approach but they can punish like a mf
If nothing else, Pichu’s fun to play and the matchup spread complements my main Joker’s matchup spread fairly well. I’ve only started playing Pichu very recently, though, so I’m still pretty bad
You should do a why everyone play's (starting with piranha plant)
I will do what i can to make people play pichu, even if im not good at the game. If i show shes fun, i hope more people will try her
He was supposed to be a gladd cannon that was hard to hit but they nerfed every aspect that made him such.
For me, his recovery is what's kind of a deal breaker. Sometimes it wont recognize the directions I'm inputing and he'll only zip across once and not jump far enough to grab ledge, or he'll miss ledge all together and get severly punished. At least Pikachu does damage when using his up b, but pichu's recovery does not work for me and this is coming from someone who mains Ganondorf.
Bro really put a why everyone plays Ness video but a why no one plays pikachu and is a better character ☠️
Ok, so after carefully listen to your video I think what might potentially help would be if he had easier ways to set up into his combos from range. Maybe it would make sense to give his up b a token amount of damage and hitstun so that he can use it as part of his combo game or something like that. This way he wouldn't need to fight himself through swords that have way too much range for him to handle. It might just be me but whenever I tried to play him, I always had the need to stand right inside my enemies just to hit with anything. I always found it a bit annoying that his upb is in this regard so much worse than Pikachus. But I am pretty casual, so maybe I am overlooking a reason why that might be broken.
I honestly agree!
I'd like a link to the remix you used for the background, I loved it.
Why no one plays pichu?
Cause you can pikachu
video on why pichu is fun and cool
Forward B and Up B isn’t an electric move. They shouldn’t have recoil.
To put simply, Pichu is a weaker version of Pikachu who also has self-harm moves.
I wish this game still got balance patches even if there isn’t anymore content being added
King gizzard mentioned
My friend Logan actually plays Pichu, and he's really good with him. He can do good combos.
He was done sooo dirty 😢
The types of people who watched this video
1. Came to make a comment
2. Wanted to see if there was more to Pichu
But there is a 3rd mysterious and unknown option
3. I just love smash bros
Vars III, FIRE VIDEO!
The fat nerf to pichu's self damage killed the character, when it was not necessary at ALL
I suprised you haven’t done one of these on little Mac.
I still will play him only like i love Pichu in ultimate
Guess we need a "Why no one plays pokemon" video
I already did that lol
It's honestly not surprising PIchu isn't super popular considering Pikachu's not super popular either
Pichu's easier to play, but is far riskier as a character considering there's barely any room for error and, unlike Pikachu, can get camped out due to thundershock damaging itself.
whats up I was the pichu you played with in friendlies at supernova good video 👍
idk feels perfectly rated if you ask me
I wonder if you spam electric moves against Luigi can pichu get himself to non zero to death percent it sounds like I weird strategy but I wanna know if it could work
Now to wait for dedede and Vars 3 memeing on him (I love dedede so...I'll will be waiting)
i wish Pichu was "good." It's one of those characters you see and think "oh, it must be compensated for that weakness!" No, it's just a worse Pikachu with weaknesses... Doesn't help that NINTENDO can just do "update patches." Imagine ten years from now, NINTENDO just stops supporting updating the 3DS, Wii, and Nintendo Switch systems. Then players have to "uninstall" and reset their games to the old default version just to experience the game with friends. And don't get me started on Pokemon X and Y, from what i remember they were literally unplayable until you downloaded that first patch. i'm boycotting NINTENDO except the Sonic and Sega stuff.
And Pichu's recoil is unfortunately lore accurate. Pichu are known for taking damage from their own attacks in Pokémon.
Except Pokemon ignores that in gameplay, so why can't Smash?
Thanks Vars, now I know why Fox isn't top tier in addition to Pichu 🤣
Gislason Stravenue
i must be no one then
Answer: Pikachu.
Pichu is my favourite pokemon ever, but play pichu is Just so Hard for the thing he give
(sorry for the bad english)
I play pikachu, My friend place pichu. They truly are different enough. Credit with credit is due, He does beat me quite often Despite the matchup.
If the meta is geared more toward punish-game now, why aren't top-tier punishers (as in they're top-tier AT punishing, not top-tiers that are punishers) like Greninja and Falco seeing more airtime?
Because Pikachu exists
The dang rat 🐀
Haven’t watched the video yet but it’s because he’s the lightest character duh
GOOD.
Yeah, but those taunts are OP.
Doesn't this just mean he's an extreme glass cannon? Cuz he still hits like a truck and is a lot easier to play imo than Pikachu
It's what you said at the end but I feel like a good enough player can still make that work really well
I dont play pichu anymore because I switched to play rivals or aether. Still love him though ❤
All true things being said here.
Pichu is the same amount of work as Pikachu for less reward. Next question pls.
Ah Pichu, the damage he can deal a crazy load of damage. Hes not bad but hes not great either.
But i aint playin sombody that tortures emself and whos death is allways near.
Vilager vid when😂
Am I the only one that thinks the character is still kinda insane?
Pichu is the first evolution silly, they should make the first evolution of incineror the worst character in smash history
Wheres duck hunt
Can you do why nobody plays bowser jr
does it have to do with his nerfs people don't play him? that is what i'm guessing
we need a new smash game 🥲