Pichu (SSF2)

Pichu is a veteran starter character in Super Smash Flash 2. He was revealed at the fourth day of Super Smash Con 2017. Pichu's sprites are entirely custom-made, and are based on his appearance in Super Smash Bros. Melee. Pichu's voice-clips are taken from Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, but from previous patches of the game, his voice-clips are retained from Super Smash Bros. Melee. Contrary to his traditional appearance as an unlockable character from previous patches of the game and Super Smash Con 2017, Pichu appears as a starter instead.

Pichu is currently ranked at 32nd of B tier in the current tier list, a noticeable leap from 35th of D tier from the previous tier list, where he was currently residing at low-tier. Pichu has most strong attacks in his moveset, with his smash attacks KOing opponents reliably under 75%, down aerial being a strong meteor-smash at the final frames, all of his aerials great for racking up damage, his electricity in most of his attacks dealing high knockback, being very effective at dodging attacks, and his small hurtboxes allowing him to easily evade various attacks from other characters. His side special, Skull Bash, and down special, Thunder, are very strong on the opponents, with the former having ability to KO opponents below 90% if fully charged up, and the latter KOing opponents below 60%. Unique to Super Smash Flash 2 is that, after Pichu reaches 50% damage, he will enter a fatigued state called, Discharge, where his special moves become stronger or gain new traits: Electro Ball paralyzes the opponent for a much longer time, Thunder is stronger and propels Pichu upwards, Agility produces an electrical vortex after each dash and Skull Bash goes significantly farther, but is uncapable of being charged.

While Pichu possesses these several positive attributes, Pichu possesses a few notable flaws too. Due to his nature as a Tiny Mouse Pokémon, he is the second-lightest character in the game, combined with him being lighter than the already-light, which, alongside his rather slow falling speed and the fact that he is almost as light as with only 2 paces heavier than her, means that he can get very easily KO'd at even below 40% and that makes his horizontal and vertical survivability mostly terrible. Despite having small hurtboxes, Pichu has electricity that deals recoil damage to himself in many of his attacks. Pichu's main gimmick is that for every electrical attack he uses, he damages itself. It also has problems with range, as various moves like agility and side special, his grab, up smash, down smash have overall underwhelming range, allowing characters with disjointed hitboxes to keep him at arm's length and easily keep him away from the stage, like and. In addition, his grab and throw game is a lackluster outside of back throw and forward throw, as none of his other throws tend to KO until very high precentages of damage, his grab possesses the most smallest range out of all characters in the game.

Pichu has a small playerbase and a lackluster neutral game, as Pichu doesn't have notable players so far in his playerbase currently, unlike most of the other characters. Though Pichu's strengths fairly make him a strong fighter, his flaws massively outweigh the aformentioned strengths, causing Pichu to reside at lower mid-tier and making him rather a below-average fighter.

How to unlock

 * Play a match in any game-mode (except for Training Mode) in which a player-controlled accumulates at least 172% damage, which causes Pichu to challenge the player into a fight, and the player must then defeat him in a 1-stock match on Pokémon Colosseum.

Attributes
Pichu is notable for being a short, lightweight character who has some typical attributes, his dashing speeds are averagely good, while his jumping speeds are good, and walking speeds and falling speeds are tied with Pikachu, but his grab has somewhat small range, similar to Mr. Game & Watch. Pichu is even smaller and faster than Pikachu, as said previously. He can dash cancel to move even faster than Sonic, giving him overwhelmingly good approach options.

Pichu is fairly an unorthodox chracter in terms of playstyle, a character that only focuses fighting with electricity. Pichu has good KO moves in his smash attacks, down aerial, which is a strong meteor-smash, and his electricity in most of his attacks dealing high knockback. He is also very effective at dodging various attacks by other characters, due his small hurtboxes that allows him to easily evade various attacks from other characters, giving opponents severe problems with range to Pichu. His side special and down special are very strong on the opponents, with the former having ability to KO opponents below 90% if fully charged up, and the latter KOing opponents below 60%. If Pichu reaches 50% damage, it will enter a fatigued state, called Discharge. In this state, his special moves increases their strengths or gain new traits: Electro Ball paralyzes the opponent for an extended period, Thunder is stronger and propels Pichu upwards, Agility produces an electric vortex after each dash and Skull Bash goes significantly farther, but is uncapable of being charged up.

However, with his small hurtbox also comes a very severe problem with range. Pichu must get way too close to the opponent in order to profit off his quick attacks. Combined with the fact that most of his moves are reverse disjointed, Pichu ends up having lots of good approach options, but still having issues with winning the neutral game. Pichu is also the second lightest character in the game, weighting 73 units, while Jigglypuff, the lightest, weights 72, and Mr. Game & Watch, the third-lightest, weights 76, tied with Kirby and Bandana Dee.

Overall, Pichu is described as a "glass cannon", having a high KO potential in most of his attacks while being very vunerable himself by being easily KO'd due to his extremely light weight. He is also held back by his electricity causing recoil damage, slow speed in most of his attacks and overall short range in most of his attacks.