Pichu (SSF2)

Pichu is a veteran starter character in Super Smash Flash 2. He was revealed on the fourth day of Super Smash Con 2017, and officially added to the game the following year, in Beta 1.1. Pichu's sprites are completely custom and are based loosely on his appearance in Super Smash Bros. Melee. Pichu's current voice-clips are taken from Super Smash Bros Ultimate, though earlier versions of the game utilized his voice-clips in Super Smash Bros. Melee instead.

Pichu is ranked 41st of D+ tier in the current tier list, a noticable drop from 32nd of B tier, but is an imrpovement over 35th of D+ tier from the previous tier list. Pichu is one of the fastest and smallest characters in the game, making him very hard to strike. Compounding on this is his great frame-data, making him hard to avoid in return. He also possesses high damage-racking capabilities, strong KO power through his smash attacks, all aerials, back throw, and a special condition, Discharge, that gives him access to even more powerful attacks, allowing him to take the opponent's stocks very quickly if they are not careful. His recovery is also among the greatest in the game; due to the very long travelling distance and omnidirectional characteristics of Agility, combined with the overwhelming horizontal distance of discharged Skull Bash.

However, Pichu is battered by a few notable flaws. He is the second-lightest character in the game (coumpouned by a relatively low falling speed), giving him terrible survivability overall and causes him to get easily knocked out as early as 35%. Not helping matters is his recoil-mechanic, where he takes damage to himself from utilizing any of his electrical attacks, especially as these tend to be his most powerful attacks and include both of his recoveries. Pichu also possesses a problematic attacking range, making it especially difficult to fight against the swordsmen. Out of the rest of the playable cast in the game, Pichu possesses the shortest grab in the game. His grab and throw game beyond back throw is overall defective; possessing the shortest grab in the game, his pummel dealing recoil-damage to himself, none of his throws outside of back throw being effectively useful, nor are they powerful to KO at realistic precentages.

Pichu's strengths are overall compariatively on par with his weaknesses. However, while Pichu's strengths are denied to be underestimated, Pichu's noticeable flaws significantlly outnumber his strengths, causing Pichu to reside at the middle of lower mid-tier.

How to unlock (v1.1 only)

 * Play a match in any game-mode (except for Training Mode and accumulate at least 172% damage on a single stock as . After the match, the player must then win against Pichu in a 1-stock match on Pokémon Colosseum.

Attributes
Pichu is notable for being a short, floaty lightweight character who, by his true playstyle, is a fairly unorthdox character in terms of playstyle: a character who focuses fighting with electricity. As a clone of, Pichu possesses similar attributes; Pichu possesses one of the fastest dashing speeds and ground-to-air speeds in the game, giving him lateral movement almost on par with. His vertical movement, however, leaves much to be desired, as his jumping height and falling speed are on the lower side of the cast, and his fast-falling speeds is one of the slowest, granting him an awkward floatiness. His tiny hurtboxes synergize with his high movement-speed, making him rather difficult to hit, but also significantlly hinders his attacking range. In addition, several animations shrink his hurtboxes even further, allowing him to low-profile underneath attacks; similar to a handful of the cast, like and. This small size also gives him among the lowest range than most of the cast, forcing him to get uncomfortably close to his opponents and hampering his otherwise-solid neutral game.

Pichu's primary strength is his electrical playstyle. Pichu's attacks are quite fast and lend themselves well to combos, with his electricity-based attacks in particular also packing a surprising amount of power behind them, giving him many tools to rack up damage quickly. His forward smash, down air, and Thunder are all notable KO moves. When Pichu's damage exceeds 50%, he enters the fatigued condition, dubbed Discharge, which makes his forward smash and all of his special moves significantly more powerful, with a discharged side special, Agility, being capable of securing particularly cheesy-early KOs off the top of the screen vertically. Pichu's aerial game is his strongest asset; possessing strong electricity-based aerials with decent amount of power to have high KO potential at high precents. His neutral aerial is among Pichu's strongest aerial, possessing great power to KO at high precents in the air (though it becomes weaker overtime), and is notable for possessing lingering hitboxes. His forward aerial is Pichu's useful approaching option (though it is Pichu's weakest aerial, only KOing at higher precents), and is very useful for anti-airing or anti-juggling, or even zoning or edgeguarding. His back aerial and up aerial possesses the same assets from neutral aerial, possessing strong power to KO in the air at high precents. His up aerial is a good juggling aerial, due to its solid range. His down aerial boasts a strong meteor smash to KO reliably below 65% on the clean hit.

Outside of his aerial game, Pichu's grounded game is his most powerful asset. Pichu possesses one of the fastest dashing speeds in the game (his walking and running speeds are tied with ; due to being a clone), giving him overwhelmingly good approaching options; coupled with the fact that he has a swift playstyle. His jab, for example, is one of the fastest in the game (though it lacks KO potential at very high precents, only semi-spiking the opponent at high precents). Forward tilt comes out quickly and has solid range, but its knockback is extremely defective for any type of a tilt attack, and is very useful for edgeguarding situations. His up tilt, possessing greater range of all his tilts, is a great anti-airing and juggling tool, while being strong enough to KO outright at 100%. His down tilt possesses the same assets of forward tilt; possessing strong knockback and solid range, being able to KO as early as 150% onwards. His smash attacks contain strong attributes: his up smash is very powerful, and his ears gain intangibility during the frames of the active hitboxes, making it tricky for opponents to challenge. While it is one of the strongest up-smashes in the game that KOs opponents relatively under 100%, its range is poor for any type of up smash. Forward smash is among the strongest and hits the opponents up to multiple times, and can KO at around 100% outright. His down smash is among the most unique (sends the opponents at the opposite direction to where Pichu is facing), and is strengthened enough to KO at high precents, killing at around 120%.

Pichu sports a fair grab and throw game; despite possessing the shortest grab in the game, he possesses one of the fastest grabs in the game. Pichu possesses a combo throw in his up throw, forward throw and down throw, which can easily combo into various aerials; such as forward aerial, back aerial or up aerial, and can have utility at higher precents for KO confirms. His back throw and forward throws are very useful to begin edgeguarding situations (with back throw possessing slight combo potential at low-to-mid precentages). Lastly, Pichu's back throw is his strongest throw, being able to KO most characters at around 100%. However, he truly possesses no KO throw outside of back throw, with his most-damaging throw, forward throw, unable to KO skillfully beyond 200%.

Pichu's fatigued state, Discharge, possesses the ability to strengthen a handful of his moveset; such as forward smash, Agility, Thunder Jolt and Skull Bash. Though it prevents Pichu from charging up his side special, Skull Bash, it strengthens the power of his special moves while still being powerful in his neutral condition; Skull Bash possesses extreme speed and distance (making it Pichu's most reliable approaching options), and it also has great amount of power to KO the opponents vertically, especially off the top of the screen. His up special, Agility, is extremely powerful, hitting the opponents up to mutliple times and dealing great knockback to KO the opponents off the screen, especially vertically. As a result, it is one of the strongest up-specials. His down special, Thunder, is especially the strongest of all his special moves (although it can deal recoil to Pichu if it misses the opponent), being able to KO opponents reliably at midway-precents. In this state, his special moves increases their strengths or gain new traits: Electro Ball is bigger and paralyzes the opponent for an extended period, Thunder is stronger and propels Pichu skywards, Agility produces an electric vortex after each dash, and Skull Bash instantly travels the length of its maxed-out charge. Being at these higher percentages comes at the tradeoff of Pichu being easily KO'able around this time. To counteract this, Pichu possesses a method of healing by crouching. Every time the bubbles come out from Pichu, it heals 1% damage. These bubbles cycle again a little under 3 seconds, but upon crounching, the first set of bubbles can come in a little over one second. If the Pichu-player is in a scenario where they buy themselves 10 seconds of time (i.e. the opponent broke their controller in frustration of having to fight Pichu), Pichu can heal a whopping 4% health. Because the first set of bubbles comes faster, he is advantageous to crouch, wait until Pichu heals 1%, then quickly crouch again to heal again faster. So instead of healing 4% health in 10 seconds, such as in the aforementioned controller-breaking scenario, Pichu could heal 8-9% health by the utility of this tactic.

While Pichu is strengthened enough to be a versatile fighter, Pichu is underestimated by a myriad of critical flaws. Due to his appearance as a Tiny Mouse Pokémon, Pichu is the second-lightest character in the game (only heavier than ; who is the lightest in the game, but lighter than, and ; who are tied for being the third-lightest characters in the game), which is coupled with his floatiness. As a result, Pichu can get easily knocked out as early as under 40% by a sufficently powerful attack. In addition, while Pichu possesses extremely long range; thanks to his electricity-based attacks, his general range is mostly poor (primarily when he utilizes non-electricity attacks), which is coupled by the fact that several of his attacks (especially the ones that utilize electricity); like up smash, down smash, down tilt and up tilt; possess underwhelming range to outspace a handful of the cast; likely due to his smallest size in the game. Because of this, Pichu is kept at bay by several of the weapon-wielding cast; like and.

Pichu's defensive game is arguably his weakest asset; He possesses a unique recoil mechanic where any electric-based attacks he utilizes throughout his playstyle also causes damage to himself. This includes his forward smash, forward aerial, down aerial, pummel, forward throw, all of Pichu's special moves, and Pichu's Final Smash; Electric Terrain, as well as any discharged versions of the attacks listed above. This, combined with his second-lightest weight and low falling speed, makes Pichu's survivability among the worst in the game. His ear also clips out of his shield when it shrinks slightly, leaving him prone to getting shield-poked from the front. To accomplish this, Pichu's ears also act as tall hurtboxes. His defense is overall mediocre at best; possessing rolls that gain among the shortest distance and short intangibility period, making it often punishable if used sparingly. His sidestep and air dodge possess among the shortest intangibility period and fair amount of endlag, making it punishable most often if used out of sparing moments. Pichu's grab and throw game is productively lackluster beyond back throw; Pichu possesses the shortest grab in the game, his pummel damaging himself while damaging the opponent, and none of his throws aside from back throw and forward throw being certainly useful, nor are they strong to KO at realistic precentages beyond back throw, with his forward throw, his most-damaging throw, denying to KO reliably beyond 200%.

Pichu possesses a significantlly situational recovery. While he possesses one of the greatest recoveries in the game, it is backfired by noticeable antagonistic traits; Pichu is extremely vulnerable to any type of attacks in his horizontal recovery, Skull Bash, and his vertical recovery, Agility, (without his dischagred condition) leaves Pichu completely vulnerable to any type of attacks. Because of these negative traits, Pichu's recovery is among the easiest to gimp.

Overall, Pichu is described as an electricity-based glass cannon, with ludicrous speed and attacking power in exchange for virtually nonexistent defense. Pichu possesses high damage-racking capabilities and KO potential, and strong power throughout his playstyle; at the expense of an extremely frail defense and overall short range throughout his playstyle, and can be easily knocked out just as quickly before the opponent does; due to his second-lightest weight, causing all of his fights to be quite unpredictable with heavy swings in momentum off of even a single conversion.