Pikachu Up Throw Thunder Guide

Oh hey there.

Well uh, surprisingly, I wasted more or less a year on smash amino. Yay. I could talk about how amino changed my life and how grateful I am or something but no one will feel like reading that kind of stuff from an irrelevant like me tbh. I haven’t even done much like ing chats and that crud until like June or something like that too. But what I can talk about is Pikachu.

(Quick question, do any of you know good Pika mains on smash amino? I know like Reaver has like a Pika secondary and that’s kind of about it so... plz halp)

So when I ed smash amino, the first post I created was about Pika’s kill confirm, up throw thunder. I’ll just call it a post since it only asked how to git gud at the combo, which no one told me so... Anyway, I played the game for a year and I know more about it so it’s my turn to teach new Pika players how to use this useful combo. Anyway, here we go.

What I’ll be talking about:

What is this silly combo?

Execution

Practicality

How to Escape it

Bidou up throw thunder(don't know much about it but still including it)

(Going to shorten up throw thunder to something like UtT. Eck, someone could make a better abbreviation out of it dunno)

So to you about 98% non Pika mains, what is this combo you might ask? Well, it’s a throw kill confirm. An actually good one. Ha, Mario and Sheik don’t have this(they do but it’s eh so...). It starts connecting at around 110-120% on most mid weights, earlier on lighter weights, later on heavy weights(might still connect the same but sure as heck not going to kill). This combo can kill at around 130-150% on mid weights(a bit more later on heavies, earlier on light weights) if it hits the opponent the correct direction. How do you get them to the correct direction? Uh... not sure but I’ll explain it later anyway.

Oh, true combo? Heck yea. Oh, DI? Damit... Oh sorry, just rambling. Anyway, this is a true combo if you are able to execute it right and read the DI quick enough. Yes, it IS a true combo. Why I’m saying this like 3 times? Because some weirdo will say it isn’t. It seems like untrue cause ESAM is bad and he can’t read DI. Oh wait, uh, he is kind of bad right? Uh... But still, it doesn’t seem true just cause the DI wasn’t read fast enough. The best Pikachu player says it is a true combo so if it isn’t, go blame him, not me.

The window is like, pretty big if you look at it again just saying. A 20% window for a true combo kill throw set-up. Seems nice but reading DI is hard. You know what, instead of repeating what I say, I should throw(oh shoot, unintentional pun) out some new info. The smaller the percent you do UtT, it’ll be easier to read the DI since you have more time to react before they get hit by the thunder cloud. However, this may give enough time for the opponent to air dodge. The higher the percent, it becomes harder to read the DI since you have less time to hit with the thunder cloud but makes it harder to escape with air dodge. Feeling confident? Then you should do it at the higher window percent, if not do it a bit earlier.

Now that you know what this combo is, I can talk about how to do it. But you can watch ESAM’s vid instead. I’m too lazy. https://youtu.be/JAZJbMo4AmM

Oh, you won’t watch it? Damit, I wanted to be lazy. So the combo is easy peasy. Grab your opponent at around 130-150%, up throw, jump, then thunder. Yay, it would kill if you did it at the right place. Oh, DI is a thing? Ugh, it’s a bit more harder.

(Owait, I personally use Y for jumping even though I have tap jump on. I’m just used to using Y and it’s more steps if you use tap jump to jump in the combo. You could put a shoulder button to jump too if you want. I play on a 3ds so I don’t have that luxury of a shoulder button jump...)

Anyway, up throw at around 130-150%, then if they DI right, dash a little to the right, then jump, with an immediate thunder with your control stick back to center, then to the bottom left. If you watched ESAM’s vid, this would make sense. Same thing for left DI; run to the left, jump, immediate thunder with control stick back to center, then to the bottom right. Obviously, practice the combo without the throw first. Once you get that down, do the whole combo. I thought you roll the control stick but that gets you a wave bounce if I think about it which we don’t want.

Speaking of stuff you don’t want to do, the mess ups you can do that ESAM explained in his vid was jumping too early, using skull bash instead of thunder, and dash dancing instead of just a small dash. I do mess up the combo from time to time, from reading the DI wrong or mes the combo in general, so the only thing you can do is to practice to get good.

Honestly, I could talk about more stuff what ESAM said in the vid but I won’t cause you should’ve watched it. Instead I’ll just move on to how practical this combo is.

How did I forget d-throw thunder? Oh, it only works on DI towards Pika? Oh I see. It can still catch opponents past the UtT percent range? Huh. That's nice. So you can try to hard read the DI inward to get a kill with d-throw instead.

UtT is one of Pika’s most reliable and best kill confirms. All you need to do is grab which isn’t hard to do since it’s easy to get a grab with his speed and the opponent won’t like play an anti grab game at kill percents like say Bowser or DK because they think it won’t lead to a guarantee kill like the grapplers. If they do start jumping or play an anti grab game for some reason, just camp with T-jolt or fish an up smash.

The percent window isn’t strict but reading the DI is the hard part. Honestly, you can call it a 50-50 kill set up but that’s because of the DI. It also won’t like kill randomly because you didn’t hit them with the right hitbox. Speaking of that, I should talk about that more right now.

So what I first thought what the case was on being able to hit the opponent in the right direction is probably the way Pika faces when he uses the thunder. But I’m pretty sure that’s not the case but instead it’s where the opponent gets hit by the body hitbox of thunder. Something just simple as that. So off of theorizing, if you want to hit the opponent to the left, adjust so it hits Pika on the left side and the same thing on the right side. Easy.

The worst thing you can get after getting this combo is it not killing because it didn’t get them on the right way or something. If it doesn’t kill, you do too much damage to be unable to get another up throw thunder. Oh yea, platforms are weird when doing this combo. Mr. R randomly slided offstage instead of getting sent up, probably because he got hit by the platform in Town. I think it was in Smash and Splash 3. https://youtu.be/YU3Qe8Xi890 at around 9:27, and there’s also a replay at the end too.

So UtT is useful, a true combo if the DI is able to be read quick enough, and is one of Pika’s most reliable and best kill confirms. Though there are going to be some jank with platforms or being unable to adjust so the the opponent won’t be hit in the correct direction for missed kills too. Overall, not the best kill confirm in the whole game or anything but still a really good throw kill set-up that many characters don’t have.

Oh, want to escape the combo? Too bad, it's a true combo, try again. Haha. But really, the only way to really escape it is to not get grabbed. Jump around, spot dodge, don't stay in shield that long etc. Oh, mix up your DI as well, that'll a thing you can do.

Oh uh, forgot something pretty important. If you miss UtT, there's a possibility that you can get punished. Last hit last stock, you miss your UtT and get punished and died from it feels really sad so yea. Don't miss it.

Before I end this, I’ll be explaining one last thing about up throw thunder. Not with regular controls but with Bidou with the c-stick set to special.

(There’s a-stick and smash stick Bidou if you were asking why I specifically said c-stick is special. Btw, will no one cover a-stick and smash stick Bidou? It should be covered honestly...)

I’ll be linking another video by ESAM, but this time explaining why he switched to Bidou and his controler scheme. https://youtu.be/ApzQNmxA-3M In the vid, he mentions one of the reasons why he uses Bidou is because up throw thunder is much more easier to do. All he needs to do is throw, then run to one side, then hit the opposite side while jumping and hitting the c-stick down. ESAM says that he wasn’t able to pull off UtT in tournament consistently, and now(or in the video), he says he gets it about 99% of the time.

There are some other reasonings such as being able to use perfect pivot crouching, having a better ground game, etc for ESAM to use Bidou but says the main reason is because easy up throw thunders. So if you do want to improve your Pikachu game, it may be a good idea to switch to Bidou(says the guy who plays on a 3ds lmao). Not really necessary to switch but Bidou helps Pika a lot. I should make a blog on how Bidou helps Pika lol.

Phew, that’s about it for this. Oh, want a recap or Tl;dr? Here you go:

-Pika’s most reliable kill confirm

-TRUE COMBO(if the DI is read and reacted fast enough)

-kills at around 130-150% on medium weights

-not right hix box or platforms can prevent the kill

-Bidou(or c-stick to special) makes UtT easier

Anyway, this sort of took a while. I’ll be making a blog+poll sometime soon too. It was pretty fun being on smash amino for a whole year, hope this place becomes a bigger and better place from now on. Oh well, you heard enough of me, I’ll leave. Bye.

(How the frick did I misspell confirm with a 'm' instead of a 'n'? I am actually retarded smh)