Pichu (Super Smash Flash 2)

Pichu is a veteran unlockable character in Super Smash Flash 2. He was revealed at Day 4 of Super Smash Con 2017. Pichu's sprites are completely custom-made and are based on its appearance in Super Smash Bros. Melee. Pichu's voice clips come from Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

Pichu is currently placed 27th of B tier in the current tier list. Pichu has very powerful attacks, with his smash attacks KOing opponents reliably under 75%, down aerial being a strong meteor-smash, 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 and down special are very strong, with the former capable of KOing opponents below 90% if fully charged, and the latter KOing opponents below 60%. A special trait of Pichu unique to Super Smash Flash 2 is that, after it reaches 50% damage, it will enter a fatigued state called Discharge, where its special moves become stronger and/or gain new traits: Electro Ball paralyzes the opponent for a much longer time, is stronger and propels Pichu upwards, Agility produces an electric vortex after each dash, and  goes significantly farther, but cannot be charged.

Despite these strengths, Pichu possesses a few notable flaws. He is the second-lightest character in the game, lighter than his already-lightweight counterpart. Pichu also has electricity that deals recoil damage in many of his attacks. Pichu's main gimmick is that for every electric attack it uses, it damages itself. This in tandem with its extreme lightweight status means that Pichu is very easy to KO and that makes its survivability terrible. It also has problems with range, as various moves like his grab, up smash, down smash have overall underwhelming range, allowing characters with disjointed hitboxes to keep him away from the stage. In addition, none of his throws tend to KO until very high percentages.

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. Pichu is even smaller and faster than Pikachu, as said previously. He can dash cancel to move even faster than, 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, is stronger and propels Pichu upwards, Agility produces an electric vortex after each dash and  instantly travels the length of its max charge.

Being at these higher percentages comes at the tradeoff of Pichu being easily KOable around this time. To counteract this, Pichu has 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 1 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, it's 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 using this tactic.

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 74 units, beaten only by 's weight of 72 units.

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, his fatigued state called Discharge severly weakening his side special and some of his other attacks having short range.

Changes and revisions
Pichu did not get many changes, as he was very recently added to the game, patch-wise. However, he still got some major changes, which will be listed below:

Trivia

 * Pichu is the first character that was originally implemented as a Poké Ball character to become a playable character.
 * Out of the three characters to ascend from being item-only characters to becoming playable (the other two being and ), Pichu is the only one to do so in the same version that it was introduced as a non-playable character.
 * However, as confirmed by the devs, both the playable Pichu and the Poké Ball Pichu can appear at the same time.
 * Pichu, like Pikachu, is confirmed to be a male Pokémon.
 * Despite its gimmick, Pichu only has two moves that actually damage itself in the actual  games.
 * Pichu is the only character in the game that has four taunts, referencing how he also had one more taunt than the other fighters in Super Smash Bros. Melee.
 * Pichu,, and are also the only characters that can self-heal from damage. In Pichu's case, via crouching for some time.
 * Having to deal 172% damage on Pikachu in order to meet Pichu is a reference to the latter's National Pokédex number.
 * Pichu, alongside, Jigglypuff, and  are the only characters that don't clap for the winner of a match.
 * Pichu, like and, was sprited solely by Steven.
 * Pichu's unlock stage was changed possibly due to the computer player's tendency to self-destruct on Lake of Rage.
 * Prior to Beta 1.2, Pichu utilized voice clips from its appearance in Super Smash Bros. Melee.