Pit (Super Smash Flash 2)

Pit is a veteran starter character in Super Smash Flash 2. He was confirmed on May 27, 2016, after some SSF2 Beta files were leaked and some videos were posted showing him off. Like in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, he is the only character representative of the Kid Icarus universe. He was officially confirmed on a special emergency Dev Blog, along with, on May 29, 2016. Pit was originally meant to be revealed at Super Smash Con 2015, but his reveal ended up being delayed until the Summer of 2016. His sprites are custom-made and based on his appearance in . His moveset and voice clips are directly taken from the same game, while the line he shouts during his Star KO, "I never learned how to read!" is taken from Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which is a reference to a line of dialogue he uses in Kid Icarus: Uprising.

Pit is currently ranked 21st out of 40 on the current tier list, placing him in the B tier. Pit has an amazing air game, a reliable reflector, a good combo ability, one of the best recoveries of the game with three midair jumps and his up special move, good air speed and good KO moves in his side special move, forward smash, up aerial, and back aerial. His projectile is extremely fast and can be controlled, making it one of Pit's best edgeguarding options.

However, Pit is extremely vulnerable to gimping due to his up special having a considerable amount of ending lag. Also, a good portion of his attacks are unsafe on shield, and his projectile takes a considerable amount of time to charge, which forces him to constantly hit the opponent away before charging.

Pit is a mid tier character and has a decent online representation. Despite this, he has poor tournament representation, with very few notable players.

Attributes
Pit is roughly described as a jack of all trades and can play many roles in the game. Among Pit's assets in the game are his recovery, disjointed range, and homing arrows. He has a low learning curve save for the use of homing arrows, making him an easy character to pick up and play.

One of Pit's best strengths is his ability to fly (by using three midair jumps), thereby granting him a strong aerial game. Coupled with his disjointed aerial range, (with up air being a reliable KO move), Pit is able to edge-guard opponents offstage easy and can recover with ease. This strength is further complemented by the use of his homing arrows where, while aiming the arrows properly is a difficult skill to master, racks damage to opponents in mid-air and counters air camping. Pit is also a good juggler as his up air has high knockback growth and being to reliably kill most of the case under 150%. Despite this, Pit's air speed is slow.

Pit has an average ground game at best. While his speed on the ground is slow relative to the case, Pit can make it up with his aforementioned homing arrows to deal with opponents and disjointed ranged attacks with his bow. His arrows have a very unusual/glitchy property of not being able to reflect properly, strengthening the reliability of his projectile. Also, his arrows can be aimed within a 180 degree angle, giving Pit more options. Pit also possesses one of the best rolls in the game, which can mitigate his speed issues. Pit also has two reflectors (downb, sideb) to deal with projectiles.

Furthermore, more skilled Pit players can play mindgames while using him. Skilled Pit players can make Pit's arrows stall in the air in a loop-de-loop or a figure 8 pattern, which can provide some element of unpredictability in a matchup as to where the arrow will land. Additionally, his even easier to use Upperdash Arm is useful as a surprise KO move, even in the air.

Despite his strengths, Pit has some notable weaknesses. One of his most notable weakness is that many of Pit's staple aerial moves (forward air, up air, neutral air) are multi-hit attacks. These attacks are good for creating shield pressure, but are easy to DI out of. Additionally, his back air and sour-spotted down air are easy to DI out of, despite them being single hit attacks. This weakens his punish game significantly and edgeguarding game to a moderate extent.

Furthermore, Pit only has two reliable KO moves: up air and down smash. His other KO moves: sweetspotted down air and Upperdash Arm require good timing to use, with the latter can be easily punished with a grab if the move is shielded by the opponent. This means that Pit must keep his moves fresh (e.g. by spamming arrows) in order to avoid problems with stale move negation. This also means Pit is reliant on edge-guarding or juggling to finish stocks.

Additionally, while Pit has disjointed range with his bow, this property is outclassed by other characters with disjointed range such as Marth, Lloyd, and Ichigo. All three of these characters are ranked near the top and have better disjointed range and punish games than Pit.

Finally, Pit's recovery is vulnerable to gimping, as he has a very small ledge sweetspot and his up air has no hitbox. Also, he possesses a below-average air speed, although his multiple jumps compensate for this weakness.

Overall, Pit is a character that is easy to use but difficult to master. Careful Pit players can maximize his potential by mitigating his weaknesses. However, his poor punish game prevents him from rising up to top tier.

Trivia

 * Some remnants of Pit's character files can be found in v0.7's code, indicating that he might have been originally set to appear much earlier than he did or that his development has started since v0.7.