- Game Versions
- Smash 3DS, Smash Wii U
This guide will teach you how to do the following:
- Basic Character outline strengths and weaknesses
- play offensively
- play defensively
- fruit mechanics
- pros and cons of each special as well as when and when not to use them
So, Pacman is a very in depth character to understand and I don't think enough people have gotten down to what makes Pacman viable in a tourney setting. (Zero definitely hasn't because he put him as 37th on the tier list). The dude is an outright monster when played correctly. Pacman's biggest asset is his ability to manipulate the stage to create very bad situations for the opponent. He can turn the ground under you into a bouncy house with his trampoline and can cover many options at once with his ability to have up to three hitboxes active at the same time. All of this might make him seem a bit overpowered but daddy Sakurai was able to water down our potential a bit with Pacman's weaknesses. His three biggest weaknesses imo are his lack of a grab , (which leads into his second weakness), shields, and his third weakness, time.
A lot of top players are able to mask their character's weaknesses so lets see what we can do to mitigate ours.
Awful Grab- Pacman has a very unsafe grab. It acts like a tether grab, where the hitbox covers a wide area but is very easy to dodge and punish.
-Don't grab unless guaranteed
- In the neutral( any time both players are not attacking each other), you should not be using it much at all, except rare circumstances such as hit confirms, or when you know for a fact the opponent is going to just stand there and shield.
- You do you
Because of the fact he does not have an easy answer to shields like many other characters, if they want to stand back and shield. let them. Pacman gains a lot more than most characters when he sits back there. I'll get more into this later.
- Shields Since Pacman cannot grab, he suffers from shielding.
You have 3 smart options every time the opponent shields.
- RUN!
Reset the situation, by running(not rolling) away. You can set up, drop a hydrant, put a trampoline between you two.
- Toss a fruit at their shield.
If the opponent shields any hitbox, you can throw cherry, strawberry, orange, apple, or melon directly at them. If they shield it, run up and grab the fruit.
- UP B YOLO
Up b has such low knockback back that at low to even mid percents certain characters will have time to recover and punish you. But if you need to get them to do something, up b, and catching a fruit off their shield is the quickest way to do so imo.
Finally, time.
Pacman has all the wacky combos and kill confirms, easy way to look at it, the higher the risk, the higher the reward. An example of this is to throw the opponent into a melon to kill them, looks sick right? Well to do this, you have to charge up to melon, which takes about 79 frames, throw the melon, lets say best case scenario, the person's an idiot. You throw the melon at their shield and then catch it. That's another two seconds. Then you have to throw it up . and then go over and throw them into it. That's roughly 5 seconds and that's without the opponent trying to hit you. In a real match, that would take closer to ten. There are two ways to combat this issue.
- Have a solid safe strategy( which is doable but hard, when people can attack land have no landing lag, and then pummel you), for this you want to do lots of nairs, lots of jabs, lots of f tilts. or you can do simpler stuff,
- play pacman like any other character, don't commit to the huge traps, play him fundamentally sound, like you would play a Mario, or a pit.
This strategy is especially useful if you are just picking up the character. If you know how his basic move set works, you can incorporate traps later on and make him even more deadly.
OKAY, I'm done making pacman looking like crap. If you're still reading this I have faith you'll end up liking the guy, because despite all his weakness the dude is pretty good.
Not done. critique would be fantastic.
- Basic Character outline strengths and weaknesses
- play offensively
- play defensively
- fruit mechanics
- pros and cons of each special as well as when and when not to use them
So, Pacman is a very in depth character to understand and I don't think enough people have gotten down to what makes Pacman viable in a tourney setting. (Zero definitely hasn't because he put him as 37th on the tier list). The dude is an outright monster when played correctly. Pacman's biggest asset is his ability to manipulate the stage to create very bad situations for the opponent. He can turn the ground under you into a bouncy house with his trampoline and can cover many options at once with his ability to have up to three hitboxes active at the same time. All of this might make him seem a bit overpowered but daddy Sakurai was able to water down our potential a bit with Pacman's weaknesses. His three biggest weaknesses imo are his lack of a grab , (which leads into his second weakness), shields, and his third weakness, time.
A lot of top players are able to mask their character's weaknesses so lets see what we can do to mitigate ours.
Awful Grab- Pacman has a very unsafe grab. It acts like a tether grab, where the hitbox covers a wide area but is very easy to dodge and punish.
-Don't grab unless guaranteed
- In the neutral( any time both players are not attacking each other), you should not be using it much at all, except rare circumstances such as hit confirms, or when you know for a fact the opponent is going to just stand there and shield.
- You do you
Because of the fact he does not have an easy answer to shields like many other characters, if they want to stand back and shield. let them. Pacman gains a lot more than most characters when he sits back there. I'll get more into this later.
- Shields Since Pacman cannot grab, he suffers from shielding.
You have 3 smart options every time the opponent shields.
- RUN!
Reset the situation, by running(not rolling) away. You can set up, drop a hydrant, put a trampoline between you two.
- Toss a fruit at their shield.
If the opponent shields any hitbox, you can throw cherry, strawberry, orange, apple, or melon directly at them. If they shield it, run up and grab the fruit.
- UP B YOLO
Up b has such low knockback back that at low to even mid percents certain characters will have time to recover and punish you. But if you need to get them to do something, up b, and catching a fruit off their shield is the quickest way to do so imo.
Finally, time.
Pacman has all the wacky combos and kill confirms, easy way to look at it, the higher the risk, the higher the reward. An example of this is to throw the opponent into a melon to kill them, looks sick right? Well to do this, you have to charge up to melon, which takes about 79 frames, throw the melon, lets say best case scenario, the person's an idiot. You throw the melon at their shield and then catch it. That's another two seconds. Then you have to throw it up . and then go over and throw them into it. That's roughly 5 seconds and that's without the opponent trying to hit you. In a real match, that would take closer to ten. There are two ways to combat this issue.
- Have a solid safe strategy( which is doable but hard, when people can attack land have no landing lag, and then pummel you), for this you want to do lots of nairs, lots of jabs, lots of f tilts. or you can do simpler stuff,
- play pacman like any other character, don't commit to the huge traps, play him fundamentally sound, like you would play a Mario, or a pit.
This strategy is especially useful if you are just picking up the character. If you know how his basic move set works, you can incorporate traps later on and make him even more deadly.
OKAY, I'm done making pacman looking like crap. If you're still reading this I have faith you'll end up liking the guy, because despite all his weakness the dude is pretty good.
Not done. critique would be fantastic.
