Intro and Author

Hey everyone! My name is Gonzalo Barrios, better known as ZeRo in the Smash community. I’m a professional Smash player who makes a living playing this awesome series. In this guide I’ll be going over in as much detail as possible about my favorite character in the 3.02 build of Project M: Pit.

For those of you not familiar with me, I’m known as the -current- best Pit and Project M player in the world. I’ve won many regionals all over the US such as MLG Whobo, Showdown, Intergalactic Kegger and internationals such as CEO and nationals like Zenith. My record is positive vs very powerful players such as Mew2King, Emukiller, Sethlon, Wizzrobe and more. I have a lot of experience with Pit since I travel so much. I’ve also defeated Armada in a Pit ditto money match (Though, we’ve never played in tournament).

For a list of my accomplishments, you can check out my

wiki or Twitch (This is where I broadcast online my play sessions, Q&A’s, tutorials, online play and more!)

Hopefully my credentials convince you to proceed further 🙂 – Without further ado, let’s get to the guide!

General

Pit’s very different from Brawl. So let’s go over some of the changes:

Moveset changes:

*His Up Bm Shield Bash, being a completely different move is a big deal. It’s now a combo finisher, a good out of shield punish, and a weak recovery option) –

*His neutral B, Palutena’s Arrows are now much faster and useful. They also increase in hitstun based on how close you’re to your opponent and charge time.

*Pit’s small sword works like Roy. The power of your moves is stronger at the base of the blade rather than the tip. You can choose to play more risky, since you don’t have more range, but be more rewarded, or play safe and space but don’t be rewarded as much when connecting hits.

*Wings of Icarus: His new side B is quite good. It’s essentially a quick glide that comes with a short boost either left or right, and is one of the most important aspects to master to truly use Pit to its maximum potential. After the initial boost, the glide becomes quite slow, so careful of that.

General stuff:

Speed: Pit’s very fast, especially his Dash Dance. It works very similarly to Marth’s, or even Fox’s. His air speed is quite good as well when you properly use Wings of Icarus.
Pit’s very different now.

Style: Pit’s style is very different and unique from other characters in Project M. He’s a mix of offense and defense that works best at mid range when coupled with aggressive zoning dash dancing and almost up close arrow game. To play him efficiently, you must be able to play differently at all times. Different match ups force you to play defensively -Mewtwo-, aggressively -Fox-, in between -Diddy Kong- and so on. Don’t lock yourself on one style or mentality to be able to play efficiently with him.

For combo explanations, check the ‘combos’ section. Same for match ups.

Pros and Cons

Pros

*Extremely good combo game, from aerials and grabs.
*Powerful chaingrab on certain fast fallers.
*His F-Air, N-Air and D-Tilt all combo into grab if used correctly.
*Palutena’s Arrows, when properly aimed, are very effective for combos and edgeguarding.
*Very solid edgeguard game.
*Excellent juggling with his Up air and Wings of Icarus.
*Very mobile and with many tools at disposal. Allows for creative and unique gameplay.
*Extremely good ground game, coupled with awesome dash dance speed.
*Very good on flat stages, such as Final Destination for example.
*Has a projectile -and sometimes attack- reflector: Palutena’s Shield.
*Some of the funniest quotes when winning *You can’t defeat me* *Easy*.
*Can solidly combo fast fallers and floaties.
*Very good combo finishers (Up B, Back Air, F-Air/Up Air).
*Arrows can extend simple strings into complicated and effective combos. So can Wings of Icarus.

Cons

*Light, can be KO’ed early vertically (Fox, for example).
*Very ineffective if arrows are missed.
*Lacks a solid approach, relies mostly on baits and whiffs.
*Palutena’s shield, his reflector (Down B) sometimes doesn’t deflect.
*His aerials are weak to crouch cancelling.
*His combo game is weakened heavily by platforms.
*His recovery is predictable (Always has to glide).
*His Upb isn’t the best of recoveries vertically. Weak to spikes/meteors.
*Smash DI weakens his combo game considerably.
*Lacks a move to properly hit an opponent sweetspoting the ledge.

Advanced

Arrow Looping: To be honest with you, I barely use them. I try my best to have perfect aim with them to edgeguard and combo. There’s definitely a hidden potential in them to create new combos, edgeguards and neutral game tools. But for now, they’re just undiscovered potential. For some ideas in how to use them, check out this video by Gallo:

You can control the arrow’s movement by moving your control stick. It’s that simple, yet hard to apply effectively in a tournament level match. I’ve found cool uses to use rain arrows when edgeguarding, or when they’re at very high percents in neutral -so they’re scared of arrows-.

Wings of Icarus edgehog: To do this, you want to run towards the ledge, drop down while running, then quickly side B into the ledge. If done correctly, you’ll grab it instantly. Very useful for surprise edgeguards!

Palutena’s Shield: The shield doesn’t stay forever, so careful of deflecting several things or when having a reflection battle vs Mewtwo or Fox -Who can have his as long as he wants-. Best thing to do is to simply hold the B button to have it up as long as possible in these scenarios.

Shield Bash: Quick thing. You can grab the ledge with this move while facing the ledge backwards.

I’ll explain combos in the moves section.

Neutral Game

Pit’s neutral game is divided in a combined use of all of this:

Dash Dancing: Pit has a very long and effective dash dance. Remember, Dash Dancing works in two ways: To create pressure with movement and to bait and whiff opposing moves. Pit doesn’t have a real effective and solid approach option, so correct use of Dash Dancing to create pressure is vital. To do this efficiently, you must do it at mid range, and mix up grabs, dash attacks and jumping. Don’t forget to use it defensively too at times!

Arrows: If they don’t approach you, shoot a quick arrow. Then Dash Dance again a little bit. See how they react. Are they powershielding it? Great, they’re conditioned, go in for a grab. Do they spot dodge? Arrow, then run in with an up smash. Arrows aren’t effective as a projectile unless at very high percents, where you can use it to combo into a KO move such as Up Smash/Aerial at 100% +. Arrows are very effective when you condition your opponent to worry about them, instead of what you’ll do to them when they block it. It’s all a trick 🙂

Aerials: For aggressive play do a full hop rising F-Air with a landing down air behind your opponent. This is a punishable move, though, as a mix up, it works great, since it ads pressure as you’re jumping and landing, so make sure to mix it up when landing/aerial movement. Also, the landing down air is extremely hard to punish, it can’t be grabbed because you land behind them, so it requires the opponent to have a very quick backwards out of shield option.

For defensive play do a short hop forward air moving backwards, then walk forward a bit and repeat. This is so you don’t lose stage control/position, but still throw out a hitbox. If this f-air connects, you have a guaranteed grab at low percents, and a dash attack/f-air/down air at mid percents! Sometimes even an up smash at high percents depending on their di and fall speed.

D-Tilt/Crouch cancel: Very important at low percents. Pit has a strong CC game when used with his d-tilt. This move is very good and sets up for a grab combo, or a tech chase. Best times to use it are when you read an opposing move, then CC D-Tilt into a grab. Or when they’re landing with an aerial! Trading is good here, since you’ll win because you’re crouch cancelling.

Recovery

Pit doesn’t have as many jumps as Kirby or Jigglypuff, so use them wisely. In some ocassions, you want to use Wings of Icarus right away to quickly get past your edgeguarder, sometimes you want to save it -To trick their timing-, sometimes you don’t want to use it all -mindgames-. There’s no correct option all the time, there’s too many situations. Overall, if someone is trying to reach you from below, you want to use wings of icarus to outspeed them and land quickly. If from below, you want to use wings of icarus to not use your jumps when approaching the ledge, then strategically use up b when grabbing the ledge. Sometimes sweetspot, others, go past the ledge and onto the stage. Mix it up! Don’t be afraid to experiment in friendlies here, recovering effectively is a matter of experience and trial an error.

Tournament Play

Pit in tournament is all about confidence and precise combos. A confident Pit player will apply pressure via dash dancing, mix up the timing of his aerials, disrupt opposing dash dancing with arrows -very good use- and grab whenever it’s possible to proceed with a strong and long combo. My biggest advice here is to take deep breaths before playing, and go at it as hard as you can. Focus. Confidence greatly affects your play, especially with Pit since he doesn’t have a solid approach and is forced to play more defensively and reactive than other characters who can force situations, such as Fox.

Warm up a lot your arrows, chaingrabs and combos before playing as well. Precise combos are important, because you can’t afford to drop them. They make or break Pit as a tournament character. So practice hard! Remember that Pit’s blades are stronger to the edge of the blade, and weaker at the tip, so correctly mix in hitboxes to create powerful and effective combos! Want to extend a combo? Use a weak hitbox. Want to launch them or finish a combo? Use a strong hitbox. And so on!

Matchups

There’s a lot of match ups in Project M, though some of the most important ones in this build are: Mewtwo, Diddy Kong, Fox, Snake, Mario and Link.

Mewtwo

Difficulty: Hard
Neutral picks: All the stages have different things that help you. Though, I wouldn’t recommend Dream Land and FoD. It’s hard to combo Mewtwo on those stages, and the ceiling allows him to live forever from your up Smash.
Counterpicks: Comes down to preference, I like neutrals like Smashville, Battlefield, PS2, nothing special, really. Whatever you can play efficiently go for!
Bans: Dreamland, FoD and one extra stage you don’t like to play on.

Summary: This matchup is all about patience. You can’t approach Mewtwo at all because of his range, so you must be on the defensive. Play at max range on spacing with retreating sh fairs, CC D-Tilts up close and lots of grabs whenever its possible. Occasional arrows when he’s not TP’ing/charging shadow ball. This is a very key aspect of the MU: REACT to teleport. Cover yourself, always. Up Smash on reaction is excellent for this. You see him tp, simply up smash. If he TP’s into you, he gets hit and you can potentially combo him from there.

Never position yourself above him, and use Wings of Icarus to move away from him and land safely. To win this match up you must not get caught in his vertical spacing, read and react TP’s and play very, very safe and conservative. Approaching loses you this match up, from my experience.

When deflecting Shadow Ball, the closer it is, the more likely it is for you to win the deflection battle. Sometimes, it really comes down to you holding the B button and then waiting it out. Careful, though, sometimes Palutena’s shield doesn’t deflect if you try to deflect too close -one or two bodies away- to the projectile, so deflect it farther away than that.

Fox

Difficulty: Depends on Fox player. The best ones are incredibly hard, for example.
Neutral picks: Smashville helps him recover, Yoshi’s gets you KO’ed considerably earlier and Battlefield weakens your chaingrab. And PS2 is a very good Fox stage. Though, Smashville/Battlefield are fine, and Dreamland is very good for you because of the ceiling making you live longer and the platforms being so high that you can still chaingrab him. I wouldn’t recommend FoD, it’s awkward to combo him there.
Counterpicks: If possible, FD -Chaingrabs!-. If not, Dreamland, or Battlefield/Smashville.
Bans: Ban Wario Ware (Too hard to fight Fox there, combos are weakened, and you get KO’ed early), Yoshi’s can be very hard as well, and then FoD. While PS2 might be better for Fox, it’s a more consistent stage to fight Fox on, so I prefer it.

Summary: Play very agressive, especially with zoning Dash Dancing. You want to make him whiff a N-Air, grab or Up Smash so you can grab him. Corner him to make him roll, or jump above you (Up air him here!) or force a N-Air at close range which you can up Smash and then tech chase into a grab. This match is all about confidence, grabs and zoning. Your up air is deadly for him when he’s above you, and he’ll be afraid if he’s cornered. Get close to him, because you don’t want to get laser camped.

Always DI his upthrow behind him then, then proceed to double stick Smash DI (Just up on both sticks when you get hit) that will make it a lot harder for him to up air you. Also, always DI his N-Air/F-Air away from him to no get up smashed.

Smart aggressive play is the key in this MU.

Diddy Kong:

Difficulty: Hard
Neutral picks: You need platforms (Or don’t, depending if you can combo him heavily from one grab) so almost any stage works, except PS2.That’s his best vs Pit at least from my experience.
Counterpicks: Up to you, though, Smashville, Battlefield and Yoshi’s were all effective when I played on them.
Bans: PS2!

Be very agressive on him, don’t let him get bananas. Remember you can wavedash to catch them in the ground. As soon as he gets bananas, you must play very aerial based to evade bananas (They don’t care if you shield, they can throw them near you to limit movement, or below you and make you trip anyway).

Diddy Kong’s hitboxes are very weird, they’re big and fast, and he can be very aggressive on your shield. You really need to put emphasis on being aggressive to diddy kong when he has no bananas, and defensive (Use platforms, come from above, etc) when he does. Catching a banana to limit his movement and combo into a grab is huge, so do that whenever its possible. To edgeguard him you must connect a lot of uncharged arrows in succession. He doesn’t go down easily.

Snake

Difficulty: Even/Pit’s Favor
Neutral picks: Smashville, Battlefield, Dreamland and FD are all good picks for you. Yoshi’s/FoD aren’t since it’s hard to combo him there and he can tech chase you easier.
Counterpicks: Dreamland is very effective! So is FD for solid combos.
Bans: Wario Ware (Early KO’s), Yoshi’s (Same reason) and sometimes FoD as well.

This match up comes down to: Can you grab Snake or not. If you do, you win solid. If you don’t, you lose. He wins in trades, limits your movement and combos you effectively. To grab him you must corner him and employ a lot of full hop spacing with f-airs/down airs. When he’s cornered, read his reaction and grab him. Some Snake players roll, others spot dodge, and others use a down air or upb out of shield. Either wait, or shield is what you do here. Patience! Down Throw to F-Air regrab x2 and then Up airs is the way to go in this match up. Snipe him with arrows when off the stage, and DI his throws away from him (Never off the stage though). Also when he sticks a C4 onto you, do not get grabbed. If you don’t get grabbed, he can’t do anything with it other than scare you (Shield if anything).

A very solid video on this Match Up (My last set with Rolex wasn’t recorded) is Armada vs Professor Pro. Check it out here:

Mario:

Difficulty: Very hard
Neutral picks: Battlefield, Smashville, Dreamland
Counterpicks: Battlefield is solid.
Bans: PS2, he can combo you there really hard.

This one of Pit’s hardest match ups in Project M. His fireballs limit your movement really hard, and you can’t zone him out. And because you can’t approach and you get cornered constantly, it becomes really tough quickly. My advice is to use Sh/full hop nairs to go through fireballs and hit him, but you can’t really combo him from these nairs. You’re trying to get stage control here to be able to force him on the defensive and get a grab in. His crouch cancel game is crazy, so focus on grabs/spaced f-airs at first. Don’t do down airs at low percents, he doesn’t go anywhere from them. This match up comes down to if you can use nair effectively to swap stage control.

Here’s a vid of me fighting M2K’s Mario some time ago:

Link

Difficulty: Depends on who has stage control. Can be very even, or one sided.
Neutral picks: Depending on how you deal with projectiles is how you go about stages. Need platforms? Go for battlefield/smashville/yoshi’s. Can do it with flat stages? Try FD. Though, PS2 is very good for Link, so is Dreamland, so don’t bring him there.
Counterpicks: I like FD/Battlefield against Link, platforms help me have more mix ups, and in FD you can combo him efficiently.
Bans: PS2/Dreamland for sure. Too hard to deal with him there, too much space, and platforms help him down air you/f-air you consistently.

Link usually aims his boomerang diagonally upwards, so your full hop spacing is weaker vs Link. However, do mix it up at times, but don’t rely on it. To win in this match up you need to get close to him and pressure him with D-Tilts/Land behind him with a down air. Link can’t punish either one of those ones, making him very susceptible to d-tilt grab combos and pressure. If you can’t get in on him, and he gets the camping game moving, then you can’t do much to win. Your goal is to effectively and safely get up close to him, preferably, behind him, that’s how you win.

Combos:

Arrows: They give the possibility to combo when they connect or allow you to finish up stocks with up Smash/Up Air/F-Air -off the stage- (Arrow + run up Smash at 100+% is REALLY good). Arrows increase in knockback based on how much you charge them and the closer you’re to the opponent. At mid range they’re the best, since they’re harder to dodge and the reward is often very good upon connecting it. For edgeguarding, you want to use uncharged arrows so they don’t pop very far upwards, allowing you to successfully beat their recovery. For KO’s/Combo’s, you want to use them at very high percents mostly. Sometimes if they DI your arrow upwards you can link an Up B!

F-Air: Combos into grab, this is them most important thing to know. You can also do a ‘Wall of pain’ where you can drag people with F-Airs, as seen during this set:

Up Airs: The key is to combine strong and weak hits to link up air combos effectively. First off, start with two strong ones, proceeded with a weak one into a back air, up air or up b as a finisher. You can be very creative here. Experiment!

Down Airs: Very good with fast fallers, your main tool to combo them. Use down air to lift them up, then f-airs to drag them off the stage!

Up Smash: Very good combo starter from neutral stance.

Credits

Thanks for reading! Hopefully this guide helps you get started with Pit. When I started, there were no guides, so hopefully this guide will help newer Pit players to pick up the character and have an easier start than the one I had. For any questions, don’t hesitate to ask me on stream at www.twitch.tv/zero or on twitter @CT_ZeRo