SSBU/Pit/Strategy

Gameplan
Pit is a character that can fit ALMOST ANY playstyle: You name it, Pit can probably do it. However, his win condition remains the same no matter how you choose to play Pit: make the opponent whiff something in neutral (or condition them to shield for an easier access to Pit's very good grab game)
 * Many Pit playstyles are viable
 * Many Pit playstyles are viable
 * Many Pit playstyles are viable
 * Many Pit playstyles are viable
 * Many Pit playstyles are viable

Whiff punish
Pit is an excellent character when it comes to whiff punishing. All of his buttons (except for and his specials) comes out in 10 frames or less, which lets Pit whiff punish a lot of moves, with varying degrees of reward. Here are his most common whiff punish tools

How to create a whiff?
Pit makes his opponents whiff by throwing out moves with low endlag (such as a rising or a ), abusing his very good dash and using general movement. Pit has the privilege of having 3 aerial jumps, which makes anti-airing him trickier than for other characters, as he can easily bait them before punishing with a combo starter

It is worth noting that his  is pretty good in neutral, since the inverted momentum also helps with baiting moves

Defensive play
In MUs such as, , , or , Pit is required to stay at a distance and not enter close range too much, because that'll get him killed. Thankfully, Pit has access to good disjoints that allows him to wall his opponents out with hitboxes

Movement
As Pit's air stats are pretty poor, Pit generally wants to stay close to the ground when moving around. However, THIS DOESN'T MEAN DON'T JUMP!!! Pit is still pretty good in the air, he is just way slower than on the ground

Taking Stocks
While Pit has access to kill confirms at various percent ranges from his most common starters (see them here), he mostly relies on edgeguards to take stocks (more on that here). Once his confirms stops working, killing quickly becomes a struggles against characters that are hard to edgeguard. In this situation, Pit has to rely on hard reads and callouts in order to land his raw kill moves, which are the following:
 *  tipper Kills at (insert percents)
 * Kills at (insert percents)
 *  Kills at (insert percents)
 * Kills at (insert percents)
 * Kills at (insert percents)
 * Kills at (insert percents)
 * Kills at (insert percents)
 *  Kills at (insert percents)
 * Kills at (insert percents)
 *  Kills at (insert percents)

Notes:
 * Moves in italic are situational, so don't rely on them too much for killing
 * The percents written are in no way absolute. They only serves as a rough estimate

Disadvantage
Pit has one of the better disadvantage states in the game. His recovery goes very far, he has an excellent OOS option and his alone makes him one of the best characters in the game when it comes to landing

Recovery
Pit's recovery allows him to go very deep before having to recover. His covers a great distance, so don't be afraid of going deep offstage as Pit. You might find that despite the myriad of options Pit has at his disposal, he can get easily edgeguarded. This is because you need to keep mixing up your recovery options in order to not get predictable. This is very important, because if you don't, Pit suddenly becomes way easier to edgeguard. Here are Pit's general options he can use to recover:
 * His 3 aerial jumps
 * , to try and prevent edgeguards
 * , to

timing mixups
On stages with walls, Pit can make his go slower by hugging the wall (make your  go in the direction of the wall). Change up the timings and angles in order to keep your opponent on their toes when trying to you

Landing
As said earlier, Pit is one of the best characters in the game when it comes to landing. On top of having 3 air jumps, he also has the privilege of being the only character in the game to have access to a pseudo-aerial shield

Getting off ledge
Pit can struggle very hard when getting out of the ledge against some characters, due to his poor air mobility. However, this doesn't mean that being at the ledge is a hopeless situation. If Pit wants to use a button when escaping the ledge, here are his smartest options. This won't list universal options such as Ledge Attacks

Combo breaking
Pit isn't that good at escaping combos. He relies on universal options such as his airdodge or jumping, and his fastest aerial option comes out on frame 4, making it not ideal for mashing out of combos

Stages
Thanks to his kit's versatility, Pit can do reasonably well in all legal stages. Therefore, the best course of action when choosing a stage is to do anything in your power to make the opponent's character worse, be it by mitigating their strengths, worsening their flaws or removing an excellent option. Here are a few examples:
 * and are known for their ladder combos which can lead to early kills --> ban triplats and/or stages that gives them their biggest combos
 * 's ledgetrap is extremely oppressive on slanted terrain, as there is very little counterplay to it --> ban Lylat at all costs
 * , and  are notoriously way scarier when no platforms are involved in the game --> ban Final Destination and its lookalikes as much as possible
 * notoriously lacks raw kill moves and relies on kill confirms to close out stocks --> get a stage with large blastzones

Because of this, Pit has to go on a case-by-base basis when choosing a stage.
 * Note: This does not apply to characters who generally kills early, as picking large blastzones to survive will only worsen Pit's own killing issues

Neutral
Pit's neutral is flawed in two main ways:
 * He is mostly grounded due to poor air stats
 * His hitboxes are rather short and not that dangerous

These two flaws makes his neutral somewhat predictable, so the opponent can easily play around his options. Most Pit players will try to bait you into whiffing by dashing around before punishing you with one of his combo starters. The opponent can play around this by:
 * Throwing out a move that is safe on whiff; at worst, he gets a in
 * Not interacting at all and continue to camp him; Pit generally struggles against characters who are very mobile in the air

Overall, your goal is to make Pit whiff at a comfortable range for your character before going ham on him. Here are the moves you need to look out for (in order to whiff punish them):



Pit's best move, and as such the move you should be wary of the most. This move has two major weaknesses: This makes it particularly vulnerable against whiff punishing. Keep in mind that Pit players might try to autocancel this move in order to bait a punish, so be careful
 * It has short range
 * It has a long animation



Pit’s best grounded neutral tool, and his main poke at lower percents. Despite having little recovery, you can still whiff punish it, although it is harder to do so on reaction



Pit's projectile, and this his main way of attacking at long range. Getting hit by this in neutral doesn't really matter, it's mostly used for harassing or stopping you from rushing in at Mach 5. Since it's a projectile,it has high endlag, so you're free to punish it however you want

Pit's does very little damage and hitstun, making it bad at counterzoning. It also nets you a free punish at mid/close range at low percents (at higher percents, Pit can start an RPS by hitting an arrow at close range)
 * This move has at all diagonals



, he will usually go for grabs more often. Grabs usually are easily punishable on whiff, so take this chance to go ham on him

Combos
Mix your DIs up. This is the biggest piece of advice any Pit player can give in the MU against his advantage state. His combo game is heavily DI reliant, so knowing when to mix your DIs will add mental stack in the Pit player's head, which can make them mess up. Of course, this is universal, but this is particularly useful against Pit for reasons cited above

However, if you don't want to do that and stick to a single DI, then DI up and away most of the time. This is Pit's hardest DI to follow, so chances are you'll take less damage after being opened up. Still, remember to change things up if Pit grabs you at the ledge at high percents (it's a DI trap 50/50)

Juggling
A common Pit strategy when juggling is to shoot an upwards in order to bait a reaction, before using his  to catch his opponent out of it. It is very effective, because if the hits, Pit can catch a bonus option with his  if he's fast enough. Also, if you try to airdodge through his, Pit can recover fast enough to hit you out of your airdodge with a move such as

If the opposing character has an option that can help them bypass this (i.e a teleport), then please use it, but with moderation. Otherwise, it is better to simply retreat to the ledge
 * If the Pit player is being too predictable with his juggling patterns, you can bypass his walls by doing a neutral airdodge while fastfalling

Edgeguard
Pit is one of the stronger characters at edgeguarding in this game. Althought it is easy to think it's because of his, it is actually because of how active his aerials are; , while still useful, are mostly a conditionning/gimping tool. If you get hit by one, do not immediately use your double jump, as Pit will likely shoot another arrow to try and gimp you. Instead, SDI: upwards and keep moving forward. Pit's sends the opponents slightly upwards, which can actually help you recover if close enough

Pit's aerials, notably and  can cover lots of vertical space when fastfalled, making low recoveries risky (in most cases). This is made worse by Pit's three air jumps, meaning he can easily wait for you to get close before hitting you, and still recover afterwards. In this situation, the best course of action would be to either:
 * Stall as much as possible until Pit is forced to get back to the stage
 * Make Pit whiff an aerial somehow

Of course, this is easier said than done, since Pit's edgeguard is probably his strongest aspect

Ledgetrap
Pit doesn't have any dedicated ledgetrapping tools, making his ledgetraps very straightforward. Using universal methods of escaping ledge is thus perfectly fine against him

Landing
Pit is one of the best characters in the game when it comes to landing, thanks to his. However, he is also very easy to juggle if he doesn't have access to it. This rarely happens, but if Pit ends up losing his somehow, make sure to capitalize on it when juggling him

For the rest of the time, learn what moves can consistently hit Pit's feet when are out. For example, 's is a godsend against this move, as it's a purely vertical move. This is a case by case scenario, so this page won't list every single tool each character has. For that, please refer to your character's MU section

Another good countermeasure to is to simply treat it the same as you would treat a shield. Contrary to a regular shield, Pit can't cancel its endlag, so he'll always be vulnerable once he drops it. Alternatively, you can also use your if Pit gets close to the ground with  out
 * This solution isn't extremely consistent, due to the presence of

Recovering
Pit has a lot of tools to mix things up while recovering. This can make edgeguarding him quite difficult, but that doesn't mean his recovery is flawless.

The biggest issue with his recovery is that his doesn't have anything to cover him while moving. A good starting point when edgeguarding Pit is to wait until he's out of options or goes low enough, since these are the two scenarios where he is more likely to use his. Be wary of walls, however, because Pit can use them to his advantage when recovering (angling it the right way makes Pit ascend slower, making him a bit harder than other characters (unless the Pit player is being predictable with his angles)

Tips & Tricks

 * Trading with Pit is almost always very good for the opponent, since most of his moves are multi hits