SSBU/Pit/Strategy

Pit

Overview

Combos

Setplay

Tech

Strategy/Counterstrategy

Matchups

Resources

Discord

Dark Pit uses different strategies than Pit, due to them having different arrows. For a more accurate description of Dark Pit's strategies, go here.

Gameplan

As a character, Pit heavily relies on fundamentals. As such, most of what is explained here can be applied to everyone else in the cast

Pit is a character that can fit ALMOST ANY playstyle:

Rushdown Pit is viablePit's advantage state and combo game can encourage players to play aggressively as Pit
Campy Pit is viableHere, "campy" means "running a hit-and-run playstyle", AKA relying on repeated stray hits in neutral to rack up damage and frustrate the opponent into making a mistake,
Midrange/swordie Pit is viableMost of Pit's pokes are disjointed, allowing him to wall out characters with shorter range than him
Grappler Pit is viableSmash doesn't have any traditional grappler outside of maybe Incineroar, but Pit's grab game is good enough for him to use this playstyle
Many Pit playstyles are viable

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)

Whiff punish

Pit is an excellent character when it comes to whiff punishing. All of his buttons (except for Fair 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

Whiff punishing toolsNot to confuse with neutral tools!

Dash Attack

The simplest option, and also the least rewarding. Leads to a juggling situation at mid/high percents, and kills at very high percents. Unsafe on block, however

Dtilt

Pit's best grounded move, and a good counterpoking tool. Leads to combos on hit, and is safe-ish on block

Nair _{The Quickplay classic}

Nair, on virtue of being Pit's uncontested top 0 move, is also good at whiff punishing. Also your go-to button against airborne opponents. Just make sure to not whiff, otherwise Pit becomes himself prone to being whiff punished

Fair

Mostly used after baiting an anti-air. Leads to a kill confirm at high percents, otherwise leads to a grabNot sure about that, I noted it just in case. Feel free to correct if that's wrong

Dair

Because of Pit's multiple jumps, opponents may whiff when trying to juggle you. Dair is an excellent whiff punish for this situation, as it can kill confirm into a grab, Fsmash, Usmash, and moreOnly applies on the spike hitbox

Dash Grab

Pit's most rewarding option by far, but also the riskiest in virtue of being a grab. Leads to Pit's amazing grab game, and generally guarantees the opponent being sent offstage

How to create a whiff?

Pit makes his opponents whiff by throwing out moves with low endlag (such as a rising Nair or a Dtilt), 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 B reversingAn advanced technique that allows the player to use a special move while inverting his momentum (and direction) his down-B is pretty good in neutral, since the inverted momentum also helps with baiting moves

Defensive play

In MUs such as Little Mac, Luigi, Ken, Terry or Kazuya, 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

Walling toolsThose also functions as your pokes

Dtilt

Used to cover grounded approaches. Leads to a combo on hit and is safe-ish on block and whiff

Fair

Used to cover grounded approaches, as well as short hots. Stays active for a long time, leads to combos on hit and is safe on whiff (less so on shield)

Bair

Same uses as Fair, but more rewarding on hit. The drawback is that it is way less active, but it is also twice as safe on shield

Uair

Used to cover approaches from above. Doesn't lead to much things at low percents, but otherwise leads to a juggling situation

Dair

Mostly used to cover approaches from below, but can also cover grounded approaches. Generally leads to a combo on hitThe spike hitbox can't be followed up until mid-high percents

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:

Ftilt tipper _{Kills at (insert percents)}
Dash Attack _{Kills at (insert percents)}
Fsmash _{Kills at (insert percents)}
Usmash _{Kills at (insert percents)}
Dsmash _{Kills at (insert percents)}
Bair _{Kills at (insert percents)}
Uair _{Kills at (insert percents)}
Side-B _{Kills at (insert percents)}
Fthrow _{Kills at (insert percents)}
Uthrow _{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 down-B 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 up-B 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
arrow, to try and prevent edgeguards
side-B, to tank through hitboxesThat is, if the super armor wants to cooperate
up-B
down-B

Up-B timing mixups

On stages with walls, Pit can make his up-B go slower by hugging the wall (make your up-B 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 two frameIn SSBU, a character is vulnerable for the first two frames of his ledge hang animation. A "two frame" refers to an attack that hit a character during those two frames 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

Non-universal landing tools

Nair

While having poor downwards reach, Nair is Pit's fastest aerial option, making it good for brute forcing your way to the ground while fastfalling

Guardian Orbitars _{Forbidden SSBU air shield}

Pit's down-B helps him a lot when landing, because it has the property of blocking physical hits while it's out. This makes landing against characters such as Ike or Corrin much easier than usual.

This attack isn't perfect, however. See, it has a blind spot on Pit's feet (and head). This makes landing against characters with more vertical Uairs such as Link, Young Link or Toon Link harder than usual. Those blindspotsA space that can't be covered by none of a character's options also means that you will sometimes eat projectiles you were supposed to reflect

If a move hits both Pit's hurtbox and the Orbitars, the Orbitars takes priority.
Doing a B reverseAn advanced technique that allows the player to use a special move while inverting his momentum (and direction) makes this option even better, since Pit can change his trajectory on the fly without using an air jump

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

How to mash out of the ledgeDon't always do this. Remember to use your other ledge options and be creative with them!

Ledge drop > Nair

If done properly, you can safely go back to the ledge while being -6 on shield (which is very safe). Excellent option for characters closer to the ledge, but still risky, as it costs one double jump to perform

If you mess up, Fair should come out. It's stil a good option, but it is kind of outclassed by Nair due to it being faster and safer

Jump > side-B

A very risky option, that's sometimes not worth going for it (especially at lower percents). Despite being extremely slow (aerial side-B has 21 frames of startup), it can beat mashing due to super armor. If it doesn't work, start thinking on what to do next stock

Guardian Orbitars

This option is particularly good when coupled with a B reverseAn advanced technique that allows the player to use a special move while inverting his momentum (and direction). On top of protecting Pit from most aerials (such as against most swordiesA character archetype that is focused on playing neutral with disjointed attacks. Most characters in the archetype uses a sword, hence the name "swordie". A prime swordie in SSBU is Lucina' ledgetrapping tools), he can also invert his momentum on the fly, making going back to the stage safer since the opponent will most likely still be in endlag. Just don't forget about the feet blindspot

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 (Nair) comes out on frame 4, making it not ideal for mashing out of combos

Out of Shield

Out of Shield options

Usmash _{6f above, 7f in front}

Usmash is Pit's fastest out of shield option. However, it only hits above Pit, which doesn't make it the most consistent option there is. Still very useful for killing opponents at high percents, especially if they tried to use a crossup aerial

Nair _7f

Despite being one frame slower than Usmash, Nair is Pit's best out of shield option. It grants better reward than Usmash, especially at lower percents since you can combo off of it

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:

Mario and Bayonetta are known for their ladder combos which can lead to early kills --> ban triplats and/or stages that gives them their biggest combos
Min Min's ledgetrap is extremely oppressive on slanted terrain, as there is very little counterplay to it --> ban Lylat at all costs
Little Mac, Kazuya and Luigi are notoriously way scarier when no platforms are involved in the game --> ban Final Destination and its lookalikes as much as possible
Sheik 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

Fighting Pit

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 Dash Attack 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):

Nair

Pit's best move, and as such the move you should be wary of the most. This move has two major weaknesses:

It has short range
It has a long animation

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

Dtilt

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

Arrow

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 arrow 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

Dash Grab

Once Pit thinks he has conditioned you to shield his attacksIn reality, most Pit players will throw this out in neutral, regardless if you've been conditioned to shield or not, he will usually go for grabs more often. Grabs usually are easily punishable on whiff, so take this chance to go ham on him

Advantage

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

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 Uair 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 arrows, it is actually because of how active his aerials are; arrows, 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, SDIInfluencing the user's position while in hitlag, typically in multihits upwards and keep moving forward. Pit's arrows sends the opponents slightly upwards, which can actually help you recover if close enough

Pit's aerials, notably Fair and Nair 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

Disadvantage

Landing

Pit is one of the best characters in the game when it comes to landing, thanks to his down-B. 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 down-B 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 Orbitars are out. For example, Link's Uair 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 Orbitars 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 Dash Grab if Pit gets close to the ground with Orbitars out

This solution isn't extremely consistent, due to the presence of windboxesA type of hitbox that pushes the opponent in a particular direction, without inflicting damage nor knockbac to them

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 up-B 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 up-B. 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 two framingIn SSBU, a character is vulnerable for the first two frames of his ledge hang animation. A "two frame" refers to an attack that hit a character during those two frames him a bit harder than other characters (unless the Pit player is being predictable with his angles)