SSBU/Dark Pit/Strategy

About Pit & Dark Pit

Dark Pit is an echo fighter of none other than

Pit. The only gameplay differences at all between the two characters are their Neutral B and Side-B specials. Aside from those two moves, their moveset and technical data is completely identical.

This page will only document the parts of Dark Pit's general gameplan that are different from Pit's, mostly in terms of how they use their arrows. This also includes counterplay.

Gameplan

Defensive play

In MUs such as Little Mac, Luigi, Ken, Terry or Kazuya, Dark Pit is required to stay at a distance and not enter close range too much, because that'll get him killed. Thankfully, Dark 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

Arrow

Contrary to Pit, Dark Pit can use his arrow more liberally in neutral, since they are faster, does more damage and more hitstun. This makes it a better zoning/counterzoning tool.

Taking Stocks

While Dark 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, Dark 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

Recovery

Dark 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 Dark Pit. You might find that despite the myriad of options Dark 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, Dark Pit suddenly becomes way easier to edgeguard. Here are Dark Pit's general options he can use to recover:

His 3 aerial jumps
side-B
up-B
down-B

Contrary to Pit, Dark Pit's arrows aren't as useful in disadvantage, since they can't cover as much space as once. It can still disrupt edgeguard pretty will, but it's not as efficient as with Pit

Getting off ledge

Dark Pit mostly uses the same options as Pit, except he has an additional option

Ledge drop > arrow

Since Dark Pit's arrow does more hitstun, he can drop the ledge, use a double jump and then shoot an arrow, which allows him to "camp" at the ledge or start an RPS on hit

However, this is a very dangerous option, as Dark Pit loses at least one of his jumps if he ever gets hit. Also, grabbing the ledge for the second time without landing or getting hit 'does not grant intangibility frames, making him open to whatever ledge hang punish the opponent felt like doing today

Pit can also do this, but it's not as effective to do so with him

Fighting Dark Pit

Neutral

The main difference in Pit and Dark Pit's neutral is that Dark Pit will be more encline to play at longer ranges, since his arrow is faster and does more damage. For those who have played other fighting games, treat Dark Pit's arrow like you would treat a fireball. For those who don't, treat it like Wolf's neutral-B.

As with most projectiles, shield cancelling your dashes works wonders against arrow. However, unless Dark Pit commits to it, he can't cover both jumps and dashes with it

Advantage

Juggling

Dark Pit isn't as good as juggling as his counterpart, but he can still do some work

A common Dark Pit strategy when juggling is to throw out his Uair in order to bait a reaction. If the opponent airdodges, Dark Pit can easily hit them out of their airdodge with moves such as Dair. If they dodge. The best solution against this is to airdodge while fastfalling: unless Dark Pit calls that option out, you will get back on your feet most of the time

Other character-specific options (such as teleports, Bayonetta's Bat Within or Snake's grenade) also works pretty well against it

Edgeguard

Although different, Dark Pit's edgeguard is generally on par with Pit's edgeguarding

While Dark Pit's arrow covers way less angles than Pit's, it is also scarier on hit, as the extended hitstun makes it easier for Dark Pit to gimp your double jump away (and then carry you to the blastzone if you were at high enough percents). If possible, avoid getting hit by it in the first place. Otherwise, your best option is to recover low, which is far from ideal, given Dark Pit is also good at covering low recoveries, but still better than losing your double jump and dying before that

Ledgetrap

Dark Pit's ledgetrapping is the same as Pit, except that he's better at punishing mash attempts. This is because of his side-B, which sends opponents at a diagonal, sending them back offstage (or sometimes even kill). Ths is obviously an extremely risky option on Dark Pit's end, but the payoff can actually be worth it sometimes