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As a modern guide, this guide should be referenced over the other, older guides.
By Eon_II, Guest Contributor
Introduction
Pit and Dark Pit are fun characters to train for anyone who likes offstage gameplay. His edgeguarding is brutal — he can use 3+ aerials offstage without returning to ledge and the AI is uncharacteristically bold with him, chasing opponents to any blastzone without fear.
His multi-hit forward smash and strong grab game make him a great pick into defensive amiibo, and his solid frame data and disjoints combined give him a versatile matchup spread. He also has a triple jump and long recovery up special meaning he can recover from almost anywhere, which is huge for his consistency and resisting attempts to gimp him.
He has a few AI quirks and his aerials are very finicky to optimize, but the result is a rewarding and flexible amiibo who can take sets well above his tier.
Training Advice
Note: I will refer to values throughout but you’t need to understand or follow them to train a good Pit. I do however recommend checking your meteor master value after training. If you’re unfamiliar with values, all you need to know here is that meteor master affects the likelihood of the AI going for moves with a meteor (i.e. spike) effect and that you want to keep that value low, or let it rise by landing a few spikes in early levels then stop clicking dair for the rest of your training.
As with most amiibo, you should walk (dash 0) and stay grounded (95–100 depending on how much up air juggling you want).
Edgeguard aggressively (AOC 70–100) when the opponent is offstage.
While onstage you can be flexible with your preferred playstyle; I have found offensive 66 with high shield use effective, but also had good success with offensive 100 with a bit of parrying. Anything in this range should be fine, though I currently lean towards the more balanced playstyle of 60ish offensive.
Prioritise moves as follows:
- Grounded: Fsmash > Grab >>>>>>> Dtilt/Dsmash/Uptilt
- Landing: Nair > Fair >>> Bair
- Juggling: Mix of up smash and up air. Utilt is optional but extremely useful.
- Offstage: Start with fair to force an air dodge, follow up with nair. DO NOT USE DAIR YET.
Landing is the hardest but most important part of optimising Pit. Prioritise nair and fair, both of which are multihits with landing combos that can build damage or kill confirm into fsmash. Slightly more fair than nair is best.
You only need a very low dair value for him to use it effectively offstage. Using dair while training will raise his meteor master value, which is very hard to lower and can cause him to spam dair on and offstage.
There are two methods to achieve good dair/meteor master balance:
- Land a few dair spikes early in training to max out meteor master, then let the dair value fall to near 0 and the meteor master value gradually decrease (likely around 70).
- Do not click dair at all until the very end of your training, then land a couple of spikes to give him slight meteor master and dair values.
Onstage, prioritise fsmash and grab highly. You want grab 100, fsmash over 40. You can justify values of well over 40 for fsmash — the highest I have run is 75 and the bin with this value (Seraphim) has a strong history of competitive performances. The move will do your taxes and in combination with grab will shred defensive amiibo.
Mix in some other grounded options: I recommend a dtilt value <8, some utilt, and a little dsmash. With Dark Pit you can use a little arrow — feint shooter 100 and a very low arrow value enable this and can help get some free damage.
Move Breakdown
Note: Pit and Dark Pit are identical in all relevant aspects except for their specials. See the Specials section below.
Grounded Normals
Forward Smash: Pit’s main move in the amiibo meta. This is a frame 10 multi-hit, disjointed move that deals most of Pit’s damage and gets many of his KOs. As a multihit it shreds shields and parry-heavy amiibo and its speed and disjoint let him compete with more aggressive opponents. No matter what method you’re using, this should be by far his most common move; absolutely spam this, aim for a value over 40.
Up Smash: A three hit move that starts on frame 6 with a helpful disjoint above Pit’s head. It was buffed by one of the later patches to give it more KO power. It’s a respectable juggling option and should see a decent amount of use because it helps against opponents landing aggressively and is great below platforms. I’d recommend a value between 10–15.
Down Smash: This is a multihit that hits both sides of Pit’s feet, the first hit on frame 5. It’s fast, and while underwhelming in KO power and damage, it sends at a low angle that can set up well for Pit to go for gimps, especially if it catches rolls near the ledge. It’s a low priority move but can be good to sprinkle in. Keep it below 10.
Jab: The damage and KO power are both underwhelming, and in my opinion the speed compared to other more rewarding options is not valuable enough to justify it. I’ve trained Pits that make use of this and ended up reducing it in favour of other options every time.
Forward Tilt: A single hit move, active from frames 10–14. It deals 8–12 damage depending on the hitbox and neither KOs nor combos, is extremely easy to parry, and Pit is unable to act until frame 40. A very bad move in the amiibo metagame; keep the value at 0.
Up Tilt: This is an interesting move and deceptively valuable — a multihit combo starter that lacks range but is fast (active from frame 6), lingers for above 10 frames, and is decent at scooping grounded opponents. You don’t need to use this move but it has a bit of value in setting up juggles if you train your Pit to go for up airs. Several successful modern Pits including my own are using ~20 points in up tilt.
Down Tilt: In a vacuum this looks great — it’s a frame 6 combo starter with hardcoded follow ups. However, in the amiibo metagame it is not reliable. If he uses it indiscriminately he will fail to land his follow ups more often than he actually lands them from mid %s upward. I see dtilt heavy Pits die for hitting a dtilt more often than I see them get value out of it. I strongly recommend you keep it low — ~2–5 would be my recommendation, certainly no more than 10.
Dash Attack: It is a single hit move that sends upwards, which means it can start juggles but has unimpressive damage and KO power. I recommend avoiding it; there are very few occasions where your Pit will use this and you won’t be wishing he’d just stood, waited, and punished with fsmash instead.
Specials
Neutral Special (Arrow):
- Pit — Fast and low damage, but the trajectory can be controlled similar to Nikita. Unfortunately, unlike Snake, the AI is bad at this. Vastly outclassed by offstage gameplay. You should not use Pit’s neutral special.
- Dark Pit — A bit slower and a bit higher damage, at the cost of control. You can use a little bit of arrow as Dark Pit. It’s still underwhelming, but niche — keep the value low and watch to make sure he does not try to anti-air with it.
Side Special (Upperdash Arm / Electroshock Arm): A moving hitbox with reflector properties, varying by echo fighter. In both cases it is slow and despite being a moving hitbox is easy for the AI to block. Be careful to keep the value low either way.
- Pit — Lacks KO power but launches almost vertically, setting up for up air KOs or juggles.
- Dark Pit — Has actual KO power and launches horizontally, generally trades positively with other FP’s approach options. A little bit of a value in this expands his KO options.
Up Special (Power of Flight): An excellent recovery move that enables his aggressive edgeguard gameplan, but it does not have a hitbox. Sadly, he will still try to use it out of shield and parry and will almost always eat an up smash for it. Try to keep the value at 0 anyway to minimise this.
Down Special (Guardian Orbitars): A reflector on both sides of Pit’s body. Its usage is almost entirely hardcoded so you do not have to teach it. I recommend not doing so because if he has much of a value in this move he will try to use it at ledge to absolutely no effect.
Aerials
Neutral Air: Active from frame 4 and lingers until frame 25, this is a lingering multi-hit (8 hits) move with a decent disjoint and drag down properties. Landing nair near the ledge into fsmash or back throw can KO very early. It’s also fantastic for edgeguarding, gimping weaker recoveries for free, and beating air dodges. This is your best aerial and one of Pit’s best moves in general.
Forward Air: This too is a lingering multihit, slower than nair (frame 11) but with much better range. It’s decent for landing and platform pressure, but really shines offstage. Pit becomes active 8 frames faster than with nair, making it even easier to force an air dodge then follow up. This can be your first or second priority for landing and edgeguarding after nair.
Down Air: The move everyone historically associated with Pit in the amiibo metagame — to his detriment. The good news is this move is fast (frame 10) and has a strong spike, meaning he can string together multiple dairs offstage and get early KOs. The bad news is that the spike hitbox is precise and only active for 1 frame. This means Pit will spam it and more often than not miss the spike, saving an opponent he has already gimped. You do want him to use this move but you absolutely cannot spam it and must keep the value low.
Back Air: A single hit, active frames 10–12 with a somewhat small hitbox. The AI is surprisingly good with it. Works okay from ledge drops or as platform pressure. Keep it very low priority compared to nair and fair.
Up Air: An underrated move; it’s multihit and lingers from frames 12–25, covering the space above Pit’s head very effectively with a disjoint. The late hit can KO, which happens surprisingly often thanks to Pit’s triple jump. Up air chains are optional, but I consider the value to be well worth the effort of including them. I’d say aim for 15–20 if you want to include up air.
Throws
Down Throw: Leads to many hardcoded follow ups which you do not need to teach. Down throw often and let the AI do the rest. (Also the Japanese name for the move is Bone Divide. That’s metal as heck, WTH Pit?)
Forward Throw: KOs from the ledge thanks to very high knockback growth, and if it doesn’t KO outright it sets up for edgeguards even at early %s.
Back Throw: The angle is meh (too high) and the knockback growth is underwhelming meaning it won’t KO until unreasonable %s, but if your back is to the ledge it puts the opponent offstage.
Up Throw: Sends directly vertically upwards, setting up juggles. Skip this one if you aren’t going for up air chains.
AI Quirks
Up Special: Pit will use this out of parry and shield, especially if he’s above the opponent on a platform. It has no hitbox and causes him to land very slowly, meaning he will almost always take a hard punish for this, often losing a stock. I sadly do not think you can prevent this even with value 0. Just embrace it and minimise it with value 0.
Down Special: Pit will use this at ledge, to absolutely no effect, even if the opponent is not attacking or using a projectile. Hinders his ledgetrapping significantly. You can get around this by keeping the value at 0 and edgeguarding aggressively offstage.
Neutral Special: Pit (particularly default Pit) is not able to angle his arrows effectively, making them useless for edgeguarding. Mitigate this by just not using arrows — go offstage and edgeguard aggressively.
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