Sfafreak's Guide to Playing Peppy Effectively

Ok, so I have noticed that Peppy (henceforth referred to as "Pep") is not exactly a common main on the forum, so thought I would educate people on playing Pep.

Pep is an odd and unique character. He is the slowest in the game, and has low health (2 stars). That's 2 strikes against him, discouraging players right off the bat. However, he has A 5 star jump, and, most importantly, has a CB which charges at 4x the normal speed. This means he is not reliant on finding weapons, decreasing the disadvantage of his lack of speed. It also means that he has an advantage over newly spawned or respawned players. He can also use his jump as an amazing dodging tool while his CB is charging. Simply jump over the opponent again and again and again, and your opponent will have a bear of a time trying to hit you.

So with basic strategy in mind, let's look at the stages Pep plays well and not so well on.

STAGES THAT PEP IS GREAT ON
Sargasso: Due to being a small stage, Pep's speed disadvantage is
lowered here. The ability to jump down 3 levels on an unsuspecting opponent with an RCB charged is great fun. The missles near the elevator are helpful too.

Simple Map 3: Same sort of stage as Sarg, only smaller, no missles, and has a demon sniper and invis. Again, jumping down on opponents works well here.

CBF: Small, but one leveled, so no dropping on foes. Due to the low amount of available weapons, Pep's CB's usefulness goes up dramatically. Hide behind the the wonderful mini walls while chargin an RCB.

Zoness: A small stage (notice a theme?), with a lot of corners for an ambush and escapes. An ambush and run strategy can work well here. Your slowness is an advantage here as it is easier to not fall into the water. (Although if Febreeze is used, all bets are off.  )

Aparoid City: Ok, you are probably asking yourself, "WHAT IS THIS GUY THINKING!?" Well, believe it or not, Pep does well on Ap. The reason is that the hardest thing about Ap is getting into the boiler after respawning outside of it. Because your foe has had time to grab ten thousand rounds of every weapon known to man, and since most characters have only the lowly normal CB on respawn, it can awful trying to get back in. But wait! You spawn with a CB that charges 4x faster, one of the best weapons in the game! You also have a 5 star jump, an excellent doging tool! Now go in and lay the hurt on your foe!  

STAGES THAT PEPPY IS MEDIOCRE AT
Simple Map 1 and 2: Yeah, yeah, I know these stages are different. I'm not really an expert on these two maps, so kind of just use the basic strategy listed above, and find out what works for you.

Katina: Get missles, use your RCB, stay close to the building, rinse, repeat.

Sauria: He is OK here, just stay in the temples for the most part and ambush, and you should be fine.

STAGES THAT PEP SUCKS ON
Fichina: Your opponent now has access to the weapons around the Control Center, so he has more firepower, plus he has heathpacks to heal, and invis to hide, that Pep is too slow to get. Stay in the CC if you do choose Pep and force your Opponent to go through the narrow walkways where he is a sitting duck for your RCB.

Corneria: Corneria is too large, not really much you can do here other than basic strategy.

Titania: I think this is now banned, but if you DO play it, PLEASE, for the love of God, DO NOT CHOOSE PEP! You will lose almost EVERY time. It is WAY too large for you to have a chance.

BANNED STAGES
Simple Map 5: Choose Pep always, get on the yellow block, win. 'Nuff said.

CBC: Removed, but if you like it, choose Pep for the same reasons as CBF.

Now let's look at character matchups. In traditional TTT, Falco beats Krystal, Krystal beats Slippy, and Slippy beats Falco. This leaves Peppy and Fox outside of of the triangle. The community has wondered for a while how to fit them into it. I personally believe Peppy is too unique to fit into it, and that he deserves his own list of good and bad character matchups. This will probably be the hardest part of this guide to make, so it won't be perfect. I'll do the ones that I am most confident on first.

Peppy vs Slippy: Slippy, Peppy on Titania

The reason for this is that Slippy has more health. If he had a normal CB, it might be a competion, but instead he has a 2x CB, so that's that. (For some reason I suck playing as slippy. I have no idea why.  ) And if you are wondering why Pep wins on Titania, despite what I told you earlier, the reason is this: This matchup will turn into a sniper battle, which is 1HKO for both, there by erasing Slip's health boost. If fought sniping RCB's at each other, Pep's Charge boost will be important in firing more shots, cause let's face it, sniping with CB's is Hard! (This is NOT to say Pep should be chosen if your opponent chooses Slip on this stage. This is purely a "What-If" situation.)

Peppy vs Falco: Falco, Peppy on Zoness and Sargasso

In this case, Falco is just too fast for Peppy to get close to him. Unless, of course, Falco wants to get close to him, because Falco is sometimes a waller, in which case it could get ugly for both sides. Falco's speed advantage is diminished on Sargasso, and can be detrimental on Zoness if one isn't careful, so Pep wins those.

Peppy vs Fox: Peppy on all stages but Corneria and Titania

Fox is fast, but not quite as fast as Falco. He also has good health, but not as much health as Slippy. This makes enough difference for Peppy to win. On Fichina, Fox's health is low enough that he will die going through the hallways into the CC.

Peppy vs Krystal: Peppy on most stages

Peppy's RCB will be able to knock out Krystal's extra barrier quickly, erasing that advantage, leaving Krystal low healthed and underpowered. On Fichina, Krystals extra barrier is just enough to get into the CC though. On large stages, Krystal's speed is enough to win

Peppy vs Wolf: Peppy

Ha Ha, you thought I was serious didn't you? Sucker!


Well, I think this is done! The character matchup section will totally be revamped after some input from you guys.

Thanks!

neat post, but i have a few nitpicks

sfafreak wrote:

This means he is not reliant on finding weapons, decreasing the disadvantage of his lack of speed.

Really depends on the stage, would you rather have HL's or a RCB on a stage like Katina?

sfafreak wrote:

He can also use his jump as an amazing dodging tool while his CB is charging. Simply jump over the opponent again and again and again, and your opponent will have a bear of a time trying to hit you.

on the contrary, i find as soon as Peppy jumps, it makes him easier to hit, since it give you more time to aim the shot as he comes down.  Unless he's right on top of you (which is rarely going to happen since he's so slow)

sfafreak wrote:

Simple Map 3

he's food for pretty much every character in the game here because they can just item run him to death, i'd actually argue this is his worst non aparoid city stage

sfafreak wrote:

Aparoid City:

no... just no

his rcb is totally lethal, but I think you're giving it far too much credit.  any opponent will beat you to the top and can just HL you to death and then have missiles on your ass for the second point, and there's really little you can do about it unless you get the boiler spawn.


that being said, i love using him in FFA's, since he's easy to killsteal with since his rcb is the best.  And I agree with him being great on Sarg and Zoness.

one plus is he can dodge HL's pretty easily if you're far away from them, he's probably the easiest in the game to do them with unless you're good at dodging them with Falco.

STG wrote:

Sfafreak wrote:

This means he is not reliant on finding weapons, decreasing the disadvantage of his lack of speed.

Really depends on the stage, would you rather have HL's or a RCB on a stage like Katina?

I kind of suck with HL's, so an RCB for me.

STG wrote:

on the contrary, i find as soon as Peppy jumps, it makes him easier to hit, since it give you more time to aim the shot as he comes down.  Unless he's right on top of you (which is rarely going to happen since he's so slow)

A couple things, one is that airdashing makes it more difficult to hit him, and two is that it is easier to get close to foes in smaller stages such as Zoness, Simp 3, the like.

STG wrote:

he's food for pretty much every character in the game here because they can just item run him to death, i'd actually argue this is his worst non aparoid city stage

Like I said, this is one of the easiest stages for Pep to get close to his opponent, and I personally think item running is overrated. (Except on Full Fichina, where Floxtal will burn you outside the CC by just running in circles to grab items)

STG wrote:

no... just no

his rcb is totally lethal, but I think you're giving it far too much credit.  any opponent will beat you to the top and can just HL you to death and then have missiles on your ass for the second point, and there's really little you can do about it unless you get the boiler spawn.

I knew someone would just be like, in progression,      .  Bear in mind is that getting back into the boiler after respawning is a trouble for every character. Because Pep has the best respawn weapon, (Not to metion he respawns with a Barrier) he is one of the best at overcoming somone with, as I put it, 10 thousand rounds of every weapon known to man. I know this is a revolutionary concept, but then again, this IS called the RevoLeaugue. (or, at least in the old forum, was)

EDIT: Fixed this after Stg MESSED IT UP! (I'm joking, it was minor.)

I disagree with your point about Peppy being the best to Break the Boiler (tm). Peppy's way too slow and once that barrier is gone, his health is just too low.

Krystal is, in my opinion, much better at Breaking the Boiler (tm) because she's considerably faster than Peppy AND has an extra barrier. Her lack of offense is much less of a problem than it would seem as the flying platforms provide nice access to the boiler without having to run up in full view along the pathways. Plus, once she jumps down onto the boiler, she can pop a barrier and run to the nearest weapon - something Peppy can't do with less speed and one barrier. Once she has the weapon, she can turn around and be ready to fight with another barrier up her sleeve.

ThatLunaticFeline wrote:

I disagree with your point about Peppy being the best to Break the Boiler (tm). Peppy's way too slow and once that barrier is gone, his health is just too low.

Krystal is, in my opinion, much better at Breaking the Boiler (tm) because she's considerably faster than Peppy AND has an extra barrier. Her lack of offense is much less of a problem than it would seem as the flying platforms provide nice access to the boiler without having to run up in full view along the pathways. Plus, once she jumps down onto the boiler, she can pop a barrier and run to the nearest weapon - something Peppy can't do with less speed and one barrier. Once she has the weapon, she can turn around and be ready to fight with another barrier up her sleeve.

I do agree that Krystal is THE best at getting back in with her 2 barrriers, however I said,

sfafreak wrote:

he is ONE OF THE BEST at overcoming somone with, as I put it, 10 thousand rounds of every weapon known to man.

I did not say THE best.

Other than some editing, this is finished! Unless I forgot something, which would be embarrassing.

OK i somehow swapped one of sfafreaks and one i was trying to make

FORUM IS HARD i'll try to avert the crisis

looks like i just somehow lost one of my posts

that is really strange, i must have hit edit instead of reply

oh turns out i just edited one of sfafreaks, i'll try to patch things up the best I can

Quote :

A couple things, one is that airdashing makes it more difficult to hit him, and two is that it is easier to get close to foes in smaller stages such as Zoness, Simp 3, the like.

i'd like some more feedback on this, because if you're against a good player, you're not going to miss peppy when he lands on the ground again from a jump. Maybe its because nobody other than HAXage is remotely good at Peppy here, *HAXage comment on Peppy's jump please* since im no expert since i only play peppy to go max agression

Quote :

Like I said, this is one of the easiest stages for Pep to get close to his opponent, and I personally think item running is overrated. (Except on Full Fichina, where Floxtal will burn you outside the CC by just running in circles to grab items)

item running on simp 3 especially is not overrated

like i'll even give a scenario that's already happened in a recent tourney

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AKP vs Yoshifuzz, both are top 5-6 players out this way, slight edge to AKP in 1v1's though

0:36 Peppy is invis, Falco got a barrier. Peppy's landed a red on Falco, while taking some ucb harass in return, but he's low enough to die to a red. He jumps to the bottom, knowing heath has to be there since three of the other items have been taken already. Falco jumps later and gets both a HL and health.

He even lands another hit on Falco but still dies to HL, while invisible due to Peppy's bad movespeed. 1-0

the second point is pretty void because yosh forgot to barrier lol, but regardless, it would have forced out a barrier anyway, and Falco was invisible so he could more or less do whatever he wanted regardless of health. 2-0

at 1:26 one HL shot forces a barrier, and Falco can just run away. He hits him once, and gets health, bringing him back up to full health and finishes him with a pretty easy shot with peppy landing a jump going for the health. 3-0

Falco refreshes his invis and loses a footrace to the barrier, but also forces a barrier out of Peppy at no real loss, he just waits it out pretty easily since peppy is slow peppy eventually lands another hit which doesn't matter since Falco can just run to the health....

peppy trades one of his barriers for the barrier spawn once again, and hits falco again, but he just drops down and gets health to bring him to full again

at 3:39, Yosh pretty much know's he's lost (he even says it) because Falco can just item run him to death easily for the rest of the match, and HAXage takes over and akp just tries to snipe him for the rest of the match, it easily would have been a shutout otherwise

i got flossed pretty hard by cac once playing slippy vs. krystal 4-2, for much of the same reasons

Quote :

I knew someone would just be like, in progression,      .  Bear in mind is that getting back into the boiler after respawning is a trouble for every character. Because Pep has the best respawn weapon, (Not to metion he respawns with a Barrier) he is one of the best at overcoming somone with, as I put it, 10 thousand rounds of every weapon known to man. I know this is a revolutionary concept, but then again, this IS called the RevoLeaugue. (or, at least in the old forum, was)

i think the problem is more aparoid city as a stage than peppy as a character, but if a missile forces peppy's barrier, he's by far the easiest to just assault with your 30 hl's and just kill before he can even get close enough to kill you

the rcb is no good if you can't get in range

STG wrote:

i'd like some more feedback on this, because if you're against a good player, you're not going to miss peppy when he lands on the ground again from a jump.  Maybe its because nobody other than HAXage is remotely good at Peppy here, *HAXage comment on Peppy's jump please*  since im no expert since i only play peppy to go max agression

yeah if you look at old games of me playing Cac as Pep (or a lot of other characters, really) you'll see me jumping at the wrong times and him just leading me throughout the whole arc of my jump ALL the time; it's been done to death haha. the only ways to get around this in my experience are:

1. don't jump if your opponent has RCB charged
2. be unpredictable with your jumps and movement; good ground movement will make you harder to track once you actually leave the ground
3. put pressure on them or hit them while you're in the air, so they can't hit you when you land

i agree that claiming Pep can hold his own on Ap is a little far-fetched, as well as Simp3, and i think STG's analysis demonstrates what happens if your opponent has played the stage well as a fast char on Simp3.

i think the only problem, as others have pointed out, is that you seem to be overrating the RCB, and i suggest that next time you're on Ap or Simp3, try and take a look at the angles you can hit your opponent from, or even the angles that /might/ allow you to land a hit if you're spamming RCB and your opponent is careless. how many of those angles can you get from where you're standing and where your opponent generally is? how many positions on the map allow you to get a lot of those angles? most importantly, even if you can't hit them at this moment, how much range of movement is available to them in which they can avoid being hit? are they stuck behind a tiny amount of cover like the red building on Simp2 or do they have a major area to run around in?

and i think that's really the key to playing Pep effectively (or one of the keys): that you need to maximize those positions and those angles. when you can, you need to constantly be pushing, prodding and keeping them away from where you want to be and where you don't want them to be. i think you'll find very few of those magic angles on Ap from outside the boiler, and even fewer on Simp3. for instance, stand on the blue level and take a look around - what can you see from there? as an experiment, try having someone else run around the stage and stand in different places and see how many of those places allow them to be seen by you. it's not a whole lot!

the exception to this rule is Zoness, which, as you've noticed, is really cramped with millions of walls and things between you and your opponent at any one time; what this means is that it kills Pep's effective range but it also puts a huge dent in the mobility of the speedier characters. since there's often less opportunity for a faster character to run weapons, being that their path is often blocked by their opponent, seeing a lot of the map and denying them access to those weapons is not a terribly big deal - but a 4x CB in an engagement is.

i'll post some other thoughts here later re. character matchups (particularly PvX) but it's 5am and i need to get working on this assignment. keep working on this! i'm glad to see someone taking an interest in writing guides and stuff, and something for Pep in particular; i think this could be pretty good if you keep at it.

My Peppy guide:
Step 1: Spam Jump
Step 2: Spam Blaster
Step 3: Profit

Eh wot the forum's alive?

...oh, it's just this.

Well I'd offer some criticism for that guide Falco but I can't seem to find one. Bravo!

spam jump gets you punished a lot via dodge chase though   

Über bump here, but HAXage, could you give the feedback on the character matchups that you said you'd give in your 2nd to last post? Pwetty Pwease?
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(You have no idea how many search combos it took to find that pic.)

shoot, i totally forgot about this... sorry dude

basically the problem with Pep is that every other character has something he doesn't have... if you can exploit what YOU have that they don't, you can win. Falc has mobility, Slip has health, Krystal has EHP (thanks TLF for this term, i think this is useful), Fox has a bit of both mobility and health.

you have the ability as Pep, with your CB, to deny mobility and to nullify health in some cases. problems: you need to be hitting the shots you make, and you need to be the one watching for the areas you need to deny.

Cac sums PvX up as "Fox has everything Pep doesn't"; i think this is well put, but i'd add that the most important thing Fox has that Pep doesn't is the strength of his stats no matter the ability of the player using him. as Pep, it's entirely up to you to make the right shots and to deny the right areas. your strengths with Pep depend on your aim and aggression as a player, not just on the stats of the character. Fox has 3* health and 3* speed even if you fire only one shot every minute, but if you only fire one RCB every minute as Pep, he might as well not have the 4x charge.

i think this is the most important factor behind Yosh's success as a Pep player - there are few people that would deny he was the best shooter in the game for a very long time, and Pep allowed him to make the most of that ability (speaking of Yosh, someone really should make him register here again). the skill set required to play Fox effectively is very different from the skill set required to play Pep effectively. rather than using your stats as a kind of buffer to keep you alive, as you would with most other characters, you need to use your ability (as Pep) as the whole reason you're playing him.

to continue with the idea of stats as a buffer, i think Pep's effectiveness against other characters can sort of be measured in terms of how easily he can break through their buffers. Fox is cushioned by both speed and health; Falc and Slip are cushioned heavily by only one of those, each. Krys is sort of a different case - a Krys player, similarly to Pep, needs to USE those barriers in order for them to be effective. against an extremely careful Krys player Pep can really bite it; against someone sloppy with barriers Pep can rack up the points.

overall, i think Pep has a harder time nullifying speed. an RCB puts more of a dent in a character's health buffer than their mobility buffer, no matter how fast you can fire it. to this end i would definitely feel confident rolling Pep against Slip in most if not all scenarios. that said, i think skilled players (Yosh again) have the ability to shut down either of the two characters that rely on one buffer exclusively (Slip and Falc); impeding Falc's movement is simply harder than, well, just plain hitting Slip. Fox, meanwhile, gives Pep a lot of problems since neither getting hit nor getting stuck in one spot is as big a deal for him - he can survive hits if he gets stuck, and move if he gets hit too much.

i realize i haven't really given a concrete "X is better than Y" example in any case here save perhaps that of Fox, but i think character matchups are complicated and often better dealt with on a case-by-case basis (eg. i'd feel confident rolling Pep against, say, STG's Falc on Sarg but not on Simp1, i'd never feel confident rolling Pep against Akp's Falc, etc).

sheesh, hope this actually serves to enlighten somewhat... this looks pretty opaque now i look back at it. if i can clarify anything for you let me know

I agree with HAXage here - Peppy's playstyle is radically different to Fox and the others. It's like comparing Fox and Bowser in Melee... they're too different, unlike a Fox player changing mains to Falco or Dr. Mario, where the styles are more similar.

Thus arises the point of situational play. On a map like Sarg where the weapons are spread quite far apart picking a Peppy is risky, but it could work against a Techer Falco who spends more time trying to roll away from Peppy's RCBs than attacking. On the other hand, a cramped map like CBF is great for a Peppy vs Peppy or Peppy vs Slippy match as the weapons are all close together and there's not much need for super mobility.

*Quotes HAX's post here but doesn't actually cause it's too long*

This. This is everything I've done as Pep yet never realized. *Looks at OP* OH GOD WHAT IS THIS ABOMINATION!?!?!? Just kidding, but HAX's post basically pointed out all tha is missing in my guide. The only thing I notice wrong with your post is this phrase here.

HAXage wrote:

overall, i think Pep has a harder time nullifying speed. an RCB puts more of a dent in a character's health buffer than their mobility buffer, no matter how fast you can fire it.

Remember, when hit with an RCB and maybe even a BCB, you go flying up in the for about 2 seconds, which prevents movement pretty well.