Board Thread:Super Smash Bros. Discussion/@comment-25746059-20141125004354/@comment-991261-20141129165854

As someone who used to play Pichu, the idea that his self-damaging is his main flaw is simply wrong. While it is somewhat annoying, Pichu has a large number of moves, many of them very powerful moves, which don't hurt himself, and even his self-damaging moves are frequently worth using. Even if Pichu didn't damage himself, it might not be enough to move him out of F-tier; he has other issues.

That being said, his self-damaging nature doesn't put him on the bottom by necessity; Pichu has some things going for him, some very solid attacks, good agility, and some other things, and the idea that he is better than other characters is far from absurd - he has been ranked above other characters before, and that he is ranked above Kirby is not at all implausible.

If you think that self-damaging makes him automatically the worst, then you just aren't that good at the game; as in Magic, taking damage to get ahead is not a bad thing, and as long as you're hurting the opponent enough more than they're hurting you, you're still winning.