Vince Pavey is a writer from the North-East of England who has worked on comics for The Beano and Doctor Who. He likes to play video games and eat good food. Sometimes he does both at the same time, but he probably shouldn’t.
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Pikachu first made his debut in 1996’s Pokémon Red and Green (released after some extra QA and work on the pixel art as Pokémon Red and Blue outside of Japan) and the winsome yellow mouse with the ability to create and store electricity in its cheeks became instantly popular with anyone that saw him, striking the franchise with lightning that quickly erased all plans for pink alien Pokémon Clefairy to be the series mascot.
After propelling both himself and the brand to superstardom that continues to this day, the character has been beloved by children and adults alike for the last 25 years. It is no surprise then that he is a part of the initial roster of new MOBA game Pokémon Unite, where longterm voice of the anime character Ikue Ōtani reprises the role. Sorry to all of you that were hoping they’d snagged Hollywood star Ryan Reynolds from 2019’s Detective Pikachu feature film.
In Pokémon Unite, Pikachu is good for entry level players, as a Novice Difficulty character with a high Offense stat and one of the longest attack ranges.
If you want to know where we think he ranks among the other Pokémon in Pokémon Unite, you can find out here.
Recommended Build: Electro Volt
We recommend that Pikachu players stay in the lanes to farm XP and generally avoid going into the middle area until team fights start to happen in the mid-to-late game. Which lane Pikachu is in basically doesn’t matter, as he’s a perfectly viable character in either one.
When you level up, the moves you’ll want to choose are Electro Ball and Volt Tackle.
If used correctly, both attack moves are good ways to get safe kills. This is especially true after you activate your UNITE move Thunderstorm to stack on massive amounts of AoE damage.
Items
Battle Item
Goal-Getter
You’ll unlock this at Trainer Level 16. After using the goal-getter, Pikachu will score goals twice as fast. This has a cooldown, so timing is everything. Make sure you’re going to score!
Held Items
Sp. Atk. Specs
These fancy glasses will make Pikachu more powerful every time he scores a goal by raising his special attack stat.
Buddy Barrier
This item puts a shield around Pikachu when he uses his UNITE move. It will also help out his buddy, giving another shield to whichever nearby friend has the lowest health.
Energy Amplifier
For a short time after a Pokemon holding the Energy Amplifier uses their UNITE move, they’ll do extra damage.
Pokémon Unite is currently available for free on Nintendo Switch. A release on smartphones has also been announced for September.
What do you think? Do you build Pikachu like this? Is there another Pokémon Unite Pikachu Build for the electric mouse pokemon that you prefer? Let us know below.
