Falcon newbie cannot kill a Sonic (or a Yoshi)

[KappnJack]

Hey all!

Newbie to the competitive scene for Smash (played 64 through to this one, but never competitively until now) and trying out CF as my main after trying out the roster. I've been looking at all the things you more experienced folk are saying and your suggestions and combos are really helping, so thank you for that first of all!

However, my problem is against the dreaded special dashing characters - most notably Yoshi and Sonic. Now admittedly, I don't often come across Sonic in 1v1 For Glory, and Yoshi only slightly more than that, but whenever I do I fill up with dread. I cannot seem to take these guys on convincingly because of the spamming of those special dash moves. With Sonic, all I seem to find is people charge those dashes back and forth, followed with the uAir - and that's that. Every now and again I can get a few hits in a try and get some combos going, but if anything gets dropped, I'm back getting destroyed again. Likewise with Yoshi, I just cannot seem to work out how to counter those special dashes.

Any fellow Falcon lovelies got any tips on how they deal with these characters?

 

[mlorenzo]

You can beat the spin attack with jab, or you can block it and react to it. For yoshi, you have more speed and faster aerial speed, so you need to mount pressure and jab and punish his dash attack. Punish yoshi rolls and punish sonic when he goes in the air.

 

[ROOOOY!]

Try and juggle Sonic and you'll eat springs to the face all day long. You can actually shieldgrab rolls.

 

[mlorenzo]

Space up-air beat most spring attempts. Sonic is all about spacing and punish his spin, roll, and jumps.

 

[ROOOOY!]

Yeah up air beats spring, Sonic is invincible at the start of his rise though so don't try knock him out of it. A good Sonic won't approach with a roll, remember that a Sonic will know he doesn't have to approach Falcon, so if you see a roll start don't go throwing out attacks because he will cancel and punish. Best thing to do is keep both characters grounded because Sonic is bad up close. Jab is good.

 

[Gawain]

Well for Sonic. Just shield everything he tries. Sonic has no way to reliably beat Falcon on shield. Also, Sonic is not very good when he's above Falcon, as Falcon's uair beats anything he can throw downwards. Just remember that Sonic has very limited KO options whereas you do not. If you get a grab, push it to it's limit damage-wise. Get him with uair strings, score a knee if you grab him at around 45-50 percent (grab, dthrow, uair, knee). Do not use your raptor boost at all until he's at 110 percent or more. Raptor boost will KO him at 110, so keep it fresh and make sure he doesn't expect it. Shield an attack and then boost him.

Yoshi is a more problematic character, simly because he's a lot more potent than Sonic. Unlike Sonic, Yoshi can actually kill you at dangeorus low percents, and has good ways to reliably true combo into his kill moves, much like Falcon does. Yoshi has a strong midrange game too; he can be difficult to approach a lot like ZSS is. Also, unlike most of the cast, he's actually significantly better when he is above someone in the air than in most other situations. You seriously need to be careful about his dair and bair. Those things do insane amounts of damage. Overall the best advice I can give is to keep the pressure on him once you're inside. To get inside if he's throwing lots of eggs, use your run, not your dash. If you perfect shield while regular running, you'll move forward somewhat, and you can shield a dash attack if he tries to follow up. If you dash into the eggs or try to Falcon kick, you're gonna eat an egg and then the follow up dash attack and possibly the uair after that if you're at the right percents.

Once you get Yoshi in the air, space your uairs such that you are slightly to the right of yoshi (or left, but right is preferable). If you keep to the sides, his dair won't reach you but your uair will reach him. Try to stay in this favorable position, keep him above you. Yoshi is fairly heavy, so he's easy to combo into the knee against. You can punish his smash attacks with falling uairs into nairs, uairs, or the knee. Raptor boost will kill him at ~130. Edgeguarding is a strong option against him, bair is really fast and will beat anything he tries to throw at you on the way back minus eggs.