Fox's bad match ups

[Kanzaki]

After the game has been out for a month now about.. What match ups does everybody think Fox struggle with?

 

[jr22]

So far I think lil' Mac is a match up that most fox's struggle with. The biggest disadvantage fox has in this match up is his falling speed and still gets combo'd easily. Mac has excellent ground and racks up damage extremely fast. I think the best way to fight Mac like a melee falco. Amazing onstage. But terrible offstage. Most Macs approach with a side b or a dash attack. If you manage to get lil Mac in the air, it's best to keep him up there so you won't get ko punch.

 

[Neverbound]

All of the lame high tiers like ZSS and greeninja who have it easier koing or just doing percent specific combos.
Dem brawl combos that wreck fox

 

[Element_Demon]

I notice Sheik still wreaks fox with those utilt juggles, and she can edge guard him fairly easily. Little Mac can give Fox trouble if you don't play it smart. Do your best to keep him in the air, and get him off stage. Other then that I feel Fox does well against a good portion of the roster.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

All of the lame high tiers like ZSS and greeninja who have it easier koing or just doing percent specific combos.
Dem brawl combos that wreck fox

I notice Sheik still wreaks fox with those utilt juggles, and she can edge guard him fairly easily.

None of these characters actually have the advantage against Fox. They are even matchups. Rosalina and Little Mac beat Fox though.

 

[Sir Tundra]

I think if anything fox's worst matchup is easily sonic. Reason's being that Sonic can easily outmaneuver fox with his speed maneuvers, Ram fox over with a spin dash due to the fact that none of fox's attacks can stop spindash, can tech chase him with his down throw, and unlike little mac sonic can actually make it back to the stage no problem making this matchup even more harder for fox. If anything I can only see this matchup a living hell for fox.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Sonic does indeed feel like a difficult matchup for Fox but I don't have enough experience against him yet to make an educated call on it. I will say however that I find him, Yoshi and Captain Falcon to be harder than Greninja, Sheik or ZSS, who are all very much manageable for Fox.

 

[Neverbound]

A luigi player did down throw to uptilt twice then fair, fox falls fast

I'm salty

 

[Kanzaki]

Main struggle I have right now is Sonic. Nair's used to beat everything in brawl, but now sonic can go through them

Rosalina was difficult until I ran into her face.. Then she was quite easy doesn't do pressure too well.

Little Mac was tricky, a lot of in and out. Felt like a boxing match. I cp Mario for this match up to be easier for me, but its winnable as fox.

Haven't faced any good sheiks or zss yet.

Fox shouldn't have troubles against Luigi, just need to zone him out.

 

[Meek Moths]

In order to beat sonic you must embrace the pain he delivers to you and use it against him, It's no easy feet but thrust me it works.

 

[RPK]

Yeah, the sonic match up has definitely become quite difficult :x I used to get around it by jumping out of the way and taking on damage with lasers, and dash attacks. His priority wasn't as high back then either but now... :/

 

[DavemanCozy]

No top tier comes close to being as bad as Little Mac. Dash Attack -> Dash Attack combos Fox at low percentages, all his tilts screw you over, any attempt to punish his super fast smash attacks will end in doom (he'll just eat it with that super armor), out-prioritizes almost everything you try to do, and his counter kills nearly every single combo opportunity you have. That KO punch is this games version of rest, Fox gets KO'd as early as 30%.

It's a frustrating matchup. You can't rush him. You have to play it uber-campy and defensive as Fox to win. Hit and run when he whiffs a move (this is tricky, because there's barely any time to punish his ground moves), bait the counter by running out and in, get a grab as soon as you can, hopefully you'll get him offstage to either footstool him or Bair him away.

I just played 10 friendlies of Fox vs Mac a few hours ago, I only won 1 of them. I have been practicing recently vs some good players, even went to a tourney a few weeks ago, and have played vs. all sorts of characters as Fox. So far, the only MU I feel like is absolute hell is Mac: it's not impossible by any means, but in my experience it's the most mentally demanding matchup.

EDIT: Link and Sheik seem to be a good counterpick choice against Mac if you feel you need to switch. And by extension, any character that can keep him away is good.

 

[deakolt]

second Lil Mac

 

[Sir Tundra]

The thing I learned about little mac is that he'll often use forward tilt as a way to pressure you. The moment he's finished with his f-tilt you can immediately dash attack and then do an up tilt juggle. However its often best to be careful for mac's counter and grab him as soon as he does it. Doing a bair offstage is not a good idea cause fox's offstage game is almost non existent due to the fact that fox's bair has a long startup and his shine can't even gimp any more. Your best choice of gimping an opponent is foot stooling which is not easy to do. Mac gets killed by fox's up smash earlier than most characters being killed around 100 % and up. However its often best to use it as a punish since most people will see it coming which even then is almost impossible against little mac since most of mac's ground moves are almost unpunishable due to that super armor of his. In general i'd advise to play rather defensive against mac as fox and use every punish to your advantage.

 

[DavemanCozy]

Alright, I may have exaggerated how bad Mac is for Fox.

I was talking to some Mac mains in their board, and I also went to a tourney last night at York U in Toronto. What I found is that everything I said about Mac being a very read-heavy, defensive and mentally demanding MU also applies the other way (sorta): some Mac mains told me it's also very mentally demanding on their part, as they have to predict when to use their counter, when to air-dodge, and be very careful of getting grabbed by Fox and our smash attacks. The Mac players I spoke with say D-smash and U-smash are equally dangerous for them because d-smash sends them horizontally to the point of no possible recovery, whereas u-smash is the well feared Fox u-smash.

tl:dr, just like how we need to play defensive and read Mac's smash-attacks and counter attempts, Macs need to read when to use their smash attacks and when they should use counter. I personally still feel this is worse for Fox, just not 30:70 bad like I used to think. Maybe something like:
40 : 60

And in regards to Sonic:
Holy crap he's tough. I played against some good Sanics last night, he's rough. The things said here about Sonic's priority are very true. Feels 40:60 as well. Avoid the ball at all costs. Definitely an MU where lasers should be used conservatively and punishing the cooldown in his dash attack and landed aerials is a must. Sonic actually has the most landing lag if he messes up his aerials out of the entire cast:
http://smashboards.com/threads/all-character-landing-lag-frame-data.371503/
Really scared of Sonic at this point. The ones I played against were good, but at a level where they also committed enough mistakes that allowed me to punish their landing lag enough times to win. At higher levels of play though, I feel like Sonic will only get harder and harder to punish and fight against.

 

[TrevThe22nd]

I've found that King Dedede is pretty good against Fox. Most of the time a Fox user is working the other player. This can work in Dedede's favor due to his huge hitbox on the hammer, specifically the forward smash. If Dedede can get Fox off the stage it can be difficult to recover.

 

[Wusi]

you pretty much can't punish any of lilmac's whiffs. fox is actually very good at punishing whiffs; if you don't focus you'll try to dash in on a whiff out of reflex.
i can punish anything mac throws at me on shield, though. as long as a smash attack is not super spaced or pushes my shield too much.
difficult matchups for me currently are yoshi, sonic and rosalina. but that's mostly because i haven't gathered enough experience in those matchups. they feel much fox disadvantage though.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Yeah, Yoshi feels like Fox' worst matchup to me. Rosalina has been nerfed in the new patch so the matchup might be better for us now.

 

[chlorothryll]

jjjjjjjjjj

 

[Sir Tundra]

Does anyone have trouble with heavier characters? I've had issues with Charizard and even Ganondorf (embarrassing). Ganondorf has crazy and powerful ground range, so punishing his whiffs is more difficult. I usually rely on kicking opponents up and it just doesn't happen with heavier characters. Find myself getting KO'd at sub 100% when I've got the opponent at +150%.

I don't have trouble with Sonic, Little Mac, or Yoshi. They are easily punishable if you time them right and find out the opponent's attack pattern (most opponents rarely change these patterns). I have more issues with Wario (heavy), Charizard (heavy), Ganondorf (heavy and powerful), Villager (insane recovery and so many projectiles), and Cpt Falcon (fast Ganondorf).

Fox tends to have it easy against heavy characters. Charizard shouldn't really be that much of a problem so long as you bait his rock smash and punish his flare blitz. Fox can rack up so many damage against ganondorf and can even combo him after downthrow at 50%. However its often best not to attack him offstage cause he can just ganoncide you if you do. Also try baiting ganon to side b you so you can spot dodge and then juggle him with up tilt. Since villagers not a heavy character i have no idea why you added him there but whatever i suppose. Villager doesn't even have that many projectiles.. his only projectiles are the gyro and his slingshot I would count his bowling ball being one cause you can reflect it but that thing doesn't really go anywhere. I'd say captain falcon his without a doubt a hard matchup for fox. Falcon can outmaneuver fox with his ridiculous running speed which can easily throw him off and can easily kill fox's offstage. Fox's best option against falcon is too zone him out with lasers and bait dash grabs so you can up tilt juggle him for days. All of the characters you have trouble with can be zoned out with lasers forcing the opponent to approach you.

 

[Xmark]

None of these characters actually have the advantage against Fox. They are even matchups. Rosalina and Little Mac beat Fox though.

Im having trouble with the sheik mu. Sheik can combo, edge guard, and ko fox easier than he can her. Sheik can edge guard fox with nearly all her aerials and her upB sense it has 2 hit boxes and a wind box. This is defiantly not a 50:50 mu

 

[knuckles213]

I'd say shulk is a pretty hard match up if you go against a good player, his Nair and range make it hard to approach.

for lil mac, just camp the edge and throw him off

dedede is tough because I feel he punishes you for throwing out moves in general

for the most part I've learned that zoning helps in most match ups.

 

[DavemanCozy]

Against , ,, , their range is enormous but many of their attacks have enough ending lag to let us go in, so baiting and punish is what you have to play. The latter three matchups can be frustrating as well, since all of those characters have counter moves that will punish you for trying to follow them up in the air. Bait and punish is key here. I don't think Fox loses to them though: I think Fox beats Dedede and Lucy (her hitstun on shield properties are worse than Marth's, making it easier to punish her), and goes even with Marth and Shulk.

I find it's the same with facing , , : Huge hitboxes, but the same thing with punishing their moves. Peach is probably the scariest one of those three.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Yeah, I agree that Shulk is probably even. Before the patch it used to be in Fox' favor imo but Shulk got buffed so hard dude, it's not even funny.

Im having trouble with the sheik mu. Sheik can combo, edge guard, and ko fox easier than he can her. Sheik can edge guard fox with nearly all her aerials and her upB sense it has 2 hit boxes and a wind box. This is defiantly not a 50:50 mu

Sheik doesn't kill Fox easier than vice versa dude. Sheik can't kill **** anymore after the patch. Jab 1 -> jab 2 -> usmash works on Sheik fyi.

 

[Timbers]

how has everyone been handling pikachus? Has an incredibly dominant neutral game, and (what feels like) a lot of favorable frame data/priority against fox. I like that nair crosses up well, but that's the only thing I'm really feeling out of this.

 

[I.S FoxMkloud]

So far, probably Kirby. But then, I am bad against Kirby, so it could totally be me. I've been trying to punish Kirby whenever he whiffs a move and landing and such, but still kind of hard. Especially without SHTL camping I used to do all the time in Brawl. More to come I suppose, but I do find Kirby hard and probably Megaman too.

 

[KishinX]

I consider myself decent with fox. Today i got wrecked by a diddy kong really badly, probably the worst ive ever been wrecked, he 3-5'd me. i defended myself mostly with Dash Atk, foward air, and down air. was it just me being a scrub or does anyone else seem to have trouble with this match up?

 

[luke_atyeo]

I havent played against enough good people to be able to even have an idea on who's a hard matchup, but in general a character like fox whose whole game revolves around being faster then the opponent, can have a lot of trouble against characters that are faster then fox. Even more so due to the fact that you'll usually get used to being faster then your opponent and so you can find yourself out of your comfort zone really quickly (ohoho I am so funny) which will make you play worse.

 

[I.S FoxMkloud]

I agree, especially when he can no longer camp with lasers and such. That's a huge hit I find. Or at least to me.

 

[DavemanCozy]

I agree, especially when he can no longer camp with lasers and such. That's a huge hit I find. Or at least to me.

You can still use lasers to force approaches, but yeah no more jumping and shooting lasers thanks to ending lag which means the damage output is smaller than previous Smash games. Not a huge loss though, I think his jab combos, U-tilt and F-air make up for losing laser camping in terms of dishing out damage.

 

[luke_atyeo]

yeah you can still use lasers to force approaches, but in terms of characters that are around fox speed or faster, you cant really because they are fast enough to punish the end lag of your laser from really far away.

 

[Ness1210]

After the game has been out for a month now about.. What match ups does everybody think Fox struggle with?

Ive been having a hard time with ganondorf too much back and forth and his hits rack up alot of damage at once which fox cant take

 

[RPK]

I find the best way to laser is to do the grounded B-reverse laser. If you see theyre not approaching, it allows you to quickly turn on them and start firing. You can normally get off a few free shots without them being able to punish you.

 

[I.S FoxMkloud]

Yep, when I mention laser camp, I am referring to SHSL and SHTL. I seriously miss those. I will have to try that RPK, by the way.

 

[RPK]

I was like...one of the first people to do SHTL consistently when the game first came out. Ah, those were the days =w= But yeah, I still do it in Smash 4 tho. Its useful if you know theyre going to jump and it gets a guaranteed 2-3 lasers onto them. Especially if you can do it while retreating. Soo good

 

[I.S FoxMkloud]

I was like...one of the first people to do SHTL consistently when the game first came out. Ah, those were the days =w= But yeah, I still do it in Smash 4 tho. Its useful if you know theyre going to jump and it gets a guaranteed 2-3 lasers onto them. Especially if you can do it while retreating. Soo good

Ah, I still do that constantly. And then I see the lag, I get sad. I will just keep doing that too I suppose. Sometimes it's still useful.

 

[M@v]

I don't really feel any bad matchups yet with fox....give that time though; the bad matchups will start to show through. One matchup I do notice that at least has some bs in it is Little Mac; He can 0-death you if he has KO punch. From 0%, he can dtilt chain you until you are in KO's punch's kill range (I think its like 20%?), then he combos the KO punch out of the last dtilt and away you go <.<

Its happened to me, and I've done it to foxes on For Glory as Mac.

 

[I.S FoxMkloud]

I don't really feel any bad matchups yet with fox....give that time though; the bad matchups will start to show through. One matchup I do notice that at least has some bs in it is Little Mac; He can 0-death you if he has KO punch. From 0%, he can dtilt chain you until you are in KO's punch's kill range (I think its like 20%?), then he combos the KO punch out of the last dtilt and away you go <.<

Its happened to me, and I've done it to foxes on For Glory as Mac.

That's annoying and disturbing at the same time just by reading. I will have to look out for such.

 

[M@v]

I suspect he can do it on several characters; particularly fast fallers/fat ones. Up angled fsmash->KO punch is a true combo too as an FYI

 

[I.S FoxMkloud]

That can be a bad news for someone like me who can just kamikaze at times... Now I have even stronger incentive to learn not to go kamikaze.