Suggestions for choosing a secondary?

[teluoborg]

Pac man's "wacky" style, heh.

Anyway this early in the game choosing a secondary is all about personal preference, because I don't think Falcon has one or more unwinnable matchups as of now.

I like WFT because she feels very satisfying to play in a very different way from Falcon, and her French voice is awesome.

 

[SirKenneth]

I guess I'm the only one getting bodied by Villager? I don't know if any of you remember King Toon from the brawl days but he messes with Villager in this game and just does mean things to me lol I remember people saying Villager doesn't have a strong camp game but I disagree... Painfully

 

[BigLord]

He doesn't? With that fair and bair? Of course he has, if properly used Villager is SCARY.

 

[KACHOW!!!]

I've recently changed my secondary to Ness, because he's probably one of the better characters in the game, and he's got better options to do the same thing as my previous secondary: Bowser Jr. I think in choosing a secondary we should be thinking: "What are the matchups I need to cover that my main has a tough time with? What's viable, what's going to win me the game?" I'm speaking mostly to players who intend on tournament play when I say this.

 

[BigLord]

I've probably already said this, but you should have that in mind but ALSO think about the character itself. Do you like him/her? Do you like the way how he plays?

If you don't, then you'll never LIKE using that character, and therefore, playing will become more like a chore to you (unless you win tournaments, obviously). Speaking from experience.

This said, the match-ups still aren't very clear, for now. I'd say Falcon stands a chance against most of the cast, so far

 

[SirKenneth]

For pockets I mainly mess with Mario, Luigi, and Doc idk why they just feel really natural transitioning between them and falcon

 

[Trifroze]

The only characters Falcon seems to have any considerable trouble with (4:6) seem to be the few top tiers who don't really have any bad matchups in the game aside from each other, usually in the order they're often tiered. Unless you want to start using one of those characters (which I would list as Diddy Kong, Sheik, Yoshi and possibly ZSS) there doesn't seem to be a truly complementing secondary to Falcon aside from maybe Ness or Villager.

That's because if I see Falcon having trouble with a certain type of character, it's someone who makes his approaches extremely difficult or has a zoning tool while also having a lot of the same strengths up-close that Falcon has. Ness is probably the best example of this, hence he also works as a good pick against "lesser" such characters. Villager isn't too good up-close, but he's great at outzoning other zoners while rendering some characters half helpless with his pocket.

 

[HFlash]

Please do, I'll be the first to watch and take notes! I'll definitely give the harder matchups a better shot with Falcon too, instead of resorting to my secondary. As far as other matchups go I think Falcon is generally pretty easy to combo, and it shows on characters like Ness, Sheik, or Pikachu, for example. Not unwinnable, but an uphill battle nonetheless.

Pikachu and Ness are annoying because of their small size and projectiles, but I kinda disagree on Shiek. She isn't floaty so it's easy to combo, her ranged moves don't give her the ability to zone, and guess what? She has to come to you as much as you have to come to her. She has no reliable kill moves, and is alot lighter, and susceptible to out combos if we get one dash attack or dthrow, so unless your getting out played imo, you should win that MU

 

[moreside]

Pikachu and Ness are annoying because of their small size and projectiles, but I kinda disagree on Shiek. She isn't floaty so it's easy to combo, her ranged moves don't give her the ability to zone, and guess what? She has to come to you as much as you have to come to her. She has no reliable kill moves, and is alot lighter, and susceptible to out combos if we get one dash attack or dthrow, so unless your getting out played imo, you should win that MU

Sheik is easy to combo, fair enough, but the same goes vice versa. Sheik is the better combo character too, in my opinion, so Falcon gets the worst of it. She absolutely doesn't need to approach when needles are an option, though granted a good Falcon can keep up pressure enough to make needles hard to use safely. As far as killing goes, Sheik's offstage game is where she shines, and given Falcon's linear, easy-to-predict recovery, Sheik can usually get the KO quite easily from gimps and edgeguards.
I'll give you that I'm personally not that great at the matchup, so there might be some bias, but I really don't think Falcon wins it. Maaaybe it's even. I'll have to play more, better Sheiks and learn the matchup better, I guess!

 

[Trifroze]

Imagine a world where aerial raptor boost doesn't send you into a freefall.

Why did they have to buff Fox, Falco and Sheik and do nothing about Falcon? Goddamn.

 

[Falcon Beatdown]

Lately I've been using Fox a lot. He's quick (actually faster than the Captain), however his ranged attacks are more for damage output than anything else. If you were wanted stronger ranged attacks, go with Link. Not the fastest character but not quite as clunky as Mario.

 

[Trifroze]

Lately I've been using Fox a lot. He's quick (actually faster than the Captain), however his ranged attacks are more for damage output than anything else. If you were wanted stronger ranged attacks, go with Link. Not the fastest character but not quite as clunky as Mario.

Fox is fast for sure, but in what sense are we talking about speed here? Falcon is faster than Fox both on land and in the air overall, except for a considerable advantage for Fox in walking speed which is used arguably little. Fox has a lot better frame data though, but so do about 20 other characters. Only Falcon's jab, uair, nair and dash attack are actually quick (as well as dash grab but for other reasons).

 

[Falcon Beatdown]

Fox is fast for sure, but in what sense are we talking about speed here? Falcon is faster than Fox both on land and in the air overall, except for a considerable advantage for Fox in walking speed which is used arguably little. Fox has a lot better frame data though, but so do about 20 other characters. Only Falcon's jab, uair, nair and dash attack are actually quick (as well as dash grab but for other reasons).

I see what your point is. However the frame data being far lower on them allows them to land and jump much quicker, and are in turn able to get some amazing combos. I'm not saying Captain Falcon can't do any of these, however we ARE looking for someone to act as a secondary character. Another good character might be Sheik. Better frame data and more movement speed. While Sheik may take a bit more getting used to, it pays to learn her moveset, whether you play as her or against her.

 

[HFlash]

Imagine a world where aerial raptor boost doesn't send you into a freefall.

Why did they have to buff Fox, Falco and Sheik and do nothing about Falcon? Goddamn.

Ummm compared to brawl/melee, Falco is one of the most nerfed characters in the game. Taking away DACUS, and his illusion/laser tech was huge for him.

Sheik is easy to combo, fair enough, but the same goes vice versa. Sheik is the better combo character too, in my opinion, so Falcon gets the worst of it. She absolutely doesn't need to approach when needles are an option, though granted a good Falcon can keep up pressure enough to make needles hard to use safely. As far as killing goes, Sheik's offstage game is where she shines, and given Falcon's linear, easy-to-predict recovery, Sheik can usually get the KO quite easily from gimps and edgeguards.
I'll give you that I'm personally not that great at the matchup, so there might be some bias, but I really don't think Falcon wins it. Maaaybe it's even. I'll have to play more, better Sheiks and learn the matchup better, I guess!

It's alot harder to gimp in this game so un less your just UP B'ing into the stage and not sweet spotting the ledge, you should be completely fine. No matter how good a character's recovery is, if you don't land safely onto stage, you will be punished. Drop down and use the Cap's vertical reach to get back on stage. If no gimping occurs, shiek has to kill you at around 150-200 while you just need 90 percent for a raptor boost kill. Trust, it's even at best, but definitely not unfavorable on our side

The only characters Falcon seems to have any considerable trouble with (4:6) seem to be the few top tiers who don't really have any bad matchups in the game aside from each other, usually in the order they're often tiered. Unless you want to start using one of those characters (which I would list as Diddy Kong, Sheik, Yoshi and possibly ZSS) there doesn't seem to be a truly complementing secondary to Falcon aside from maybe Ness or Villager.

There is no official tier list yet, as the game is so new. If you see one, please take it with a grain of salt. The only character in the game that has no real weakness is Diddy atm

 

[Trifroze]

Ummm compared to brawl/melee, Falco is one of the most nerfed characters in the game. Taking away DACUS, and his illusion/laser tech was huge for him.

Context; I was talking about Falcon's side b recovery properties. Falco's side b was buffed for recovery, as was Fox's, and Sheik was basically given one into down b that also kills. If we talk about the characters in general, then Falcon is relatively as buffed as Sheik compared to the last game.

There is no official tier list yet, as the game is so new. If you see one, please take it with a grain of salt. The only character in the game that has no real weakness is Diddy atm

Maybe not here, but Japan does have theirs and most here agree on the top placings there aside from a few exceptions because of a lack of tournament representation. From what I know, it was made purely from results. That's as official as it gets, just undeveloped.

 

[SAHunterMech]

Imagine a world where aerial raptor boost doesn't send you into a freefall.

Why did they have to buff Fox, Falco and Sheik and do nothing about Falcon? Goddamn.

Honestly, yeah, if aerial Raptor Boost now has to be sweetspotted to spike, it shouldn't send him into special fall.

 

[warionumbah2]

Pikachu is amazing as a secondary, down throw to uairs at low percents is amazing. He has a solid projectile, can punish air dodges, amazing nair for gimping, fast, small. Pikachu is what falcon would be if he was a mouse (with projectile) imo.

But then again jiggly has a early kill punisher like tbe knee, shes really good.

 

[Lionman]

My Secondary is Captain Falcon

 

[Dinotard]

Been looking for other characters to use as aa secondary
I've managed to narrow it down to shiek, Fox or pika.
I'm still undetermined and I know some are harder to learn than others.

 

[Eriol-kun]

I actually use Greninja because even though his dAir got nerfed in the 3DS days, he's got enough speed, an excellent recovery, fast and long-reaching normals and aerials compared to the Capt., a wallcling, and a solid uSmash, besides his shuriken which can be either an annoyance or a killing move. And his disjointed swords tear through matchups like Jigg and Kirby that like jumping and approaching from above.

 

[Knee Smasher]

I main Captain Falcon + Charizard and I don't think there are any matchups I don't cover with those two.

It is not difficult for a person who mains one of the aforementioned characters to pick up the other, considering both characters' playstyles rely heavily on punishment, yet at the same time the two characters are very different and do not seem to share any bad matchups.

 

[Metalex]

Right now im using R.O.B as my secondary. Even if it feels like i can deal with all matchups with Falcon the hardest matchups in my opinion is zoning characters that requires you to be defensive and at the same time forcing Falcon to approach cause of the projectiles, and R.O.B is very good at shutting down those types of characters.

I only play him in a few matchups though, but i think it makes it a bit easier to have a secondary for the ones i find the hardest.

 

[BigLord]

I've been using Link for that exact same reason, @ Metalex . I fell in love with his playstyle during the Sm4sh3DS demo. Still use him from time to time.

 

[Metalex]

Yeah same here @ BigLord Link is probably my 3rd best character after Falcon and R.O.B, he is really fun to play in this game and there's alot of room for creativity with all the setups he can get from projectiles.

 

[Lanzoma]

I'm trying to do some soul searching, but coming up short. I enjoy ZSS, but I feel like they're very similar and share bad matchups.

Let's list some problems:
- Floaties (hard to combo)
- Small characters (hard to approach from the air, many things whiff)
- Disjoints (outranges falcon)
- Solid edgeguarding (falcon's recovery is predictable)
- Projectiles (need to get in before we can do anything)
- Anything else?

Based on the above, here are characters that fit most (not necessarily all) of the criteria:

Yoshi, Toon Link, Diddy Kong, Kirby, Pikachu, Jigglypuff, Ness, Villager, DHD(maybe?)

Of those, I haven't had problems with DHD or Kirby yet, so that leaves:

Yoshi, Toon Link, Diddy Kong, Pikachu, Jigglypuff, Ness, Villager

Many of these characters also have combos that do 20-40% at low percentages ( u-tilts ), which makes it even harder. Who does well vs these characters? What do these characters hate to face? Fight fire with fire and play the zoning game? Strong vertical KO potential?

R.O.B looks good on paper, but I don't have enough experience to know for sure. Fox is a solid option I feel, because reflector + blaster can force them to approach, and up smash is a great finisher with many ways to set it up. And that's all I got.

Any thoughts?

 

[Trifroze]

I've began to disagree with Falcon having problems with any specific type of a character. Zoners are designed in a way that it's hard to get in on them, but when you do their close range options are usually limited enough that they get wrecked even harder. In my opinion for now it's really hard to say who's gonna work as a complementing secondary for Falcon since it seems his bad match-ups are very specific, and I don't even know which ones. Starting to feel confident against Ness and Rosalina, while I haven't played any good Diddy, Sheik or Pikachu for example, but I could see Pikachu's height being a problem, especially in his landing animations.

So I just second Luigi while also waiting for Mewtwo. He's probably gonna be a character with emphasis on hitboxes and zoning, hopefully not too slow or floaty though. I suppose what I'm saying is that just practice different characters and use whoever feels complementing instead of wasting that time theorizing on information that just isn't available yet.

 

[Lanzoma]

I agree with the thought of just trying different characters out and going by that, certainly, but I disagree with theorizing being a waste of time. Learning and understanding a character is a time commitment, and while it'd be great to learn them all to have the full picture that's not exactly the most pragmatic path. I'd rather make an educated guess and test it out.

I admit that I started this backwards though. I've personally been having problems with the characters I mentioned, and I found those similarities between them. It's not just theorycraft; I'm looking for counters to those characters. Zoning is only one part of the equation, it's the sum of everything that makes it complicated, imho.

Luigi makes a lot of sense, and he seems to be quite strong this time around. I've also started considering Sheik, she doesn't feel too different from Falcon and has a ridiculous amount of options available.

 

[Trifroze]

I'm by no means saying theorizing is bad, just that at a certain point you'll run out of resources to theorize on and it's better to move on to the labs.

 

[BigLord]

It's simple, really. You theorize to diminish the time you need to spend in the labs. You can't replace one with the other.
well if you have all the time in the world you can just test ALL the characters blindly...

 

[HoodedAltair]

A true falcon needs no secondary

But I would suggest Ness personally. Covers a lot of options that falcon fails on as well as having an excellent combo game to make you feel comfortable. That's from the logistical standpoint though. Just pick who you like and/or want to learn.

False is an excellent and smart player who uses Luigi and Captain Falcon. He thinks they cover the opposites foibles well and I agree.

 

[Silvalfo]

After some arguing with a friend we came to a conclusion that a solid Falcon, in today's metagame, doesn't need a secondary.

I still feel more comfortable having a secondary. Falcon is pretty good but not the absolute best (very probably top 10 tho), so he has a few "meh" matchups. They aren't unwinnable in any way, but if someone secondaries a character who bodies Falcon's worst match-ups, this person can feel more confident. Also, playing with another character expands your understanding of the game as a whole and only adds up to all the fun that smash can bring.

My second most efficient character so far has been Ganon, so I'm not going anywhere with good matchups here lol. Other than that I've just started practicing Pikachu because he does well against a few of Falcon's problems and can style a LOT.

 

[RedQuelll]

Diddy. Join the legion. It's the 20xx of Smash 4 hahaha. Jk, I'd recommend DDD, also my secondary.

 

[Mrwhatzitooya]

In the end, I've finally found that Wario is actually my best suited character to go along with Falcon, and now they're both my two mains, with Mario as my secondary. I'm not entirely sure why Wario became my choice of character, maybe it's just preference, but I certainly seem to fit Falcon and Wario's playstyle best. Maybe it's because they're both bounty hunters of sorts?

 

[Buddy002]

Personally, I main Falcon and Secondary Villager. Villager cover's Falcons weakness of have no range whatsoever. Fair and Bair (and Nair, uair, and dair... hmmm) are imo the best aerials in the game. (Along with Falcon) Falcon deals with projectiles; Villager can pocket those projectiles. Falcon can't camp; Villager can.

 

[Trifroze]

Falcon's range is actually really good. Not his immediate range, but the realistic range he can cover with dashgrab and DA without the opponent being able to react to it. His vertical reach is also good with uair and dair.

 

[Buddy002]

Maybe I stated that incorrectly. His lack of projectiles makes it hard for him to get close to characters with fast projectiles (such as Mega Man or Villager)

 

[Lanzoma]

To be honest, I haven't had problems getting close vs projectiles in neutral. Run->Shield, Run->SH and even Run->Roll Towards all work depending on the situation and how predictable the opponent is. It is, however, another thing to worry about and forces Falcon to respect those tools. I feel like the biggest threat of projectiles is that they can force Falcon to either recover low or airdodge predictably offstage.

Where I HAVE been struggling is vs ledge campers throwing projectiles and regrabbing the ledge quickly. The projectile usually covers the regrab so it's somewhat safe. Still, this is only an issue online, and you could just jump over and spike them if you read them correctly. Villager in particular is very annoying at this.

 

[Buddy002]

Perhaps it is just me who struggles w/ the campers. However, I agree that Falcon is better at getting in than someone like Ganondorf or Donkey Kong. Falcon has great speed, which we can use to our advantage.

 

[Turbopasta]

Personally, I think it's a good idea to force your opponent to mix-up their playstyle, so I try to pick secondaries with that in mind.

I'd say right now, my strongest secondary to Capt Falcon is Villager. They play so differently it's insane. As Falcon I'm aggressive and wavedashy nearly all game, but as Villager I just run away and fire gyroids and SHFFL'd slingshots if I can't win the neutral game. Sometimes I'll even try to run out the clock if they're being defensive and the game is taking a while. It really can't be helped with Villager, he sort of needs to play like that to win games.

I've actually had to engage an "anti-villager clause" in friendly matches with friends because they ended up getting to demoralized if I fought them with Villager. Usually we talk smack but eventually they would just stop talking and I would just start to feel bad.

My avatar would indicate that I might pick Shulk, but I've put Shulk on indefinite hiatus for now. I don't think he's very good once your opponent knows how to fight him. He gets completely destroyed by everything if he hits shields.

 

[Roystonea]

As I´m trying out some secondaries as well, I´m trying out dark pit at the moment. I love his grab game and edgeguard options. At the same time his arrows and orbitars work well vs projectile spamming enemies. I havent gotten a chance to fight characters like diddy tho, but i would recommend trying him out.