I think Falcon is lacking in GSH2.
There I said it. Flame away. If Falcon is ok at being mid or low mid tier then just say 'Falcon doesn't have to be a high tier for it to be a Smash game' and that is that. I'm of the camp that truly believes Falcon is the most exciting character in the game to watch and is the face of the series. I don't believe he is all that great in GSH2. Here's my dealio.
Falcon's combos are weak. He has a couple of low percentage combos (that extend into mid percentages against the fastest fallers). These combos are stale, easy to DI out of, and offer virtually no solid folllowups. Even without any DI, everything Falcon does puts someone JUST far enough away where it isn't a true combo and is therefore pretty easy to escape. With any amount of DI Falcon's major combo moves, (N-air and throws are his best setups IMO) are basically useless. DI's down and away on Falcon's N-air can allow you to tech if done right at the proper percents, but just DI'ing straight away gives 95% of the cast the ability to jump out of the way. Hell, with the Hybrid NADT you can AD half the **** he tries to follow up with. D-throw only ever truly combos into U-air unelss the enemy poorly DIs and you aren't killing with that till the 150-160s.
Which brings me to my next problem. It seems the speedups on his smashes were removed from RC1 (I played GSH1 once or twice it may have been removed then. Sue me it was around exam time.) When nothing he does combos into any decent finisher it becomes frustrating to ever land a kill. Even characters like Mario have OoS d-smash or something. Sure it won't kill till late, but it's an option. If someone gets into the mid 100s Falcon goes from having unreliable but somehwat predictable setups, to none. N-air, his throws, hell even D-air knock everyone to far away or are too easy to DI properly. Falcon is left runnin around hoping to beat aerials with his N-air until he can get a lucky U-air in at the side.
Lastly, without good reliable damage combos and ways to setup into his knee Falcon is left with nothing. Look at all the combo characters. Each one of them has something special on top of good combos. Besides for Mario all of them have some of the best speed in the game. Let's see:
- Mario: His gimp game
- Sheik: Projectiles, a teher, transform (for whatever that is worth), croawldashing
- Fox: A campy projectile when combined with his speed, a reflector, good priority, high power kill move that doesn't have to be combo'd into.
- Wolf: amazing pressure game and range, great KO power, a somewhat unpredicabtle recovery with side-b
I could think of others but I'm at the office and shouldn't be posting. The point I'm really trying to make is what does Falcon have that makes him, well CAPTAIN FALCON! He's got his speed and the knee bu he doesn't really have anything else. Falcon is a somewhat straightforward guy. He doesn't use ***** **** like guns or reflectors. He has always just jumped in there and punished mistakes as hard or harder then any character in the series. I don't know if his N-air lost luster since RC1, but it certainly isn't beating as much as I remember so he really can't even make a great approach to try and even force the mistake. Even his intiail dash is way too long making dash cancelling a d-tilt a huge pain to try and do.,
TL:DR
Falcon is a mediocre character in GSH2. There are probably a few characters worse then him so if we concisder it ok for Falcon to be a balanced low-mid tier then thats that. Falcon is not that great because:
- Nothing he does trues combos past 20-30% on anyone who isn't the fastest fallers.
- This becomes a problem because people know his setups into his finisher (the knee) and therefore are always looking to DI away from it or jump out of it. Even if Falcon predicts the jump the best he can do is an u-air which is laughable punishment combared to a knee.
- Without a reliable way to combo into the knee Falcon has to try and KO with something else since past 130 you will never get an opportunity to even bait a knee.
- Falcon is a no nonsense character since Smash 64. He lives and dies on the punishment game. No one punishes or gets punished harder then Falcon. Falcon can sure get punished pretty hard in GSH2, but he can't punish well enough
Perosnally I'd like to try a few things if peopel agree with me that Falcon isn't nearly manly enough. I am not suggesting to do all of these just pick and choose.
- First I'd like to try putting RC1 Falcon's pac into GSH2. Watch how he fairs and buff or nerf accordingly.
- Second, I would suggest increasing the hitstun. Leafgreen mentioned that you guys originally though GSH2 was at 4.6 (Ibelieve) but it really at 4.55. Either way what ever the number is it's basically .5 smaller than what you originally thought. With the Hybrid NADT and buffering escaping combos is much, MUCH easier then it was in GSH1. I feel with Hybrid NADT being a completley viable way to escape strings (it doesn't take much practice to just anticiapte the AD lag and dodge accordingly) we could stand to buff hitstun up by 0.5 or even 0.75.
- Third, we could bring back the Melee knee. I'm talking the whole grand shebang. Increase the size and what not. Make it his all in 1 move. It can be used for approaches and a go to mistake punisher. Doesn't need to be combo'd into or anything.
The choices are yours and I'm sure there are otherwise to do it, but as it is now Falcon is lacking and that's not right.
