Beginner Falco Tips

[Melee_Melody]

Thinking of piking up Falco. Any tech skill I need to learn straight away with this character?

 

[CP Adagio]

Check out these forums for tips. VERY broadly speaking you should learn the basics of pillaring, lasers, and movement including platforms. There's tons of great stuff people have written here so I highly recommend browsing other threads.

 

[SSG SAX GAMER]

check out the marvelous guide to Falco Lombardi and Magwai's guide to Falco, it's in the sticky thread and it'll give you everything you need to know

 

[Scruffy_Scoundrel]

If I had to think of one thing to learn off the bat I'd say it's understanding that your opponent can't really bait you. Allow me to explain, when the opponent throws out a feint attack (ex Marth ac fair) where other characters would have to risk running in to get the punish Falco gets to laser from a safe distance, get damage, and reset the situation. This is also true for an opponent who is dash dance camping looking for an opening to grab or dash attack, while other characters would have to commit to catching them on their dash back with an attack Falco simply has to laser to stop them in their tracks. I'd say being aware of this during a match is an important thing to keep in mind when learning Falco. I hope I was able to help you, and I hope you have fun with Falco :]

 

[C-SAF]

If I had to think of one thing to learn off the bat I'd say it's understanding that your opponent can't really bait you. Allow me to explain, when the opponent throws out a feint attack (ex Marth ac fair) where other characters would have to risk running in to get the punish Falco gets to laser from a safe distance, get damage, and reset the situation. This is also true for an opponent who is dash dance camping looking for an opening to grab or dash attack, while other characters would have to commit to catching them on their dash back with an attack Falco simply has to laser to stop them in their tracks. I'd say being aware of this during a match is an important thing to keep in mind when learning Falco. I hope I was able to help you, and I hope you have fun with Falco :]

This isn't true at all.


The first thing about "baiting" that u said is a really large misconception about what a bait is. Whiffing a move to cause the other person to try and attack u is not a bait. Its just a bad idea. It relies on the other person messing up a whiff punish by choosing the wrong move to whiff punish with, or simply not recognizing that the move cannot be punished from the range they are trying from.


When top players throw out seemingly pointless moves, they arent trying to "bait" thier opponent, they are throwing out what is called a "poke". A poke is meant to stuff your opponent from running at you, not encourage it. Pokes are generally very hard to whiff punish or are done from a safe range so that the only way they can be punished is by hard reading it or losing position.


What u are describing is exactly why "feinting" attacks are not a bait. U are using falcos lasers to true whiff punish aerials. A true "bait" would be if your opponent did something to make u think he was about to do an aerial, causing u to do a bad laser and get punished.


As for catching a dashdance, there are actually a ton of moves in the game that serve the same purpose, marths dtilt is an excellent example. Any move that can be done quickly with good disjoint can catch an opponent's retreat safely, it's not exclusive to falco in any way.


So yeah, falco is not invincible to being fooled b/c he has lasers. If u think that then u are probably being tricked in ways that u are not even aware of yet. I would also take the time to understand how other characters in the game can do the same thing falco does with lasers to stop a retreat. There are many and they will help u with your own gameplan when fighting them.

 

[Scruffy_Scoundrel]

I thought baiting had to do with the intent behind an action, as long as the intent is "I want you to try to attack me so I can punish" wouldn't that make it a bait?

 

[C-SAF]

I thought baiting had to do with the intent behind an action, as long as the intent is "I want you to try to attack me so I can punish" wouldn't that make it a bait?

If u can be punished for something, but u count on your opponent screwing up, then its just your opponent screwing up. If u want to say u are "baiting" dropped punishes u can, but it sounds pretty silly to phrase it that way.

 

[Scruffy_Scoundrel]

I feel like you misunderstand what I'm describing, allow me to use another game to make an example. Let's say I'm playing street fighter, I shoot a hadoken with the intent of making the opponent jump in so I can anti air them. Let's say my opponent in this scenario has 3 options; Jump in, Get hit, or Block ( I know there's potentially more options depending on character but for this example I'm using those 3 options). If they jump in they've taken the bait (hadoken) and fallen into the trap (anti air), if they block or get hit they didn't take the bait.
Now let's recreate a scenario in which this can apply to smash, let's use Marth as an example. My opponent is dash dancing waiting for an opportunity to attack me, I follow his rhythm and get to the very tip of his potential range, I fair and drift back landing with an auto cancel. My opponent reacts to seeing my fair and attempts to punish, by the time he reaches me I grab him before he can attack. In this scenario the bait was fair and the trap was grab. This actually is something that has been witnessed in high level play, it is something Leffen in particular has made use of many times.

 

[C-SAF]

I feel like you misunderstand what I'm describing, allow me to use another game to make an example. Let's say I'm playing street fighter, I shoot a hadoken with the intent of making the opponent jump in so I can anti air them. Let's say my opponent in this scenario has 3 options; Jump in, Get hit, or Block ( I know there's potentially more options depending on character but for this example I'm using those 3 options). If they jump in they've taken the bait (hadoken) and fallen into the trap (anti air), if they block or get hit they didn't take the bait.
Now let's recreate a scenario in which this can apply to smash, let's use Marth as an example. My opponent is dash dancing waiting for an opportunity to attack me, I follow his rhythm and get to the very tip of his potential range, I fair and drift back landing with an auto cancel. My opponent reacts to seeing my fair and attempts to punish, by the time he reaches me I grab him before he can attack. In this scenario the bait was fair and the trap was grab. This actually is something that has been witnessed in high level play, it is something Leffen in particular has made use of many times.

Im not sure the situations u describe actually have much in common. A fireball forces a reaction and require commitment from the thrower. An AC fair does not force a reaction (the way u describe doing it anyway) and has no endlag. In both cases u are either simplifying far too much, or are not aware of what causes people to do what u are describing their reaction should be.

Throwing a haduken forces your opponent to do something, but it does not force them to do something bad. Good opponents will not do a bad jump in b/c they think they need to punish the haduken. If its unsafe, they will continue to block. The timing and spacing being used, and how close u are to walking them into the corner, as well as what other moves u are threatening all convince your opponent they must jump, and then u can punish them. Its not a 1 to 1 equation the way u describe, the setup for the jump in had much more to do with the timing and spacing of the hadokens before, and what kind of pressure u apply around your projectlile. The hodoken u threw that they did a poor jump in on was not their incentive to jump.

The marth scenario relies 100% on your opponent not knowing AC fair is a thing, or simply timing his punish wrong. If you saw it at high level play, then much like the hadoken, u missed many of the factors that actually caused the opponent to run in and get grabbed.

 

[Scruffy_Scoundrel]

I'll consider this in the future

 

[Audos]

The subject is a grey area. You can purposefully wiff a move with the sole intend of baiting a wiff punish that won't work. This is obviously a bait that shouldn't be consistent, but it can still be a bait. Often times the idea isn't that the move is unpunishable, it is that the move is unpunishable in the specific spacing you are in. If marth wiffs one SH fair and is hit by an opponent fox nair as a punish, the marth might wiff the next fair at a distance just far enough to punish the incoming nair with a double fair. The ability to weave in an out of spaces in a near unreactable fashion is what opens the gateways to abuse set ups like this. While it is not worth building a whole playstyle around, the bait is an important part of neutral.

The real issue is thinking falco somehow has a clear way around this playstyle with lasers, which he doesn't. Retreating laser is not some broken tool to bypass the situation, it is just a safer choice to attempt to punish between fairs with retreating laser than nair as you run less risk or counter hits. What you do lose, however, is stage control, as well as not really gaining much. The marth could still immediately fair after they tank the laser, so you wouldn't get much in that example.

Lasers are great at a lot of safe punishes options, but they also have weaknesses. The biggest of which, in my opinion, is that they make the falco complacent. They have start-up, a decent amount, but new falcos tend to play like they run neutral for free and get interrupted by nairs and stuff trying to abuse them. Learning when not to use them is super important.

 

[Audos]

Anyway to the original poster, I would say just practice all of your movement on all of the stages. Then try to learn how to use the short hop laser (SHL) and dash abck reverse short hop laser (RSHL) of different heights. There is plenty of tech threads to look into and master, and knowledge in melee really comes more from experience for real matches.