Brawl Falco Impressions UPDATED 2/25 OPEN TO QUESTIONS

[Ryan-K]

Hi I am Ryan_K. I was a falco main in melee and i finally got to play brawl yesterday. I used falco alot and he is still really cool :D. I did a few singles matches and a ****load of teams matches.

I am sure most of you are aware of how Falco's moveset has changed, he has alot of spinning moves and his fsmash is pretty cool.

Anyway onto how he played. Sorry if this is a bit unorganized because I am just writing as thought go into my head.

First off his nair is really really good. It is a 3 hit spinning aerial with almost no landing lag and goes smootly into utilt. His utilt is he spins his arms towards the air and it does 2 hits. It is pretty good but has a bit more lag than I would like. Utilt also has alot of range and hits through the platform on battlefield Oh well lol.

His dthrow is pretty good now and you can punish people who miss DI by chainigrabbing. It isn't 100% reliable on alot of characters but it can work if they don't DI correctly.

His lasers are pretty good still but not as great for approaching. I used them mostly if someone was coming down from the air to catch them in the stun and get a free hit or whatever. His ftilt has massive range this time and pretty hard to shieldgrab for most characters.

I'll just summarize all the moves here actually.

Jabs- Fast obviously, his rapid jabs is a nice spinning thing that is a little difficult to DI out of and has very little lag.

Dash attack- Didn't seem too special ot me. Decent I guess I didn't use it much.

Ftilt- Same as melee, seems to have a little more range as Falco himself seems bigger.

Utilt- Very nice comboing tool. 2 hits. Spins his arms around him. Hits people on the battlefield platform. Good vertical range and hits in front of him too. Not sure about priority as I fought mostly toon link who has ridiculous priority in his sword.

Dtilt- I forgot to use this too much Sorry.

Fsmash- Double fisted chop thing. Strong enough, good KO move, and nice reach.

Usmash- Same as before, seems a tad faster IMO

Dsmash- Split, same as melee, seems a bit laggier IMO -shrug-

His grab has decent range and speed.

Fthrow- Yeah sends them off stage. Decent strength but won't be outright killing anytime soon.

Dthrow- Maybe his best throw. Pops them up and can chaingrab a little and combos into nair at low percent too.

Uthrow- Same as before, lasers knock them decently far horizontally making it wierd to combo off of.

Bthrow- Yeah yeah, he throws them back and lasers push them further. Pretty nice actually.

On to his aerials.

Nair- Easily his best one IMO. Fast, good combo ability, multihit, and almost NO lag. 3 hit spinning attack with his arms with miniscule knockback after the last hit that allows it to combo.

Fair- Pretty similar to his nair, but more hits and more ending knockback, and more horizontal range. Would be really good if it weren't for the massive amounts of lag he got upon landing.

Uair- His uair acted wierd for me, it does decent knockback but it has a tendency to only do the first hit that has like no stun or knockback. Mehish.

Bair- Same as in melee. Decently strong, not horribly lag, fast, and good range. Probably his best (and only) aerial kill except for the odd spike.

Dair- Ah his infamous spike. Only sends downwards at the very beginning of it. After a small amount of time it sends out and up. It sends them down faster than in melee, but it has less stun to make up for it. Also has a large amount of landing lag. Not as good as it used to be but still pretty useful.

His B moves now.

Laser (B)- Yay, they're blue now! He can shoot 2 in a short hop. It is kind of awkward to delay to get on a ground level but it is good for punishing people who are just coming down from the air.

Phantasm (Side B)- Much longer distance and still spikes. Not much more to say, it got better overall.

Fire Bird (Up B)- Seems a little bit longer. Grabs the edge while going up like most recoveries, and burns on start up. Also does 2 hits during the actual move when it hits it seems.

Shine (Down B)- Kicks his reflector which comes back to him. Does NOT stall you in the air. It hits down and forward and is a decent keep away move or way to follow up lasers from a distance. I kind of like it.

Overall Falco still seems really good and seems alot funner to me. He may not be as good as he was in melee IMO but is still a force to be reckoned with. Nair utilt seems to be one of his main combos though. His nair is AMAZING, I can't stress that enough and I can't believe I haven't seen it more in videos.

ALSO LAST NOTE ABOUT COSTUMES. His costume that seems orange (see falco alternate costume thread) isn't actually orange. It is actually his melee colors (like this http://smashbros.planets.gamespy.com/images2/ssbmfalco.jpg)

If you have any questions I will try to answer them to the best of my recollection. I am not sure when I will play again however so I can't immediately test new things.

 

[Winnar]

Nice. I don't know what else to say XD Thanks for all the info!

Hm...I did hear a rumor though that it's possible to triple SHL with Falco, though even if it's possible I'm not sure how useful it would even be.

What I'm most curious about is the shine. It either seems totally useless or bizarrely helpful (like footstool jumping), but I can't find anything that convinces me either way. You said you liked it though. What does it even do in terms of knockback?

 

[Layupfreak]

useful impressions. nice!

 

[NY-Beast]

Awesome. I'm a falco main in Melee and now I'm stuck between Wolf and Falco. Did you get a chance to play with Wolf? If you did who would you say is better IYO.

 

[Ryan-K]

Hm...I did hear a rumor though that it's possible to triple SHL with Falco, though even if it's possible I'm not sure how useful it would even be.

What I'm most curious about is the shine. It either seems totally useless or bizarrely helpful (like footstool jumping), but I can't find anything that convinces me either way. You said you liked it though. What does it even do in terms of knockback?

First question: No it doesn't triple laser. What happens is that he can do SH DOUBLE laser, but his ground laser is really fast so what happens is upon landing people have a tendency to shoot one but it looks like he is shooting it in the air.

It is like fox's shine in terms of knockback. It sends them down and forward but it also knocks them down as if they tripped so it is a good keepaway move especially after they get pegged with lasers.

Also I did get to play with wolf. I didn't get as much of a handle on wolf as I would have liked though but he is definately very very scary. His fsmash comes from out of nowhere and he is like melee fox. Wolf is ALOT better at killing and is alot stronger though so he might be better but that should not stray you from falco. I found wolf a bit wierd because his movements are alot more primal than fox/falco's. If I get to play again I will try to get a better comparison though.

 

[Winnar]

Ah yeah, that's probably what happened with the lazers.

Good to finally get some solid info on that shine. It's quite strange.

 

[Ryan-K]

Yeah I made this thread mostly because i didnt see any other impressions on falco and there seemed to be alot of gray areas.

 

[NY-Beast]

Ahh okay thanks. But I will definitaly still play Falco no matter if I play wolf. They will probably be my 2 mains. I just have to compare them when I get get game first. I like characters who have quick high damage combo's like melee Falco.

 

[Frodnonag]

. same here

 

[verditude]

Are you familiar with the falco laser lock?
If not: http://smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=142344
Can you see if you can combo into it with anything? I was thinking the shine might work, at least against characters that it knocks down.

 

[GamerGuitarist7]

good impressions man. i will use hit nair more since you're stressing it lol :-D ttyl

 

[Ryan-K]

I played some more brawl and used falco alot, and I got his shine down. It's really good imo, but you have to learn to use it different.

It hits on the way out, but not when it is coming back to falco, but it reflects the whole way. I didn't keep track of any damage modifiers or anything but it didn't seem to speed up the projectile.

The shine is very interesting; it isn't a projectie, as it goes through pit's forward b which is a reflector. It also tends to make the opponent go into tripping stance and pushes them back so you can obviously make for some interesting situations. If you get them by the edge for instance, they either have to stand up, attack, roll away, or roll towards you. It is very easy to take advantage of because tripping attacks can't seem to be teched and if they can then noone has teched it so far. If they stand in place or roll away, you can shine them off the edge. If they roll towards you you can get a free grab or fsmash. It is a good keepaway move but it lags a good amount. I can't list all the uses it has it is so good imo

His utilt hits through platforms and can push them off. I got a few platform utilt to dsmashes off when they fall down.

Falco's dthrow is beast, you can chain it from about 0-30 against most characters and it leads to a dash attack or usmash most of the time and sometimes an fsmash.

Falco's dair isn't that bad to spike with if you get it down; you mostly have to do a rising dair off the ledge. In one instance vs a snake I comboed him to the edge with dthrows and anfsmash and spiked him down with dair 3 to 4 times for the kill (he was around 80 or 90 when he was dead).

Illusion goes SO ****ING FAR. It seems even better to ledgehop than before since it goes faster and further. Firebird goes less distance but it hits multiple times. It has alot less killing power, I almost killed with it once though.

Falco's bair is a really good edgeguard move. It is the exact same as melee.

Falco's rapid jabs is nice to force a roll or whatever and is a solid move.

I learned alot more about falco IMO when I played the other 2 times I have played so if you have any questions please ask.

 

[Fluke]

Thanks for confirming that the shine can make the opponent trip (quite often as well)

So speed is a no? It would make sense as the time it takes for the attack to return to the sender is reduced anyway as the shine reduces the travelling distance it needs to go by half of how far it as travel. (what I'm trying to say is that the projectile doesn't have to go all the way to falco and bounce back to the sender.

 

[W.Jr]

Good Impression

 

[Keitaro]

When shall us TSA Brawl Falco players do battle?

His u-air kills pretty well. If a character is coming down on you and has decent percent it's pretty easy to kill them with the 2nd hit of the u-air.

 

[Ryan-K]

When shall us TSA Brawl Falco players do battle?

His u-air kills pretty well. If a character is coming down on you and has decent percent it's pretty easy to kill them with the 2nd hit of the u-air.

Lol well with wifi itll be alot easier

Yeah I noticed his uair seems better at killing but most of my kills were like bairs or smashes.

Platform utilt to dsmash is funny lmao

 

[C-Dizzle]

I played some more brawl and used falco alot, and I got his shine down. It's really good imo, but you have to learn to use it different.

It hits on the way out, but not when it is coming back to falco, but it reflects the whole way. I didn't keep track of any damage modifiers or anything but it didn't seem to speed up the projectile.

The shine is very interesting; it isn't a projectie, as it goes through pit's forward b which is a reflector. It also tends to make the opponent go into tripping stance and pushes them back so you can obviously make for some interesting situations. If you get them by the edge for instance, they either have to stand up, attack, roll away, or roll towards you. It is very easy to take advantage of because tripping attacks can't seem to be teched and if they can then noone has teched it so far. If they stand in place or roll away, you can shine them off the edge. If they roll towards you you can get a free grab or fsmash. It is a good keepaway move but it lags a good amount. I can't list all the uses it has it is so good imo

His utilt hits through platforms and can push them off. I got a few platform utilt to dsmashes off when they fall down.

Falco's dthrow is beast, you can chain it from about 0-30 against most characters and it leads to a dash attack or usmash most of the time and sometimes an fsmash.

Falco's dair isn't that bad to spike with if you get it down; you mostly have to do a rising dair off the ledge. In one instance vs a snake I comboed him to the edge with dthrows and anfsmash and spiked him down with dair 3 to 4 times for the kill (he was around 80 or 90 when he was dead).

Illusion goes SO ****ING FAR. It seems even better to ledgehop than before since it goes faster and further. Firebird goes less distance but it hits multiple times. It has alot less killing power, I almost killed with it once though.

Falco's bair is a really good edgeguard move. It is the exact same as melee.

Falco's rapid jabs is nice to force a roll or whatever and is a solid move.

I learned alot more about falco IMO when I played the other 2 times I have played so if you have any questions please ask.

Well falco seems to be just as good if not better then he was in Melee, sounds great. THX for all this Btw

 

[Rizzle1110]

yah I cant wait to use him in brawl