Official Captain Falcon Video Critique Thread

[Divinokage]

But what does playing Falcon like Ganon even mean? lol. I mean I think I'm doing the right things but how do you feel when you watch me play for example? Like of course every player has a distinctive style for example, what is mine?

 

[0Room]

Lots of bairs

Not a lot of movement
More pressure than anything else

Like it's hard to explain but I just see Ganon a lot in your game
For example there's not a lot of DD but more waiting, then punishing with bair [here's an example]

It's not bad per se but just interesting to note
You like to set up for bairs even though Falcon's bair really isn't as great as Ganon's imo
or I should say that Falcon has better options that you had the time/ability to set up for [knee]

I guess what I'm trying to say is that you fundamentally ignored what Falcon is about, which is the knee
You didn't throw into knee [uthrow->sh knee at 100% on falcon, 80% is fsmash]
You didn't really DD that much, you did a lot of jabs->grabs [which really doesn't work] and you used jab in a situation where Ganon's jab would have worked out a lot better than Falcon's
You tech chase with Wavedash [here] where his run speed would have definitely taken over [again, where Ganon needs his WD]

Are you getting to see the picture?
you understand a lot of little things about Falcon [like gentleman] but as a whole you're still trying to play Ganon
And you can't do that if you wanna be serious about playing Falcon
Not to be mean or anything, just saying

Your mindset needs to change
Have you read PP's post about changing characters but keeping the same mindset for characters?

 

[Divinokage]

Oh I see, usually I do that to change the timing of my attacks, like wavedash in place or wavedash inside or away to bait. I mean I'm sure Falcons use that too. But i see what you mean. And I did read PP's post about changing characters that you probably have to again break some more bad habits and change it to use your character better essentially. But jab to grab doesn't even work with Ganon, I thought it was cool mix-up with Falcon in my head honestly. lol.

But ya thx for that, I really do need other's perspective because I can't really see what I'm doing wrong myself sometimes. =)

 

[0Room]

Yeah I wasn't saying that jab->grab worked with Ganon
I'm saying you were doing jab->grab period

And doing jabs period in areas where as Ganon, jabs would make sense
But as Falcon it doesn't as much

Sure
I wanna see if anyone else agrees with me or if I'm just weird

 

[tarheeljks]

i see what 0room is saying. your falcon is more stationary than the average falcon. you were naturally in position to bair a lot and the fh stomps were also ganonesque. think i saw you ftilt him out of an approach as well and some jabs to stop him from running around or w/e

 

[0Room]

Okay glad it's not just me

 

[Skeletom]

just wanna thank you guys for your help. first time i posted in here was awhile back now when i posted a match against a fox that ***** the **** out of me. just yesterday i 3 stocked him and somehow managed to end it with a double knee -> raptor boost off the edge.

feels good man.

edit: but mango still ***** me. what am i doing wrong?

 

[_Rocky_]

windrose i watched some of your vids from 6-4 MU and feel like doing some analysis

are you ok with me critiquing?

 

[0Room]

just wanna thank you guys for your help. first time i posted in here was awhile back now when i posted a match against a fox that ***** the **** out of me. just yesterday i 3 stocked him and somehow managed to end it with a double knee -> raptor boost off the edge.

feels good man.

edit: but mango still ***** me. what am i doing wrong?

Good! I knew you could do it
And what you did wrong was play Mango xD

windrose i watched some of your vids from 6-4 MU and feel like doing some analysis

are you ok with me critiquing?

Lmao it's up here for anyone to critique
Anyone at all can come by here and put in their two cents
So go for it

 

[Divinokage]

i see what 0room is saying. your falcon is more stationary than the average falcon. you were naturally in position to bair a lot and the fh stomps were also ganonesque. think i saw you ftilt him out of an approach as well and some jabs to stop him from running around or w/e

Well as long as it's a knockdown, it's fine by me especially if it's Falcon. But I mean is there really something wrong with that? I mean if I hit him and continue to hit him that means I'm winning lol.

 

[0Room]

It's not that
It's the fact that you need to finish off stocks as quickly as possible
And you're doing that to it's fullest extent with the tools you have.

So if you want to expand on your skill as a Falcon player
You need to start using what's really good about him instead of just what's okay with him

If you don't really care then **** it

 

[Divinokage]

Umm.. where did I say I didn't care? I do care, I'm probably using him at RoM 4.

 

[Deleted member]

f-tilts really good as falcon pretty much for same reasons as ganon except people are much more likely not to expect it

 

[0Room]

I was just putting that out there
But yeah if you are in position for a bair and have time
Turn around and knee/stomp

You've gotta abuse the big 4 great things about Falcon
DD, Stomp, Knee, Grabs

You can't really stand in shield, I know you can't with Ganon either but when Falcon shields he usually needs to get out as soon as possible or bad things have to him
So mobility is your greatest defense

 

[Divinokage]

I actually focused on moving around a lot more yesterday and I managed to beat Bam 3-1 in a seriouslie with Falcon vs Falco, where as my Ganon usually gets owned hard 90% of the time lol. It was inspiring quite a bit... definitely did more knees for sure too. Hmm...

 

[tarheeljks]

kage, i wasn't saying there was anything inherently wrong w/it. merely observing that your falcon looks a lot like a ganon

 

[Divinokage]

kage, i wasn't saying there was anything inherently wrong w/it. merely observing that your falcon looks a lot like a ganon

Ya that's mind boggling me a little bit now that I think about it and see what you guys are talking about. Because, is there a way Falcon HAS to be played? Or can you play a character even if you understand every little things he has, in a way you think is right? Which style is better in that sense? Can something like that be shown.. like do all pro Falcons play Falcon is meant to be played/same way all the other top players with their own characters?

 

[0Room]

Well I think that you kind of have to use what your character has strengths in
And avoid what he's weak against
If you're not good offstage don't go offstage, stuff like that

Characters have differing strengths/weaknesses
Obviously there isn't a way you HAVE to play [which is one of the great things about this game] but I personally feel like there is an Optimal Way to play if not necessarily a Right Way
Like Mango says, sometimes the right answer isn't always the best answer

If you don't really understand what I'm saying
I think that you could play him a certain way [like lots of DJ falling knees] and win
And that would be the "right way" to play him in that particular match

But you could also run around and stomp into grabs into tech chase knees
And that would be an "optimal" way to do things

If that makes sense

But your personal style comes into it too
Differing opinions/styles/memories/habits will always influence your play
And you'll do things differently

But the reason I say this is that if someone can beat your Ganon
And you play your Falcon like your Ganon
Couldn't they also beat your Falcon?

You would have to mix up your style using your new character's strengths and weaknesses to win
That's what I was getting at with that

 

[saska]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNmAhqWD65M&feature=related

I have problems against sheik because no one around here plays her. Any suggestions?

E: PAL version

 

[S l o X]

sorry for no videos, i went to no johns broke.

after the 15th i should have singles and doubles videos up, hope to place well too.

anyone want to team at rom or apex?

 

[Deleted member]

Ya that's mind boggling me a little bit now that I think about it and see what you guys are talking about. Because, is there a way Falcon HAS to be played? Or can you play a character even if you understand every little things he has, in a way you think is right? Which style is better in that sense? Can something like that be shown.. like do all pro Falcons play Falcon is meant to be played/same way all the other top players with their own characters?

nope, hate to say it but i dont understand the critique of HOW you should play as long as it worked out completely fine. Scrubby scrub style is fine if it works and you win. Styles can be gayer than one another but in this game, winning is what matters. Although I highly highly prefer doing it by not being a ****.

You weren't being very gay but your opponent sucked massive ballz

so only real critique I can give about your video is you are playing someone like 10x worse than you so if you want true critique then play someone who isnt bad

silentspectre is a minimalist, I am the direct opposite spamming the most moves (my greatest strength and weakness)

 

[Divinokage]

nope, hate to say it but i dont understand the critique of HOW you should play as long as it worked out completely fine. Scrubby scrub style is fine if it works and you win. Styles can be gayer than one another but in this game, winning is what matters. Although I highly highly prefer doing it by not being a ****.

You weren't being very gay but your opponent sucked massive ballz

so only real critique I can give about your video is you are playing someone like 10x worse than you so if you want true critique then play someone who isnt bad

silentspectre is a minimalist, I am the direct opposite spamming the most moves (my greatest strength and weakness)

Unfortunately, there's only 1 active player right now that's about my level that I can play with and we don't really record. The rest of the zone here does suck massive balls so there's nothing much I can do about that. =/ We've been trying to level them up a lot but even then.. not good enough.

 

[0Room]

s l o x
That's fine

edit;
I AM SO ANGRY YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW

Saska
2 things
1) This is a really hard match up that requires a lot of experience before you really feel like you can move significantly and to a point where you can really control the match. So try and find someone who likes sheik and play them until you don't wanna live anymore
and then play them some more from beyond the grave

2) Thanks for mentioning that it's PAL. Not a lot changes in the match up afaik but it's good to mention nonetheless.

Alright so actually into the match

The hardest thing I think is positioning. Neutral game is just a fight for stage control between Sheik and Falcon, Sheik using her legs, needles, and threats of dash attack to keep Falcon far from her, and Falcon using his mobility to get close.
A good match to watch is this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nd6t2H6zgW8&t=01m40s [before this is a match vs Falco, you can watch it if you want but it doesn't really help you here]

See how Darkrain wants to keep moving, but close enough to the Sheik to make her feel pressured? Sheik is going to try to push you away out of your personal fear of being hit [which turns this into something horrible] but you have to kinda keep close.
That being said, Sheik's moves are actually quite counterable. Ftilt can be CC'd, outspaced by nair/bair, gone over by dair, and DD grabbed.
That being said, the hardest thing about neutral game is knowing when to come in.
(Dthrow pseudo chains until they DI away, so chainthrow->tech chase at low percents [lots of Sheiks will tech in place because 1) they're not used to teching and 2) why would you ever tech chase them?] will get you some great percents. Another thing you can do, as you learned, was dthrow->uthrow->nair/uair)

On top of that, nair really isn't that great unless you do the Darkrain nair [FF after the first leg to hit the second one low] so dair/bair/knee is really good to come in
Anyway let's actually look at some parts of your video
Start here and watch until the first stock is gone

Do you see how much space is between you and sheik? And also, how lots of your nairs seem to go over her?
Another great example of the space is here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNmAhqWD65M&feature=related&t=05m10s

One of the biggest things is that you shouldn't really throw out moves unless you're in range to hit. A lot of times you naird without really being close. Also remember that side b can be interrupted by anything, and Salevits did a really good job of showing you that. Neutral game entrances will mostly be determined by you running, them missing, and you punishing.

Another important thing is that since you weren't really experienced in the match up, you didn't recognize a lot of times where you could have avoided some minor damage. If you're at low percent and sheik has a lot of needles charged, a lot of times they like to use that early. So when they have needles, and you're at about midstage/far stage, you're gonna have to watch out for them using those.
Also, being at a 45 degree angle under Sheik at any time [especially under a platform] means that needle->grab is coming
You're gonna have to CC/shield->buffer roll to get out of that

If a sheik is stalling on the ledge, there really isn't much you can do about it. You definitely can't come from above like you did, you'll have to slide under and grab right after she jumps off the ledge if you can manage it.
Again there's just a lot of patience in this match up, think of it a lot as Marth and treat it that way.

You picked up on the edgeguarding of Sheik where you hold the ledge until she poofs on stage
And that basically goes in three steps

1) Is she close enough to hit you with the explosion? If no, stay on, knee/stomp->reverse knee when they land on stage. IF not dead, repeat.

2) If yes, time your get up to coincide with the explosion. This might take a bit of getting used to, but just do neutral get up at the exact same time as they explode. If they go for the ledge they're going to be edgehogged, and if they go up, turn around and ftilt them.

3) If they land on a platform, things get tricky. You're not really going to have time to do anything other than a uair which may or may not hit them, so if you can move quickly enough, try to double jump waveland onto the platform and grab them. A lot of times they're going to expect a uair/dair from below and be shielding.
I haven't really decided what I want to do with this yet so definitely experiment and play around with this situation.

But I should stop telling you general things and get on to your actual match
Things I've noticed

1) Your spacing is too far. You DD in ways that lets Sheik breathe, and a lot of your aerials stop right before her. Try to be more confident and move just a bit closer.

2) Your platform traps, at least in the first game, were really slow. You have to react immediately once you see that green flash/tech roll. You seemed kind of afraid to follow up stomps, and decided to stand around and wait for a reaction. You can't let that happen, you have to go out there and destroy them.
A lot of this game is just forcing sheik to pick a reaction and then punishing it. Knowing what actions they're likely going to take is a huge help and unfortunately since you didn't know them, a huge hindrance for you.

3) I am glad you used your invinc to keep Sheik from ledgeguarding you with dsmash [here]
This is something that you need to teach them to fear, a lot of Sheiks feel REALLY comfortable dsmashing near the ledge, and using that invinc to knee/stomp them is absolutely essential to get some breathing room. Don't be afraid of using it! There were a lot of times you jumped/rolled from the ledge when you could have gotten some easy percents. Nair isn't that great because it can be CC'd, so stick to those two.

4) Killing is kind of hard for you
Things to know
uthrow->nair works at exactly 25%
Any lower and it won't work
uthrow->knee works around 80-110%
Not sure on the cut off towards the top but 80% definitely works
Dthrow->knee technically never chains, but a lot of people won't get that perfect DI down and away so just go for that after that percent.

A lot of times you're going to have to mindgame them into things. One of my favorite things is something darkrain did: Knee on shield->fsmash
Fsmash will pull you back and out of their grab range
I'll find the clip sometime later

But basically you're going to have to revolving around that throw->knee or faking them out into a punish.
And whenever you get a hit you need to confirm into a combo, mostly uair into knee. A great combo finisher is reverse bair->knee, sets them up perfectly if they DI correctly.

5) When you're in shield, you're dying.
As a character, Falcon doesn't want to be in shield. If a Sheik is pressuring your shield, try to roll out. You don't want to be there, your shield grab sucks, and Sheik is fast enough to stop any kind of OoS pressure [with the exception of full hop stomp most of the time]
Basically buffer roll is your friend, disengage and come back later on your own terms. Falcon controls a lot of this match through his speed, you just need to be aware of that and avoid being caged in.

Another thing that's worth mentioning is that if you SDI sheik's jab reset up, it works really well. then you can Dj to safety
You can hold upwards [without SDI] and get out as low as 42% I believe

When you're trying to recover, going low is better because dsmash is techable
fair is not (You can actually slip through the dsmash's hitbox because the legs swivel around!)
And remember the whole needles thing
Being semi-close and at a horizontal plane, your get off the ledge option needs to be outside of that free damage [example]

Also
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNmAhqWD65M&feature=related&t=09m10s
ಠ_ಠ

So I think with that I covered everything
Hope I helped
Get him next time my brother

 

[_Rocky_]

Saska, 2 things mostly from watching the set atm:
1. uair beats all of sheiks aerials. you were often trying to outspace his aerials with nairs which works to a certain extent but far from guaranteed to always win
2. salevits likes to dash attack. stomp that ****

will give you a longer reply this weekend

also posting my critique of windrose (without having gotten a 'green light' from him yet)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BF4B2pU1_s

0:16: It's very risky to attack Marth right after an AC nair/rising fair. I'd refrain from it unless I had a certain read on what he'd do.
0:57 that was weird. Thought the sideb would win but seems you were a bit too far away.
1:15 Good
1:28 here's the rising fair again. This time you got him though.
1:40 when they fly at this angle, always do a running rising uair/fh nair. Running up to them (i guess you were going for a grab?) often nets you a fair in the face. You gotta bait their landing with a sideb or something if you can't continue comboing.
1:44 Another attempted punish on a high nair that failed. Seeing as he dtilted after the nair earlier as well, you could've guessed and tried a stomp.
1:58 dthrow uair/fh nair would have comboed. Uthrow could've worked too. Also, many marths LOVE to come down with a dair if you're straight below them. You had a good oppurtunity to bait it out but messed it up :/
2:17 almost had the combo there, seems you messed up the fullhop knee
2:24 nice recovery
2:32 only thing you want to do onstage when edgeguarding marth is grabbing the ledge/marth killer, i feel. Jumping out with a bair also forces him to evade or die and when done in the right position it's also safe even if you miss it.
2:45 that ledgehop dair was very risky and wouldn't have comboed into knee anyway (maybe uair though, dunno).
2:51 risky ledgehop aerial again. Had you went further onstage with it you would've hit him though
2:55 nice job reclaiming center stage
2:58 good
3:09 you seemed to get impatient and threw out a sideb

overall you were definitely playing way below your usual level at the time. Your last stock was by far the best though.

 

[ryankam10]

Approaching sheiks with nairs never works imo
it just doesnt, her ftilit outprioritizes it every single time and you just get comboed. Imo the only way to get into sheiks zone is through mindgames, baiting, or launching a neutral air when shes running away or not expecting it

 

[0Room]

Nair actually outranges ftilt
But only if you do it perfectly

 

[ryankam10]

well yeah well i guess that emphasizes your point that in the falcon sheik matchup you need to have played a TON of sheik games and have a ton of experience to perfectly know the spacing and have it down consistently. its definitely one of the least forgiving matchups, more so than falco, fox or marth...

 

[Deleted member]

it should be pretty unforgiving but thankfully all but 4-5 shieks SUK

 

[saska]

0Room big thanks for the help. I hope i get to play more Sheiks soon so I can try these things. You can probalby see it from that video that I'm currently feeling very uncomfortable and nervous when playing against Sheik.

 

[ryankam10]

is salevits your friend? if no, and if your bigger than him, just beat the **** out of him every time he wins :D there's the solution to 'beating' sheiks. thats definitely what i feel like doing everytime i lose to sheik

 

[0Room]

No problem man. Like every match up, the more you know it and understand it, the easier it is to deal with. If you have any other questions just send me a message.

 

[ryankam10]

Just played ~3 hours of good smash against a marth... feels good man. did some nice ****, the dude has a capture card hoping to upload some vids soon :D

 

[0Room]

Awesome!
Looking forward to seeing combos

That's one thing that I feel like I really have to work on.

 

[ryankam10]

Awesome!
Looking forward to seeing combos

That's one thing that I feel like I really have to work on.

Granted the marth isn't the best but he's pretty good :S I hope that doesn't invalidate the combos and... stuff >_<

Come to think of it it probably does, but let's be honest you can't do those flashy combos on a good player anyways

 

[Divinokage]

Sure you can, you just need to make them guess wrong.

 

[ryankam10]

I guess so. Although if they're like, really on point with DI it's hard to do those crazy like 3 uairs into a knee ****

whenever i land that i just feel so good
rawr

also, after yesterdays session im more convinced that using nair to approach sheik gets you *****. 90% of the hits I got on sheik were due to baiting her into a bad slap or a bad 'something' either by good DDing, baiting with full hop knee, or generally other tricksy stuff, sh waveland etc.

 

[0Room]

If they can't anticombo di you can do whatever the **** you want to
If they anticombo di you're gonna have to be creative

uair should never chain into a knee theoretically
If it does they're di-ing incorrectly

Here's a good example

Spoiler

If Peach DIs the d-throw in at 0% they can just hold up against a SH n-air to avoid the 2nd hit without even needing to SDI it. It's the type of situation that's great for the FJ or instant DJ to FF n-air I was talking about before though. Even if they SDI the 1st kick it'll still get the 2nd hit if you do it right.

Off a grab at like 0-10ish, if they DI the FJ-FF/IDJ-FF n-air low you can FJ double u-air, and if they DI the n-air high you can FJ double u-air or if they were at almost 0 when you grabbed you could also SHFFL u-air to FJ double u-air. When she's at around 20+% she can't n-air between the u-airs in a FJ double u-air, and d-throw->FJ/IDJ FF n-air gets her to that percent and in the right position for it when they DI the throw high at very low damage.

________ DI N-Air High -> FJ Dbl U-Air ________ DI N-Air High -> SHFFL U-Air -> FJ Dbl U-Air

________ DI N-Air Low -> FJ Dbl U-Air

___________ U-Air -> No Hitstun

Grab on Peach below 15%
You can try to regrab if they DI the throw low until like 30/40ish, though it's not entirely guaranteed and it's possible to DJ/wiggle to airdodge away to escape if they DI it low enough.

If they DI to be just above regrab height you can space a SH n-air since it has more vertical range at his feet, but if they SDI it up (holding up doesn't work) they'll still be able to avoid the 2nd hit. If they do this I don't think you can really do any good followups on the throw at very low damage that lead into more things besides maybe weird stuff like a pivot b-air, or IDJ d-air over her into a techchase (you go over n-air range). If you try to FJ/IDJ FF n-air the 1st kick will go over them and miss so you can't use that.

An u-air off a d-throw at 0% at best has you getting out of lcancel lag at the same time she gets out of stun (gif at the bottom), so you'd need to space it and then try to work around what she does afterwards to get something else in. If she DI's the u-air low off a grab at around like 10 or so you should be to get a JC grab off, though if she DI's the u-air high you can't hit her.


Grab on Peach after 15%
U-air actually has some stun at this point so out of the throw you can start to u-air->regrab/FJ dbl u-air, or straight FJ dbl u-air depending on DI. Don't bother with n-air since if they DI it high at this damage you won't get as much off it as you would an u-air.

See how he had to go into a regrab in the third video? He had to go into a regrab because of that DI down
So that's what he means by that DI breaks combos
However it gets wrecked by hard hits like knee which is the concept behind DI

And yes nair is theoretically bad
It's why I've moved away from that into the big four of dd, knee, stomp, and grabs
You can't really CC those effectively, and even with nair, if you hit with the tippy toes of your feet, you can get away
It's just really hard in that match up to get that hit in

 

[ryankam10]

do you approach with stomp? o_o

 

[Wenbobular]

Overshot stomp is a fine approach if you think they're in dashdancing mode

 

[ryankam10]

Hmm... I should try that. I sometimes use aerials if I think they're running away and can't respond to an aerial from behind them, I do this against both marth and sheik every so often when the situation calls for it. I usually don't stomp though, I usually knee or nair because if I hit the back of their shield or if I get a hit it leads to a grab or some gentleman shield pressure something.