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[Mr. Bean]

Wait, so why a bigger stage against sheik? aren't stages like dreamland 64 in her favor?

 

[net1234]

hey guiz how do u deal with the cpu multi jabs? like if a person did that it would totally work on me how do i quit getting jabbed

 

[Clebus]

SDIIIIIIII

 

[Bones0]

Wait, so why a bigger stage against sheik? aren't stages like dreamland 64 in her favor?

The larger stages are more conducive to Marth abusing his superior movement. I also think spread out platforms hurt Sheik's punish game more than it hurts Marth's, but that might be more controversial.

hey guiz how do u deal with the cpu multi jabs? like if a person did that it would totally work on me how do i quit getting jabbed

SDI out and/or CC grab.

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

How does Marth make better use of DL than ICs?

As for Sheik one element of options for Marth is that on YI I believe he can DI straight onto a platform from 0% on Shiek's Dthrow and not only have DI options, but tech options as well. The more stuff your opponent has to cover the more room for error they have to make. On DL, you have to basically to wait until about 60% I believe until her Dthrow could ever put you on a platform.

Is anyone familar with using DI behind into SideB stall at all on Sheik's Dthrow from like 0% to 20%? I am not certain if people I play against are slow at trying to regrab me on this DI, but often I have gotten away with that and they whiff a grab.

Same thing with Marth's Uthrow -> Utilt. Sometimes I can get out with SideB and not sure if they are slow or not.

 

[Bones0]

How does Marth make better use of DL than ICs?

As for Sheik one element of options for Marth is that on YI I believe he can DI straight onto a platform from 0% on Shiek's Dthrow and not only have DI options, but tech options as well. The more stuff your opponent has to cover the more room for error they have to make. On DL, you have to basically to wait until about 60% I believe until her Dthrow could ever put you on a platform.

Disclaimer: I have virtually no Marth vs. ICs experience (I barely have any even with Falco), but here are what I would think to be the main advantages of DL vs. ICs and plats vs. slow floaties in general:

- Wide stage lets you do more defensive movement on the ground. Obviously, ICs can move defensively as well, but I think, at least vs. Marth, their defense consists of having hitboxes out (ice blocks and Nana blizzard primarily). They can WD back well and DD decently, but it's not like Marth should ever be getting DD grabbed because he has so much range that only Fox, Falcon, Sheik, and himself are really fast enough to ever get around his attack in time to grab before he dashes away or dtilts/utilts. So overall, the matchup seems like it consists of ICs trying to trap Marth in the corner where he can't use his ranged attacks and movement while Marth just tries to poke the ICs until he can get a confirm and start comboing/juggling. Hence, the width of FD, PS, and DL seem useful.

- Side platforms let you escape the corner. So taking the same sort of mentality as above, if Marth is at his worst when cornered, then platforms enabling him to get out of the corner should be pretty helpful. In most matchups, Marth players dislike using plats at all because characters like Fox and Falcon will react to you going up there and uair you into oblivion. ICs have a solid uair, but they are too slow to capitalize on Marth WLing onto a side plat of DL (YS and PS are obviously different stories). If they FH on reaction to you jumping, there's nothing really stopping you from A. fairing and beating them outright, B. dropping back through the plat and uairing, C. WLing back and fairing/uairing, D. WLing forward before their aerial is out and gaining center stage, or E. a bunch of other subtle variations of the above. My point is it seems risky for ICs to directly punish Marth on a platform. I know as Falco I don't usually get uaired standing on a plat. I get uaired right before I land on a plat or intercepted as I try to jump from one plat to another. You can either fight your way through a grounded IC player who's tossing ice and snow in your face with Nana, or you can get on the plats and potentially take a stray uair

- Marth's platform camping is actually pretty strong vs. slow characters. ICs, Samus, Puff, and Peach all struggle with platform camping, but Marth's tend to avoid this. And rightfully so to an extent. Getting hit by these characters on a plat isn't impossible, and it can definitely lead to bad situations (especially with Peach), but it's also worth noting that 99% of the time you see Marths on platforms, it is not on their own terms. You never see a Marth trying to utilize platforms and get hit, it's also a Marth coming down from a juggle where the opponent has full stage control. Marth's shai drops and runoff aerials are simply really hard to contest. Next time you play a slow floaty, try getting on platforms to bait them, then runoff and bair as soon as they are within range. If you corner them, FH above them and immediately regain stage control by WLing back with a fair. The main problem with Marth on plats isn't really his movement, since his WLs are great and his problem definitely isn't a lack of appropriate moves since these kinds of patterns don't require long-lasting hitboxes like other characters have. The biggest problem is you lose the threat of grab, but I think in mus where grab doesn't yield very good punishes or isn't safe in general, I'd almost prefer to utilize platforms. I get avoid their grabs/projectiles simply by being on the plat, I can avoid and easily punish any attempt they make to hit me on reaction, and I can simultaneously cut off routes to center stage and the side/top plats. These same dynamics apply even if Marth is the one cornered aside. The only thing that changes is you are actively looking for chances to retake stage control instead of guard it, but you're still really safe while doing so.

Of course, this is all an obscene amount of theorycraft and nothing is ever as clean cut in practice, but hopefully someone can test this out and/or post their thoughts and even throw out some problems I may be overlooking. I'm lookin' at you, PP!

Is anyone familar with using DI behind into SideB stall at all on Sheik's Dthrow from like 0% to 20%? I am not certain if people I play against are slow at trying to regrab me on this DI, but often I have gotten away with that and they whiff a grab.

Same thing with Marth's Uthrow -> Utilt. Sometimes I can get out with SideB and not sure if they are slow or not.

That sounds interesting. There might be some hurtbox manipulation that goes on that allows you to escape, so I would ask in Kadano's thread.

 

[TheCrimsonBlur]

@ Bones0 is right on this one

Not really theorycrafting tbh. I've been doing it for a while. But I guess I'm not PP or M2K so no one notices lmao.

Marth's platform game is dominant vs ICs on Dreamland. I don't know if that makes him win the stage vs them or whatnot, but it's important to know.

 

[rd1023]

Approaching a campy falco is a real problem for me, any advice? I can deal with other projectiles fairly well but falco seems almost impossible to approach, esp on a stage like dreamland.

 

[Gannonspetmoblin]

Same thing with Marth's Uthrow -> Utilt. Sometimes I can get out with SideB and not sure if they are slow or not.

Pretty sure Uthrow > Utilt is never a true combo in that MU but the thrown Marth only has a 1 or 2 frame window to act before getting hit so it still generally works if they're not 1337 at escaping it

http://smashboards.com/threads/kada...-data-application.337035/page-8#post-16084304

 

[Clebus]

Can you buffer a jump out of the up throw?

 

[Kadano]

Can you buffer a jump out of the up throw?

No. http://smashboards.com/threads/kada...-data-application.337035/page-9#post-16087370

 

[Bones0]

You can tap jump for a 3-frame buffer though.

 

[townes]

I'm sure my question is somewhere in these 378 pages, but it's 2014 and I'd like to know what marths are doing today to stop it. That is sheiks who constantly jump needle pivot and try to get the jank falling needles grab or just needle pivot and come down with fair or bair and the cover their **** with insta-jab. I wreck face against traditional sheiks who do what they're supposed to and stay grounded. I can DD dtilt and grab for days, but that strategy falls apart against the best dude in my region who just air needle camps. I've experimented with run up crouch utilt, but its risky and often doesn't work. And I've experimented with fairs, but often I still get hit by the air needle if I come in with a fair, or he just sees what's going on and slaps me with his fair or nair. That type of sheik play pretty much neutralizes my DD dtilt and grab game. I'm marth ride or die and take great pleasure in beating evil sheiks. I wanna do it with the sword guy. Please halp

 

[Bones0]

I'm sure my question is somewhere in these 378 pages, but it's 2014 and I'd like to know what marths are doing today to stop it. That is sheiks who constantly jump needle pivot and try to get the jank falling needles grab or just needle pivot and come down with fair or bair and the cover their **** with insta-jab. I wreck face against traditional sheiks who do what they're supposed to and stay grounded. I can DD dtilt and grab for days, but that strategy falls apart against the best dude in my region who just air needle camps. I've experimented with run up crouch utilt, but its risky and often doesn't work. And I've experimented with fairs, but often I still get hit by the air needle if I come in with a fair, or he just sees what's going on and slaps me with his fair or nair. That type of sheik play pretty much neutralizes my DD dtilt and grab game. I'm marth ride or die and take great pleasure in beating evil sheiks. I wanna do it with the sword guy. Please halp

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere you can shield grab needle -> grab. You will lose to needle -> jab, but you can just OS a CC grab. If they needle cancel and aerial, then oh well, you can't really complain about being in a bad mixup situation when you let Sheik late fair your shield. You either have to call the needle cancel and attack them, or not get into that situation in the first place. Other things that may work situationally: buffering a roll after he needles/before he aerials, running under him to cross him up, countering the needles/aerial, crouch-PSing the needles back at him (not sure if that even works with aerial needles). Ultimately, you should avoid being under a FHing Sheik in the first place, and you will need to mix up your anti-needle strats so you don't get predictable. Getting better at punishing his attempts to jump-needle in the first place will help deter him from going to that option, and Marth's fair is a really good way of dealing with it than most characters have (as Falco, this needle stuff is really annoying and I have no huge hitbox in front of me to smack them out of the air with).

 

[tauKhan]

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere you can shield grab needle -> grab.

I'm pretty sure you can't shield grab well executed needle -> shield grab. Consider that needle does 3 dmg unstaled, that's 4 frames of hitlag + 3 frames of shieldstun, so needle + immediate land would be +3 on shield. If the needle is staled at all, hitlag reduces to 3 so it's then only +2 though. After doing some experiments I'm confident that you can hit with a needle and land on the next frame. I also did some practical testing, during which the needle grab usually beat shield grab.

 

[Bones0]

I'm pretty sure you can't shield grab well executed needle -> shield grab. Consider that needle does 3 dmg unstaled, that's 4 frames of hitlag + 3 frames of shieldstun, so needle + immediate land would be +3 on shield. If the needle is staled at all, hitlag reduces to 3 so it's then only +2 though. After doing some experiments I'm confident that you can hit with a needle and land on the next frame. I also did some practical testing, during which the needle grab usually beat shield grab.

Thanks for correcting me. I guess a buffered roll is the best option if you are forced to shield perfectly thrown needles, but I'd still wager that shield grabbing is a worthwhile risk because they aren't going to throw the needles and time the grab correctly every time. 3 frames of advantage is not much leeway.

 

[ShroudedOne]

The Sheiks I play against must be really bad in that case, I usually shield grab needle grab for free.. >_>

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Its like doing an aerial on shield. If it hits high, you get a free punish. If they do it at the absolute lowest, you can't punish (shine OoS still works)

 

[townes]

Are their any notable marth/puff dual mains? PPMD and PewPewU don't play puff, and M2K's only comes out in teams. As far as I know Hbox, Darc, Soft, and most notable puffs don't have a marth. Has anyone ever done the marth puff and done well? Just curious, thanks for the sheik stuff though Bones, I'll try it out for sure

 

[Clebus]

Soft has a pretty sick marth, but i don't think he uses it except in friendlies.

 

[AbsoluteBlack]

Local legend here in DFW Bluezaft is a Marth/Puff, the Puff for sheik and teams. He's a solid player even though he never travels, he's taken games off of/had close sets with Wobbles and taken sets off of texas players who are starting to be more notable.

 

[townes]

All day every day while I'm at school, in the gym, at work, and especially while playing smash, my mind is constantly struggling to either pick up a secondary or not. I tried sheik and puff, but i don't like to play them. Although playing sheik did help me understand her better. The secondary with the most potential for me is definitely fox. I've put a lot of hours in the lab with him, and I'm not averse to spending egregious amounts of time polishing fox tec. But what worries me more than anything else in the world is that my secondary will in any way negatively affect my marth. And even scarier is what if I used ALL of that time to practice marth instead? Marth is my boy, but sheik and yoshi are definitely my hardest matchups (ya, yoshi, there's a godlike yoshi in knoxville. I can't ever practice against him and apparently yoshi wins the MU, wuuut). I don't know whether I'm hurting myself down the road or not by playing characters other than marth. Fox doesn't even have a sword, but still. What do I do?

 

[Bones0]

All day every day while I'm at school, in the gym, at work, and especially while playing smash, my mind is constantly struggling to either pick up a secondary or not. I tried sheik and puff, but i don't like to play them. Although playing sheik did help me understand her better. The secondary with the most potential for me is definitely fox. I've put a lot of hours in the lab with him, and I'm not averse to spending egregious amounts of time polishing fox tec. But what worries me more than anything else in the world is that my secondary will in any way negatively affect my marth. And even scarier is what if I used ALL of that time to practice marth instead? Marth is my boy, but sheik and yoshi are definitely my hardest matchups (ya, yoshi, there's a godlike yoshi in knoxville. I can't ever practice against him and apparently yoshi wins the MU, wuuut). I don't know whether I'm hurting myself down the road or not by playing characters other than marth. Fox doesn't even have a sword, but still. What do I do?

Just play Marth.

 

[Clebus]

Yooo townes who's this yoshi from knoxville?
edit: also is townes your tag?

 

[BTmoney]

What's a good way to deal with ledge hop lasers as marth? As fox you can just jump over them and bair, shine them, or call it out with a dash attack but how about marth?

I feel like jab could be really good but I don't know, d tilt is hard to get all the time

Edit:

Also, how do people feel about dashing away when falco approaches with a laser and taking the laser which makes you turn around and then jabbing (to try and stop a typical laser-> follow up setup?

I remember pp said something about jabbing more vs lasers

 

[Meru]

Working off the assumption that his lasers lead to a grab on you or other followup -
If you have a falco on the edge, standing too close could mean punishment; you should be at least far enough away to react to an aerial from ledge (i.e, he can't hit you with rising ledgehop aerials). This means your concern is not of being hit by an aerial, but reacting accordingly. From this same position, you can react to his LHDL. Crouching at this position means you can react with dtilt - quite a discouragement for a falco. Falco will be dtilted DJ-less if he tries a LHDL, so his good options from ledge are immediate ledgedash, waveland on platform, or refresh invincibility-> side-b to center stage, or roll. if he can invincible ledgedash (something hugely uncommon amongst falcos as opposed to foxes), you probably should be worrying more about that, and keeping distance so he can't get an invincible move on you. You can react to Falco's platform wavelands from ledge, and you can wavedash OOS in response to side-b. As for roll, you don't want to hit with sourspot dtilt, so it's better to grab. You have pretty decent options just doing this (crouching), as a starting point. With a High/Low LHDL, from a crouching position you could also practice PS'ing the high laser, and seeing your followups from there. If he drops really low, you can spam dtilt as he comes up, or dash/wavedash back and shield/take hits, giving up a little space, yet keeping an (albeit, less) advantageous position.
And if he's getting predictable and you're willing to take a bit of a risk, you can read with a counter in either scenario.

Hopefully that helps! I'm a relative newcomer to the scene, and have been lurking for a while, so some of these things may be incorrect. I'm also not particularly good at articulating my thoughts either (not that this is an abstract theory, which helps).

 

[Dr Peepee]

What's a good way to deal with ledge hop lasers as marth? As fox you can just jump over them and bair, shine them, or call it out with a dash attack but how about marth?

I feel like jab could be really good but I don't know, d tilt is hard to get all the time

Edit:

Also, how do people feel about dashing away when falco approaches with a laser and taking the laser which makes you turn around and then jabbing (to try and stop a typical laser-> follow up setup?

I remember pp said something about jabbing more vs lasers

You can get close and shield grab/jab/dtilt/maybe other stuff in between lasers. You can also counter if you super call it I guess.

Yeah that's some good stuff on dash take laser jab. I actually never thought of doing/thinking about it like that before where you can think of the laser repositioning you so that's a cool way to think about it. Moving forward and backward into take laser jab is pretty sweet and so is taking laser either way and dashing off of it. Mobility remains Marth's strength and Falco's weakness in this matchup and it also gives Marth the potential to outspace Falco again.

As I said before, it's just a different way of doing things than normal but that doesn't mean it's bad for him necessarily.

 

[townes]

Yooo townes who's this yoshi from knoxville?
edit: also is townes your tag?

The yoshi is yoshiscool most recently going by the alias of swoleyoshi420. My tag's Ippo.

 

[Clebus]

Oh hey Ippo we've played
but i thought justin was from murfreesboro lolol

 

[schmooblidon]

marth has this weird aerial interrupt with his bair. if u time a bair as u are rising through a platform, you get a no impact land and the animation ends abruptly. You can l-cancel it too. I can't seem to get a hitbox out, but it could be possible if u time it late. any of you guys know of this, or any application for it?

theres also a similar thing with neutral b. if you let go of neutral b as you are rising up to a platform just underneath, you warp onto the platform and slash. its probably the same timing as a no impact land.

 

[Meru]

I think what's happening with your bair and neutral b is that as your collision boxes(?) are adjusted throughout the move (for bair, whilst with neutral b, marth lunges forward somewhat during the attack frames), you're just popping up onto the platform when you usually wouldn't be. More specifically, for bair, between frames 6 and 7, marth's back foot pops down a little bit. For the bair, if you started it up and no hitboxes came out it's also possible that you could auto-cancel it in this way.
As for application, you could maybe use the bair->platform to trip people up in a platform tech-chase, or the shieldbreaker -> platform as a way to edgeguard in very specific situations (although nair would almost always be better), but there aren't any concrete uses that come to mind for me.

 

[Bones0]

I instantly landed on the side plat of Yoshi's yesterday with a rising FH uair. It was crazy looking, and I'm wondering if I can replicate it. It probably requires hitting the opponent at the right time though.

 

[schmooblidon]

I think what's happening with your bair and neutral b is that as your collision boxes(?) are adjusted throughout the move (for bair, whilst with neutral b, marth lunges forward somewhat during the attack frames), you're just popping up onto the platform when you usually wouldn't be. More specifically, for bair, between frames 6 and 7, marth's back foot pops down a little bit. For the bair, if you started it up and no hitboxes came out it's also possible that you could auto-cancel it in this way.
As for application, you could maybe use the bair->platform to trip people up in a platform tech-chase, or the shieldbreaker -> platform as a way to edgeguard in very specific situations (although nair would almost always be better), but there aren't any concrete uses that come to mind for me.

You are probably right about it being your ecb? becoming the right height. The weird part is, for the bair, it snaps to the platform and shortens your jump height. In regards to autocancel, I thought bair didn't have autocancel frames before the hitbox? only after.

I instantly landed on the side plat of Yoshi's yesterday with a rising FH uair. It was crazy looking, and I'm wondering if I can replicate it. It probably requires hitting the opponent at the right time though.

Perhaps it's the same thing that happens with doc/mario/luigi 's upair, which is how I discovered this tech in the first place. Marios being the easiest to perform you just full hop below a platform (battlefield is easiest), and do an upair as you go through the platform. You snap to it and shorten your jump height, your character gets squished too. You can get a hitbox out with theirs and l-cancel + edge cancel it.

 

[Meru]

You are probably right about it being your ecb? becoming the right height. The weird part is, for the bair, it snaps to the platform and shortens your jump height. In regards to autocancel, I thought bair didn't have autocancel frames before the hitbox? only after.

hm. Maybe if your ecb (haha thanks, I forgot what to call it) is changed enough even during the jump, it's treated as landing. Perhaps melee reads collision with platforms as something to do with a consistency in momentum - if you're going up through the platform the whole time, then you can land on it once you finish and land again. It may be like the thing when you aerial fast enough out of a platform drop and end up on the platform. As for the auto-cancel frame thing, I guess you're right - I just checked the hitbox thread and it seems it only has AC frames afterwards.

This may be something to send Kadano or Magus to explain.

 

[townes]

So i'm tired of being obliterated my my buddy's falcon. I've read matchup guides on it most notably TAI's new guide and I watch vids of other marths doing it right like pewpewu vs s2j and orly and a few of ppmd's matches. I try to good marth stuff, but I tend to get grabbed a lot. My buddy's falcon dash danes the whole game until he sees an opening and he runs in and gets his grab. He's very conservative until h has a punish situation and then he capitalizes extremely hard. Also to counteract his style, he will randomly go in every once in a blue moon with a raw knee and it's neigh unavoidable since I never expect it. The real problem is that my defense once getting grabbed is pretty ****ty. If it's at low percent, he dthrows me and regrabs until i'm off stage, then he upairs me twice and waits for me to recover, makes my upB on stage, dairs me and reverse knees me pretty cleanly every single time. If I get grabbed at mid percents he dthrows and strings upairs to knee. If I'm at high percent he dthrow knees, and if I'm at really high percent, he uthrow... you guessed it. KNEE.
What is the appropriate DI for escaping dthrow and different percents, uthrow at different percent, and upair chains into edgeguard or knee? Also what do I do since falcon' DD game is better than marth's in neutral? And is there anything I can do if I'm forced to upB onstage not to get immediately dair reverse kneed?
I figure since he's so decidedly better than me in that matchup I should start focusing on refining my defense every time I play to at least give myself a fighting chance. I can beat every falcon in memphis decisively except him and i win less than 1 in 10 against him. Please help me

Cliffs: DIing falcon's everything, falcon defense game

 

[Dr Peepee]

I'll leave the DI advice to others. I'll do a simple neutral post for you.

I think you need to be more comfortable going in with Dtilt. WD and run canceled. If he's hitting you out of those approaches then you only need to WD/dash/run AS IF you wanted to Dtilt. Then you can punish his grab on what your approach would be. If he begins to jump to counter your Dtilt, as he should, then you can Fair him kind of on reaction(especially since he will probably have to do his attack more or less in place to hit you as you come forward.)

Here's a rule I use against Falcon:

Never jump first.

It's super easy to DD grab punish Marth jumps(especially if he moves forward with them) so that's why you don't want to do that much.

If Falcon can't DD like when he's cornered(which this guy might do more since he's being defensive!) then you can jump at him more then since he can't dash back to dodge you.

Good luck.

 

[Meru]

So i'm tired of being obliterated my my buddy's falcon. I've read matchup guides on it most notably TAI's new guide and I watch vids of other marths doing it right like pewpewu vs s2j and orly and a few of ppmd's matches. I try to good marth stuff, but I tend to get grabbed a lot. My buddy's falcon dash danes the whole game until he sees an opening and he runs in and gets his grab. He's very conservative until h has a punish situation and then he capitalizes extremely hard. Also to counteract his style, he will randomly go in every once in a blue moon with a raw knee and it's neigh unavoidable since I never expect it. The real problem is that my defense once getting grabbed is pretty ****ty. If it's at low percent, he dthrows me and regrabs until i'm off stage, then he upairs me twice and waits for me to recover, makes my upB on stage, dairs me and reverse knees me pretty cleanly every single time. If I get grabbed at mid percents he dthrows and strings upairs to knee. If I'm at high percent he dthrow knees, and if I'm at really high percent, he uthrow... you guessed it. KNEE.
What is the appropriate DI for escaping dthrow and different percents, uthrow at different percent, and upair chains into edgeguard or knee? Also what do I do since falcon' DD game is better than marth's in neutral? And is there anything I can do if I'm forced to upB onstage not to get immediately dair reverse kneed?
I figure since he's so decidedly better than me in that matchup I should start focusing on refining my defense every time I play to at least give myself a fighting chance. I can beat every falcon in memphis decisively except him and i win less than 1 in 10 against him. Please help me

Cliffs: DIing falcon's everything, falcon defense game

I'm gonna say everything in the case that a rightward facing Falcon has grabbed you.

Dthrow's KB angle is 80, meaning optimal for behind is 170, optimal for out is 350 - just above the far left notch, and just below the far right notch, respectively.
When Falcon dthrows you, down/away DI is pretty much the "best" (although I don't like saying that) DI from 0 - ~70%. Falcon shouldn't be able to dthrow regrab you if you DI down+away, at any percent (I'm pretty sure), as long as you buffer a roll/spot dodge (though spot dodge vs falcon is pretty scary). He can start getting dthrow -> uair around mid to high 30's, the DI for which (i.e., the DI you should use on uair) Ill cover farther below. From 70 on, you should mix up away with inward DI off of a dthrow, though for the most part, good falcons will have stopped dthrowing before this. In this situation, you should try hard inward DI because Falcons will instantly dash to cover away DI, so they have to momentum stop with a jump and drift wherever to get the knee - a bit harder than the dash -> sh knee that's guaranteed on away DI.

Uthrow's KB angle is 88, meaning optimal for behind is 178, optimal for out is 358 - just above the far left notch, just underneath the far right notch (though with factory inaccuracies with control stick coordinates, and the little it actually matters, it's pretty much enough to just hold hard left/right)
Off of Uthrow, It's almost always bad to DI in/behind Falcon (Falcons will almost never uthrow below about 30%, unless it's some weird mixup). Once you reach around 30%, falcons stop Dthrowing in favor of the uthrow. If you recognize, from habit, when your opponent will start stop Dthrowing and favoring uthrow (assuming it's ~30%), then you can DI hard behind. From 30-40%, hard behind DI on uthrow is harder to cover as falcon. This is because he has to hit with a reverse Uair (which you can DI down and tech) or he has to turn then instant upair in time, which is quite difficult. After 40 however, DI hard out. Upairs are guaranteed off uthrow now, so your best bet is still, to DI hard down+away to escape combos. Once you reach ~68 - 100%, Uthrow -> Knee is guaranteed, but hard away DI (358 degree) will require the most inputs for Falcon to Knee you (making it more difficult), while other DI's mean he can just full jump and drift left/right to knee. After 100-110ish, you can hard DI out of his uthrow and dj away, or even counter or air dodge or something janky like that.

Uair's KB angle is gonna be 30 (mid), although with (clean), it's 45 (in the air - it's input as 361, meaning it's a sakurai angle*), and with (late) it's 0.
This means optimal DI away is 300 for the (mid), optimal down/away is 315 for (clean), and optimal DI for (late) is 270. 300 is between the far bottom and diagonal down/right notches, pretty much halfway between, but slightly closer to the diagonal notch. 315 is the diagonal down/right notch. 270 is the far bottom notch.
Optimal for in/up would be 120 for (mid), 135 for (clean), and 90 for (late). 120 is between the far top/ diagonal top/left notches, but slightly closer to the diagonal notch. 135 is the diagonal top/left notch. 90 is the far top notch.
The kind of "scooping" motion upair falcon uses is probably clean hit, and likely is the most common to get hit by. I'm not sure when mid would commonly apply, except for edgeguarding high. Late is probably going to hit with his reverse hit uair.
*Sakurai angle: http://www.ssbwiki.com/Sakurai_angle
Basically, when the victim is in the air, it gives a 45 degree knockback angle (KBA). on the ground, it gives a 0 Degree KBA. But once the Knockback exceeds 32, it changes to a 44 degree KBA. (really, KBA scales from 0->44 as Knockback goes from 32->32.1). On marth, Falcon's unstaled (clean) uair does over 32.1 Knockback to marth at 4%. so not that you would really worry about DI too much at that percent, but don't worry about the 0 degree KBA

Knee's KB angle when sweetspotted is 32, sourspotted is sakurai angle. Use the Uair angles for combo/survival DI on this, as they are essentially the same in their respective cases.

As for when you upb onto stage and he Dair's you, Dair's KB angle is 270 (unless it's nipple spike, which is 290 but whatever), and I'm pretty sure(?) that it's more easily DI-able when you DI in front of him. If you're recovering from the right, then, you would want to hold 180 - the far left notch, to make it harder for him to knee you afterwards, instead of getting the no-work-required full hop reverse knee without any movement. If you're a higher percentage, however, and he's just gonna knee you, I recommend going for the amsa(h)? tech roll in, and then buffering a jab/taunt when your roll finishes to avoid flying off the ledge anyway from leftover momentum.

I may have gotten a bit carried away - and some of it might not be wholly accurate, but this is the best I can do for now. I'm glad you asked this - I was in good need of being less lazy and really learning this stuff, from my friend, whose falcon I play all the time. Hope it helps, and good luck with beating that Falcon.

ED: just fixed the direction on the control stick relative to the notches on the first paragraph
ED2: learned about Sakurai angles, wrote them in to correct.

 

[townes]

Thanks Meru and PPMD. Turns out I was using survival DI which often was leading to my regrab or uair strings I think. I will start aggressively DIing dthrow down and away and DIing uthrow straight away. I'll DI the upB onstage dair punish straight away to escape reverse knee. That was mostly what I got out of your post Meru. Thanks a bunch for all the math and numbers. I think that'll seriously help me in the MU by just letting me live longer. PPMD I'll go practice my WD dtilt DD game. I feel really confident in that in the ditto and against sheiks who stay grounded like they're supposed to, but it's scary against falcon. I think I need to take the pace more in this matchup. Generally I bait out reactions and wait to go in, but this might be the biggest matchup where DDing forever is actually a bad strategy. I was also reading through the falcon MU thread and apparently I need to be capitalizing harder off of dthrow tech chases, so I'm gunna go practice on 20XX random falcon. I'll post improvements nect time I play with my dude, probs tomorrow or Thor's Day. Thanks smash brus.

 

[Clebus]

What's the orientation for knockback angles?
Is 0 straight up, and does it increase clockwise? (assuming the character faces right)
Edit: or 90 straight up decreasing clockwise? (0 right, increasing anticlockwise)
Edit Edit: the second one seems right

 

[Bones0]

What's the orientation for knockback angles?
Is 0 straight up, and does it increase clockwise? (assuming the character faces right)
Edit: or 90 straight up decreasing clockwise? (0 right, increasing anticlockwise)
Edit Edit: the second one seems right

0 is horizontal right. 90 is straight up. 180 is horizontal left. 270 is straight down. If they use a negative value, mirror the positive version of the angle across the horizon (i.e. -20 degrees is at 340).