Once again, hell no to Falco being able to auto-cancel to his Blaster. Less end lag instead, please since it's freaking stupid when Luigi, Fox, Rosalina, Villager, Mii Gunner, and Sheik can "rapid-fire" their projectiles with or without customs and get away with it easily with probably at most, 49 frames of end lag or little landing lag for Villager and Mii Gunner. Falco? Falco can't act out of Blaster until frame 59. That's basically 1 second since this game runs at 60 frames per second. What. The. Hell. Mario can't act until frame 53, but at least he can cover angles Falco can't. He can jump, throw out a retreating Fireball, and cover his approach. Falco can't do that when his short hop already makes it so the laser goes over most of the cast. The Pits can't act until frame 62 on the ground or 46 in the air, but they can control their arrows and once again, cover angles Falco can't. They also travel much further. Greninja, Samus, Link, Toon Link, Mewtwo, and Lucario get so much out of their chargeable projectiles. At full charge, Greninja can't act until frame 91, but that move kills and catches you while uncharged, frame 51 until he can act. Fully charged, Samus gets to act at frame 61 with a move that kills while uncharged, it's frame 46. For Lucario, fully charged, he acts at frame 62 with also another move that kills and 49 uncharged. Should we also mention how he can use Aura Sphere to combo into stuff like Up Smash or just do damage up close? Mewtwo gets to act at frame 45 with a fully charged Shadow Ball and 49 with an uncharged one. Really? It wrecks shields, kills well, and helps with recovering. Falco gets so little while suffering with a projectile that has end lag similar to charged ones. The things you get from his Blaster is 3% and a chance to gimp while others cover approaches, distract, force approaches, edgeguards, kill, and even hit confirm with projectiles. Zelda's Din's Fire at least kills despite being considered a laughably bad move, but compared to Falco's Blaster, I'd rather take Din's Fire since at least I can chance a kill than deal with a hoping for a gimp. Screw it, give Falco a shotgun. Now he'll have a stupid anti-air and kill move.
What I do agree with ZeRo is that Falco's Blaster does need a change if he wants something to force approaches or approach. This assumes Falco doesn't suddenly get a mobility buff. The most reasonable one would be lower end lag, say, frame 48 instead of frame 59. If this results in the removal of Falco's ability to continually fire or even a damage nerf, so at max range, it only does 2%, sure, whatever. The worst would be auto-canceling since it would mean Falco can limit people's options horribly. The even worst one which wouldn't happen since the developers aren't idiots, would to increase end lag. Then there's stupid changes like faster travel speed, faster rapid-fire, etc. which doesn't fix the problem: safety.
Falco's neutral was Blaster in Melee and Brawl, but in a really broken way. Not like Mega Man and his lemons or Fox's, "Hey, make a move or I'll spam laser until you're at 999%". It was limit people's options so badly that he cheeses the entire game, especially in Brawl where his Blaster was just ridiculous. I would like it if Falco could do this: So, let's say frame 48 is low enough end lag. Falco fire his Blaster, the laser hits the opponent, forces them to shield, or jump. The moment they do that, Falco is pretty much close to finishing his holster animation and can walk or run up, fire again or if he's close enough, just attack, grab, etc. with his opponent. What I don't want is something where Falco can spam lasers, lock you down, and limit your options in an annoying way like how Sheik can sort of do with her 1 single, 1% Needle or the "fear" Luigi creates with his Fireballs where he can distract you and grab you or something. What would be reasonable is a projectile people can react to and isn't overwhelming, but also a projectile that Falco can use reliably. So, something like Ryu's Hadouken.
The rest of Falco's ground game is good, but there are 4 moves I'd like changed which also goes in line with ZeRo's thoughts on Ike's buffs. The 4 moves are jab, Ftilt, Dash Attack, and grab. Jab? Why jab? Jab canceling. Not to the extent of Fox's, but something like in Brawl where Falco could jab 1 or jab 2 and Dtilt, grab, etc. He can do that, but it's slow and dangerous since other characters can grab between or even during his jab at times if he doesn't go full on rapid jab. It would give him more options to an already good move. Asking for lower end lag on his jab 1 and jab 2 if people don't understand.
For Ftilt, it's because of 2 things: end lag and knockback. Falco's Ftilt does a constant 9%, but it has no base knockback and only knockback growth (100) while having 28 frames of end lag. Oh, and it slightly has more range than Fox's. Fox's Ftilt does 8% angled up, 6% normal, and 7%, but it has 10 BKB, 110 KBG, and 24 frames of end lag, but slightly less range. Fox also runs much faster than Falco and he can do those weird pivot Ftilt to Utilt or whatever. Less end lag would be nice, like 25 instead of 28 or just some BKB like 10 since without it, at low percents, Ftilt is punishable since it does little knockback and the end lag is enough where someone could just rush in during the end lag and grab or whatever. Dtilt is a better spacing tool since there is BKB, but it can only hit on the ground while Ftilt can be angled and naturally hits anyone trying to short hop or say, Link doing a Dash Attack. Not a major issue, but something to make his footsies safer.
Dash Attack isn't really for spacing, but punishing which Falco could do well since it came out at frame 4 in Melee and Brawl. In Smash 4, frame 8 on a slow character. Fox is fast and can hilariously spam his frame 4 Dash Attack. Meta Knight has speed to make his frame 7 Dash Attack not seem slow. Falco being slow makes his Dash Attack seem really telegraphed. In a way, it's sort of like Ike's pre-patch Dash Attack that was slow and not that powerful. Now, Ike's Dash Attack kills and it's faster. Falco at least can setup combos from his Dash Attack, but frame 8 on a slow character feels like Falco should at least have more power to his Dash Attack. If it was such a problem, it should have been frame 6 instead, but it was never a problem in Melee, Brawl, or Smash 4. It wasn't a frame 4 Dash Attack that killed at 100%, but whatever, let Fox spam his Dash Attack with his speed. Already went over grab, so there's that.
Air game-wise, yes, he's more cohesive, but that's just it. His aerials are safer, faster, and more reliable. He didn't suddenly gain a kill move or something stupid. That's pretty much it and it's pretty much fine. If Fair was frame 8? Cool, whatever. If Dair was frame 12 instead of frame 16? Sure, whatever. His air game is good, but he does lack mobility to abuse it. At the same time, his air game isn't overwhelming or underwhelming, especially now. Nothing much to say here.
With Falco Phantasm, it was always faster than Fox Illusion. Pre-patch, it was frame 18 and now it's frame 19. Why? I don't know. For Fox Illusion, it's frame 21, but it's so much safer than Falco Phantasm because of the complete hitbox. Not going to parrot more of this, but just correcting ZeRo with Falco Phantasm being slower than Fox Illusion.
As for Ike, Ike's jab, Dash Attack, Ftilt, Fair, Quickdraw are all faster. He also has lower landing lag on Nair, Uair, and Dair with lower end lag on Dash Attack and Ftilt. Hitboxes are also changed. Here's the thing, he doesn't function differently. He's just stronger since Dash Attack kills now, Fair's top hitbox allows Ike to mixup his combos, and he can jab repeat at times to rack up damage. Ike was already a strong character with some hitbox issues, but now he's just stronger. Contrast this to Falco whose air game changed functionally, but overall just safer instead of stronger. Falco's air game is functionally stronger, but Ike's is just purely stronger when it was functionally strong. Spacing-wise, it's also stronger in a sense of it being safer with Ftilt's faster startup and jab's better connection and faster repeat. As it stands, Ike's a strong character who at least functions well compared to Falco who functions well, but (still) has issues all over the place with hitboxes, mobility, end lag, and game plan. Falco's game plan is do damage when he's in, but how does he get in, how does he space well without a disjoint or enough range since his aerials don't exactly have good range, and how does he deal with being in a disadvantage state when his recovery isn't even safe?
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