Meta Falco: Approaches and Combos/Strings

[~Daniee]

Since Falco can use both Dash attack and F-air out of his D-throw, I was wondering, which option is better?

 

[Ffamran]

I don't think anyone has really messed around with PP off his dthrow because you can still land a nair/fair/bair off it just as easily. At low percent like that you can reset the string with another grab and go to town with an up-throw into a up-air > fair, or just up-air them to 50-60% like Capt would, then try to end it with a well read bair or fair.

I feel like PP'ing could be somewhat useful, but the ways you stated seem to be perfectly viable if you land the grab at that early a percent.
Also another idea, wouldn't fthrow PP>face forward>up-tilt/ftilt be a good follow-up around probably 30% or so?

Retreating perfect pivot Ftilts and Dtilts. For Ftilt, it's your standard spacing and footsie tool, so retreating with a hitbox is just normal, but with Dtilt, you're throwing out a disjoint and retreating with it. Falco and Ike perfect pivot Dtilts probably should be looked into for close combat neutral options.

There's also perfect pivoting just 'cause like in this match: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBdPzcJF2rg. Kind of like how people just pivot walk with Falco. Considering how much distance he can get out of the two, it's just another movement option available for him to mess with people.

Edit: Oh, and retreating perfect pivot Side Smashes as an anti-air option. It's too slow for a neutral option, but because it's transcendent, Falco can pretty much challenge anything if he can hit a hurtbox. Probably not against say, Ike, Shulk, or Marth, but if Sheik Fairs too predictably, then she'll eat a Side Smash not to mention that a trade with that would totally be in Falco's favor. Stutter step Side Smashes... Might be something we want to look into. Bait an aerial or option by running and then BOOM! Side Smash.

Since Falco can use both Dash attack and F-air out of his D-throw, I was wondering, which option is better?

He can also do Nair, Bair, or Blaster out of D-throw. It's dependent on your opponent's DI, but to be safe, Bair since it has low landing lag and you can auto-cancel it. Landing on the stage with Fair isn't exactly safe even though there's a landing hitbox and the landing lag was reduced by 7 frames from patch 1.0.7 to 1.0.8 - it used to be 32 and now it's 25. Dash attack can cause a 50/50 for Falco where if the opponent techs, then it's a whiff or some characters like Luigi or Fox will just use an aerial instead since it's telegraphed - Falco's running up, so what's he going to do? Most people new to Falco will D-throw to dash attack, so it's a known setup and one that's not a true combo. Bair also gets more reward, so there's that too; 13% clean hit or 7% late versus dash attack's 9% clean or 6% late.

 

[NotAnAdmin]

I love pivot f-smashing on obvious attacks like that!

It really shows off how much range it has and it combines multiple strengths Falco has. Such a fun option.

 

[Top Boss]

We all know that falco's neutral air is an amazing combo tool. something i decided to try out before was applying RAR(reverse aerial rush) to extend falco's combos. Basically what i mean is, instead of just always moving across the stage with nairs, you can turn around and nair. its hard to explain, but i hope you understand.
d throw-RAR nair is guaranteed and sets up for multiple RAR nairs. Multiple RAR nairs keep you and your opponent stuck in the same area of the stage instead of slowly going offstage. d throw>multiple RAR nairs can do up to 50 on big characters!
i could see this being applied to quickly rack up damage, but dont want opponents offstage quite yet. eventually i'll upload a video of this to youtube and post a link here. i hope you understand what i meant by this.
(also, nair>RAR bair is a kill confirm)

 

[Mk28]

Isn't the last N-air kinda unreliable? I haven't used it much because of that. I'll keep an eye out and try to use this combo.

 

[Top Boss]

i dont find it unreliable at all. it was before the 1.0.8 patch however. when i get home i'll try to post a youtube video about this.

 

[Ffamran]

We all know that falco's neutral air is an amazing combo tool. something i decided to try out before was applying RAR(reverse aerial rush) to extend falco's combos. Basically what i mean is, instead of just always moving across the stage with nairs, you can turn around and nair. its hard to explain, but i hope you understand.
d throw-RAR nair is guaranteed and sets up for multiple RAR nairs. Multiple RAR nairs keep you and your opponent stuck in the same area of the stage instead of slowly going offstage. d throw>multiple RAR nairs can do up to 50 on big characters!
i could see this being applied to quickly rack up damage, but dont want opponents offstage quite yet. eventually i'll upload a video of this to youtube and post a link here. i hope you understand what i meant by this.
(also, nair>RAR bair is a kill confirm)

This was more or less a day one patch 1.0.8 finding for Falco when people noticed how Nair would always send people the way Falco's facing. Examples being these videos from @I Am Normal (IAN) right after the patch was live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FXzYeU1TJA and: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qVL_i2WCJY. Or this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DtulmpL2-c#t=0m36s. Also, note that Falco's Nair does not have a windbox; it's just the autolink angles interacting weirdly with his high jump and the game trying to figure out how to connect a rising Nair.

People just don't use his Nair a lot for some reason even though it's much more reliable than pre-patch 1.0.8 and it's a move that can control your opponent's launch trajectory. Like the example of the D-throwing Captain Falcon near the ledge and going for a Nair. What if your opponent expected a follow up and tried to DI out? Welp, since you just hit them with a Nair and sent them towards the stage, you could end up making them DI towards you for more followups.

Isn't the last N-air kinda unreliable? I haven't used it much because of that. I'll keep an eye out and try to use this combo.

Pre-patch 1.0.8 Falco Nair lacked autolink angles found on moves like his Fair, Fox's Fair, Zelda's Nair - which is what Falco's Nair is basically now except for a lack of different hitboxes, being 3 frames faster than hers in startup, and having 4 frames less of landing lag, but a slightly worse auto-cancel window -, Ike's Aether spin part, Yoshi's patch 1.1.0 Bair, and more that allows multi-hit moves to connect easily. Autolink angles drag opponents into you allowing hits to connect, but people can exploit that and cause semi-spikes like with Fox's Fair.

Using Nair backwards was one of the ways to make Nair connect better pre-patch 1.0.8. Why? I don't really know and I can only guess that it might have to do with how Falco's hitting with Nair. He's spinning diagonally with his back hits being higher up. Probably makes that harder to fall out of rather than hitting low and end up clipping people too low and they fall out.

 

[Snipnigth]

sooooooo, anyone as found any shieldlocks or shieldhitsstun that lead to grabs for falco?

 

[BlueBirdE]

sooooooo, anyone as found any shieldlocks or shieldhitsstun that lead to grabs for falco?

I dont think we have the frames to do that unfortunately. Maybe i read it wrong but it looks like were slightly safer on bair, weak dair, tipper dtilt but nothing on + advantage

 

[FMHappy]

With the new shield changes, are nair and fair reliable approach options? Are they safe on shield now?

 

[Dark Dire Wolf]

With the new shield changes, are nair and fair reliable approach options? Are they safe on shield now?

Based on my FG experience (so take it with a grain of lag salt), nair still isn't safe. For fair, I sometime can get away if I space it really well, but it's still pretty punishable considering the landing lag.

 

[IndigoSSB]

With the new shield changes, are nair and fair reliable approach options? Are they safe on shield now?

I've managed to get a decent number of tournament matches with the new patch. Honestly, at least for me, nair and fair are pretty much the same as before. I feel like nair doesn't have enough multi hits to take advantage of the patch and fair has too much landing lag for it to be useful for attacking shield.

They're still just as useful as they were pre-patch. Nair is still great for pressuring shields beneath platforms. However I don't think any of it benefited from the patch.

 

[Zelryem]

Okay, clearly I need to be directed to some more videos or get some tips on how I should be spacing bair so I don't get shieldgrabbed every time I try to approach. His only aerial approach options seem to just be bair itself, but even if I do it quickly, I seem to just get grabbed out of it, and it makes it very hard to get anything going. Any tips for a very new Smash 4 Falco?

 

[NotAnAdmin]

How long have you been playing? It takes a bit of time to learn how to Falco so just take your time.

First of all, Falco isn't the character that should be doing much approaching (we learned the hard way), most times in the neutral the best idea is to stay back and space them out on their approach. His best spacing tools are his jab 1 and 2, ftilt, dtilt, uptilt, and bair. Some other like to use upair but it's a bit iffy. Learn to use these well.

There are plenty of Falco videos from all over posted in the Happy Feet thread. The most recent ones have the newest patch too.
http://smashboards.com/threads/happy-feet-falco-video-thread.376351

 

[BlueBirdE]

Dtilt and bair will be ur favorable pokes since theyre pretty safe on shield. I mix up retreating sh nairs and an occasional sh fair in there to meet opponents air to air or catch them trying to grab or doing a grounded attack. At mid high percents I start mixing in ftilt since it causes tumble state by that point. I also have a habit of doing full hop ff nairs and timed full hope dairs which end with no landing lag but I feel those are just gimicks i should weed out eventually.

 

[McDareth]

I honestly think Falco benefits a good deal from Sliding Pivots. Lets us mix up empty hops with Grabs or approaching Down Tilts. And lets us extend strings with Up Tilts. My favorite is Down Throw > RAR Bair > Sliding Up Tilt to either extend the string or catch their option OoS.

 

[Snipnigth]

So most ppl know that you can cancel your sh airdoge landing lag by pressing attack button just before landing, its very useful for approaching while evading an attack, but has anyone noticed that you can also cancel the landinglagg using a B move? for example you can sh airdoge away and cancel the landing lag with blaster or reflector or phantasm, the cool thing about canceling with phantasm is that it leaves you almost touching the ground, so the move will cancel almost instantly. Hope this helps, and sorry if someone posted this info already :3

 

[NotAnAdmin]

I never really thought of doing that, sounds like a good way to make an approach on a character with a projectile or a getaway.

 

[BlueBirdE]

I like to use sh airdodge as a mixup and a retreating tool. Its mainly mind games for me to force an option from the opponent when i do it. Sh airdodge to jab,tilt is good for approaches too its relatively quick.

I found myself lately using jab oos as my main punish tool but i should probably start implementing usmash oos since its a frame quicker. Ever since the big falco patch I hardly kill off the top anymore if at all. What are the best uses/situations for usmash?

Also anyone know where i can find fall/fast fall speed information?

 

[Snipnigth]

I found myself lately using jab oos as my main punish tool but i should probably start implementing usmash oos since its a frame quicker. Ever since the big falco patch I hardly kill off the top anymore if at all. What are the best uses/situations for usmash?

Falcos upsmash is kind of unsafe and hard to kill with, it dosent pack the same power as foxes, but the hitbox is active much longer, its good to cover dodges and wake ups, but very unsafe, its also good as anti air but it sometimes wifes the second hit :/

 

[Ffamran]

Falcos upsmash is kind of unsafe and hard to kill with, it dosent pack the same power as foxes, but the hitbox is active much longer, its good to cover dodges and wake ups, but very unsafe, its also good as anti air but it sometimes wifes the second hit :/

It does the same amount of damage, 16%, if both hits connect while Fox has 3 hitboxes that does 16%, 14%, and 11% (late) on his. Falco's Up Smash is active for 13 frames vs. Fox's 4 and Falco recovers 6 frames earlier than Fox; Falco's Up Smash has 49 total frames to Fox's 55. Of course, being a multi-hit, the second hit's lower damage does hurt its kill ability. Fox's sweet-spotted Up Smash will do 16% with 30 base, 94 growth, and send you up 80 degrees while Falco's second hit of Up Smash will do 12% with 30 base, 98 growth, and send you up at 80 degrees. Yeah, that 4% more on the single hit of Fox's kills like 30% earlier than Falco's. The only issue is that it can sometimes drop the second hit...

With Utilt's 10 active frames and Up Smash's 13, Falco can cover the regular getup and jump getup options at the ledge pretty well.

 

[Snipnigth]

It does the same amount of damage, 16%, if both hits connect while Fox has 3 hitboxes that does 16%, 14%, and 11% (late) on his. Falco's Up Smash is active for 13 frames vs. Fox's 4 and Falco recovers 6 frames earlier than Fox; Falco's Up Smash has 49 total frames to Fox's 55. Of course, being a multi-hit, the second hit's lower damage does hurt its kill ability. Fox's sweet-spotted Up Smash will do 16% with 30 base, 94 growth, and send you up 80 degrees while Falco's second hit of Up Smash will do 12% with 30 base, 98 growth, and send you up at 80 degrees. Yeah, that 4% more on the single hit of Fox's kills like 30% earlier than Falco's. The only issue is that it can sometimes drop the second hit...

With Utilt's 10 active frames and Up Smash's 13, Falco can cover the regular getup and jump getup options at the ledge pretty well.

whoa! always thought foxes upsmash had a faster recovery, but still foxes has a lot more knockback and its more reliable :/

 

[Ffamran]

whoa! always thought foxes upsmash had a faster recovery, but still foxes has a lot more knockback and its more reliable :/

Falco's Up Smash always had lower recovery than Fox's. In Melee? and Brawl, it had 40 total frames which made sense since it only did like 10%. Imagine Falco with an Up Smash that did 16% with 40 total frames. Yeah...

Technically, Falco's Up Smash has more knockback, but only 4 KBG. It's the damage that matters since the 16% or 14% from Fox's Up Smash will always be more powerful than Falco's multi-hit Up Smash of 4% + 12%. At the same time, it's kind of dependent on positioning. Pre-patch 1.0.8 Falco's Uair did the same damage as Fox's second hit of Uair, 11%, and I think more knockback, but high up in the sky, the extra 5% from Fox's first hit of Uair will let the second hit kill sooner. That and the hit angle; Falco's always send people kind of slightly to the sides while Fox's always sends people up 85 degrees; the closer it is to 90, the harder it is to DI which is why Rosalina's Uair is so deadly despite technically only being as strong as Falco's post-patch 1.0.8 Uair. Damage and knockback work together along with positioning, hit angles, DI, rage, etc in drastic ways.

 

[BltzZ]

Okay, clearly I need to be directed to some more videos or get some tips on how I should be spacing bair so I don't get shieldgrabbed every time I try to approach. His only aerial approach options seem to just be bair itself, but even if I do it quickly, I seem to just get grabbed out of it, and it makes it very hard to get anything going. Any tips for a very new Smash 4 Falco?

Takes some practice but basically when you rar bair you don't wanna land in front of them you wanna keep his momentum moving away from the opponent.

You need to do bair as you're rising, then during the fall you pull away. If they pick up on this and go for dash grabs you can always f tilt to stuff their approach or uptilt.

 

[BlueBirdE]

Bair is mainly safe on shield if u retreat with it since its -6 at best to an oos option (grab,up smash oos,etc.) and -2 at worst with a shield drop. If you time and space it right u should be able to atleast spotdodge any attempt at a counter attack from your opponent.

 

[Snipnigth]

If you use bair then ff and immediately throw a tilt or jab its gonna be hard to grab you, Bair is Falcos safest move on shield..i think.. haha

 

[Wyles]

For Falco Ftilt and Dtilt are really helpful in neutral. When tippered for ftilt it's safe on shield and conditions them to shield. When they get shield happy, you can go for the grab and do his amazing UThrow Strings. Dtilt has good IASA frames. Back air could be used but it's not AS safe on shield. Again you could use this to condition your opponents with tomahawk grabs. Empty hop FTilt is also a strong option. Seriously Falco's FTilt is among the best in the game, it gives him a fast spacing option, and does a respectable amount of percent for it's speed.

As Falco you should be walking most of the time since his walk is almost as fast as his run, which is an obvious advantage since you have all your options available to you (like FTilt).

Laser's are mostly used for disrupting approaches but I personally use them for specific matchups, such as Fox offstage to force him to Up B.

AC (ranked #1 player in Tijuana, currently considered the most successful Falco main) mentioned to me that onr grab should equate to 1/6 of their stocks). As for combos Falco gains most of his damage from his aerials (obviously). He has an above average grab game and can rack up 20-30% with one grab.

Up Throw is easily his best reliable combo option. Up Throw -> Nair -> Nair racks up ~28%. At mid percents Up Throw -> Nair -> Fair does around 25%. Up Throw -> Up Air does 18% is guaranteed until much later percents. Falling Up Air is a strong combo starter but isn't safe on shield but leads into bigger damage.

Dthrow is his second best throw option since it can set up for the jab lock. I dont use Dthrow for combos since up throw is better for that. Depending on the character, I use dthrow on low percents as a mixup hoping they dont tech, and i get the jab lock. When I get the Jab lock the most percent I labbed with is Dthrow -> Ftilt x3 -> Falling UAir -> Utilt x2 -> Uair -> Bair which does ~70%.

The only trouble i really have with falco is getting the kill. He has no kill confirms but the closest i can think of is at high percents, UThrow -> DJ Uair to bait airdodge -> Bair. Other than that Falco has a great gimping game for securing the kills 8-)

 

[da K.I.D.]

F tilt scares me because it has like no kb at low percents so i feel on like theyre going to punish me on hit for it

 

[Zionaze]

Then mash that 2frame jab of yours

 

[Ffamran]

F tilt scares me because it has like no kb at low percents so i feel on like theyre going to punish me on hit for it

That's an issue with not having base or weighted knockback like Fox's Ftilt which has 10 base or say, Ike's jab 2, the kick, which has 40 or 25 or 50 weighted depending on where you hit. (10) Base knockback would be a boon for Falco at low percents and make his Ftilt safer while weighted knockback could be good for Falco's jab to make it not be stupid at low percents due to jab causing low hit stun, especially at low percents and noticeably if you try for jab mixups against a button-happy player. At the same time, just outright lower total frames leading to lower recovery for both Ftilt and jab would be fine too.

I suggest learning Falco's range with Ftilt. At low percents, it'll be much safer to hit at max range than accidentally hitting up close and doing too little knockback. If for whatever reason you don't feel comfortable with spacing or dealing with Ftilt's low knockback at low percents, use Dtilt instead. The only drawback is that Dtilt only works on grounded opponents, so if Link decides to use a dash attack, his Jump Attack, or someone jumps and does an aerial, Dtilt will not work on them. Dtilt's max range is also the about same range as Ftilt, so if you learn Dtilt's max range, you'll learn Ftilt's as well.

A way to backpedal from a whiffed Ftilt or a pointblank Ftilt at low percents might be to immediately jab, Utilt, Dtilt, or even Reflector. Don't Ftilt and unless you're really sure, don't use any of your Smashes as while Falco does have one of the faster Up and Down Smashes, they still have high recovery like most Smashes. Jab, Utilt, and Reflector are the quickest options with Reflector being the least safe if that whiffs as well, however, Reflector can be confirmed from a Ftilt or Dtilt at low percents, so keep that in mind along with Reflector's longer range - whiffing a Ftilt because you were too far could be used as a bait or covered with Reflector. Dtilt's the "slowest" - it's just 1 frame slower in startup, but has the same total frames as Ftilt - option, but the most rewarding option as you'll probably end up hitting with the 12% hit or the 11% hit.

Then mash that 2frame jab of yours

Times like this makes me wished Falco could hold jab to continually jab 1 like Little Mac, Captain Falcon, Fox, Ike, and Mario. It'd look silly though since Falco's jab is kind of unorthodox.

 

[Zionaze]

I love snakes jab 1 lmaoo

 

[da K.I.D.]

Can you explain the concept of weighted knockback in a bit more detail please

 

[Ffamran]

Can you explain the concept of weighted knockback in a bit more detail please

Weighted knockback is essentially set knockback. Reason why it's called "weighted" is that Smash uses weight to calculate set knockback unlike other games. Examples of moves with set knockback are Falco's Blaster and most multi-hit moves like Zelda's Nair, Fox's Uair, and Captain Falcon's Up Smash. Set knockback lets the looping like the first 5 hits of Zelda's Nair or a part of multi-hit moves like Sonic's Utilt to do damage and setup the last hit without doing too much knockback and fail to connect at all.

Link to Smash dictionary: http://smashboards.com/threads/the-smash-dictionary.374538/ and the SBBwiki's entry: http://www.ssbwiki.com/knockback.

 

[da K.I.D.]

I assume you mean the first hit of fox up air, falcon up smash and sonic up tilt that combo into the second hit with all the knockback.

So the first hit of those three moves have knockback values based on the weight of the other character so that the first hit combos each individual character into the secondnhit consistently.

Am im understanding that right?

 

[KayJay]

Falco is my secondary and I have something to share:

Also for the luls, this happened in the last weekly tournament I played:

 

[Conn1496]

Those combos are pretty situational, but surely not to be scoffed at. Definately shows that players should be scared of Falco's potential.

 

[KayJay]

It's situational but when Falco is hanging on the ledge, you have a good chance to perfectly set up the combo after DJ > Airdodge from the ledge into the enemy (who's most likely standing near the ledge) and U-Air him.

 

[Conn1496]

It's situational but when Falco is hanging on the ledge, you have a good chance to perfectly set up the combo after DJ > Airdodge from the ledge into the enemy (who's most likely standing near the ledge) and U-Air him.

Yeah, but that's still situational really - and that's not even considering that your opponent can watch for it and potentially punish. It's still impressive and useful, no doubt - with a good read I bet this could turn into an easy stock - but it's not gonna be something you can just throw out any time is my point. lol

 

[Ffamran]

KayJay , we have a combo thread, post that there... or well, I'll just merge it.

I assume you mean the first hit of fox up air, falcon up smash and sonic up tilt that combo into the second hit with all the knockback.

So the first hit of those three moves have knockback values based on the weight of the other character so that the first hit combos each individual character into the secondnhit consistently.

Am im understanding that right?

Yep. Still doesn't guarantee the second/last hit will connect for whatever reason. I'm going to guess it has to do with how knockback works in Smash compared to other fighting games.

Edit: Footstool setup on DK: https://youtu.be/-y3ImkPlWjU.

 

[Snipnigth]

Yeah, but that's still situational really - and that's not even considering that your opponent can watch for it and potentially punish. It's still impressive and useful, no doubt - with a good read I bet this could turn into an easy stock - but it's not gonna be something you can just throw out any time is my point. lol

Yeah falling, upair its not something you can spam, but, its not really so unsafe either, if spaced it correctly its realatibely safe on shield....also, you can set up these combos with dtilt as well instead of falling upair, but you have to hit them with the hitbox closest to Falcos body...on other characters like DK and C.falcon, you can combo d-throw into full hop upair and then fair or bair, but i think it depends on DI, it wont kill but its a lot of free damage....

Also i was playing a friend yesterday he was DR. Mario and we where figthing in smashvill, he was at 0%, i did a falling upair then, dtilt, full hop into fair, then landed on plataform that was off stage and did another fair into the deadzone, it killed, it was a cool 0% to death combo, although i think he could have airdodged the second fair....anyways just wanted to share this to show falling upair potential.