PPMD's Falco Discussion Thread

[Dr Peepee]

What do you think of grabbing ice climbers in general?

I feel as though they are inclined to sit in shield. Empty hop grab, laser grab and shine grab work frequently for me.

Next, what do you think about his throw followups on ice climbers? Mainly curious about dthrow. Do you have a method for which throws you use depending on which climber you grab etc?

Grabbing ICs is great if they're separated at all and especially so if the grabbed climber is high enough percent to be thrown into the other climber. If they're together it's trickier. Dthrow is alright but in my experience I've gotten grabbed out of it strangely so I don't mess with it much. I often opt for Uthrow to quick separate before they can act or Fthrow the climbers into each other. Oh and to answer another question of yours, I prefer to grab popo because nana is harder to control and you can abuse her running into you more often. Nana is easier to grab though so really there are lots of different situations for the grab to me.

Anyway I don't think you should grab vs ICs much at all. Spacing Nair/Bair/Dair on their shield is way easier and gives you tons of advantage.

 

[Yort]

Dr Peepee

I can't find the exact quote but at one point I remember you saying that one reason falco beats puff is because he gets more openings per hit and hits puff harder then she hits him.

Does this imply that you think falco outpunishes puff in the match up? How so?

Also, how do I generally improve my punish game vs puff? Down air tech chase stuff I know, but what aspects of juggles or pseduo combos do I need to look for if I want to improve quickly in this regard? Should I look at specific relevant situations and find visual cues for sharking? Juggles seem abstract and confuse me.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Dr Peepee

I can't find the exact quote but at one point I remember you saying that one reason falco beats puff is because he gets more openings per hit and hits puff harder then she hits him.

Does this imply that you think falco outpunishes puff in the match up? How so?

Also, how do I generally improve my punish game vs puff? Down air tech chase stuff I know, but what aspects of juggles or pseduo combos do I need to look for if I want to improve quickly in this regard? Should I look at specific relevant situations and find visual cues for sharking? Juggles seem abstract and confuse me.

Yeah I think Falco hits puff harder than vice versa because Falco can tank Bairs until like 35% or so, but Puff can't tank Bair as long and Falco's Dair/Shine give him immediate punishes that puff can only sometimes hope for out of uthrow. Obviously she can rest or gimp but those are less likely than consistent damage if both players are playing correctly. Falco can't necessarily true combo Puff forever but he gets really good juggles/edgeguards on her because of how high his FH is and how disjointed his Bair is. This creates a big wall Puff can't really deal with when she's knocked out of her typical weave.

You want to hit (Dair) Shine DJ Dair at lower percents, where you do the Dair as late as possible to get her closer to the ground. Sometimes you can Shine out of this, sometimes Puff is too high up. Even if she's too high up she has to jump away. Then you can hit her again or push her toward the edge for an easier juggle.

Juggles are confusing because they're like neutral with Puff. Count her jumps, understand she will always be trying to stay just outside of your range or just inside it to try and make you commit. If you decide it's not safe after she does this then she can come in/over you for free. I'd suggest watching/playing Puff and looking for those situations and how to handle it.

 

[TheChocolateLava]

Copying a question I asked a friend here for more responses!

Complicated vague question that doesnt have an easy answer-
I'm finding it very difficult to hold center stage on battlefield (and similar stages) against fox. A common situation for me; fox will jump to the side platform, and I am almost always at the losing end of the next interaction. I used to do a lot of fullhop bair, but the foxes I play with are baiting that now and taking center for free. I don't feel confident in this situation, but i have stage, so I think I must not be considering the right options.

I often start spamming ac bair/utilt and get hit by a fullhop approach. the timing of the jump + fh/sh + ff/no ff mixup from that approach is daunting, it doesn't feel correct to try to react and stuff with an uptilt or something. but maybe that's what I need to do?

I have stage, so giving up some space to whiff punish sounds right, but I'm not sure falco has the movement for that to work out. So, usually I end up retreating under the other side platform.

But surely I have better options for holding center?

 

[Dr Peepee]

Yeah on BF Fox can access the stage kinda easily from side platforms. Keep in mind a platform is a shorter length than the bottom of the stage so he has only so much room to move in before acting.

So your options here are

-sh bair to hit the side platform(takes a specific timing, Reddit finally found out about it recently so go look it up there for details)

-utilt to beat anything coming into you(falcos never want to utilt because they're always moving but seriously utilt beats a lot and will trigger the fox player)

-retreating laser to hit possible approaches but keep safe(for when you're unsure)

-ac bair, usually retreating(since they need to come diagonally into you and not on top of you to get hit by bair)

-FH rising OR falling bair(you probably only do rising, but if you do falling as well you'll be harder to read....actually just do different things out of FH and you'll see things get a lot easier)

-sh fakes(can lead into dj early or late bair, land utilt, land dash away laser, waveland to different spot, laser if you think they will shield drop or get down farther away from you, etc)

-shine waveland(really only good if theyre in lag/not paying attention or you think you can outplay them since they can shield drop/shield grab this. It is fast tho)

Of course, you can also just move away like you do, but you want to make it seem like you're trying to hold center when you do this too so you can punish them for coming in instead of just giving them position. Experimenting with all of these options will help you figure out how they're connected and how to beat the Fox player.

One more thing. If you don't know how the Fox is mysteriously getting off the platform, then that should be your first order of business. What does he do and when does he do it? If you can answer that you'll be able to start getting answers.

 

[Bones0]

It's also worth mentioning that if you expect them to jump to the side plat, you don't have to just sit there and watch. Jump and shine their FH or try to poke with uair from below to catch them landing/WLing on it before they get set up. Be careful not to corner yourself or give them an opening to shield drop punish you though.

 

[X WaNtEd X]

Is being able to double shine consistently a necessary tech to get to a high level with falco? I can do it in matches sometimes, but not consistently. I'm trying to decide whether it's worth it to really hammer out. I think if I kept trying it in friendlies enough, I'd get consistent with it, but it would take longer. I don't want to be held back too much because I decided to skip grinding it.

 

[Dr Peepee]

It certainly helps, but it's not more important than say neutral or edgeguarding to get to high level.

 

[X WaNtEd X]

Let me rephrase my question. If I can do all waveshines, shine grab in both directions, shine laser in both directions, jc shine, and have full control over my shine aerials, is that enough tech to build a shield pressure game with enough mixups to work at a high level?

Oh and follow-up question based on that: What is the bare minimum tech skill and movement needed for a falco to play at a high level in today's meta?

I'm curious mostly because I'm getting to a point with falco where I don't think I need to learn too much more tech in terms of execution. A lot of my practice is now put into refining what I can execute and figuring out different situations by using the debug menu and watching videos. Soon, I'm going to switch my practice time almost exclusively over to debug and videos. But before I do, I want to make sure there isn't any essential falco tech that I can't execute consistently.

 

[TheChocolateLava]

Let me rephrase my question. If I can do all waveshines, shine grab in both directions, shine laser in both directions, jc shine, and have full control over my shine aerials, is that enough tech to build a shield pressure game with enough mixups to work at a high level?

Oh and follow-up question based on that: What is the bare minimum tech skill and movement needed for a falco to play at a high level in today's meta?

I'm curious mostly because I'm getting to a point with falco where I don't think I need to learn too much more tech in terms of execution. A lot of my practice is now put into refining what I can execute and figuring out different situations by using the debug menu and watching videos. Soon, I'm going to switch my practice time almost exclusively over to debug and videos. But before I do, I want to make sure there isn't any essential falco tech that I can't execute consistently.

I think you need to build up your own gameplan and make those decisions for yourself? You don't have the tech to execute westballz's gameplan, but neither does anyone but him. You can play without ever using doubleshine if you choose, and you can do fine. Common advice for new falcos is to ignore the multishine options and focus on the shinegrab pressure mixup tree.

I think it's a feedback loop between what you're capable of doing and what you're comfortable including in your gameplan. And so the answer is unique to individuals for the most part.

edit: But maybe you're right about the top level. Like, I lost a falco ditto in grand finals of my school tournament last week because I kept going for double shine without having practiced following up out of it enough. I could have just shinegrabbed or done more simple pressure, but the matchup being so punish heavy influenced my gameplan in that moment to the extent where I felt that I NEEDED to be double shining. In hindsight, my punishes off of a grab (1 throw, 1 aerial, and then some mixup of continuing it) would have been better than doing double shine into a 30% chance of getting my tech right and doing a shine combo and 70% chance of flubbing and not extending.

I don't know if, techskill being equal, a falco who doubleshines is going to lose at the top level to a falco who shinegrabs. But until you're at the top level, you can always be outplaying your opponent more in neutral or defensively or even comboing just as hard off grabs.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Let me rephrase my question. If I can do all waveshines, shine grab in both directions, shine laser in both directions, jc shine, and have full control over my shine aerials, is that enough tech to build a shield pressure game with enough mixups to work at a high level?

Oh and follow-up question based on that: What is the bare minimum tech skill and movement needed for a falco to play at a high level in today's meta?

I'm curious mostly because I'm getting to a point with falco where I don't think I need to learn too much more tech in terms of execution. A lot of my practice is now put into refining what I can execute and figuring out different situations by using the debug menu and watching videos. Soon, I'm going to switch my practice time almost exclusively over to debug and videos. But before I do, I want to make sure there isn't any essential falco tech that I can't execute consistently.

You can make it work with that, but double shine gives more reward for less risk. It's up to you to balance that.

You can always come back and practice double shine after you've begun applying your other tech if you feel you need it.

 

[kaptinkillem]

Is there a consistent option for dealing with fox fullhop drill? Seems so opressive to me. I think that lasering him as he's coming down to turn around uptilt is good but im unsure of whatkind of counterplay fox has against this.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Utilt flat out beats it. Bair also beats it if you can hit it at the correct angle(you may need to dash away to do this). You can also dash away laser it, and if you find yourself getting hit by it as a surprise you can either shine oos(will be a tech skill test between the two of you) or jump into the dair just before he hits the ground which will cancel stun and let you shine.

 

[Prepare_Yourself]

Posed this question in the falco discord, would appreciate some more input.

https://gfycat.com/ScalyHotDoe

Say I want to approach on this link (or say it's a marth, or fox) with a SH laser like this guy did, and I land in front of him. I don't know whether he will powershield it, and I have the options to A. crouch or B. shield. Assuming I pick crouch, I can then cover the chance that they'll powershield me by A1. SDI in, or A2. SDI away, or that they won't powershield by moving the stick toward them (DI's in if they PS) to try to follow up. Assuming I pick shield, I can B1. buffer a spotdodge, B2. buffer a roll in, B3. buffer a roll away, or B4. to react to them getting hit, WD OOS toward or away.

My favorite of the bunch is to crouch, then move the stick towards them (option A1.) It seems like this would allow me to follow up if the laser hits, and possibly even go for a grab if I get hit.
However I'm not sure if this is generally too aggressive to rely on, or if it even allows me to win the exchange assuming they do powershield. However it seems like jumping after landing (which the guy in the gif had time to do) might also work, and then WDing back OOS to try for a neutral reset.

This is all assuming that you don't just jump after landing and waveland onto the platform. Might also be smart.

Would anyone bother to offer any input?

 

[Bones0]

Posed this question in the falco discord, would appreciate some more input.

https://gfycat.com/ScalyHotDoe

Say I want to approach on this link (or say it's a marth, or fox) with a SH laser like this guy did, and I land in front of him. I don't know whether he will powershield it, and I have the options to A. crouch or B. shield. Assuming I pick crouch, I can then cover the chance that they'll powershield me by A1. SDI in, or A2. SDI away, or that they won't powershield by moving the stick toward them (DI's in if they PS) to try to follow up. Assuming I pick shield, I can B1. buffer a spotdodge, B2. buffer a roll in, B3. buffer a roll away, or B4. to react to them getting hit, WD OOS toward or away.

My favorite of the bunch is to crouch, then move the stick towards them (option A1.) It seems like this would allow me to follow up if the laser hits, and possibly even go for a grab if I get hit.
However I'm not sure if this is generally too aggressive to rely on, or if it even allows me to win the exchange assuming they do powershield. However it seems like jumping after landing (which the guy in the gif had time to do) might also work, and then WDing back OOS to try for a neutral reset.

This is all assuming that you don't just jump after landing and waveland onto the platform. Might also be smart.

Would anyone bother to offer any input?

I almost always dash back if I laser on top of someone who isn't already shielding. It option selects a SDI away to avoid powershield grab, and nothing else really deals with it since the laser combos into grab if they do it properly. If they don't powershield, you dash back to run out of their grab/aerial OoS range, but can still quickly dash back in towards them if you want to grab/SHFFL.

For Link, I would shoot low lasers that I can jump over, medium/high lasers I can powershield back, or shoot fake ones if I'm too close to do either of those. His movement is slow enough that you don't really need to laser to contain him, and the powershield is the only way he can grab you in neutral.

 

[V_x_I_D]

I feel like I'm on the verge of a breakthrough.
After taking a vacation and coming back, (i hadn't practiced analyzing any pro matches) I watched a vod and I noticed that I was able to kind of "see" why players were choosing the options they were choosing. I started seeing actual micro-situations unfold in front of me.

I tried playing some netplay and even there I started noticing habits that my opponents had, as if all of a sudden something had clicked, but it seems that I'm stuck somewhere between this stage of autopiloting and knowing what I should do.

How do I keep this up and continue to train this skill? It seems that a situatiom has to happen multiple times before I notice is and actually force myself to capitalize on my opponents' habits.

 

[Dr Peepee]

You just go back to what you did before. You build on the existing knowledge, making it more and more understood until that new level is instinct as well. You can repeat this until you're a top player.

 

[V_x_I_D]

You just go back to what you did before. You build on the existing knowledge, making it more and more understood until that new level is instinct as well. You can repeat this until you're a top player.

Yeah. So it is just forcing myself to recognize these situations and through experience it should stick?

 

[Dr Peepee]

Situations and understanding of fundamentals, yes.

 

[kaptinkillem]

Utilt flat out beats it. Bair also beats it if you can hit it at the correct angle(you may need to dash away to do this). You can also dash away laser it, and if you find yourself getting hit by it as a surprise you can either shine oos(will be a tech skill test between the two of you) or jump into the dair just before he hits the ground which will cancel stun and let you shine.

do you mean just straight uptilt with nothing before it? I've heard uptilt there is a mixup between whether he fast falls the drill or not, is that not true? But thanks for the info, very helpful!

 

[FlockOfFlames]

Hey, here's a mental-related rant/need for advices. Any truth would be appreciated

I've been playing this game for 10 years now, and I'm pretty decent, but I feel like I'm lacking something, a deeper understanding of the game or whatever that keeps me from getting further. When I say I'm decent, I mean that I understand the fundamentals of the game, I can recognize good and bad positioning when I'm playing, all according to my opponent options (when watching my matches I tend to run off a little too much tho, but overall it's good), I understand common options and reactions and know how to mixup. I'm top 10 in my country, went to South Florida and was top 5 or something, so it's not too shabby.

I feel like I'm missing only on details now, micro situations and a bit of better decision making overall. The Game Science Stage you know. As a very instinctive player, this is hella hard (Im still convinced that the best way to learn is relaxed concentration, and just letting your mind process stuff, and occasionally read a thing or two to let your mind process more stuff).

But yeah, I feel like some people have a little something that make them understand the game easier, more naturally, since I'm no more than a mid level player after 10 freaking years of playing. Most of the time when I think about melee, when I try to theorize on abstract concepts like "thinking how my movements affects my opponent" my mind just goes blank. It's frustrating cause I almost never know what to improve on and how, what kind of things I could be doing with the 20XX hackpack and so on. Even when I manage to pinpoint a situation (like, landing with a laser next to Marth's shield) I can't for the life of me decipher it with words, or have a concrete progress out of that. I start thinking about the infinite number of options this game have, and how the hell am I supposed to incorporate all of this in my play, one by one, in less than 20XX years, without even starting to think about mindgames and such. I just read the dissection of Falco's options on shield, this stuff is HEAVY, and it's just one tiny part.

But people around the globe actually manage to do that. To consciously learn things beyond fundamentals, micro situations, by theorizing and applying, even though it's a dynamic game played against humans with what seems like infinite depth. I don't get it. I feel like people who actually progress are people who can say "oh ok, so to progress I need to learn this, and this, and that", very concrete and precise stuff, and they do learn those, it takes them one year but they learned these things and boom, they're good lol. What are those things damnit.

The funny thing is, I can theorize pretty easily what I already know, but not at all what I should learn. I'm stuck here. After all this time and seeing where I currently am, I also have the urge to just stop playing, so maybe that insidious thought hinders my progress too, idk.

EDIT: Paragraphs

 

[Bones0]

Hey, here's a mental-related rant/need for advices. Any truth would be appreciated
I've been playing this game for 10 years now, and I'm pretty decent, but I feel like I'm lacking something, a deeper understanding of the game or whatever that keeps me from getting further. When I say I'm decent, I mean that I understand the fundamentals of the game, I can recognize good and bad positioning when I'm playing, all according to my opponent options (when watching my matches I tend to run off a little too much tho, but overall it's good), I understand common options and reactions and know how to mixup. I'm top 10 in my country, went to South Florida and was top 5 or something, so it's not too shabby. I feel like I'm missing only on details now, micro situations and a bit of better decision making overall. The Game Science Stage you know. As a very instinctive player, this is hella hard (Im still convinced that the best way to learn is relaxed concentration, and just letting your mind process stuff, and occasionally read a thing or two to let your mind process more stuff). But yeah, I feel like some people have a little something that make them understand the game easier, more naturally, since I'm no more than a mid level player after 10 freaking years of playing. Most of the time when I think about melee, when I try to theorize on abstract concepts like "thinking how my movements affects my opponent" my mind just goes blank. It's frustrating cause I almost never know what to improve on and how, what kind of things I could be doing with the 20XX hackpack and so on. Even when I manage to pinpoint a situation (like, landing with a laser next to Marth's shield) I can't for the life of me decipher it with words, or have a concrete progress out of that. I start thinking about the infinite number of options this game have, and how the hell am I supposed to incorporate all of this in my play, one by one, in less than 20XX years, without even starting to think about mindgames and such. I just read the dissection of Falco's options on shield, this stuff is HEAVY, and it's just one tiny part. But people around the globe actually manage to do that. To consciously learn things beyond fundamentals, micro situations, by theorizing and applying, even though it's a dynamic game played against humans with what seems like infinite depth. I don't get it. I feel like people who actually progress are people who can say "oh ok, so to progress I need to learn this, and this, and that", very concrete and precise stuff, and they do learn those, it takes them one year but they learned these things and boom, they're good lol. What are those things damnit. The funny thing is, I can theorize pretty easily what I already know, but not at all what I should learn. I'm stuck here. After all this time and seeing where I currently am, I also have the urge to just stop playing, so maybe that insidious thought hinders my progress too, idk.

(Please use paragraphs. lol)

I relate a lot to what you're saying, but I'm the opposite in many ways. I've very much reliant on breaking down situations as opposed to playing instinctively (not counting punish game where I have pretty reliable instincts). If I have labbed out a situation and figured out a solution, I can reliably overcome it in the heat of battle. Recently I addressed Fox's FH and how it interacts with my lasers. I theorycrafted, watched some vids, theorycrafted more, and wrote down a bunch of solutions encapsulated within an overall strategy.

The next time I played a Fox that FHed in the ways I looked at, I destroyed him, but then I would play a different Fox that played slightly different and my plan would fall apart. Maybe my plan was too specific to be reliably used, or perhaps I just need to be more flexible within my own decision tree structures. I'm not sure, but either way, there's still that sense of "holy moly, I just analyzed a single match for 15 hours over the course of 2 days, improved a ton, but only in this one tiny specific area."

Maybe I'm ignorant to how much other players study their own matches, but it seems like even among the top players, they rarely do this kind of deep analysis. I can totally see PP doing this ofc, since it's basically what he's known for, but when I ask nearly everyone at or slightly above my level how often they study their matches or what they do, they pretty much say they rewatch them and that's it, not even taking notes. I realize some players are going to have a higher natural aptitude than others, but losing to players that are years and years behind me in terms of experience is ridiculously frustrating, and I am starting to wonder if Falco just doesn't click properly with my brain for whatever reason.

The WORST part is I will occasionally play a top player and do amazing. I've taken so many top 100 players to last game and either choked it away or just had a bad break. The fact that this has happened so many times and I still get edged out, even when I'm not playing super nervous, makes me think somewhere in my brain I actually am good, I just can't access it with any remote sense of consistency. The other alternative is I actually just have a really gimmicky play style that players adapt to, but then I feel like I'm at even more of a dead end with how to improve if everything I've learned and practiced is one giant gimmick.

 

[X WaNtEd X]

I think you need to build up your own gameplan and make those decisions for yourself? You don't have the tech to execute westballz's gameplan, but neither does anyone but him. You can play without ever using doubleshine if you choose, and you can do fine. Common advice for new falcos is to ignore the multishine options and focus on the shinegrab pressure mixup tree.

I think it's a feedback loop between what you're capable of doing and what you're comfortable including in your gameplan. And so the answer is unique to individuals for the most part.

edit: But maybe you're right about the top level. Like, I lost a falco ditto in grand finals of my school tournament last week because I kept going for double shine without having practiced following up out of it enough. I could have just shinegrabbed or done more simple pressure, but the matchup being so punish heavy influenced my gameplan in that moment to the extent where I felt that I NEEDED to be double shining. In hindsight, my punishes off of a grab (1 throw, 1 aerial, and then some mixup of continuing it) would have been better than doing double shine into a 30% chance of getting my tech right and doing a shine combo and 70% chance of flubbing and not extending.

I don't know if, techskill being equal, a falco who doubleshines is going to lose at the top level to a falco who shinegrabs. But until you're at the top level, you can always be outplaying your opponent more in neutral or defensively or even comboing just as hard off grabs.

I'm never going to go for the Westballz gameplan--my style is way different than his. The player I think I steal the most from is probably Plup. I think the way he uses platforms is amazing and can be applied to any character to some extent. I'm really good at shield dropping and shai dropping, so that also helps obviously. But anyway, my interest in double shining and other tech is not to emulate others; I just want to make sure I have the tools necessary to make my gameplan work as I get better. I don't want to be in a situation where my gameplan is limited simply because I can't execute everything I need to be able to. You feel me? For instance, I wasn't sure if at a higher level the fact I don't double shine would make my shield pressure exploitable if my opponent figured that out.

Based on your advice and PP's, I'm going to stick with what I have at the moment. The only tech I want to become better at in terms of raw execution (very different than utilization--something I'm trying to work on for everything) is shine oos and ledge dashing. Aside from that, I'm just gonna focus on making sure I'm using what I have well and having larger situational awareness with Falco.

 

[Dr Peepee]

do you mean just straight uptilt with nothing before it? I've heard uptilt there is a mixup between whether he fast falls the drill or not, is that not true? But thanks for the info, very helpful!

If he's at a certain point at his jump where he has to fall into you regardless, then utilt wins. Don't spam it, try to time it. Test it out with a friend to see the nuances.

 

[Ezlo]

Warning: Huge Post

Hey Dr Peepee ! Been a while since I messaged here. I've been following your advice on playing alone, and I can say it's helped a lot

I have a problem where I find it difficult to process everything a character on screen is doing. I know that sounds vague, but I'll try to explain the exact situation as best as I can.

So, again, I don't really have anyone to play with. I've finally managed to contact someone who I'll be able to play with, but he's taking exams right now and so I still won't really be able to play with him for another half month or so. To try and compensate for my lack of people to play with, I've been attempting to analyze matches, but it's really draining. Let me give an example.

Generally, I analyze videos at 0.5x or 0.25x speed on Youtube. However, this time I was trying to analyze a set of you vs. Armada at full speed, and I was going to pause the video every time I saw a shield come up. Then I was going to...
1. figure out why you/Armada went into shield
2. predict what you guys would do OoS
3. watch what you/Armada did OoS
4. figure out why you did what you did OoS

so I started watching, and to my surprise, I didn't see any shields come up for a solid 30 seconds. I thought I must be missing something, so I went back to watch again, and, paying close attention, I only noticed shields coming up very occasionally.

I then put the video at 0.25x speed, to make sure I wasn't missing anything, and realized I missed almost every single time that either of you shielded, without even realizing it. Granted, the shields were only up for a very short time, but the fact that I completely missed it indicates to me that, no matter how good I get at understanding the game, I will not be able to play well to any degree unless I learn to combat my apparent lack of awareness of what's going on.

I think it came from me playing the game for so long without really playing people, meaning that most of my practice, I never devoted the large portion of my attention to noticing what my opponent did (after all, I didn't have an opponent). Even though I love understanding the mental game of melee, and I believe my understanding of it is rather good, I won't be able to access it without this preliminary step.

I've begun trying to watch youtube videos of top players, pausing the video every few seconds, and listing off everything they did. However, this is VERY tiresome, and after doing this a few times, I feel like my progress is very slow. I'll continue to watch and repeat like I have been doing, but this lead to me wondering a few things.

1. (Most important)
Do you have any other ideas for how I could practice improving my awareness of what was going on while onscreen? I'm ready to try things that will be arduous and slow, so any recommendations are welcome.

2.
Do you think it would be best to try and practice observing matches at 0.5x speed first, or perhaps watching floaty matches that tend to be slower paced than spacey matches? I've been considering this, but I'm slightly afraid that I'll learn to watch slower matches but have to repeat the process all over again for faster ones.

3.
When you watch your opponent, do you keep watch for specific things (like, for example, OoS options, teching directions, or DD patterns) and take note of them, or just generally watch and see what patterns you can observe? This won't help me until I can observe properly, but it might help speed up my learning to read once I get to that point.

and finally
4.
Should I continue analyzing matches the way I have been doing up to this point, or should I devote all my focus to learning to observe, first?

I know these are rather unconventional questions, and they might not be as interesting for you to answer, because they're rather unique to me and don't have to do so much with the game itself as learning how to improve at it.
I try to come up with my own solutions for as many of my problems as I can, but on some things like this, I feel it's probably best to ask for a little outside help.

I know my questions are a little hard to answer, so if you don't address one, that's fine. I'm most curious about #1 and #3.

Again, sorry for the HUGE post. I'm really bad about kind of overdoing it on these...

 

[Dr Peepee]

1. What you did was fine. You felt it was tiring so you stopped. Analysis is like building your brain muscle up so it will be tiring at first then easier as time goes on. Many people have a problem with ignoring the fight and just looking for what they're supposed to look for, like you did with shields. It takes training and you were eventually able to see it, but you have to keep training to see all sorts of things. Basically this is something you just need to push through there isn't really another way.

2. BACK IN MY DAY WE ONLY HAD ONE SPEED!!! Alright but really it probably doesn't matter. Try one, try the other, switch between the two. Obviously .5 speed is good for seeing more individual situations and 1X speed is good to see the game as the players are seeing it and getting from situation to situation faster. You'll probably be doing a lot of pausing anyway so I wouldn't sweat it.

3. Break down everything into as many parts as possible. Then those parts will turn into the whole. In other words, look for OOS game like you did, but also when people approached and how and why, how it worked and why, followups and why, etc.

4. You'll learn both together.

Good luck!

 

[AnonymousID]

How good do you guys think are no fast fall lasers, or just lasers with different fast fall timings? Are there any situations where mixing up normal lasers with no fast fall lasers would be a good choice? I'm assuming they would work since people usually react to the jump in order to power shield lasers and this would mess them up. I'm thinking of only doing them at a range where the extra time without a hit box wouldn't be too big of a deal such as when you're on the opposite end of the stage as them. (I just don't want to learn how to do low lasers since I don't really understand their benefits and I think I could spend more time on things like ledge dashing).

Also I feel as if most of the time power shields lead into nothing for the opponent and I can kind of just ignore them. I think at the ranges where power shields are actually really bad for falco, are the same ranges where he can mix up a lot of things out of jump like shffls/shines/wavelands/doublejumps etc. So are power shields actually as game changing as they seem to be?

 

[PolishSmash]

(Please use paragraphs. lol)

I relate a lot to what you're saying, but I'm the opposite in many ways. I've very much reliant on breaking down situations as opposed to playing instinctively (not counting punish game where I have pretty reliable instincts). If I have labbed out a situation and figured out a solution, I can reliably overcome it in the heat of battle. Recently I addressed Fox's FH and how it interacts with my lasers. I theorycrafted, watched some vids, theorycrafted more, and wrote down a bunch of solutions encapsulated within an overall strategy.

The next time I played a Fox that FHed in the ways I looked at, I destroyed him, but then I would play a different Fox that played slightly different and my plan would fall apart. Maybe my plan was too specific to be reliably used, or perhaps I just need to be more flexible within my own decision tree structures. I'm not sure, but either way, there's still that sense of "holy moly, I just analyzed a single match for 15 hours over the course of 2 days, improved a ton, but only in this one tiny specific area."

Maybe I'm ignorant to how much other players study their own matches, but it seems like even among the top players, they rarely do this kind of deep analysis. I can totally see PP doing this ofc, since it's basically what he's known for, but when I ask nearly everyone at or slightly above my level how often they study their matches or what they do, they pretty much say they rewatch them and that's it, not even taking notes. I realize some players are going to have a higher natural aptitude than others, but losing to players that are years and years behind me in terms of experience is ridiculously frustrating, and I am starting to wonder if Falco just doesn't click properly with my brain for whatever reason.

The WORST part is I will occasionally play a top player and do amazing. I've taken so many top 100 players to last game and either choked it away or just had a bad break. The fact that this has happened so many times and I still get edged out, even when I'm not playing super nervous, makes me think somewhere in my brain I actually am good, I just can't access it with any remote sense of consistency. The other alternative is I actually just have a really gimmicky play style that players adapt to, but then I feel like I'm at even more of a dead end with how to improve if everything I've learned and practiced is one giant gimmick.

This.
I feel like Im like this. I focus on little situations.
Maybe we're missing something here...

 

[Yort]

(Please use paragraphs. lol)

I relate a lot to what you're saying, but I'm the opposite in many ways. I've very much reliant on breaking down situations as opposed to playing instinctively (not counting punish game where I have pretty reliable instincts). If I have labbed out a situation and figured out a solution, I can reliably overcome it in the heat of battle. Recently I addressed Fox's FH and how it interacts with my lasers. I theorycrafted, watched some vids, theorycrafted more, and wrote down a bunch of solutions encapsulated within an overall strategy.

The next time I played a Fox that FHed in the ways I looked at, I destroyed him, but then I would play a different Fox that played slightly different and my plan would fall apart. Maybe my plan was too specific to be reliably used, or perhaps I just need to be more flexible within my own decision tree structures. I'm not sure, but either way, there's still that sense of "holy moly, I just analyzed a single match for 15 hours over the course of 2 days, improved a ton, but only in this one tiny specific area."

Maybe I'm ignorant to how much other players study their own matches, but it seems like even among the top players, they rarely do this kind of deep analysis. I can totally see PP doing this ofc, since it's basically what he's known for, but when I ask nearly everyone at or slightly above my level how often they study their matches or what they do, they pretty much say they rewatch them and that's it, not even taking notes. I realize some players are going to have a higher natural aptitude than others, but losing to players that are years and years behind me in terms of experience is ridiculously frustrating, and I am starting to wonder if Falco just doesn't click properly with my brain for whatever reason.

The WORST part is I will occasionally play a top player and do amazing. I've taken so many top 100 players to last game and either choked it away or just had a bad break. The fact that this has happened so many times and I still get edged out, even when I'm not playing super nervous, makes me think somewhere in my brain I actually am good, I just can't access it with any remote sense of consistency. The other alternative is I actually just have a really gimmicky play style that players adapt to, but then I feel like I'm at even more of a dead end with how to improve if everything I've learned and practiced is one giant gimmick.

I strongly believe that the point of using reason and rational in depth analysis is to come to conclusions about specific solutions to specific situations like you did and then influencing your intuition to execute those changes. It's not possible to audibly think out every solution mid match. You use conscious reasoning to come to the conclusion, train your muscle memory or brain in some way to recognize the situation, and then allow your intuition to take over mid match. If I were to put it in inner game terms (I think these might be more relatable to a lot of people here) self 1 is intuition, self 2 is the rational mind. Self 2 is a tool to influence and shape self 1.

I think one of your problems is overthinking and an over-reliance on reasoning, which often (and very easily) leads to error.

 

[PolishSmash]

Hey PP,

When you shine bair or dair, what buttons do you use? Just learning this now wanted to ask you because I use A for my aerials. And do you jump cancel the shine with the analog stick or do you use X/Y?

Also shine OOS

 

[Bones0]

Hey PP,

When you shine bair or dair, what buttons do you use? Just learning this now wanted to ask you because I use A for my aerials. And do you jump cancel the shine with the analog stick or do you use X/Y?

Also shine OOS

It's extremely easy to shine DJ bair/dair with tap jump and C-stick. I highly recommend it. It can be a little trickier to control your drift since you have to angle the stick, but you basically have to do that when dairing anyway and you won't accidentally DJ in the direction you are bairing. Doing the aerial with C-stick also avoids accidental wall jumps when doing LH aerials. I initially switched off of Y+direction+A because if I tried to DJ bair when close to a wall, I would wall jump and totally drop my edgeguard. I still use Y occasionally, but mostly when I'm doing turnaround shines and want to DJ backwards. I find it too difficult to dash left, shine turnaround by rotating the stick right, then rotate the stick another 180 degrees to get a drifting tap jump.

 

[PolishSmash]

It's extremely easy to shine DJ bair/dair with tap jump and C-stick. I highly recommend it. It can be a little trickier to control your drift since you have to angle the stick, but you basically have to do that when dairing anyway and you won't accidentally DJ in the direction you are bairing. Doing the aerial with C-stick also avoids accidental wall jumps when doing LH aerials. I initially switched off of Y+direction+A because if I tried to DJ bair when close to a wall, I would wall jump and totally drop my edgeguard. I still use Y occasionally, but mostly when I'm doing turnaround shines and want to DJ backwards. I find it too difficult to dash left, shine turnaround by rotating the stick right, then rotate the stick another 180 degrees to get a drifting tap jump.

Cool, I'll try that out thanks for the input. Appreciate it.

 

[X WaNtEd X]

Are there any threads on Falco's throws? I find myself guessing what will work too often. The only thing I know so far is that mixing up uthrow and bthrow on fast fallers works.

 

[TheChocolateLava]

Dr Peepee I'm pretty sure I've seen you answer this question a bunch, but I can't find where so I'll ask it again.

Do you have any tips/resources for developing a growth-oriented mindset? Is that mindset something you've had from the beginning? (I guess that question reveals some fixed-mindset assumptions, lmao)

Just to keep things falco-relevant, I'll also ask a quick bird question - I've been trying out approaching with laser shine a lot recently. In my head, I see it as a counter to dashing back. In the footsies triangle, it's kind of like taking space before attacking, like fox running shine. On paper, the laser prevents the dash back and they're in a little bit of stun before I shine them, but its not necessarily a combo. In practice, I find myself approaching with laser and whiffing the shine. Sometimes after a laser, I expect to whiff the shine, and walk forward first, but this is punishable and forfeits the frame advantage from the laser. It's hard to tell if I'm just approaching from incorrect spacing (like, too far away) or if laser startup gives my opponent (a marth for example) enough time to dash away before the laser hits so that the spacing has changed.

It feels like a significant weakness in my marth matchup, because landing at such a range after laser leaves me vulnerable to marth's hitboxes. Of course, sometimes laser shine works perfectly, and I combo them to death and feel like I know what I'm doing. So I suspect that laser shine is gonna be an important part of falco's approach in the matchup, do you agree?

 

[Dr Peepee]

Dr Peepee I'm pretty sure I've seen you answer this question a bunch, but I can't find where so I'll ask it again.

Do you have any tips/resources for developing a growth-oriented mindset? Is that mindset something you've had from the beginning? (I guess that question reveals some fixed-mindset assumptions, lmao)

Just to keep things falco-relevant, I'll also ask a quick bird question - I've been trying out approaching with laser shine a lot recently. In my head, I see it as a counter to dashing back. In the footsies triangle, it's kind of like taking space before attacking, like fox running shine. On paper, the laser prevents the dash back and they're in a little bit of stun before I shine them, but its not necessarily a combo. In practice, I find myself approaching with laser and whiffing the shine. Sometimes after a laser, I expect to whiff the shine, and walk forward first, but this is punishable and forfeits the frame advantage from the laser. It's hard to tell if I'm just approaching from incorrect spacing (like, too far away) or if laser startup gives my opponent (a marth for example) enough time to dash away before the laser hits so that the spacing has changed.

It feels like a significant weakness in my marth matchup, because landing at such a range after laser leaves me vulnerable to marth's hitboxes. Of course, sometimes laser shine works perfectly, and I combo them to death and feel like I know what I'm doing. So I suspect that laser shine is gonna be an important part of falco's approach in the matchup, do you agree?

If you haven't used the search function then use that, I use the term "beginner's mindset" when talking about this so you know the keywords.

I'll go over this quickly.

If you want a growth mindset then it helps to return to a beginner's mindset. When you're a beginner, learning is fun and losing doesn't matter because everything is so fresh and interesting. Your job is to return to thinking that way by imagining how you used to think and applying it to current problems/patterns of thought. There may also need to be changes in your general approach to things and/or solving problems in other areas to free up your focus to be more flexible. This was all the case for me.

If you land close to a character but not in shine distance then you can have some advantage if you use a jab/tilt or something but yeah it's not truly frame safe then. It's better to either close a decent amount of distance at once and get on top of them or to get in closer and play around your laser advantage and mental advantage you would have then. Falco is very good at control and very good at pressure, but the parts in between them he's worse at. This is why I tend to incrementally inch forward so I can check their responses and apply safer pressure without risking that in between part of Falco's game as much.

 

[TheRealAstro]

Dr Peepee
Hey PP,
I wanted to know how you deal with salt and what you do to not get upset about a loss. I always feel like I learn a lot and progress, but then I end up losing to somebody who I feel is very inferior to me as a player. It gives me the feeling the my practice sessions and friendlies I play with friends aren't giving me much experience and helping me become a better player.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Dr Peepee
Hey PP,
I wanted to know how you deal with salt and what you do to not get upset about a loss. I always feel like I learn a lot and progress, but then I end up losing to somebody who I feel is very inferior to me as a player. It gives me the feeling the my practice sessions and friendlies I play with friends aren't giving me much experience and helping me become a better player.

The reason people feel that way is they have expectations for the game and the loss shows a larger distance from those expectations than people would like. To some extent, this is unavoidable. But many people also allow the pain of losing to overwhelm them instead of allowing the opportunity to learn more about themselves and improve in that way. I would recommend taking some time to think about how you would ideally respond to losing, how a beginner would respond to losing, and think about how you may differ there. Then you can begin the difficult process of trying to think in the new way in your mental practice, which will help you encounter the resistance to these things and give you a chance to really grow. It isn't easy but it is very worth it.

 

[kaptinkillem]

I dont have a question rn PP but I just wanna say thanks for being here and answering questions, I'm sure I speak for plenty of others when I say we really appreciate all the wisdom you provide here

 

[AnonymousID]

What do I do against nanapults on FD? I feel like If i get hit by blizzard/Ice blocks I get grabbed and the only other option is jumping which isn't really a good position. Is there anything I can do to stop them from happening in the first place?
Also what if popo does the jumping + iceblocks/blizzards instead?

 

[Dr Peepee]

You can back up and laser it if it's a blizzard, but if it's iceblocks it's usually better to either shoot or FH and get closer so they can't projectile anymore. Staying far away from ICs lets them set these things up so fighting closer where you can space on their shield keeps them from starting anything. Don't be afraid to back up from blizzard though.