Falco Is Horrid

[anas abou]

Yeah, most of his moves are pretty laggy. I have friend who would just play Falco to mess around and I would occasionally see him go off-stage, D-Air and FF. It's something he would do in Melee and PM. He would then tell me how his moves are filled with lag and that it would've worked in Melee. It would be nice to see some buffs in his move-set, but I doubt that will ever happen.

d-air is the only actually laggy move, he has good frame data all around.

 

[NotAnAdmin]

Yeah, most of his moves are pretty laggy. I have friend who would just play Falco to mess around and I would occasionally see him go off-stage, D-Air and FF. It's something he would do in Melee and PM. He would then tell me how his moves are filled with lag and that it would've worked in Melee. It would be nice to see some buffs in his move-set, but I doubt that will ever happen.

I can tell you right now. Unless you are high as crap in the air and you FF a dair off stage your stock is gone.
Dair is a great move off stage but 9/10 you are doing a quick double jump input before throwing out the dair.

 

[EXPBoost]

I like how you understood my perspective and topic, rather than cyro, thinking I was bawing, and some others.

It's all good my dude.

d-air is the only actually laggy move, he has good frame data all around.

He does! His F-Air is pretty good for rackin' up damage considering it has less start-up, reduced landing lag, can't be sdi'd, and can be used as a gimping tool. N-Air now locks people in due to his previous buff.

I can tell you right now. Unless you are high as crap in the air and you FF a dair off stage your stock is gone.
Dair is a great move off stage but 9/10 you are doing a quick double jump input before throwing out the dair.

Yep, without a doubt you'll SD from that. His start-up is to much and it'll be to late to recover back on stage. Oh yeah, and he's a fast-faller too.

 

[NotAnAdmin]

Yeah I also meant it's the same concept in Melee as well sorry for not explaining.
The only way you wouldn't be throwing the stock away is if you do a "bombsoilder" dair which is a dair offstage without FF'ing.

 

[KetchupKaffei]

I can tell you right now. Unless you are high as crap in the air and you FF a dair off stage your stock is gone.
Dair is a great move off stage but 9/10 you are doing a quick double jump input before throwing out the dair.

Well that I could disagree on.
My Falco play style also revolves around lazers, also lazers out of the stage to gimp the player either out of their jump or momentum.
Either way when the lazer hits them, they are forced to recovery in angle from the bottom ledge, which leads to a great dair (without doubling jumping). Which is exciting for me. Well, use to be.

I use dair off stage without double jump, only if I am not too far out and I know I can make it back up with falco's double jump which is so high, it could be it's own recovery move really.
This isn't a issue at all for me.

What is 9/10 that you would die is if you miss his side special, and try to recover with no jump, the amount of end lag he has for the side special makes it hard for him to make it back onto stage if you miss the ledge

(Only if you are not FF)

 

[anas abou]

Well that I could disagree on.
My Falco play style also revolves around lazers, also lazers out of the stage to gimp the player either out of their jump or momentum.
Either way when the lazer hits them, they are forced to recovery in angle from the bottom ledge, which leads to a great dair (without doubling jumping). Which is exciting for me. Well, use to be.

I use dair off stage without double jump, only if I am not too far out and I know I can make it back up with falco's double jump which is so high, it could be it's own recovery move really.
This isn't a issue at all for me.

What is 9/10 that you would die is if you miss his side special, and try to recover with no jump, the amount of end lag he has for the side special makes it hard for him to make it back onto stage if you miss the ledge

(Only if you are not FF)

git gud

 

[MrFoxMan]

I totally agree. I mainly hate him because his moveset is almost the same as fox's but slower

 

[Ffamran]

git gud

Please refrain from making remarks like this. Outside of it being negative, it also doesn't add to the discussion in any meaningful way. There's also the issue with it being a one-liner...

 

[Snipnigth]

I like how you understood my perspective and topic, rather than cyro, thinking I was bawing, and some others.

What does "Bawling" mean?

 

[KetchupKaffei]

What does "Bawing" mean?

Bawling:
weep or cry noisily.
"she began to bawl like a child"
synonyms: cry, sob, weep, shed tears, wail,whine, howl, squall;
rareululate
"the children continued to bawl

 

[lukehouse]

My Falco play style also revolves around lazers

I think this is where the problem is for you. We all know his lasers aren't the best in this game, and they shouldn't be used too often.

Imo, falco has pretty solid frame data aside from dair and lasers. My friends and I agree that falco isn't exactly the easiest character to pick up, and you'd need to be pretty precise to execute his combos well. As they say, he's pretty much a discount mario, which is kinda true (good combo game, meh approach options)

Falco doesn't have results now, but I can see him placing higher in tournaments. However, I do think having a secondary for him is needed. There aren't MUs I feel where he can get completely dominated, but there are some that are just annoying (*cough* Pikachu *cough*) I think we all just need to get better as players before we can show that he's not one of the worst characters.

If I were to choose buffs for flaco I think I'd ask for a change on his up smash (they can fall out sometimes) and his down smash (they can pop up if he hits them with his crotch). Probably pushing it if I asked for fox's jab. Other than that I've gotten pretty used to the character that I don't care if his dair and lasers are slow. They aren't absolutely useless, but they shouldn't be used often. Who knows if we'll even get another patch.

 

[Tankendog]

The worst match up id say Falco has has to be Yoshi. Yoshi outclasses Falco at his own game. Falco has good frame data, but it has nothing on Yoshi.

Id have to say the biggest problem is while Falco may have good frame data, his neutral and on shield game is also extremely weak. A perfectly spaced retreating Bair may be safe on shield, but no other attack is. He is also a slow fast faller with no combo breaker. Capt. Falcon can get away with this because of his speed, but Falco is pure combo food. Fox can crouch cancel out of mario up tilts or nair, but as falco, you either crouch cancel at super low percents (0 to about 15), or hope you have SDI of the gods. If not, mario just got a free 60% off 1 grab.

Nair is a distant second, being one attack that has many uses, but is often overlooked. Neutral has less ending lag than fair, can be used to approach, cross up fast fall into jab, beats banana and some other projectiles. In neutral trying to tomahawk/cross up starts to fall apart on taller character like cloud, who can dash attack and beat falcos short hop. His Nair also fails to be a reliable combo breaker. Maybe one potential buff to falco would be giving the start up of his Nair the ability to break combos(possibly electric effect on first hit? Make it disjoint?) It be nice if there was less ending lag as well.

The movement speed in both air and group would also be huge QOL buffs, without changing his kit. This would greatly help in neutral.

Maybe reduce knock back growth on down throw to allow it to combo longer/better?

Start up buff to dair be great, but would do nothing to fix the underlying issue with falco. Though it is absolutely stupid that if you land the sweet spot of dair at low percents, its 10000% unsafe unless SHDC. This feels absolutely awful, and i wish something be done about it. Maybe make it a hard, untechable, knockdown?

At this point its clear Laser is never going to be like it was in melee or brawl, and that is perfectly okay. It would make such a huge difference though to shave off 10-12 frames, in conjunction with making falco faster.

Falco struggles in singles, But in doubles for people to cover his flaws, he can skyrocket up the list due to his utility. Edge guarding, long range hit stun laser, frame 1 reflect with potential to trip, good throw combos / kill throws, having no real bad stages, decent kill power. He would be at cloud level in doubles if he received buffs.


So to sum it up:
1) Yoshi bodies Falco
2) Nair Combo Break ability
3) Movement Speed increase in air/ground
4) QOL buff to Dair so its not a negative rewarding move on grounded opponents.
5) Shave 10 frames off of laser.
6) Reduce KBG on downthrow to lead to longer combo ability.
7) Falco truly shines in doubles.

 

[KetchupKaffei]

I think this is where the problem is for you. We all know his lasers aren't the best in this game, and they shouldn't be used too often.

Imo, falco has pretty solid frame data aside from dair and lasers. My friends and I agree that falco isn't exactly the easiest character to pick up, and you'd need to be pretty precise to execute his combos well. As they say, he's pretty much a discount mario, which is kinda true (good combo game, meh approach options)

Falco doesn't have results now, but I can see him placing higher in tournaments. However, I do think having a secondary for him is needed. There aren't MUs I feel where he can get completely dominated, but there are some that are just annoying (*cough* Pikachu *cough*) I think we all just need to get better as players before we can show that he's not one of the worst characters.

If I were to choose buffs for flaco I think I'd ask for a change on his up smash (they can fall out sometimes) and his down smash (they can pop up if he hits them with his crotch). Probably pushing it if I asked for fox's jab. Other than that I've gotten pretty used to the character that I don't care if his dair and lasers are slow. They aren't absolutely useless, but they shouldn't be used often. Who knows if we'll even get another patch.

If you see the way I play as Falco, I think you would disagree.
And as I said, I do not have trouble winning games with Falco, it's just overtime playing as him, I think he's really boring.
Lame, Compared to other Smash games.
My playstyle received alot of good game results and compliments, mainly because of my use of lazers.
If you ask me, if Falco mains don't use lazers little to none in games, I think their sleeping on it.
Lazers are only bad if you're opponent is within very close range and you can't react because of lag.
Like I posted above, Lazers could leave to great meteors for Falco, I get them all the time.

Overall his playstle his tidous, slow, and abysmal each and every day I even think aboutplaying as him once.
Yoshi is half of what I expected and wanted from Falco.

His dair hitbox is horrendous, I hope they actually make it the way it should be.
His lazer lag cuts out so much potential in later combos which why he has it because Sakurai is too scared of the Star Fox crew would be like melee/brawl.
Fixing his speed, and maybe a bit faster jab so he can mix up faster would be nice.

Overall, as a precise and technical player, Falco isn't fun at all compared to other characters. He's one of the less interesting in the roster of Smash.
He does not fit my playstyle anymore.

The worst match up id say Falco has has to be Yoshi. Yoshi outclasses Falco at his own game. Falco has good frame data, but it has nothing on Yoshi.

Id have to say the biggest problem is while Falco may have good frame data, his neutral and on shield game is also extremely weak. A perfectly spaced retreating Bair may be safe on shield, but no other attack is. He is also a slow fast faller with no combo breaker. Capt. Falcon can get away with this because of his speed, but Falco is pure combo food. Fox can crouch cancel out of mario up tilts or nair, but as falco, you either crouch cancel at super low percents (0 to about 15), or hope you have SDI of the gods. If not, mario just got a free 60% off 1 grab.

Nair is a distant second, being one attack that has many uses, but is often overlooked. Neutral has less ending lag than fair, can be used to approach, cross up fast fall into jab, beats banana and some other projectiles. In neutral trying to tomahawk/cross up starts to fall apart on taller character like cloud, who can dash attack and beat falcos short hop. His Nair also fails to be a reliable combo breaker. Maybe one potential buff to falco would be giving the start up of his Nair the ability to break combos(possibly electric effect on first hit? Make it disjoint?) It be nice if there was less ending lag as well.

The movement speed in both air and group would also be huge QOL buffs, without changing his kit. This would greatly help in neutral.

Maybe reduce knock back growth on down throw to allow it to combo longer/better?

Start up buff to dair be great, but would do nothing to fix the underlying issue with falco. Though it is absolutely stupid that if you land the sweet spot of dair at low percents, its 10000% unsafe unless SHDC. This feels absolutely awful, and i wish something be done about it. Maybe make it a hard, untechable, knockdown?

At this point its clear Laser is never going to be like it was in melee or brawl, and that is perfectly okay. It would make such a huge difference though to shave off 10-12 frames, in conjunction with making falco faster.

Falco struggles in singles, But in doubles for people to cover his flaws, he can skyrocket up the list due to his utility. Edge guarding, long range hit stun laser, frame 1 reflect with potential to trip, good throw combos / kill throws, having no real bad stages, decent kill power. He would be at cloud level in doubles if he received buffs.


So to sum it up:
1) Yoshi bodies Falco
2) Nair Combo Break ability
3) Movement Speed increase in air/ground
4) QOL buff to Dair so its not a negative rewarding move on grounded opponents.
5) Shave 10 frames off of laser.
6) Reduce KBG on downthrow to lead to longer combo ability.
7) Falco truly shines in doubles.

I agree except for the lazers and nair.
Like I said lazers, are still useful, not no where near as in melee/brawl,and his nair half or less does break combo's. I was able to get of Mario's, Fox's, and etc grasp with it. Of course not all the time.

Yoshi is also a bad match up for Fox as well imo.

 

[gameplayzero]

I have tournament wins over ImHip and WiiGi who were both PR'd in SoCal at one point. (ImHip still is)
Bracket: http://challonge.com/zgsmash4singles31

In the past 2GGT's, I have placed:
FOW Saga - 33rd/356
Mexico Saga - 49th/413
KTAR Saga - 49th/414

(Top 48 advance out of pools)

I have won money matches over Sol, Charliedaking (Currently PR'd), and Karna's Sheik with the assist of Cloud.
I have gone last hit, last game with Mr. E, Ryo, DKwill, VoiD, and plenty of other big names in the past through money matches or bracket.

I don't consider myself a top level player yet, so I definitely think Falco has WAY more potential than what I'm putting up. This isn't even the beginning of the results other players have gotten with Falco. Take AC for example, who not many people know about. He's taken sets off of multiple well-known players like TearBear, Falln, Aarvark, and VoiD, with Falco.

It's time to stop blaming the character for your poor results and actually improve. A secondary IS necessary, though. No character in this game is solo-main viable.

There are certainly characters that are solo-main viable. Most of the top tiers for instance. I haven't seen a lot of switches from the top ness, zss, diddy, sheiks, clouds, ryu, mario's, etc. This simply isn't true.

and you can partially blame the character for issues. Falco can be satisfying (which is why I mained him awhile back), but characters have their limits. Hence why a lot of lower characters have hardly any results. But I think I understand what you mean. A lot of people are completely blaming the character rather than trying to actually improve themselves. Blaming the character can only go so far. He has some tools. Just need to learn to adjust and use the right ones in certain situations since sakurai doesn't care for complete balance.

The people wanting brawl falco back I can't agree with in this game. That would simply be far too strong. Just fix his ground speed at least to start. That alone would make a big difference since thats always been a big weakness of the bird. HIs normals are decent and his aerials aren't too bad either imo. Its just that his approach options are gated and in most situations you have to play stupid defensively in an already defensive game. Maybe buff dash attack too with a slight speed increase and I'd be game.

 

[KetchupKaffei]

I have no idea where everyone is getting this "blaming the character for performance" when that was not ever the subject at hand. Wish I could just lock this thread somehow honestly, seems people are misinterpreting things.

Not sure how fixing his lazer or dair would be too much to change in the game, especially the amount of buffs they have been giving to a single character(Mario, Ike, Zelda etc) over time, making them slightly different.
Falco's buff would just be as equal as others. It's not demanding thread at all really, it's only a suggestion to what could be more appealing than what he is currently.

Yes, characters have limits.
Do we push to break them? Yes.
Now was it worth it, was it fun? No, not really. Which is how my perspective changed overtime.

I was just replying Cyro's post. Relax.

And making falco's lasers to brawl levels is a big deal. Projectiles were nerfed across the board from brawl. Its fine buffing it so it has a little less end lag, but I think there are better buffs to fixing falco. The laser fix might help his neutral a tad bit, but what brawl falco had to also back that up was some great normals. Lasers would only do so little for smash 4 falco since he still has to get up close. Lot of the top tiers would easily invalidate laser pressure anyways in this game.

Fixing dair is fine in my book if they just gave it a bigger hitbox. I get that sakurai didn't want to make Falco dair-happy like in the past, but the lag was enough. A super tiny hitbox on top of the lag is over kill.

Also Falco received some buffs too. We have a thread for that. And they were far more meaningful than Zelda's buffs. Sakurai doesn't care to much for the competitive scene so sadly I doubt falco is getting fixed. Unless smash 5 gives falco better light, this is something we will have to get used to.

"I was just replying Cyro's post. Relax."

I'm sure I know who you're talking to. Was it a problem to just put my own effences your post? Last time I checked, we're in forums, where we can discuss in the matter. I think the only person that needs to "relax" is you, because clearly my post was not vexatious of any kind.
Do Simmer down.

If you were actually reading some of my earlier submit ions before my last one(which I doubt) you would know what I am referring to when I meant by "fix lazers".
I was suggesting that they fix his lag upon lazers, not the lazers themselves.

Falco's buff is nearly not enough to make up for his nerfs in my book. I don't think he's worth it for the extra mile. Characters getting buffs from the last game sometimes doesn't make up for their nerfs or the nerfs that they receive upon arrival in this game.

I just really don't think Falco is fun anymore, simple as that.

If you have a problem with someone on the internet simply replying to you with their own preferences or perspective on a matter to where you feel offended, I think it's high time for you to get off the net.

I said relax because of this post: "I have no idea where everyone is getting this "blaming the character for performance when that was not ever the subject at hand. Wish I could just lock this thread somehow honestly, seems people are misinterpreting things." I was basically saying there was no need to lock the thread because of it. You clearly said that because I brought that subject up again, so I said to relax. It meant nothing personal and I'm not even vexed at what you said :/. There is no reason to be. I just gave my personal opinion on the matter. Same with everyone else and why blaming falco for tourney performances came up. Nothing wrong with an open discussion. You seem passive aggressive with people trying to correlate your post with a minor distraction. As you've said "We're in the forums, where we can discuss in the manner".

Also my post suggest a fix on the lag of the lasers too directly in this line " Its fine buffing it so it has a little less end lag". All I did was give you reasons as to why even buffing lasers wouldn't be all that effective in this iteration. You misinterpreted my whole post it seems. I've seen a lot of people mentioning bringing auto canceling back so I adressed that. I mentioned the patch thread because I didn't know if you were informed that falco was buffed on multiple occasions. We all agree that the buff's helped, but they weren't enough. Nobody is disagreeing with you.

We are here to have a healthy and mature discussion on the bird and to address falco and falco only. Lets not add any more to this. I apologize if my post came across as hostile. The intention was genuine. Honestly since text can interpreted in different ways I always take things literally as to avoid confusion lol. Saves me the headache.

At this point, any other reply from you will now just be irrelevant to me.

I didn't misinterpret anything because I was pretty sure you were talking about his lazers mainly and not his end lag.

Me wanting to lock the thread is mainly because of previous replys.
Has nothing to do with your post. Relax.

 

[gameplayzero]

At this point, any other reply from you will now just be irrelevant to me.

I didn't misinterpret anything because I was pretty sure you were talking about his lazers mainly and not his end lag.

Me wanting to lock the thread is mainly because of previous replys.
Has nothing to do with your post. Relax.

what? I uh...ok I guess. No hard feelings mate. Its just a discussion.

but i'll respect your wishes and stop with replies. Lets just resume with the topic at hand .

Edit: can a mod delete my first and second reply to Ketchup? To avoid future conflict.

 

[vertime]

At least Falco's been good in every game before this. Imagine how the Ganondorfs and Zeldas feel.

AMEN I only play Ganon in Brawl Minus and occasionally Project M for fun the man is absolute arse in actual smash games.

 

[Cyro]

There are certainly characters that are solo-main viable. Most of the top tiers for instance. I haven't seen a lot of switches from the top ness, zss, diddy, sheiks, clouds, ryu, mario's, etc. This simply isn't true.

This isn't true lol. Firstly, Ness is HIGHLY overrated. By results, he's barely even high tier at all which is why most people would place him in mid tier. FOW's the strongest representative for this character and he has never won a major, which is what classifies a character as "solo-main viable" ie. being able to win a major without counterpicking. At a tournament with high caliber players, with very few exceptions basically every winner has had to counterpick at least one set.

and you can partially blame the character for issues. Falco can be satisfying (which is why I mained him awhile back), but characters have their limits. Hence why a lot of lower characters have hardly any results. But I think I understand what you mean. A lot of people are completely blaming the character rather than trying to actually improve themselves. Blaming the character can only go so far. He has some tools. Just need to learn to adjust and use the right ones in certain situations since sakurai doesn't care for complete balance.

Yeah, I wasn't denying that Falco is definitely limited compared to most characters, but it really isn't as big of a deal as a lot of people make it out to be.

 

[Tankendog]

This isn't true lol. Firstly, Ness is HIGHLY overrated. By results, he's barely even high tier at all which is why most people would place him in mid tier. FOW's the strongest representative for this character and he has never won a major, which is what classifies a character as "solo-main viable" ie. being able to win a major without counterpicking. At a tournament with high caliber players, with very few exceptions basically every winner has had to counterpick at least one set.


Yeah, I wasn't denying that Falco is definitely limited compared to most characters, but it really isn't as big of a deal as a lot of people make it out to be.

I agree on the ness comment. His 80/20 match ups are what really prohibit him from being solo main viable.

I think that this is one of the main things in Smash today that hasnt been around before, and why it is so hard to justify picking falco as a solomain. If you were to look at a match up spread of falco, you need a secondary. There is some 70/30 matches that are just impossible for falco. Todays meta is akin to league of legends. Be able to play 3 characters.

If you look at other games, solo mains was are pretty much the thing to do, or that the top level character pool was so small, that only needing 2 characters is plenty. While there are today pros that can play multiple characters at extremely top level (Mango, M2K, boomfan, Isai), most only play 2(Armada), some even 1 (hbox, leffen, ally).

If i were to get a secondary to cover falcos bad match ups, it is hard to pick a character in the cast that can do this. You need a minimum of 3 to do this.

As of current, I run 4 characters to cover all match ups.

1) Falco
2) Dr. Mario
3) Marth (Mainly for Mario)
4) Pikachu (Mainly for yoshi)

The pure beauty of this though is that while yes you need to be able to play said secondary, you only need to master that secondary for specific match ups.

And again, I cant stress enough how strong falco is in doubles. While this thread is mainly about singles, Falcos potential in doubles scales extremely well.

 

[Ffamran]

Hmm... Y'know, I've been ignoring this thread for a while -- outside of just pure laziness and forgetting to do something about it --, I felt like people should do their own thing and have discussions without me or any other moderator saying something like: "This such thread already exists, go here and discuss here. Oh, and your thread got locked or merged because of that."

I would like to say some things, however. First off is that there are a lot of "(Is) Falco is bad(?)" and similar threads here. I don't know about the other character boards, but there's about 6 threads including this one about Falco being bad in this game since launch Smash 3DS.

Spoiler: The threads in question

https://smashboards.com/threads/is-...e-or-is-he-just-being-bashed-too-much.369429/.
https://smashboards.com/threads/nerfed-into-the-trash-can.381071/.
https://smashboards.com/threads/how-to-make-falco-tourney-viable-mini-article.382108/.
https://smashboards.com/threads/non-falco-main-asking-how-is-he-in-this-game.383642/.
https://smashboards.com/threads/i-think-falco-is-bad-in-this-game.392235/.
https://smashboards.com/threads/falco-being-bad-or-good.393008/.

So of related, but there was a thread on Falco himself, the character and his personality, being questioned: https://smashboards.com/threads/does-anyone-actually-like-falco-as-a-character-inclusion.391884/. The starting post wasn't that great since it assumed Falco's popularity comes entirely from his Melee incarnation and not much from Star Fox.

Not really about him being bad, but questioning where his place in competitive Smash 4: https://smashboards.com/threads/falco-and-his-place-in-the-metagame.417429/.

Before I continue, all those listed threads are locked. Some for having a similar, but older thread in existence at the time and now for the fact they're old and to prevent necro-posting. Threads like those are fine. Really they are fine. One thing, however, is that "arguing" isn't really... Not thinking of the right word right now, but arguing, aggressive arguing, isn't since they can lead to some nasty fights. Discussing, however, is. Discussion on why a character is good, average, or bad is all right. Part of the posts in this thread are that, so whatever, not going to do much about this thread. One part, however, was that it did start out and was confirmed to be kind of a rant and venting... Sometimes, those are okay, but in most cases, I would have redirected it somewhere else or just straight up locked the thread if it's really that bad. Glancing through the thread, it wasn't much of a problem even with the "slight confusion".

Spoiler: Some things to consider

The other thing is that when discussing stuff like this, I would prefer it if some research is done and consideration for the game and the other characters. I say this since it's very easy to just say, "Falco's recovery -- (end) lag as more commonly called in Smash -- on his moves are high." It's actually not true. His recovery / lag on his moves outside of Blaster, Falco Phantasm, and Reflector all of which are Specials, so that has to be taken into consideration, are average like other characters. It's a bit harder to see, but everyone in Smash has similar recovery on their moves. Of course, there are some moves that have lower recovery or higher recovery. Not everything is the same or should be.

I feel like a part of that problem comes from Smash not showing or using recovery frames when character frame datas are compiled. Instead, FAF or, even more rarely, total frames are used and that doesn't really tell the whole story. Oh look, Character X's Utilt has 31 FAF. That's awesome, but then you look at its startup and active frames, say, 3 startup, and 2 active, so it would hit 3-4, and you'd realize that it has 27 recovery frames. Not really good, but not really bad. Now, let's say its startup is 12. It would have 18 recovery frames which is really good even for a tilt. Basically, a Ganondorf Up Smash of high startup, but low recovery. This is an outdated spreadsheet I made listing everyone's recovery frames: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vclrFU6Kh-UONoHWqp9qsow86FnQyT5RvlskKEDqxr8/edit?usp=sharing. It's got some issues since I messed up some stuff, but everything should hopefully be within a 1-2 frame error. Explanation for that is that I was kind of new to frame data and I prefer to use total frames instead of FAF which probably lead me to adding or subtracting 1 frame from stuff; FAF is total frames + 1 and I think FAF is kind of pointless since it doesn't take much to assume that the next frame is when you can act. I think someone else has a more up to date one... I think LordWilliam1234 made one that includes everything and not just recovery frames.

If you want another example, take a look at any of Smash 4's character frame data and compare them to someone from Street Fighter V. You can take a look at Ryu's standing light punch, "Stand LP", and you know that it's a frame 3, 2 active, and 7 recovery move. Boom. Simple. Look at Ryu's jab 1 and you'll see it listed as frame 2-3 with a 16 FAF. Not as simple -- for me at least -- or as detailed compared to SFV's setup. SFV Ryu's frame data: http://wiki.shoryuken.com/Street_Fighter_V/Ryu.

The other thing comes from that and it's no fault of anyone -- really, it isn't --, but there is a tendency for people to ask for buffs and nerfs without considering the effects thoroughly. Stuff like Ganondorf needs to be much faster or Sheik needs to nerfed hard tends to come up. I'm not asking you to be seasoned game developers, but to just consider what would happen if something was changed. For me and in regards to Falco, this is major. Why? I want to ask all of you this: is a frame 5 Dair with 4 active spike frames not overpowered? In Brawl it had 3 while in Melee, it was all of its frames with the other half being a late, but weak spike similar to how Zelda's Dair works in Smash 4 or on PAL Melee, the late hit would be a 361 degree hit -- still is a 10 active spike. Before you start to answer, consider that it was one of the fastest and strongest not to mention one of the longest-lasting spikes in the series and that's not a lot since I can only think of Marth's and his was frame 6 in Brawl and Melee followed by Ryu's 8, very short-ranged spike with a sour-spot. The rest, especially in Smash 4, have Dair spikes or Dairs in general that are +14. Had Smash 4's Dair been around frame 10, then sure, frame 5 spike might be okay -- still pushing it in my opinion --, but not now. You'd have to lower, I don't know, +30 characters' Dair startup and that could lead to massive problems. Freaking Captain Falcon and Ganondorf with a frame 12 Dair or Samus with a frame 10 Dair and she's one of the few characters who actively use her Dair for setups.

I would argue that what the developers did in Melee and even Brawl with Falco (and Marth)'s Dair was a sin. It basically said screw you to game balance and game design since everyone else had much slower spikes or Dairs in general.

Other moves that come into question for me would be his Blaster and Falco Phantasm. What the developers did to Blaster in Smash 4 was both justified and unjustified. Justifiable was that it, like Dair, flew in the face of basic game design. What existed in Smash 64 -- it was Fox's Blaster --, Melee, and Brawl was a projectile that had relatively low startup, very low recovery, pretty fast travel speed, essentially infinite range, and could fire repeatedly in part of its low recovery and the fact that there was no limit to the amount of times it could be fired and the pretty high rate of fire. Blaster was broken. In other fighting games, recovery can be low, but something has to give like it has short range, high startup, or low travel speed and you'd need to spend meter to be able to fire a projectile more then once. In regards to Smash, because it does set knockback, firing continuously is pointless since it's Smash, why are you sitting there doing mostly nothing. You're doing damage, but not knockback, the main focus of Smash. I have similar feelings towards rapid jabs, but that's another story. Unjustifiably, however, is after removing auto-cancel on Blaster and other projectiles, they just straight up left it as is from Brawl. The high recovery? Yeah, Brawl's fault. Melee had average recovery at a price: ground Blaster had double Brawl and Smash 4's startup, but that's fine, especially compared to now. Would you rather have a frame 11, 48 recovery projectile or a frame 23, 35 recovery projectile? Brawl's decreased startup, but didn't touch the total frames from Melee. Smash 4 ported Falco over and a bunch others. Can you blame them? 50+ characters and I'd argue many of them had their problems to begin with.

Falco Phantasm is simple. Largest spike in the series. Still is the largest spike in Smash 4 despite its halved hitbox. Why? Brawl even managed to buff it. Really? Yes, it's slow like other spikes and it's not strong, but it's giant. It also debuted in the game where fall speeds were much higher. One touch from Falco Phantasm was likely death. At least in Brawl and Smash 4 fall speeds are lower and mostly for Smash 4, aerial jumps and recoveries are higher, but still. I think it should have been reexamined since the concept is, in my opinion, broken. Reference DACUS if you have to for a Side Special. It's quite curious considering Falco actually performs what looks like a DACUS in his intro cutscene in Subspace Emissary or just alter the angle. Oh look, it sends people flying behind Falco. Less problematic than spiking people... Meanwhile, Fox Illusion getting nerfed in damage in each game...

Spoiler: Falco frame data and Smash 4 rapid jab frame data

Last thing. Here's a comparison of Falco's frame data in Melee, Brawl, and Smash 4 plus patch changes: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1n5FLoDecOaKwbwY4gJcM1RRK_81ibRSpOcIRAHWPYGs/edit?usp=sharing. Originally, I made this to analyze Falco's changes and try to understand him and the developers' actions more. Would have written up something, but I abandoned it since it would basically be a college thesis... It was also done to pinpoint his issues some of which people didn't really make a big deal until recently like Uair's sour-spot that existed since Melee or his Fire Bird which thanks to Brawl changing it the multi-hit mess it is instead of leaving it as 64 Fire Fox and letting Fire Wolf be the multi-hit, (and faster) Fire Fox. Notes: remember that Melee's fall speeds were much higher and gravity didn't affect vertical knockback until Brawl. This explains why vertically-inclined moves such as Dtilt had very high growths. It was done to compensate for Melee's fall speed and gravity. That being said, if you compare Melee and Brawl Dtilt, it does explain why Brawl Dtilt was weak: they didn't lower the growth to fit Brawl, to around the normal 100, but just nerfed it. Also, it's kind of old, so there might have been some mess-ups -- mostly to rapid jab which I recently found for Smash 4 and some Brawl stuff.

Speaking of rapid jab... Here's the frame data that was posted in the CCI thread recently: https://smashboards.com/threads/4br...ive-impressions.429826/page-595#post-21389906. Details where I got the information and all that jazz.

Now, not about this thread... KetchupKaffei and everyone else. If you ever need a thread to be locked, moved, stickied, etc., either PM a mod or report the thread which if you're the owner / OP, just report your OP, the first post of the thread. PM'ing works, but since not all mods moderate all threads, it can be weird since we'd have to drag someone else in with jurisdiction. For example, if any of you PM me to do something about a Smash 4 Pikachu board thread, I can't do a thing since I'm a Smash 4 Falco moderator. Reports are easier since they just go the moderator(s) of the sections. Hopefully, that's not considered leaking confidential stuff.

For now, if the discussion is fine and you all want to continue. Sure. If not, then KetchupKaffei, tell me and I'll lock it. Other reason I'd lock this thread is if you all start acting like hooligans.

 

[gameplayzero]

This isn't true lol. Firstly, Ness is HIGHLY overrated. By results, he's barely even high tier at all which is why most people would place him in mid tier. FOW's the strongest representative for this character and he has never won a major, which is what classifies a character as "solo-main viable" ie. being able to win a major without counterpicking. At a tournament with high caliber players, with very few exceptions basically every winner has had to counterpick at least one set.


Yeah, I wasn't denying that Falco is definitely limited compared to most characters, but it really isn't as big of a deal as a lot of people make it out to be.

So aside from Ness, what other examples can you provide me?

 

[Cyro]

So aside from Ness, what other examples can you provide me?

First off, results:
Let's establish the definition of a major. Most would consider a major a tournament with high caliber players, such as Genesis 3, CEO, EVO, and Super Smash Con, for example. The winner of Genesis was ZeRo, who at the time used Sheik and Diddy for counterpicking purposes. CEO's winner was ANTi, and if you're caught up with the scene you would know he definitely did not solo his way to victory using one character. The few exceptions to my claim is Nairo's win with solo ZSS at Smash Con, and Ally's win with solo Mario at EVO. I don't really consider these two wins as a good counterargument because the players themselves are just that fundamentally sound. Even in most nationals the victor had switched characters at least once.

Secondly, match-ups:
The match-ups in this game are way too volatile to have a solid idea at which character wins what and be 100% accurate. The best characters in the game all have a few bad and even atrocious matchups. Cloud is a solid character but doesn't perform too well against characters like Megaman, Diddy (arguable), Marth, Mewtwo, and Bayonetta just to name a few. Diddy struggles against Sheik, Mario, Rosalina, and Fox. You should get the point.

This went far off-topic, so I digress. I don't think there's much left to be said about Falco's stance in the meta.

 

[Snipnigth]

First off, results:
This went far off-topic, so I digress. I don't think there's much left to be said about Falco's stance in the meta.

Hey Cyro who do you think its a good second main for Falco? I was thinking about Samus i enjoy playing with her but not sure if its a good pick, maybe ROB?

 

[Tankendog]

Hey Cyro who do you think its a good second main for Falco? I was thinking about Samus i enjoy playing with her but not sure if its a good pick, maybe ROB?

Im not cyro, but you need to look for characters that have either 50/50 match ups or favorable match ups against most of falcos poor match ups. A sword character is always good to have for disjoints, or a rush down character that can get in when falco cant. Pit is an extremely honest character, Marth, Pikachu, Mario, Sonic, Mewtoo. The problem with ROB and Samus are the both also rely on heavy zoning game, and also struggle from rushdown characters. Rob does have a much more solid zoning game than falco however.

 

[Metamoonstar]

I feel an issue with Falco is that there aren't really that many people working to improve his meta game. Most top tiers have such large amounts of people working to find the best damage dealing combos, recovery options, kill setups, ect. But we've only got a handful. I feel people would respect Falco more if we had more people trying to rep him in top level play.

 

[Dcas]

I feel an issue with Falco is that there aren't really that many people working to improve his meta game. Most top tiers have such large amounts of people working to find the best damage dealing combos, recovery options, kill setups, ect. But we've only got a handful. I feel people would respect Falco more if we had more people trying to rep him in top level play.

Yes and no, this argument boggles my mind. I mean , sure there would be more knowledge of the character, more setups, etc BUT still, that wouldnt solve the core issues of falco as it will remain forever a mid tier at best. Sure there might be someone getting to a top 32 and with some luck top 16, but never ever a falco will win a national/international ( unless he gets some QoL buffs).

 

[KetchupKaffei]

I feel an issue with Falco is that there aren't really that many people working to improve his meta game. Most top tiers have such large amounts of people working to find the best damage dealing combos, recovery options, kill setups, ect. But we've only got a handful. I feel people would respect Falco more if we had more people trying to rep him in top level play.

The reasoning is because of his viability(in my opinion OF COURSE). I think Duck Hunt and Bowser could take games than he ever could. Top players play as characters that they feel has potential, like M2K picking up DK, Randi as Villager, or common players like us, like me seeing potential in Duck Hunt. Falco, overall, is one of those characters that doesn't have a popular opinion at all towards him. He can win at a extent, but I feel like I'm paying a arm and a leg to play as him, and I'm not too much into that if I don't like his play style to begin with.

I just enjoyed his style in brawl and melee really. Tragic.

 

[Metamoonstar]

The reasoning is because of his viability(in my opinion OF COURSE). I think Duck Hunt and Bowser could take games than he ever could. Top players play as characters that they feel has potential, like M2K picking up DK, Randi as Villager, or common players like us, like me seeing potential in Duck Hunt. Falco, overall, is one of those characters that doesn't have a popular opinion at all towards him. He can win at a extent, but I feel like I'm paying a arm and a leg to play as him, and I'm not too much into that if I don't like his play style to begin with.

I just enjoyed his style in brawl and melee really. Tragic.

I see your point. However, i can't help but feel like the reason people have such a low opinion of him is due to how powerful he was (arguably broken) in both melee and brawl. The expectation of greatness followed by his abysmal form at release has made everyone think of him as entirely bad in Smash 4. He's a lot better in now after patches and i think he desereves anothee look ar from most players. I never played Melee and in Brawl i only played casually so i never knew the full extent of his capabilities. Smash 4 Falco is my first real run with him as a competitive character (though ive never been to a tournament "just African things") i do see potential in him.

Though, if playing as him is giving you more stress than joy, then drop away my friend. I dont think he's horrid, but i do think he requires a lot of work to play effectively.

Yes and no, this argument boggles my mind. I mean , sure there would be more knowledge of the character, more setups, etc BUT still, that wouldnt solve the core issues of falco as it will remain forever a mid tier at best. Sure there might be someone getting to a top 32 and with some luck top 16, but never ever a falco will win a national/international ( unless he gets some QoL buffs).

Some QOL buffs would definitly helo boost him up, but at this point, i dont see any reason for them to patch the game at all. Dont get me wrong, i would LOVE to see it happen, but i don't see it happening unless Smash 4 for the NX ends up adding some DLC for the both of them. I feel Smash 4 Falco just needs another run through in a competitve enviroment. I would do it, but im a few continents too far for that

 

[Tankendog]

One thing that is severely underdeveloped in the falco community is match ups. While yes there are very outdated threads on match up and discussions on discord about match ups, match ups should have a game plan about how it should be played on the general character vs character basis. This includes indepth things, such as you cant empty short hop / short cross up nair over clouds dash attack, as the hitbox is to large, but this tatic works great vs shorter character.

If there is one thing that be great it would be to revisit and reorganize how match ups are played out.

 

[Dcas]

Some QOL buffs would definitly helo boost him up, but at this point, i dont see any reason for them to patch the game at all. Dont get me wrong, i would LOVE to see it happen, but i don't see it happening unless Smash 4 for the NX ends up adding some DLC for the both of them. I feel Smash 4 Falco just needs another run through in a competitve enviroment. I would do it, but im a few continents too far for that

I agree. I dont think theyll be adding new patches , at least not significant balance ones. And ive put LOTS of time to falco, ive won some weeklies/monthly in my country with falco. The only area that i really think that would provide falco an actual advantage is his vertical game, which could be the best in game combined with his good aerials ( even dair an atroicous move like dair could be used).

Problem is, his playing style would rely in reads, slow and careful movement. That alone would make him sorta unnatractive, combined with his low rewards at high % . Theres no reason for an opponent facing falco to approach, falco cant force him to approach with anything he has.

All he needed was Mario´s running speed or tad better. Or lasers .

 

[Ffamran]

I agree. I dont think theyll be adding new patches , at least not significant balance ones. And ive put LOTS of time to falco, ive won some weeklies/monthly in my country with falco. The only area that i really think that would provide falco an actual advantage is his vertical game, which could be the best in game combined with his good aerials ( even dair an atroicous move like dair could be used).

Problem is, his playing style would rely in reads, slow and careful movement. That alone would make him sorta unnatractive, combined with his low rewards at high % . Theres no reason for an opponent facing falco to approach, falco cant force him to approach with anything he has.

All he needed was Mario´s running speed or tad better. Or lasers .

Being able to zone, being able to keep and control space, would be more helpful. Fox doesn't really care as he's a rushdown character who is more focused with being up close and overwhelming you with pressure, but his Blaster can still harass you by threatening you with high damage per second and Wolf worked zoning with a simple projectile and well-ranged normals and aerials. Falco is associated with zoning through a projectile which in previous games was definitely broken and allowed him to also rushdown with a projectile, but in Smash 4, is arguably the worst (rewarding) and most riskiest projectile to use for zoning. Compare it to Triple D or Zelda's where their projectiles aren't really good for zoning, but have high payouts at least damage.

In terms of vertical game, they did nerf his in 1.0.8. The changes to Uair hurt it more than helped it. The lowered overall knockback from 27 base and 100 growth to 35 base to 90 growth plus the lowered damage from 11% to 10% and slightly lowered angle for the foot hitbox from 68 degrees to 65 degrees turned Uair from a move that could kill from the ground and center-stage of Final Destination at 162% to a move KOs at 194% which is around when Mario and ZSS's Uair KO. The upper leg hitbox has a slightly higher angle at 75 degrees, but 70-ish degree angles aren't that good for KOs and it's a smaller hitbox than on the legs. The lowered knockback and DI kills this move when you want to KO with it even if you're up in the air. Unless you're right next to the blast zone, Uair's likely to not to KO. Falco's jump is high, but it's not his fault you were up there -- pretty much anyone can KO and die if they're that high up. The body hit went from being the sour-spot that existed from Melee to being just another hitbox on Uair which in this case, its more vertical angle, 85 degrees, lets Falco KO at 175% with it, but it's even smaller than the upper leg hitbox and is on a part of Falco that's not exactly a safe spot to hit with or has a lot of range. The only real buff was the startup change from 10 to 7 which even then, frame 10 Uair wasn't that bad. Old Uair's knockback would be really, really helpful for Falco and wouldn't change much to his ability to juggle and set-up with it. It would just return a decently powered KO option for Falco.

 

[KetchupKaffei]

I see your point. However, i can't help but feel like the reason people have such a low opinion of him is due to how powerful he was (arguably broken) in both melee and brawl. The expectation of greatness followed by his abysmal form at release has made everyone think of him as entirely bad in Smash 4. He's a lot better in now after patches and i think he desereves anothee look ar from most players. I never played Melee and in Brawl i only played casually so i never knew the full extent of his capabilities. Smash 4 Falco is my first real run with him as a competitive character (though ive never been to a tournament "just African things") i do see potential in him.

Though, if playing as him is giving you more stress than joy, then drop away my friend. I dont think he's horrid, but i do think he requires a lot of work to play effectively.



Some QOL buffs would definitly helo boost him up, but at this point, i dont see any reason for them to patch the game at all. Dont get me wrong, i would LOVE to see it happen, but i don't see it happening unless Smash 4 for the NX ends up adding some DLC for the both of them. I feel Smash 4 Falco just needs another run through in a competitve enviroment. I would do it, but im a few continents too far for that

The way they changed Falco into this game alienated many players and really don't find interest in playing as him now because of his drastic change where everything about him is completely unrecognizable. Could you blame us? Also when Falco was converted to Brawl he had many changes and he also had a new identity as well. Falco actually had a enjoyable and clean slate play style, many players played him because they enjoyed his sort of new style he was bringing to the table. What happened here though, we went backwards. Slow run and aerial speed, tremendous lag out of lasers, lag out of side special, slow jab for rush down characters to easily escape out of, and his dair... Good gawd his dair... A specific hitbox if not very specific. Ganon stole Falco's hitbox for his dair really.

This a bit much to chow down on with of course the other stuff they gave to him. Even after all that though, people begin lose interest in him with extra work to put upon yourself

 

[Ffamran]

The way they changed Falco into this game alienated many players and really don't find interest in playing as him now because of his drastic change where everything about him is completely unrecognizable. Could you blame us? Also when Falco was converted to Brawl he had many changes and he also had a new identity as well. Falco actually had a enjoyable and clean slate play style, many players played him because they enjoyed his sort of new style he was bringing to the table.

Spoiler: Smash alienated all Falco players

Brawl's changes to Falco alienated Melee Falco players. No, not just because of no Shine or no combos, but also that Falco wasn't the powerhouse he was in Melee. Where was the powerful Dtilt, the fast and strong Side Smash, his strong Bair, and Fire Bird's KO power. Even Melee Fair was at least somewhat strong compared to the mess Brawl Fair was. Dtilt was butchered leaving it as a shorter-ranged Fox Dtilt that does more damage not a shorter-ranged Fox Dtilt that does more damage and KO'd. Side Smash while still the strongest out of the Star Fox characters, is the most inflexible because it's much slower leaving it as just a punish and read to Fox's Up Smash and Wolf's Down Smash being able to be set-up or quickly hit and take stocks. Bair, like many other moves transitioning from Melee, lost its high damage. The problem was Bair never got a proper knockback adjustment. +3 to its normal 100 growth and having no base knockback made it weaker than Fox and Wolf's Bair. It did have high active frames, 1 more on its clean hit, but they could have just dropped it to 2 or 3 active frames and made it stronger Fox and Wolf's. Melee Fire Bird was based on 64 Fire Fox which was stronger than Melee Fire Fox, but lacked its travel and charge hits for protection. Brawl gave it a charging hitbox and made it a multi-hit that didn't connect poorly. Brawl Fire Bird was ported over to Smash 4. Fire Bird essentially became an inferior Fire Fox and Fire Wolf. To Fire Fox: same 43 launch frame as Fire Fox's, but traveled less, traveled slower, and didn't KO. To Fire Wolf: connects as poorly as Fire Wolf's, but its launch frame was twice that of Fire Wolf's and still traveled less than and slower than Fire Wolf.

Basically, where was the Falco known for his power? Where was the Falco with his signature or unique KO moves? Combo game you could at least blame on the system like what happened to Captain Falcon, but power? Another thing could be where was the Falco who had fast vertical ascent and descent capabilities? He had his jump, but not his fall speed or at the very least a high fast fall speed to emulate his fast vertical descent.

In terms of gameplay, Melee Falco players were alienated because Falco wasn't a capable rushdown and zoner. Brawl Falco was mostly a zoner. Part of it was he didn't really have a reason to rushdown, but the other part was because he didn't have the tools to rushdown anymore. Mostly lacking jump-in aerials to pressure shields and of course, Shine. Melee had Nair, Fair, Bair, and Dair. Brawl Falco was mostly Bair and Uair and sometimes Dair if you could land it right. Brawl Nair's multi-hit and shorter range to Melee's Nair and Fair's 33 landing frames made them not as useful for pressuring. Brawl Fox didn't really change in gameplay as he still stayed as the rushdown he always was since 64. Wolf on the other hand took on Falco's rushdown and zoning gameplay, but with his own twists so using him as a Falco replacement wouldn't work. Wolf's kind of more like Marth, but with a projectile.

As you have said and many have noticed, Brawl (and Melee) Falco players were alienated by Smash 4's changes to Falco. In this case, Smash 4 Falco still retains Brawl Falco's issues with killing -- outside of Bair, his raw KO options aren't that great or they're not consistent -- while having other things made worse like Falco being given Wolf's Bair animation which possibly alienated and insulted Wolf players, lost a vertical KO option through 1.0.8's changes to Uair worsening his KO issues, and what happened to Blaster resulted in another drastic change to Falco's gameplay where he's a zoner who can't zone and is forced to rushdown when he's not built to be a rushdown character.

Can changes work? Yes, as you said Brawl Falco appealed to players, but not to Melee Falco players. That's the problem with Falco. Unlike other characters who stay the same e.g. Captain Falcon, Fox, and Zelda or are similar despite some tweaks e.g. Bowser, Mario, and even Roy, Falco constantly changes and it's not through overhauls like what happened to Mewtwo or outside of Smash, Charlie Nash in SFV or Iori Yagami in KoF XII and XIII for plot reasons, but through constant changes that are essentially nerfs. Brawl Falco loses the power that made Melee Falco different from Fox; Brawl Falco ended up weaker than Fox and Wolf. Smash 4 Falco loses the ability to zone that defined him from Fox's rushdown and Wolf's jack of all trades on top of having lost power. The only thing Falco retains is his set-up game -- albeit weakened from Melee, but probably the same as Brawl's had momentum canceling not existed -- which at this rate, will probably disappear in Smash 5 and by Smash 6, Falco will just be this character with only one move playing Divekick to everyone's Smash.

I honestly think that had people known characters would be ported over from Brawl and figured Falco would continue to carry his problems of being different for the wrong reasons in each game, Falco getting cut wouldn't have met much resistance. Wolf being ported over would have worked fine as Wolf was and debuted as a stable character. Falco debuted as a character with questionable design choices i.e. broken tools and is an unstable character as a result of those choices plus changes that did more to harm than alter and adjust him. Falco would have benefited from having a Mewtwo and Roy comeback where he had more time to be looked at and adjusted (properly) than just coming back with copied and pasted numbers and moves that don't really work to begin with. Seriously? The largest spike in the series and having it debut in a game where fall speeds were faster and recoveries were crappier? The idea of it being the largest spike should have been a red flag and yet, Falco Phantasm still exists like it is.

What happened here though, we went backwards. Slow run and aerial speed, tremendous lag out of lasers, lag out of side special, slow jab for rush down characters to easily escape out of, and his dair... Good gawd his dair... A specific hitbox if not very specific. Ganon stole Falco's hitbox for his dair really.

Spoiler: Clarifications

Falco's (horizontal) mobility problems stem from the fact they never changed his stats significantly or adjusted them for each game. Some characters like Bowser switched from being slow, average, to fast in Melee, Brawl, and Smash 4. Some like Ike, Mewtwo, and Roy became faster in each appearance. Those two would be significant changes. Others just had adjusted stats like Captain Falcon, Fox, and Marth remain relatively fast in each game, but with different numbers like Fox is technically slower than in Melee and Brawl, but is still within top 4 of running speed. Smash 4 raised the bar of what ground mobility was with Mario having 1.6 run speed. It also raised air speed, but arguably, Mario's not really average in that area anymore, but Bowser (post-patch), Little Mac, Robin, and Rosalina's air speed of 1 would be more of average which compared to Melee Mario's 0.86 and Brawl Mario's 0.94 air speed isn't much of a jump. For Falco, he's kept his used to be average air speed of 0.893-ish from Melee and Brawl into Smash 4 and his Smash 4 run speed is still in the range of what used to be average in Melee and used to be slightly below average run speed of Brawl. Those aren't average anymore. They're slow. 1.0.8's air speed buff of 0.93 is still slow. He also kept his average 0.07 air acceleration which at least was remedied with a 0.09 air acceleration buff in 1.0.8, but that doesn't really matter when his top air speed is slow. Compare this with Fox's air acceleration which stayed above-average 0.08 from Brawl in Smash 4. For air speed, Fox's air speed buff from Melee's 0.83 and Brawl's 0.89 to 0.96 in Smash 4. All of those numbers would be slightly below average; Fox's air speed was adjusted for each game; Falco's wasn't adjusted in Smash 4 until a patch.

Blaster having very high recovery for what it does is inarguable, but I will also add Blaster's ability to continually fire is something that should have never happened in the first place. An Impact Blaster or Wolf Blaster would have made more sense in Smash or in a fighting game in general than a (transcendent) projectile that can continually be fired with a decent rate of fire (in Melee and Brawl), with infinite range, and almost no recovery when used out of a hop. That's just stupid and blatantly broken.

Falco Phantasm's 39 recovery frames is about the as Melee's except for the aerial recovery which didn't exist in Melee or Brawl because you entered free-fall mode. For aerial Phantasm, it having higher recovery of 45 frames, the same as Fox Illusion's, can be justified since you don't enter free-fall in Smash 4. Brawl's was just broken. Can you really say a faster on startup, faster in travel, and stronger Fox Illusion that also had lower recovery at 32 frames was fair? Falco Phantasm was the burst movement and command dash of Smash. Please note that Fox Illusion progressively becomes weaker in each game at least in damage whereas Falco Phantasm retained its power in each game with Brawl buffing it with lower startup, lower recovery, and matching its travel with Fox Illusion's.

Falco's jab is fast. It's frame 2 as it's been since Melee. Its connection problems, however, are a different story and one I think stems from how rapid jabs function in Smash i.e. the fact you can hold them out indefinitely and that they never had a finishing hitbox until Smash 4 in a series focused on knockback.

For Dair. Look at Melee's Dair, look at Brawl's Dair, and look at Smash 4's Dair hitboxes.

Spoiler: Falco's Dair hitbox throughout Smash

Melee.

Brawl.

Smash 4.

Melee's was just broken; frame 5 where the spike lasted 10 frames and the late hit which doesn't spike in PAL Melee also lasted 10 frames. Brawl's was toned down so that its spike lasted for 3 frames and it lost the body hitbox, but still pretty broken when you consider that it was still frame 5 in a game where outside of Marth who also had a frame 5 spike, every other spike was around frame 14. Smash 4 became a generic, slow Dair spike in a game where most Dairs are generic, slow spikes. You can't make it better or faster without having the others be improved. Making it frame 10 would make Luigi's Dair obsolete. Why? Falco's would have much higher active frames, 4 for the spike, and 11 for the late hit. Falco also has much better air mobility than Luigi which isn't saying much, but it just wouldn't work. The fact Falco's Dair spikes in the first place already limits what you can do with his Dair. Had his Dair been a different move, there would be more possibilities.

 

[SuckerKick]

I am trying to read OP's post,but it's hard to focus due to how cute his avatar picture is....master hand petting bowser?Awwwww....Falco has most certainly changed,but maybe not for the worst.I find him more powerful in this game than any other.I play him more like a heavyweight more than a speedy one like fox.Added to that a 5% projectile,and a reflector that has quite the knockback,and 2 options for recoveries,i feel he is somewhat viable in competitive play.(He is no bayonetta but he's still pretty good.)He's way diffrent than any other version of falco to date,so not alot of people are willing to tap into his potential.Maybe mid tier,but not G tier.I am not blind to his weaknesses though.All his moves are overall slow,when compared to the rest of the cast,and his neutral B is near useless when fighting against top level chars and players.(Same could be said for his side B but thats a whole 'nother story.)