Q&A Falco, King of the Birds: Game Play Discussion

[SoundChow]

So they announced a balance patch with the Mewtwo update later in the month when he becomes able to be bought around the 28th of this month.

All I want for Falco is faster air speed, a full hitbox on side B and fix his whiffing issues with Up smash. Everything else that's a buff would be icing on the cake.

I want the phantasm to have a longer hitbox, a guaranteed laser at the end of his back throw, and more stun on his reflector to deal with fast characters and projectiles better.

 

[Ffamran]

Considering this a place where a lot of you post, the MU discussions will continue, but I won't introduce new ones until the patch since it'd be pointless to say, introduce Greninja and then the game gets patched 3 days after. The boards might be a bit more dead, but I'd rather not have our efforts wasted or have discussions get screwed over by the patch. Who knows, maybe some of them won't change, so maybe DK is pretty much the same, but until then, we won't know.

Also, Mewtwo, Lucas, and any other DLC character won't have their discussions introduced until at least 1 month to make sure we fight and have seen all levels of them, so newbie Mewtwos, intermediate Mewtwos, and professional Mewtwos. I don't want misconceptions which we all know killed Falco and made Little Mac look stronger than he is. Even though Lucas might be very similar to Brawl Lucas, like I said, we won't know until he's out and people analyze them.

Oh, and my frame data thread will need some tweaking after the patch along with certain things like Fire Sliding out of Fast Fire Bird. That might not exist if the developers feel like it's too powerful, which it isn't because of the raw precision needed to perform it, but even then, it might get patched out which is funny because there has been no known applications of it in high level play. We've seen Kong Cyclone, Luma Warp, and customs Palutena, but nobody's seen Fast Fire Bird Falco blazing through the stage. It's an obscure tech compared to theirs.

So, continue playing, talking, and analyzing Falco; look for frame traps and have fun. If Wolf comes back, I want that old, Melee/Brawl Bair, so Falco has a sex kick and has something besides Nair to defend himself.

 

[BltzZ]

So they announced a balance patch with the Mewtwo update later in the month when he becomes able to be bought around the 28th of this month.

All I want for Falco is faster air speed, a full hitbox on side B and fix his whiffing issues with Up smash. Everything else that's a buff would be icing on the cake.

Really hope these do happen. Phantasm having this ugly 2/3 hitbox makes me sad. Lol. I'd like to see lasers do maybe 4 or 5 percent damage. Slightly faster run speed. If not faster run speed then less landing lag of his aerials. ZSS makes me jealous with how quickly she can act and react

 

[Ffamran]

Significantly reduced end lag on his Blaster and making it like how Luigi's Fireball and Brawl Wolf's Blaster had little end lag would fix a lot with Falco's projectile game. He doesn't even need to be able to auto-cancel that since if he had little, but reasonable end lag, he could full hop fire off shots to mess with people off stage and land without having to deal with end lag shenanigans; Wolf couldn't auto-cancel like that, but the end lag was short enough it didn't matter.

 

[SoundChow]

Really hope these do happen. Phantasm having this ugly 2/3 hitbox makes me sad. Lol. I'd like to see lasers do maybe 4 or 5 percent damage. Slightly faster run speed. If not faster run speed then less landing lag of his aerials. ZSS makes me jealous with how quickly she can act and react

Faster run speed is definitely something Falco needs to do well in high-level play. It will make keeping up and not getting overwhelmed by quick characters like Sonic, ZSS, and Pikachu much easier. What would be really nice is if they made Falco's dair have a faster start up, making him have an option to escape juggles from underneath him. Maybe give his Nair a hitbox underneath him? I can dream..

 

[BltzZ]

You guys are making me so excited about the possibilities haha

 

[ILOVESMASH]

Considering falco's poor tournament results and placement on the tier list, It seems that he will get a huge buff in the next patch. I doubt that the developers will make his Dair have less startup or his blaster auto cancel since camping and meteor smashes were nerfed significantly in this game. I doubt running and air speed will be buffed either. Here's what i would like falco to have in the next update.

• Make falco's nair a frame 1 move, This would allow him to escape from combo's more easily and improve his awful disadvantageous state
• Change his d-throw so that it has minimal knockback and no knockback scaling. This will get him a plethora of combo options and kill setups
• Change Dash Attack to brawl falco's dash attack
• Improve grab range
• Decrease endlag of F-Smash and U-Smash
• Increase F-Smash's Range
• Reduce endlag of blaster to that of fox's
• Decrease endlag of Fair and Dair
• Increase D-tilt's knockback scaling
• Make it so that the entity of Falco Phantasm has a hitbox like in brawl and melee
• Increase knockback scaling of Falco's B-Throw
• Increase knockback of Falco's D-Smash
• Decrease endlag of jab

 

[Ffamran]

Considering falco's poor tournament results and placement on the tier list, It seems that he will get a huge buff in the next patch. I doubt that the developers will make his Dair have less startup or his blaster auto cancel since camping and meteor smashes were nerfed significantly in this game. I doubt running and air speed will be buffed either. Here's what i would like falco to have in the next update.

I'm going to have to explain some of this...

Make falco's nair a frame 1 move, This would allow him to escape from combo's more easily and improve his awful disadvantageous state

This would be broken as hell. The only character I believe that has a frame 1 Nair is Little Mac and it's a single hit move that's out for a couple of frames and has a small hitbox angled down along with little knockback and damage. Falco's Nair is a multi-hit move that's out for 20 frames. That would make Mach Tornado look like sad since Falco can instantly cover himself in hitboxes in 1 frame or 1/60th of a second as SSB4 runs at 60FPS. I suggested that Falco get back his Melee and Brawl Bair that was a sex kick, a move that covers both his front and back well and lingers well. For reference, Falco's old Bair was this which was kept in Project M. Funny enough, there was an early image of SSB4 Falco in a similar pose. Link: http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2...o_screenshots__by_nobunagasmash94-d75dw95.png.

See how Falco's front leg is slightly out? That's a hitbox and as a frame 4 move in all games including this one, it would let Falco interrupt combos and have a better disadvantage without having a broken move. To this day, I still don't know why the devs felt like giving Wolf's Bair to Falco. There was absolutely no reason for Falco to have Wolf's Bair and lose a sex kick that could help him. It would be a literal kick in the face if Wolf comes back with Falco's Bair meaning Wolf would have a sex kick and a "traditional" Nair that would make his disadvantage good if not godplayer like Sheik since Brawl Wolf's air speed was awesome and he had power to his Bair.

Change his d-throw so that it has minimal knockback and no knockback scaling. This will get him a plethora of combo options and kill setups

That might not be a good idea since Falco can already combo from D-throw, combo out, kill with, and put people in bad situations with of U-throw, and F-throw can be comboed out early on, but not as well as D-throw or U-throw.

Look up Brawl Wolf, his D-throw caused people to slide which is a bit different, but if Falco's D-throw had little to no knockback, it could potentially allow people to tech it instantly and punish Falco. If anything, it could gain more damage or keep its 9% from Brawl since chain grabbing doesn't exist and grab resets are difficult.

Change Dash Attack to brawl falco's dash attack

SSB4 Falco's Dash Attack is frame 8 while in Melee, Brawl, and PM, it's a frame 4. I don't know why the devs felt like he should have double the startup since the move wasn't all the great in terms of it was broken like how fast and strong Little Mac's is online. In all the games, it lets Falco combo to and from. That's pretty much it; it can't even kill that well. If anything, it could have been frame 5 or 6 if it was a really an issue. Or it could be stronger since it's Falco's slowest non-Smash move.

Improve grab range

I agree with this since it feels like Falco's hand is using Fox's hitbox kinda of like how Ganondorf's grab is a bit wonky. Otherwise, reduce the startup to Melee's; Melee Falco's standing grab was frame 7-8 while SSB4 Falco's is 8-9. In Brawl, it was 6-7 which considering Falco's good throw game in SSB4, would be ridiculous. For reference, Fox's standing grab is 6-7. His grabs, standing, dash, and pivot, startups could just be reduced by 1 frame and Falco would be better off with the minor change.

Decrease endlag of F-Smash and U-Smash

Side Smash's end lag doesn't seem that slow, especially for that kind of range and power. Up Smash on the other hand, does feel slow. Speaking of Up Smash, the first kick shouldn't have any base knockback and the growth should be where the knockback is from since I think the "tiny" 30 BKB and 20 knockback growth is what's causing the stupid first kick to launch people to far. There's also a point where the first kick has 80 for BKB and KBG is 30 and the frame 9 hitbox has 0 for BKB and 100 for KBG. Utilt's first hit's BKB is 0 and KBG is 100 and rarely do you have the issue of people falling out of Utilt.

That being said, I don't really understand knockback completely, but Up Smash should be tweaked.

Increase F-Smash's Range

Its power should be increased instead. For reference, it's a frame 17 move that does 15%. Diddy's Side Smash is a frame 12 move that does 16%; Diddy's Side Smash is 2 frames slower than if I remember correctly, Samus, Marth, Lucina, and the Pits's.

Reduce endlag of blaster to that of fox's

Covered this in a couple posts above. To summarize, it should be similar to Luigi or Brawl Wolf's end lag on their projectiles. That way, auto-cancel might not even matter since Falco can fire once, put it away quickly, and continue on like Luigi and Wolf.

Decrease endlag of Fair and Dair

Fair's end lag in the air is fine since it stays out for 24 frames. It could have less startup, so a frame 8-10 move instead of Brawl's frame 6 move. With how multi-hit moves connect in this game, a frame 6 Fair would be godplayer since Falco can gimp you like no tommorow. Landing lag at least has a hitbox out and I'd argue it's fine since Fair shouldn't be abused on-stage. It's more of an off-stage or full hop move.

For Dair, yeah, landing lag should be reduced since Falco doesn't have Captain Falcon's speed to whiff a Dair and run or Ganondorf's durability to whiff a Dair and survive. If anything, it could be a frame 12 Dair instead since while it's strong, Falco's mobility isn't up there to spike like Captain Falcon and he's not as strong as Ganondorf to instant spike you at 0%; Ganondorf will kill anyone with his Dair at 0%. Maybe not the Pits, Kirby, Meta Knight, and Jigglypuff, but everyone else will die to the King of Evil.

The alternative which might involve re-programming and re-animating Falco's Dair is to return it to a frame 5 Dair or maybe a frame 6 or 8 Dair and make it a very weak spike, like weaker than Kirby's Dair spike or about the same strength as Falco Phantasm. Why? It means he can spike quickly, but he'll need to work for it, but not as hard as reading the right situation to land a frame 16 spike.

Increase D-tilt's knockback scaling

As it stands, the body hitbox has a base knockback of 50 and knockback growth of 90 which explains why it kills at 130%, but you need to be close. The tail and disjoint have a BKB of 35 and a KBG of 88. 5 more BKB might be okay since the KBG is already good from the looks of it.

Make it so that the entity of Falco Phantasm has a hitbox like in brawl and melee

Everyone agrees on this because Falco Phantasm is not even a good move. It's a situational soft spike, doesn't kill until at around 470% when used on the ground or 300% when used in the air on a grounded opponent. With customs on, it gets outclassed by Fast Fire Bird as a burst movement. There is no major reason why it shouldn't have a full hitbox.

If customs are getting tweaked, Falco Charge should gain super armor, less startup, more power, or something. It's kind of stupid as a move to be a frame 21 move that doesn't kill until 175% which is about 60% more than Side Smash while being 4 frames slower and making Falco's horizontal recovery worse.

Increase knockback scaling of Falco's B-Throw

B-throw's throw base knockback is 80 with a knockback growth of 60; the laser's BKB is 60 with a KBG of 100. At center, B-throw won't do much, especially at higher percents, but at the ledge, it's likely going to kill at 140% if the laser hits. I don't know why since people should be able to DI it however they want at center stage and at the ledge, but it feels like they can't DI as well near the blast zone.

Instead of increasing the knockback, it might be better to decrease it. Why? If the throw's knockback is reduced, then the laser will probably be able to hit more easily at higher percents. Increasing knockback might make the laser even more unreliable since Falco will just chuck the person away and the laser wouldn't even be able to hit someone traveling that far and that quickly. That's just a theory and a flawed one since I don't really know how knockback works well enough.

Increase knockback of Falco's D-Smash

A frame 7 move that covers both sides of Falco, does 15% with the legs, 12% with the body, and has his legs be intangible is already good in my opinion. Intangibility is sort of like making Falco's legs disjointed which allows him to challenge things like a Luigi Missile heading towards the ledge. As it stands, the BKB is 20 and the KBG is 76 which is amplified by its hit angle, 25 degrees - a little above horizontal -, and damage. Down Smash isn't a move you're going to actively look for kills without, but out of shield (OOS), it's a fantastic option to push people away and punish (and kill) someone doing something stupid while near the ledge.

Decrease endlag of jab

For me, I don't really care about Rapid Jab Finisher's end lag, but allowing Falco to Jab cancel faster would be much, much better than having less end lag since Falco wouldn't even have to use Rapid Jab and its Finisher. He would just Jab 1 or 2 to grab, tilts, Smashes, Reflector (Void), etc. Might as well get rid of Rapid Jab and just have the Finisher be the third hit. Or make it so Falco can Gentleman the Jab.

 

[ILOVESMASH]

I'm going to have to explain some of this...


This would be broken as hell. The only character I believe that has a frame 1 Nair is Little Mac and it's a single hit move that's out for a couple of frames and has a small hitbox angled down along with little knockback and damage. Falco's Nair is a multi-hit move that's out for 20 frames. That would make Mach Tornado look like sad since Falco can instantly cover himself in hitboxes in 1 frame or 1/60th of a second as SSB4 runs at 60FPS. I suggested that Falco get back his Melee and Brawl Bair that was a sex kick, a move that covers both his front and back well and lingers well. For reference, Falco's old Bair was this which was kept in Project M. Funny enough, there was an early image of SSB4 Falco in a similar pose. Link: http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2...o_screenshots__by_nobunagasmash94-d75dw95.png.

Yeah Frame one was probably a bad idea. That being said, I doubt the developers would change moves completely (as in a change in a move's animation) because they didn't do that in the last patch, which is a shame as i loved Falco's bair in previous iterations in Smash.

 

[Ffamran]

Yeah Frame one was probably a bad idea. That being said, I doubt the developers would change moves completely (as in a change in a move's animation) because they didn't do that in the last patch, which is a shame as i loved Falco's bair in previous iterations in Smash.

Animating would take a while, unless there were archives or something of the move's testing animations like what Falco's Bair may have. Speeding up something would work, but it would look weird since Falco would spin faster than what it was supposed to be animated as. Landing lag, however, can be altered since Ganondorf's landing lag was reduced for pretty much all of his aerials in from patch 1.03 to 1.04.

That being said, they've had several months and who knows, maybe they've been cooking up a ton of stuff, I mean, did anything really believe Lucas would be unveiled this soon? Considering the trophy and considering games take years to develop from concepts to testing to finalization, it wouldn't be surprising if Lucas had unfinished work or there were unfinished moves like Falco's old Bair or the 3rd set of customs.

 

[Snackss]

I'm hoping for something big considering Falco is bottom tier in Japan and has no tournament presence in the U.S. either, but it's a lot to expect anything other than a couple frame changes.

 

[Ffamran]

I'm hoping for something big considering Falco is bottom tier in Japan and has no tournament presence in the U.S. either, but it's a lot to expect anything other than a couple frame changes.

Falco's only major and consistent tournament presence is GimR pulling out Falco at S@X. Ironically, eventhubs has Falco at mid tier while everywhere else, he's low mid at best if not considered bottom.

 

[Snackss]

Well, eventhubs also thinks Lucario is top 10 and Marth is better than Luigi. That site is notorious for a reason, I guess.

I'm just really losing hope with Falco. His approaches are bad and his grab game isn't very good

 

[Gamegenie222]

LMAO Eventhubs don't listen to Eventhubs tier list unless they are on big Capcom games dawg. Those tier list are terrible.

 

[AmishTechnology]

Mario has a good everything. Sheik has a great everything.

I'd say Falco has an... okay everything, except for bair. Bair is the one thing that's really great about him. Oh, and his air-to-air is good too. But the rest of him is rather underwhelming atm.

Don't underestimate the power of subtle frame/hitbox tweaks though. A more consistent usmash, easier-to-sweetspot dair, faster or less laggy fair, etc. He could easily become Mario tier with a few changes.

 

[SoundChow]

Mario has a good everything. Sheik has a great everything.

I'd say Falco has an... okay everything, except for bair. Bair is the one thing that's really great about him. Oh, and his air-to-air is good too. But the rest of him is rather underwhelming atm.

Don't underestimate the power of subtle frame/hitbox tweaks though. A more consistent usmash, easier-to-sweetspot dair, faster or less laggy fair, etc. He could easily become Mario tier with a few changes.

If they fixed his u-smash, decreased the end lag on his first two jabs, and gave him his sex-kick bair from Brawl, then I could definitely see Falco's viability come closer to Mario's.

 

[Ffamran]

Well, eventhubs also thinks Lucario is top 10 and Marth is better than Luigi. That site is notorious for a reason, I guess.

I'm just really losing hope with Falco. His approaches are bad and his grab game isn't very good

LMAO Eventhubs don't listen to Eventhubs tier list unless they are on big Capcom games dawg. Those tier list are terrible.

I was trying to make a point on the irony that a "sketchy" site rates Falco higher than anywhere else. I bet they still have Rosalina as higher than Diddy and DK at the bottom.

 

[AmishTechnology]

If they fixed his u-smash, decreased the end lag on his first two jabs, and gave him his sex-kick bair from Brawl, then I could definitely see Falco's viability come closer to Mario's.

Oh yeah, an actual sex kick is what Falco really needs. That alone would raise him like two tier letters lol because he'd have a usable aerial approach and combo breaker against small guys. RAR bair is just way too tough to land against anyone who isn't Rosalina or Bowser height.

But I suppose a n-air hitbox/priority buff would sort of work too for approaching. Why not both heh.

 

[Ffamran]

Oh yeah, an actual sex kick is what Falco really needs. That alone would raise him like two tier letters lol because he'd have a usable aerial approach and combo breaker against small guys. RAR bair is just way too tough to land against anyone who isn't Rosalina or Bowser height.

But I suppose a n-air hitbox/priority buff would sort of work too for approaching. Why not both heh.

It's less of not being able to approach without a sex kick and more of Falco's air speed not allowing him to get away with aerials like Wolf whose air speed was great, Meta Knight who can sort of hover over you with Dairs, or Peach because of her float ability. A proper sex kick which he had two in Melee since he was Fox's clone or one in Brawl because he kept 64 and Melee Fox's Bair and made it his own since Fox gained a new Bair resembling a whip kick and Wolf had his own. In Brawl, he had a sex kick that was powerful as a kill tool and since it had a front hitbox, it allowed him to stop things from hitting him even though he might not have had to because of Brawl Falco's godplayer Blaster. Fox had and still has Nair to back people off and in Brawl Wolf had his Nair similar to Meta Knight, Sonic, and Pikachu's except his knocked people back on the first hit frames or comboed with the later hit frames. Falco doesn't have a sex kick for some reason and gained Wolf's Bair in animation for some reason - Wolf's Bair functions differently by having three hitboxes with the foot being the strongest and the body being the weakest similar to Falco's Dtilt hitbox spacing.

Is it a good move? Hell yeah, but it's not a move he can use to approach like Wolf could and it's not like his old Bair where he could stop people from beating him into a pulp. Nair can stay as a combo tool so long as Falco has a sex kick which like I mentioned above, he might have had his old Bair, but it was swapped for some reason. Miracles can happen and if patch 1.0.6 or the "Mewtwo patch" aka the M2P actually changes Falco's Bair to his old Bair, then I'd be one happy duck. It's not likely, though. Approach-wise, if Blaster had end lag similar to Luigi's Fireball, then a lot of Falco's approach issues would be improved.

 

[Wa_Black]

Is Falco really that bad? His neutral seems pretty good, his recovery doesn't seem bad if he has his jump and still isn't terrible without it. Down b is good for keep away and projectiles. Up air is good for frame traps, up smash isn't bad, up tilt kills... I think. His other tilts seem decent. He has one of the best down smashes in the game, he can perfect pivot into it as well.

 

[Snackss]

Is Falco really that bad? His neutral seems pretty good, his recovery doesn't seem bad if he has his jump and still isn't terrible without it. Down b is good for keep away and projectiles. Up air is good for frame traps, up smash isn't bad, up tilt kills... I think. His other tilts seem decent. He has one of the best down smashes in the game, he can perfect pivot into it as well.

He has no way of dealing with pressure, and he doesn't have approach options, which are a big problems. He's pretty comfortable in certain matchups where he can control space with his reflector, but against like, Captain Falcon, forget it. He gets stuck relying on jabs for damage more than anyone should and doesn't really have safe options. He's solid enough in some aspects to make you think he should be considered better, but overall he's way too underwhelming.

 

[Wa_Black]

He has no way of dealing with pressure, and he doesn't have approach options, which are a big problems. He's pretty comfortable in certain matchups where he can control space with his reflector, but against like, Captain Falcon, forget it. He gets stuck relying on jabs for damage more than anyone should and doesn't really have safe options. He's solid enough in some aspects to make you think he should be considered better, but overall he's way too underwhelming.

What characters have things to deal with fast characters? I play dark pit and I get tore up by fast characters. I thought that was why fast characters normally become top tier. What are some examples of ways of dealing with rush down characters?

 

[Shog]

Hello I have a question:
With the upcoming balance patch, what SMALL change would make Falco okayish? Me and my brother thought simply increasing his air speed would be enough, but the Falco Mains here probably know what change would benefit him best (again: Small change. Not Animation changes or complete new attacks etc.)

 

[AmishTechnology]

@ W Wa_Black

As I've mentioned before, Falco's okay at everything. Okay doesn't cut it against viable characters when they are overall at least okay in most aspects and great in the rest of their game. Mario is good at everything. Sheik is great at everything. Diddy is great at most things, insane at approaching and ko'ing, and okay at recovering. ...Falco is... okay/passable at everything except his air-to-air, that is actually pretty good. D-smash is great and easy to land, but whiffing it is brutal, it's certainly not the standard safe lagless smash that many other characters seem to have at least one of in Smash 4 (good examples being Ganon u-smash, MK f-smash). But yeah, decent/okay doesn't cut it when other characters will match you in those aspects and just excel in other ways far above Falco. The only things Falco has that would make top tiers jealous are bair, fair (only for non-neutral game, sadly), jump height, and maybe reflector. Only one of these is really usable for the neutral game lol... Falco relies a lot on his jab, yet enemy's can escape out of the jab combo if you hit them on top of you or something stupid and the 1 - 2 jab simply doesn't guarantee a follow up quite often.

@ Shog

We already mentioned a few ways Falco could receive buffs that low level players wouldn't even notice, but would do tremendous things for Falco's game. But increased Falco air speed would indeed be a GREAT buff. He's really good at the whole airdodge-baiting air-to-air game, but the enemy sometimes just has too much horizontal air movement for you to really trap or even chase/reach him whatsoever. But yeah, minor frame tweaks, faster aerial movement, more reliable jab and 1-2 jab followups, buffed fair and bair hitboxes... these would make him a much better character without even revamping anything, and casual players would be none the wiser.

ON A DIFFERENT TOPIC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPmMs4wiclk This is worth investigating...

 

[Ffamran]

Hello I have a question:
With the upcoming balance patch, what SMALL change would make Falco okayish? Me and my brother thought simply increasing his air speed would be enough, but the Falco Mains here probably know what change would benefit him best (again: Small change. Not Animation changes or complete new attacks etc.)

For me: significantly decreased ending lag on Blaster, a full hitbox on Falco Phantasm, and lower landing lag on Fair and Dair. Oh, and make Side Smash do more damage or knockback because it's stupid when a frame 17 move does less damage than a frame 12 move - Diddy's Side Smash does 16% and comes out at frame 12. Even though it's a 1% difference, it's a 5 frame difference that would determine who's hitting who first.

ON A DIFFERENT TOPIC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPmMs4wiclk This is worth investigating...

I'm going to assume no SDI or even DI since people can get out of Link's "infinite" by SDI-ing.

 

[ILOVESMASH]

@ W Wa_Black

As I've mentioned before, Falco's okay at everything. Okay doesn't cut it against viable characters when they are overall at least okay in most aspects and great in the rest of their game. Mario is good at everything. Sheik is great at everything. Diddy is great at most things, insane at approaching and ko'ing, and okay at recovering. ...Falco is... okay/passable at everything except his air-to-air, that is actually pretty good. D-smash is great and easy to land, but whiffing it is brutal, it's certainly not the standard safe lagless smash that many other characters seem to have at least one of in Smash 4 (good examples being Ganon u-smash, MK f-smash). But yeah, decent/okay doesn't cut it when other characters will match you in those aspects and just excel in other ways far above Falco. The only things Falco has that would make top tiers jealous are bair, fair (only for non-neutral game, sadly), jump height, and maybe reflector. Only one of these is really usable for the neutral game lol... Falco relies a lot on his jab, yet enemy's can escape out of the jab combo if you hit them on top of you or something stupid and the 1 - 2 jab simply doesn't guarantee a follow up quite often.

@ Shog

We already mentioned a few ways Falco could receive buffs that low level players wouldn't even notice, but would do tremendous things for Falco's game. But increased Falco air speed would indeed be a GREAT buff. He's really good at the whole airdodge-baiting air-to-air game, but the enemy sometimes just has too much horizontal air movement for you to really trap or even chase/reach him whatsoever. But yeah, minor frame tweaks, faster aerial movement, more reliable jab and 1-2 jab followups, buffed fair and bair hitboxes... these would make him a much better character without even revamping anything, and casual players would be none the wiser.

ON A DIFFERENT TOPIC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPmMs4wiclk This is worth investigating...

That's the jab cancel. Falco has been known to be able to do this for a while.

In my opinion, Falco's issues stem from design choices that the developers did not compensate for. He's a light weight that's slow on the ground and in the air who can easily be combo'ed and has terrible vertical recovery. In melee, he was able to compensate for this with his godlike lasers, ridiculously good reflector, great frame data in all his attack, safe combo starters and kill options, etc.. In brawl, he lost several tools that he had in Melee, but still possessed key tools that he had in melee, namely his blaster and dair, while gaining an approach option in his DACUS, as well as a chain grab.

In Smash 4, due to the engine changes, he lost a large amount of options that made him viable in the previous games despite his issues. Due to the universal nerf to camping and meteor smashes / spikes, his lasers and dair were nerfed significantly. This removes an approach tool, a zoning tool, and a kill move from Falco's arsenal and as such, makes it hard for him to kill and approach in this game. They even nerfed Falco phantasm's hitbox, meaning that Falco lost yet another approach option. Because of these changes, Falco still retains the core issues that he had since melee, while gaining several new issues with no compensation. Only way I could see Falco becoming viable in the next patch is if the developers improve his airspeed and ground speed (unlikely), change his Dair, bair, and lasers to what they were in brawl (unlikely), or give him multiple buffs in Frame data, Knockback, and damage output while slightly remedying some of his issues (lasers and Dair lag, phantasm's wonky hitboxes, etc.)

 

[Shaya]

My personal things I'd love to see, in order of priority

1. Aerial Mobility: I love moving with this character, pivot jumps and his fast fall speed are pretty amazing already. Aerial mobility akin to Mario would cover just about everything he needs to win with his current kit in what I feel is honest (well, if suddenly me uairing people to beat their fairs is honest)

2. Laser auto cancel or tuned to a short hop single laser being near-lagless landing.

Wishful thinking:
1. Phantasm being hitbox the entire way
2. Dash attack buffs

Something I don't really talk about much (but that recent comp topic reminded me) is how Falco was 'nerfed' between the patches. Losing the way his fair interacted (spiking people in trades) really did hurt him more than the upped speed on laser and landing hit of fair damage did. He went from being a consistent demon off stage to maybe above average.

 

[ILOVESMASH]

I have a couple a questions regarding some general opinions.
What makes falco have losing MUs against villager, Mega Man, and Lucina?
What makes falco's disadvantageous state so awful when he has a frame 3 nair (i'm assuming its the range of the move)?

 

[Ffamran]

I have a couple a questions regarding some general opinions.
What makes falco have losing MUs against villager, Mega Man, and Lucina?
What makes falco's disadvantageous state so awful when he has a frame 3 nair (i'm assuming its the range of the move)?

For MU, there's 8 days until the next patch, so I'm holding off making new MU discussions. Mega Man has a MU discussion that's dated and the Lucina boards have talked about Falco, but it's also dated; both will be outdated in some way with the evolving metagame and because of what the patch could do. For Villager, I don't think either of us, the Falco and Villager boards, have done a discussion. I don't fight a lot of Villagers and online Villagers aren't that great to base off of.

As for disadvantage state, Nair being a multi-hit move means Falco can't have a quick and strong knockback move that covers his body, a sex kick, to get out situations like Mario, Dr. Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Fox, Link, and more. In Melee, being a clone of Fox let him have two sex kicks, Nair and Bair. In Brawl, his Nair was changed to what it is now while Bair stayed the same from Melee, so he had a sex kick to get out of situations while Fox had his Bair changed to a reverse whip kick, so both had one move to get out of situations. In SSB4, he has Wolf's Bair in animation which means no front hitbox and which means no sex kick at all. Add in his fast fall speed and his slow air speed means that Falco is screwed compared to Fox who despite being also a fast faller and having slowish air speed, Fox has his Nair which covers his entire body unlike Falco who only gets coverage with his arms spinning at an angle and he has to land the last hit which comes out at frame 21 and lasts until 23, so 3 frames while Fox's starts around frame 3 or 4 and lasts until somewhere in the 20s, so Fox has a strong hit with Nair in the first few frames which is what will interrupt people while the rest still has enough knockback to stop people for the 10 or more frames. Falco's Nair's first hit is meant to combo into the rest of the move, so little knockback and little range makes it not that great for getting out of things. Bair is useless since it only hits from the back and then he has Uair, Fair, and Dair which are all above 9 frames in startup; Uair is 10, Fair is 12, and Dair is 16.

 

[SoundChow]

This is a pretty small question, but does anyone else have trouble landing ledge trump back-air with Falco? It's hard landing his back-air after stealing the ledge, especially on small characters like Ness, and I find his instant ledge snap to be pretty difficult to time as well. I usually do best chasing with f-air or b-air, but ledge trumping is safer on characters with dangerous recoveries like metaknight.

 

[Ffamran]

Word to the wise: never go Halberd against Palutena when customs are on. You'll be taking a hard gamble. Video from ZeRo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZZ4zrK_ssU.

Speaking of ZeRo...

#RIPZeRO
#RIPFalco
#BanPalutena
#NerfPalutena
#RemovePalutena
#TunasAreNotAllowed
#BanHalberd
#SakuraiWaifuGameTooStrong

 

[gittyking]

I love Falco, I really do. But, I've had people tell me he's not that good and I can't find any guides on him. My main in captain falcon but I feel like I would really like to secondary Falco. what do you guys think? Is he good or bad? Are there any good guides on him for smash 4 out there?

 

[Conn1496]

If you want to, do it is what I say. It doesn't matter about viability and reading guides, if you like a character and stick to them, you'll get good and acquainted with them in your own time, and learn your own way.

That being said, if you do want help picking him up, keep snooping around the Falco boards, there's definately people who drop tips here and there for playing him, so don't hesitate to look through threads.

I haven't given him much time personally, but in my personal opinion, Falco is way worse than he was in Brawl - a little clunky even. Regardless, I still find him pretty fun to play as, so I'd give the thumbs up to anyone willing to give him a chance.

 

[Snackss]

He's not great but he has some decent matchups, and he's probably getting buffed this week, so don't drop him because of what anyone else says.

 

[Captain Rage Quit 69]

Go for it is all I can say. I "secondary" Doc because he's fun, so if Falco's fun for you then play him and tell the haters to screw off.

There's plenty of material on this board about Falco, so read up. If you wanna talk about him, we have threads for it. Matchups? We have threads for that too. Wanna talk about how to use his moves to their max potential? Thread for that too. There's a directory stickied to the top of the board so give it a visit, and come back on the 15th to find out what kind of balance changes Falco gets.

 

[SmashFactionNC]

Since falco has wings and is a bird, i think he should be able to glide, maybe not have like 6 jumps, but at least be able to glide

Dude, genius. Yes please.

Turning Firebird into Thunderbird is a great idea. Giving him dual pistols and giving him the Sky Claw for a Final Smash would be awesome, too. They should mainly keep Falco the same except for a few things like what were listed above, and add some minor animation differences here and there. I can't wait to see Falco in HD. It'll look great.

Ugh. Such good ideas.

The one big change that Falco needs is that his Final Smash should be his Arwing. Get on board, and start firing lasers at the competition.

It is what he's best known for after all!!

 

[Ffamran]

I love Falco, I really do. But, I've had people tell me he's not that good and I can't find any guides on him. My main in captain falcon but I feel like I would really like to secondary Falco. what do you guys think? Is he good or bad? Are there any good guides on him for smash 4 out there?

We already have a thread on this: http://smashboards.com/threads/a-secondary-to-falco.388026/.

And you could have asked in the general discussion and Q&A thread: http://smashboards.com/threads/falco-king-of-the-birds-game-play-discussion-q-a.367184/unread. Do you mind of if I move everything over to here?

As for guides, there is one, but I don't know if it's been updated yet not to mention that by 4/15, it could be outdated with the new patch: http://smashboards.com/threads/personally-i-prefer-the-air-a-wip-guide-to-ssb4-v1-0-4-falco.382866/.

@ SmashFactionNC , welcome to Smashboards and welcome to the SSB4 Falco boards. First off, don't post consecutively. If you want to add onto your post, just click "Edit" and type in whatever you want to say. Second, don't quote people from way back because those messages are almost a year old. You can "Like" them, but don't quote them since, well, they're old - necro-quoting, I guess, sort of like necro-posting where you revive old threads. It's also a way to prevent issues where say, 6 months ago, someone said Falco's Fair was bad, but then you quote him and start saying that it's not. Well, that was 6 months ago, so opinions and how the move works or should be used has changed.

Also, check out the Falco directory to find your way around some important threads in the Falco board: http://smashboards.com/threads/important-all-aircraft-report-falco-directory.398704/.

Enjoy your stay here.

 

[(Buddha)]

Does anyone else miss Falco's faster paced fighting? I wish his overall speed would be improved in the patch. Also wish is Dair was faster.
R.I.P Melee
I also miss his 64 design...

 

[ILOVESMASH]

After playing him for a while, I really hope the devs buff 's approach options because as it stands right now, he has some of the worst approach options in the game. Dash attack is too slow, Dash Grab is slow and has horrible range, u-air and nair lack range, and Fair and Dair are unsafe on shield. The only good approach option he has is RAR Bair, which you are going to be using as your main KO move and in pseudo chain grabs, making it prone to staling.

I'm also wondering if walking is any use for . His Run speed is extremely slow as is and he has a larger amount of options available to him while walking.

 

[Snackss]

You generally walk as Falco, it lets you annoy people with Reflector, jab, and tilts, which are all better than his crappy dash attack.