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

[Ffamran]

Similar to Airdodge glitch, Falco can Land with zero frames of landing lag if he uses his fair again after his FH Fair. Could be useful for mixups.

Got a video or a gif for that?

 

[ILOVESMASH]

Got a video or a gif for that?

I'll do it when i get home from school.

 

[Ffamran]

So, Falco's pretty damn fast: http://smashboards.com/threads/smash-4-frame-data-rankings.402294; 16th out of 53 characters or 9 if you only count the fastest five normals everyone has. He'd be faster if his Dash Attack wasn't twice as slow, his grab wasn't slower than Ganondorf's, and maybe if Dair was frame 12-14 instead of 16.

 

[gameplayzero]

So, Falco's pretty damn fast: http://smashboards.com/threads/smash-4-frame-data-rankings.402294; 16th out of 53 characters or 9 if you only count the fastest five normals everyone has. He'd be faster if his Dash Attack wasn't twice as slow, his grab wasn't slower than Ganondorf's, and maybe if Dair was frame 12-14 instead of 16.

honestly I'm pretty surprised. I thought he was slow as molasses because of what you mentioned. That still doesn't make me feel any better though honestly.

 

[Ffamran]

honestly I'm pretty surprised. I thought he was slow as molasses because of what you mentioned. That still doesn't make me feel any better though honestly.

Movement-wise, he's slow as molasses which is the opposite of apparently, Robin and Captain Falcon, but for the Capt. he, like Ganondorf, have some moves that skew their hit frame speeds like their Smashes as their aerials are fast and tilts are average for Ganondorf and we all know about the Capt.'s jab. Falco on the other hand is overall a fast hitter and has been like this since Melee, but he just moves so slow. Blaster allowed him to deal with his poor horizontal mobility, but it was broken by design since Melee - the auto-cancel. Now, he's stuck with bad end lag on Blaster which is similar to Melee and Brawl's, but auto-canceling meant nobody cared or noticed and no way around his poor horizontal mobility. I mean, look at Ike, he runs slightly faster than in Brawl which actually makes him faster than Falco now and his air speed is much faster than in Brawl. Falco had the same air speed as Fox in Brawl, but now he's slower, either nerfed or Fox's was buffed, and his dash speed is pretty much the same as in Brawl. If Falco ran as fast as Samus, he probably wouldn't have as much trouble - Samus is slightly faster than Ike if I remember correctly.

 

[gameplayzero]

Movement-wise, he's slow as molasses which is the opposite of apparently, Robin and Captain Falcon, but for the Capt. he, like Ganondorf, have some moves that skew their hit frame speeds like their Smashes as their aerials are fast and tilts are average for Ganondorf and we all know about the Capt.'s jab. Falco on the other hand is overall a fast hitter and has been like this since Melee, but he just moves so slow. Blaster allowed him to deal with his poor horizontal mobility, but it was broken by design since Melee - the auto-cancel. Now, he's stuck with bad end lag on Blaster which is similar to Melee and Brawl's, but auto-canceling meant nobody cared or noticed and no way around his poor horizontal mobility. I mean, look at Ike, he runs slightly faster than in Brawl which actually makes him faster than Falco now and his air speed is much faster than in Brawl. Falco had the same air speed as Fox in Brawl, but now he's slower, either nerfed or Fox's was buffed, and his dash speed is pretty much the same as in Brawl. If Falco ran as fast as Samus, he probably wouldn't have as much trouble - Samus is slightly faster than Ike if I remember correctly.

that would make things easier if his movement speed was buffed. All of the top tiers would be less of a pain if that were the case.
The main reason we get outclassed imo is because we just can't catch up to them. We have to turtle it out and kind of get them in our space to even do anything. Sakurai may do something next game, but right now we will just have to dream of the old days lol.

 

[Ffamran]

Anyone tried adding Blaster to their follow ups? So, say Dash Attack sends them high up and you feel like Falco can't get there in time or you just want to mix things up, fire off a laser. Fox can do the same thing. The main issue is that Falco could get more out of another move, but the fact his Blaster can gimp can make it worthwhile. I think hitstun stops people from grabbing the ledge and Falco's Blaster has hitstun. So, it can take away any momentum from a jump if it hits right at that moment, but it can also just stall people from grabbing the ledge. More experienced players can deal with that situation, but it does set them up in a bad situation.

Also, it's just funny. Oh, you're in the air? Laser. Yeah, how do you like that? People probably expect something else, but just launching someone with Fox's Dash Attack only to run up and shoot one laser is just trolly.

 

[gameplayzero]

Anyone tried adding Blaster to their follow ups? So, say Dash Attack sends them high up and you feel like Falco can't get there in time or you just want to mix things up, fire off a laser. Fox can do the same thing. The main issue is that Falco could get more out of another move, but the fact his Blaster can gimp can make it worthwhile. I think hitstun stops people from grabbing the ledge and Falco's Blaster has hitstun. So, it can take away any momentum from a jump if it hits right at that moment, but it can also just stall people from grabbing the ledge. More experienced players can deal with that situation, but it does set them up in a bad situation.

Also, it's just funny. Oh, you're in the air? Laser. Yeah, how do you like that? People probably expect something else, but just launching someone with Fox's Dash Attack only to run up and shoot one laser is just trolly.

I need to send you a gif of me in a 2v1 situation. This dark pit just charged at me and instead of punishing him, I just lazered him in the face lol. My partner was like "why?". Its just the dumbest thing to do and the hitstun just makes it even more hilarious. Especially for gimping or when they are in an animation. I usually do a jump laser after a fair at high percents.

at least we aren't as bad as fox players who get like one laser hit when their opponent is off stage. That just looks really stupid.

Edit: dang you beat me to the fox laser joke lol.

 

[Ffamran]

I need to send you a gif of me in a 2v1 situation. This dark pit just charged at me and instead of punishing him, I just lazered him in the face lol. My partner was like "why?". Its just the dumbest thing to do and the hitstun just makes it even more hilarious. Especially for gimping or when they are in an animation. I usually do a jump laser after a fair at high percents.

at least we aren't as bad as fox players who get like one laser hit when their opponent is off stage. That just looks really stupid.

Edit: dang you beat me to the fox laser joke lol.

Or you could post the gif here for all of us to see.

I don't know, but I've been trying to do really stupid things just to see if I can get away with them. For one, I did go a couple of rounds with Captain Falcon using only his Gentleman and guess what? You can get away with around 120% if you play smart. His Gentleman is just that good. For Fox, I throw out one laser just for the hell of it. So, I could easily dash in and grab, but I'll just dash and fire off a Blaster and wait to see how they'll react. Sometimes I'll B-reverse it for fun. Even when I fire off multiple lasers, I'll fire one, wait for Fox to holster it, and fire again. A lot of people online are really serious, so why be serious when you can be silly?

Thing is that being stupid and silly can help with understanding and discovering things. For one, I decided to only foxtrot and see (read: troll) what would happen. After foxtrotting and doing nothing, I started adding attacks on. What I found was Captain Falcon's foxtrot is godplayer for mindgames, Toon Link's is also amazing because he covers so much distance and his attacks are all disjoints, and Link's is fine and his turnaround is kind of short so he can Ftilt the hell out of you from foxtrot, pivot Ftilting or he could continue into a dash and Jump Attack after a feint or something. Not a lot of people I fight foxtrot unless they're Marth and Lucina players. Oh, and Sonic's foxtrot is annoying because of his skid animation.

Other thing would be the Blaster thing which for Falco, gimps and stalls, while Fox adds on damage which might seem superficial, but it adds up over time. Snow does this a lot with Fox's default Blaster and if Fox can sneak in 1-2 lasers each time after a follow up or combo, then after 10 combos, that's 10% to 20% which could bring him that much closer to guaranteeing an Uair or Up Smash will kill. Only Gentlemaning with Captain Falcon just proves how good his jab is. Annnnd, it's funny.

It's also a way to explore. So, Falco's Dtilt is awesome which leads me to instinctively Dtilting with other characters which leads to figuring out that Captain Falcon's Dtilt is also awesome, Fox's can launch if you literally tip it (which I already knew from someone using Fox's Dtilt and connecting Fair with it), and Greninja can safely trigger Lloid Rockets with his Dtilt. Same dealio with Ftilt which lead to figuring that Fox's Ftilt is good even though it has slightly less range than Falco, but it has less end lag while Link and Toon Link's Ftilt are also good. Players who main these characters probably know this, but it makes me wonder why some of them aren't being used when I see those characters... Then I remembered a lot of players online and even offline are cookie cutters where they copy and perform moves not understanding why and how it should be used. You can't guarantee a D-throw to Uair on Diddy all the time, especially at high percent where you see cookie cutter Diddys flailing around with Uair like 3 times despite you being way the heck up in the air. It's worse when all they know how to do is one thing and it's even worse if they fail at it the during the beginning of the match. I've had someone drop Luigi's D-throw right when the match started and I have no idea how the hell they could do that since there is no reason you should mess up an easy follow-up like that. There's one thing to learn from players, but there's another thing to copy.

When they run out of options or do it instinctively, it's sad to see them not know how to do anything else with their character. The typical and hated For Glory Links only use like jab, Side Smash, Down Smash, Up Smash, Jump Attack, Dair, and his projectiles. Okay, that means Nair, Bair, Fair, Uair, Zair, grab, Ftilt, Dtilt, Utilt, and Spin Attack are all missing. Their movement basically being roll which is difficult to punish online means they're missing walk, dash, pivot, and foxtrot for their movement. All of these tools are just missing and that's just a waste. Usually, they'll never learn despite getting punished all the time for charging Smashes from across the stage. Why? Are people that stupid to fall for that? If I go in, then I take a risk of mistiming and getting hit, but otherwise, if I'm using say, Greninja, then I can Shadow Sneak or Water Shuriken all day while they sit there and charge Side Smash. And it happens to the good players too. I fought a Wario who knew what he was doing, but I noticed that he would use Corkscrew out of Bike to Dair even though the Bike knocked me off stage. I think his Dair has little landing lag and input lag already makes it difficult to punish, but it was interesting seeing that happen. Oh, and Falco's Bair eats Wario and his Bike for breakfast. It utterly destroys the Bike and I was able to break the Bike with Ftilt once, but I don't know why it broke.

 

[gameplayzero]

Or you could post the gif here for all of us to see.

Then I remembered a lot of players online and even offline are cookie cutters where they copy and perform moves not understanding why and how it should be used.

this is all I face online on anthers ladder or any 1v1 site. And you know what? I love it. They all follow the same basic pattern that its usually just so damn easy to see what they do next. People don't want to put in the work behind the character and just go to "win". You already know the flaw in that logic.

honestly some stupid stuff is just so bizarre and unexpected that its crazy enough to lead you in the right direction in a match. Hell stupid discoveries lead to some crazy things in smash 4 and other smash games. Like how could you think rest in melee would be connectable after an up throw on spacies in melee lol? People already thought jigs was garbage and rest was a terrible move. That just seems so farfetched. Or using dash dancing as a viable tactic when its essentially running back and forward. People laughed at ken when he did that (but it looks really silly lol). With characters that have no setups sometimes you just gotta wing it. Thats why training mode and studying move sets is important ( I train for an hour or less before playing).

My partner is making the gif now

 

[Ffamran]

this is all I face online on anthers ladder or any 1v1 site. And you know what? I love it. They all follow the same basic pattern that its usually just so damn easy to see what they do next. People don't want to put in the work behind the character and just go to "win". You already know the flaw in that logic.

honestly some stupid stuff is just so bizarre and unexpected that its crazy enough to lead you in the right direction in a match. Hell stupid discoveries lead to some crazy things in smash 4 and other smash games. With characters that have no setups sometimes you just gotta wing it. Thats why training mode and studying move sets is important ( I train for an hour or less before playing).

My partner is making the gif now

Eh, I don't like it since it's monotonous and if it works - I blame and call johns with lag -, it's stupid. It's also bad because it can influence newcomers to basically do the same thing and get away with it. When I see a Little Mac incorporate his "bad" aerials, I'm amazed since it's just so cool. Then I fight Little Macs who roll to move...

The thing that I like about Falco is that because he doesn't have (known) hit confirms and even his D-throw to Dash Attack doesn't always work means you have to be creative and you have to fight on the fly. At the same time, all of his moves combo and even combo into themselves. So, one time you'll be Dtilt to Bair, another it'll be Dtilt to Nair, and another it'll be Dtilt to Blaster, or jab, pause, grab, F-throw, Dash Attack. It's like free-form combat, but the main issue is that without easy ways to confirm kills, Falco does have it rough, but then you hit someone and they die.

The reason I was able to figure out Fast Fire Bird's slide was just by messing around and then when I saw Falco just land at idle, I was like, "What? What just happened?", and I tried it again, and BOOM! Falco has a tech that's difficult to use, but amazing. The person who figured out that Ganondorf's reverse Uair gimps probably did it by accident or by doing stupid things before finding out it's a powerful tool. Ditto with Wolf's Up Smash in PM. Or Wolf's Bair in Brawl which lead to Bair Walls of Doom brought you by Wolf in Brawl. Sometimes, being stupid is actually a good thing.

 

[gameplayzero]

Eh, I don't like it since it's monotonous and if it works - I blame and call johns with lag -, it's stupid. It's also bad because it can influence newcomers to basically do the same thing and get away with it. When I see a Little Mac incorporate his "bad" aerials, I'm amazed since it's just so cool. Then I fight Little Macs who roll to move...

The thing that I like about Falco is that because he doesn't have (known) hit confirms and even his D-throw to Dash Attack doesn't always work means you have to be creative and you have to fight on the fly. At the same time, all of his moves combo and even combo into themselves. So, one time you'll be Dtilt to Bair, another it'll be Dtilt to Nair, and another it'll be Dtilt to Blaster, or jab, pause, grab, F-throw, Dash Attack. It's like free-form combat, but the main issue is that without easy ways to confirm kills, Falco does have it rough, but then you hit someone and they die.

The reason I was able to figure out Fast Fire Bird's slide was just by messing around and then when I saw Falco just land at idle, I was like, "What? What just happened?", and I tried it again, and BOOM! Falco has a tech that's difficult to use, but amazing. The person who figured out that Ganondorf's reverse Uair gimps probably did it by accident or by doing stupid things before finding out it's a powerful tool. Ditto with Wolf's Up Smash in PM. Or Wolf's Bair in Brawl which lead to Bair Walls of Doom brought you by Wolf in Brawl. Sometimes, being stupid is actually a good thing.

it is very boring/tedious, you are right. I'm just ok with it in tourneys because its usually an easy win, but online when i'm trying to get better or have fun? Its frustrating. Unfortunately smash 4 is filled with that both competitively and casually. My partner constantly complains about that stuff lol. Its even more annoying when the cookie cutter stuff works (with top tiers thats going to happen).

you didn't tell me you discovered that tech! Kudos! Just wish you named the tech something stupid lol.

Ffamran's chili bird special
Burning pizza cake blaze
Over cooked untouchable bread deluxe

here is the gif: http://gfycat.com/PointlessTidyIrishterrier (he rolled back after getting hit haha. The mind games are real).

and one cool one to balance it out: http://gfycat.com/ContentShallowHedgehog

 

[Ffamran]

it is very boring/tedious, you are right. I'm just ok with it in tourneys because its usually an easy win, but online when i'm trying to get better or have fun? Its frustrating. Unfortunately smash 4 is filled with that both competitively and casually. My partner constantly complains about that stuff lol. Its even more annoying when the cookie cutter stuff works (with top tiers thats going to happen).

you didn't tell me you discovered that tech! Kudos! Just wish you named the tech something stupid lol.

Ffamran's chili bird special
Burning pizza cake blaze
Over cooked untouchable bread deluxe

here is the gif: http://gfycat.com/PointlessTidyIrishterrier

and one cool one to balance it out: http://gfycat.com/ContentShallowHedgehog

Well, Plain Yogurt noticed that Falco can land without any end or landing lag out of Fire Bird if you angle it right and someone else figured this out for Fox's Fire Fox which was ignored. I just found out how Fast Fire Bird's momentum affects it and that you could do it with Fast Fire Bird. I couldn't record it or make a gif, so I asked Lavani and he showed it with Down Smash out of that and I think either Lavani or Balgorxz found out it works for Flying Fox too. I called it "Fire Slide", but nobody ever calls it that since it's like "Fast Fire Bird Perfect Landing" or something. If you hold down while using Fire Bird and Fire Fox on the ground, Falco and Fox will roll for their end lag which isn't much for their defaults, Distant Fire Bird, and I think Twisting Fox, but it does change how and when Fast Fire Bird ends and I'm assuming this is the same for Flying Fox. What happens is that if you hold down while on the ground with Fast Fire Bird, Falco stops without sliding and stops shorter than a normal, horizontal Fast Fire Bird. It could be used as a mindgame and to stop before where someone thinks you'll be and it's basically the closest thing to canceling Falco Phantasm and Fox Illusion. I also called this "Fire Roll", but nobody ever delved into this and it never caught on...

 

[gameplayzero]

Well, Plain Yogurt noticed that Falco can land without any end or landing lag out of Fire Bird if you angle it right and someone else figured this out for Fox's Fire Fox which was ignored. I just found out how Fast Fire Bird's momentum affects it and that you could do it with Fast Fire Bird. I couldn't record it or make a gif, so I asked Lavani and he showed it with Down Smash out of that and I think either Lavani or Balgorxz found out it works for Flying Fox too. I called it "Fire Slide", but nobody ever calls it that since it's like "Fast Fire Bird Perfect Landing" or something. If you hold down while using Fire Bird and Fire Fox on the ground, Falco and Fox will roll for their end lag which isn't much for their defaults, Distant Fire Bird, and I think Twisting Fox, but it does change how and when Fast Fire Bird ends and I'm assuming this is the same for Flying Fox. What happens is that if you hold down while on the ground with Fast Fire Bird, Falco stops without sliding and stops shorter than a normal, horizontal Fast Fire Bird. It could be used as a mindgame and to stop before where someone thinks you'll be and it's basically the closest thing to canceling Falco Phantasm and Fox Illusion. I also called this "Fire Roll", but nobody ever delved into this and it never caught on...

lucario kind of has the same thing (like falco's and fox's normal recovery) where the normal lag from it is gone if you angle it right. Otherwise he just goes into this horrible crouch that basically says "kill me". I don't think he can act out of as as fast as fast fire bird per-say, but its there. I need to mess with that custom more honestly. Might be somewhat useful against sonic and diddy, and since I want to use the knock back reflector against diddy's just to test it out, the only eve custom set that has that is paired with the fast fire bird. Even if I don't want to use it, I'll have to if I want to use the reflector. Not really a fan of falco's other customs.

Though fast fire bird is still a really good mix up option and mind game tool.

Edit: here was the end of that match. It was too stylish not to post: http://gfycat.com/DimwittedFrankGuernseycow

 

[Ffamran]

Remember the frame data average thread? Well, it got updated with average damage output and landing lag. Falco does on average, 10% per hit. As for the strongest: Ganondorf who averages at 15% per hit and at the bottom Sheik averages barely 7.5% per hit. None of this takes into account specials, damage per second - Sheik hits faster than Ganondorf and could average much damage than him -, or multi-hit / strange hit stuff like Down Smash having 2 different hitbox, back and front or Falco's body hitbox on Down Smash, with only the strong hit counting.

As for landing lag, Falco and Fox surprisingly have similar landing lag except for that more of Fox's aerials auto-cancel. Falco's is at basically 21 frames of landing lag while Fox is at 20. None of this takes into account auto-canceling. Funny enough, Falco's 3 lowest landing aerials make it so his landing lag is 1 frame faster than Fox's 3 lowest landing lag aerials. Link to the thread: http://smashboards.com/threads/smash-4-damage-frame-data-averages-wip.402294/.

 

[Blad01]

So.... Back to Smash.

Falco is pretty much dead competitively, right ? ^_^

 

[Gamegenie222]

No LMAO just hiding with the remaining users we have.

 

[BlueBirdE]

Nah hes gonna get some spotlight soon

 

[Zionaze]

Falco is a pretty good secondary to use.

 

[Ffamran]

Guys, be careful with Falco Phantasm and Fox Illusion if you use Fox as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZ0Wkn436Kc.

This is why I mention what TKBreezy talks about with people not using "Melee angle" recoveries with Falco and Fox. Yes, Phantasm and Illusion are much safer because they don't leave you in helpless mode, but it's that sense of safety that can lead to them being abused.

 

[Dark Dire Wolf]

I've been read and countered like that so much up until recently lol.

 

[Ffamran]

I got a challenge for you all: try walking with Falco more than running. Falco is probably one of the few characters who can get away with walking the entire match and never having to dash unless he's going for a Dash Attack or wants to foxtrot since his initial dash is pretty fast at 1.9. With a walking speed of 1.28 (rank: 10) and a running speed of 1.472 (rank: 38), the difference is 0.192. A small number that is noticeable, but not as noticeable as Captain Falcon's walk and run 0.94 (rank: 39) versus 2.32 (rank: 2). Falco doesn't get locked into Dash Attack, dash grab, or a running Up Smash by walking. His standing grab being 2 frames faster means he can literally walk up and grab you. Walking allows Falco to use any of his tilts, Smashes, a faster grab, and he can even jab or just transition into a dash for a Dash Attack.

By walking, you might get that feel of slowing down and thinking more as you're not frantically rushing in with a dash. It's weird with the 3DS's Circle Pad, but I felt more in control and I realized that I get punished a lot for throwing out Dash Attacks recklessly which Falco can't really get away with compared to Fox or Captain Falcon. It was a pain to keep reminding myself to walk, but it gives that view of Falco has a lot of options for movement.

 

[Zionaze]

I actually rarely dash and only use walk and phantasm as a movement option

 

[Ffamran]

Our wingman doesn't even need to go off-stage to edgeguard. I'm starting to wonder if his lasers mess with Smash 4's buffer system.

 

[Nobie]

So recently just for kicks I started using Falco more. I don't think I'm ever going to main him or anything, and of course my experience with the character is very limited, but there are a couple of thoughts on my mind that I wanted to share, to see what actual Falco players think.

1) Falco is unfairly compared to not just his past incarnations, but also to Fox

While I can understand people's feelings over the loss of SHDL, quick spikes, etc., I also think his slowness is exaggerated by the fact that Fox is super quick. Everything Falco does, there's this sense that it's always relative to how Fox would do it, and I think this undermines a lot of Falco's strengths, including reach (especially with f-tilt), and having a better ledge game. I feel like when you remove not just old Falco but current Fox from your mind, it makes playing Falco a lot more comfortable.

2) Lasers are for follow-ups, not for fighting in neutral

A lot has been said about how much worse lasers are, and how their cooldown basically means you often get attacked for successfully hitting your opponent. Taking into account Falco's quick vertical and slow horizontal air speeds, I've found that lasers seem a good tool for gettig follow-ups that Falco normally wouldn't be able to reach. Basically, imagine you've knocked someone into the air and they're flying way out. Falco's a little too slow to follow up normally, but his jumps are so high and quick and his blaster reaches so far that you can quickly and safely tack on another 3%. While it doesn't seem like much, it's at least better than 0%.

 

[AmishTechnology]

Safe to say, Falco is my main now for two big reasons: he really tests my fundamentals (can't go on winning with some gimmicky or obscure stuff), and because there is just so little development for him at the moment, you really have to pave and find your own way to play this guy to have any success.

I think hitstun stops people from grabbing the ledge and Falco's Blaster has hitstun.

Any attack prevents ledge grabbing for 50 frames. This includes ftilt, dtilt, and reflector, all of which can be extremely useful in edge guarding and gimping. I'll go over those attacks a bit later.

As for blaster, you can prevent them from grabbing the ledge far away, then go for the snap break b-air as they try to recover. That, and every one of you already knows about stealing double jumps with blasters .

A lower angled ftilt prevents ledge grabbing if they're slightly above it and looking to snap, but it doesn't send them very high vertically while still knocking them back horizontally. This can be an excellent setup for fairs and whatnot, keep an eye out. That, or go for the snap break wall spike b-air if they don't have a double jump and have to up-B.

Dtilt only really works for edge denial on 0% because otherwise those 50 frames won't matter with how far d-tilt will launch them. Still, a move to consider in some weird scenarios.

Reflector is an EXCELLENT edge denial move in vs Fox and Falco dittos. I strongly believe that if the enemy Fox/Falco has used their second jump already and are still aiming for the ledge instead of recovering high, you, the Falco player, should get a guaranteed gimp/kill on them. When they Illusion/Phantasm for the edge, you use Reflector and deny them the ledge grab for those juicy 50 frames. Without the second jump, they are then forced to Fire Fox/Bird. This is probably the easiest recovery to d-air in the entire game, go for it. It will kill even at 10%. For other characters, replace d-air with a wall spiking b-air since their Up-B may not be as easy to d-air.

In case you don't know what snap break is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnaXWfUjPTA (Well, they call it snap back here). At any rate, I have successfully and consciously hit Sheik out of Vanish, Zelda out of Teleport, Meta Knight out of shuttle loop, and even Puff out of simply grabbing the ledge with a lot of practice on this technique. Falco's b-air is an excellent candidate because of its insane knockback and trajectory, making for an extremely quick wall spike that is very hard to tech. I haven't tried it with dair too much yet because that is much harder to time and position but, unlike the bair, you can't tech a dair spike, so that may be worth looking into for me. This is a colossal part of Falco's edge guarding and, if you aren't already implementing this in your play, you are failing to take advantage of one of Falco's strongest assets in his game: edge guarding (he is incredibly versatile in how he can edge guard). Combine this with ledge trumping, and a rather solid Zelda I was facing was absolutely dreading having to recover. Hell, she started recovering and landing ON stage instead of going just for the edge, which is often considered suicide in Sm4sh lol.

Falco lasers in the neutral... you don't even want to bother versus any somewhat fast character (which most top tiers are lol). It's like trying to use Q's taunt against Ken, you don't ever do it unless Ken is faceplanted because otherwise he will punish you even if he's halfway across the map.

For the whole Fox vs Falco thing... Fox is the better character, period. Falco has a much stronger edge guarding game, period. If you aren't taking full advantage of Falco's edge guarding, you may as well be playing Fox.

I'm going to be repeating myself a bit but, let's go over what Falco has:

- Snap breaking b-air into wall spike, this is a huge deal.
- Ledge denial (via blaster, reflector, ftilt, jab) for 50 frames -> leads into your other options depending on enemy's options: 1.) enemy has no double jump and slow up-B, you can go for the d-air spike at your leisure, 2.) enemy has double jump or faster up-B, you are better off going for b-air wall spike; however, if they DI away from the edge for some reason (they fear your wall spike or want to angle better for edge grab or something), you can go for the fair instead
- Fair catches airdodges, we know that. Fast fall fair into footstool is a thing, we know that too. Fair, fair, fair, it's just good.
- Threaten a fair (feint) to bait airdodge, then dair them, ala Captain Falcon. ZeRo is very good at doing these sorts of plays on his Falcon, and Falco's equivalent is this basically. He even has these variations for on-stage air play/juggle play, though I am focusing on edge guarding right now with this post.
- lol N-air, sometimes needed as an edge-guard because it's faster than fair and dair and doesn't have the same positional requirements as bair.
- Ledge trump -> 1.) ledge drop jump into bair, though this is avoidable, in which case there is also option 2, 2.) after ledge trump, get back on stage and take full advantage of the enemy's lack of invincibility frames on ledge grabbing. Some characters' recoveries force them to grab the ledge, you can charge a D-Smash or even time a d-air if their recovery is bad enough for the timing to be limited and clockwork (e.g. Marth and MK have difficult recoveries to d-smash, instead, d-air their no-invincibility ledge grab. They can buffer a getup, so it can be 50/50 in that sense). Some players will opt for a landing on-stage recovery with their renewed double jump. Play accordingly.
- And sometimes, a simple RAR bair or ledge drop off bair works.

In my opinion, for Falco to be tournament worthy, not only does he have to master the above techniques, he also has to master Perfect Pivots. PPing really opens up like four very good options for him: PP ftilt, PP utilt, PP dtilt, and PP Fsmash. PP ftilt is a very safe maneuver, even if the enemy shields it due to the space created. Same concept applies to PP dtilt. PP utilt is good for simply catching enemies with a launcher without having to deal with the cumbersomeness of walking to them, limited use but useful. However, PP Fsmash is the biggest gain to be had when mastering Perfect Pivot. You can still sort of achieve what PP ftilt and PP dtilt does with normal pivot tilts. However, PP allows Fsmash to be a RELIABLE punish rather than something you reserve for super omega YOLO reads (Fsmash is so unsafe in the neutral, I really wish people would stop spamming it nilly willy, almost as embarassing as using sh fair and dair in the neutral haphazardly). You PP back -> CONFIRM that the enemy threw out a whiffed aerial -> Fsmash as a REACTION rather than as a prediction. Bam, you land your strongest Smash on them safely, no reads involved outside of a non-committed retreating Perfect Pivot (which still allows you to shield or tilt or something if you were indeed threatened). Against the top tiers, Falco needs every single kill conversion he can get. With merely the basics and the underdeveloped tech of today's meta, Falco players simply aren't using him to his fullest in converting situations into KOs.

Edit: Expanding on Reflector edge denial...

If you reflector someone to ledge deny, almost everyone's reaction is to double jump and grab the ledge or up B and do likewise. This is an excellent opportunity to land a ledge trump on them. From then on, you know what to do...

F-Smash also hits non-invincible ledge grabs. I don't know if this is character specific (e.g. lands on Falcon, but will it land on Sheik who hangs much lower from the edge?) or universal. Not instant like dsmash, but obviously very strong and has more range, possibly a better option against stuff like ledge-trumped shuttle loop or Dolphin Slash if it reaches them. That, and no chance for flubbing up the spacing like Dsmash popping them straight up instead of sideways.

 

[Ffamran]

Welp... Yeah... I don't really know what to say. I have no idea if you can DI or SDI out of this.

 

[AmishTechnology]

Not too worried. Seems even harder to set up than an IC infinite and Phantasm probably goes through it anyways, Firebird is pretty bad and I think, as people get better at edgeguarding, you will almost always die when you Firebird becomes your only option left.

Expanded my last post too:

Expanding on Reflector edge denial...

If you reflector someone to ledge deny, almost everyone's reaction is to double jump and grab the ledge or up B and do likewise. This is an excellent opportunity to land a ledge trump on them. From then on, you know what to do...

F-Smash also hits non-invincible ledge grabs. I don't know if this is character specific (e.g. lands on Falcon, but will it land on Sheik who hangs much lower from the edge?) or universal. Not instant like dsmash, but obviously very strong and has more range, possibly a better option against stuff like ledge-trumped shuttle loop or Dolphin Slash if it reaches them. That, and no chance for flubbing up the spacing like Dsmash popping them straight up instead of sideways.


---


Edit: So I've noticed this but never have done it on purpose... there is a tiny window in ledge trumping where, if you ledge trump at almost the exact same time as the enemy, they will still hang onto the ledge for a bit before being kicked off. This means the amount of frames you can act off the edge before he can act after getting kicked off is even larger. I think Falco can get a guaranteed ledge drop jump b-air sweetspotted after this because the enemy won't be able to jump or airdodge. If you ever notice this "delay" with a perfect ledge trump, go for the bair, I say. Otherwise, I think getting on stage and preparing the dsmash, fsmash, or dair on their non-invincible ledge grab (or even on stage recovery landing!!!) is the safer, smarter choice.

http://smashboards.com/threads/ledg...guaranteed-reconsidered.403952/#post-19278356

This demonstrates the concept I am describing, except for Samus and her Charge Shot instead of Falco and his b-air.

 

[SoundChow]

Safe to say, Falco is my main now for two big reasons: he really tests my fundamentals (can't go on winning with some gimmicky or obscure stuff), and because there is just so little development for him at the moment, you really have to pave and find your own way to play this guy to have any success.



Any attack prevents ledge grabbing for 50 frames. This includes ftilt, dtilt, and reflector, all of which can be extremely useful in edge guarding and gimping. I'll go over those attacks a bit later.

As for blaster, you can prevent them from grabbing the ledge far away, then go for the snap break b-air as they try to recover. That, and every one of you already knows about stealing double jumps with blasters .

A lower angled ftilt prevents ledge grabbing if they're slightly above it and looking to snap, but it doesn't send them very high vertically while still knocking them back horizontally. This can be an excellent setup for fairs and whatnot, keep an eye out. That, or go for the snap break wall spike b-air if they don't have a double jump and have to up-B.

Dtilt only really works for edge denial on 0% because otherwise those 50 frames won't matter with how far d-tilt will launch them. Still, a move to consider in some weird scenarios.

Reflector is an EXCELLENT edge denial move in vs Fox and Falco dittos. I strongly believe that if the enemy Fox/Falco has used their second jump already and are still aiming for the ledge instead of recovering high, you, the Falco player, should get a guaranteed gimp/kill on them. When they Illusion/Phantasm for the edge, you use Reflector and deny them the ledge grab for those juicy 50 frames. Without the second jump, they are then forced to Fire Fox/Bird. This is probably the easiest recovery to d-air in the entire game, go for it. It will kill even at 10%. For other characters, replace d-air with a wall spiking b-air since their Up-B may not be as easy to d-air.

In case you don't know what snap break is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnaXWfUjPTA (Well, they call it snap back here). At any rate, I have successfully and consciously hit Sheik out of Vanish, Zelda out of Teleport, Meta Knight out of shuttle loop, and even Puff out of simply grabbing the ledge with a lot of practice on this technique. Falco's b-air is an excellent candidate because of its insane knockback and trajectory, making for an extremely quick wall spike that is very hard to tech. I haven't tried it with dair too much yet because that is much harder to time and position but, unlike the bair, you can't tech a dair spike, so that may be worth looking into for me. This is a colossal part of Falco's edge guarding and, if you aren't already implementing this in your play, you are failing to take advantage of one of Falco's strongest assets in his game: edge guarding (he is incredibly versatile in how he can edge guard). Combine this with ledge trumping, and a rather solid Zelda I was facing was absolutely dreading having to recover. Hell, she started recovering and landing ON stage instead of going just for the edge, which is often considered suicide in Sm4sh lol.

Falco lasers in the neutral... you don't even want to bother versus any somewhat fast character (which most top tiers are lol). It's like trying to use Q's taunt against Ken, you don't ever do it unless Ken is faceplanted because otherwise he will punish you even if he's halfway across the map.

For the whole Fox vs Falco thing... Fox is the better character, period. Falco has a much stronger edge guarding game, period. If you aren't taking full advantage of Falco's edge guarding, you may as well be playing Fox.

I'm going to be repeating myself a bit but, let's go over what Falco has:

- Snap breaking b-air into wall spike, this is a huge deal.
- Ledge denial (via blaster, reflector, ftilt, jab) for 50 frames -> leads into your other options depending on enemy's options: 1.) enemy has no double jump and slow up-B, you can go for the d-air spike at your leisure, 2.) enemy has double jump or faster up-B, you are better off going for b-air wall spike; however, if they DI away from the edge for some reason (they fear your wall spike or want to angle better for edge grab or something), you can go for the fair instead
- Fair catches airdodges, we know that. Fast fall fair into footstool is a thing, we know that too. Fair, fair, fair, it's just good.
- Threaten a fair (feint) to bait airdodge, then dair them, ala Captain Falcon. ZeRo is very good at doing these sorts of plays on his Falcon, and Falco's equivalent is this basically. He even has these variations for on-stage air play/juggle play, though I am focusing on edge guarding right now with this post.
- lol N-air, sometimes needed as an edge-guard because it's faster than fair and dair and doesn't have the same positional requirements as bair.
- Ledge trump -> 1.) ledge drop jump into bair, though this is avoidable, in which case there is also option 2, 2.) after ledge trump, get back on stage and take full advantage of the enemy's lack of invincibility frames on ledge grabbing. Some characters' recoveries force them to grab the ledge, you can charge a D-Smash or even time a d-air if their recovery is bad enough for the timing to be limited and clockwork (e.g. Marth and MK have difficult recoveries to d-smash, instead, d-air their no-invincibility ledge grab. They can buffer a getup, so it can be 50/50 in that sense). Some players will opt for a landing on-stage recovery with their renewed double jump. Play accordingly.
- And sometimes, a simple RAR bair or ledge drop off bair works.

In my opinion, for Falco to be tournament worthy, not only does he have to master the above techniques, he also has to master Perfect Pivots. PPing really opens up like four very good options for him: PP ftilt, PP utilt, PP dtilt, and PP Fsmash. PP ftilt is a very safe maneuver, even if the enemy shields it due to the space created. Same concept applies to PP dtilt. PP utilt is good for simply catching enemies with a launcher without having to deal with the cumbersomeness of walking to them, limited use but useful. However, PP Fsmash is the biggest gain to be had when mastering Perfect Pivot. You can still sort of achieve what PP ftilt and PP dtilt does with normal pivot tilts. However, PP allows Fsmash to be a RELIABLE punish rather than something you reserve for super omega YOLO reads (Fsmash is so unsafe in the neutral, I really wish people would stop spamming it nilly willy, almost as embarassing as using sh fair and dair in the neutral haphazardly). You PP back -> CONFIRM that the enemy threw out a whiffed aerial -> Fsmash as a REACTION rather than as a prediction. Bam, you land your strongest Smash on them safely, no reads involved outside of a non-committed retreating Perfect Pivot (which still allows you to shield or tilt or something if you were indeed threatened). Against the top tiers, Falco needs every single kill conversion he can get. With merely the basics and the underdeveloped tech of today's meta, Falco players simply aren't using him to his fullest in converting situations into KOs.

Edit: Expanding on Reflector edge denial...

If you reflector someone to ledge deny, almost everyone's reaction is to double jump and grab the ledge or up B and do likewise. This is an excellent opportunity to land a ledge trump on them. From then on, you know what to do...

F-Smash also hits non-invincible ledge grabs. I don't know if this is character specific (e.g. lands on Falcon, but will it land on Sheik who hangs much lower from the edge?) or universal. Not instant like dsmash, but obviously very strong and has more range, possibly a better option against stuff like ledge-trumped shuttle loop or Dolphin Slash if it reaches them. That, and no chance for flubbing up the spacing like Dsmash popping them straight up instead of sideways.

Does the reflector have a hitbox that goes under the ledge? If it does then it must be an amazing edgeguard tool, but you still need to be very exact with the timing to land the hit.

 

[AmishTechnology]

They will usually undershoot, so you may have to do sh -> dip to edge of stags-> reflector, then dj back to stage or dj and meet them with bair/dair while they firebird.

 

[NotAnAdmin]

Quad 1 get!

Welp... Yeah... I don't really know what to say. I have no idea if you can DI or SDI out of this.

Does Luma have disjointed jabs? Falco has no way around this tactic on omega stages or FD outside of bypassing the ledge, and that's almost a free up-smash for Rosy. That's just awful.

 

[Ultinarok]

Been playing a pocket Falco for fun since its been years since I played him regularly. Falco is my least favorite space animal in Brawl and Smash 4, but he's still fairly solid, and I think his weaknesses get blown out of proportion. Yeah he's a bit slow but he was just as slow in Brawl. If it wasn't for his chain grab, laser lock and dair shenanigans, people wouldn't reflect on Falco so fondly and be so disappointed in the new one. Brawl Falco was a poor character in my opinion; when played fairly and without 0-death frame trapping, he was mediocre, and only an overpowered dair and unfair advantages made him top tier. I actually like this new Falco better. Its nice that he actually KOs better than Fox now. Made no sense that Fox was faster and killed better at the same time in Brawl. Yeah Fox still kills earlier on average, but Falco has way more KO options; S-Smash, D-Smash, U-Smash, Dtilt, Side B meteor, dair, bair, uair, fair etc.

The only thing I can't decide is which Falco Blaster is best. With the overall blaster mechanic nerfs, Falco indeed has a worse a neutral game (nerfing the blaster was the right decision overall, but he should have been made faster to compensate and the end lag of it is unnecessary, that's true), but I don't know which Blaster benefits him most. I've had every custom unlocked on 3DS since November but still can't pick one.

Standard blaster has limited laser lock, decent damage, reflects Gordos quickly, and is good for popping off quick aerial shots to gimp or bait, and it can stop approaches dead if the opponent rushes. However it is not damaging or fast enough for frequent use and is better for popping off an occasional shot like Fox.

Explosive blaster has enough hitstun for safer follow-ups, can pull opponents in for boxing, has a lingering hitbox, suffers the least from the nerfs since it needs only one shot anyway, and increases the knockback of Falco's throws, but is has slow movement and poor range, so its hard to land correctly, and doesn't always knock opponents the way you want.

Fox blaster seems to benefit Falco more than Fox, it helps Falco apply pressure and damage after an attack since he's too slow to be able to relentlessly attack, its quick movement makes it harder to avoid in the air, it can kill steal, it makes his throws have kill potential for some reason (up throw can kill average weight at like 170% without rage, but it has poor damage and no hitstun like Fox's so it can't lock or set up like the others.

Which one is best overall? For both pressure and throws?

 

[NotAnAdmin]

All of them are lackluster in my opinion.
Blaster is one of the things that shouldn't have been nerfed so hardly, he needs them with his dash speed.
I want a fixed regular blaster, it doesn't need to auto cancel but there needs to be more incentive to use it. The damage needs to be buffed or the endlag needs to be reduced. Three percent on hit is a joke and stale lasers does even less, added on top you've got the frames for him to just put the thing away.

Explosive blaster doesn't have enough damage either plus the knockback is set. It can possibly lock someone down, but by the time Falco's done putting the blaster away your opponent can make a getaway. For throws, I would say any blaster that isn't his regular blaster is best. Explosive usually hits for what a few of have tested for possibly about 90% of the time. I don't know about the others.
Fox blaster is possibly the best for pressure and the recovery frames are very short, so you can actually get out of there when someone makes an approach or act quickly enough to counter.

 

[Ffamran]

Funny thing I found out thanks to Reflex: Falco and Little Mac share fall speed and weight, but Little Mac has a faster air speed, walk speed, and run speed.

Attribute||
Air Speed|0.893; rank 42|1; rank 26-28
Fall Speed|1.8|1.8; rank 5-7
Walk Speed|1.28; rank 10| 1.32; rank 8
Run Speed|1.472; rank 38|2.24; rank 3
Weight|82|82; rank 39-40

For reference, they also have the same fall speed as Mega Man, Little Mac's air speed is the same as Rosalina and Robin, Little Mac is barely slower than Captain Falcon and faster than Fox when running, Little Mac is barely slower than Sonic when walking while Falco is barely slower than Donkey Kong. So... Can the developers swap Falco's walk speed and air speed with Little Mac's? It's not like he needs them.

Edit: Note that Little Mac's air control or inertia and acceleration is bad. It's like how Shulk can fly through the air with Jump Art, but he can't change direction well.

 

[Ultinarok]

Funny thing I found out thanks to Reflex: Falco and Little Mac share fall speed and weight, but Little Mac has a faster air speed, walk speed, and run speed.

​

For reference, they also have the same fall speed as Mega Man, Little Mac's air speed is the same as Rosalina and Robin, Little Mac is barely slower than Captain Falcon and faster than Fox when running, Little Mac is barely slower than Sonic when walking while Falco is barely slower than Donkey Kong. So... Can the developers swap Falco's walk speed and air speed with Little Mac's? It's not like he needs them.

Edit: Note that Little Mac's air control or inertia and acceleration is bad. It's like how Shulk can fly through the air with Jump Art, but he can't change direction well.

Shulk changes direction much better in Jump. Its in all other modes and vanilla when his inertia is terrible. This applies to the ground too, he's horrible at switching directions in a dash, but in Speed, he's much faster about it and has incredibly good pivots.

I agree about air speed, although I don't think walk speed should be boosted much more, its already barely slower than his dash (kinda like Wolf in Brawl, but Wolf covered ground better with his great air speed and Side Smash). However a swap would be cruel to Mac, his OK air speed is the only chance he has at recovering, and we all know how it usually turns out even still.

Honestly, a tiny dash and air speed boost is all it would take to make Falco a serious contender. He has all the tools, improved kill power, high jumps, decent damage output, quick attacks, good combos, versatile options at range, a decent recovery and a great host of attributes that favor fundamentals. He just can't close the gap to utilize his tools well.

 

[Ffamran]

Little Mac's air speed is average, but it's hindered by a slow acceleration and inertia which is balance since if Little Mac's air speed was good, then his "recovery" would be decent.

For Falco, I'm starting to feel like he was the shoe-in character compared to everyone else because of weird design choices and that a lot of characters feel faster when they're not or if they are, then it's subtle like Ganondorf or Luigi which lead to this when someone said Luigi's mobility improved from the series.

Attribute|||
Air speed|0.68|0.7332|0.73418
Fall speed|1.6|1.22|1.25
Walk speed|1.1|1.08|1.08
Running speed|1.34|1.34|1.5

Luigi's most notable increase is running speed which he shares with Ike and I think 2 others. 1.5 used to be Falco's run speed in Melee. In Brawl it was 1.432 while in Smash 4, it's 1.472. Was it so difficult to just give him 1.5? It's not even that fast, but it feels like a slap in the face to make him 0.030 slower than his Melee run speed, but boost others. Fox's air speed was buffed to 0.96 from a shared 0.893 with Falco; Falco's was left alone.

The double startup on Dash Attack, the Wolf Bair, the Captain Falcon, Ganondorf, and Wolf Dair startup, how Up Smash works, and even his fall speed was buffed to match Wolf's. Falco's design in Smash 4 feels like a low-priority, appease the veterans deal while mixing him with Wolf who as we've seen from Nintendo's good DLC that's actually content unlike other companies, could have been in Smash 4 by default or later, but why? I thought the point was to make Falco stand as his own character and not a semi-clone of two.

A while back, I misinterpreted someone talking about character fall speeds being faster in Smash 4 than in Brawl for just straight up faster.

Minus Falco... His dash speed increased from 1.432 to 1.472, walk speed stayed the same at 1.28, air speed stayed the same 0.893 while Fox's was increased from 0.89 to 0.96, and fall speed 1.708 went up to 1.8 which is Wolf's fall speed. Well, that's okay, right? Wrong: double the startup on Dash Attack and Fair, from 4 to 8 and 6 to 12; Dair gaining 11 frames of startup from 5 to 16 - Wolf's Dair startup -, Dair also gained 14 frames of landing lag, Side Smash gained 1 frame of start up from 16 to 17, Reflector, I think, gained 1 frame of startup from 4 to 5, standing grab gained 2 frames of startup from 6 to 8 making his grab slower than Smash 4 Ganondorf and Melee Falco's grab by 1, Nair gained 6 frames of landing lag, Fair lost 1, and Blaster lost its auto-cancel ability and kept its crap end lag which might have increased from Brawl. If anything, Falco became slower by "60%" and I bet Mewtwo became faster since it has little end lag on its moves like Down Smash, but then again, I didn't play as the bobblehead Pokémon in Melee a lot.

The more I delve into the inner workings of SSB, the more it hurts and confuses me how Falco was designed like this in Smash 4. His Dair being nerfed in spike power while being fast would have been cool as nobody has an incredibly fast spike, but now he has a slow one like everyone else. That extra frame on Side Smash was unnecessary.

 

[Ultinarok]

Little Mac's air speed is average, but it's hindered by a slow acceleration and inertia which is balance since if Little Mac's air speed was good, then his "recovery" would be decent.

For Falco, I'm starting to feel like he was the shoe-in character compared to everyone else because of weird design choices and that a lot of characters feel faster when they're not or if they are, then it's subtle like Ganondorf or Luigi which lead to this when someone said Luigi's mobility improved from the series.


Luigi's most notable increase is running speed which he shares with Ike and I think 2 others. 1.5 used to be Falco's run speed in Melee. In Brawl it was 1.432 while in Smash 4, it's 1.472. Was it so difficult to just give him 1.5? It's not even that fast, but it feels like a slap in the face to make him 0.030 slower than his Melee run speed, but boost others. Fox's air speed was buffed to 0.96 from a shared 0.893 with Falco; Falco's was left alone.

The double startup on Dash Attack, the Wolf Bair, the Captain Falcon, Ganondorf, and Wolf Dair startup, how Up Smash works, and even his fall speed was buffed to match Wolf's. Falco's design in Smash 4 feels like a low-priority, appease the veterans deal while mixing him with Wolf who as we've seen from Nintendo's good DLC that's actually content unlike other companies, could have been in Smash 4 by default or later, but why? I thought the point was to make Falco stand as his own character and not a semi-clone of two.

A while back, I misinterpreted someone talking about character fall speeds being faster in Smash 4 than in Brawl for just straight up faster.

The more I delve into the inner workings of SSB, the more it hurts and confuses me how Falco was designed like this in Smash 4. His Dair being nerfed in spike power while being fast would have been cool as nobody has an incredibly fast spike, but now he has a slow one like everyone else. That extra frame on Side Smash was unnecessary.

I agree that dair should be stronger if its going to be so slow and have a big sourspot. Wolf's dair had two big, overlapping sweetspot hitboxes and no sourspot in Brawl, which made up for its startup and low meteor power. Falco's new dair feels cooler to land and feels much stronger, but is actually weaker or about the same.

Up-smash, I actually like better, its got a cool aesthetic and is at least another differentiation from Fox. I also like the Wolf bair (but I'm probably biased) and the generally better aerial game minus dair. I think he still has the potential to be solid, they just need to iron out opponent's falling out of Up-smash, dair's general mediocrity, and his bad movement speed.

 

[Ffamran]

Falco's Dair in terms of power and hitboxes are probably the same from Brawl - spike hit and sour-spot. The main difference? 11 more frames of startup and 14 more frames of landing lag. Look, of his Dair was still frame 5, but could guarantee a spike kill until say, 160%, I would gladly take that since it means he would have a way to challenge beneath him and a quick option to do ground bounce combos.

Don't get me wrong, I love how Falco and Wolf's Up Smashes are animated. It still functions like Wolf's, though. Maybe it could have had the Dr. Mario treatment and send people backwards which might have been a cool way to setup a Bair.

Wolf's Bair was good because of Wolf; Wolf had air speed to abuse it and his other aerials. Falco's Bair by Brawl was his own since Fox had a new Bair in Brawl and with Nair being a combo tool, it was Falco's only sex kick and a way to defend himself since Nair doesn't exactly cover himself like Bair or Dair. Now he doesn't have those and he's pretty much screwed when in disadvantage while Fox can at least Nair and Dair to challenge juggles and combos.

 

[NotAnAdmin]

I feel that in the search to differentiate Falco from the other spacies Sakurai went and ruined him.
As you state he keeps taking all these perfectly fine moves and leaving them to be lost forever or changing what used to be good about them. Falco has always had a fast dair, at least until this game. It's almost useless, and seems to require hard reads most of the time. Lasers are a joke, both in a defensive and offensive position, but Luigi and Mario can still throw out fireballs near the same rate as before, and it doesn't have such an awful recovery time.
Falco with some slight buffs on his dash speed, air speed, and lasers could take him from a Low C tier to a Mid or High B in my opinion.

 

[Ultinarok]

Falco's Dair in terms of power and hitboxes are probably the same from Brawl - spike hit and sour-spot. The main difference? 11 more frames of startup and 14 more frames of landing lag. Look, of his Dair was still frame 5, but could guarantee a spike kill until say, 160%, I would gladly take that since it means he would have a way to challenge beneath him and a quick option to do ground bounce combos.

Don't get me wrong, I love how Falco and Wolf's Up Smashes are animated. It still functions like Wolf's, though. Maybe it could have had the Dr. Mario treatment and send people backwards which might have been a cool way to setup a Bair.

Wolf's Bair was good because of Wolf; Wolf had air speed to abuse it and his other aerials. Falco's Bair by Brawl was his own since Fox had a new Bair in Brawl and with Nair being a combo tool, it was Falco's only sex kick and a way to defend himself since Nair doesn't exactly cover himself like Bair or Dair. Now he doesn't have those and he's pretty much screwed when in disadvantage while Fox can at least Nair and Dair to challenge juggles and combos.

Not nitpicking, but other than hitting twice, Falco's Up Smash is nothing like Wolf's. Its still functionally similar to Fox's but with much less power and a larger active sweetspot above Falco. Wolf's first hit connected on both sides of him and then pulled opponents up into his legs, which sent them vertically. It was equally strong on both sides, and contained a hitbox on his body that knocked opponents horizontally. Falco's is just an inverted flip kick that hits with both legs, so its basically like his old one but split into two hits, which makes it look very cool but also has the issue of the first hit sending opponents out of the second.