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

[madnuffjew]

Pretty sure the end lag on short hop illusion is significantly less than grounded illusion. Do you think short hop illusion is a viable part of falcos gameplay?

 

[tyc]

Aerial Illusion has less lag than grounded illusion since Brawl even tho it has been nerfed a bit in Sm4sh.

 

[BlueBirdE]

Theres situations where its good in neutral and tricks you can do like sh airdodge into an aerial illusion. If you hit aerial illusion and depending how they DI you can combo from it

 

[Ffamran]

Pretty sure the end lag on short hop illusion is significantly less than grounded illusion. Do you think short hop illusion is a viable part of falcos gameplay?

Nobody actually ever tested this in Melee or Brawl by exactly how much end lag was reduced. It's noticeable in Brawl and PM, but not so much in this game. Then again, like I said, nobody actually tested it. For all we know, it's 10, 20, 40, or even 50 frames less of end lag. Kind of wished someone could test this... I'll ask if this is a something people want to know exactly, but otherwise, this is a thing known since Brawl and something Fox and Falco players incorporate almost instinctively. Ike can do this too with Quickdraw.

This is IAP (Instant Aerial Phantasm) in Brawl.

 

[Jabzilla]

I have been wondering when playing with Falco online and stuff. That if a patch comes around and if Falco gets a buff. I wondered how his lasers should be buffed. Lets face it, they are pathetic right now. Not in terms of his past lasers. But compared to other characters projectiles in the game. Too much endlag and not enough reward.

The ways that they could buff it are a few. We know we aren't getting the laser glory of Melee/Brawl back. So I thought of other ways to make it "better". I thought of 3 ways, from a game designer's perspective on how to "buff" it. The main thing I tried to think of was "balance". Though I probably missed that by a mile.

The most obvious, is less endlag. So we can approach more safely rather than waiting an eternity for Falco to holster his weapon. But it may make it broken in terms of what it does and how fast it comes out again. If it ended the same time as Fox but still had the range and flinching like it does now. A lot of people may find it broken. Though you could also shorten the range on how far the lasers travel so at least you can approach safely.

The second one is scaling the damage up of the lasers while keeping the lag the same. I am talking about adding 4-5% onto it. Of course you can camp and add stupid amounts of damage. I think you can counter that by each time you fire the damage decreases but recharges after a while. So like 9%>6%>3% then waiting 5-10 seconds for the damage of the lasers to go back up. This one could be a good way of ending combos and adding a good amount of damage to your opponent. I mean 3% as it is now for all that it does is pretty bad. Reflector comes out/back faster, does more damage and even reflects projectiles. Only thing that Reflector doesn't have is the slightly longer range.

The final one, is adding more of a flinch/stun to the lasers. Cos right now by the time you put your gun back they will be out of the flinch and punishing you. Not make it like ZSS stun since that needs charging but make it at least by the time you holster your laser you can follow up with combos. Right now, I am only using it to stop smash attacks and fire at the start of the match.

Sorry for rambling on. I think you have gathered that I don't like the lasers the way they are now. I have just been thinking when playing Sm4sh, "How can they be buffed?. I liked Falco a lot in the past and in Sm4sh but I know that no one uses the lasers anymore for anything other than starting the match and stopping certain attacks. I also wanted to throw out what I thought of here so you guys can give your suggestions/criticisms.

 

[Krysco]

That actually reminds me, I was thinking about a bunch of random things at work to pass the time and one of the things I spent like a good two hours on was the inclusion of Wolf in Smash 4 as dlc and how well he would transition from Brawl to Smash 4. Part of that thought process was how his blaster (along with every other move) would transition and it got me thinking. If Wolf gets added in and keeps his blaster relatively the same from Brawl then it will almost completely over shadow Falco's. Does more damage, slower, larger, about equal range (a bit in Falco's favor but hardly), the bayonet, and it's about as spammable (again, slightly in Falco's favor since he can fire numerous shots before holstering plus it fires faster in the air). I wouldn't be surprised if their start and endlag were similar too.

Then I got to thinking about how when Lucas was added in, Ness got a minor buff to his PSI Magnet, specifically its endlag. Guessing this was done since Lucas' PSI Magnet has such little endlag and they wanted Ness' to be the same speed.

With that in mind, if we do get Wolf (I reallu hope we do) and if his blaster isn't changed (or changed much) from Brawl, I can see Falco's lasers getting a buff, probably in speed since Falco had the more spammable projectile in Brawl and that's not even counting the cancel.

Of course this is all theorycraft since I didn't have Brawl and Smash 4 in front of me to compare and it's been a little while since I last played Brawl so I could be off, plus Wolf may not even get in or if he does his blaster could be altered.

 

[BlueBirdE]

Just like to add how much I like his bthrow. Killed a Sheik at 29 on sv platform when i was round 60-70. I would like to think Camping the platform for a quick bthrow kill would be a nice strat if falco had a faster grab. Still a risk in the end.

 

[PaperMic]

It's strange. I may be wrong, but is it possible that the last active frame of its Dair act like its first active frame when it hits a character on the ground (Big hit lag, 13% damage, send people upward)? Or maybe...I'm confused lol, It's probably not the last active frame, but it's a really late one since it can auto cancel... It's dumb, Haha.

 

[ZeroSnipist]

Hey Falco players! We from the Ryu boards are making a doubles thread. The purpose of the thread is to find the best partner for Ryu. I'm going to invite as many people I can at once and get discussions going on all at once. We invite you to our dojo and hope you could help us discuss Falco and Ryu in doubles. Thank you in advance!

 

[A2ZOMG]

So, I haven't seen too much of this from anyone except myself personally, so I'm bringing it up. Falco's U-smash is amazing for trapping the ledge especially after all the changes making it connect better.

It effectively lingers from frame 8-21. That's a reaaaaly long time. Now the only thing I'm not quite as sure of is how consistent this is for hitting shorter characters who ledge stand, but either way Falco's U-smash should be abused to trap ledge getups.

 

[ligersandtigons]

So I was reading the frame data thread and came across this:

"Notes: On the ground, hold (diagonally) down on the analog stick/Circle Pad and Falco will roll instead. Just a little neat thing that can be done with Fire Bird and Fire Fox and their customs."

Could somebody please explain what exactly this means? I tried doing it on my 3DS and I couldn't get it to work.

 

[Ffamran]

So I was reading the frame data thread and came across this:

"Notes: On the ground, hold (diagonally) down on the analog stick/Circle Pad and Falco will roll instead. Just a little neat thing that can be done with Fire Bird and Fire Fox and their customs."

Could somebody please explain what exactly this means? I tried doing it on my 3DS and I couldn't get it to work.

On the ground, input Fire Bird/Fox and its customs and during the charge, hold down or diagonally down. This will force Falco and Fox to travel horizontally, but for whatever reason, they'll do a roll animation - not an actual roll, but a different end animation - instead of having the regular end animation if you has held left or right. Pretty useless for anything, but Fast Fire Bird and I think Flying Fox as doing that shortens the travel distance.

 

[ligersandtigons]

On the ground, input Fire Bird/Fox and its customs and during the charge, hold down or diagonally down. This will force Falco and Fox to travel horizontally, but for whatever reason, they'll do a roll animation - not an actual roll, but a different end animation - instead of having the regular end animation if you has held left or right. Pretty useless for anything, but Fast Fire Bird and I think Flying Fox as doing that shortens the travel distance.

oh okay, I thought it originally meant that the actual attack gets cancelled into a roll after Falco finishes "powering up" lol

Thanks

 

[Dark Dire Wolf]

I see Keitaro use up throw > uair often even at high percents, but in FG people just jump out of it for me. Am I too slow with the input?

 

[Ffamran]

I see Keitaro use up throw > uair often even at high percents, but in FG people just jump out of it for me. Am I too slow with the input?

Input lag. There's a reason why rolls, air dodges, spot dodges, projectiles, and characters with really low end lag like Little Mac or really good mobility like Captain Falcon and Sonic are huge problems online. It's made worse for more precision-heavy characters or characters without true combos like Falco, Zelda, Marth, Lucina, etc.

 

[madnuffjew]

Follow ups from auto cancelled nair? Are any of his tilts or grabs guaranteed or safe? Personally i like auto cancel nair to down tilt to kill at high percents but I don't think its safe. Thoughts?

 

[Superbat]

^ i like to rinse and repeat d-throw fastfall nair until we dont have any more space on the stage to combo. my favorite combos for early percent is upthrow nair x2. I know we have some 20xx combos that can net like 60% on most characters but they're hard to do and i suck so oh well. lol
For kill set ups its tough but i usually just yolo up throw, up air, (they air dodge) then hit them up with a bair. Frame traps too op. If they have a bad recovery I back throw\ forward throw them and edge guard with nair or fair.

 

[Darktega]

Hey guys, any tips to get me in track in the Smash 4 meta with Falco? I think I'm stuck in the "I want to play like Brawl Falco but I can't" train. :/
Also, worth noting that I just have played only For Glory AND with a GamePad which is really awkward. >_> (I'll be getting an adaptor soon I hope)
Also, I struggle a lot with Falcons in For Glory, I feel like every option I have gets shut down easily except for bair which I struggle to approach with beacuse of GamePad, lol.

 

[madnuffjew]

Hey guys, any tips to get me in track in the Smash 4 meta with Falco? I think I'm stuck in the "I want to play like Brawl Falco but I can't" train. :/
Also, worth noting that I just have played only For Glory AND with a GamePad which is really awkward. >_> (I'll be getting an adaptor soon I hope)
Also, I struggle a lot with Falcons in For Glory, I feel like every option I have gets shut down easily except for bair which I struggle to approach with beacuse of GamePad, lol.

Try playing friendlies on anthers ladder and looking at the guides and combos on here.

 

[Izaw]

Yo birdies, who would you guys say is THE expert of Falco on this forum? Not skill-wise or tournament result-wise. Just knowledge wise.

 

[ILOVESMASH]

Yo birdies, who would you guys say is THE expert of Falco on this forum? Not skill-wise or tournament result-wise. Just knowledge wise.

@Attila_ is probably the most knowledable falco user here.

 

[Superbat]

or @ Ffamran

 

[Dark Dire Wolf]

I've noticed fair is good to throw out often against fast, aggressive player or even characters like Sonic or Sheik (they aren't aggressive but when they're fast). F-air's long duration helps compensate for Falco lack of speed in movement and move lag when the lagless, speedy characters are approaching. I took this approach from Keitaro, anyone else having success with f-air?

 

[ArikadoSD]

Can Falco jab cancel into anything good? I heard talk of jab 1 (or jab 2 i don't remember) > dtilt > aerial followup but I never got it to work the few times I tried it.

 

[Shaya]

His jab1 is actually better to cancel things into as it has more frame advantage + hit stun than his jab2 (contrast to brawl where it was the other way around).
I'd say you would do jab1-2 and then jab1 again on and either continue or go for a tilt.

 

[Ffamran]

Not sure if this has been noted elsewhere but I just checked the frame data and found something interesting:

Falco has the smallest difference between running and walking speeds in the game.

I know. Wolf had it "worse"; his running speed was 1.4 and walking speed was 1.3 which is only a 0.1 difference. That's only if you look at it from ground speed since Wolf's air speed was 1.222 which is a 0.178 difference between his running speed and a 0.078 difference between his walking speed. Wolf is not "mobile" on the ground, but he is a mobile in the air. They counter each other where Wolf isn't notably fast or slower however he chooses to move.

Falco's running speed having a 0.192 difference between his walking speed hurts when his air speed is 0.893. That's a 0.579 difference between his running speed and a difference of 0.387 with his walking speed. Contrast this with Fox whose running speed is 2.184, walking speed is 1.45, and air speed is 0.96. Fox already walks almost as fast as Falco running while Marth and Lucina walking faster than Falco can run and as fast as Ike, Lucas, Wario, Mii Swordfighter, Kirby, Luigi, and barely slower than Samus just by walking. Back to Fox, that's a 0.734 between his running and walking speed, a 1.224 difference between running and air speed, and a 0.49 difference between walking and air speed. Fox is noticeably fast on the ground; he has a speed somewhere unlike Falco. Some characters are just fast all the time like Roy, Sonic, and Yoshi. Others are faster in the air like Jigglypuff whose air speed is phenomenal, but ground speed is abysmal. Even slower characters like Ganondorf see some more difference between their movement speeds.

The thing with Falco, Link, Villager, Robin, and let's add in Mega Man too is that they're the zoning type of characters. Characters who use projectiles to force approaches, control their space, and deal damage usually by chipping. That's where the problem is: Falco zones horribly. He can zone, but not as well as any of them. In a risk/reward ratio, Falco has a high risk/low reward with Blaster while Reflector which for all intents and purposes shouldn't be a considered a projectile, is a high risk/medium reward since while it's punishable on shield, it has less end lag than Blaster, does 2% more damage, and has a chance to trip along with being a fairly good spacing tool. Reflector Void turns that into high risk/high reward when it gives Falco another launcher, juggle tool, and a kill tool at the cost of increased startup and end lag. Link, Villager, and Mega Man have versatile projectiles and not only that, their projectiles generally aren't high risk/low reward. Robin's more iffy, but compared to Falco whose default and customs - ignoring Reflector Void - cannot kill, Robin's reward with projectiles is probably at worse high risk/medium reward. Then you have Zelda whose Din's Fire is that bad, but it's a high risk/high reward since it kills if you manage to land it and Phantom Slash would be useful if it functioned a bit more properly, so it's something like high risk/unknown reward where if it works, it's kill tool, but if it doesn't it's like a character you're running through to get to Zelda. In doubles, Zelda and Villager will abuse being able to Pocket Din's Fire and Phantom Slash. At that point, it's probably low risk/high reward for both projectiles.

Falco trudges the line of being more like Ganondorf, Dr. Mario, Roy, Luigi, or Captain Falcon, but without the durability and/or speed to make it worthwhile. A hard hitter that can combo well, edgeguard well, and hits fairly quickly. He's got the power, but if you're not going to live long enough or even be able to use that power, what's it really worth then? Mewtwo's got power and while he's a giant punching bag, he hits as hard as Ganondorf and at least has a useful projectile.

 

[PaperMic]

Here's a proof of Falco's Meteor acting late enough to auto-cancel ...It's weird and pointless lol.

 

[Shaya]

Didn't surprise me.

Also I just realised falco has an OKAY sh air dodge option.

Short hop air dodge REFLECTOR.
I did it accidentally and realised that this actually wouldn't be that bad. Try it out sometime.

Also If you time it well
Sh air dodge "nair" will buffer a landing jab without landing lag, also snazzy.
But 'fair' into it is probably easier (would get you ftilt).

 

[M@v]

So, what is the deal with Falco's fair beating out every move I put it up against? I checked the frame data thread and didn't see any invincibility frames listed. Is it invincibility on his beak? Is a Super-armor-ish kind of thing like Mario's upb where its possible to trade? Or is it something different, like a weird hitbox or transcendent priority? I want to make sure I understand this move's properties for how important it is.

 

[Shaya]

Uhh, I'd just say large hitboxes bigger than he is, and he almost completely flattens his body while doing it.

 

[Ffamran]

So, what is the deal with Falco's fair beating out every move I put it up against? I checked the frame data thread and didn't see any invincibility frames listed. Is it invincibility on his beak? Is a Super-armor-ish kind of thing like Mario's upb where its possible to trade? Or is it something different, like a weird hitbox or transcendent priority? I want to make sure I understand this move's properties for how important it is.

Spoiler: Stupid ****

Disclaimer: This is a weak theory with little to no evidence to back it up. It's basically a wild guess, so don't take this seriously, but do take the TL;DR seriously.

Aside from what Shaya said, I'm going to go out on a limb - pun intended which will make sense as this post ends - and say it might have to do with Falco's "elemental nature". In terms of normals, Falco only has dash attack, Ftilt, Up Smash, Down Smash, Uair, Bair, Dair, and his getup attacks as "normal", "no", or "hit" elements. Everything Falco has from jab 1, jab 2, rapid jab, rapid jab finisher, Utilt, Dtilt, Side Smash, Nair, and Fair are all "slash" elemental. That's 9 moves or 6 if you count jab as one move instead of its parts, but that wouldn't make sense for characters like Ike and Shulk whose jab is made up 2 normal hits and 1 slash hit. The rest of his 7 commonly seen normals and 3 getup moves are just normal moves. Either way, about half or a third of Falco's moves are slash elemental and what is slash commonly associated with? Sword users.

Elements do affect gameplay with fire being the easiest to see where it will instantly blow up explosives while with non-fire moves, it takes a couple of hits to disturb them. Electrical moves tend to have hit lag modifiers and darkness tends to be just stronger. If, this assumes if, elements do more than just visual, audio, and some gameplay, Falco technically is a sword user without being one if that makes any sense. Charizard, Bowser, and Brawl Wolf also have slash element moves, but theirs is few or doesn't seem to be so like Charizard only has jab 1, jab 2, jab 3, Up Smash?, and Fair and except for Up Smash, I don't know if any of them are disjointed. If they are, they might be really small like his claws are disjointed, but that's not much compared to Falco's entire wings.

Assuming elements play a major role, Falco has access to a lot of stupid disjoints because of how the game's programmed. I mean, are you seriously going to give Falco his own element that only has different visual and sound effects? For Lucario, it makes total sense since it has a factor to his gameplay, but Falco? It'd be a waste of time. Anyway, this might have had a side effect where some of Falco's moves are disjointed by the game's programming.

Assuming so, Falco has 9 disjointed normals, 1 of which, Side Smash, is transcendent, 1 intangible move: Down Smash, and I should check, but his Up Smash might be partially invincible like Fox's. Including U-throw, B-throw, and D-throw's laser parts, Blaster, sometimes Falco Phantasm and Fire Bird, and Reflector, then Falco has 16 disjoints, 6 transcendent, 1 intangible, and potentially 1 partially invincible move. That's actually kind of stupid considering he's not a sword user... Welp, more Leona Heidern parallels.

At the same time, Fair is disjointed which is noticeable with the landing hit. If it was disjointed on his beak, then that's kind of a small disjoint.

TL;DR: Falco is just one weird bird.

Edit: Yep, Falco's Fair is slightly disjointed in the air and disjointed on the ground. Excuse the potato quality.

Spoiler: Falco's Fair descriptions and images

See the little swirl? That's where the hitbox ends for Fair.

That image is before Falco begins Fair. This is what he looks like during Fair's animation. It's slightly disjointed... About a head of disjoint? It's a "thin" hitbox, but a hitbox overlapping most of Falco's body - from his waist up which I couldn't get a close enough shot with Mario, but whatever. The final hit is a larger hitbox as the data dump says the looping and landing hits are size 5 while the ending hit is size 6. Fair's last hit involves Falco spreading his wings and I'm going to assume that's where the size increase is; Fair gains a slightly wider hitbox.

Here's the landing hit. I think this was an issue with the animation where it's the same hitbox, but Falco's landing animation skewed the hitbox. During Fair, Falco's head is sticking out, but during the landing, he's holding his head up from slamming onto the ground. Good idea, but it skewed his hitbox. Not something that's a big deal, but some people would take offense to it like how Captain Falcon and Ganondorf have disjointed Side Smashes. Difference is this is a going to be rare move that you intentionally want to land. Yes, it's frame 1, but Falco spends 25 frames of landing lag without a hitbox since it only has 1 active frame.

Next up is Falco Phantasm.

Spoiler: Falco Phantasm descriptions and images

I'm using Mushroomy Kingdom since it has those squares which can be used to mark stuff. Falco Phantasm travels half the stage of Final Destination and any Omega. You can probably see where the dead zone is.

Here's an image a couple frames back. Notice the phantasm behind Falco. When Fox and Falco use Fox Illusion or Falco Phantasm, there are illusions or phantasms that follow them. In Falco's case, there's 2 phantasms and this is where they end.

The phantasms are the "hitboxes" for Falco Phantasm, but there's also a "key" to knowing where Falco hits and where he doesn't: the dust trails. No matter if you use his Falco Phantasm in the air or on the ground, you'll see these dust trails and where the second dust trail begins is where the dead zone starts. It's difficult to see in this image as this one shows Falco Phantasm hitting.

And for an image of Falco at the end of his Phantasm and the hitbox location... That's 50% of Falco's travel distance. Question: Is Falco Phantasm an abusable move or an abusable and easy to use spike? You can ask this for Fox Illusion on whether or not it's abusable as well...

For Fox Illusion, it's more like this. Both Fox and Falco travel the same length with their Illusion and Phantasm, but Fox's "dead zone" isn't as bad as Falco's.

Notice the dust trail? There's only one unlike Falco's. The dead zone is around the 9th block. If Mario so much as has a toe over the 9th block, he's getting hit. So, let's say Fox Illusion has a hitbox for 8.5 squares with a dead zone of 1.5 squares at the end of Fox Illusion. That does make sense as that's when Fox ends Fox Illusion. A hitbox that's 85% of your travel is good compared to Falco's... That's what? A B while Falco's is a F.

 

[ILOVESMASH]

Do Full hop laser / double laser have any uses? I'm thinking it would be best used as a frame trap when the opponent is off stage since Falco can condition the opponent to airdodge and since aerial lasers have less lag than grounded lasers, Falco can then punish the opponent's airdodge with a nair. FHDL might be useful on Battlefeild / Dreamland as well, since Falco can cover the middle and upper platforms with it.

 

[Ffamran]

Do Full hop laser / double laser have any uses? I'm thinking it would be best used as a frame trap when the opponent is off stage since Falco can condition the opponent to airdodge and since aerial lasers have less lag than grounded lasers, Falco can then punish the opponent's airdodge with a nair. FHDL might be useful on Battlefeild / Dreamland as well, since Falco can cover the middle and upper platforms with it.

Wavebounce them.

Falco's laser is completely balanced around its Free For All/2v2 team attack off potency and that it has its usages in singles as his only worthwhile b-reverse/wavebounce tool.

I'll say this now, again, but wavebouncing is a big part to producing 50/50s with fantastic PvP interactions in this game. Characters with good wavebounce options have a lot of future areas of growth.
Falco can wave bounce laser out of nearly every hit he gets (if they're not in immediate follow up range), it moves him towards the ground faster + chips on 3%. 3% every time you get a bair, nair or whatever after early/mid percent. You can even mix up a side-b here, which hilariously can work, and when people start adapting to the wavebounce laser with air dodges they're going to be in even more trouble.

His pivot skid must be one of the largest in the game. His lack of aerial mobility makes "sense" just because of this feature. Pivot Jump Back Air is like an advancing snake bite; faster than the eye can see and they're already retracted before you can tell. You can rising bair and hit most of the cast, or post-apex bair and hit a lot of things with variation.
If you see a shield come up at around the time you jump, you can wavebounce laser and push yourself a dash length's away; this is roughly the only scenario I'd see falco's laser being safe on hit in mid-range quarters, if they aren't dashing into your back air either, the wavebounce laser will poke them too.

Also on the point of thoughtless balance suggestions.
It's often hard to tell what's a positive reflective comment or the start/continuation of a poor tangent. Feel free to throw a report with it, if I start to really see it being the same people every time I'll probably amp up the harshness.

Pure damage is also good along with messing with their momentum and potentially gimping them if you hit them near the ledge. Also, do what Ally does: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-c09dysUbg#t=0m55s.

 

[IndigoAce]

I started playing smash seriously when the 3ds version came out and before that I had only dabbled in brawl and melee at random places or at friends houses and always gravitated towards falco due to his cocky attitude and cool factor, but since I've started playing on WiiU a month ago I have lost all the skill and execution I built with him on the 3ds. I know what I want to do when I'm in a match but I can't seem to follow up on my reads or punish habits and rolls. I have been playing him since day 1 but my unfamiliarity with the gc controller is making me dread playing him. Can anyone give some tips or advice for a fellow burd ?

 

[BlueBirdE]

I had the same problems adjusting to the gc controller. I started with the 3ds, then moved to gamepad for a couple of months before my scene made the gamepad banned. I struggled playing the game for awhile with the gc controller but eventually it became just as easy for me to use. Give it some time and itll be the same for you.

 

[ParanoidAndroid]

It sounds like it could be more of a controller problem than a Falco problem. Have you tried using your 3ds as a controller on the Wii U? If so do you still struggle?

A pro controller might be better for you if you can't get a feel for the GC controller. You may also want to change the c-stick to tilts so you have more aerial control. I would also suggest you change your grab button the L to help the transition.

 

[SuperScope]

Honestly you should just keep playing. You will eventually transition to any controller you decide to use, but it's not instant, it takes time.

 

[Ffamran]

Gonna move this to the general game play discussion.

I started playing smash seriously when the 3ds version came out and before that I had only dabbled in brawl and melee at random places or at friends houses and always gravitated towards falco due to his cocky attitude and cool factor, but since I've started playing on WiiU a month ago I have lost all the skill and execution I built with him on the 3ds. I know what I want to do when I'm in a match but I can't seem to follow up on my reads or punish habits and rolls. I have been playing him since day 1 but my unfamiliarity with the gc controller is making me dread playing him. Can anyone give some tips or advice for a fellow burd ?

Definitely controller issue. Actually, it's more of muscle memory. My setup for the 3DS has X for Attack and B and R for Jump, but I primarily use R. When I decided to swap X and B and after a period I haven't played for a while, I would jump when I wanted to attack and attack when I wanted to jump. It's just muscle memory. Just practice for a bit and not just with Falco, but in a way to make yourself familiar with GameCube controller. If you have a GCN or Wii and GCN games, then play them too. Just get yourself familiar with the controller.

Edit: Are you ******* kidding me? So, not only does Fox Illusion have an almost complete hitbox while Falco Phantasm has half of it, Fox's Blaster more range (launch) and reduced end lag (patch 1.1.0) while Falco's has less range (launch) and a hella ton of end lag (launch). I'm going to test this **** with those Mushroomy Kingdom blocks. Video where you can sort of see the distance difference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSUmMn_cle4#t=7m00s. I get that Brawl Falco's Blaster traveled quickly and far while Fox's traveled almost nowhere, but really?

Edit 2: Edit Harder: Images and descriptions of the range differences between Falco and Fox's Blasters.

Spoiler: Falco and Fox's default Blaster range comparison.

Fun fact: This image was taken with Marth standing at spawn point.

Fox's default Blaster travels 17 blocks while Falco's only travels 15. Falco's does a constant 3% while Fox's is broken down to 3%, 2%, and 1.4% which I'm going to assume is at each thirds of the total distance, but I don't really know since this was more for demonstrating max range.

Spoiler: Falco's Burst Blaster and Fox's default Blaster range comparison.

Fun fact: this image was taken after pushing Marth to be close to max range and incidentally, it's about a couple pixels away from his spawn point...

Y'know, it's a sad day when your default Blaster that stuns people and does a constant 3% travels further than your chip damage one... Burst Blaster travels about 13.5 blocks contrasted by Falco's default at 15 and Fox's default at 17. Yes, Burst Blaster has faster startup, but that only applies to on the ground. In the air, it has the same startup of 9 frames for Falco and Fox's default Blaster. If it fired at frame 7, sure, maybe it'd be useful, but even less range than Fox's default Blaster? It also does less damage overall. If assuming halves, at about 6.75 blocks is when it stops doing 2% and does 1% instead. Oh, and its trigger is just 2 frames slower than Fox's default Blaster; Burst is 23 on the ground and 21 in the air while Fox's default is 21 on the ground and 19 in the air.

Yes, in return for 2 frames of quicker startup on the ground, Falco loses 1.5 blocks of range which is 3.5 blocks less range than Fox's, does 1% less for max damage and 2% less damage at max range, and still fires slightly slower than Fox while have the same end lag as Fox's. Oh, and yes, the image that I got for Burst Blaster actually had it do a glancing hit. Remember that Burst Blaster's lasers are tiny compared to every other Blaster lasers and/or bolts.

Spoiler: Falco's default Blaster and Fox's Impact Blaster range comparison.

So, Falco's default Blaster travels 15 blocks and Fox's Impact Blaster travels 13. Oh, Falco has the range advantage. Yes, he does, but look closely: Falco is still in his firing animation while Fox is already holstering his Blaster. That's the major issue. When Falco fires, no matter if his laser hits or not, he's at a frame disadvantage. Anyone from Sonic, Ryu, Peach, and Robin can gain distance while Falco is firing at them. What they're getting is stalled momentum while Falco himself is stalled. Fox on the other hand can stall momentum and choose to act. He may be at a frame disadvantage, but a very short one compared to Falco. This is what I want Falco to have, a projectile that leaves Falco at most, a frame 0 advantage where he and his opponent have to guess what the other will do. If Falco misses or it hits a shield, it's negative, but not severely negative like he is right not where hit or no hit, Falco's kind of screwed. That's how Kyo's Yamibarai works in The King of Fighters XIII.

Doesn't really make sense since these are two different moves, but whatever.

Spoiler: Falco's Explosive Blaster and Fox's Charge Blaster range comparison.

Explosive Blaster is more like Sheik's Gravity Grenade while Charge Blaster is more like an "un-storable" Samus Charge Shot, so there's that. Difference in how they work stops what you can compare them really. Yes, Explosive Blaster doesn't travel far, but if it or Sheik's did, it might create an issue where they could put a random obstacle you have to dodge at the right time or whatever out. And the whole both Falco and Sheik can setup Smashes if Explosive Blaster hits right or if Gravity Grenade hits. What can be compared mostly is that Charge Blaster travels 12 blocks. Just 1.5 blocks shorter than Burst Blaster...

 

[EndlessRain]

Just think how much more viable Falco would be with AC lasers. At the very least, he'd be high tier.

 

[BlueBirdE]

If falco had a similar hit box to fox illusion would that be a little too good? I imagine it would reliably combo into uair or a bair and the fact that start up (and endlag maybe idk) is less than fox's could make it abusable to an extent.