Falcon Training Issues

[jaundice]

What's up everyone - long time lurker, haven't posted. I was late to the Melee party, so I'm way behind the curve. I've been practicing the tech listed in the Falcon Trials thread (http://smashboards.com/threads/captain-falcon-trials-for-newer-and-expert-falcons.344677/) and I've got a decent portion of it down - I've been practicing on and off for a few months, and my SHFFLs are on point, but there are a few things I can't quite figure out.

Some of the things I can't seem to pull off are the ledge jump -> bair/uair -> regrab ledge. I always seem to be too far from the ledge to be able to regrab without up B.

I'm also iffy on my wavedash and wave lands. I've almost got the wave dash completely down (sometimes I still screw up and go horizontal instead of towards the stage), and can almost consistently approach and wave dash back, bait out an attack, and counter with a punish, but for stages with platforms, especially BF, Yoshi's Island, and Dream Land, I really want to have my wave lands on point for spacing and movement/mind games, but I can't seem to hit the sweet spot with the timing - is it purely just practice or are there any tricks to it.

Finally, I'm not 100% on how to pivot - the trials page just says to pivot, but I'm not sure if it's a special input, because I always end up doing a half assed dash dance instead of stopping and pivoting and being able to bust out a grab, but I can't seem to find any further explanation on pivoting.

Thanks in advance, show me your moves.

 

[Gr33ns]

for the regrab you are either holding away to long or jumping to late. its a similar motion to dash dance or even a pivot really.

A pivot you need to smash and be off in 1(?) frame the direction you want to be facing. So its Dash->Smash other direction-> get off direction -> end up standing motionless after pivoting.

 

[Twinkles]

Wavelanding is pure practice, on every stage. Falcon's forward double-jump can make perfect wavelands easier because he curls up into a ball. It's also useful taking note of different jump heights for each platform and remembering platform heights. For example, it's pretty easy to perfect waveland off the top platform of YS and FoD by doing a backwards full-hop from the bottom to the top platform.

For pivots, it's easy to understand what you're wrong if you know what the pivot frame is. In your dash-dance, you might see a frame where Falcon looks like he's standing up (way more noticeable with Marth). You can either input an action on that frame in order to do pivot -> whatever, or reset your stick to neutral on that frame to get a pivot stop aka empty pivot. So if you're getting a half-assed dash-dance instead of a empty pivot, it means you weren't at neutral on that frame.

Most people do the flick method. I kinda do the flick method, except I try to move my stick center at the flick for the initial dash.

 

[jaundice]

Thanks for the replies! G Gr33ns , that makes a lot of sense, because I'd get it maybe once or twice randomly, and I had figured it was probably a matter of timing. Twinkles , great tips - thank you!

 

[タオー]

I've been working on the "gravy" or "pivot d-tilt" method for a little bit, and it's super useful. Basically just practice doing pivot dsmash with the control stick and A, once you've got that down try the same motion without inputting A. My pivot's are getting super crispy. My favorite thing about this method is it's not just a pivot; if you get hit during it, you will at least ASDI down or CC the hit, depending on when you get hit during the animation.