Falco's Fair Disjoint and Applications

[Tik]

I had recently posted this in the Falco Discord server, but felt that posting it here would offer both more exposure and an easier reference for finding the information.

Now to get to the real point. Falco's Fair has an underutilized amount of disjoint.

While I have no intention to demean Falco's Bair (as it is still by far the best tool for stuffing aerial approaches and walling people out with it's already large hitbox, quick startup, and auto-cancel-ability) I must still express my belief that Fair, although much more situational, is exceptionally better than Bair in those specific situations.

Here is a comparison to assist the point I'm trying to make:

Taking the time to put this into numbers for better and more precise understanding, it should be noticed that:

- although Falco's Bair comes out 2 frames faster than his Fair...
+ Falco's Fair is scaled at 1.2 disjoint as opposed to his Bair's disjoint of 0.8
+ which in turn means that Falco's Fair has a 33.333...% more disjointed hitbox, as can be easily seen above

While this is already no doubt quite impressive, you must remember that Falco's Bair disjoint of 0.8 is already much stronger than a majority of challenging aerials. Notable examples of disjoint stronger than this include the frame's 3, 4, and 5 of Jigglypuff's Bair which are scaled at 1.2, 1.2, and 1.4 respectively, as well as the disjoint of Marth's Fair which is scaled at a whopping 2.5.

This of course makes Falco's Fair, as I've stated before, very situational.

But

you may ask,

what sort of situations would actually benefit from +0.4 disjoint?

And to answer this, I'm going to back up to Jigglypuff's Bair, which is notorious for is large range and disjoint.
In fact, a major portion of Puff's ability to win games is based on her ability to out range and out maneuver opponents with Bair so that she can safely tack on damage.

First active hitbox: frames 9-13
Frame 9: 0.8 disjoint/ low range
Frame 10: 1.2 disjoint/ good range
Frame 11: 0.8 disjoint/ max range (the farthest that her Bair hitbox will reach)
Frame 12: 1.2 disjoint/ same hitbox as frame 10
Frame 13: 1.4 disjoint/ low range (as such, it is unlikely that Puff can abuse this disjoint unless she continues moving forward into harms way.)
L-cancelled land lag: 10 frames
Total frames: 39

While, yes, Falco's Bair will trade with Jigglypuff's max range Bair. It is still difficult to accomplish such spacing, and I feel this is where his Fair really shines, no pun intended.

First active hitbox: frames 6-8
Frame 6: 1.2 disjoint/ decent range
Frame 7: 1.2 disjoint/ decent range
Frame 8: 1.2 disjoint/ decent range
L-cancelled land lag: 11 frames

This means that not only is a well spaced Fair going to trade with Puff's more disjointed hitboxes, but it will outright beat her Bair at its maximum range. All while only having 1 more frame of landing lag than Puff's Bair.
To add to this, in the case that both aerials miss, even if Puff inputs a frame perfect double jump Bair, it will take 35 frames to put out another hitbox while Falco can shffl his Fair and toss out another one in as little as 23.

I've only tested this somewhat extensively with Puff's Bair, so I apologize that I can not offer more information than a single matchup. I can however offer example's of what a well spaced Falco Fair can accomplish.

Falco Fair trading with Puff's maximum disjointed Bair.

Spoiler: Click for Disjoint Comparison

Falco Fair straight up beating Puff's maximum range Bair.

Spoiler: Click for Disjoint Comparison

In fact, after testing this many times, the only singular instance where Puff technically won was this Phantom hit.


However, it should be known that even though Falco's short hop Fair comes out 3 frames faster than Puff Bair, it is by no means a way to punish Puff Bair on reaction. In order for this to work, the Falco player must read Puff throwing out a Bair, which is thankfully not as difficult as it sounds, as Puff Bair is quite literally one of her only options if she is facing away from you. This does not, however; disprove my point of Falco Fair being situational.


That is all that I can offer for the time being, and I hope that this small amount of information is still enough to slightly improve the Falco/Puff neutral for the better.
As I am not by any means of the word a "labber", I also hope that others can take this concept to a further level and maybe even discover information that effects even more matchups.

I thank you all for taking the time to read through my notes; and will most definitely answer any questions if you feel that I left anything unexplained.

 

[LeadRod]

I know this doesn't pertain a whole bunch to the Puff/Falco part of this post but: How do you feel about using fair as a way to poke opponents on platforms? It's something I've played around with a bit but never fully explored in tournament. My thought process is that due to its disjoint and range it would be a good mixup option at higher percents where CCing would no longer be an option. I also find the angle it knocks back at to be favorable for creating edgeguarding situations. Additionally I find Bair doesn't quite fully reach through the platform well enough during a SH to be a threat if the arent already descending through it. Do you have any thoughts on this?

 

[Tik]

The Fair has a better hitbox for platform poking than the Bair in a majority of scenarios, excluding Yoshi's Island and certain heights of FoD platforms. Personally, I believe that it is an excellent tool for knocking people offstage from 60-90% depending on character. I say specifically those percents because, although Fair has the ability to hit on platforms in many cases, jump shine waveland is still superior as it has the ability to combo into an aerial with much stronger horizontal knockback.

 

[`Rival]

major props for posting this. i would like to call myself a 'labber' - i'm definitely going to try to innovate with this information some more. i have a few ideas for different matchups.

just a question - where are you obtaining the disjoint values? how do you know that falco's fair disjoint is scaled at 1.2 units, bair is 0.8 units, etc?

 

[Tik]

I had quite literally paused and measured, with a ruler in centimeters, the distance between the farthest reaching hurtbox and the edge of the hitbox. The values were very consistant across a number of different pause situations (i.e: different positions, two characters in frame, etc...), so I had decided that this was an acceptable means of quantifying disjoint, at least for the time being.

Of course, it would be quite difficult to create any form of reference managing measurements of disjoint, so I'd implore you to work with your own measurements and simply focus on any important information it could help you discover.

 

[FE_Hector]

I know this doesn't pertain a whole bunch to the Puff/Falco part of this post but: How do you feel about using fair as a way to poke opponents on platforms? It's something I've played around with a bit but never fully explored in tournament. My thought process is that due to its disjoint and range it would be a good mixup option at higher percents where CCing would no longer be an option. I also find the angle it knocks back at to be favorable for creating edgeguarding situations. Additionally I find Bair doesn't quite fully reach through the platform well enough during a SH to be a threat if the arent already descending through it. Do you have any thoughts on this?

There's a lot of preference that goes into plat techchasing as Falco, but I personally really like SH delayed FF uair. Timing it so it's 2nd hit only isn't actually super hard in any situation I've come across thus far. You've just gotta understand the move well enough that you don't get the weak 2nd hit.