Q&A -Fox Advice/Questions Topic-

[Jimbo Slice]

How do you use the reflector with Fox McCloud?

The same way that you win matches with puff or lose with Sheik

 

[Sinji]

The same way that you win matches with puff or lose with Sheik

The shine a powerful technique, expectally when getting yourself out of a sticky situation against falco.

 

[EC_Joey]

i need help with this too. kels told me to stop shining so much after my aerials on shields and just keep nair/bairing them. he says its way better.

now im so confused about what to do

nair/bair shine until they roll or get hit!

 

[LumpyCPU...]

The same way that you win matches with puff or lose with Sheik

you mean forward smash?

The shine a powerful technique, expectally when getting yourself out of a sticky situation against falco.

you mean solar flare?

 

[PK Webb]

i need help with this too. kels told me to stop shining so much after my aerials on shields and just keep nair/bairing them. he says its way better.

now im so confused about what to do

What he is saying is don't do it every time and mix it up

 

[MarsFool!]

spacing your aerials to hit lower on their shield helps alot if he isnt doing this already.

 

[Kanelol]

If you watch Mango's Fox shield pressure, you'll see he shines like every other time, sometimes he just nair nair nair bairs the shield, no shine

 

[Winston]

Afaik shine only gives like a 1 frame advantage if you jump out of it perfectly, so I can see why not using shine would be viable too.

 

[LumpyCPU...]

if they know you aren't going to shine, they can punish it.

just like everything else in this game, it's all about mixups.

 

[PB&J]

this is what shiz told me..your opponent should never now when you are going to shine and after you shine they should die..he actually screamed die!!!..lol

 

[LumpyCPU...]

i like that.

don't be predictable, but follow up on your shine to it's full potential.

 

[PK Webb]

What does one do against sheiks ftilt...its soooooooo good. I can't get around them at all and they setup for anything she wants to do so wtf is a fox to do??

 

[LumpyCPU...]

don't get hit by them.
bait one and dhill to grab/shine.
or full hop over her and bair.

bait with dash dancing or if you wanna be risky run up and shield.

idk what i'm talking about

 

[mastermoo420]

In my experience of playing a Sheik, you should just not approach. What I tend to do is stay near the ledge. I usually play on FD with my friends, btw, and the ledge on the right is my tent where I camp most of the time.

Anyways, just bait the Sheik with some laz0rs. If you play that person quite often, just learn what they do; overall, you want to get them off the ledge. If they try to dash attack or f-tilt you, shield-grab them. You can basically shield-grab anything they try to do to you as long as they don't grab you first. Then, throw them off the edge and proceed with edge-guarding and shine-spikes.

If they end up behind you, just down-smash or shine them off and proceed like above.

Now, a question I have is: What is the best/standard way of shining out of your shield? I know the Shield>C-stick upwards>Shine, but I was wondering if there was another way. P: And, if I were to do this, how fast would the shine, optimally, come out?

EDIT: Lumpy's way works, too. If you want to be aggressive, I'd say DD to grab game would work. Keep them guessing and then u-throw>u-tilt or u-smash or b-air usually works for me.

 

[LumpyCPU...]

when i'm shiek (not often) against a fox. if they start trying to bait for a shield grab, i fair to jab. if they get smart and wait for the jab, i will either fair to grab or won't fair at all. also if i'm run up to and you shield what you think will be my dash attack, i will likely just stop and space dtilts on your shield if i don't go straight for a grab. from playing a lot of peach, i try to avoid just running in with obvious dash attacks.

TL;DR shield grabbing is only a punishment and can be avoided by a wary opponent so it shouldn't be what you're relying on in any given match up.

 

[battousai555]

IEDIT: Lumpy's way works, too. If you want to be aggressive, I'd say DD to grab game would work. Keep them guessing and then u-throw>u-tilt or u-smash or b-air usually works for me.

I'm pretty sure u-throw to u-smash doesn't work on sheik. U-tilt may work at like 0% or something like that depending on what your opponent does. Can anyone clarify?

 

[Jimbo Slice]

Mastermoo420, I think that c-stick up is definitely the way to go for shine out of shield. I tried sliding from Y to b button and at first I liked it, but C-stick is much more instinctual? Yeah, let's go with instinctual.

U-throw>u-smash may not be an actual combo on sheik, but I've found it often works anyway. Sort of like how u-throw>u-air doesn't work on peach, but it still works anyway.

Edit: In the end it boils down to what you're more comfortable with doing as far as button presses. That is the most important thing.

 

[JPOBS]

theres like a billion things you could do to deal with sheik's ftilt,
namely, CC, dd bait, not approach, sheild it etc

but then she has responses for them all so like everything else in this game you just have to mix it up.

i've landed upthrow->upsmash at 0% lots of times, i dunno if it perfectly combos tho

 

[TemPesT-]

y 2 b is much much easier for me, i can almost never do the cstick method and not screw up.

 

[Tomacawk]

I'm pretty sure u-throw to u-smash doesn't work on sheik. U-tilt may work at like 0% or something like that depending on what your opponent does. Can anyone clarify?

uthrow usmash works at 0 but i'm pretty sure the only way it "combos" is by knocking them a goofy way with a sourspot usmash
uthrow utilt works at 0
I believe shffl nair is the "guaranteed" uthrow combo on sheik at 0%
I'm not positive on all of this but I am confident this is correct

 

[mastermoo420]

Well, regardless, u-tilt/u-smash/SHFFL'd nair - you have your choice here. Let's hope you have enough sense as Fox (sense as in, like, you know Fox well) to gauge which one to use. And b-air is always an option if they're sent too high on either the initial u-throw or subsequent follow-ups.

ALSO, does anyone have data on exactly when you can buffer (or IASA if possible) after Fox's up-throw? IIRC, buffering has to take place 10 frames before the move ends, but I don't know when the throw actually ends... The frame data thing that I have has Fox as "completed" but has nothing on the throws P:

 

[JPOBS]

fox's throw animation duration is based on the weight of the character.

lighter characters like jiggs you can move almost instantly, heavier chars you have to wait a while but i dont know what the frame data is.

 

[mastermoo420]

WTF I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW THAT. Well, I mostly need any information on u-throwing Falco because I don't think I'll really be CG'ing anyone else. P:

 

[JPOBS]

falco is one of the lighter characters (dont confuse fall speed with weight) so u can move relatively quickly after throwing him.

just practice it vs comps until u get the timing i guess.

 

[FoxLisk]

how i learn timing is to just grab the character and then uthrow with c stick and hold it up so i jump asap. that gives me an idea of the timing, then i practice it from there.

 

[LumpyCPU...]

you feel the lag of his up throw on fatties like ganon.

 

[ChivalRuse]

For Fox's chain grabs, if they DI left or right, make sure you JC the grab. Kind of random, but more people than you would think don't JC grabs.

 

[JPOBS]

you feel the lag of his up throw on fatties like ganon.

everytime i fight a ganon/samus or something, the first time i grab them, i ALWAYS mess up the follow up because i try to move too quickly then i say to myself "oh yea, he's so fat"
lol

 

[ChivalRuse]

Since uthrow uair isn't guaranteed on Samus, I wonder if bthrow could possibly combo into uair.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qwXnq4-tzM#t=3m8s

 

[4 Aces]

Do you really have to pull out late aerials to ensure not getting shield grabbed/etc? I've always heard that Fox's aerial --> shine can't be interrupted.

 

[KILLA.FOR.CASH.]

Since uthrow uair isn't guaranteed on Samus, I wonder if bthrow could possibly combo into uair.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qwXnq4-tzM#t=3m8s

it works like that against samus, i do it against darkmike all the time... very dependant on which way they di & what % they are at

 

[mastermoo420]

For Fox's chain grabs, if they DI left or right, make sure you JC the grab. Kind of random, but more people than you would think don't JC grabs.

Ahaha, I know that; I JC all my grabs, anyways. Thanks, though :D Also, FoxLisk's idea is good. o_o I'm going to try that out...

 

[LumpyCPU...]

Since uthrow uair isn't guaranteed on Samus, I wonder if bthrow could possibly combo into uair.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qwXnq4-tzM#t=3m8s

i just dthrow and try to get a read... it doesn't work... lol

Do you really have to pull out late aerials to ensure not getting shield grabbed/etc? I've always heard that Fox's aerial --> shine can't be interrupted.

if you hit high on the shield with a nair or bair, you can be shield grabbed pretty easily.

if you hit in the middle-ish of the shield, (where i always it) you prolly won't get grabbed by the average player but i know fox/falco can shine out of shield absurdly fast.

 

[JPOBS]

omg for the last time, fox's perfect sheild pressure and all of its variants has a gapping hole of like 15 frames where the opponent is completely free from stun.

sheild grab takes 7 frames. fox can get grabbed, he's not superman.

 

[KirbyKaze]

I think it's 17 assuming Shine and Nair are both at max power.

During pressure he typically breaks that into smaller pieces. He can make it 9 before the Nair and 8 after, for instance, which makes responding to it difficult (need near frame perfect shield grabs to get those). Of course, this assumes Fox himself is being perfect, which isn't fair. But numbers like 17 can be misleading because it's not really 17, it's 17 (or so) split as Fox chooses. Even a split like 11 and 6 can be difficult to react to.

 

[JPOBS]

so the 17 or whatever it is is actually an overall culmulative number? interesting, all along I thought it was one chunk of non-sheild stun.

either way, yea, perfect fox can still be perfect grabbed is all that really matters in the long run so just be wary.

 

[jugfingers]

technically wouldn't perfect fox shield pressure just be multishining, and have no frames free from stun...


just sayin.

 

[ArcNatural]

Anyone know how many frames of hitlag there is if you CC a laser from Falco? Assuming there is a difference (which I'm not sure about).

 

[Kanelol]

I'm pretty sure lazers are CC'able, but I don't know the frame difference

 

[KirbyKaze]

so the 17 or whatever it is is actually an overall culmulative number? interesting, all along I thought it was one chunk of non-sheild stun.

either way, yea, perfect fox can still be perfect grabbed is all that really matters in the long run so just be wary.

This is roughly how it works, to my knowledge. People with better knowledge of this stuff are welcome to correct me. Green is stun.

01 Shine hitlag
02 hitlag
03 hitlag
04 hitlag
05
06
07 Jump start
08
09
10 (airborne 01) -- (air time for perfect SHFF is 15 frames)
11 (airborne 02)
12 (airborne 03)
13 (airborne 04)
14 (airborne 05)
15 (airborne 06)
16 (airborne 07)
17 (airborne 08)
18 (airborne 09)
19 (airborne 10)
20 (airborne 11)
21 (airborne 12)
22 (airborne 13)
23 (airborne 14)
24 (airborne 15)
25 Land, L-cancel
26 L-cancel
27 L-cancel
28 L-cancel
29 L-cancel
30 L-cancel
31 L-cancel

Somewhere, in that big mesh of 09 - 31 (23 frames) you slide in 8 frames or so of shield stun (plus the three frames of the Nair's startup), and that produces the split. It's a little more complicated than that, because I'm ommiting hitlag and that assumes we're at full power with Nair and only using Nair. But that's the simplified version of it. For Bairs you'd add 3 frames of L-cancel lag and add a bit more stun and hitlag (Nair is 14-7 stun-hitlag, Bair is something like 16-8 or so, I forget).

Because of the Nair's startup (4 frames) and the time it takes to escape the jump, there will always be a minimum of 4 frames of no stun on the first half of the split. That's unavoidable. This is true for all single hit aerials on Fox (so Nair and Bair, basically).

With Dair, the weakness is that while the active hitbox comes out in a timely manner (there's no disadvantage to doing early Dairs because of the consistency with the hitbox - multi-hit moves are good in this regard), you have the issue of less stun at the end. Dair only produces 4 frames of stun per hit and L-cancels for 9 frames, so no matter how you do it, there's going to be 7 frames open at the end of it (minimally).

Of course, this is mostly useless information because nobody's perfect. But it should give a vague idea of how your aerial's placement affects its ability to be shield-grabbed and where.