Q&A -Fox Advice/Questions Topic-

[Warhawk]

mango is the best fox player but he still always goes falco vs. spacies cuz he's not an idiot LOL

He went Fox on Westballz once I thought, but I think a lot of it has to do with the amount of experience his Falco has against spacies as compared to his Fox.

 

[DerfMidWest]

Iirc mango said he likes fox better vs floaties and mid weights, but falco for heavies/FFers

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Falco is easily #1 and the spacies are both clearly better than everyone else. While both of their dairs break CC, fox's is more susceptible to SDI and falco's leads into guaranteed damage. Falco's shffl is much more threatening (late bair/dair/nair) than fox's. Falco can control space while remaining relatively stationary while fox is required to be very active with his mobility in order to maintain the same level of control.

 

[xElite]

I'm having a bit of trouble getting SHDL down, as well as shine -> nair shield pressure. I can SHFFL consistently with the Y button, but hitting Y from the B button is another story; it usually results in a full hop. As for SHDL, I can sometimes get it down when I use the stick, but then I can't reverse SHDL and sometimes I Firefox or Illusion (if I'm trying to reverse it) instead. Does anyone have some tips or practice methods they'd recommend?

 

[Wenbobular]

Do it a lot
It sounds like you haven't done that part yet

Stick hopping off the ledge is very good for getting low ledgehop lasers (also good for low ledgehop Bairs while easily DIing onto the stage)

But I think it's a lot harder to reverse them, so I just use Y to shoot reverse ledgehop lasers and don't worry about the height (my reverse ledgehop lasers usually have the first one going super high, but it's not super important)

 

[Bones0]

I'm having a bit of trouble getting SHDL down, as well as shine -> nair shield pressure. I can SHFFL consistently with the Y button, but hitting Y from the B button is another story; it usually results in a full hop. As for SHDL, I can sometimes get it down when I use the stick, but then I can't reverse SHDL and sometimes I Firefox or Illusion (if I'm trying to reverse it) instead. Does anyone have some tips or practice methods they'd recommend?

Y -> B
I used to think this was impossible until I stopped trying to press both buttons, and instead slide my thumb from the bottom-left part of Y onto the B button. You quite literally want your thumb running into the button instead of having to push down.

B -> Y
Avoiding FHs can be tricky. I used to mess it up all the time and still do occassionally, but you just have to get in the habit of taking your thumb off of Y as fast as possible. For me, I keep the end of my thumb on Y and the first joint on the A button. This makes SHing into aerials very easy because my thumb just acts as a seesaw. I tilt it towards the Y button to jump, and then I tilt towards the A button to nair. Of course, you aren't always going to want to nair with the same timing, and sometimes you don't want to aerial at all. For these scenarios, I've trained my hand so that when I seesaw onto Y, I lift my thumb a little extra off the controller, so when I straighten my thumb out in the way that would normally hit A, I instead just have my thumb hovering over top of it.

I don't really have any practice methods for Y -> B other than just sitting there and trying to crank out SHDLs. lol For B -> Y, you pretty much get to practice it every time you shine so it just comes with time and focus.



Don't listen to Wenbo's "advice". Tap jump is for noobs. ;D

 

[xElite]

Yeah I agree, tap jump messes me up a bit too often for it to be useful. And thanks for the advice!

Do you have any tips for reverse lasering?

 

[Van.]

clawing for low lasers raaaaapes

 

[Bones0]

RSH(D)L? Or RLHDL? I guess it doesn't matter.

Rule #1: Always reverse your direction as soon as possible. The sooner you hit left/right, the sooner you can let go, and the sooner you let go, the sooner you can press B without accidentally side-Bing. If you SH in anticipation of a tech roll or something that you will need to react to, then you can obviously delay it, but you still want to reverse it as soon as you know where to aim so that you can prevent those accidental side-Bs while still getting the laser out in time.

Rule #2: If you are on the ledge or airborne and are about to DJ into lasers, always make sure you get the right jump before lasering. You can either jump forward or backward, and jumping straight up defaults to the forward animation. I think you can tell which one you did based on which way Fox/Falco flips, but I'd have to double check to be sure. Anyway, if you are dropping from the ledge and use back and you are still holding back when you jump, you will jump backwards away from the stage, and lasering immediately will make it impossible for you to land back on the stage. Similarly, hitting back to drop and then hitting the stick towards the stage will make your lasers go to the middle. My recommended method is down to drop, Y to DJ, left/right AFTER jumping to reverse your laser, then B as soon as you let go of left/right. I'm able to get really low RLHDLs using this, so it's at least as good as anything else. Essentially, treat your jumps just like lasers in the sense that you don't ever want to be holding the stick towards off-stage during the Y press.


Fun fact: you can practice LH laser stuff on the center of Hyrule so that if you mess up you don't die and waste time.

 

[omgwtfToph]

I just wanted to make note of something I saw in the recent Eggm vs M2K set, which is Eggm's waveshine to dash attack on Marth. Seems like if you hit one of those at low-mid percents (30-40% range) the dash attack pops Marth up on the platform in an ambiguous way so it's kind of awkward to tech if they don't see it coming, and each time he did it Eggm was able to follow up with a drill reset into more stuff.

Food for thought I guess. Dash attack on marth is really good at high percents too so I could see it leading into a kill at like 70%ish.

 

[Van.]

anyone have any tips/shortcuts against puff players that only place decently because of puff? yall know the type i speak of.

 

[KirbyKaze]

Van:

Just don't **** up on their shield, knock them over with the shine, and then punish their crappy tech habits. I recommend drillshine because if you hit confirm the drill you can just do combos off it like drill > u-tilt or drill > grab (they're easier on Puff than on heavier characters). Another generic good thing to do vs Puffs in general is to keep them at the edge and hold them there - they'll probably try to force their way back to the middle or throw out desperation cheese moves (pound, arbitrary grabs, etc) and you can **** them for these kinds of plays really hard. If they try to come down with nairs on top of you or whatever after being hit or comboed, just u-tilt and combo as hard as you can off it.

These things have worked really well on every Puff I've played except HBox. So yeah it should probably work vs U-throw_McResty_69 and CaptainShieldGrab.



Toph:

Problem with drillshine > dash attack is ground tech > grab kind of ***** it and the possible payoff for hitting it is roughly the same as if you grabbed them (or even naired [at specific percent ranges], if we're gonna play the game of 'what if they DI bad?'). If you know for darned sure that Marth or whoever is NOT going to go for ground tech (or anything that might trigger ground tech) then it's decent but not superior to throw. I think it's one of the weaker combos you can do off shine.

I think nair and a second drillshine are much better options if you're gonna try to get an u-smash KO at the 65% range from your drillshine. Dash attack > u-smash is very fickle on Marth. And they can ground tech it to really dumb percents. They can ground tech nair too, but then you just l-cancel and follow up and everything's gravy because SHFFL aerials are kind of ridiculous (and if they DI away, a lot of times you can still follow up nair with dash attack or whatever just because of how Fox 'tracks' Marth when he nairs after drillshine). The second drillshine has obvious SDI and lack of stage space weaknesses.

 

[omgwtfToph]

I don't think most Marths attempt to ground tech when they get waveshined, though? It worked on M2K every time Eggm did it. I think it could be a pretty useful tool against, for example, Marths in tournament that you don't play with all the time.

Edit: Also yeah playing hbox feels extremely different than playing literally every other Puff. It's weird.

 

[KirbyKaze]

Even if they're not handling it properly, I'm just not sure why it would be better than a variety of other things.

I don't want this to come off as, "Don't do it ever - it will always be bad!" I just think it's a relatively weak option compared to his other stuff. It probably has its place once in a while, but you can look for u-smashes with other moves. For the defending player, especially as a floaty, I also think it's one of Fox's easier moves to edgecancel (feels that way when I use Peach, anyway). And I don't see the advantage to putting people on platforms when you can directly combo them with bair/uair from u-throw anyway.

 

[Bones0]

A lot of Marth players (or mains of any other character that doesn't fall over from shine) will get that ground tech by accident because they often try to buffer shield + ASDI down in hopes that you will usmash or nair a little too late to true combo. They're going to end up teching the dash attack if they buffer a hard shield right before they're out of stun, which is pretty much the norm. Maybe M2K buffers his shield super early in the drill shine or buffers a light shield to avoid late usmash shield pokes or something.

 

[KirbyKaze]

They don't even need the ground tech if they get knocked over and just get up attack ASAP AFAIK

 

[Bones0]

Those GUAs always ruin my WL grab attempts. -_-

 

[unknown522]

Yeah seriously watch out for ground tech on the waveshine -> dash attack. I do it when I'm not confident in my tech skill cuz its easier, but there's so much risk. I've Been ground teached -> grab -> death combo by both I.B. and Weon-X's marth's numerous times from it.

The reason they the it sometimes, is because they are trying to spot dodge my follow up after the shine.

 

[Bones0]

Critique me! :D

As always, I'm not really looking for play-by-play critiques (though if that helps you and you don't mind the extensiveness of it, go for it). I'm mostly in need of general things to think about/work on/experiment with. Any specific situations you want to point out would also be helpful. All my Fox stuff is vs. Peach. I feel dumb for not lasering well at all vs. DoH on PS. Then I lasered great for the first stock or so against Nintendude, and just stopped again. I guess I need more discipline in that area.

WB2: Bones (Falco/Fox) vs. DoH (Peach)

Bones (Falco/Fox) vs. Nintendude (Peach)

[COLLAPSE=Sets with Falco, for those who are curious]WB1: Bones (Falco) vs. Arkadia (Sheik)

LB3: Bones (Falco) vs. BigWenz (Falco/Dr. Mario)

LB4: Bones (Falco) vs. KlunkyMonkey (Ganondorf)[/COLLAPSE]
[COLLAPSE=My thoughts on my gameplay]I attended a tournament last Saturday, and even though I didn't really beat anyone I haven't before, I felt pretty good about my game play. For the first time, I felt like I was really in control of my brain during matches. I wasn't constantly spacing out or preoccupied with something else, and the general effect that has on my game play is really beneficial. Not only did I feel like I was making smarter decisions, but I was noticing things I was doing wrong or suboptimally. I think my next tournament I will focus on fixing these things as fast as possible. Especially since the sets I play in will only last 2-3 games, it was killing me to be noticing stuff and not being able to adapt quickly enough to benefit from my knowledge. The one example that stuck out to me was in my first set vs. Arkadia's Sheik. I kept LHDLing despite getting punished multiple times for it, and I noticed this during the game, but was unable to quickly implement all of my alternative options that I've practiced (ledgedash, LH Phantasm, WL onto plat, etc). This even carried over to my other sets where I had more instances of getting wrecked for LHDLing when other options would have been great at turning the tide.

The other major thing I was happy with was how I avoided too many habitual situations (which I know sounds like what I just said I did bad at, but it's slightly different). Too often I get stuck in patterns of dumb things (thanks PP and KirbyKaze for pointing this out in my previous videos). I made it a point to avoid shield dropping unnecessarily and repeating the same attack just because I failed using it already. I still did some dumb and pointless things in between stocks that could have costed me (stupid tech skill stuff mainly), but as far as actual combat went, I think I did good at picking the option based on the situation instead of picking the option first and forcing it into whatever situation came up. This is something I think a lot of players do and sometimes get away with too often. For instance, I will notice my opponent at a high % and start looking for fsmash openings instead of noticing openings for fsmash and immediately evaluating whether or not it's the optimal option.

A final thing I'm not too sure about and would like to hear someone's opinion on was my lasering. I didn't really notice during the tournament, but after watching a few of my videos, I am wondering if I didn't laser enough. I guess I was so preoccupied with spacing my attacks properly that I wasn't focused enough on spacing my SHLs, but maybe it was also just the characters I played against making lasers a little trickier (Peach's float, Doc's cape). Maybe it wasn't a problem at all, and using lasers sparingly is why I did as good as I did, idk.[/COLLAPSE]

 

[unknown522]

Moved to falco thread

 

[Jim Morrison]

WB2: Bones (Falco/Fox) vs. DoH (Peach)

To start off, why would you ever agree on going to FoD against Peach with Falco, while you can stage strike >_>?

I'll edit in more later about the Fox matches

You remind me of me, we have the right idea, but are too impatient and dumb and get wrecked for it. For example on Pokemon Stadium with the fire transformation, you approached her on the left side for no reason. That was a very bad idea.

Something you should really give a try is shining while you're in the air. Coming in from above with just a shine on her head at 45 degrees angle, you can jump away again (best if you have a platform to go to). It sounds dumb to just do 4 damage with a shine, but if it hits, it sets up for a lot of things. It works very well, somehow.
Dashdance more when you're both in neutral positions. Sometimes you can bait a dumb dash attack and punish with U-smash OoS or whatever you like.

You are making it so much harder on yourself by not using lasers. Those mother****ers rack up damage, per match I'd say 50 lasers hit, easily, for 100%, that's a whole stock you can laser away without camping hard. Don't do like 3-4 SHDL's in a row, but just throw in one while retreating, then come back in and dash dance a bit. Do it again if she doesn't approach.
After they fair your shield, there's nothing you can do that is a good option, except rolling away. Jump out, get jabbed, grab, get jabbed, roll behind her, eat dsmash, stay in shield, get poked by dsmash. So roll back after F-air if you can, you should be fast enough.

Oh and a tip in general, useful for any character: Get Shine OoS down. If you can do that, your life will improve.

Vs Nintendude I didn't see much of what you were doing wrong, because you just outplayed him. He didn't punish stuff he should've etc.

 

[ShroudedOne]

As Falco, he probably didn't want Dreamland, I guess (vs Peach it can be iffy for him), and obviously not FD.

 

[Bones0]

To start off, why would you ever agree on going to FoD against Peach with Falco, while you can stage strike >_>?

I'll edit in more later about the Fox matches

You remind me of me, we have the right idea, but are too impatient and dumb and get wrecked for it. For example on Pokemon Stadium with the fire transformation, you approached her on the left side for no reason. That was a very bad idea.

Something you should really give a try is shining while you're in the air. Coming in from above with just a shine on her head at 45 degrees angle, you can jump away again (best if you have a platform to go to). It sounds dumb to just do 4 damage with a shine, but if it hits, it sets up for a lot of things. It works very well, somehow.
Dashdance more when you're both in neutral positions. Sometimes you can bait a dumb dash attack and punish with U-smash OoS or whatever you like.

You are making it so much harder on yourself by not using lasers. Those mother****ers rack up damage, per match I'd say 50 lasers hit, easily, for 100%, that's a whole stock you can laser away without camping hard. Don't do like 3-4 SHDL's in a row, but just throw in one while retreating, then come back in and dash dance a bit. Do it again if she doesn't approach.
After they fair your shield, there's nothing you can do that is a good option, except rolling away. Jump out, get jabbed, grab, get jabbed, roll behind her, eat dsmash, stay in shield, get poked by dsmash. So roll back after F-air if you can, you should be fast enough.

Oh and a tip in general, useful for any character: Get Shine OoS down. If you can do that, your life will improve.

Vs Nintendude I didn't see much of what you were doing wrong, because you just outplayed him. He didn't punish stuff he should've etc.

I struck DL because she's just too hard to combo and kill, and I know DoH is the better player so a long first match would suck because not only is a longer match making it harder for me to upset him game 1, but he has all that time to figure out my play style better. I struck FD because of chain grabs, and I suck at dealing with turnips on that stage. BF has bigger side blastzones and no ledge wall for recovery.

Even though FoD has a large ceiling, I just focus on side-KOs instead. I honestly prefer killing with easy tech chase dsmashes/fsmashes at absurdly low %s rather than all of the complex ceiling KOs where you have to shine them off the top and hope they don't DI, and once they get to a certain % you have to just get an usmash or dtilt somehow anyway. I also think FoD messes with her float game a lot. Lasers from side plats are the perfect height for hitting her out of float. Simply being on side plats threaten her because it makes it feel like she's floating on ground level where she basically has to predict with her FC aerials instead of staying above your head and reacting to spacing before committing. I get hit by a few dsmashes because of low plats, but at the same time, I probably would have jumped into them the same way on BF anyway. Being patient was the real reason I got hit; low plats just made it look uglier. lol


That part with the fire transformation was sooooooooo dumb. Right after I did it and started getting dsmashed in a corner I wanted to quit out. lol I will definitely try to just hang back and bait more next time. I feel pretty confident in predicting those desperate dash attacks, I'm just approaching in the air too often instead of working in DDing like you said. It's really just a general lack of focus on baiting anything at all. Working on throwing in lasers sparingly will also help me maintain this patient mentality.

When exactly should I be shining OoS? I've gotten to the point where I am confident in my waveshines OoS so it should be a really helpful tool, but I just never seem to have opportunities to use it vs. Peach because most of the time I'm shielding it is a FC move and I'm just scared ****less about getting jabbed/dsmashed out of my jump.

 

[KirbyKaze]

To start off, why would you ever agree on going to FoD against Peach with Falco, while you can stage strike >_>?

Why is FoD bad vs Peach again?

 

[Jim Morrison]

Personal bias.

 

[Lovage]

fod ain't all that bad honestly

and at tournies with brinstar/kongo both off you're pretty much guaranteed to play a match on fod in any bo3 you play with a peach so get used to that stage lols

def. wouldn't strike to it tho, let them CP it

 

[Jim Morrison]

Dreamland is amazing vs Peach, I wouldn't strike that. You get so much room to work with, and the top platform is the safest haven you can get. The fact that Peach lives longer isn't that much more of a problem, as long as you can use the room you get to your advantage and peep in the extra lasers needed to get her to kill %.
Unless it's Armada, he destroys DL64.

 

[Zoler]

Dreamland is amazing vs Peach, I wouldn't strike that. You get so much room to work with, and the top platform is the safest haven you can get. The fact that Peach lives longer isn't that much more of a problem, as long as you can use the room you get to your advantage and peep in the extra lasers needed to get her to kill %.
Unless it's Armada, he destroys DL64.

How does Armada destroy DL64 so much more than any other stage?

 

[KirbyKaze]

I love FoD with Fox vs Peach

edit:

Wall to ride? No CG for vast majority of the match? Sick low plats for doing uair & u-tilt combos? More approach angles 'cuz of stage layout? I'm down.

I guess the ceiling sucks though. And spontaneous death by d-smash sucks. But otherwise I think it's a **** level.

 

[Jim Morrison]

How does Armada destroy DL64 so much more than any other stage?

His DI is the most insane, and perfect edgeguarding means I die at 80% and he dies at 180%.
Other Peaches aren't at that level.

 

[omgwtfToph]

Sick Low Plats.

 

[weon - X]

Yeah seriously watch out for ground tech on the waveshine -> dash attack. I do it when I'm not confident in my tech skill cuz its easier, but there's so much risk. I've Been ground teached -> grab -> death combo by both I.B. and Weon-X's marth's numerous times from it.

The reason they the it sometimes, is because they are trying to spot dodge my follow up after the shine.

i do it cus why not?

i cant really avoid the grab so im just waiting for some bad decision. if u uthrow i can try to sdi the uair and fox's aerial combos on marth arent as guaranteed as marths on fox off a grab.

i hate peach and marth

 

[chillindude829]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yntl7tjnAaQ

damn i played so well for the first 2 stocks

also give me jiggs advice, perhaps my worst matchup

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

I think you just lost your patience. You started playing fast and he started playing defensive; you jumped into him and he executed some good punishes when he had them. Really liked how you were playing in the beginning though, good job

 

[ShroudedOne]

On Yoshi's I feel like you went for the waveland onto the side platform from the ledge waaaaay too many times, and Hbox figured it out quickly. And I think you need to mixup how you come out of shield more against her. A lot of the time, you just jumped out and get baired. Just my two cents.

 

[♡ⓛⓞⓥⓔ♡]

Which in general is better for shield pressure, dair or nair? Im having issues with shffl nair after shine due to not being fast enough, usually I just full hop it but i know i would get punished against better players. Dair seems to be easier because i can slip my thumb to c stick, also dair must be harder to shield grab. But what are disadvantages of dair?

I've found that most things are easier when using "x" for jumping (waveshine, double shine, shdl, perfect wd etc.). I wish I had started using x from the beginning, it takes reasonably long to change old muscle memory habits.

Has anyone of you gone thought the trouble of having to learn to shield with other trigger in order to wavedash oos?

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Which in general is better for shield pressure, dair or nair? Im having issues with shffl nair after shine due to not being fast enough, usually I just full hop it but i know i would get punished against better players. Dair seems to be easier because i can slip my thumb to c stick, also dair must be harder to shield grab. But what are disadvantages of dair?

If you hit the shield high with nair, you can be grabbed. Dair has the advantage of being able to hit early, but even if you are frame perfect you can technically be shield grabbed (if they grab frame perfectly) but I havent encountered a player that does this consistently.

I've found that most things are easier when using "x" for jumping. I wish I had started using x from the beginning, it takes reasonably long to change old muscle memory habits.

What were you using before? I prefer Y because it is closer to the B button and overall more central on the controller.

Has anyone of you gone thought the trouble of having to learn to shield with other trigger in order to wavedash oos?

Yeah, I think a lot of people do this now. When I first started playing, I learned wavedashing with R since I shield with L. Its generally a good idea, though it is possible to WD OoS with only 1 trigger.

 

[Jim Morrison]

I think everyone should be able to wavedash with both triggers at any time, so you can shield with either trigger as well. Personally, I use L and R through each other so much, I don't know which I use when. Only thing I know is on instant wavedash from the ledge to the left side, I have to use R, and other side around is L.

 

[♡ⓛⓞⓥⓔ♡]

Sveet, I use "y" because when i started playing i found it easier to short hop. But it seems that everything else is harder with "y". When it comes to speed it's faster to move thumb vertically than horizontally. Learning to use another trigger or button for something is a pain.

 

[rokimomi]

getting comfy with all available jump buttons makes all the "distance" issues go away