Q&A -Fox Advice/Questions Topic-

[DerfMidWest]

I love lucky.
He plays so cool.

 

[Deleted member]

*Goes and looks up Lucky vs s2j matches from Winterfest*
Holy **** lol

****ing gheyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy go watch the other 13 sets where i whoooop him

 

[unknown522]

Lol

 

[KirbyKaze]

****ing gheyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy go watch the other 13 sets where i whoooop him

You'll never reason with the fanboys loool

 

[ShroudedOne]

Poor S2J.

 

[Apasher]

How do I effectively practice/improve my movement?

 

[Tee ay eye]

I DONT KNOW WHY IM POSTING THIS HERE AND HELPING THE FOX COMMUNITY, BUT HERE YOU GO

if you mess up the ledge WD a lot and end up doing the unviable, super ****ty high-jump onto the stage, it may be more than just an execution issue. WATCH THIS VIDEO SO YOU CAN UNDERSTAND WHY!

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

also please show it to anyone else you know who you think can learn from it

 

[Brookman]

How do I effectively practice/improve my movement?

watch good fox players. record/watch yourself playing

How do I effectively practice/improve my movement?

ill take some of that advice buttttttt im aggro it how i flow so that whole not jump at them thing is right at home to me. the dash attacks were mistakes mostly . new controller jons. i was going for nairs. as for useless tech i didnt do anything wild or crazy i think.

just my $0.02

 

[unknown522]

I DONT KNOW WHY IM POSTING THIS HERE AND HELPING THE FOX COMMUNITY, BUT HERE YOU GO

if you mess up the ledge WD a lot and end up doing the unviable, super ****ty high-jump onto the stage, it may be more than just an execution issue. WATCH THIS VIDEO SO YOU CAN UNDERSTAND WHY!

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

also please show it to anyone else you know who you think can learn from it

already knew that

 

[Zoler]

already knew that

same here.

 

[TheCrimsonBlur]

TAI this is why you don't help the enemy

 

[Wenbobular]

I didn't know
I just practiced in my room for hours with the lights off
Then I became ledgedashing master

Then I stopped practicing so I'm bad at it now

 

[FluxWolf]

I DONT KNOW WHY IM POSTING THIS HERE AND HELPING THE FOX COMMUNITY, BUT HERE YOU GO

if you mess up the ledge WD a lot and end up doing the unviable, super ****ty high-jump onto the stage, it may be more than just an execution issue. WATCH THIS VIDEO SO YOU CAN UNDERSTAND WHY!

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

also please show it to anyone else you know who you think can learn from it

learned something thanks! didnt know about how u have to return control stick to neutral, prolly made me legit tournament winner over 5 times at least

 

[DerfMidWest]

I didn't know
I just practiced in my room for hours with the lights off
Then I became ledgedashing master

Then I stopped practicing so I'm bad at it now

But leffen is the BEST ledgedasher. EVER.

 

[Wenbobular]

Should've seen me on a good day

 

[Kaffie]

Hello guys!

I'm going to a small, local tournament in a couple of hours where I'm hopefully going to face off against my eternal rival who just recently switched to Falco(he's basically mained every high-tier except Peach and Puff). We both started playing last year and naturally started playing alot together. In our first tournament(Beast 2) we were at a pretty even level. I would say we played about 40:60 in his favour. After Beast we both went inactive for a while. He moved to China to study and I just lost my motivation.
Anyways, be both recently started playing again and right now, my pretty much biggest motivation in life is just to trash the **** out of him. I really just want to rip him apart. The problem is I have a really hard time against Falco.

The only plan I really have is to bait his laser and punish with full-hop. He's not that experienced with Falco and I don't think he'll catch on to my master plan too quickly. I think I'll try to take him to BF. I like the stage. It feels pretty all-round. Plenty of room to move around, and it got a much lower ceiling than DL which is my other favourite stage so KOing with U-smash shouldn't be that big of a problem. I'll try to avoid YS the best I can. I have a hard time dealing with aggressive Falcos on small stages.
Also, I'm thinking about maybe taking him to FD because I imagine it would be the best stage for my laser-counter-master-plan.
Any thoughts about my stage choices and gameplan?

Except for that I'm just looking for quick, general advice, hints, tricks and gimmicks that works good on Falco. And please hurry! As I said, I'll have to go in a couple of hours.

I love this thread, and I love you all.
Best Regards.

EDIT:
Some extra info that could help you with formulating advice. I'd like to think I have pretty good tech-skill for my level. I can waveshine with like 95% consistancy, I can sometimes sneack in a multi-shine or two in matches and I think I'm actually pretty decent att using the laser. However I fail pretty hard at basic tech, like JC U-smash, JC-grab, OOS-stuff and so on. My shield-pressure and tech chasing skills are pretty much non existent.

 

[Wenbobular]

If you wanna talk Smash Bros on IM shoot me a PM ... I am incredibly bored right now <_<

Basics of playing against Falco is to keep your mobility by being able to react appropriately to lasers
Shield when appropriate, use platforms to attack from places a laser can't directly stop you, etc

One of the biggest mistakes I see newer players make is sitting in shield while a Falco does something like laser laser Nair <_<
Remember that laser has very little hitstun / shieldstun and lasers should just be little interruptions in your overall movement

 

[Nedved]

If you take him to FD, remember you can chain grab with uthrow. And be prepared to 0-death combos : one dair-shine and you're a dead fox. I wouldn't recommand FD against Falco is you're not as technical/ready as he is.

 

[PGH Carroll]

Nothing like that feel when you wanna trash your rival.

Keeps me going

**** silentSWAG

I taught that *****h how to play. And this is the thanks I get.

 

[DerfMidWest]

Fox + stitches = paaaaaaiiin.

 

[ShroudedOne]

Hey, Lovage, you beat Hbox in Genesis 2 pools? I heard it on some G2 commentary. Little known fact, to me.

 

[MSG]

To all the fox players who say fox vs falco is bad for fox:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i71PTrk8RAQ

Mango 3-0's arguably the 2nd best pure falco main whose best matchup is against fox, three-stocking him twice in the process. Learn the matchup.

 

[Twinkles]

That's not a Fox double 3-stocking a Falco, that's Mango double 3-stocking Westballz. I do agree that the Fox-Falco matchup isn't terrible for Fox by any means

 

[Strong Badam]

I love it when people link to videos of a player vastly outplaying another in a matchup as evidence of a MU ratio. You're really missing the point entirely. Mango could 3-0 westballz with like 5 characters. It means nothing to what the MU is like assuming equally skilled players. Not to mention that "pure" maining a char doesn't matter, otherwise we'd have to disregard m2k's marth. Lol.
Having said that, we can look at what mango does in this set and learn from it. So not all is lost.

 

[MSG]

I love it when people link to videos of a player vastly outplaying another in a matchup as evidence of a MU ratio. You're really missing the point entirely. Mango could 3-0 westballz with like 5 characters. It means nothing to what the MU is like assuming equally skilled players. Not to mention that "pure" maining a char doesn't matter, otherwise we'd have to disregard m2k's marth. Lol.
Having said that, we can look at what mango does in this set and learn from it. So not all is lost.

You miss the point entirely. There is a general feeling among fox players that foxes have no chance against top falcos in the current metagame. For example, if you look at jman's post history, you'll see numerous posts where he argues that the matchup is simply not possible against falcos like mango and PP. However, I argue that this is more because there simply happen to be more good players who choose to play falco. If mango and PP had chosen to main fox, we would be complaining how hard falco is to play against fox. Looking at this video, for example, I would argue that mango did better with his fox then he could have with falco; I doubt he could have double 3-stocked Westballz in falco dittos. This shows that fox can clearly beat a top falco in the current metagame. Also, I love how you like to nitpick at my wording; my phrasing that he was the "2nd best pure falco main" was only meant to represent westballz as a top falco player. I didn't sit in a chair for 20 minutes debating the semantics of the word "pure."

 

[KirbyKaze]

While ****** West in Fox-Falco is impressive, Mango is clearly a step or two above Weston. We already know Fox can **** Falco if he sticks to him and keeps him from getting his footing back. These videos don't show much in the way of new things aside from bolstering the notion that Mango loves Fox's d-tilt immensely and showing some neat, swaggy uses for it.

There are also some innocuous but very impressive defensive things by Mango. Very good use of launch trajectories to edgecancel out of combos (especially off shine). Makes Falco seem easier to keep pace with when his combo fizzles at 30.

I want PP and Mango at the same tourney soon so I can watch Mango's Fox fight PP. Always really entertaining. West's stray moments of weak tech skill cost him too much vs someone like Mango but PP doesn't have many of those (if ever) so they show better strategy in the MU IMO.

I'm not sure what Fox needs to do to beat Falcos at similar skill levels but it probably has to do with finding more ways to escape his death combos, developing better shield games, and making hits not fizzle quite so much when trying to convert into damage. Thunders combo doesn't really work vs good Falcos much if ever anymore. The jab basically lets them out for free. We need better (more reliable) things after knockdowns even if it's just, "react to how they get up and grab / aerial them." I also think the obsession with u-smash in combos needs to stop - there are a lot of other combo moves that have a lot of potetial in Fox vs FFer that go underused because of the instant gratification of u-smash (18%!) but I think we need to start thinking of combos in the long term. Setting up a manageable edgeguard situation is by far the most important thing to do with a combo vs Falco and u-smash doesn't facilitate this a lot of the time.

Oh and we need to work on move placement on the whole. Because of how Falco works defensively a lot of things have situational elements & odd risk factors you normally don't have to worry about vs other characters. Falcos are getting better at ground teching weak moves and setting up edgecancels off horizontal juggle attempts. These kinds of things need to be respected at all times - dash attack is not a good option vs grounded Falco. Understanding the timing windows for slipping between lasers with what moves is an area that needs improvement IMO. I've seen so many dash attacks slip by the laser, get ground teched, and then Fox gets shined into a Falco combo. Wasting these kinds of openings with a bad move choice / badly timed move can't happen. Initial openings are precious and Falco punishes these slip-ups too hard (harder than Peach d-smash if they're any good). It's hard to get in but if you're on point it's easier for you to stay in than it is for them to shake you IMO.

 

[knightpraetor]

DTILT IS really GOOD!!! that's the only thing that ran through my head while watching those videos.

I just never knew...

Also, I kept thinking about how much worse things would have gone if i had used upsmash in all those places (which i probably would have knowing my garbage fox)

 

[KirbyKaze]

Uair is underrated as a combo move out of throw vs FFers (and in general vs FFers IMO aside from the [outdated] thunders combo). It always gives you at least another aerial, a fast ground move of choice (at the lower percents), or a super easy platform tech chase (it's much easier to follow uair than u-smash 'cuz you action out of uair way quicker 'cuz it's an aerial). All the above is assuming you do it during the percent window where it's good (18-40).

Yeah, SDI ruins it but unless you're fighting leffen or Unknown (only Foxes I've seen SDI uairs regularly) it's really good and leads to a lot of control & easy follows.

I also think CGing mid stage needs to make a comeback. So often I see Foxes u-throw u-smash and lose their follow to an edgecancel off the side platform (or there's too much lag to follow legitimately) whereas the CG would have maintained control and probably lead to something better (it's not hard to top u-throw > u-smash > no follow).

And yeah in a lot of the places Mango d-tilts, many Foxes would u-smash and that would be the end of their heavy advantage (they'd downgrade to light advantage 'cuz they wouldn't be able to follow Falco anymore and he's honestly not that bad in a free-fall 'cuz dair and DJ and other stuff). The extra 8% is not always worth it. Trajectory, lag, and KB distance matter. Damage does too but applying the three aforementioned principles to your decisions gives you more combo proficiency, more efficient actions, and thus even more damage than the 6-10% u-smash has over his other moves.

 

[kd-]

Is this the kk insight he never types because he feels it's a rant that no one listens to/wants to listen to? (if I recall correctly kk's posted that before after people requested his thoughts on the subject, don't quote me on that though)

If so, I was actually hoping for a traditional quote-then-'No' post, but this one was really nice and I'd like to read more like it

 

[Dulren]

Is this the kk insight he never types because he feels it's a rant that no one listens to/wants to listen to? (if I recall correctly kk's posted that before after people requested his thoughts on the subject, don't quote me on that though)

If so, I was actually hoping for a traditional quote-then-'No' post, but this one was really nice and I'd like to read more like it

Seconding this. KK, you're one of the more insightful players these days. Don't let TL;DR's and some player's unwillingness to have discussion (maybe your own apathy?) prevent you from sharing your insights. I found that post quite valuable, and from someone who usually sticks to lurking - consider the amount of aspiring new players who might also take something from it.

 

[KirbyKaze]

What I talk to KP and others about in private is more personal than generic combo data and a suggestion for Foxes to think about trajectories & the goals of their hits rather than just using u-smash whenever possible in the combo because it does 18%.

Your goal vs Falco is generally to do about 40% minimum and to set up a simple edgeguard or gimp at the end (sometimes hitting him onto the edge is nigh unavoidable but that gives you stage control which is not as good but acceptable - so long as you racked the damage too). U-smash, while good for getting him out of percent ranges, and a good DI trap at the edge, is not always appropriate. Plain and simple. He has many other combo moves.

That, and denying a space animal height is useful in general if you're trying to kill them. Their low recovery is a lot worse than their high recovery.




edit: I'm going to be more active for a while because this game has become a lot more fun recently. Mostly because of Weon, Unknown, Europhoria, and Jethrotex. Toronto smash feels more homely lately.

 

[Wenbobular]

Man if only PT Gatecrash was in Toronto
Then I could gate-crash with KK if I randomly won a PTQ

I really suck at doing SH upair sometimes
But upsmash is so easily replaced by uptilt -> something that I don't understand by more Foxes don't do it

Also Mango randomly screws up upthrow upsmash which I always thought was kinda amusing

 

[KirbyKaze]

I CG on away DIs a lot because putting them on a platform when you're close = easy tech chase and the distance they gain from the DI away makes u-smash kind of random with whether you can follow or not. And the window's harder to follow than CG > platform anyway so... why bother?

U-smash is often the best option at 0 if they don't DI the throw hard in either side direction though. Getting them out of the low % range ASAP (with the 18%) is really useful for opening up other options.

U-tilt is okay but I find uair is better at 20ish. U-tilt becomes better around 35-40 and stays better for a long time (although uair > uair can sometimes create relatively low % vertical kills on FD and PS).



edit: I think if Wenbo lived in Toronto near me my life would be close to perfect. I'd still need to kidnap most of NorCal, Winston, SW, Toph, and McCain but I'd be one step closer to complete happiness.

 

[Wenbobular]

I thought Uair -> Uair was a lot better when you have a top platform (i.e. BF / YS)

Uptilt at 20ish on a floaty -> upair -> float slightly above the top platform -> upair land on top platform -> upair kill

Obviously requires some mad terrible DI but I don't see how you kill them legitimately on FD without them falling into an upair out of stun

Also, solution - win PTQ, we all go to Montreal for a weekend

 

[ShroudedOne]

Sh uair is so incredibly hard at low percents (for me). I hear it mentioned as a viable follow out of uthrow on ffers, but I've always felt like they fall too quickly.

 

[Wenbobular]

You're probably just not moving out of throw fast enough

The input is a little tricky to do it instantly without double jumping but you just have to go easy on the control stick

 

[KirbyKaze]

You can action so fast after u-throw vs other spacies

Spacies are light dude

It's like marginally slower than Puff's u-throw timing. I'm dead serious.

You have to do the uair while rising of course. And pretty much ASAP although there's some leeway in the early 20s (sometimes I get 2nd hit at like 22 'cuz I've started the uair kind of late).

 

[Bones0]

I told you dtilt was good. NO ONE BELIEVED ME.

 

[unknown522]

Lol. Everyone is gonna start spamming d-tilt now and get ***** for using it poorly

 

[rokimomi]

Lol. Everyone is gonna start spamming d-tilt now and get ***** for using it poorly

this so hard