Q&A -Fox Advice/Questions Topic-

[KirbyKaze]

If Lovage practices for the next few weeks he still might legitimately be way better than leffen and a contender to top 16 at APEX just 'cuz honestly his prime really was that good (and he got bracket ***** a lot before people scream placements - Mango at every tournament in WB sucks [trust me]).

That said... in his rusty state... I dunno. Not a clue in the slightest (and I mean this with no disrespect to you, Oscar - you know I hold your skills and previous work in extremely high regard). But my thinking is... if he's dropping sets to people like Kalamazhu (no offense Kzhu, you know I think you've improved a lot / I'm impressed with MW's collective improvement) and such... even if he can tap into his old powers I dunno how long he'd be able to maintain it and even slight errors can be costly. Leffen, in contrast, has been improving a lot lately and playing a lot can do wonders for basic consistency. A lot of matches really are decided by who makes more minor slips.

That said, in a head to head I wouldn't count Oscar out anyway. If only because leffen's dash dance looks shoddy for a high level Fox (it looks like his defense is different, but Fox dittos emphasize dash dance super hard) and I think Lovage could produce a better one even in his rusty state. Europe is also generally meh in terms of BnB combos aside from Armada, Over, and some others IMO but maybe leffen has left those ranks (admittedly, I haven't seen him in while aside from vs Over, where his punishment didn't really wow me... and vs Armada, who's Peach and having a super punishment style with Fox vs Peach is really tough).

 

[Metal Reeper]

When characters jab>grab/Dsmash. I should CC the jab and then waveland away? Do moves come out differently after CCing? I still can't do anything off of my grabs on Doc. It's a huge problem. Gonna start recording soon, hope to get some good critiques. I found a new way to practice double shining today. Im gonna make a video of it soon.
Also, how do you DI fox's dair? What I do is use both sticks and rub them in the same direction, usually away and up. I wanna DI every hit of the dair right? I feel like im missing something.

 

[KirbyKaze]

CC to jump, shine, u-smash (depends on the char), roll, dash (if you're super pro), sidestep (situationally good but very case-by-case), d-smash...

Tons of options. More than what I said too. Don't limit yourself.

For Fox dair you SDI away if he's stationary or through him if he's moving forward a lot.

 

[Metal Reeper]

Thanks KK I'll try all that out. So happy Rom5 matches are up right now.

 

[KirbyKaze]

Bleh. Don't look at me. I'm hideous.

Me vs Eggm and DJ was fun.

 

[unknown522]

Leffen: Sorry I haven't done that write-up yet. A lot of **** on my plate. I will get to it though when I have some free time

 

[omgwtfToph]

lovage and leffen you guys should stop being douches to each other lol

this **** is not that serious

 

[knightpraetor]

meh i don't know whether to agree with what i said or not..my opinions shift back and forth too much...peach vs fox seems balanced though

 

[leffen]

lovage and leffen you guys should stop being douches to each other lol

this **** is not that serious

LOL I kno, he is the one going around constantly thrashtalking me and saying I suck, but irl he acted cool


and then prog wanted us to do a mm, so i thought why not

but lovage is rusty or w/e, so meh i guess



also at unknown, any critique on zgetto/armada would also be very helpful

oh and kirbykaze, thanks for the honest words, you gave me some stuff to think about and i will, needless to say, work hard on improving those aspects

 

[Lovage]

u started it

 

[leffen]

LOL ok, well whatever i dont care for it, but you can keep hating if you want lol

 

[Lovage]

if u act like a *** to strongbad, i act like a *** to you

dont see what u dont "care for"


#MANGO NATON BROOO XDDD

 

[voorhese]

 

[Strong Badam]

if u act like a *** to strongbad, i act like a *** to you

dont see what u dont "care for"


#MANGO NATON BROOO XDDD

#mangonation

 

[omgwtfToph]

what if strong bad beat leffen at apex

that'd be hella hype

 

[Metal Reeper]

5 on strong bad

 

[stabbedbyanipple]

strong bad is the homie but I will definitely take u up on that bet metal reeper lol

 

[leffen]

A gazillion bucks on my yoshi ****** strongbad

 

[Metal Reeper]

I rather see that yoshi He hibernating?

 

[unknown522]

Yeah leffen. I do have a lot to say about your set with zgetto. I gotta re-watch the set though.

There was a bit on armada too. Mostly regarding some float stuff. I just gotta get like an hour or 2 of free time.

 

[Strong Badam]

what if strong bad beat leffen at apex

that'd be hella hype

nononono don't hype this up! I don't like possibly letting people down!

But I want to MM leffen, he dodged me at both Genesis 2 and APEX 2012.

 

[Dr Peepee]

what a nice guy

this strong bad


fox bthrow is legit

 

[omgwtfToph]

you can chaingrab spacies with fox's bthrow if they DI in (useful when you're uthrow CGing in the middle of the stage on BF/DL64 and they're about to try to DI onto a platform) at high %'s. it's pretty cool

I think there's footage of Eggz doing it somewhere on youtube

 

[Apasher]

Who should I watch for learning the Fox ditto?

 

[Zhea]

Cactuar if you can confirm he isn't sand bagging (JK). Actually Unknown, Cactuar, and M2K, are really solid picks. I haven't seen enough of Eggm (but man he was looking good at ROM) Silent Wolf or Lovage to say anything about them other than they are really technical foxes. I always seem to find Lovage versus Mango and that usually doesn't go well, need to find more of his stuff.

 

[crush]

Eggz v shoyo Genesis2 pools = super b throw happy set

:santahat:

 

[Medz!]

Look up jman vs lucky at dgdtj grand finals. That was pretty hype

 

[unknown522]

Aww man. I remember Raynex being like personally offended with DGDTJ GFs cuz of the lack of u-tilt in combos

 

[Apasher]

I mean, I'm looking for more recent Fox ditto vids. Idk if watching vids from 2010 to learn stuff is the best idea lol.

I've always liked watching Jman vs Lucky, but I've always thought that the metagame has evolved since then.

 

[unknown522]

Not really

 

[Zhea]

If you want more recent vids check out rom 5 stuff on vg boot camp.Lots of high level fox dittos there.

 

[Stijn]

I am having soooo much trouble with a samus right now. Can someone tell what to do against missiles, and spot dodge down smash?

 

[lanabo]

I am having soooo much trouble with a samus right now. Can someone tell what to do against missiles, and spot dodge down smash?

Lovage and RaynEX made some great posts about Samus.

Raynex:

Fox doesn't do too well against Samus. He does win the match-up, but I don't think by much.

-Mixing up block pressure into grabs, or dding into grabs are useless; throws lead into nothing unless you're near an edge (potential edgeguard)

-Even still, you can't edge-guard her sometimes because of the invincibility on the upB

-You can't attack Samus' shield AT ALL because simply hitting it puts you at a disadvantage and gives Samus free damage. UpB has 3 more frames of invincibility than shine does.

-She CCs nairs/bairs for a long, long time, and when you try to dair->shine..it whiffs sometimes because her stun animation from the dair moves her body back a bit.

-You have to resort to lasers only, and dair->shine -> usmash. This is assuming the dair to shine even combos because of the strange effect dair has on her. Again, if they see you coming and shield, you can't shield pressure like you can on most other characters because upB is stupid. She limits you to the point where only 3 things consistently work on her. (shine->usmash, laser, spaced bair) She doesn't have to change the way she plays at all until you start laser camping her.

i have some more earlier in this thread but i'd like to write a bit more about the samus matchup after playing hugs for like 15 hours this weekend.

Lovage:

i didnt read ray ray's post but here's some stuff about samus

dont try to shield pressure her lol. only do reckless nairs if you got him in a good position, but know that if u *** up you're gonna get up+b'd and probably dsmashed on the platform after. only nair or bair on their shield when its really safe. if you get a low nair shine, fadeback on the next nair cuz they will up+b you. once you get his shield low with spaced bairs and stuff, dtilt him a lot. dtilt ***** samus cuz it pokes her robot feet. just get his shield low and then run up to him and space a dtilt from far away. follow that with (turnaround with shine) bair

always recover super high and never illusion, even if you can edge cancel it. if you recover high the worst they can do is sweetspot bair, which is really really hard to do if you can trick them with your fastfall or movement. because samus is very slow she can't get in the perfect position to edge guard when you go high, so you usually just eat a weak bair or weak nair and recover back on the stage.

illusion is the WORST way to recover, super super easy for samus to punish, and don't even think about going to the ledge with it, cuz u will die every time lol.

don't do crazy edgeguards against samus, just use your ledge invincibility and try to shine or ledgehop back air. never try to dsmash their recovery because if they have such amazing spacing like hugs they don't miss the sweetspot in that dumb way, and will punish you with ledgehop fair-> dtilt. low-ftilt is the safest on-stage option to edgeguard, but space it so they can't punish right after. if you don't know how to time it just do a fulljump fastfall bair and hope they screw up the sweetspot (if they're brilliant hugs they won't)

missiles are pretty good to reflect, but only do it after running away, don't reflect it right in their face unless they shielded right after shooting their missile. if you reflect too close they'll do the dash attack missile cancel -> dsmash trick.

Lovage's overall guide to Samus:

general

overall, this is not one of fox's best matchups, i think it's even or very slightly in fox's favor. the advantage you all have is she's one of the least represented characters and there are very few players who really use her at a top level.


shield pressure and her up+b

it's possible to attack samus' shield but you have to be very very precise and clever. if you rush in like a noob you will eat an up+b every single time and possibly a dsmash if they land on a platform with you. your method of shield pressure should consist of hitting her with a well spaced nair or bair that hits LOW on their shield, and shining after. every samus has their comfort zone with up+b, so take note of how proficient they are with it, and shield pressure accordingly

if you did it correctly it's possible to bait out a whiffed up+b which can sometimes lead to a very damaging uair chain (it's commonplace to get 2-3 uairs at low-mid percent on samus.) be very aware though, shield pressure is NOT guaranteed, even if you do it nearly perfect, a good samus will be able to up+b you out of almost any unspaced attack.

baiting out up+b is a very important part of this matchup. you can do this by doing low aerials and shielding after, by nairing their shield and dashing away quickly, and by run-up shields.

edge guarding

edgeguarding IS viable, but i think most foxes don't know exactly what to do, because it's very difficult to pull off. basically, your first objective is to eliminate their grapple. one of the best ways to do this is to non-fastfalled weak bair off the stage and hit them right as they begin their grapple. if you get them, don't be fancy and try to shine after, just recover and get back to the edge ASAP. another way to get rid of their grapple is to refresh your ledge invincibility and attempt to shine them as they pull up to the edge. this is a bit harder and it depends on where they grapple'd the stage, so i prefer bairs.

once their grapple is out, they're forced to up+b. do NOT attempt to dsmash edge guard them. any samus worth their salt will sweetspot it, you will probably get hit by the end of the spin attack and get forced on the ground, or you will get fair'd -> dsmashed during your lag. low angled f-tilt is not a bad idea and is totally safe from punishment, but won't get you a kill.

what you want to do is combine the invincibility you get from grabbing the ledge with the bit of invincibility you get from standing up from the edge, and usmash (you can walk forward and dsmash if they're not at kill percent) them when they touch the ground. i guess it's similar to edgeguarding sheik, but it's very tough and you need a lot of experience with it or else you'll get hit with spin attack and get forced on your back.

lasers

lasers are very good in this matchup, samus is very slow in the air and you can get easy free damage when she's recovering or coming down from an uair. even though samus is tall, i still suggest sticking to single lasers over double lasers. single lasers let you be more mobile and make it harder for her to catch you. i suggest dash dancing and using a single laser to bait out her wavedash ftilt, and fulljumping over her with bair to punish.

grabs

grabs aren't THAT bad. you won't combo from them at all, but they're a good mixup because samus relies on her up+b out of shield so much, it's pretty easy to catch her in shield with grabs and get like 6-14 damage. uthrow is decent because sometimes you can read their double jump and get a back air in, but don't rely on it too hard because it's easy to get nair'd. dthrow is decent, but her tech roll is super long and quick so it's very hard to tech chase usmash. if you can be creative with it and score extra hits be my guest, but it's a risk. fthrow is probably your best bet. it forces samus slightly in the air, so sometimes they come down right after with a nair, which you can grab or usmash oos.

general

your overall strategy consists of reading her WD's back, shielding ftilts, using lasers to manipulate her movement, and not getting *****. also, if you can get samus on a platform, use everything you can to keep her in her shield, she's completely useless on platforms and you can get very easy bairs if you make her make a dumb move up there.

stages

best stage: pokemon stadium
good stages: battlefield, yoshi's story
ok stage: fountain, fd
bad stage: dreamland

fwiw i just switch to falcon for this MU.

 

[Stijn]

Lovage and RaynEX made some great posts about Samus.





Lovage's overall guide to Samus:


fwiw i just switch to falcon for this MU.

I thought i should switch to Sheik but ill try it with Fox, thanks for helping me.

 

[Silent Wolf]

Hella fox players resort to sheik. That's some ***** ****

 

[omgwtfToph]

**** you otto

 

[kd-]

I am having soooo much trouble with a samus right now. Can someone tell what to do against missiles, and spot dodge down smash?

My thoughts:
Missiles have just about no priority. You can aerial/attack through them, don't be scared of them. Off-stage make sure you're not in a position to get hit by smashed missiles when recovering, especially when in fire-fox. Some Samuses like to homing missile -> you drop to ledge height and start up-b'ing again -> smashed missile and that'll kill you if you let it hit you.

Samus's shield pressure is a little limited in that you should be able to not get grabbed on reaction, so your shield is a little safer than against most characters. If your opponent is spot dodging your approach, you should use approaches that end faster so you can shield that down smash, wavedash in Out of Shield and then waveshine upsmash. Make sure you're fast-falling your aerials.

Like Raynex said, dair -> shine -> up smash is THE tool to use. You need to get her percent high enough to use nair/bair without getting CC-punished or space the bair outside of her CC range and time it so you have space to move away. The problem against Samus with dair is that if the Samus is smart, the player will DI the drill one way or another, and Samus's body is thin enough to get out of shine range sometimes if you're not DI'ing yourself with the Samus player's DI. One thing that can help is if you aim to hit your drill at her waist or knees - depending on the range of where you start your jump from, the Samus can wavedash back -> smash, so overshoot if you need to.

Thoughts on this advice, anyone?

 

[ZeldaFreak0309]

When you say "aim to hit your drill at her waist or knees" do you mean to just do the dair later than you normally would? I could see that being harder to SDI out of, but it also means you're vulnerable until you're right up next to her, so she could just kick you away.

I played Darrell a bunch last night and ...Samus is hard (he SDI'd all my dairs). Some thoughts:

Spaced bair/lasers really do seem like the only things you can do at low percents.

At lower mid percents, utilt is REALLY good. Setting it up usually means hitting with nair though, so that can be difficult...but if you hit a utilt that usually leads to like 2 more aerials worth of damage. Alternately, if you can bait dsmash, falling uair can achieve the same results.

At higher percents, focus on getting her off the stage and then pretty much only bairing from there. Samus sucks on the ledge in a pressured position and bair covers pretty much any attempt to get back she has, you just have to be patient and intensely aware of Samus's movements. Don't try to go directly above her while she's on the ledge (I tried dropping uairs sometimes when I got impatient) because her uair will catch you and leads to a dsmash off the stage. Fox's bair beats Samus's fair though, which is nice.

Oh, and yeah. Pretty much never illusion vs Samus, always firefox

 

[Medz!]

Man **** that I ain't no *****

 

[unknown522]

Laser camp samus once you get fed up with trying to approach.

Also grab a lot