Q&A -Fox Advice/Questions Topic-

[Penguin_ftw]

I'll try to keep this in mind when we play today, thank you :3

 

[Bones0]

Fox vs. ICs AdvICe? [no sound]

I felt like I did okay. PB&J suggested I just go for Popo more often instead of always going for Nana, so I'll have to try that next time. Rewatching, everything I do seems extremely sloppy in terms of what I'm actually trying to do. Like I don't seem to have any clear purpose for a lot of my attempts at separating them, I'm more just worried about actually separating them. Idk how much of a problem that is though. The last Fox vs. ICs match ends at 27 minutes.

 

[unknown522]

Naw man. Always go for nana. Take out the random factor ASAP, even if it costs you a little damage

 

[BTmoney]

What characters can you shine usmash?
When does it work? I am getting inconsistent results

 

[omgwtfToph]

every character

edit: why are you worrying about shine usmash >_>

 

[WaterlessFishie]

http://youtu.be/z1Py4XK62bE?t=14m9s

Feedback for either/both would be much appreciated

Thought I'd re post this on the new page since Penguin got some good stuff to work on. Any advice would be greatly appreciated (I'm blue). And any fox ditto advice in general would be nice too, since that is currently my least comfortable mu.

 

[omgwtfToph]

Yalls are aight, good techskill and combo sense but decision-making is lacking. Generally you guys make a lot of all-or-nothing choices that could backfire horribly based on wild reads that you may or may not have (i.e. blue fox FJ nair approaching in the middle of the stage for no reason, without even having stage control). So you're not covering nearly as many bases as you could be. Edgeguarding needs a lot of work too. You guys know what to do, just focus on making the right decisions more often.

Also, stop cutting your combos so short. Green fox got a swag uthrow usmash jab reset right off the bat, but couldn't done sooo much more with it than another uthrow usmash into nothing. Usmash is only good at 50-60% if it's gonna send the opponent offstage or into a guaranteed tech situation.

Especially since these are friendlies, I'd like to see a little more attempted creativity.

 

[WaterlessFishie]

Thanks I'll keep that in mind next time I practice. If you're bored and want to watch more of the video and comment some more, I wouldn't be opposed to it.

 

[Rocketpowerchill]

Naw man. Always go for nana. Take out the random factor ASAP, even if it costs you a little damage

Team with westballz at EVO you guys would get really far

 

[omgwtfToph]

EVO isn't gonna have a teams tournament (at least not as a main event)

 

[omgwtfToph]

Thanks I'll keep that in mind next time I practice. If you're bored and want to watch more of the video and comment some more, I wouldn't be opposed to it.

Skipped around. Both Foxes did a lot of unsafe approaches. Both Foxes need to learn to overshoot. Blue Fox in particular gets a lot of SDs from trying to mash CC->move or tech near the edge of the stage.

 

[BTmoney]

every character

edit: why are you worrying about shine usmash >_>

I was just trying to understand its application so I could decide for myself when it should be used. I want to have all the tools or at least know what the tools do before I decide what's best for the job.

 

[omgwtfToph]

shine usmash is a combo ender that is very very very marginally better than usmash in a small set of circumstances and often worse because it lets spacies tech out)

Don't worry about expanding your current set of tools right now; you should focus on the tools that will help you improve in 95% of situations instead of the flashy weird ones that may or may not help you in 5%

 

[Apasher]

How do I beat spacies?

 

[Zoler]

You don't.

 

[bearsfan092]

How do I beat spacies?

A great grab game and superb edgeguarding goes a long way, but especially against spacies. Of course, it's hard to get grabs against that shine sometimes.

 

[Apasher]

Like, my main problem is Falco: I find it difficult to gain AND keep stage control vs him because of how good his lasers are. Oh, and not to mention his combo game.

For the Fox ditto, I just struggle on deciding when to do A or B in the C situation.

Also, what are some recent vids that I should analyze for those matchups? And who specializes in those matchups?

 

[bearsfan092]

For the Falco matchup, be sure you're incorporating good platform play and slowly work your way in towards him. Just be careful about eventually getting below him because of his dair shine. Being above him isn't great either, but sometimes you can shine as he comes through a platform but before you get baired or something.

Fox, play more I guess. I'm learning this matchup too, so I can't help much.

 

[stabbedbyanipple]

Whatever happened to drugged fox?


And here is 2 quick tips to beating falco

1. u gotta hit him when he wants to laser (most falcos are pretty obvious about it, and use it to try and take back stage control). Full hop aerial is usually a good idea, but dash attack and sh aerial can work too depending how close u r and how sure you are they will shoot

2. Platform camping is good but for the love of god, if u r not tricky about how you come off the platform then you'll fall into falcos utilt. If you've seen Return of the Jedi, I would liken falling into falcos utilt like falling into the sarlacc pit

 

[omgwtfToph]

The thing about using FJ aerial against Falco is that you want to call his SH laser/aerial with your FJ, but be ready to not commit to an aerial if you realize that you did a bad FJ. So you can like FJ, see what Falco does, and either nair in or DJ->waveland to a platform or something (or shine->waveland, etc) based on Falco's position+action.

^ This applies to fighting Sheik (and prob other chars) as well.

Also, running shine is another great way to stuff Falco's SH actions. See: Javi's playstyle.


edit: LMFAO SARLACC PIT

 

[Bl@ckChris]

druggedfox plays marvel now. he's pretty good, one of georgia's top players whenever he shows up to stuff.

 

[Pengie]

DF still plays Melee, I just got done with a session with him. A lot of players like myself go to school with him so he's been pretty active recently.

"you should tell him i main marth now and i hate this game" - druggedfox 2013

 

[unknown522]

Dash attack falco?

Why?

 

[KirbyKaze]

Eh, the speed / hitbox sometimes lets you nick him out of lasers or out-speed / go under a move (aerial) that your other moves wouldn't otherwise work against. The tech chase isn't hard so the knockdown can lead to good stuff, and unless it's FOD the low KB of the move makes it easy to play to avoid edgecancel opportunities or inopportune platform interference.

That said, I think the main stuff vs Falco from what Fox wants to do to win is just disrupting him by hitting him during one of his vulnerable windows (bad lasers, flaws in pressure, initiation without lasers, bad positioning, etc) and then maintaining pressure until you can do something substantial. Stay on him, combo more for long term positioning (i.e. so that somewhere this play will facilitate or lead to an edgeguard you can work with) instead of damage in a very general sense. If you can get him to like 50%+ off your first throw though then that's really good and the damage becomes worthwhile. Most people can't though.

Something to look forward to against Falco is that his crouch punishes are low range. Unfortunately, you're also a relatively small hitbox character so you can't abuse this the way that Marth and Sheik can. You're gonna need to dair, shine, and grab at low percents (if not just hit him out of the air) in order to combat crouch at really low percents. Bair can work too. Holding away when you hit with nair can sometimes prevent you from being crouch-shined, especially if their reaction is slow and they're hitting your landing rather than you being airborne.

A good out of shield repertoire is really useful in this matchup. Good shines out of shield will beat Falcos that don't space their pressure. Falco's spaced pressure inherently allows bigger windows for WD, FJ, u-smash, etc.

Falco is tough though.

 

[unknown522]

have you ever had that nonsense ground tech happen between 30-120% and then they shine you during the lag because they're always holding down?

 

[omgwtfToph]

yes **** that **** omg

although I think the idea is to hit Falco with the DA when he's NOT on the ground. I would never purposely dash attack Falco on the ground unless I had a very good reason

 

[KirbyKaze]

I've had it happen at 40-411% to stupid percents. A fun tidbit is that it actually can't happen at a percent lower than 40% but sadly not for a good reason; dash attack doesn't knock Falco over even at full power until that point.

You have to hit Falco out of an action where he's compromised his tech window if you do it to a grounded one. This basically means 20 frames after he's compressed L or R all the way down, you have a window of 20 frames to knock him over with dash attack and he can't tech. This should allude to shield, roll, sidestep, and WD as possible things that give you the okay to dash attack. However, we have a more obvious place to use this - just avoid the ground tech issue entirely by hitting him in the air. Because of where dash attack's hitbox is placed, hitting Falco out of his aerials is viable (sneaking under bair is tricky though so not sure if I recommend) but don't use this to punish landing lag because the nature of his SH aerial inputs often includes down for the dair or FF (which causes him to be instantly grounded from your dash attack, since it's so weak), and any of the shield buttons (the two most common ones can initiate tech).

A common misuse of this move is vs Falco's bair. I know with everything I said it sounds like using this to punish retreat AC bair is perfect but the AC window plus how far Falco moves away makes the hit window for this tiny. If he shields your attack then you eat a shine too. On top of that, if they simply know to hold down and shield immediately upon landing they're prepared for the dash attack on hit with the tech ready, have a shield coming if your timing is late (and then they get the free shine), and so forth. Aside from hitting Falco just as his bair's hitbox expires (he's still airborne) or something that introduces other complications there's not much you can do about it with dash attack itself. He has countermeasures. As a result, I suggest up smash or going around his bair with your FJ (get in front to soften his u-tilt) since ground stuff like dash dance grab is kind of subject to his fade on the bair IMO and the penalty for being off at all is huge.

Well, that was a tangent. Back to dash attack vs Falco. Aside from the air, the obvious places where Falco probably isn't crouching everything or compromised his tech window is when he's walking around or doing other forms of janky bait movement (usually walking or WD stuff). The fact that he can shield at any time during some of these movements may discourage you from dash attacking into grounded Falco even if it looks like you could get something juicy because you fear being shined OOS into a Fox pelt. That said, pay attention to your opponent because you might find the thing they're fishing for (on the plus, ground tech vs full walk often results in tech rolls so tech stand into shine probably won't happen). Sadly, Falco's have realized this is kind of silly so they're craftier and laser with their movement baits more intelligently (read: they do it gayer).

Other areas where you might get away with this include after he's whiffed grab. Throws require direction and that might discourage him from keeping his finger as firmly on down as usual. Any time he's about to go into the air is also fair game; if you can hit him out of his jump's startup, odds are he's worrying more about which direction he's going to jump (and what jump animation he needs for appropriate fades) rather than crouching further. FF comes at the peak to end of the jump too so that cuts the window. Finally, if you hit him during waveshines and such you can likely knock him over because of how waveshine screws with the tech window but the down input for WD and shine will likely result in a tough tech chase to hit. If they buffer the getup attack because of their shine input (or they react fast to being knocked over instantly) you can also just legitimately not have a workable situation - the getup attack hits you out of your dash attack lag.

So yeah. It's fickle. It's almost amazing but it's like a lot of Fox's attacks where it's almost amazing but there's just these glaring issues related to attack usefulness and reliability that prevent the attack from being stupid (some examples include: SDI versus dair and uair can limit their utility, u-throw doesn't combo a bunch of characters, in general his attacks are small hitboxes close to body = counterattack food, shine doesn't combo airborne opponents reliably, etc).

Closing remarks about how it works in neutral are basically that it's almost good but it's inconsistent to make sure you're accounting for how the opponent can deal with it so they don't. If it catches them off guard, it can change the situation too quickly for them to react properly. But you need to do that or else you're exacerbating Fox's fundamental weaknesses in combat and that will only take you dark places (namely Peach's dress and various characters' arms).

Well, we now know when to dash attack. So we hit one. What do?

I'm feeling generous; I'll talk about using it combos now. Because it's so weak, you can often screw with someone's tech window by dash attacking in a place where they expect u-smash or something else. Because of how tech windows work, this can on occasion lead to an unexpected knockdown; unexpected knockdowns are cute and jab reset > SHFFL uair (or grab / various other forms of gayness) on a Falco's unconscious body can seriously be a big help in keeping pace with his simpler, more reliable combo game. Depending on how you condition them, you can forgo dash attack or even make them begin to DI for it and open up other options but if I start doing that then this post won't end.

Okay so the above mostly deals with an airborne opponent exclusively so let's talk about tech chases and the rest of air combos here. Honestly, during tech chases the move is kind of underwhelming because of two things: (1) how long Fox's dash JC grab is, which is how he should be managing most techs; and (2) because he has actual attacks to hit a knocked over opponent (u-smash, aerials, shine situationally, u-tilt) and dash attack has the nasty 7% damage maximum that makes it bad vs non-tech (although if your dash attack usage can encourage non-techs you can get stuff from that too but let's not go down the conditioning road or we'll never leave here). Anyway, for similar reasons to why it flubs on SH aerial landing lag a lot, using it vs opponents during a tech chase can be dangerous and even just not productive relative to other options due to its lag and how fast it grounds someone holding down. That said, its low knockback is good for denying edgecancels on stages that aren't FOD and it can be really useful for creating a situation where their tech options are functionally slashed down. If you are reading this right, the last two paragraphs should have a good chunk of fluff for the informed members of the audience if only because we should know by now that anything can be worked into a combo.

In closing, dash attack has a decent hitbox for getting under things and its speed allows it to be used to stuff things. On hit, it pops up slightly and it obeys certain percentage rules vs FFers for when it can be used to make a knockdown and vs Peach, Sheik, and other characters with fast counterattack aerials the important percent is knowing when you can shield or dash before they get their free hit on you (since you can die). Because it is laggy, 100% stun-lock combos following its use will be hard for a variety of reasons (but mostly that it also always gives the opponent access to their non-tech option pool with an advantageous window if they get grounded by it and don't roll, which is common and can be complicated; if they tech stand they can often grab / shine / d-smash you into death). Because of how fast it is and its decent range in front, it will sometimes be the only move that will true combo off a previous move. But even in those cases the payoff of letting them land (FFer exclusive mostly, sometimes Sheik; this also assumes they have to tech) or chasing with a bigger move (or playing around their landing area; the last few suggestions relate to non-FFers, including Sheik) might give validity to another option. Dash attack in combos is complicated. This isn't Peach or Sheik.

Anyway, enough fluff. Also, this was all only about the initial hit on dash attack. The weak hit of dash attack is a whole other beast entirely with how you can use it. But this should get you started.

Won't talk about its role in edgeguarding really odd things because then this really would take forever.

 

[Ayala2020]

Hey guys, I need some general help/help vs Peach. He is my training partner(He also taught me how to play.) that always has the upperhand in our fights(I rarely take off matches, like 1 in every ten or so). He usually 2 stocks me, sometimes I get close, others I get 3 stocked. We recorded our matches recently and I cut out the ones where I do the best, but I still don't win(He was mostly 2 stocking me besides these matches). Why is it that I lost the lead? Are there things in the matchup that I am challenging that I shouldnt? Well anyways, much is appreciated if you can help, thank you in advance! :D http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODbS721ka2E&feature=youtu.be

 

[KirbyKaze]

Jump over, block, or dash dance to outspace her dash attacks

Jump over, block, or dash dance to outspace her d-smashes

Jump over, block, or dash dance to outspace her low aerials

Jump over, block, or dash dance to...

I think you're getting the idea.

If she's airborne and you can't challenge her because of distance, shoot her. If you can't challenge her because of how she's positioned herself in lieu of your bad positioning but she couldn't reach you in time because she's slow then either run away, run to the platforms, or stand still. Just don't run into the fair.

If she's airborne and can be hit, remember her frame 3 nair and weight / floatiness mix. You could be hit hard back. Plan carefully. At about 35% I find you can start nicking her with FJ nairs without being at risk for an instant counterattack if she was in the air.

Resist the urge to jump OOS when she's screwing around in front of your shield. They love to catch jumps OOS and to the platforms with FJ nair and uair. So just hold tight or even, like, roll. I dunno. Just don't fall for the oldest trick in the book.

As far as attacks go, basically just emphasize your dash dance and FJ as much as you can since those are the hardest things for her to deal with and they provide a conduit to do all your important attacks aside from u-tilt. Drill, bair, u-tilt (make her fall on them when she lacks float), grab, u-smash are the MVPs in this one but don't neglect nair and such since everything has its place.

 

[omgwtfToph]

Woke up in the morning and read some kirbykaze posts. Today will be a good day.

 

[Divinokage]

Where was this guy all this time!?

 

[unknown522]

yes **** that **** omg

although I think the idea is to hit Falco with the DA when he's NOT on the ground. I would never purposely dash attack Falco on the ground unless I had a very good reason

I've had it happen at 40-411% to stupid percents. A fun tidbit is that it actually can't happen at a percent lower than 40% but sadly not for a good reason; dash attack doesn't knock Falco over even at full power until that point.

You have to hit Falco out of an action where he's compromised his tech window if you do it to a grounded one. This basically means 20 frames after he's compressed L or R all the way down, you have a window of 20 frames to knock him over with dash attack and he can't tech. This should allude to shield, roll, sidestep, and WD as possible things that give you the okay to dash attack. However, we have a more obvious place to use this - just avoid the ground tech issue entirely by hitting him in the air. Because of where dash attack's hitbox is placed, hitting Falco out of his aerials is viable (sneaking under bair is tricky though so not sure if I recommend) but don't use this to punish landing lag because the nature of his SH aerial inputs often includes down for the dair or FF (which causes him to be instantly grounded from your dash attack, since it's so weak), and any of the shield buttons (the two most common ones can initiate tech).

that stupid tech crap can still happen (and most commonly occurs) when they are committed, whether jumping or not. I guess if you hit the peak of their jump, then that won't happen. But then we just reach many other problems with the dash attack.

I've had it happen and have seen it happen so many times (especially because falco players are always holding down), and I am sure that you guys have seen it happen pretty frequently too.

 

[Druggedfox]

Hi fox boards

I started playing this game again I think

 

[Engo]

Nobody expects the KirbyKaze essay. It comes when you least expect it.

 

[KirbyKaze]

I feel pop-quizzes have lost their touch. I decided to experiment with pop-essays and pop-into-tipped-up-smash. So far the results are encouraging.

 

[V]

Hey Fox boards I'm recently getting into this character and I'd like to watch some videos of players with different styles but I don't really know too many by name. If somebody could make a list of high level Foxes with the top of the list being super aggressive and the bottom being as slow paced as possible I'd appreciate it.

 

[Apasher]

If you want recent videos (which I highly recommend):

-Mango
-SFAT
-Unknown
-Javi
-Kels

From the top of my head.

 

[Divinokage]

I feel pop-quizzes have lost their touch. I decided to experiment with pop-essays and pop-into-tipped-up-smash. So far the results are encouraging.

How about I pop my .... into ....

 

[Engo]

If you want recent videos (which I highly recommend):

-Mango
-SFAT
-Unknown
-Javi
-Kels

From the top of my head.

Silent Wolf instead of Kels.

Also, although he won't have recent videos, check out Jman for a really different but effective style of fox.

 

[Apasher]

I haven't watched that much Silent Wolf, so I don't really know that much about his playstyle behind his techskill.