Q&A -Fox Advice/Questions Topic-

[ShroudedOne]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOyVSvXINSw

3:54:25 (also the top comment)

 

[Druggedfox]

That shield pressure was mind blowingly terrible

nice upsmash though lmao

 

[KirbyKaze]

What do you think about lasering people as they float back down? Perhaps it's just habit from Falco, but I sometimes opt to laser people for damage instead when they drift back down to the stage when it's a character like Luigi or something where they are hard to really hit without getting ****ed up, especially if I'm at high %s where I can't afford to trade. I can usually land 3-4 lasers, sometimes 1-2 more if they're high enough that I can land and shoot again, so I figure that's about the same as a single aerial without any of the risk. Is that okay occasionally, or should I just get better at uairing/bairing safely?

Almost everything in this game is okay occasionally.

Lasering after your combo or at the end of a hit sequence if you just want the free percent and feel you don't want to bother with the risk of trading or a particularly gay counterattack because the opponent is Peach at low percent (or similar) is perfectly acceptable. Heck, in some matchups it will be common. That said, there's often something better (even if it's just initiating your dash dance from a solid spacing in order to exert threat and get your own positioning game going so you can get the next hit).

 

[Machiavelli]

Could I get some critique/advice on this match?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDTdrKQElEs#t=34m48s

Thanks

 

[unknown522]

lol @ that falcon kick

 

[Jim Morrison]

the secret to falcon is to just face away from him at all time and wait for him to do something

then you utilt, bair, or dashdance

running at him always feels like one of the worst option I can do.

 

[Silent Wolf]

New smashboards is hella gay.

 

[unknown522]

Indeed.

I hope they fix it soon

 

[stabbedbyanipple]

What are the merits of dthrow?

 

[omgwtfToph]

If you're playing really good, then you can get true followups on characters where you wouldn't otherwise be able to do so.

I dthrow Samus a LOT.

 

[PGH Carroll]

Yeah that falcon kick was heartbreaking.
Falcon mains get lucky.

 

[omgwtfToph]

btw L is gonna be one of the foxes to look out for by the end of the year. calling it now

 

[genkaku]

I don't think I've ever seen a post from L where he doesn't claim to be one of this year's foxes.

 

[omgwtfToph]

you've also never played him

 

[genkaku]

I've watched his vids, I like L's fox. I just thought that was funny.

 

[Druggedfox]

All I've ever seen L do is spam tech skill. I won't judge since I have no clue how he looks now, but everytime I've seen him in the past its a lot of shine and not a lot of anything productive >_>

 

[omgwtfToph]

Idk dawg. I used to feel that way about the guy but he's been on the come up recently

Btw youre weak druggedfox

 

[Silent Wolf]

Druggedfox is hating on everyone lol. Peace I'm out

 

[Silent Wolf]

That shield pressure was mind blowingly terrible

nice upsmash though lmao

How was it terrible? If players aren't used to that pressure they're likely to roll, especially by the ledge, so it was blatantly all telegraphed by lovage. Its not like you can shield grab it either. This kind of stuff also relates to how good players primarily play off their feel for the game rather than what usually the most practical.

Idk why you're dissin everyone when you haven't done ****

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Thats all the boards are useful for... trash talking. There practically any new information that needs to be discussed on the public boards.

 

[WaterlessFishie]

I was hoping I could get some advice on this set, it's petty short: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8BjHYbvNpE
I'm pretty nervous this set (pretty sure this is furthest I've gotten in a tourney so far), so I miss a lot of stuff I usually wouldn't I think, but I'm hoping I can still get some decent feedback.

 

[Silent Wolf]

Yea but if u ain't filthy, u don't talk ****.

 

[omgwtfToph]

Thats all the boards are useful for... trash talking. There practically any new information that needs to be discussed on the public boards.

Lmao u need to learn english bro

Edit: Word @ tha silent one

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Only universal language of Smash important

 

[L__]

FILTEEEEEEEEEe

 

[Jim Morrison]

I was hoping I could get some advice on this set, it's petty short: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8BjHYbvNpE
I'm pretty nervous this set (pretty sure this is furthest I've gotten in a tourney so far), so I miss a lot of stuff I usually wouldn't I think, but I'm hoping I can still get some decent feedback.

My internet is being a **** so I can barely watch this, but I notice you're indeed missing a lot of stuff. What you could work on is shinegrab, I've seen like 3 opportunities where you can get grabs off. Also, when recovering, keep your eye on sheik, for example
1:24, sheik F-airs you off-stage and you up B at a little bit lower than the edge. That means you only have 2 options to go to the ledge. If you had used up B at the apex of your 2nd jump, you would have had 3 options as well as higher positioning so you could work with weaving and fastfalls when coming down. Against Sheik I personally HATE recovering low and avoid it all costs.
You stayed in icky situations for far too long, you're better off moving back and taking your time to reset the situation, like 1:57
During that whole exchange of moves and whiffs, I felt like you were in a worse position. That would be the time to wavedash back out of shield and start dash dancing.

All in all, you didn't play bad, I think it was really your nerves messing you up. If you had better execution you might have just come out on top (this is just first match for now)

game 2:
Try to crouch cancel more. This Sheik is abusing dash attack out in the open on you way too much (3:54) and you have to punish it with either crouch canceling or U-smash OoS.
You were looking for the kill after you died and you got the jab > grab which I really like, going in with a quick jab is such an amazing option, never forget that jab usually means kill. Too bad you only full hop, not sure if that's an execution mistake or not but in case it isn't, when your U-air is for the kill, like 100% or more, on almost any char that isn't spacies, you double jump. It gets you inside them so it's harder to SDI and you also reach them easily (and also gives you more control on going left or right)
4:52 when she was on the ledge and you could cover her, Fox's best option is almost always a full jump N-air. Almost unpunishable and often hits. If you can't read her, go for that. Right there you were very open for ledge attack, grabs and not prepared for the roll. You have to look ahead of the situations and be ready to ledgeguard instead of waiting for her to get back up.
I liked the U-tilt U-air 4:57, try to get off U-tilts, they are great against Sheik and lead to kills at high % or lots of damage at low %. Good job also covering her falling down with B-airs, it netted you an easy kill.
5:10 looked like a mistake but never go on the edge again while Sheik is on stage. If you do get in a ****ty position like this, immedeately get back on with a wavedash on the stage, other options are ****. In the Sheik matchup try to master wavedash from the ledge, it's really good and Sheiks at this level should have a hard time punishing you for it.
5:20 up to 5:40 take a good luck at that and make sure you absorb that. You played that neutral game REALLY well and you abused the platform. If you need to take anything from the match look at that and make sure you understand why what you did in that neutral game worked. You put pressure on her a good way. Then you ****ed up by grabbing the ledge again while she was in the air above you, cover that with B-airs/U-air again.

So yeah, not bad, this looks like a Sheik you should be able to get past once you work on your footing. Try to incorporate spacing tricks like double jump into wavelanding backwards so you bait them into Dash attack/grab or something, it's easy and works quite often. They'll think you'll whiff an aerial and punish your landing lag, but joke's on them.
Just play more, you looked to nervous. Practice your tech skill more so you're really confident in it and can use it in tournament matches like these, stuff like wavelanding, drillshine, shinegrab and wavedash onto the stage, those are important.

Final edit: You shouldn't take everything I said too literally, not until someone better comes along and confirms I'm making sense, I'm still not top level myself and am mostly doing this analysis because it really helps me understand the matchups when I write down what other people should do to play the matchup better.

 

[omgwtfToph]

"you should shinegrab" is definitely not the first piece of advice I would be giving that guy lol. He's still at a stage where expanding his repertoire will not help him (at best) and harm him even further (at worst).

Improve your fundamentals. Your DD game is weak, you panic in scuffle situations (you CC things and then don't do anything out of the CC), you sidestep mindlessly, you laser for no reason, and your little timings are all off (for starters, learn to uthrow uair properly and combo Sheik properly off of grabs). Once you hit someone's shield, you start pressing buttons with no rhyme or reason and the opponent rolls out for free.

So focusing on getting grabs and nairs from dashdance and then following up appropriately. Stop panicking in negative situations, and try to remove habitual sidestep/roll from your game. Also, learn how to edgeguard Sheik properly. Grab ledge, and swing up during the poof.

This alone will help tremendously.

 

[Jim Morrison]

You're right, sometimes I forget not everyone has mindlessly practiced tech skill at home because they have no one to play with

Yeah tricks are nice, but fundamentals are more important.
But you can really expand your pool of options with some straight up dumb fox tech skill.

 

[Diakonos]

What do you hate about Marth?

 

[WaterlessFishie]

Improve your fundamentals. Your DD game is weak

Can you expand on this please? Like how it's bad and how I can work on it etc
And thanks for the comments I've received already, I'll try to keep these things in mind.

 

[omgwtfToph]

What do you hate about Marth?

I hate when he makes me quit Falco forever by being too good at powershielding.

Wait that's just you.


Edit: WaterlessFishie, 0:33 in the first match is a good example. You're dashdancing within his ftilt range, and sure enough you get ftilted out of your DD into a kill. When you DD, you should ideally be looking to respond to a certain thing your opponent does - tilt, dash attack, roll/sidestep. It's hard to react to whatever your opponent does, but if you have a good idea of what your opponent is seeking to do, you can bait out an action and then punish it. I feel like you don't do any of this. Your neutral game instead involves a lot of SH nair, which is fine but you tend to badly space these - you're doing them in front of your opponent (making yourself easy to DD grab), and furthermore it doesn't look like you're paying attention to how your opponent might intercept these nairs. See 3:47, 4:00. This makes your neutral game really predictable and not very threatening. So I think it's one of the things you really should focus on.

 

[Jim Morrison]

What do you hate about Marth?

His range. I praise the lord that no one has caught on that when played to near perfection he is probably the best character in the game. You cannot get past that range, it's like Caitlyn in League of Legends. It's infuriating.

 

[Diakonos]

I hate when he makes me quit Falco forever by being too good at powershielding.

Wait that's just you.

Haha, should have stuck with it, Toph. Falco2gud now. Besides, you can just powershield it back or hop over it or just eat it until you can touch me for a free 60%. No biggie. But: powershield -- check.

His range. I praise the lord that no one has caught on that when played to near perfection he is probably the best character in the game. You cannot get past that range, it's like Caitlyn in League of Legends. It's infuriating.

Thanks for your response. Which Marth player would you say does the best job of coming close to using his range with "near perfection" ?

 

[Jim Morrison]

Also Waterless, Toph makes a really good point about your N-airs. Instead of just running in with them, desperate to hit them, you can use this to your advantage and help you. Take for example, 4:00, you N-air, he rolls. He would have rolled regardless of whether or not you would have N-aired because he expected it. Now imagine if you had done a wavedash in place there instead of a N-air. You now have him rolling towards the edge while you're standing still in a neutral position. Let me tell you, you'd probably have gotten a grab into U-air kill.
It's all about the neutral game and spacing in the matchup. The first to make a move is usually in a worse position, you almost always want to react to what your opponent is doing OR make your opponent react to something you're NOT doing.

EDIT: Probably PP Diakonos, simply because he plays him at the highest level. I can't tell from personal expierence though.

 

[omgwtfToph]

Naw. Fox resonates with me in a way that Falco never did. I would've dropped the bird regardless of your powershielding aptitude.

 

[KirbyKaze]

What are the merits of dthrow?

In some positions there's a decent tech chase trap with it that enables you to u-smash the opponent if your dash reactions are on point. This is mostly useful against characters like Samus and Doc who you can't really combo off your u-throw. Against characters who cannot be comboed by u-throw with longer tech rolls, you can cover the tech stand / non-tech areas with reactive or low-commitment covers and force them to tech roll away, which zones them out of the middle effectively and removes most of the stage behind them (which can be awesome). It also has some merit vs Peach and Puff too - the former for setting up kills if the Peach is good at SDIing u-air and the latter for tacking on extra percent if she's just short of u-throw u-air's kill threshold and her handler mashes when grabbed (think 45% or so).

However, there are a lot of issues with the move. Namely that if you are even slightly off with your reaction then the opponent is on the ground, which is a much more manageable position than off the stage or in the air above Fox (which is where his other throws put the opponent). In addition, u-throw and b-throw often just lead to better or more controllable combos than whatever you can tech chase with (which is generally one of grab, u-smash, and dash attack [on non-tech a lot of unorthodox stuff opens up]). Finally, the actual window to hit the tech chase can be really small and there are a lot of outcomes from the throw itself, meaning being consistent with the follow can be difficult. Finally, a lot of characters can edge slip off from surprisingly far, which limits where it can be used in proximity to the edge (and this takes a lot of getting used to). So the move has a lot of flaws.

For most players if you're trying to expand your throw repertoire from his conventional u-throw fare, I would recommend exploring either of his directional throws before d-throw, mainly because they fill holes in his combo game and open up some really powerful swing plays in a more direct way than d-throw. I also think they play more to Fox's strengths.




Edit:

I wouldn't recommend Fox's shine-grab for newer players unless they ask about it or show an aptitude for shield-pressuring. IMO it is one of the hardest things to implement properly because it doesn't have the frame advantage protection that Peach's low FC aerial grab or Falco's shine-grab get, which makes it susceptible to a lot of counterattacks and opens it to more escapes. Combined with the shine's ineffectiveness against airborne foes, and it can result in a lot of plays that fizzle because it's only really effective against slow jumps, shield grabs (sometimes), u-smashes, and held shield. This puts pressure on the Fox to condition for it to really be effective - this is tough for new players.

I think the most important skill for a new Fox to learn when exploring shield pressure is when it is appropriate to shine or not. This basically means learning what the vulnerability is after hitting different types of aerials into a shield (where type is the attack, spacing, front or back of shield, and proximity to the ground). Some skills this line of thinking encourages includes how to low aerial into dash through or away from the foe's shield, how to space an aerial to avoid OOS counterattacks and grabs, and when to simply grab a shield or hit an escape action (because all of the focus is on remaining safe after hitting a shield, which encourages the foe to hold shield or move).

I want to stress that maintaining safety while keeping options open is crucial for Fox to be effective vs a shield. This is because Fox's grab is crazy strong and his other options aren't (because he can't hit confirm shines into combos and his aerials are flimsy for comboing). This means he has to keep actions open during pressure so he can scout for rolls and counterattacks so he can hit grabs. So figuring out how to keep your actions free, stop an aerial-shine sequence safely while holding position, where shine is optional, and learning how you can structure your pressure to police certain timing windows and control certain spots to press the foe, pin then at the edge, pressure them to roll, etc. is way more useful than learning how to pour on more shines or add more aerial-shines to a pressure sequence for the sake of adding more attacks to a sequence. Intention is everything.

As a side note, lengthy aerial-shine chains are most useful as a mixup during shield pressure IMO. In general I'd say that Fox should only do 4 consecutive attacks in a typical combat situation and I'm tempted to lower that to 3. Keeping your options open is so important with this character. I cannot emphasize that enough.

I'm not sure how this relates to the people needing reviews but in general people asking for critiques would benefit from simply dash dancing into grab, dash attack, shield, or other stuff better. Or they are weak defensively and need to get better at jumping or running off platforms into back air (with DJ, WL, and so forth as the mixup). Or they mess up combos by failing the u-throw follow entirely, u-smash during combos inappropriately, or flub tech chases in some manner routinely because they don't understand the follow up positioning.

 

[smopup]

Question regarding drill grabs - do they work? I think I remember reading Silent Wolf saying Fox should do it against characters that waveshine is ineffective on. Is it only something that could work from conditioning the other player to fear the shine?

 

[Druggedfox]

How was it terrible? If players aren't used to that pressure they're likely to roll, especially by the ledge, so it was blatantly all telegraphed by lovage. Its not like you can shield grab it either. This kind of stuff also relates to how good players primarily play off their feel for the game rather than what usually the most practical.

Idk why you're dissin everyone when you haven't done ****

"Its not like you can shield grab it either"

It was very shield grabbable...that's all I have to say. Everything else you said is true, but that's not the point.

Typical smashboards, let's insult the other guy when we don't know enough about the game to tell when pressure is shield grabbable or not.

Edit:

Drill grabs do work, yes.

 

[Jim Morrison]

I'm pretty sure you can roll, spotdodge, shine OoS, nair Oos for certain characters and a lot of other stuff, but the window is very small and most people wait for the shine to come out first, so it's not a bad option at all.

 

[Deleted member]

The ad hominem is strong in here.

Thanks for your response. Which Marth player would you say does the best job of coming close to using his range with "near perfection" ?

Definitely Kevin. He does still make mistakes though.