Q&A -Fox Advice/Questions Topic-

[Coffeeblack]

as someone who started out using fox, id recommend learning basics with another character. I was stupid, and focused alot on cool tech stuff even though i knew it wasnt important, and got hung up on tech errors that lost me the match rather than focusing on fundamentals. Although it makes sense to learn as much as you can to improve, it really is better to leave these things till later. Spacies are fun cuz you press a lot of buttons and it CAN distract you from learning and strengthening your fundamentals.

edit: fwiw im talking more about practicing on humans, because as someone stated before playing on cpus definitely develops awful habits

 

[BTmoney]

2 cents:

About a year ago from now 3-4 months of solo practicing Falco vs the CPU made my Falco so bad I couldn't use it anymore (that's not entirely true, recently [after quitting Falco and coming back] I began unlearning my bad habits but I literally stopped maining Falco because it became so imbued and synonymous with mindlessness)

But It didn't happen to my Marth or Fox but that might be because I'm well read on those two characters and the shameful amount of gameplay I've watched learning those characters.

 

[Squirt]

Hey I'm working on my jiggs match-up. I almost beat this dude. but I kinda choked and got rested a bunch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffUXrIitf6s
I was coming off doing a falco ditto in tourney so my tech was really rough. But can I get some critique and some suggestions on how to approach jiggs. That repeated backair stuff just confuses me when I'm playing and I don't really know what to do.

 

[Bl@ckChris]

hey squirt, just look like this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJK68tpBcGU

PP told me i gave up space a little too much while camping though.

edit: okay so first off, you'd be better off jumping out of shield than rolling. rolling should be really scary vs jiggs, and ilove pays pretty good attention to things, so it's not a habit you should be into.

also, you're going to want to wavedash out of shield. it's just a much better way of staying mobile even while momentarily afraid of getting hit. oh nvm it looks like game two you tried to wd oos, but you were still in falco buttons so they were a little bit..meh.

overall you did about as good as mine did without lasers. which was, unfortunately, on the losing end. hence why i started shooting them in grand finals lol.

 

[Machiavelli]

If you will have the most fun learning with fox then do that. I'm not sure these ideas about learning the game with fox are as universally applicable as some of these posts suggest.

 

[Squirt]

some stuff

Thanks man.

I liked that upsmash punish when he tried to duck under your lasers.

I actually think I might switch my main to fox. Fox is more fun imo anyway.

 

[Bl@ckChris]

yeah he was definitely exposing the fact that i didn't know the timing to shoot low lasers. at some point i was just like eff it, if that's all he's gonna focus on, i'll just hit him for it.

if you do want to see how to beat him with falco though, i won the MM this time, and it's recorded. i still don't quite understand how i won it though, even if i watched the videos. somehow i sorta combo'd him.

 

[Squirt]

Do you know how to shdl? the second laser usually comes out pretty low but not at ground level i think.


edit: nvm I saw you doing that in the video.

 

[Bl@ckChris]

yeah, and the second one still wasn't low enough lol. i had intended it to be the counter, but it was still too high. i think a sh ff laser is what i needed, or just a really late sh laser, but i'm really bad at both of those so far. i need much more practice.

 

[BTmoney]

Ganon help?

I'm playing kage in my pool at big hosue

:o

 

[Pengie]

Fighting Ganon is mostly about not beating yourself IMO; that is to say, be extremely conscious of your spacing relative to him. More so than other characters, Ganon destroys you for small spacing errors; the trade-off is that if you don't mes up your spacing he can't really hit you because lolFox. Pay very close attention to how far off the ground he is when he jumps, because there's a certain height where he can't really do anything because either his moves are too slow to come out before he lands, or he'd be wavelanding which means he can't block for a while, so only try to run at him when you see that he's at those heights and has already burned his DJ. If he hasn't burned his DJ, just kinda watch what he does and reposition yourself so that you are constantly presenting the threat of Nair/Grab or DD without putting yourself in a spot where you'll eat ftilt or fair (you should be able to react to this .

Once you hit Ganon that combos are super free because he's fat and slow and can't really come down at all. Up throw up tilt at low percent isn't a true combo, but he's too slow to actually jump out at really low percents so he just gets up tilted and derped on. At higher percents, wait for him to either DJ out of the up throw or swing; both of these are your cues to run towards him to follow up, albeit at different times, If he swings and he isn't bairing or uairing as he's coming down just run at him and hit him in the move's huge cooldown, if he does wither of those moves you can probably still hit him, but it might be trickier because of IASA and those moves being relatively fast. If he DJs out of the combo however, do what you were doing in neutral and wait for him to reach that magic height and hit him again with like a nair or something and just keep ****** him because he doesn't have his jump anymore. If there's platforms, just keep him pinned on the platforms with uairs and bairs and don't let him come back down, but also don't get overzealous and run into one of his moves.

Ganon is probably the character where being on point with your reactions helps the most to cut out any of his gimmicky stuff, but I feel like you also need to have a fair bit of character specific knowledge to be able to know what the gimmicks are in the first place. Basically never take your eyes off of Ganon and **** him anytime he tries to do something.

 

[Tero.]

learn how to capitalize on hits out of neutral game. when you're actually onto him ganon is very weak, the problem is getting past his wall of Bairs and Fairs

 

[Bl@ckChris]

Try not to be the first on to commit. if you can make ganon commiit first, ggrab him for iit. Then uthrow uair a lot, then bair him offstage until he's dead.

 

[Bones0]

Anyone know how much shield stun lasers have? Can you laser-shine as Fox? I don't see why Falco could do it but not Fox since the lasers do the same %.

 

[Bl@ckChris]

i never thought about them causing any hitstun on shield, since they don't cause any hitstun on hit. shdl shine pressure sounds pretty goofy lol

 

[Bones0]

Yeah, SHDL -> Shine on shield was the first thing I thought of but I doubt that works. lol

 

[Deleted member]

Ganon help?

I'm playing kage in my pool at big hosue

:o

fox harder imo

 

[KirbyKaze]

In addition to your normal u-throw stuff vs a heavy character, it can be effective to b-throw him and f-throw him to force techs, put him offstage, put him on platforms, and much more (f-throw knockdown starts at like 56 or something). It's never really bad to just put Ganon closer to the edge; his defense against Fox's edge guarding is laughable and even though u-throw is amazing, it is also occasionally puts Fox in awkward positions (like at low percents for example).

 

[BTmoney]

Well I did pretty well vs Kage in pools which was my first ever tournament match.

Game 1 I side B'd off stage at 0% first stock and the game still came down to last stock. I think I played very well legitimately (ask him ). My gameplay really was just don't run into his fairs and I got a good number of grabs off on him. I caught him a few times not crouch canceling and I think I hit him in between his platform movement a lot and actually got some decently hard punishes. He said he couldn't figure out how I was trying to approach the game. But my entire gameplan was to do quote unquote "nothing" lol. It worked out really well.

Game 2 I SD'd again, then next stock at low percent I missed my side B shorten so I landed stupid on stage and got put into a ridiculous combo. I sort of gave up and got 3 stocked. I think that came from nerves mostly although I wasn't too nervous.

Kage's punish tree is absolutely amazing but once you hit Ganon (as a character) he's so free lol. Amazing experience and he's also a swell guy.

I have more questions for later vs Hax (and Gravy) and vs Peach in general. Hell I have a lot of questions actually if anyone would like to spend a little time talking to me. Amazing first tourney.

 

[Bones0]

But my entire gameplan was to do quote unquote "nothing" lol.

lol WUT?

 

[Pengie]

Well I did pretty well vs Kage in pools which was my first ever tournament match.

Game 1 I side B'd off stage at 0% first stock and the game still came down to last stock. I think I played very well legitimately (ask him ). My gameplay really was just don't run into his fairs and I got a good number of grabs off on him. I caught him a few times not crouch canceling and I think I hit him in between his platform movement a lot and actually got some decently hard punishes. He said he couldn't figure out how I was trying to approach the game. But my entire gameplan was to do quote unquote "nothing" lol. It worked out really well.

Game 2 I SD'd again, then next stock at low percent I missed my side B shorten so I landed stupid on stage and got put into a ridiculous combo. I sort of gave up and got 3 stocked. I think that came from nerves mostly although I wasn't too nervous.

Kage's punish tree is absolutely amazing but once you hit Ganon (as a character) he's so free lol. Amazing experience and he's also a swell guy.

I have more questions for later vs Hax (and Gravy) and vs Peach in general. Hell I have a lot of questions actually if anyone would like to spend a little time talking to me. Amazing first tourney.

hmm, IMO the whole do nothing thing works pretty well against bad players/people who are mistake prone and it kinda works against bad characters even if the other player is a little bit better than you, but as soon as you play someone who isn't making very many mistakes you start to get **** on because you let them have too much room to do things against you. In general, I think that active play is far better than passive play, it's just that it's more difficult because it involves more effort on your end; however, if you manage to be able to put in the effort, you start seeing how quickly the opponents options disappear and you effectively minimize their impact on the match, which should be what you try to do whenever possible. A good example of this contrast, IMO, is M2K/Hbox at Evo vs M2K/Hbox at TBH3; at Evo M2K pretty much developed tunnel vision on playing passively and it let Hbox have way too much influence on the match, whereas at TBH3 he took a much more active role and Hbox was forced out of his strong options which let M2K run all over him.

EDIT: also feel free to message me if you wanna talk about stuff; Falcon and Peach are also two characters that I really like playing against anyway.

 

[BTmoney]

lol WUT?

I have a different definition of nothing lol. Basically I dash danced camped him and barely ever got hit by a fair or WL forward ftilt/jab. I had no intention of engaging him first (unless I had a read on his platform movement as he would WL off platforms before a move could come out and I'd FH into something and hit him). So basically I just waited for the duration of the game (and it was about an average length match). I think it was KK or someone who once said that Ganon's game plan in neutral revolves around some degree of flailing and throwing his limbs around so I figured the best thing to do vs a character that needs to swing first/zone me out is dash dance obsessively and punish only when I knew I could, preferably with a grab or something that would get me a grab.

hmm, IMO the whole do nothing thing works pretty well against bad players/people who are mistake prone and it kinda works against bad characters even if the other player is a little bit better than you, but as soon as you play someone who isn't making very many mistakes you start to get **** on because you let them have too much room to do things against you. In general, I think that active play is far better than passive play, it's just that it's more difficult because it involves more effort on your end; however, if you manage to be able to put in the effort, you start seeing how quickly the opponents options disappear and you effectively minimize their impact on the match, which should be what you try to do whenever possible. A good example of this contrast, IMO, is M2K/Hbox at Evo vs M2K/Hbox at TBH3; at Evo M2K pretty much developed tunnel vision on playing passively and it let Hbox have way too much influence on the match, whereas at TBH3 he took a much more active role and Hbox was forced out of his strong options which let M2K run all over him.

EDIT: also feel free to message me if you wanna talk about stuff; Falcon and Peach are also two characters that I really like playing against anyway.

Well, yeah read the first part @ Bones lol. But I'm not sure what you mean with active vs passive. Those are so broad, I'm not sure where those words have a place. In every single MU, especially when I am fighting a slower character (like even Peach), I try to dash dance something out of them or them into a corner. You could say that's playing passively since you don't plan on initiating any action and you could call that being active since in some way you are being aggressive. I just don't like those words but I think I know what you mean.

Instead of nothing I should have said being noncommittal but for the sake of simplicity whenever I'm verbally talking to people I say "nothing."
If I say noncommittal instead of nothing does that change your view? And I can't say that's why M2k beat Hbox. He wasn't necessarily being aggressive or "active" but he changed his game plan (to something Mango-esque) entirely. The dash dance grab and OOS movement really looked like Mango but he also started doing something I've been thinking more Foxes should do and that's run underneath Puff and slightly "over shooting" an usmash. I think he just played the MU almost perfect. My nothing game plan has worked well vs pretty much everyone I've ever played. I started playing like that because I started doing better vs better players (and I mean good players).

But yeah I'll message you, I just need to stop thinking about smash for a bit because I didn't realize how burnt out I got from going to that tourney and smashing all weekend.

 

[Bones0]

I was actually replying to the ridiculous redundancy of saying "quote unquote" right before you quoted the phrase. XD

 

[milligraham]

I've got a question about SDI'ing out of fox's up air. Which direction is best for SDI'ing out, or does it matter as long as you SDI?

 

[Pengie]

I have a different definition of nothing lol. Basically I dash danced camped him and barely ever got hit by a fair or WL forward ftilt/jab. I had no intention of engaging him first (unless I had a read on his platform movement as he would WL off platforms before a move could come out and I'd FH into something and hit him). So basically I just waited for the duration of the game (and it was about an average length match). I think it was KK or someone who once said that Ganon's game plan in neutral revolves around some degree of flailing and throwing his limbs around so I figured the best thing to do vs a character that needs to swing first/zone me out is dash dance obsessively and punish only when I knew I could, preferably with a grab or something that would get me a grab.



Well, yeah read the first part @ Bones lol. But I'm not sure what you mean with active vs passive. Those are so broad, I'm not sure where those words have a place. In every single MU, especially when I am fighting a slower character (like even Peach), I try to dash dance something out of them or them into a corner. You could say that's playing passively since you don't plan on initiating any action and you could call that being active since in some way you are being aggressive. I just don't like those words but I think I know what you mean.

Instead of nothing I should have said being noncommittal but for the sake of simplicity whenever I'm verbally talking to people I say "nothing."
If I say noncommittal instead of nothing does that change your view? And I can't say that's why M2k beat Hbox. He wasn't necessarily being aggressive or "active" but he changed his game plan (to something Mango-esque) entirely. The dash dance grab and OOS movement really looked like Mango but he also started doing something I've been thinking more Foxes should do and that's run underneath Puff and slightly "over shooting" an usmash. I think he just played the MU almost perfect. My nothing game plan has worked well vs pretty much everyone I've ever played. I started playing like that because I started doing better vs better players (and I mean good players).

But yeah I'll message you, I just need to stop thinking about smash for a bit because I didn't realize how burnt out I got from going to that tourney and smashing all weekend.

Yeah I probably shouldn't use passive/active as much, it's just that those two words make a lot sense to me on an intuitive level; anyway, to try to narrow down what I mean by that, playing actively, to me, means playing in such a way that you are constantly presenting a threat to your opponent. With Fox, this usually means that you are positioning yourself in such a way that you are constantly threatening them with either nair/grab if they try to stand there or shield, or with dashing away on reaction to whatever they choose to do and punishing their approach with something like a pivot grab or a retreating back air. Passive play, on the other hand, would be something like dashdancing while waiting for the opponent to over-extend so you can punish it while playing at a range where you aren't really threatening them directly. Also, active doesn't necessarily imply aggressive to me in the sense that you are trying to approach. A good example of how I make a distinction is the difference between platform camping vs running away and laser camping; when you platform camp a floaty you always present the threat of falling through with a back air and then abusing your positional advantage below them. In my mind, this a very active way of camping because it makes the opponent have to respect the fact that you are constantly threatening them, whereas, by running away and laser camping, you give up that constant threat and instead let them play however they want in response to you lasering and running away. This tends to work really well against players that are below a certain skill level because they typically lack the necessary pattern recognition and general awareness to make reads on how you will try to react once they get close enough to you. If you try to do this against Hbox or Armada though, I guarantee you they'll catch you jumping when you want to jump over them and catch you running when you want run under them extremely frequently which ends up putting you in bad situations more often because you weren't really posing a constant threat to them so they got to do whatever they wanted. Also playing passively isn't necessarily always bad, it's just that I don't think that it should be your main focus when playing.

As for the noncommittal thing, I'm not sure. I'd have to actually watch how you played and how you decided to position yourself before I'd be able to really say. Playing in a noncommittal way is good because you never shut yourself out of options, but you can still end up putting yourself in bad spots because the opponent got to do what they wanted. You could be playing either/or or somewhere in between, but I really can't tell without seeing a match.

On M2K vs HBox: the way that I saw that set play out at Evo was that M2K let Hbox play his game; he never really made Hbox respect any of Fox's strong options because he wasn't really doing any of them. he just ran away and lasered and Hbox got in and blew him up for giving up all of his stage presence for some free damage that didn't really accomplish anything. At TBH3 however, M2K actually made HBox have to deal with Fox's strong ground game options, which in turn forced Hbox to play in the air more which means he was opening himself up getting up aired and upsmashed as he jumped/came down. M2K was able to do all of that because he was able to make HBox respect the threat of Fox's ground game to the point that Hbox gave up the ground game all together and chose to play mostly in the air, which also opened him up to other stuff. Mango does the same thing, except he tends to be a bit riskier in his ground game where was M2K was doing things that were mostly safe regardless of what Hbox did on the ground.

And hey if it works it works. I'm not gonna hate. It's just that the opposite pretty much happened with me; I'd play Hbox for a couple of hours and get wrecked because I couldn't actually find mistakes to punish while doing nothing because he wouldn't make them, or I'd play DruggedFox and I wouldn't get to play for 99 games out 100 and win the one game where he messed up 4 times. Then I started actually engaging them without doing stupid stuff and reacting to what they did and I found myself actually outplaying them in certain instances and taking games which helped me learn stuff about the game on a fundamental level. But as I said if you found something that works for you then there's really no reason to stop until you think it's stopped working.

 

[unknown522]

I've got a question about SDI'ing out of fox's up air. Which direction is best for SDI'ing out, or does it matter as long as you SDI?

left.

Edit: ok really, you usually want to SDI to a side. Most likely wherever is further from the second hit of u-air's hitbox. But there are often times other things that might factor into it, like momentum, your character, etc.

 

[Rocketpowerchill]

left.

Edit: ok really, you usually want to SDI to a side. Most likely wherever is further from the second hit of u-air's hitbox. But there are often times other things that might factor into it, like momentum, your character, etc.

so ive been spmmin these di questions recently but i just gotta know before i sleep tonight

if you quarter circle left->down left
will the second hit still hit, what im saying is are you diing into the hit
WHY CANT SOMEONE MAKE A DI THREAD **** ME

i wasnt even holding a direction when you were shining me @bones0
but i hella want some falco practice rofl, i am boutta make it out of pools at pound cuz im gonna think that to do my very best like noone ever was

also wenbo gave me enough insight for me to understand some of this game, im ready to bop
i cant multi quote so this post sucks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJVmpLGjIdE

 

[unknown522]

maybe. Depends on where the fox is

 

[WaterlessFishie]

I'm sure I'm thinking about this incorrectly, and a lot of positional factors come into play, but wouldn't you want to sdi to the right? Since the weak hit of the up air is on the right and the strong on the left, wouldn't you sdi to the right to get away from the strong hit?
Maybe demo kirby has failed me

 

[Divinokage]

Once you hit Ganon that combos are super free because he's fat and slow and can't really come down at all. Up throw up tilt at low percent isn't a true combo, but he's too slow to actually jump out at really low percents so he just gets up tilted and derped on. At higher percents, wait for him to either DJ out of the up throw or swing; both of these are your cues to run towards him to follow up, albeit at different times, If he swings and he isn't bairing or uairing as he's coming down just run at him and hit him in the move's huge cooldown, if he does wither of those moves you can probably still hit him, but it might be trickier because of IASA and those moves being relatively fast. If he DJs out of the combo however, do what you were doing in neutral and wait for him to reach that magic height and hit him again with like a nair or something and just keep ****** him because he doesn't have his jump anymore. If there's platforms, just keep him pinned on the platforms with uairs and bairs and don't let him come back down, but also don't get overzealous and run into one of his moves.

Ganon is probably the character where being on point with your reactions helps the most to cut out any of his gimmicky stuff, but I feel like you also need to have a fair bit of character specific knowledge to be able to know what the gimmicks are in the first place. Basically never take your eyes off of Ganon and **** him anytime he tries to do something.

Playing Ganon is actually the completely opposite though, Im the one supposed to wait for you to do something.. there's absolutely no reason why I should throw out moves when you are ready for something. I think that's a big problem for aspiring Ganon mains, they have it completely backwards and a lot of people are misinformed as to what to do exactly with him. You are never supposed to approach with any move actually because his moves are really slow. You always have to trap your opponent somehow with your moves because an action will need to be taken by the opponent. Just being Ganon is enough threat for someone to move around because if he gets locked in, he's going to be ****ed since you can't shield forever. He'll have to jump, WD or throw out a move somehow.

Also at low %, Fox can't guaranteed Upthrow/uptilt. It's 50-50 with upair, if I decide to jump and you whiff uptilt, I get a free punish.. but if you decide to uair and I don't jump, I'm the one hitting you with the uair instead. Also there's no reason to jump at higher % unless you delay your aerials after uthrow, I'd really want to go back down asap.

 

[PGH Carroll]

So I played pretty good all day one to make bracket at Big House and then once I got to bracket got so dumpstered I'm almost embarrassed to talk about it. Lol

I'll be around more often because I realized that you can't play lazy fox against anyone at that level and that the window you have to get in on someone at that level is so small. Definently a wake up call.

 

[Pengie]

Playing Ganon is actually the completely opposite though, Im the one supposed to wait for you to do something.. there's absolutely no reason why I should throw out moves when you are ready for something. I think that's a big problem for aspiring Ganon mains, they have it completely backwards and a lot of people are misinformed as to what to do exactly with him. You are never supposed to approach with any move actually because his moves are really slow. You always have to trap your opponent somehow with your moves because an action will need to be taken by the opponent. Just being Ganon is enough threat for someone to move around because if he gets locked in, he's going to be ****ed since you can't shield forever. He'll have to jump, WD or throw out a move somehow.

Also at low %, Fox can't guaranteed Upthrow/uptilt. It's 50-50 with upair, if I decide to jump and you whiff uptilt, I get a free punish.. but if you decide to uair and I don't jump, I'm the one hitting you with the uair instead. Also there's no reason to jump at higher % unless you delay your aerials after uthrow, I'd really want to go back down asap.

Hmmm interesting; out of curiosity, what would you're reaction be to a Fox standing roughly outside of ftilt range? I feel like of I get into that spot, there isn't really much of anything that Gannon can do that isn't reactable and punishable, which is what I was getting at. The only ganons I've really played are a couple games with chaddd, and then random good ga players picking Gannon because i rag him all the time. This is my usual approach to the match up and it's worked out pretty well every time, but chaddd hasn't played in a while and the other guys don't actually main ganon, so I'm interested to hear your perspective on it.

 

[Apasher]

Is it possible to do well in tournaments with Fox without practicing?

 

[Tero.]

Is it possible to do well in tournaments with Fox without practicing?

dunno man, it can go either way

 

[Divinokage]

Hmmm interesting; out of curiosity, what would you're reaction be to a Fox standing roughly outside of ftilt range? I feel like of I get into that spot, there isn't really much of anything that Gannon can do that isn't reactable and punishable, which is what I was getting at. The only ganons I've really played are a couple games with chaddd, and then random good ga players picking Gannon because i rag him all the time. This is my usual approach to the match up and it's worked out pretty well every time, but chaddd hasn't played in a while and the other guys don't actually main ganon, so I'm interested to hear your perspective on it.

Hmm.. if I remember correctly, I'd WD back to react for an incoming move to grab or... dair on top of them and perhaps uair/jab also works for trading. It really depends what they are looking for.. theres only so many options that can come out at that range. Dash attack, Nair, dair from Fox, jump on platform?

 

[unknown522]

Is it possible to do well in tournaments with Fox without practicing?

yes definitely

 

[Frame Perfect]

for fox almost exclusively, punishment often goes hand in hand with conversions from a position of advantage over and over again rather than doing legitimate combos

fox can do both but learn from these matches:

cactuar jv4 stocks darkrain event 52 i think
m2k vs pc chris both matches corneria i think pound 3,
pc after he switches to fox at mlg vegas vs koreandj's comeback
and one more.... . yea m2k vs pc chris scc kanto match 4

for the new kidz id say start with falco and then transition to fox. it can be kinda hard jumping into fox and about a 1000x more frustrating in tourny at first. falcos fast as **** but fox is another story

 

[Apasher]

What are Fox's grab combos on Ganon?

 

[Redd]

Uthrow > wait > take advantage.

Did I miss anything? Kappa

 

[DarkLouis331]

Anyone a guru on the Fox v Sheik matchup? Vanz and Goose wrecked me in pools with Sheik last weekend. I know that it's best to take advantage of her bad recovery and get her off the edge, but what would be the best way to approach Sheik? Seems like her needles outcamp me and I get ****ed up if I go straight out aggressive on her.