Q&A -Fox Advice/Questions Topic-

[Arctic]

Critique please? Im a PM player getting back into melee and my fox is okay but very under developed. If you're willing to help I'd really appreciate it. alphabattack would appreciate falco criticism if you have some. Thanks!

6 videos Play all

 

[^AIR9170]

Put chalk on your thumbs and learn to shorthop xD. Shorthop dair L cancel into shine

 

[Palmerfan]

I have some beginner Fox questions I'd really appreciate answers to.
-If I drillshine someone shielding, what should I do?
-When should I be using shine grabbing?
-Can Fox implement any tricky pivot grabs like a Marth can in any way? (Marth SHFFLs a fair, dashes behind the opponent, and grabs)
-How should I be tech chasing opponents? I know at lower percentages I should go for grabs into chain throws when possible, but what about at higher percentages?
-What should I do if I get in on a Marth? Shine? Grab? SHFFL an aerial?

 

[Bones0]

I have some beginner Fox questions I'd really appreciate answers to.
-If I drillshine someone shielding, what should I do?
-When should I be using shine grabbing?
-Can Fox implement any tricky pivot grabs like a Marth can in any way? (Marth SHFFLs a fair, dashes behind the opponent, and grabs)
-How should I be tech chasing opponents? I know at lower percentages I should go for grabs into chain throws when possible, but what about at higher percentages?
-What should I do if I get in on a Marth? Shine? Grab? SHFFL an aerial?

I know this answer kind of sucks, but the answer for all of those questions is "it depends". You are asking great questions (I don't think most people often don't even make it that far tbh), but it's not really feasible to describe to someone how to use those tools or which options to use. Your actions are going to be based on tons of variables that can change at any moment (stock count, location on the stage, %s, characters, conditioning, etc). Just start experimenting by picking one option and analyzing the outcome. If you think you could have gotten a better result with a different option, then try the other option next time. Maybe someone will be more willing to go in depth about one or more of those topics, but I think any sort of description is only going to scratch the surface of what you're asking. If you don't want to wait until you get a chance to play, you should go watch top level Foxes and pay attention to what options they use and figure out why they are using them or brainstorm how other options would have been better/worse.

 

[BTmoney]

I have some beginner Fox questions I'd really appreciate answers to.

-When should I be using shine grabbing?

-What should I do if I get in on a Marth? Shine? Grab? SHFFL an aerial?

whenever you realize you can get it. it's really tricky to implement. the first place to start is when you notice your opponent shield your pressure and you're still shield pressuring (you notice you hit their shield a lot). I think it's best to shine grab as soon as you realize you're still pressuring because I believe it's harder to punish/avoid than a lot of pressure and it leads to big hits or worst case a grab into an edge guard or bair/uair juggle.


that kind of depends. you kind of build a neutral game off of DD, lasers (if you want, but hard to use effectively vs marth/falcon/falco), grab, nair, and running shine really. you kind of take what you can get it. if you're already inside of marth and you know you can hit him, well combo him. watch people do it

 

[Apasher]

What separates typical Midwest Foxes from typical EC & WC Foxes?

 

[Diana's Safe Landing]

Does anyone find use for Fox's pivot fsmash? Probably 100% outclassed by just grabbing but the fsmash can sometimes catch people off guard and maybe even condition them into their shield?

 

[Loket]

I have some questions about the punishes in fox dittos.
On what % does the chaingrab stop working?
When is more optimal to go for the chaingrab and when to go for upsmash, uptilt or an aerial?
When upthrowing someone to a platform, is it possible to cover all options on reaction and if it is, how to do it?

 

[Red Rice]

I have some questions about the punishes in fox dittos.
On what % does the chaingrab stop working?
When is more optimal to go for the chaingrab and when to go for upsmash, uptilt or an aerial?
When upthrowing someone to a platform, is it possible to cover all options on reaction and if it is, how to do it?

1. I don't know the actual number but I'm pretty sure it's around 70ish % if they don't SDI up
2. I go for the chaingrab at 10-50%. If they don't DI the uthrow at around 40-50%, I throw in an utilt and punish based on reaction/DI.
3. So I'm assuming you mean throwing them onto a platform so they either miss their tech or get the tech. (If you throw them up and they go further up than the platform, you can just uair or bair or waveland upsmash etc..)
There's a string of options that covers all the options. Immediately after you uthrow them, follow them on the platform with an uair. If they miss the tech, they get uaired. If they tech in place, they'll either get hit with the second hit of uair or, if you L-cancel and land on the platform correctly, you can still punish the tech in place with a grab. If they tech roll, same concept applies. You can punish the roll with a grab if you miss the uair because fox is fast and if your reactions are decent, it's easy to get the grab. The last thing they can do is get up attack or slow roll (so you see they don't tech at first and you miss the second hit of uair), but if you do the immediate uair after uthrow, you can land on the platform and shield as well. Then you can punish accordingly... upsmash OoS, bair OoS, shield grab, etc..

 

[Kadano]

I have some questions about the punishes in fox dittos.
On what % does the chaingrab stop working?

http://www.ssbwiki.com/Fox_(SSBM)/Up_throw#Chaingrab_on_fastfallers (I tested for these values; they are not some arbitrary imagination)

 

[Red Rice]

Just a quick question, probably should have posted here first before making my own thread but:

So you can waveshine -> dash -> JC grab Marth if your wavedash is decent.

That's the normal way I punish when I get a shine on marth. But recently I was just messing around and wondered why you can't just do the same thing but with an upsmash? I've only tested this out on CPUs so far and from what I can tell, it's possible?

So is it a viable way to follow up on a waveshine instead of a grab + uthrow + uair?

 

[tauKhan]

@ Kadano Can you di the throw in such a way that fox must guess which direction to grab?

 

[Bones0]

1. I don't know the actual number but I'm pretty sure it's around 70ish % if they don't SDI up

Puff's fthrow is the only throw in the game you can SDI (and the lasers on Falco's throws too, I guess).

 

[Diana's Safe Landing]

Just a quick question, probably should have posted here first before making my own thread but:

So you can waveshine -> dash -> JC grab Marth if your wavedash is decent.

That's the normal way I punish when I get a shine on marth. But recently I was just messing around and wondered why you can't just do the same thing but with an upsmash? I've only tested this out on CPUs so far and from what I can tell, it's possible?

So is it a viable way to follow up on a waveshine instead of a grab + uthrow + uair?

Fox's grab and his upsmash both come out in seven frames, but in my experience it's really hard to connect with upsmash because they can buffer their shield up as soon as possible. Grabbing is easier, guaranteed in most cases, and you can uthrow->upair after it.

 

[Xyzz]

They can buffer spot dodge just as well can't they? Not many people do, but the threat is there (:

 

[Palmerfan]

I'm going to my first tournament bigger than a local tomorrow, and I'm really scared my hands are going to freeze up and my techskill will die. I'm going to play friendlies as much as I can and eat well so I don't feel like **** at the tournament, but is there anything else I can do to make sure I don't start off slow? Any pregame handwarmers, either in game or out of game, I should run through?

 

[Bones0]

I'm going to my first tournament bigger than a local tomorrow, and I'm really scared my hands are going to freeze up and my techskill will die. I'm going to play friendlies as much as I can and eat well so I don't feel like **** at the tournament, but is there anything else I can do to make sure I don't start off slow? Any pregame handwarmers, either in game or out of game, I should run through?

Your fear of your hands freezing up and techskill vanishing overnight are not likely to be a result of poor warm up. Rather, it's your mentality. Recommended reading. Good luck and don't forget to have fun. I'm sure you'll do fine.

 

[Jim Morrison]

Does anyone find use for Fox's pivot fsmash? Probably 100% outclassed by just grabbing but the fsmash can sometimes catch people off guard and maybe even condition them into their shield?

Yes, a few days ago I started liking Fox's pivot F-smash. It's definitely not something integral to implement into your gameplay, but damn it's a nice gimmick.
The amount of times where you get bad DI off the pivot F-smash is so much higher than normal F-smashes, but they usually expect dash attack or grab and try to DI away. If you are dashdancing and they botch their approach because you outspace them, and then punish instantly with it, they often DI wrong.

What do people think of full hop Nair approaches? I know they were the **** back in the day, but in all the times I've played Fox dittos against the older players they tried to approach with full hop Nairs and just got outspaced and downtilted by me. I can't think of situations where something as telegraphed as full jump Nair would be a good approach.

 

[Red Rice]

Yes, a few days ago I started liking Fox's pivot F-smash. It's definitely not something integral to implement into your gameplay, but damn it's a nice gimmick.
The amount of times where you get bad DI off the pivot F-smash is so much higher than normal F-smashes, but they usually expect dash attack or grab and try to DI away. If you are dashdancing and they botch their approach because you outspace them, and then punish instantly with it, they often DI wrong.

What do people think of full hop Nair approaches? I know they were the **** back in the day, but in all the times I've played Fox dittos against the older players they tried to approach with full hop Nairs and just got outspaced and downtilted by me. I can't think of situations where something as telegraphed as full jump Nair would be a good approach.

M2K likes to full hop nair a lot. Or at least he used to before he adopted a more Mango-esque sort of play with Fox.

I think the only situation where a FH nair is good, is if you can guarantee the soft hit into an up smash. But overall, I don't think it's a very safe approach because you can easily react to it and simply dash dance or wave dash away to punish it

 

[Druggedfox]

the reason full hopping is good is because of the drifting mixups you get

You can full hop nair with full momentum forward to catch a character retreating
You can full hop nair a little bit forward, then drift forward with no fastfall to catch them preemptively moving forward to punish you vs. drifting back on the nair when they're not in range to punish the drift back, then catching them trying to move forward after you land

What you can also do that people don't do enough is full hop-->wait. There's no actual benefit to nairing at the beginning of your full hop, as opposed to doing a nair at the last seconds besides the (very fast) startup of the nair, and the fact that you get a strong hit vs a weak hit (which is sometimes better or worse). If you just full hop and don't commit to an action, you can always choose to nair at the last second, OR you can DJ away safely. The whole time you're doing this, you can mixup fastfalling and not fastfalling, with different drift patterns.

Rainbow nair approaches are pretty much awful vs every character except falco (where it's necessary to use sometimes to keep his lasers honest, but shouldn't be spammed). Nairing haphazardly out of a fullhop is very different than intelligently abusing your air mobility and DJ mixups to gain some sort of advantage in neutral while still being somewhat safe.

 

[FrootLoop]

being able to punt to the top platform if the situation doesn't look right is really good.
full hop is pretty good vs puff too. It beats some of her own full hop patterns and gets you in past her strong distances/angles without getting you baired. It doesn't work when she's under a platform obviously but you can just laser her until she goes to the middle. I think FD is super strong in that matchup for that reason.

 

[TSM ZeRo]

PPMD once told me that full hop landing Back Airs are pretty good to space out Falco. Smooth powershielding into N-Airs/Dash Grabs and tactical OOS wavedashing is crucial in the MU. Thoughts in stages, guys? Not a fan of Dream Land.

 

[Druggedfox]

Depends what you want to accomplish, and I'm not exactly sure which is better in an absolute sense...mostly preference stuff.

Dreamland: lets falco laser more and combo better imo, but fox has *so* much more room to run around. I know it's mango's preferred counterpick.
Yoshi's story: even though falco can catch/combo him, I think fox rushes him down way too hard on that stage in general.
Battlefield: The top platform being sooooo high is pretty obnoxious for falco, but seems pretty neutral in general. Worse recovery options for fox in particular, which I don't really like.
Final Destination: No platforms, but more room to run around... I like it because if you actually know how to do optimal punishes, falco just gets wreckedddddd off every hit.
FoD: I think it's not a good falco stage in general. There are too many times where the platforms are oriented to prevent falco from doing SHLs on a full HALF of the stage. It hurts him a lot, and doesn't really give him any benefits.
Stadium: Not really sure what to think. I hate the platforms, because they stop me from abusing my full hop game near the corner, but similar advantages to FD in terms of space to run around. Transformations generally favor fox.

 

[Red Rice]

I always struggle against Falco on Dreamland. When I play against a good Falco, I have to take him to small stages so that I can keep the pressure up when I get in. If Falco is stuck in his shield the whole time or has trouble starting combos, the match is already over.

Sooooo naturally my stage selection leans toward battlefield, FoD, and FD.
Battlefield because it's my neutral stage of choice with platforms.
FD because I think Fox has a 60/40 on Falco on FD if you know how to deal with lasers. Chain grabbing is nothing to be ashamed of
FoD because it screws Falcos more than it screws me. This is just another personal preference that I've adapted to against other spacies

Yoshis, is tough to call because as a Fox, I love YS against floaties but Falco does really well there too. I tend to stay away from it but I'm not complaining if it gets counterpicked
Stadium, .....I hate this stage. I understand why it's great for Fox but I feel so uncomfortable on this stage

 

[Zoler]

Dreamland is by far the best stage vs Falco. You will live longer while Falco usually dies the same. The platforms are amazing to get around Falco. The platform height fits fox the best for combos imo.

 

[bearsfan092]

What are some good ways of cracking mega super hyper defensive players on FD? I'm trying to work my dash dance game extra hard in those situations, but with no platform tricks it's hard for me.

This mainly applies to Sheik, campy Foxes (who I need to work on in general), and Marth (even though it's not super applicable to bo3 play). Sheik seems to be the one I can handle most easily, but if she has center stage it can get kinda annoying. Campy Fox likes to full hop aerial a lot. Dash dance marathons are also the most annoying thing.Marth is Marth on FD.

What do?

 

[Red Rice]

You just gotta dash dance camp and use the infinite bullets. Laser camping almost always makes your opponent approach. Against Marths, you just have to be safe and bait his moves out and punish with shines/uthrow+uair/up smashes/etc. Movement is very key against him

 

[Druggedfox]

Disclaimer: Make sure you can actually use the FULL length of your initial dash. Use short dashes, long dashes, fox trots, pivots...everything.

Working your dash dance game is the right idea. Just try to think about what you're threatening with a dash dance.

Fox's threats out of dash: shine, nair, upsmash, grab.

Now try to think about what ranges your opponent can react to you running/jumping at them, and what ranges they can't. Learn those ranges.

So now the trick is to dance in and out of those ranges, and think to yourself each time you dash into that range "So I *could* theoretically nair at him right now, what is he doing to stop me from doing it?" and then dash out of that range, while watching their response. If your opponent is good, they will generally toss out some sort of counter, like an ftilt with sheik, or a WD back. The trick is understanding which ranges are not reactable for your opponent, and which ranges are. There's no use nairing if they can SEE you jump into the air, and just dash dance grab. You want to do it at a range where by the time they can see you dashing into your jump, its too late to do anything besides maybe shield at best.

So if you learn to recognize these ranges, and you learn to see each of your dashes forward as a threat for that...what next?

Well, learning how to get into those ranges! Here's the tricky part, because you want to get into these ranges in sneaky ways, or a good player will be able to recognize "oh, he's about to be at X position, where I can't deal with him well, let's DO something about it." Doing something about it could mean preemptively intercepting your forward movement, it could be giving you stage space, it could be jumping away, it could be setting up a wall...it could be a lot of things.

So there a lot of basic tricks to get into these ranges, but ultimately it's going to be more about understanding the flow of the match, and what your opponent is and isn't reacting to. For starters, here are some basic tricks:

1) Simply varying your dash dance length, for example: Do shorter dash dances outside of SH nair range, then one time use your full initial dash to get into SH nair range. Most people will think you're actually going to nair, and have to account for it accordingly, at which point you can bait them with a dash back since you're still in your initial dash.

2) Empty SH forward. Do this from pretty far away, so that you're still safe. People will have to react to your jump, but you'll land with no lag (or at least, only the normal 4 frames of lag), so it can be pretty tricky. You can empty SH and land outside of SH nair range, and then transition into another mixup (for example, empty SH into right outside of the range, then use example 1) from above to get in on them. Alternatively, you can be near, but outside, a good range to running shine at them for example, but then SH INTO that range.

3) Undershot nair. You can nair and purposely land at a range they can't actually punish. This gives them a visual cue to react to, without generally putting you in any direct danger. This means that you have a somewhat safe way to break the "normal neutral game" so to speak.

4) My favorite: WD in place. Just run up to them, then WD in place outside of the range of anything threatening-->observe what they do, use it as information for next time. As I said at the beginning, they have to theoretically respect you just running at them and shining, or nairing at them. Use that to your advantage to stop outside of their range, using your dash or full run as a visual cue. This is less likely to get you an immediate hit (unless you're a bit riskier, and WD in place RIGHT outside of range of a sheik ftilt, for example...in which case if they ftilt you get a free hit), but its far safer than the other tricks. In addition to being safer, it allows you to position yourself very precisely (something you can't do while dash dancing, because you'll always have momentum from a dash and reset your momentum. This allows for a more planned and calculated approach, and can at any point flow into any other movement option.

Hopefully that helps!

 

[Chesstiger2612]

At which situations you should dash attack?
Are there any criteria when the risk-reward ratio is good?
Can a sh nair replace it in (almost) all situations?

 

[Druggedfox]

Dash attack can be used if they're in the air, but that's probably the only time its actually good since you can just ASDI down and tech it on the ground and punish fox for doing it >_>

I mean, it'll work vs a lot of people, but its really risky if they actually know what they're doing for the most part.

 

[smashfraz]

I'm tired of seeing so many threads asking questions that have been answered over and over again, and are obvious to the average smasher. I figure this will stop at least some of those from popping up.

Post asking anything you want about Fox that you're not sure about or just don't know. I will answer your question within the day, and if anyone else wants to answer before I can, go for it, and false information given will be corrected.

Also it wouldn't hurt to check this thread, or others before asking but, it really won't matter much.

Ask away.​

 

[smashfraz]

What are a fox's worse matchups and as a fox main what secondary can be used to cover those gaps?

 

[Druggedfox]

1) You don't need a secondary as fox. It is legitimately completely unnecessary.

2) His matchups are very debatable. In the current metagame, most people think fox is the best in the game. That said, however, you will find many people who think he loses to falco or marth. Most people don't think he loses to sheik, though I personally think thats more due to people just continuing a trend from years ago about the matchup.

3) Even at the VERY worst, fox only has 3 losing matchups, none of which are more than a slight disadvantage. At best, he goes even or wins every single matchup.

 

[Chesstiger2612]

So https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SX6upx-9XZc 1:32 is not a legit techchase? If not, what is best instead of the Dash Attack Armada did?

 

[Druggedfox]

If he was fast enough grab or upsmash would have been better.

That said, it was a really unexpected situation (leffen wasn't going to be ready to tech a dash attack right after rolling, and risk having potentially useless DI on an upsmash). I wouldn't call that a bad dash attack at all, but technically speaking Leffen *could* have teched it.

 

[Chesstiger2612]

I am seeing that WD back dash attack quite a bit is it recommendable as mixup to grab and up-smash?

 

[smashfraz]

Y is fox (tier list speaking) better than falco
Is it his speed

 

[Red Rice]

Y is fox (tier list speaking) better than falco
Is it his speed

A lot of factors go into tier list, I can't list all the reasons off the top of my head.

But yeah, Fox is faster than Falco and he falls faster - which help Fox extend his combos. His recovery is also better than Falco's.

 

[g_f]

first of all, i would like to thank druggedfox for the clear breakdown of many game situations he's offering to newer players, it is terrific (and a bit intimidating, i'll add) to get first-hand info from such an high level player.

ok, now i have a few (generic) questions on smashDI. it looks like an insanely useful at, but how to properly execute in just a few frames? you prepare for smashDIing conditioning yourself by predicting your opponent's next move, the way you prepare for DI? do you people always opt for smashDIing in a quarter circle or you ever find multiple single inputs to be quicker?

also, on a few specific moves: smashDIing puff's bair is done by spamming up / quartercicling up (from up to up and away?) on the control stick? SDI on falco's dair: is it a quarter circle away (away and down? up and away?) from the falco? also marth's uptilt, how would you sdi that? towards a platform (just the direction you would regular DI away), into a tech?

thanks in advance!!!

 

[Druggedfox]

Pretty much everything in smash is some combination of expectation and reaction. There are certain things you can't react to and have to expect, and there are also some things that you can fully react to and don't need to expect at all. It's a spectrum.

That said, expecting what your opponent will do is always useful in executing something like smash DI. Most players don't abuse quarter circle inputs to get multiple SDI inputs, though if you can get used to doing that it is probably better. Most situations in smash, a single good SDI input (plus holding the c stick for ASDI, which will have a similar effect to SDI, simply to a smaller degree) is sufficient. Multiple single inputs won't be very viable for getting more than one SDI. Also, just to be clear: SDI is performed during the hitlag of a move.

Where you want to SDI is often situational. For example on falco's dair if you're getting combo'd across FD: If he dairs really deep into you, you can usually SDI behind him and force the shine to whiff (but he might nair and mess with your SDI, that's what mango does). If he's more shallow and not super into fox's body, SDI away will force a grab/dtilt usually because the shine would whiff.

For marth's uptilt/upair combos, you can actually often SDI up around 40% onwards to give him significantly worse setups on his combos (though you're still in a terrible situation). You can SDI towards a platform if you want, but it won't be significantly different than regular DI towards a platform. Generally speaking, SDI is mostly useful for getting out of/manipulating very specific situations as opposed to something more general (like getting to a platform vs marth). You could SDI up if he uptilts you in the middle of battlefield to get to the top platform earlier, while if you want to get on a side platform it doesn't matter if you use regular DI or SDI for the most part.