Q&A -Fox Advice/Questions Topic-

[Pengie]

Pretty sure if you do a late nair at Samus and hold shield you can shield before she can get out a CC punish most of the time. As for when you can actually break it it's probably some absurd percent in the hundreds since nair is kinda butt vs CCs and Samus is super heavy.Thankfully though I think once she gets around 50ish she starts sliding back when she CCs an attack so you can space your nar/bair in such a way that she can't even CC down smash you. I'll probably update this post with the actual number that she starts sliding far enough away later since I'm too lazy to test it right now but will be playing with people reasonably soon.

EDIT: Samus starts sliding out of dsmash range from a well spaced late nair at around 35%

 

[KirbyKaze]

Ah, the Sheik fair --> shield strat but with Fox.

 

[Super]

Who are some good Foxes to watch these days? Mango's the best but I'm not sure how much you could get from it lol.
Leffen seems to be the prototypical Fox, very optimal. Fiction also plays a very solid textbook style.

 

[Apasher]

Who are some good Foxes to watch these days? Mango's the best but I'm not sure how much you could get from it lol.
Leffen seems to be the prototypical Fox, very optimal. Fiction also plays a very solid textbook style.

The above, plus Lucky and Cobol.

 

[tauKhan]

Pretty sure if you do a late nair at Samus and hold shield you can shield before she can get out a CC punish most of the time.

Well, if she crouches and ccs your nair, she gets 4 frames landing lag and 4 frames of hitlag (assuming the nair is nearly fresh), while you get 7 frames of hitlag and 7 frames of l-canceled landing lag. So if you hit her with a frame perfect strong nair, she has 6 frames of advantage over you. Considering her dsmash comes out on frame 6, she has 1 frame window to hit you if you hold shield after fp nair. If your nair is staled a bit, your shield will block the dsmash.

So while it's certainly hard for you to do immediately landing nair, it's also hard for the samus to be frame perfect with her counters. I think the strategy should work. Also if she's crouching at low%, you can weak nair her and beat her dsmash with shine, because of nair being sakurai angled and therefore spike in the situation.

Edit: I can't calculate lol, ofc samus has 2 frame window. This actually is a significant difference.
Edit2: The hitlag calculations were off, so the window is actually 1 frame.

 

[Bones0]

Well, if she crouches and ccs your nair, she gets 4 frames landing lag and 3 frames of hitlag (assuming the nair is nearly fresh), while you get 7 frames of hitlag and 7 frames of l-canceled landing lag. So if you hit her with a frame perfect strong nair, she has 7 frames of advantage over you. Considering her dsmash comes out on frame 6, she has 1 frame window to hit you if you hold shield after fp nair. If your nair is staled a bit, your shield will block the dsmash.

So while it's certainly hard for you to do immediately landing nair, it's also hard for the samus to be frame perfect with her counters. I think the strategy should work. Also if she's crouching at low%, you can weak nair her and beat her dsmash with shine, because of nair being sakurai angled and therefore spike in the situation.

Is she +7 and dsmash hits frame 6, wouldn't that mean she has a 2-frame window? /nitpick


Anyway, you'll never get a frame perfect nair like that anyway... The lesson you should take is to never aerial Samus at low-mid %s unless it's dair or a late, spaced bair.

 

[AlphaQHard]

Is this Fox combo video by Dark TAS(Tool assisted) or not?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwDHs6UXgR8

 

[SSBMLahti]

I feel like I shouldn't have to ask this, but as Fox, how do you punish a LHDL vs Falco?

 

[Bones0]

Is this Fox combo video by Dark TAS(Tool assisted) or not?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwDHs6UXgR8

Nope.

I feel like I shouldn't have to ask this, but as Fox, how do you punish a LHDL vs Falco?

Shine after the first laser hits you.

 

[JayFizzy]

anyone want to critique this set i had vs andale? would appreciate it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbdAZoL2a60

 

[AlphaQHard]

Nope.

Damn, that's what Captain Falcon wants to see when he says "Show me your moves"

 

[SSBMLahti]

Nope.


Shine after the first laser hits you.

Is it that simple? I assume you just have to stay grounded and shine? I've been jumping and shining to try and catch them as they're doing their LH. Thanks Bones!

 

[KP17]

its not that simple. bones, while a nice person who likes to give advice, came up woefully short on that answer.

the interaction involves laser height and your position. If you predictably do one thing each time, it should be hilariously obvious to a good opponent. Of course, you're not playing a good opponent (most likely). Things that are possible:

shield lasers at a close distance, SSDI optional, shield grab in between lasers, nair in between lasers, shine OOS in between lasers

CC grab, jab, dtilt, ftilt, shine

camp platform, bair

run off DJ bair/ less optimal move

PS -> anything

 

[KP17]

bones you should really clarify the fact that you aren't 100% sure or aren't thorough with your answers when responding to worse players than you. though helpful to a degree, i know that i would be much worse off if I didnt have people around me and relied purely on sboards

 

[Bones0]

Yeah, I definitely did not do the complexity of the situation justice, but I really do think sometimes people overthink how to deal with LHDL when you can just take the first laser and shine or shield the first laser and grab in most instances. If you're not close enough to shine, there really isn't much you can do to directly punish it, and if you jump or use the platform to punish from above, good players will pretty much just not LHDL in the first place.

 

[Jim Morrison]

You have to look at their habit. If they do the low lasers, wait on the platform and drop down backair trade.
If they do it high and hit you on the platform, either go back after getting up first, then shine, or jump and then backair through the platform but thats pretty slow.
If they mix it up, you just gotta try both these options and judge the situation yourself since your opponent isn't a complete scrub anymore

 

[Diana's Safe Landing]

What are the optimal uthrow follow ups on sheik at every percent?

 

[Pengie]

at zero you can up tilt her on no DI into a back air into a reset where she'll either fall with a move, DJ, or land and sheild or waveland away. At zero if she DIs away you can do a dash nair into up tilt into silly juggle stuff like on the raw up tilt after the throw on no DI. After like 20 or 30ish if she DIs the throw left or right you can do a dash FJ bair AC bair with a fastfalll and you can either juggle her or you can bair her again and try to get her off stage. At around this percent if she doesn't DI just go for the up air and keep juggling her since her air mobility sucks and stuff. Past those percents you can pretty much just go for the same thing but you have to focus a bit better on getting the juggles afterwards because she'll start going kinda far after a hit. Also, when juggling her, don't just focus on keeping her above you with stuff like up tilt and up smash/air but also juggling her in such a way that you get her off stage since she's so easy to edge guard. To do this you should practice spacing bairs as she's falling to beat out stuff like her dair/nair/fair. It's super easy to do to most sheik's because they tend to hold in when they get knocked high into the air and try to fraud you out with falling moves so your up moves and spaced bairs eat through that stuff. If they're actually smart and fall to the edge things get a bit trickier but you can still bair through her moves if you're spaced well. Also, if they don't have their DJ and you wanna be gross and call them out you can fsmash at the edge as they're coming down to grab it and get a pretty much free kill.

 

[EWC]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmsZVdAb1KY

 

[AlphaQHard]

at zero you can up tilt her on no DI into a back air into a reset where she'll either fall with a move, DJ, or land and sheild or waveland away. At zero if she DIs away you can do a dash nair into up tilt into silly juggle stuff like on the raw up tilt after the throw on no DI. After like 20 or 30ish if she DIs the throw left or right you can do a dash FJ bair AC bair with a fastfalll and you can either juggle her or you can bair her again and try to get her off stage. At around this percent if she doesn't DI just go for the up air and keep juggling her since her air mobility sucks and stuff. Past those percents you can pretty much just go for the same thing but you have to focus a bit better on getting the juggles afterwards because she'll start going kinda far after a hit. Also, when juggling her, don't just focus on keeping her above you with stuff like up tilt and up smash/air but also juggling her in such a way that you get her off stage since she's so easy to edge guard. To do this you should practice spacing bairs as she's falling to beat out stuff like her dair/nair/fair. It's super easy to do to most sheik's because they tend to hold in when they get knocked high into the air and try to fraud you out with falling moves so your up moves and spaced bairs eat through that stuff. If they're actually smart and fall to the edge things get a bit trickier but you can still bair through her moves if you're spaced well. Also, if they don't have their DJ and you wanna be gross and call them out you can fsmash at the edge as they're coming down to grab it and get a pretty much free kill.

What's an AC Bair? all i know is tht AC stands for auto cancel. does it mean that i can combo 2 Bairs because i hit the 1st one?

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

No, you fullhop bair and fastfall. When you land on the ground, you will have no lag (without needing to lcancel). This is really useful as a weak move during a combo

 

[Bones0]

Did anyone see Leffen's crazy dthrow vs. Ice? It was... out of control.

 

[Oddyesy]

Hey guys. I'm putting a ****ton of work into Liquipedia, and I kinda need your help. I'm not a Fox guy, so that's why I'm here. Can you detail each of his moves? What are they good for, pros/cons, everything? I know it's selfish of me to ask you guys to do this, but I'm on a pretty strict schedule right now so I need all the help I can get. Thanks in advance! Sorry for asking you to do this.

 

[AlphaQHard]

No, you fullhop bair and fastfall. When you land on the ground, you will have no lag (without needing to lcancel). This is really useful as a weak move during a combo

oh wow, that incredible. does it work with short jump bair?

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Nope, though falco can AC a bair in a short hop if you don't fast fall at all

 

[Bones0]

Hey guys. I'm putting a ****ton of work into Liquipedia, and I kinda need your help. I'm not a Fox guy, so that's why I'm here. Can you detail each of his moves? What are they good for, pros/cons, everything? I know it's selfish of me to ask you guys to do this, but I'm on a pretty strict schedule right now so I need all the help I can get. Thanks in advance! Sorry for asking you to do this.

That honestly sounds like a near impossible task... How much are you writing for each move? Like a 4-5 sentence paragraph? Idk if I could summarize most moves in Melee that succinctly without missing huge portions of its utility.

 

[Oddyesy]

That honestly sounds like a near impossible task... How much are you writing for each move? Like a 4-5 sentence paragraph? Idk if I could summarize most moves in Melee that succinctly without missing huge portions of its utility.

Not that much. Just a description covering the basic utilities, a description of it, some trivia maybe. Here's what I have.

 

[BTmoney]

@ Pengie
@ T tauKhan
@ Bones0

in practice (referring to the last session I played vs. samus) the beginning matches where I would nair->shield I'd still get CC d smashed before my shield came out. I started doing my nairs from neutral a bit later and that worked out for good enough for me to feel confident as long as I adjusted my timing

and at no one in particular, consider the fact that samus has to react to getting hit with the nair and be in a position to CC it in the first place. I just wanted to know if there was a go to % where you no longer have to fear CC d smash but I guess there kind of isn't. I'll see how practical the 35% thing is. But I just tested it and fresh nair breaks CC at 87% lol (wtf)



Additionally,
Anyone know the percent where 1 pummel becomes "safe" vs. mash out?

 

[SpeedyJ]

Who are some good Fox players I should watch to improve my game? Doesn't necessarily have to be the most technical Fox out there.

Also, how does waveshine jab reset work (on characters that can't be waveshined of course)?

Thanks

 

[Bones0]

Who are some good Fox players I should watch to improve my game? Doesn't necessarily have to be the most technical Fox out there.

Also, how does waveshine jab reset work (on characters that can't be waveshined of course)?

Thanks

Mango, Lucky, Silent Wolf, Lovage, Leffen, Chillin, DJ Nintendo, Colbol, Fiction, Javi

Waveshine jab reset is just jab resetting someone after you knock them down with shine. Idk what you were wondering beyond that... If you're wondering how jab reset works in general, it's based on the strength of the move. The weaker it is, the better it is for resets.

 

[BTmoney]

Who are some good Fox players I should watch to improve my game? Doesn't necessarily have to be the most technical Fox out there.

Also, how does waveshine jab reset work (on characters that can't be waveshined of course)?

Thanks

strictly for improvement I'd say

mango, leffen, mew2king, pewpewu, chillin

Especially the last 4, they have very very solid foxes. Leffen has a great all around and laser game. He does pretty much everything right and he's good at recognizing when to approach and things of that nature. PPU's fox is very simple but also very good, you watch it and go "oh duh, I should do that", it offers a good clean perspective. M2k's fox is underrated, consider why and how he beats pretty much every fox player in the ditto (love watching his sets vs. leffen). His style is really simple and you can take away a lot from his style (macros, i.e. large concepts/big pictures, setups, and strange but effective mix ups/options). Chillin is great to watch too because he doesn't use insane tech skill and he's always been a top player. I watch him when I try to simplify my game or learn some new reads or anti-meta stuff (imo old school players are kind of anti-meta in the age of 20XX button pushing, speed, and over technicality*). Chillin uses a lot of smarts and solid fundamentals.


and mango cause he's mango. I like lucky/fiction too for certain match ups mostly fast fallers


*
to elaborate on my "anti-meta" point:
if the current meta is nair->shine vs. shield grab and you toss and turn trying to push those options over each other
the "anti-meta" equivalent is like nair->shine vs. rolling
instead of me trying to contest your tight pressure I'll mix you up with a defensive OOS option. I find that players who have been around for a long time and are good are often great at using other options that people don't always think about since the metagame shifts (things are good/bad in cycles and if you can categorize your opponent while playing them to figure out what options they like to cover you can make things a lot easier for yourself by not choosing them)

it's kind of like how you can tell by someone's overall skill and level of technicality how they are going to go about tech chasing and edge guarding (i.e. he's a noob so I'm going to firefox to the ledge vs. he's a pro so I'm gonna go high.)

 

[knightpraetor]

Well, if she crouches and ccs your nair, she gets 4 frames landing lag and 3 frames of hitlag (assuming the nair is nearly fresh), while you get 7 frames of hitlag and 7 frames of l-canceled landing lag. So if you hit her with a frame perfect strong nair, she has 7 frames of advantage over you. Considering her dsmash comes out on frame 6, she has 1 frame window to hit you if you hold shield after fp nair. If your nair is staled a bit, your shield will block the dsmash.

So while it's certainly hard for you to do immediately landing nair, it's also hard for the samus to be frame perfect with her counters. I think the strategy should work. Also if she's crouching at low%, you can weak nair her and beat her dsmash with shine, because of nair being sakurai angled and therefore spike in the situation.

I'm not sure i follow the mechanics for this. how does having a stale nair change the situation?

also this makes CC dsmash by doc/peach/samus/etc seem a lot better than I ever knew. I always thought late nair into shine always beat CC dsmashes of the major characters. it always seems to work when i do it, but maybe people are just sloppy at timing CC counters

So can anyone explain why samus gets 3 frames of hitlag when she is hit by the nair? Is it based on the weight of the char? I assume that the samus gets hitlag but when she collides with the ground it cancels, so instead of taking 7 frames of hitlag shetakes 3 while crouch canceling. However, I'm not sure if this value is universal and applies to peach or is character specific, so if someone who knows these technical details could let me know how many frames of hitlag peach should take, i would be appreciative

 

[Stijn]

Hey guys, anyone care to critique a set? Its a doubles set for a change, and I'd really like tips because teams is something I am significantly bad at in comparison to my singles skill. I am the green Fox, don't be hestitant to give some harsh critique.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfF2n0uZnac

 

[tauKhan]

I'm not sure i follow the mechanics for this. how does having a stale nair change the situation?

Because if you are crouching when you get hit, your hitlag is multiplied by 2/3 (rounded down!). This has nothing to do with collisions, it's just an universal property of crouching animations. Damage determines the amount of hitlag, and because the amount of hitlag the attacker goes through grows twice as fast as the victims, more damage means more advantage for the croucher from hitlag.

I always thought late nair into shine always beat CC dsmashes of the major characters. it always seems to work when i do it, but maybe people are just sloppy at timing CC counters

If you can shield the attack you can also shine to beat it, though the shine you must time. I think late shine nair could be effective vs chars whose cc counter-attacks take at least 6 frames to hit like the samus dsmash. Your opponent will have 1 frame advantage in the situation, but he/she will have to be able to react to your nair pretty quickly though, in 8 frames if you are frame perfect (which is ofc unlikely).

Weak nair to shine at low% should beat samus cc dsmash whether she crouches or not though.

For calculating various frame data problems, I use this as a source: http://smashboards.com/threads/tool...n-hitlag-shieldstun-calculation-v1-11.324878/
Though it says there that crouching reduces hitlag by 1/3, but I remember @ Kadano pointing somewhere that the hitlag is in fact reduced by 1/2.

 

[Kadano]

Though it says there that crouching reduces hitlag by 1/3, but I remember @ Kadano pointing somewhere that the hitlag is in fact reduced by 1/2.

I don’t remember ever saying or implying that. Anyway, just did a quick test with the savestates I had right now and I got 5 hitlag on crouch and 8 on no crouch. So 1/3 reduction seems on point to me. =)

 

[tauKhan]

@ Kadano I found where I went wrong:

Crouching halves victim hitlag.

I've actually felt a little uncertain about this for a while, should have asked about that a long time ago lol. It's good that the issue is settled now though.

 

[ReDDeFFect]

Best way to consistently SHDL? also, is it possible to consistently short hop with tap jump for SHDL? I've tried short hop tap jump for a bit and had a very hard time getting short hops

 

[Jim Morrison]

Don't do it, that'll be killing your left thumb, use Y or X. Y is easier to slide to B, since you have to go from X to B without A.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Using the control stick to jump is actually a really old-school shortcut to SHDL. I prefer using the buttons, but if you like tap jump, go for it

 

[Berble]

I need some help in the Doc matchup. When I play Doc I get zoned out very easily by camping with pills which I know shouldn't work that well against Fox. I also have trouble finding combos as he jumps out of a lot of stuff I try. I seem to get crouch cancelled to downsmash in this mu too so I've been trying to put some laser or throw damage on him before I hit him. Lastly, whats the optimal way to edgeguard Doc when he's coming back with a jump throwing pills? Any advice in general for this mu would help a lot thanks