Q&A -Fox Advice/Questions Topic-

[Astram]

Hey guys,

New and aspiring Fox main here. I've recently been going to Melee tournaments (second week in) and I was wondering if I could get some general tips / advice.

People I've talked to said I have a good neutral game though I can improve on punish and DI. Something that I've been running into a lot of trouble is the Falco MU.

The issue I have is dealing with lasers and getting out of pillaring. What's the best way or some options to deal with Falcos who use lasers to approach for shines? I've mainly been shielding and trying grabs but I believe shine comes out before Fox's grab. Secondly, a more experienced player said that my DI isn't strong as when I get sent up with shine, I go at a 45 degree angle either left or right as opposed to a full 90. When I DI, I usually just tilt the Control Stick all the way in the direction I want to go; am I supposed to tap it or something?

What are good punish combos in general for Fox (or are they MU-specific)? Good techniques to learn (general and Fox-specific)? A friend recently showed me jump-cancelled U-smashes with out of dash, crouch cancels, and shield; which helped me get a lot of kills at my third tournament.

I've also been reading CunningKitsune's guide which helped me CP stages (such as FoD for Falcon).

Any help is appreciated and I look forward to furthering my career with 20XX!

 

[BRUJO~]

Hey guys,

New and aspiring Fox main here. I've recently been going to Melee tournaments (second week in) and I was wondering if I could get some general tips / advice.

People I've talked to said I have a good neutral game though I can improve on punish and DI. Something that I've been running into a lot of trouble is the Falco MU.

The issue I have is dealing with lasers and getting out of pillaring. What's the best way or some options to deal with Falcos who use lasers to approach for shines? I've mainly been shielding and trying grabs but I believe shine comes out before Fox's grab. Secondly, a more experienced player said that my DI isn't strong as when I get sent up with shine, I go at a 45 degree angle either left or right as opposed to a full 90. When I DI, I usually just tilt the Control Stick all the way in the direction I want to go; am I supposed to tap it or something?

What are good punish combos in general for Fox (or are they MU-specific)? Good techniques to learn (general and Fox-specific)? A friend recently showed me jump-cancelled U-smashes with out of dash, crouch cancels, and shield; which helped me get a lot of kills at my third tournament.

I've also been reading CunningKitsune's guide which helped me CP stages (such as FoD for Falcon).

Any help is appreciated and I look forward to furthering my career with 20XX!

I'm not sure I can answer all of your questions, but I can help with a couple, and hopefully pass on some of the helpful tips I got when I started

Platform movement can help avoid falco's lasers, if you are smart about it. Also power shielding, but that is easier said than done. I wish I had more explicit info on this, but its kind of just become intuition for me :/ .... Watch some videos of fox v falco and whenever you see falco fire a laser, notice how fox responds. Take account of things such as whether fox avoided the laser or not, whether falco gained an advantage from the laser, whether the laser was safe on falco's part, and whether fox's method was effective in that situation or not. This kind of video studying can be helpful whenever you encounter an option that you don't know how to deal with. Look for it in videos, and try to identify situations where it was countered.

As for improving your punishes with fox, drill>waveshine will lend itself to followups in nearly every matchup. The most effective followup will vary depending on the character you're playing against, percentage and di. At lower percents (in general) I often opt for grabs and shffl nairs out of waveshine. At higher percents, upsmash is a good option if the character has high enough traction. A small list of basic combos to look for might be... Nair>nair, uair>uair, dair>waveshine, dair>utilt, utilt>uair, utilt>bair, waveshine>anything... Of course this is fox we're talking about, so the possibilities are endless. Oh, and jab>upsmash is fricking stupid good, use it if you want to win lol.

Something newer players often forget is the power of weak hit bair and nair. The two have such long lasting hit boxes, sometimes (especially if your opponent is at mid-high percents) you want to start the move early so you can intentionally hit with the late, weak hit boxes. This keeps them at a close distance, good for comboing.

As for techniques, I'm assuming you know wavedash, l cancel, jc grabs, and that stuff. Waveshines and shinegrabs are quintessential to fox play. Ledgedashes are a good tool as long as you don't over use them. Learn to shorten illusion, as it can be a powerful recovery mixup in certain matchups. shield dropping is becoming increasingly popular in the meta now, so you might want to look into that. I think pewpewu has a good video about how to make shield dropping easy. Definitiely check out his channel (pewpewuniversity), it has a lot of interesting stuff. There's so much tech in melee, it's impossible to cover everything you should learn haha, but just keep watching videos and when you hear terms or things you don't completely understand, find people at tournaments to ask, or ask questions up here.

The biggest thing you're going to want to practice imo is fluid movement. If you have 20xx, you can set the color overlay to green when you are in the standing animation. By trying to never let your character be green, you learn the rhythm of moves, and you train yourself to act on the first frames possible so you don't spend any extra time just being a sitting duck. Also, set it to flash red/white for l cancels, it will remind you constantly to clean those up. Do this, go to a stage without a cpu or anything, and just practice perfect wavedashes/waveshines/wavelands, shffl'd aerials into waveshine, etc. Practice incorporating lasers into your movement; that means practicing both sh double lasers and sh fast fall single lasers. Also, practice dashing, doing a short hop turnaround laser, and dashing again as quickly as you are able (again, the green color overlay will come in handy).

Hope this helps a little bit. Some of the things you mentioned I'm unclear on myself, so I didn't bother giving you false information.

 

[BRUJO~]

I have some questions about teching and di...
In 20xx, I sometimes see cpus teching shines. I suppose I don't understand the intricacies of how shine can be di'ed/teched against certain characters. Does anyone have a link or an explanation that goes into detail on this?

Also, I often see foxes who get hit out of their recovery wall tech and do an immediate side b to recover. When I asked around, the only explanation I got was "its an option select" which didn't really explain anything at all haha. Can someone explain how this is done? I know it has something to do with sdi and pressing the l button even though you might not need it...

One last thing. Is there a compilitation list of multihit moves in melee (such as pk fire, fox dair, and other moves that you can supposedly sdi to avoid certain followups), and how to optimally SDI out of them? I understand conceptually what sdi and asdi are, but I don't know how to implement them very well. I've already read Doraki's guide, fyi, and i don't need explanations of survival di and how to di while being comboed.
If there isn't a definitive resource that you can refer me to, can someone tell me how to sdi those two examples I gave; pk fire and fox dair?

 

[Arctic_]

mario chokes on uthrow uairs like a pornstar

also laser a lot and crossup nair to grab at low %

dont get caped lol

it's a great way to learn how to sweetspot

 

[tauKhan]

I have some questions about teching and di...
In 20xx, I sometimes see cpus teching shines. I suppose I don't understand the intricacies of how shine can be di'ed/teched against certain characters. Does anyone have a link or an explanation that goes into detail on this?

You can tech moves that cause knock down; characters lighter than NTSC Marth can tech shine.

Also, I often see foxes who get hit out of their recovery wall tech and do an immediate side b to recover. When I asked around, the only explanation I got was "its an option select" which didn't really explain anything at all haha. Can someone explain how this is done? I know it has something to do with sdi and pressing the l button even though you might not need it...

Wall teching is done usually by inputting tech and ASDIng towards the wall, when you get hit by a move that knocks down and you're very close to the wall. If the ASDI moves you more towards the wall than the hit moves you away from the wall, you'll hit the wall and can tech. Obviously if you get hit by a move that sends you towards the wall, you don't need ASDI.

Since teching has a massive 20 frame input window before the collision, while riding wall / sweet spotting, you can just input R/L and hold control stick toward the wall a bit before you reach a height at which you might get hit. If you get hit and can ASDI tech, you'll tech, and if not, you'll just continue your firefox normally, and you lose nothing, so that's why it can be called option selecting. If you want to wall tech jump, you press x/y at the same time as R/L, since using jump button has that same 20 frame buffer, while allowing you to ASDI optimally.

I'm not sure how often you could also input the sideb without messing up if you don't get hit, since that must be inputted after hitlag has passed. Also against strong moves you need to SDI to the wall, and that obviously has to be timed.

For more general information about teching, look up kadano's meleemechanics vid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkdPVUlrSOo
Also the other vids on that channel are good.

 

[BRUJO~]

Thanks @ T tauKhan
Another question... Does anyone know when up throw up air stops being a legit combo on marth?
A better question is, is there a resource of exact percent ranges when up throw up air works on every character?

 

[Mikkelmann]

I need some advice on recovering with Fox. I'm not sure what to do to stay unpredictable.

 

[BRUJO~]

I need some advice on recovering with Fox. I'm not sure what to do to stay unpredictable.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?list=PLoU3TQBakHOqTUZpyYJoP6usmYGQKmolx&v=8LoaduZZTA8
This vid is about edgeguarding spacies with marth, but it does do a good job of describing fox's options when he's off stage.

A couple tips...
-being above the stage is 1000 times better than being below the stage. Always try to recover from above if you can.
-learn to shorten illusion. This gives you a mixup between going to platforms or shortening to the ledge, and the edge guarder will have to predict you. (This can be especially helpful if your opponent holds the ledge and reacts with ledgehop bair when he/she sees you going to the platform)
-watch m2k lol. Focus on the angles he uses with firefox, when he chooses what angle, and how he responds to different types of edgeguards.
-in general, watch your opponent and see if there are options that they frequently fail to cover.
-If your opponent is chasing you really far off the stage, abuse the length of firefox. Practice recovering from as far away as possible. (But be careful, because doing this when they don't follow you all the way out can result in an easy edgehog for them)

 

[Mikkelmann]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?list=PLoU3TQBakHOqTUZpyYJoP6usmYGQKmolx&v=8LoaduZZTA8
This vid is about edgeguarding spacies with marth, but it does do a good job of describing fox's options when he's off stage.

A couple tips...
-being above the stage is 1000 times better than being below the stage. Always try to recover from above if you can.
-learn to shorten illusion. This gives you a mixup between going to platforms or shortening to the ledge, and the edge guarder will have to predict you. (This can be especially helpful if your opponent holds the ledge and reacts with ledgehop bair when he/she sees you going to the platform)
-watch m2k lol. Focus on the angles he uses with firefox, when he chooses what angle, and how he responds to different types of edgeguards.
-in general, watch your opponent and see if there are options that they frequently fail to cover.
-If your opponent is chasing you really far off the stage, abuse the length of firefox. Practice recovering from as far away as possible. (But be careful, because doing this when they don't follow you all the way out can result in an easy edgehog for them)

Thanks for the reply I'll make sure to apply this to my game.

 

[Special K!]

Some questions:

1. In the fox ditto, how do you deal with FH aerials, especially as a tactic to stop SH approaches? At the higher levels of play, players use FH aerials really sparingly (IE hax barely uses them at all), but whenever I try to keep my game grounded more, FH aerials just stuff all my approaches.

Opponents especially like to do this when I am approaching them when they have their backs towards the ledge. One option is to stuff their FH with your own if you hard read it, but it seems like a questionable and unreliable method.

2. How do you practice invincible ledgehop waveland? How do you know you did it successfully?

3. When you are looking to SDI moves such as Fox drill, falco drill shine, what exactly is the motion people input? Do people just tap left or right as fast as possible during the hitstun?

Thanks

 

[Astram]

I'm not sure I can answer all of your questions, but I can help with a couple, and hopefully pass on some of the helpful tips I got when I started

Platform movement can help avoid falco's lasers, if you are smart about it. Also power shielding, but that is easier said than done. I wish I had more explicit info on this, but its kind of just become intuition for me :/ .... Watch some videos of fox v falco and whenever you see falco fire a laser, notice how fox responds. Take account of things such as whether fox avoided the laser or not, whether falco gained an advantage from the laser, whether the laser was safe on falco's part, and whether fox's method was effective in that situation or not. This kind of video studying can be helpful whenever you encounter an option that you don't know how to deal with. Look for it in videos, and try to identify situations where it was countered.

As for improving your punishes with fox, drill>waveshine will lend itself to followups in nearly every matchup. The most effective followup will vary depending on the character you're playing against, percentage and di. At lower percents (in general) I often opt for grabs and shffl nairs out of waveshine. At higher percents, upsmash is a good option if the character has high enough traction. A small list of basic combos to look for might be... Nair>nair, uair>uair, dair>waveshine, dair>utilt, utilt>uair, utilt>bair, waveshine>anything... Of course this is fox we're talking about, so the possibilities are endless. Oh, and jab>upsmash is fricking stupid good, use it if you want to win lol.

Something newer players often forget is the power of weak hit bair and nair. The two have such long lasting hit boxes, sometimes (especially if your opponent is at mid-high percents) you want to start the move early so you can intentionally hit with the late, weak hit boxes. This keeps them at a close distance, good for comboing.

As for techniques, I'm assuming you know wavedash, l cancel, jc grabs, and that stuff. Waveshines and shinegrabs are quintessential to fox play. Ledgedashes are a good tool as long as you don't over use them. Learn to shorten illusion, as it can be a powerful recovery mixup in certain matchups. shield dropping is becoming increasingly popular in the meta now, so you might want to look into that. I think pewpewu has a good video about how to make shield dropping easy. Definitiely check out his channel (pewpewuniversity), it has a lot of interesting stuff. There's so much tech in melee, it's impossible to cover everything you should learn haha, but just keep watching videos and when you hear terms or things you don't completely understand, find people at tournaments to ask, or ask questions up here.

The biggest thing you're going to want to practice imo is fluid movement. If you have 20xx, you can set the color overlay to green when you are in the standing animation. By trying to never let your character be green, you learn the rhythm of moves, and you train yourself to act on the first frames possible so you don't spend any extra time just being a sitting duck. Also, set it to flash red/white for l cancels, it will remind you constantly to clean those up. Do this, go to a stage without a cpu or anything, and just practice perfect wavedashes/waveshines/wavelands, shffl'd aerials into waveshine, etc. Practice incorporating lasers into your movement; that means practicing both sh double lasers and sh fast fall single lasers. Also, practice dashing, doing a short hop turnaround laser, and dashing again as quickly as you are able (again, the green color overlay will come in handy).

Hope this helps a little bit. Some of the things you mentioned I'm unclear on myself, so I didn't bother giving you false information.

I understand wavedash, l-cancel, jc grabs for the most part. When practicing waveshining, I'm really inconsistent as I either come out with a short wavedash, a jump, or airdodge - my goal is to consistently waveshine a Link from one end of FD to the other and end it with a Usmash. So I went back to Luigi to practice wavedashing to get longer wavedashes down more consistently.

The tools in 20XX definitely help and I used the overlay technique, is it ok if you're green for less than a second here and there?

One of the things I'm having difficulty with is consistent short hops with Fox, especially with drills (miss l cancels on those alot and not at that level to get a consistent l cancelled drill > waveshine) and that in turn affects my laser game, which is funny because in P:M I got SHDL down easily but in Melee I'm still having a hard time doing it (I use Y to jump).

So 15 minutes of fluid practice would be something to practice daily, yes? Is there anyway to disable CPUs in 20XX like in P:M (going to a timed match w/ one player only?)

 

[BRUJO~]

Some questions:

1. In the fox ditto, how do you deal with FH aerials, especially as a tactic to stop SH approaches? At the higher levels of play, players use FH aerials really sparingly (IE hax barely uses them at all), but whenever I try to keep my game grounded more, FH aerials just stuff all my approaches.

Opponents especially like to do this when I am approaching them when they have their backs towards the ledge. One option is to stuff their FH with your own if you hard read it, but it seems like a questionable and unreliable method.

2. How do you practice invincible ledgehop waveland? How do you know you did it successfully?

3. When you are looking to SDI moves such as Fox drill, falco drill shine, what exactly is the motion people input? Do people just tap left or right as fast as possible during the hitstun?

Thanks

1.To combat fh aerials, you can run in, and do an empty short hop>waveland back. This will definitely catch your opponent off guard if they are conditioned to think you will sh awrial every time. You can also do the mango and dash>shield, then punish your opponent while their in the air. Another popular option is to dash in then wavedash back.

All of these options should leave you in a position where your opponent is directly above you, which is an advantageous position for you. It sounds to me like the problem is that your approaches are predictable, so be sure to mix it up with the things I listed above, as well as dashdancing, dtilt, and running shine, and other options. It's very important that you try to select an approach option based on how your opponent has been playing/reacting to your approaches, so be conscious of their behavior.

2.To practice invicinble ledgedashes, get the 20xx training pack. You can set it to show your hurtboxes, so you can see if you are invincible the whole time. You can also go to the stage without a cpu or another character, so they don't get in the way.

3. I asked MikeHaze the same question about SDI yesterday. You want to hold the stick in the direction you want to go (to input asdi) and then rapidly tap in the same direction with the control stick (to input sdi). As for the direction you want to go, if he is hitting the right side of your character, go left and vice versa. This has been working for me, but if there is a more optimal way of doing this, I'd love for someone to correct me

 

[BRUJO~]

I understand wavedash, l-cancel, jc grabs for the most part. When practicing waveshining, I'm really inconsistent as I either come out with a short wavedash, a jump, or airdodge - my goal is to consistently waveshine a Link from one end of FD to the other and end it with a Usmash. So I went back to Luigi to practice wavedashing to get longer wavedashes down more consistently.

The tools in 20XX definitely help and I used the overlay technique, is it ok if you're green for less than a second here and there?

One of the things I'm having difficulty with is consistent short hops with Fox, especially with drills (miss l cancels on those alot and not at that level to get a consistent l cancelled drill > waveshine) and that in turn affects my laser game, which is funny because in P:M I got SHDL down easily but in Melee I'm still having a hard time doing it (I use Y to jump).

So 15 minutes of fluid practice would be something to practice daily, yes? Is there anyway to disable CPUs in 20XX like in P:M (going to a timed match w/ one player only?)

Practicing wd with luigi might not be the strongest choice, bc I think his jumpsquat is longer than fox's, which makes the timing slightly different. But cross character practice can never hurt.

Yeah, its fine if the green shows up a little here and there. It always will. The goal is just to cut as much out as possible, so always be striving for less and less

When I switched from pm, shorthopping was hard for me too. You just gotta grind it out, and focus on releasing your finger from the button as soon as possible. As for l cancels, you might know this but the timing is different when you actually hit an enemy or their shield (bc hitlag) so be sure to practice it both on hit and off hit.

And yes, when you are at the character select screen, you can force load the stage select screen with up on the dpad. So using this, you can go to a stage alone. Just make sure it is on time, not stock, or else the game will freeze.

One more thing... I had a lot of trouble with waveshines, but then I tried it by releasing the joystick between the shine and wavedash, and I found it a lot easier. If you are consistently having difficulties, try a different method of doing the input and it might come easier.

 

[Special K!]

1.To combat fh aerials, you can run in, and do an empty short hop>waveland back. This will definitely catch your opponent off guard if they are conditioned to think you will sh awrial every time. You can also do the mango and dash>shield, then punish your opponent while their in the air. Another popular option is to dash in then wavedash back.

All of these options should leave you in a position where your opponent is directly above you, which is an advantageous position for you. It sounds to me like the problem is that your approaches are predictable, so be sure to mix it up with the things I listed above, as well as dashdancing, dtilt, and running shine, and other options. It's very important that you try to select an approach option based on how your opponent has been playing/reacting to your approaches, so be conscious of their behavior.

2.To practice invicinble ledgedashes, get the 20xx training pack. You can set it to show your hurtboxes, so you can see if you are invincible the whole time. You can also go to the stage without a cpu or another character, so they don't get in the way.

3. I asked MikeHaze the same question about SDI yesterday. You want to hold the stick in the direction you want to go (to input asdi) and then rapidly tap in the same direction with the control stick (to input sdi). As for the direction you want to go, if he is hitting the right side of your character, go left and vice versa. This has been working for me, but if there is a more optimal way of doing this, I'd love for someone to correct me

Thanks. For the SDI tip, did you mean you hold c stick for ASDI and then tap regular control stick for SDI? Or do you mean do this all with one stick?

 

[BRUJO~]

you hold c stick for ASDI and then tap regular control stick for SDI

Both of these at the same time

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

ASDI happens the frame after hitlag. SDI occurs during hitlag.

 

[BTmoney]

I need some advice on recovering with Fox. I'm not sure what to do to stay unpredictable.

idk if anyone said this but the staple is to look at your opponent while you are flying off stage, double jumping, firefox'ing whatever and see what they are covering and what options they can physically cover (for example if X character is standing at Y then they can't cover Z) and you want to play that game. a very basic situation is if you are decently close to the stage and peach is at the ledge then she can't cover your up B to the top platform. you see that happen pretty often but there aren't many scenarios where characters flat out can't cover things because reads and different kinds of positioning will always be a thing.

as a rule of thumb too the ledge is generally hard to cover while keeping tabs on other recovery options. if the ledge is not being threatened it's usually a good idea to take it with your up B, side B, or double jump.

the next thing to look for is what would be hard for them to cover or what is deceptive.

he next thing is looking for is the option where that you might get punished for but you won't flat out die from (you now you'll get hit but you'll be able to DI and try again or be in a different situation) but that's a little advanced and a lot of people don't do this tbh.

the last thing imo is doing the pure mixup where you realize you have no safe or especially good options so you kind of arbitrarily pick one.

just remember being un-punishable is better than being unpredictable but of course that's not always possible. I think this is a solid groundwork to get you on your way and thinking. fox has such a crazy recovery once you gain more and more mastery of it.

 

[Special K!]

Does anyone have any guidelines on percents for fox vs fox/falco chainthrows, and other follow up options in the low percents where you cannot regrab?

Testing with 20XX, I've noticed generally vs fox at 0% (or perhaps some small percent) if there is any hard DI in either direction from up throw I can't get any follow ups. Also I seem to only be able to get regrabs on upthrows vs fox, with a DI behind me, at around 25%. Not really sure if its really hard, or I'm not doing it correctly, or what.

 

[BRUJO~]

Does anyone have any guidelines on percents for fox vs fox/falco chainthrows, and other follow up options in the low percents where you cannot regrab?

Testing with 20XX, I've noticed generally vs fox at 0% (or perhaps some small percent) if there is any hard DI in either direction from up throw I can't get any follow ups. Also I seem to only be able to get regrabs on upthrows vs fox, with a DI behind me, at around 25%. Not really sure if its really hard, or I'm not doing it correctly, or what.

The fox v fox chaingrab starts at 7% if I'm not mistaken.

 

[tauKhan]

@ S Special K! @ BRUJO~ Here you go: http://www.ssbwiki.com/Fox_(SSBM)/Up_throw The page was edited by Kadano, it's probably quite accurate. For follow ups after regrab percents, look up what leffen does. On no di, I usually regrab until 50% if I have higher port#, 40% if lower port#.

 

[Special K!]

Are there any tips/tricks to doing the turn around grab (not pivot, but for hard DI behind you)? It always seems like I have to wait longer after the throw before I can turn around and dash back than just plain dashing forward. I'm not clear on the mechanics of this.

 

[BRUJO~]

Are there any tips/tricks to doing the turn around grab (not pivot, but for hard DI behind you)? It always seems like I have to wait longer after the throw before I can turn around and dash back than just plain dashing forward. I'm not clear on the mechanics of this.

Try doing it with jc grab. If you're using that, try dash grab. You might find the timing of one easier than the other

 

[tauKhan]

Are there any tips/tricks to doing the turn around grab (not pivot, but for hard DI behind you)? It always seems like I have to wait longer after the throw before I can turn around and dash back than just plain dashing forward. I'm not clear on the mechanics of this.

Turn eats 1 frame of the dash input bufferwindow when dashing backwards. Also doing too slow input may cause you to tilt turn instead of smash turn, making you to possible miss the turn.

 

[supreme jd]

My friend keeps edgeguarding me with Shiek's chain when I'm trying to recover from below the stage. How do I counter that and recover onto the stage? I'm pretty sure it's super easy because I don't think I've ever seen anyone edgeguard with Shiek's chain.

 

[Pr0fessor Flash]

How's Shine Up Smash for the IC's MU?

 

[Spoice]

So i've been using Fox lately and have grown pretty fond of him and I'm confident he could be a good secondary to my Marth, but I have no idea where to start with practicing with him.
Currently, my tech skill isn't all that good (only starting playing melee about a month or two ago) and I can only really wave dash, dash dance and l cancel, so where could I start with fox in terms of practicing his techs and what not?

 

[Berble]

When Samus spams missiles in neutral should I just nair through them?

 

[BRUJO~]

So i've been using Fox lately and have grown pretty fond of him and I'm confident he could be a good secondary to my Marth, but I have no idea where to start with practicing with him.
Currently, my tech skill isn't all that good (only starting playing melee about a month or two ago) and I can only really wave dash, dash dance and l cancel, so where could I start with fox in terms of practicing his techs and what not?

Imo, you really need to get the following things to become totally natural first before moving on to the more complex stuff
1. Get perfect control of his dashdance. Be able to do long dd and short dd, as well as doing them advancing in either direction. Practice dashdancing just outside of a moving opponent's (or cpu's) range.
2. Master short hop fast falling. Its hard to get consistently. Once you can do this reliably, practice shffl'd aerials - in place, retreating, out of dash, and out of shield. Then, practice doing approaching short hops into waveland back.
3. Jump cancel grabs and boost grabs. Learning to use this effectively is both really easy and really helpful. Practice only boost grabbing when no other grab will have enough range, and always jc grab when you can because it is significantly less punishable.
4. Platform movement. Perfect those wavelands. Be able to wavedash off platforms into aerials.
5. Shff laser, sh double laser, sh turnaround laser, retreating sh turnaround laser, etc. master the ability to do all of these laser techniques reliably, and learn the spacing for when each one is safe. Lasers are incredibly strong for fox, but do they can be easily punished if you don't do them from the right distance or at the right time.
6. Always be exercising your punisu game. Master the space animal chain grab. Be able to hit floaties with up throw up air at various percents and regardless of di. Get a pilot's license and learn to fly the nairplane (or string together nairs, if my joke *flew* over your head)
This is something that you will continue to expand on and practice whether you are a beginner, a pro, or a god.

After you master this movement/control stuff, you can move on to some of the more difficult stuff. I would save all of fox's shine tech, pivots, etc. until you can do all of the things I listed above reliably.

 

[Spoice]

Imo, you really need to get the following things to become totally natural first before moving on to the more complex stuff
1. Get perfect control of his dashdance. Be able to do long dd and short dd, as well as doing them advancing in either direction. Practice dashdancing just outside of a moving opponent's (or cpu's) range.
2. Master short hop fast falling. Its hard to get consistently. Once you can do this reliably, practice shffl'd aerials - in place, retreating, out of dash, and out of shield. Then, practice doing approaching short hops into waveland back.
3. Jump cancel grabs and boost grabs. Learning to use this effectively is both really easy and really helpful. Practice only boost grabbing when no other grab will have enough range, and always jc grab when you can because it is significantly less punishable.
4. Platform movement. Perfect those wavelands. Be able to wavedash off platforms into aerials.
5. Shff laser, sh double laser, sh turnaround laser, retreating sh turnaround laser, etc. master the ability to do all of these laser techniques reliably, and learn the spacing for when each one is safe. Lasers are incredibly strong for fox, but do they can be easily punished if you don't do them from the right distance or at the right time.
6. Always be exercising your punisu game. Master the space animal chain grab. Be able to hit floaties with up throw up air at various percents and regardless of di. Get a pilot's license and learn to fly the nairplane (or string together nairs, if my joke *flew* over your head)
This is something that you will continue to expand on and practice whether you are a beginner, a pro, or a god.

After you master this movement/control stuff, you can move on to some of the more difficult stuff. I would save all of fox's shine tech, pivots, etc. until you can do all of the things I listed above reliably.

That all looks fairly intimidating, is there any guides you know of that could help me?

 

[BRUJO~]

That all looks fairly intimidating, is there any guides you know of that could help me?

Lol, Fox is definitely intimidating to learn. http://smashboards.com/threads/cunn...updated-for-2015-over-25-000-downloads.35050/ this guide is everything you will ever need to know and more, but its basically a full book haha

 

[Pάρί]

Yo how do i correctly firestall?

 

[Snorlaxes]

How's Shine Up Smash for the IC's MU?

Not as good as either JC Up-Smash or running shine > wavedash > JC Up-Smash.
If shine hits, ICs slide a really far distance and Up-Smash will probably miss.

Yo how do i correctly firestall?

Either away from ledge on control stick > quarter circle > up-B, or do a quicker down > up-B. I prefer the first because the second will almost always cause you to use your double jump in the process.

 

[Pr0fessor Flash]

Not as good as either JC Up-Smash or running shine > wavedash > JC Up-Smash.
If shine hits, ICs slide a really far distance and Up-Smash will probably miss.

From what I tested on 20XX there is a possibility that the Shine hits one Climber and the Up Smash hits the other one.

 

[BO/\K]

What's a good way to tech skill grind shffls on ICs? 20XX infinite shield + always shielding doesn't work because they end up overlapping and you don't get staggered shield hits.

 

[Bounce N Back]

Foxs uthrow uair, is it DI dependent, or can you always land it for the most part on the top 8 characters?
and at what percents can you no longer land it if your opponent DI's correctly? sorry if this has been asked multiple times, but couldnt find it breezing through the threads

I'm also kind of having trouble landing it on some of the floatier characters (Marth, Sheik JP etc) consistently. any suggestions?

 

[Snorlaxes]

What's a good way to tech skill grind shffls on ICs? 20XX infinite shield + always shielding doesn't work because they end up overlapping and you don't get staggered shield hits.

This is kind of a janky idea, but I think it'd work. Assuming you have an extra controller, plug it in so that one trigger is read as always held. Then get your 20xx infinite shield ICs and get the non-CPU ICs positioned to the staggered distance that you want. Finally, set up a save-state (right on the D-pad) so that you can easily reset them (D-pad left) to this distance since they'll slide around once you attack the shields.

Foxs uthrow uair, is it DI dependent, or can you always land it for the most part on the top 8 characters?
and at what percents can you no longer land it if your opponent DI's correctly? sorry if this has been asked multiple times, but couldnt find it breezing through the threads

I'm also kind of having trouble landing it on some of the floatier characters (Marth, Sheik JP etc) consistently. any suggestions?

You definitely can't always land it (Falcon at low percent, Puff at high percent come immediately to mind), but it does work pretty often. I'm not entirely sure about this, but I think the optimal DI is generally behind Fox. I've been thinking about testing the details of this lately, so maybe I'll actually get around to doing it this weekend.

As for the floaties: with Puff, I think the trickiest part is acting as fast as you can out of your throw animation since it's so much faster than the other characters. I never really have much trouble with Marth or Sheik, but if you gave more detail into how you're missing, maybe I could help.

 

[Comet7]

Foxs uthrow uair, is it DI dependent, or can you always land it for the most part on the top 8 characters?
and at what percents can you no longer land it if your opponent DI's correctly? sorry if this has been asked multiple times, but couldnt find it breezing through the threads

I'm also kind of having trouble landing it on some of the floatier characters (Marth, Sheik JP etc) consistently. any suggestions?

the post above described it really well. people can also SDI out of the strong hit of the up air. fox can counter that by only hitting with the strong part, but that's hard to do. to get better at it, just practice.

 

[CeLL]

Is it easier to SDI out of Fox's uair with certain characters? I rarely get the SDI when I'm actually playing Fox, but I almost always do when I play Young Link and do often when playing Marth or Sheik.

 

[Deep2]

Of course it is, their hitboxes are smaller and also they are lighter, meaning they go more distance with SDI.

 

[CeLL]

Of course it is, their hitboxes are smaller and also they are lighter, meaning they go more distance with SDI.

All of those characters are heavier than Fox and Marth and Sheik are bigger and YL is the same size...