Q&A -Fox Advice/Questions Topic-

[Metal Reeper]

Hey fox peeps, I'm just starting to play competitively. Could anyone offer any basic (or not-so-basic) advice/critique? It'd be much appreciated!
Here's a set of me against Marth: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcXMmhMpc20

Hey Chrome im in Philly also. We should play.
You're playing the MU with a good mindset. Waiting for Marth to throw something out and punishing. Just focus on punishing with shine/grab or nair>usmash. If you notice the Marth is throwing out random attacks just hoping you will run into it, for instance he keeps utilting you when you approach. Instead run in and shield>grab/dair/nair. He also kept spacing dash attacks on you and messing you up. Just try and get better at reacting to approaches like this. Good job on the uairs. If you can't land another Uair just try and get underneath him. I gurantee the Marth will come down with a fair. That's when you shield>grab/Usmash OoS
4:25 you should of went for the ledge sweetspot. Instead you went straight and he jabbed you.
12:40 should of shield dropped, or timed your roll. Remember rolling isn't bad, you just need to time it.
9:25 when you know Marth is gonna Utilt you, make sure you DI behind him, or you will get caught in the ****.
You were doing good though and have a basic understanding of the MU. Just work on those waveshine combos and Uthrow>Uairs and you'll be fine :D

 

[BTmoney]

...Knowing that drills aren't CCable should be one of the very, very, very first things you learn about playing Fox.

Also he meant that if you can combo into a grab, you should combo a grab (unless you can also combo into utilt, in which case that's good too)

Yeah I don't exactly play fox. I'm taking him more seriously now

 

[Bones0]

some-new-matches-up-on-gimpys-channel.smashboards-wont-let-me-use-ctrl+v-to-paste-spaces.****-the-new-smashboards-lol.

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

How do you move so unpredictably all the time? I always fall into the same movement patterns/habits and my opponents adapt, but I only noticed one or two patterns the whole set. The rest was just very free and adaptive. You make me want to play Fox.

Hey fox peeps, I'm just starting to play competitively. Could anyone offer any basic (or not-so-basic) advice/critique? It'd be much appreciated!
Here's a set of me against Marth: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcXMmhMpc20

- You DD the same distance both ways. You should be using DDing to adjust your spacing based on your opponent's movement. Practice dashing far, then doing a short/quick DD, and then repeating that to see how fast you can get across a stage. Just go long-short-long-short. Then when you DD in game your opponent will actually be worried about you approaching or retreating instead of just being able to assume you will continue DDing in place. I liked when you were DDing for the most part. Just work on keeping it as tight as possible to bait those fairs OoS and shield grabs while still being safe.

- Make sure you DI Marth's utilt behind him. Your very first stock you DIed two against its direction and payed for it. It's really rare that you'll ever want to DI against utilt like that because he'll either utilt again anyway, or you'll be in a much easier position to continue his combo than from really far behind him.

- You were nairing a lot at lower %s when he left himself open. I prefer using drill when I know it will hit at low %s because it will keep him grounded when you shine, and you can follow up properly. If you nair him he'll be airborne, and then as soon as you shine him he lands and has no stun. Once he starts getting high enough that you can chain into more nairs, utilts, grabs, or usmashes, then nair becomes a solid option. Even then though, it leaves open the possibility for Marth to CC grab whereas drill will also beat the CC.

- The Marth player doesn't grab nearly as much as he should be/as most Marths do. Just be aware that you won't be able to spam shield as often as you were (particularly after knockdowns) vs. better Marth players. You'll also have to overshoot your aerials much more. He wasn't DDing or WDing back and grabbing your SHFFL approaches and you were still coming up short sometimes.

- Never DI Marth's uthrow off stage. Even DIing slightly behind him when he's facing the center is risky.

 

[kd-]

Thanks for the advice Unknown. I'm glad you said I don't look like I know what I'm doing in terms of approach or move selection because I really don't know what I'm doing in terms of approach and I am just throwing out moves I think will work lol. I know situational things and tidbits here and there but I don't really know how to "play" as Fox - spacing, movements, etc. - and that's what I need the most help in. I think I tried to post a question around that a long time ago but no one understood what I was saying. I'm gonna try to integrate your advice to my play but I'm still just a bad player so it might not happen as much as I want it to. That reverse bair that didn't extend my combo, I was trying for a weak reverse bair so I could continue it, but he landed pretty far away. In general and especially against Peach, I'm really scared of getting hit so I think I pressure/back off at wrong times.

Questions to anyone, of course:
When is using drill the wrong/right time? How do I go about selecting a better move, seeing as my current choices aren't good? How do I passively take space so I can approach, without getting approached myself, or remove myself from bad ranges without giving up too much space?

If I'm asking the wrong/bad questions, any other advice would be nice

 

[Bones0]

Don't use drill when they're in the air (sometimes you can get away with it though). Selecting the best move is all about knowing what you want to do. If you want to kill someone, you have to evaluate their position and determine which kill setup is most likely to be effective and keep you safe in the event that it doesn't go right. If they're airborne, you may want to hit them with a soft nair into dash, JC, usmash. If they are CCing, that option is obviously horrible and drill would be more suited. Then you can branch from these decisions further. Should I go for another nair to increase damage/get them closer to the ledge after the first soft nair, or are they high enough percent that I can kill them with just an usmash? If I drill, waveshine usmash, will they survive? Perhaps grabbing out of the waveshining is better. Or maybe they are at low % and you want to combo a floaty like Luigi or Puff? Utilting directly after the drill might be the best answer in that case. Then once you think you've got a system down, you have to consider the risk/reward of mixing up your punishes. Everything you do will condition their expectations (which affects their reaction time) and their DI. There's a million variables to every situation so you just have to go through and figure out what works and what doesn't.

 

[unknown522]

I will get back to you on that

 

[_wzrd]

what are your favorite ways to restore ledge invincibility while edgeguarding?

I've been just doing the jump down-regrab, is there anything faster while still being safe?

shine up-b seems pretty G too, but it feels so bad if someone is edgeguarding you or if I 'space it bad' ala do it to late while someone is recovering & they hit me

 

[_wzrd]

also, my god. fox is such a ****ing **** character. the more I play him, the more I realize how ****ing sick he is.

 

[Metal Reeper]

Firegrab restall.
Fox is ****ed up.
So fun.
Poetry.

 

[BTmoney]

What are some bread and butter combos fox has on falco?
Can you uthrow usmash him at kill percent?
What grabs should you use against him? The Uthrow chain grab is nice and gives you some tilt/usmash potentional but at higher percents (assuming there is a percent where uthrow usmash doesn't conenect) can you uthrow nair/bair?


Also for fighting peach, are strong nair/bair ever safe at low percent I watched pretty much all of the games mango played against armada and he was getting CC smashed way too often out of those two aerials. Do fading nairs or bairs work on peach? Multiple times mango would do one of those moves at the height of his SH and fade backwards and I thought that'd be good enough and he spaced the artisl well enough but he'd still get dsmashed for it.
I don't see how to get in on peach without drilling

 

[Zoler]

Grab, drill, also you can hit her with a bair / nair when she's floating or jumping.

Also you can shield right after you hit her with a nair or bair to save you from CC dsmash.

 

[FluxWolf]

what are your favorite ways to restore ledge invincibility while edgeguarding?

I've been just doing the jump down-regrab, is there anything faster while still being safe?

shine up-b seems pretty G too, but it feels so bad if someone is edgeguarding you or if I 'space it bad' ala do it to late while someone is recovering & they hit me

staying on the stage and grabbing the ledge right when you need to works good too. cuz it covers all options vs most characters and gives you the invincibility frames when you need them to bair from the ledge/not get hit from their recovery, works good vs chars like marth and doc when they up b

 

[BTmoney]

staying on the stage and grabbing the ledge right when you need to works good too.

Thank the gods someone said this. It really is that simple.

 

[_wzrd]

word.

10edgeguards

 

[Metal Reeper]

What are some bread and butter combos fox has on falco?
Can you uthrow usmash him at kill percent?
What grabs should you use against him? The Uthrow chain grab is nice and gives you some tilt/usmash potentional but at higher percents (assuming there is a percent where uthrow usmash doesn't conenect) can you uthrow nair/bair?


Also for fighting peach, are strong nair/bair ever safe at low percent I watched pretty much all of the games mango played against armada and he was getting CC smashed way too often out of those two aerials. Do fading nairs or bairs work on peach? Multiple times mango would do one of those moves at the height of his SH and fade backwards and I thought that'd be good enough and he spaced the artisl well enough but he'd still get dsmashed for it.
I don't see how to get in on peach without drilling

From 0 you can Uthrow>Usmash/utilt/shine. All of these can be followed up. If you're on FD just chaingrab falco. If you're on a stage with platforms you should just go for the Usmash if possible because the chaingrab will probably only work once.
dair>grab is a very easy combo that I cannot stress enough how useful and easy it is to land. At higher % you can Uthrow>Uair for the kill. If he DI's the Uthrow you can just JC Usmash for the kill and yes bair also works. At mid % 7oish you can Uthrow>nair which will put him into a tech situation.

Spaced bair is very good on Peach and on pretty much every character. You want to try and land behind Peach, it's much safer. If you mess up your pressure and aren't feeling confident just dash. Just make sure you are doing your aerials as late as possible.
When you play Peach just make sure you are lasering a good bit. It will build up over time and psychologically pressures her. You also want your dash dance as good as possible. When doing this always be just out of her dash attack range. If you see her go to pull a turnip punish her. THe best bet would probably be Uthrow>uair or shine>Usmash.
Around 50% if you can land a late nair on Peach it opens up a huge combo game. nair>nair, nair>Usmash nair>bair, nair>Uair. Anything really.
Also if you can somehow land an utilt on Peach it can mean a big lead for you.

 

[BTmoney]

From 0 you can Uthrow>Usmash/utilt/shine. All of these can be followed up. If you're on FD just chaingrab falco. If you're on a stage with platforms you should just go for the Usmash if possible because the chaingrab will probably only work once.
dair>grab is a very easy combo that I cannot stress enough how useful and easy it is to land. At higher % you can Uthrow>Uair for the kill. If he DI's the Uthrow you can just JC Usmash for the kill and yes bair also works. At mid % 7oish you can Uthrow>nair which will put him into a tech situation.

Spaced bair is very good on Peach and on pretty much every character. You want to try and land behind Peach, it's much safer. If you mess up your pressure and aren't feeling confident just dash. Just make sure you are doing your aerials as late as possible.
When you play Peach just make sure you are lasering a good bit. It will build up over time and psychologically pressures her. You also want your dash dance as good as possible. When doing this always be just out of her dash attack range. If you see her go to pull a turnip punish her. THe best bet would probably be Uthrow>uair or shine>Usmash.
Around 50% if you can land a late nair on Peach it opens up a huge combo game. nair>nair, nair>Usmash nair>bair, nair>Uair. Anything really.
Also if you can somehow land an utilt on Peach it can mean a big lead for you.

Thanks I like your responses.
When you say spaced bair do you mean bair through her shield? When I space my bairs I try to fade away as far as possible while keeping my back to her.

 

[Metal Reeper]

Yes. But full hop latest bair>shine is super safe most characters cant do anything.
Also watchout for nair oos. 4 frames.

 

[Bones0]

I prefer just spacing FH bairs instead of landing near them and shining. It lets you not worry about having to bair super late or getting grabbed before/after shining. Also, if they try to shield grab and get shined, you just get a small positional advantage to work off of, but if they whiff the grab on a spaced bair, you can immediately punish with whatever you what.

 

[Metal Reeper]

Yeah fh spaced bair. If they run in and shield try to react witha late bair.
Forget everything. Uthrow uair all dai

 

[bearsfan092]

A little SHDL technique question. I'm off for spring break, so that means a week away from any real Smash. One thing I've never been good at is the SHDL (or the LHDL back when I played Falco), so I've been working at that. It's coming along.

However, after about 2 days of working it, I've got some real slight wrist pain from using my wrist in assisting my thumb sliding from Y to B (if I go and practice other stuff, the pain goes away real fast and doesn't come back. It's just that motion). At least right now, I can't make the jump fast enough using my thumb joint alone. I had one guy tell me that he does the wrist assist like I'm currently doing, but I don't think it's physically healthy for me to keep going like this. Does anyone have a video of someone's hands doing a bunch of SHDLs so I can see if I'm moving my wrist too much?

Also, I'd rather not do this via control stick.

 

[TemPesT-]

i've been using y-b for years, and never had any sort of pain my wrist at all... also i don't really use my wrist at all in the motion of sliding from y to b, so im not really sure what you'r doing, maybe your hands are smaller then mine lol.

 

[Metal Reeper]

For SHDL just use control stick. Just ****ing do it. It's way easier.

 

[BTmoney]

For SHDL just use control stick. Just ****ing do it. It's way easier.

That sounds weird as hell. short hopping with fox is jank enough, does control stick make it easier lol? I feel like it'd be too sensitive

 

[Metal Reeper]

Just flick the control stick up once and hit BB its so damn easy.
Just ****ing do it lol.

 

[Zoler]

Both is really easy... It's way easier to jump faster out of shine with the stick tho

 

[omgwtfToph]

lol metal reeper try doing that with my old controller. It's impossible to SH with the stick with that thing.

Anyway I played with Lucien for an extended session last night and took a bunch of notes for fighting Sheik (got to pick his brain for a few other matchups too). Gonna post them in a bit (gotta get them off my phone and re-type them lol)

 

[dkuo]

yea you need a controller that can sh with the stick well if you want it to work. makes life a lot easier imo, although i barely laser as fox anyways so it doesn't matter too much to me <_<
same with falco's lhdl but works with any controller

 

[omgwtfToph]

I claw Falco's LHDL and I have cleaner LHDL than most Falco mains.

 

[PGH Carroll]

I use my left thumb to press B in my SHDLs
Only way I can get em.. And the only way I laser. Been doing it for years.
Its quite funny looking but I don't miss em.

 

[Metal Reeper]

For ldhl I use Y cause Bones is the man.
Landed a tripple shine lastnight. Good timrs.

 

[Zoler]

Just Y and press B two times, really simple stuff. When I started playing smash I thought I would never in my entire life be able to do it. Just practice.

 

[Zhea]

Question, seen a lot of talk about dair grab on falco, why does this work? The frames of hit stun/shield stun and land lag + first frame of grab don't add up.

 

[omgwtfToph]

Landing triple shine is the filthiest thing ever. I got one on SW once lolz.

 

[Metal Reeper]

So I def multishined Link's shield 5 times then shine spiked him.
Egg-who?

 

[omgwtfToph]

Took a bunch of notes vs Sheik when I played Lucien for hella hours. idk if you guys can make sense of these cuz I mostly just wrote them for myself, but for posterity's sake, here they are:


- WD forward OOS vs. Sheik's SH fair on shield. Hold down to CC the jab and punish. Beats re-SH and jab (you must CC the jab). Loses only to fair grab(? Needs further testing)
- Usmash OOS trades with jab (after fair etc.)
- DI slightly behind Sheik when getting dthrown, then miss your tech. Sheik can't turn around and jab it. Awkward to punish.
- After your true combo is over, try to catch Sheik's double jump, then punish her hard. Utilt her landing/spaced bair her in the air/fsmash the ledge. Sheik has bad aerial mobility; exploit this.
- Mango FJ: Full jump with the intent of calling out SHs, and either spaced nair/deep bair/drill Sheik based on whether or not she's reached the ground by the time you land. If Sheik didn't SH, you should DJ waveland on platform to safety.
- Bait tilts then DD grab (super fundamental)
- SH drill approach punishes whiffed tilts hard.
- Mix up your "body language" (Lucien's terminology). Don't make it obvious as to whether you're trying to approach or bait.

 

[FluxWolf]

Do you mean to do a full jump in front of them and just land and do nothing like as a bait for her to SH?

 

[Metal Reeper]

I would never miss the tech vs Sheik. She can still Usmash you. That's what I do to miss techs and Sheik can gain alot from any of those at any %.

 

[BTmoney]

That sounds to me like it's one of those if your opponent knows exactly what you are going to do all the time then you lose statements.

You already lose in every situation once you get grabbed because Sheik can cover every option. That's like saying you shouldn't tech backwards because that option can be covered.

Situations like that solely rely on the tech chaser to make the correct decision and react over and over again on time. Avoiding resets/techchases etc. is dependent on either your opponent messing up or you mixing up your options such as DI , tech directions, no techs, no tech->rolls, no tech->stand up, no tech-> get up attack and making them guess wrong or get confused.

 

[Penguin_ftw]

Any words of wisdom for Blue Fox?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQ2gv1xEvZA

 

[Somaiah]

Any words of wisdom for Blue Fox?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQ2gv1xEvZA

You can get pretty predictable at times. Try recovering high or sweet spotting the edge using Up+B, and use new ways of approaching than Nair>shine (which is a good option, though) by trying DD grab and Drill>shine.Take a look at 1:52 and 1:55-2:02 also, those shine spikes were simply calling out to you. The dsmash was not necessary for 1:55-2:02, those were definitely really easy shines to pull off if you have the timing down. The person I play Fox dittos with would never miss either of those two shines, and neither would I haha, just go deeeeep