Q&A -Fox Advice/Questions Topic-

[Bones0]

it's a true combo. If it didn't combo it's because you grabbed too slow or something

Ummm, are you sure? That would mean you could also drill usmash. If that were possible I'd think people would be drill usmashing characters that get knocked down by shine, or at least utilting (which I think might combo on some of the lighter characters, but iirc it hits frame 5 as opposed to 7).

 

[Zoler]

Drill to both grab and usmash are true combos but you need to hit the dair "right" like the last hit should be just before you land, and you can't really react to hitting it right, so it's not really reliable.

 

[unknown522]

Ummm, are you sure? That would mean you could also drill usmash. If that were possible I'd think people would be drill usmashing characters that get knocked down by shine, or at least utilting (which I think might combo on some of the lighter characters, but iirc it hits frame 5 as opposed to 7).

They both work. Go test it out. Even drill -> d-tilt works

 

[DaLung]

Hey,

If you try to Waveshine into U-Smash or Running U-Smash, what is the "best" way to do it?
Run-> Crouch C-Stick?
Run-> Stickjump - Cstick?
Run-> (charged) U-Smash (stick+A)?

Are there frame differences?

Best regards!
DaLung

 

[unknown522]

Don't do the crouch one. The others are fine.

I personally do up+up-c. I used to claw Y+up-c

 

[tauKhan]

They both work. Go test it out. Even drill -> d-tilt works

Drill hitstun is weight dependent. I'm pretty sure drill usmash doesn't work against peach. It works vs fox though. Drill grab works because even if it doesn't combo, the opponent can't usually beat or evade the grab.

 

[unknown522]

Drill hitstun is weight dependent. I'm pretty sure drill usmash doesn't work against peach. It works vs fox though. Drill grab works because even if it doesn't combo, the opponent can't usually beat or evade the grab.

it is weight dependent, but it can work on peach. The characters I could never get it to work on was bowser, Ganon iirc, falcon, and uhhh DK I think. But all the characters that get knocked down by the shine, drill -> grab is a true combo anyway

 

[BTmoney]

leaving this here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIczh1PeHTM

Ummm, are you sure? That would mean you could also drill usmash. If that were possible I'd think people would be drill usmashing characters that get knocked down by shine, or at least utilting (which I think might combo on some of the lighter characters, but iirc it hits frame 5 as opposed to 7).

this game is more about being less bad than it is about being good, someone doing or not doing something doesn't really mean much when you consider people learn a lot of this game from imitation and subconsciously trying to make a combo video or even expressing themselves. that being said I also knew that worked, if you have debug mode you can drill a char (I only did this vs Falco) and advance frame by frame. They're still in hitstun when the grab/usmash connects. Just cause most people don't shine turnaround dair as falco to (or even fsmash) edge guard falcon & ganon doesn't mean that that doesn't destroy their recovery lol.

it is weight dependent, but it can work on peach. The characters I could never get it to work on was bowser, Ganon iirc, falcon, and uhhh DK I think. But all the characters that get knocked down by the shine, drill -> grab is a true combo anyway

that's sweet info, I didn't know that was weight dependent

 

[Bones0]

leaving this here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIczh1PeHTM




this game is more about being less bad than it is about being good, someone doing or not doing something doesn't really mean much when you consider people learn a lot of this game from imitation and subconsciously trying to make a combo video or even expressing themselves. that being said I also knew that worked, if you have debug mode you can drill a char (I only did this vs Falco) and advance frame by frame. They're still in hitstun when the grab/usmash connects. Just cause most people don't shine turnaround dair as falco to (or even fsmash) edge guard falcon & ganon doesn't mean that that doesn't destroy their recovery lol.



that's sweet info, I didn't know that was weight dependent

Shine turnaround dair is a relatively small optimization for edgeguarding... Being able to combo drill into utilt/grab is a really useful tool so idk why a Fox main wouldn't use it constantly, let alone sparingly.

 

[Sinji]

Can't remember if I've been in this situation but if you do a running shine>up smash and characters that slide in the normal distance (capt. Falcon, peach etc) after the shine sdi in instead of out, will they evade the upsmash? I know they can evade the up smash if you wave shine but not sure about this situation.

 

[Bones0]

Can't remember if I've been in this situation but if you do a running shine>up smash and characters that slide in the normal distance (capt. Falcon, peach etc) after the shine sdi in instead of out, will they evade the upsmash? I know they can evade the up smash if you wave shine but not sure about this situation.

It depends on how quickly you do the usmash, what character they are, and how far they SDI.

 

[Sinji]

Let's say its against peach SDI the farthest in and I'm doing it frame perfect

 

[Bones0]

Let's say its against peach SDI the farthest in and I'm doing it frame perfect

With the furthest SDI they can obviously avoid it. Idk how many SDI inputs would be needed though.

 

[Sinji]

Ok thanks.

What is fox's role when teaming up with falco in teams?

 

[unknown522]

I'll write something about fox/falco team later

 

[Magnawolf]

Hey I have a Falcon question.

When playing against Falcon, what's the best way to play the neutral game? It seems like Fox definitely can't just approach with nairs all the time cause Falcon's nair beats it, plus Falcon can easily dash dance and grab a nairing Fox. Is the best way to just play defensive with up-tilts and lasers and wait for the Falcon to approach?

 

[Palmerfan]

Falcon has pretty weak approach options outside of dashdance grab, so laser and wait for him to make a mistake. Just be sure not to get caught lasering, Falcon is pretty fast.

 

[LL87]

Hi.

I'd like general tips vs falcon. What I usually do is laser until he makes an approach, punish it by dd grab, and then uair 10 times until he's dead of off stage. I struggle as well with his nair approach, which he can cover pretty decently with a gentleman. I try to punish the landing lag, which is doable, but hard, at least for me.

I also can combo pretty well spacies (usually at least 50% off a grab, if not death ; i'm just juggling till they di off stage), but I don't know what to do vs falcon, after an uthrow. It seems that I can usmash at 0% if no di, and at around 40, I can utilt, uair, uair, uair/bair. however, if he dis, it seems that nothing connect. But i'm not used to falcon, so it probably boils down to a timing problem. So, can you guys give me a flowchart on falcon ? Or, just general guidelines, such as nair on di away, utilt on no di, etc. Thanks.

 

[unknown522]

Well as I said I would...

Playing as Fox+Falco team in doubles:


There’s no said standard way to play this team. But this write-up is mostly coming from personal experience and as someone who played both characters in teams at a decent level. Of course like most other teams, usually there is a core idea of what you want to do, and then there are some variables that depends on the matchup you are playing against, but I’ll try my best to give a simple breakdown of what to do and then maybe go into different team machups if I feel like it, or have nothing to do.

• Neutral game: I think there are 4 major options, depending on what type of Falco player you are playing with. Of course the best thing would probably be if your team is well-rounded at everything and is able to adapt and change up your team roles/positioning if things go bad, or you happen to get broken up. So here goes:

1. Have Falco play the ground in front, while Fox is either behind him or above him on platforms. Let Falco control the pace with his lasers and be the first aggressor, while having the fox support him when he needs it. The lasers may force one of the opponents to jump or shield, which if they get around or above Falco, Fox should be there to attack them, especially if they do commit to a jump, or try to press through Falco. If they try to retreat or camp you, then Fox can wait for Falco to push them to the edge and see if one of you can force a gimp with either a shine spike, or a d-air or take positional advantage by controlling center stage.​

2. Have Fox play the front, mostly grounded - Since Fox is short, Falco can SH laser over Fox’s head, or shoot lasers high or on platforms, which can help you to lock down opponents that like to be in the air a lot and maybe start up a combo for Fox. It also in turn can help break up the opponent’s combos if Fox happens to get launched or something.​

3. Play close to Falco and have him not shoot lasers - Basically what Fox will want to do is try to find a way to land a solid hit and either knock them down towards Falco, or push them off the stage and either edgeguard as fox, or let Falco edgeguard since his d-air can gimp them too at 0%, with less risk and more room to cover compared to shine. Playing close to Falco both allows the team to extend damage off of random hits, but also so that Fox can be there to break up an opponent’s combo, or to have Falco break up a combo if Fox needs. Most of the time, Fox will probably want to push opponents in-between your team with shine (preferably on characters that you can knock down with the shine), to start up team combos, but also while walling out, or pushing away the opponent that is not sandwiched in-between your team with shine, or b-air walls. The shine is great to also break up your teammate from getting combo’d, if he’s close enough. Even if you shine Falco, it shouldn't be bad since the shine does low damage. If it does happen, just try to cover up the mistake by not letting the opponent tech chase him.​

4. My personal favorite; the isolation – This is nothing special, but can draw from external factors of the game. You both just pick which opponent each of you will mainly target. In this strategy, it is your own responsibility to handle one of the opponents one on one. Usually this is used for possibly a few reasons. It could be things like:
- one of your characters has a favorable matchup with one of the opposing characters
- one of your player excels at a matchup of one of the opposing characters
- one of your characters/players has an unfavorable/disliked matchup or stage
- one of you is a lot better than one of the opponents in singles or doubles skill​

The aim of this strategy is to not let your opponents get their chance to form their own team strategy by abusing the fact that one of you may have a good matchup against one of their characters and additionally give you the chance to beat down that one character as fast as possible without letting the other opponent be able to support, guard, or save them. The major drawback is that you need to be good at a lot of matchups, within the confines of doubles and also you probably need to be a good singles player to pull it off. Having good awareness is extremely important, realizing that your teammate may be struggling, or needs your help in some situations, or to even just finish a stock.

• Percent game:

- Low percent (from 0-70%): The objective should be to find a way to get one of them to Falco and keep them in-between you so that Falco can rack damage fast with standard combos while fox adds in if the opportunity comes up. The three most valuable things about Falco is that he has fast, vertical combos, making it hard for opponents to follow him and intercept his combos. The second thing is that he can also rack percent fast on floaty characters that are more resistant to combos. The third thing is that if he is unable to follow-up on his combos, majority of his moves will almost always put the opponent into an unfavorable position with the shine or d-air, since they’re fast and also don’t require him to grab while being easy to confirm, with a low commit. Those moves can do a lot based on the opponent’s DI, like set up for edgeguards, knockdowns without hitting them away from you, put them on platforms, or just simply put them above you against their will, usually without the risk of the opponent grabbing the ledge, because of their trajectory. Edgeguarding and follow-ups can be easier too possibly with all the chaos going on.​

- High percent (70%+): What you want to do is either try to set up tech-chases to trap your opponent since most moves will knock down at this point and/or set up for an edgeguard. When the percent gets high enough that Fox can start killing with up-smashes, then you both should be aiming to create those opportunities. Either throw combos from Fox, or Falco holding them.​

• Edgeguarding: Since both Fox and Falco are great at edgeagurding, you probably just want the closest person to edgeguard, while the further person tries to hold off the other opponent that is trying to intercept. Probably by grabbing them and/or doing combos. If you’re doing a 2v1 edgeguard, the Fox should take the ledge so that Falco can d-air/f-smash (matchup dependent). This just simply gives the opponent less chances to recover/get saved. If they opponent is at a high enough percent where Fox’s up-smash will kill, then Falco should take the ledge and let the fox up-smash. Since star K.Os take longer and give you more time to double-team the next opponent before the other one spawns again. Though more often, it should be Falco’s job to edgeguard because as they are trying to recover, he can pressure their recovery with lasers, or slow down the other opponent with lasers and probably b-air, without Fox being in the way.

• Recovery and saving your teammate: Fox and Falco have great recoveries. Similar moves, but different properties. One of the most important things to help your teammate recover is to do one of more of a few things:

- Ward them off from the ledge – Of course just simply attacking the opponents or threatening their space, or making them have to shield/dodge can prevent edgeguards.​

- Take the ledge first – Abuse the fact that the opponents can’t grab the ledge if you grab it first. With this you can either use the invincibility to go on the offensive, or to let go when your teammate is close to let them grab it.​

- Grab an opponent – They can’t move if you’re grabbing them and they can’t edgeguard. If the other opponent tries to help the one that gets grabbed, you can try to throw them into each other​

- Create chaos around the edge – Similar to the first one mentioned, but even if you are getting hit or are being pressured, if makes it more difficult for the opponent to edgeguard your teammate.​

- Hit your teammate if they are too far to recover, or are about to get hit by a heavy attack. You really have to pick and choose when it is worth it or not. A lot of people tend to jump out with their firefox to let the initial flames hit their teammate to let them recover, but then end up getting gimped, or the teammate still gets edgeguarded anyway. Sometimes it’s not with it to go out there, depending on what matchup you’re facing against.​

 

[SNEAKY_URKEL]

How do I deal with Marth as Fox? Specifically, I have trouble stopping him from comboing me to death, and also how to approach. Otherwise, it's just a matter of me improving as a player.

 

[Clebus]

Nair for days. Marth has to commit to do anything really, and you can cover your landing with shineeeeeeeee

 

[Magnawolf]

Nair for days. Marth has to commit to do anything really, and you can cover your landing with shineeeeeeeee

Nair is not that safe. Even if you shine right after. A good Marth will easily just sit back and dash dance and wait for you to approach with nairs and grab you. Then you're dead.

I'd say it's important to make Marth approach you. Shoot lasers. Marth will approach.

 

[Clebus]

That's wut i meaeaeaeant of course.
but not what i said. Fair point

 

[Bones0]

Lasers are awful vs. Marth in neutral. I'd only really use them to tack on % when he's recovering from super high, but even then they're not necessary. They don't make Marth approach, they just give him opportunities to go for dtilt pokes until you're cornered or you get tagged. They can also DA if they are even a little too close (or from far away if they get a read on your laser pattern, which is common). Nairs are awful unless you have him cornered enough that he can't DD grab you. Even then, he can CC shield grab and worst case scenario he grabs ledge from shine. Best case scenario he grabs you before or after your shine and you're getting comboed to death or gimped. If you want to approach him without footsying him into the corner, you should be using running shine with raw grab as a mixup. Overall, you should be using movement to get in Marth's face enough to make him whiff or shield and stay in a position to punish when he does those things.

 

[WaterlessFishie]

hoping to get some critiques on my matches from my most recent tournament.

anything and everything is greatly appreciated

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2_nkdFxEzM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLOoHso6oOg

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

 

[Pengie]

When fighting Marth you could also just run at him and see how he responds; Marth can really only either deal with you coming from the ground or coming from a jump one at a time; that is to say he can't beat you running at him and FJing and you running at him and shining/grabbing/nairing/WDing in place to bait an anti-air option at the same time. He'll have to choose which one he wants to cover. Well, actually he can cover both, but he'd have to throw out Fsmashes/up tilts/fair preemptively to do so in which case, congratulations, you've got Marth throwing out big laggy moves in neutral, go and kill him for it. Once you see which options he likes to go to you can get a feel for how exactly to go about fighting him; if they like grabbing in place a lot when you run forward (aka pull an M2K) this a good sign that you probably shouldn't do running shines or grabs and should instead go for stuff like FJ drill over the grab. If he's past teh point where he can CC/ASDI down on your attacks, uairs and bairs work well here too. On the flip side, if their response to you running forward at them is to do an aerial to catch you jumping (what most mid level players love to go to), you can WD in place just outside of it's range and then punish him with a nair if he's still in the air, or a running shine/grab if he does it late enough that he lands and goes through the landing lag. Be careful if he does a retreating aerial; these are a lot harder to punish because you have to start moving a lot earlier to get a clean punish on it, but on the bright side if he does a retreating aerial he's giving up space and putting himself closer to the corner where you can kinda go nuts and not have to worry about DD grabs.

If Marth is DDing, the same thing I said about him not being able to cover all of your approach vectors is sort of similar, but with the tweak that he can't Dtilt you as easily anymore. running shines are alright if you know that they're gonna retreat since you can chase him down, but you could also just get pivot grabbed as you're running towards him, so remember to mix in FJs to avoid those.

Not getting comboed by Marth is pretty much impossible for Fox; the best thing to do IMO is, if you get hit by something on BF or DL, DI to a platform since on those platforms Marth can't really cover the whole thing so you force him to go for a guess, and if you're on Stadium, Yoshis, FoD, or FD, try to SDI his up moves upwards; you'll get hit a few more times than usual, but this also makes it really hard for Marth to actually finish his combo. Also if you have your jump still, you eventually get sent high enough that you get out of hit stun and can use your jump to mix up your fall timing and eventually get to the ground safely.

Ultimately, I think Marth has a way to beat every single offensive option Fox has, but if he chooses the wrong option to respond to what you did or he mistimes it by even a little, Fox gets to get in and steam roll him.

 

[Zylo]

Why does marth get knocked down by shine when he's charging an f-smash in NTSC?

 

[tauKhan]

Because kb is higher on an opponent that's charging a smash attack, and marth is literally just heavy enough that shine doesn't knock him down normally-

 

[unknown522]

Why does marth get knocked down by shine when he's charging an f-smash in NTSC?

character's weight decrease by a certain amount when charging smashes (I think it's by 20%?)

 

[tauKhan]

character's weight decrease by a certain amount when charging smashes (I think it's by 20%?)

Kb is increased by 20%. This could be interpreted as the characters weight decreasing by x amount which I'm not interested in calculating. But whatever, it doesn't matter much.

Edit: I missed the last bit of the kb formula, thanks @Chesstiger2612 for correcting me.

 

[Chesstiger2612]

Kb is increased by 20%. This could be interpreted as the characters weight decreasing by x amount which I'm not interested in calculating. But whatever, it doesn't matter much.

It is not possible to express the knockback increase as a weight decrease because it also affects base knockback which isn't affected by weight.

 

[Super]

SDI'ing Falco's shine, when should I SDI it left/right/up depending on positon or platforms? Would doublesticking it help? Also when I try to upthrow uair on spacies on platforms the timing is different depend on the heights, if I do it immediately on some stages it ends before their tech in place invincibility but if I wait too long I can get wakeup shined. Is there some type of cue to start the jump and uair or do I just learn the timing on each stage?

 

[Silent Wolf]

SDI'ing Falco's shine, when should I SDI it left/right/up depending on positon or platforms? Would doublesticking it help? Also when I try to upthrow uair on spacies on platforms the timing is different depend on the heights, if I do it immediately on some stages it ends before their tech in place invincibility but if I wait too long I can get wakeup shined. Is there some type of cue to start the jump and uair or do I just learn the timing on each stage?

If you're still trying to get the timing down for punishing techs then I wouldn't recommend relying on a timing as specific as SDI on Falco's shine. Generally to avoid getting combod you should just DI the shine towards whichever side you get hit on (away from him) so you go further. A low %s it's much easier to SDI his dair to avoid getting combod than his shine, which you may need to do either left or right depending on whichever direction will put you further from where he's gonna land.

Just practice the timing for placing the uair after the tech. Also try spacing it so you can follow up with a shine if they roll without having to run because usually you won't have time to get the shine otherwise. On stadium and yoshis platforms you can full jump auto cancel the uair (if you do it very quickly while rising) to cover the tech in place and still have time to dash grab/usmash the rolls. Uair isn't always the best option tho.

 

[SSBMLahti]

Hey guys, I feel as if I'm missing a huge aspect of my neutral game skill as Fox. I mix in DD's, waveshines, retreating and approaching wavedashes, empty hops, etc. But I usually always tend to give up my positioning and ground and get hit.

Maybe it's a spacing issue and lack of general attention to my own and my opponents placement on the stage and overcommitment to grabs?

Any and all feedback is appreciated!

 

[Red Rice]

Hey guys, I feel as if I'm missing a huge aspect of my neutral game skill as Fox. I mix in DD's, waveshines, retreating and approaching wavedashes, empty hops, etc. But I usually always tend to give up my positioning and ground and get hit.

Maybe it's a spacing issue and lack of general attention to my own and my opponents placement on the stage and overcommitment to grabs?

Any and all feedback is appreciated!

If you're dash dancing and still getting hit, work on your movement and spacing. Fox wins the neutral in three ways IMO

1. Dash dance and punish whiffed attacks and approaches. Fox's DD is amazing
2. Laser camp and make them approach, a lot of chars have terrible approaches
3. Do smart approaches, overshot nairs, run forward > WD back, etc., running shine

 

[Clebus]

1. Dash dance and punish whiffed attacks and approaches. Fox's DD is amazing

Punish with what? I play Marth so all I usually just go for a grab which may not be the best idear =(

 

[Zylo]

Punish with what? I play Marth so all I usually just go for a grab which may not be the best idear =(

It's pretty matchup dependent, but for most characters, you want to grab them, because fox can kill/start a combo off of his grab fairly easily. Exceptions are characters that fox doesn't have guaranteed grab follow-ups off of, such as samus, mario, doc (?), luigi (?), and others that I don't know. Depending on the percent, it might be best to just go for an up-smash, but shine/nair/nair-shine can all convert into stuff on most of those characters, and if not, help setup for an edgeguard.

 

[Clebus]

Woohoo thanks!

 

[Red Rice]

What Zylo said ^

You can't u-throw uair samus, bowser, doc, luigi, mario, ganon or DK. Pretty sure that's it...

 

[Bones0]

Did a quick run through of uthrow uair percents. I'm sure these are off, but they should all be pretty close. "+" indicates it combos until at least 150%.

Dr. Mario: Never
Luigi: Never
Peach: Never
Captain Falcon: 64%+
Ganondorf: 65% - 143%
Falco: 30%+
Fox: 29%+
Ice Climbers: 40% - 65% (this one was annoying so I might be way off on the ending percent)
Samus: Never
Sheik: 20%+
Jigglypuff: 0% - 90%
Marth: 19%+