Fox's bad match ups

[~ Gheb ~]

how has everyone been handling pikachus? Has an incredibly dominant neutral game, and (what feels like) a lot of favorable frame data/priority against fox. I like that nair crosses up well, but that's the only thing I'm really feeling out of this.

Pikachu's difficult. He's basically like Fox with less reliable kill setups but ridiculous edgeguarding. Gotta outplay the opponent in neutral if you wanna have the edge against Pikachu.

 

[Victor Marczyk]

I tend to have the most trouble fighting either a really good or highly annoying little mac

 

[Victor Marczyk]

Posted twice by accident, word

 

[Mindles]

diddy kong...

 

[Virgule]

So far i find that fox is pretty decent against a lot of the cast except for a few obvious more difficult matches :
///... It can be a bit more difficult to deal against them for a principal reason : they're all fast and can catch up with fox's natural speed wich is one of his main strenght.

Personnaly i still have some trouble against some heavy characters but i feel like it's just my mistakes that cause this and not particularly the Mu.

Though there is one Character that i have absolutely no idea how to play against : /
Their B-side covers a lot of ground movements and it's a pain if they manage to hit you with it, you're almost free for a grab or a levin sword attack. I feel like it's a pkFire without the possibility to shield it. Also if you jump above the Bside the can catch you with a levin Aerials.
Then we play the laser game, right ? There's the problem : Robin doesn't really mind stay out of range to charge up the thorons even if they take a bit of damages. The thoron can be shined but if you fail at it (easy to do online) then you're in a terrible shape.
Does the Matchup consists to laser and force robin to come to you trying to shine the projectiles ? Or to play fast hoping robin cannot follow fox's movements? I really struggle and i don't know if it's just me or if i didn't understood something right.

 

[luke_atyeo]

I've been playing against robin a fair bit with a friend who mains robin, and we both feel that the matchup is pretty heavy in foxes favor.
Robins sideB can be annoying since it can get in the way of our approaching, and land behind fox which can also get in the way of retreating from a failed approach, but if you just vary the angles you come from and timings in which you come, you can get past the side b, and then its smooth sailing from there. Once you are up close robin has no real 'get off me' options, so you can just stay on her and beat the **** out of her.
The sideB also has a mediumish startup so if you are close to her and you know she's going to do it, you can actually run under it and hit her during the startup (or just after if she jumped as it will go over your head at close range) and thats a free upsmash kill or combo starter.
Her grab sucks so its pretty easy to pressure her shield.
Shes slow so you can get away with stuff you might not be able to (your own side B for instance)
After a downthrow, you can just stand on the ground under her and she cant do much, if she tries to side b you just jump up under her and punish, if she jumps away you follow, if she airdodges to the ground you get a free punish, and if she tries to aerial you as she lands you shield and thats another free punish.
Basically, once you learn to get past elfire, the amount of pressure you can put on robin is silly.

Another option for dealing with elfire which I havent really tried yet is shine, if you shine it it will fly off at a stupid angle and wont hit robin, but after the shine you can cancel into a roll or a jump, which if timed correctly, will probably let you punish the end lag of elfire, try that out for a bit, also once the elfire has landed and turned into the flame on the ground, if you fall into in in reflector, you become invincible to the rest of its hitboxes

 

[Turbopasta]

kirby, jiggly, and pikachu. Anything that can crouch to avoid lasers basically. They can be very painful matchups since you're forced to engage so often. Kirby and Jiggly can just zone you out forever if they want.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

[quote="Virgule, post: 18134381, member: 277208"Though there is one Character that i have absolutely no idea how to play against : /[/quote]

If you feel uncomfortable against Robin ... just run away and laugh at him.

 

[Weeman]

Mario i find quite hard, he can combo us like crazy if he gets even one grab.

 

[ImReallyFeelingIt]

kirby, jiggly, and pikachu. Anything that can crouch to avoid lasers basically. They can be very painful matchups since you're forced to engage so often. Kirby and Jiggly can just zone you out forever if they want.

This. I was going to post something like this but he said it for me.

 

[DavemanCozy]

I've been finding that F-tilt pivot works as a quick way to turn around and start lasering. F-tilt is only like 10 frames long, such a fast move and Fox slides so much with his pivots.

is alright. I used to john about the matchup a lot, took me a few times to get this matchup right. You have to basically bait him into doing something punishable (watch out for his smash attacks though, they have super armor) go in and get him in the air (Fox has tons of moves to do this), then bait the counter or air-dodge once he's in the air and keep popping him up. It's pretty annoying because you can't be constantly on him, you have to run in and out (otherwise his faster ground moves will mess us up).
It's tough because Fox won't have a solid way sans our B-air, F-smash and D-smash to get him off-stage successfully, which means Little Mac will build his KO punch meter with all the damage we give him. I think this is what makes him hard, the fact that we play a damage-racking combo character vs a character who gets rewarded for getting hit x_x

is on the same boat, except I think he's much worse than Little Mac. If he's at 140% and we're at 45%, both of us are in KO percentage. Luckily, Lucario has some laggy moves that we can abuse, specially if he lands onstage after his recovery. When you have to chance to do quick punishes, a falling N-air and dash attack work wonders to push him in favorable positions in front and above us respectively, dashing in and grabbing also works if you see him fall from an unsafe aerial onstage (just be careful of Force Palm or other moves like those, so much hurt). Stop building damage once he hits ~115%, nothing will combo into Fox's KO moves if you do that and he'll be hella hard to KO.

Here's how to beat him: use Down-B. 3/4 of Mega Man's moveset is instantly useless.
Ok, jokes aside, it's obviously not that simple. Mega Man is an extreme zoner though, but just Down-B won't win you the match. While you should be using the reflector occasionally (ie, don't become predictable with it), you should be avoiding his linear projectiles (they all travel in straight angles). You can shield his Crash Bomb, pick up / grab his Metal Blade, and just jump away from the Leaf Shield. His jabs are pretty annoying though, a good Mega Man will try to zone you out from a mid-distance with short-hops, shooting in front of him in the ground and at SH jump height. Pretty annoying to get close to him, shielding at the right moments is key in this matchup. Once you get close to him though, stay on him! He'll try to rush coil his way out, and if he does that's ok but just chase his air movement from the ground and keep him up there. Fox capitalizes a lot in keeping his opponent in the air.
If you see him charge his F-smash (the Charge Shot), just press down-B right in front of him for a free stock.

These are just some matchups.

 

[M@v]

Not saying its a bad matchup, but Fox still can't do any sort of combo on Luigi without getting naired lmao. Can't even do two upltilts at 9%, or a rapid jab combo without getting it in the face >;/

You have the play it a lot differently that's all; but gyaaa its annoying that Luigi can do that.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Yeah those sub 4-frame nairs are really obnoxious because they can break almost every string that's not guaranteed. Luigi is the most annoying because he's floaty but Yoshi's nair is pretty ******** too. Can't combo these characters for ****.

 

[MrPhox]

Both are heavy and have good recoveries. Making them live until high percentages. Fox has few kill options compared to other characters. Fox has no options out past the stage's edge for edge-guarding. You just have to wait for them to come back. Down smash will only kill at extremely high percentages. Fsmash is the hardest to land of his smash attacks, and isn't as powerful as you'd hope. That leaves upsmash as Fox's only reliable way to kill.

If you can combo into upair, that probably means they're at a low percent and won't die. Most opponents can't be directly true-combo'd into an upair finish. The range on his upair is short compared to most of the cast. 's down air can stuff it easily. Both and have multiple jumps to juke fox mid-air.

Since Fox falls fast but is light, he can be juggled easily, and killed before 100% regularly. I've been killed by an uncharged bowser fsmash and died in my 70s, and I was struck past the center mark of final destination. That means I flew across the stage and still died. Because of this you have to put up nearly three times the damage that Dedede or Charizard has to.

's recovery is nearly unpunishable with a running upsmash.
's rock smash cancels Fox's landing-punishment game, including his upsmash.

Both can camp the edge. Hang, drop, jump, upair, repeat. If players camp in game to get a sudden death, they can then camp sudden death the same way and wait for bombs to drop on you (bombs only drop on the stage itself) Fox has very few options for edge campers. His most reliable kill move over the edge is his back air. If you run off the stage and immediately back air, you are very close to committing suicide. You have to immediately recover otherwise you die. So dropping a back air any lower than immediately will result in suicide.

's will punish laser spam
's dash attack is surprising. You may think you can be defensive and drop a nair on him when he runs at you but you will be surprised by the hitbox and power of Dedede's dash attack. It will kill fox if it connects fresh when fox is in his late 60's and near the edge.

 

[DEHF]

So far i find that fox is pretty decent against a lot of the cast except for a few obvious more difficult matches :
///... It can be a bit more difficult to deal against them for a principal reason : they're all fast and can catch up with fox's natural speed wich is one of his main strenght.

Personnaly i still have some trouble against some heavy characters but i feel like it's just my mistakes that cause this and not particularly the Mu.

Little Mac feels like a fairly even match up. Keep in mind his grab range sucks, so shield is a very safe option against him, unless he has ko punch. I'm pretty sure any attack he does on shield can be punished with dash attack. Once you get Little Mac in the air just keep throwing out spaced up airs; he doesn't have a good answer for that move. All of his aerials lose to up air and even if he activates counter, if the up air is spaced it won't hit you. There's actually been many instances where Little Mac has activated counter on my up air and has flown offstage and died because of it. Also, double jab up smash works on Little Mac, though the timing seems kind of tight.

The way I approach Diddy Kong is this match up is very similar to how I approached Brawl MK. You want to focus on landing a lot of whiff punishes in the neutral game, head to head attacks will almost always be in Diddy's favor. Something huge that should be practiced is hitting Diddy out of his up b. Fox's nair will beat Diddy's up b, doing this when Diddy is below the edge recovering will result in a gimp. This match up feels like it's definitely in Diddy's favor. The main reason being that Diddy kills us at around the same percent we kill him, but he has far easier kill set ups. Something I heard from a fellow Fox main in SoCal is that Fox can do enough double jab reps to connect it into an up smash against Diddy. If this is true, then it would make the match up much better.

Also, I feel like Fox destroys most of the heavier characters. He has so many strings and follow ups on them, even when they're at high percent. Short hop side b up air, which seems to true combo at kill percent against everyone, is far easier to land against them.

 

[DavemanCozy]

's recovery is nearly unpunishable with a running upsmash.

Oh geez, don't go U-smashing Dedede if he's crashing down from his Up-B. If he's going to land onstage, time a B-air to flick him away. That's a much better option, getting below any character slamming down is just a bad idea.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Something I heard from a fellow Fox main in SoCal is that Fox can do enough double jab reps to connect it into an up smash against Diddy. If this is true, then it would make the match up much better.

I've tried to do that against my friend luigi player and he was able to break out with uair. Rapid jab is the only follow-up that Diddy can't break out of after jab 2.

 

[MrPhox]

Oh geez, don't go U-smashing Dedede if he's crashing down from his Up-B. If he's going to land onstage, time a B-air to flick him away. That's a much better option, getting below any character slamming down is just a bad idea.

Not just getting below him, but trying to do a running upsmash when has just landed from his up special. The stars that come out his sides interrupt ground attacks.

 

[Deleted member 278362]

[ removed ]

 

[DavemanCozy]

The stars from Dedede's Up Special can be reflected easily. Perhaps you could follow up from that? I could have tried if I actually thought to quickly act after reflecting them.

Yeah, you can actually follow up. You can cancel the reflector animation as soon as you reflect something back (ie, just like you can jump-cancel the reflector in Melee, you can do the same in Smash 4 but only if you have reflected something).

I still think it's easier to just SH B-air Dedede before he lands. His recovery has a pretty predictable trajectory, and we have some great movement to intercept him.

 

[Timbers]

I'm a bit surprised that a discussion about how to punish DDD's upB onstage is a thing? It's incredibly telegraphed. You can SH over the stars, or bair him, or wait for stars to disappear and then DA/usmash, or just sit under him in your shield (it's far from bowser downB shieldbreak) and punish after if you're feeling incredibly lazy. There's no reason to contest his upB...you have hours to punish the afterlag.

 

[DavemanCozy]

Some matchups I would appreciate some advice on:

-> Even after the patch, I still think she's hard. Would appreciate any input from TKD and Gheb on the Sheik matchup, I know you guys have been saying it's even but I just don't see it. How do I deal with that F-air? What should I do when she's at mid-distance? How should I be dodging a grounded Bouncing Fish when I'm on the ground? Any general tips?

-> How to get close to her? Luma covers many of the blindspots in her attacks. Is there any way to get rid of Luma efficiently? General tips?

-> How do you get close to him now? Incredibly fast N-air, great egg projectile, tons of OoS options, gawdlike dash attack range, strong aerials, and very little cool-down in many of his moves. I honestly think he's Fox's hardest MU. Any general advice?

 

[Mindles]

Some matchups I would appreciate some advice on:

-> Even after the patch, I still think she's hard. Would appreciate any input from TKD and Gheb on the Sheik matchup, I know you guys have been saying it's even but I just don't see it. How do I deal with that F-air? What should I do when she's at mid-distance? How should I be dodging a grounded Bouncing Fish when I'm on the ground? Any general tips?

-> How to get close to her? Luma covers many of the blindspots in her attacks. Is there any way to get rid of Luma efficiently? General tips?

-> How do you get close to him now? Incredibly fast N-air, great egg projectile, tons of OoS options, gawdlike dash attack range, strong aerials, and very little cool-down in many of his moves. I honestly think he's Fox's hardest MU. Any general advice?

shoot the badguys

 

[Kon]

Always keep in mind that you can reflect a charged Luma in order to hit her. However it could be even better if Luma were far away from Rosalina so you can easily punish her grounded moves and go for grabs. In the air make sure to not get into any of the aerials. There ist almost no way to go against the Up-Air. Same goes for the Down-Air. Honestly I think in general it's a bad idea to fight her in the air. However you can dodge the aerials and then punish with nair. Worked quite a few times for the up-air.
Another great thing: Rosalina's recovery does no damage at all, it can't hit anyone. So keep that in mind and try to punish her when she's trying to use her recovery. But also do not forget she has good aerials. So most of the follow-ups in the air are pretty risky. Another important point is that she can recover from pretty low, so don't go too early for a stage spike in order to not get punished yourself.
In general it's always a good idea to separate Luma and Rosalina one from the other. This will probably increase your chances to get her on the ground.
Also keep yourself out of her grabrange as I feel like she has some good throw-combos.

This is all I can say about the fox-rosalina matchup from my personal experience.

I also feel like some already said: is a difficult one. He is faster, has strong kill options(both on the ground as well as in the air). You can punish him for using the knee of justice if you're able to airdodge it right after he lands on the ground. I wouldn't recommand to follow offstage as he can get you with his recovery and even get a stage-spike out of this. Also as he can use his recovery as long as he gets you with the recovery, going offstage could help Falcon to get back on stage again.
As Falcon has good aerials too, you can almost expect him to follow you into the air. Be prepared for that(and as already said especially for the knee of justice). You may sometimes be able to surprise him with a fast-fall down-air as long as it doesn't get too predictable.
One thing I could not try yet, is to airdodge his aerials and maybe you can fast enough get your nair started to hit him right after you airdodged.
Another problem is how to really kill Falcon. Because of his higher speed and better kill options, you have to be extremely cautious. I feel like the only reliable kill options so far are really the up smash and side smash. Maybe also the down smash. The back air is good in order to kill, but it's extremely risky against someone like Falcon who can almost immediately get you with his recovery if you don't get to hit first.

These are just personal impressions. May be right, may be wrong. Feel free to add more or to correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[M@v]

Thinking Fox Sonic in even in this game. Its hard for both characters because they can punish each hard for small mistakes since they are both fast.

But seriously, **** sonic's back air. It was a terrible idea to make his best kill move a grab because there's nowhere to run now LOL.

For those who haven't played sonics much, its basically as strong as Ness's backthrow now X_x

 

[jr22]

I have one match up to talk about and its ZSS


Stay close to her and keep her in the air, be beneath her, and it will shut her down very effectively because she lacks options when beneath her. If she tries to down b away from fox, she can be punish very easy because has the speed to follow her very easily. Platforms on the other hand makes her down b an escape option.

 

[DEHF]

I've tried to do that against my friend luigi player and he was able to break out with uair. Rapid jab is the only follow-up that Diddy can't break out of after jab 2.

Are you sure you didn't do it to him high in the air or something? He should be too low to the ground for up air to come out.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

At what percent were you able to do it? I think there are a lot of factors that matter - percent, DI and rage at least. It's possible that under certain circumstances Diddy pops up high enough after jab 2 to be able to prevent the usmash follow-up with uair. At least that's what seems to happen whenever I try to finish Diddy with a jab cancel usmash.

 

[DEHF]

I know it doesn't work at 0 and extremely low percents, but I want to say after about 20ish, maybe 30ish percent it's guaranteed. Earlier today I discussed this with another Fox player who was having the same issue; you have to press the a button and not hold it in order for it to work.

Vs Diddy jab > jab > up smash is not guaranteed, but jab > jab > up tilt > up air is at certain percents. In order for this to work you have to make sure you hit Diddy with the up tilt while facing him. If you turn around and up tilt after jabbing they might go too far away for the up air to connect.

 

[Problem2]

D-smash comes out faster than u-smash, no? I've been landing tons of jab, jab, d-smashes lately.

Related to match-ups, i havent had a harder time than i have had against Rosalina. As other characters, I typically beat up Luma for a bit then go after Rosalina, but Fox get out prioritized pretty badly by Luma. You don't want to smash it as your lag sill br punished. I started doing best by just trying to grt behind Rosalina and try not to engage Luma at all. I haven't had the chance to try and space back airs against Luma (too hard online), but that might be worth researching and could make the match-up a ton easier.

 

[DEHF]

It is, but I'm not sure whether or not it is guaranteed on Diddy.

Rosalina is extremely easy hit while recovering. You can dsmash her up b to the edge or utilt it. Also, you can knock out Luma with fthrow, depending on where she is positioned. Jab jab up smash is also guaranteed on her as long as Luma is not next to her.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Rosalina has become easier for me after the patch. Some of her hitboxes have aligned correctly which is important for Fox because weird hitboxes and animations on Rosalinas part don't get in Foxes way as much anymore. Huge deal because accuracy is very important for Fox and a number of moves are clearly easier to punish now. I don't think it's a losing matchup as much as it used to be. If Fox loses then it's likely only by 45/55. I think Yoshi is the only character who's worse than that.

 

[M@v]

How do you guys generally play against ZSS? Only character I'm competent with in that MU at this moment is
My fox just gets juggled haha, and since I fastfall, its hard to escape. And the MU plays completely different from brawl obviously, so I can't just do things I did in that game.

 

[elmike]

seems like fox has many important bad/difficult MU (yoshi, lucario, sonic, ZZS and pikachu)

 

[KAOSN00B]

Can anyone give me advice against ness and peach? Those are the two that just rock me every time. Seriously my only wins against a good ness or peach are purely lucky

 

[RPK]

Any tips on the Kirby match up? I'm finding that I'm having a lot of trouble with it as his crouch just avoids practically everything. Even standing grab...

 

[KAOSN00B]

Any tips on the Kirby match up? I'm finding that I'm having a lot of trouble with it as his crouch just avoids practically everything. Even standing grab...

For kirby i find forward and down tilts help and if he is rolling a lot try and dash attack him. Just be patient thags the key. Hope that helps

 

[luke_atyeo]

guys I got knocked out by two different captain falcons at a tourney today, what the ****
what do I do?

 

[Soshii]

Jigglypuff is a really hard matchup as previously stated. Jiggly can chase off-stage really deep and keep hitting you out of firefox or phantasm, you need to fight back off-stage and recover at the last moment possible.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

guys I got knocked out by two different captain falcons at a tourney today, what the ****
what do I do?

I have problems with that matchup too. Watching Razer vs megafox only helped me so much ...