Help a Falco out?

[Akasuna no Sasori]

Hello all! I'm looking for some Falco advice/critique! I've been playing smash for a while now, but don't really go to many tournaments (although I want to start going to more). And in case anyone is wondering why all these matches are against the same person... there's no one else that lives near me that plays smash and is any good.

vs Fox
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzZyyC7ac6c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOGR1RJOSoo&feature=channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM56U_Mw8mg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kezQC2OXFj8

vs Samus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7wG7n1SBUk&feature=channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N00WKwJEIkM

vs Captain Falcon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPCtsyB3dP8&feature=channel

vs Ganondorf
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vKd0gsYgK4

 

[person701]

You've got a good ground game, but your air game is lacking. Try to focus on some other aerials other than your d-air like b-air and n-air. You've got pillaring pretty down pat it seems. As for fighting the Samus, don't wait to reflect the missiles, just get out of the way. Over all, not too bad. Could use a little work.

 

[FoxLisk]

uh. yeah. L-cancel. and tech. i watched 2 matches and didn't see you tech a single hit.

relatedly: your opponent almost never teched anything, either, so punish him for it. if you notice someone's not teching, you should assume they're going to continue not teching and not hesitate to punish where they're landing.

you missed a lot of easy edgeguards on fox, too. don't do that.

 

[Akasuna no Sasori]

Added the rest of the links to OP

You've got a good ground game, but your air game is lacking. Try to focus on some other aerials other than your d-air like b-air and n-air. You've got pillaring pretty down pat it seems. As for fighting the Samus, don't wait to reflect the missiles, just get out of the way. Over all, not too bad. Could use a little work.

Thanks! Yeah, I'm trying to break myself of overusing dair. Old habits die hard though lol Same thing with the reflecting.

uh. yeah. L-cancel. and tech. i watched 2 matches and didn't see you tech a single hit.

relatedly: your opponent almost never teched anything, either, so punish him for it. if you notice someone's not teching, you should assume they're going to continue not teching and not hesitate to punish where they're landing.

you missed a lot of easy edgeguards on fox, too. don't do that.

Thanks for the advice! Which two matches did you watch, by the way? Because some of the later ones I teched more in, although I admit I'm not very consistent with it. As for edgeguarding... Yeah. I'm not too good at it. I've been gimped off stage by Fox so many times in the past I'm afraid to go after him now lol

 

[FoxLisk]

i watched two of the fox matches. i clicked the first one and then followed that to another one, not sure which number.

you don't have to go after him. he was generally illusioning high, which is punishable with most of your moveset (nair, bair, fsmash, ftilt, utilt, lasers to make him drop down). just watch him and don't expect him to go for the sweet spot when he hasn't been all match. just stand near the edge and when you see him start to do a move, react to that, rather than trying to predict early. you have plenty of time to react, so you should get him most of the time.

 

[bolt.]

You should work on being more aware. You use smash attacks when your opponent is at 0% and shield when your opponent isn't close to you. When you throw an attack out it rarely hits and when it hits you seem to get nervous and mess up the combo. When shffling attacks you should use the attack at around the top of you sh then ff l cancel after it makes it a lot easier, at least for me. You roll out oos a lot too you can mis in wd oos to speed up your game. Work on your basics and then work on more technical things that should help a lot. If I were you I would go to more tournaments you'll better almost automatically that way. I would also recommend watching videos of really good falcos and learning lasers patterns, approaches, how they camp lasers, etc.

 

[Akasuna no Sasori]

Thanks for all the advice so far everyone! Before I made this thread and I watched my videos, I had a hard time spotting mistakes, but thanks to all your input I'm starting to learn what kind of things to look for and how to fix them. I really appreciate it! Now I just have to start working on all this stuff

But that doesn't mean I don't want anymore advice if anyone has any they are willing to give. I always appreciate (and need) more advice

 

[Hostility]

You throw all your moves out without even paying attention to what the other person is doing. Watch the other person as you're playing, don't watch your character. If the fox jumps out of the way, don't do an attack where he was a second ago, react according to the situation, don't act like you're going according to a script.

Work on basic tech skill like waveshines, teching hits, and shine -> waveland on platforms and make sure you can do them 100%

 

[KikoMePlease]

I only watched the first fox video and half of the second, but this is what I notice.

Tech skill is definitely a problem, I don't think I saw a shine-->waveland in the fox vids that I watched. Lack of tech skill makes your movement a bit stale at times, so try to work on moving more fluid. Work on your laser game, they are over powered; however don't just laser laser --> approach all the time, mix it up! That doesn't mean you should always approach though, try to bait fox to approach you instead. As for edgeguarding him, f-throw--> double laser --> follow up work well against fox/falco.

 

[Akasuna no Sasori]

Work on basic tech skill like waveshines, teching hits, and shine -> waveland on platforms and make sure you can do them 100%

Is there anyway to practice teching hits without having someone else around? I'm the only smash player in my town, so that makes practicing stuff like that kind of difficult.

I only watched the first fox video and half of the second, but this is what I notice.

Tech skill is definitely a problem, I don't think I saw a shine-->waveland in the fox vids that I watched. Lack of tech skill makes your movement a bit stale at times, so try to work on moving more fluid. Work on your laser game, they are over powered; however don't just laser laser --> approach all the time, mix it up! That doesn't mean you should always approach though, try to bait fox to approach you instead. As for edgeguarding him, f-throw--> double laser --> follow up work well against fox/falco.

Thanks for the advice! I have a question about wavelanding onto platforms with Falco though. I'm good at wavelanding onto platforms with C.Falcon (now, anyways. Practiced it since recording the videos) but since Falco jumps so much higher than other characters, I'm having a hard time getting used to it. Do you do a fast double jump into waveland or a single jump? Is one faster than the other, or does it not matter which one you do?

 

[KikoMePlease]

I'm pretty sure it doesn't really matter that much, but I just single jump to waveland. If you're going to shine--> waveland you're gonna jump twice anyway =P

 

[Hostility]

Is there anyway to practice teching hits without having someone else around? I'm the only smash player in my town, so that makes practicing stuff like that kind of difficult.

Your reactions overall just need to improve, and you get better at that by playing. I don't know of a way in training mode you can practice reacting to when you get hit or doing that vs a CPU since they suck at almost everything. When you're playing try and really really pay attention to everything that is going on, the better you get at that, the better you will be at teching when you get hit. It's something a lot of players including myself need to work on, and its worked on best playing people.

 

[DtJ Jungle]

You looked like you were trying to go really fast. You can practice movement without anyone. Wavedashing, wavelanding, waveshinging dash dashing and other things.

 

[LLDL]

i could count the amount of lazers you shot in the battlefield match, that's not a good sign. You really need to shoot more, there is no shame in doing so. Practice shl over and over again until you reach a point where it feels natural and you CAN'T play without shooting lasers. Sort of how you eventually can't stand to ariel without L-canceling.