How do I Beat Falcon?

[BigHairyFart]

So I went to a tourney the other day and played my first Falcon, who then proceeded to walk all over me. I used TL against him, and just couldn't get away from him. It seems that peoples' opinions are very divided(for example, people in this forum say Link gives Falcon a hard time, but over in the Link page, people say that Falcon is a pain in the ass). So my question for you guys is what should I do to counterpick a Falcon? What are his weaknesses? My characters appear in my sig, so if any of those are pertinent, please let me know.

 

[ThreeSided]

Falcon is an insane combo character who can aggro all over the stage and wreck you. If you give him the chance, he will pressure you until you give and then combo you to death. He's probably the best in the game at what he does. However, these traits come with some serious glaring weaknesses which some go so far as to argue make him a mediocre character in PM.

First off, he's combo bait. He's a fast faller. A lot of people don't realize this, but falcon is actually about as fast of a faller as Fox. It just doesn't seem that way because fox's fast fall is faster. He's heavier than fox too, so he stays nice and tight with you while you combo him. On top of this, he has some of the ****tiest tech rolls in the game, so tech chasing him is incredibly easy.

Next, his recovery sucks. Falcon's dive is ok in length, and can actually cover a surprising amount of horizontal distance, but it's very predictable and one-dimmensional. The fixed side-b improved his recovery game slightly, but it's still not a great option. Gimping falcon is probably the easiest way to kill him. Combine being combo bait with this and you can get some ridiculously early kills on falcon.

Those two are probably the biggest and most abusable weaknesses falcon has. Other than that, there's the fact that he has no projectiles. This isn't the biggest issue in the world since falcon basically IS a projectile, but it can make dealing with other projectile characters difficult. You could probably be smart about how you dance around the stage while zoning with projectiles. Basically you'll want to shut down his pressure game while zoning and look for openings to combo him. I don't know much about Tink, but I'm sure he has something good to gimp him to death with, and I'm sure he has plenty of combos on fast fallers.

 

[BigHairyFart]

Falcon is an insane combo character who can aggro all over the stage and wreck you. If you give him the chance, he will pressure you until you give and then combo you to death. He's probably the best in the game at what he does. However, these traits come with some serious glaring weaknesses which some go so far as to argue make him a mediocre character in PM.

First off, he's combo bait. He's a fast faller. A lot of people don't realize this, but falcon is actually about as fast of a faller as Fox. It just doesn't seem that way because fox's fast fall is faster. He's heavier than fox too, so he stays nice and tight with you while you combo him. On top of this, he has some of the ****tiest tech rolls in the game, so tech chasing him is incredibly easy.

Next, his recovery sucks. Falcon's dive is ok in length, and can actually cover a surprising amount of horizontal distance, but it's very predictable and one-dimmensional. The fixed side-b improved his recovery game slightly, but it's still not a great option. Gimping falcon is probably the easiest way to kill him. Combine being combo bait with this and you can get some ridiculously early kills on falcon.

Those two are probably the biggest and most abusable weaknesses falcon has. Other than that, there's the fact that he has no projectiles. This isn't the biggest issue in the world since falcon basically IS a projectile, but it can make dealing with other projectile characters difficult. You could probably be smart about how you dance around the stage while zoning with projectiles. Basically you'll want to shut down his pressure game while zoning and look for openings to combo him. I don't know much about Tink, but I'm sure he has something good to gimp him to death with, and I'm sure he has plenty of combos on fast fallers.

Tink has two really effective gimps on fast fallers, but they both involve grabbing(either a D-Throw CG, or F-Throw offstage>D-Tilt meteor), but Falcon proved to be difficult to actually grab. Maybe the Falcon I played was just leagues ahead of me(his name was Darkrain if that means anything here), but thanks for the input anyways. I feel like Link or Lucario would be my best options against him.

 

[kaizo13]

Maybe the Falcon I played was just leagues ahead of me(his name was Darkrain if that means anything here)

lololol, i have a feeling it was just the Falcon player

 

[ThreeSided]

Tink has two really effective gimps on fast fallers, but they both involve grabbing(either a D-Throw CG, or F-Throw offstage>D-Tilt meteor), but Falcon proved to be difficult to actually grab. Maybe the Falcon I played was just leagues ahead of me(his name was Darkrain if that means anything here), but thanks for the input anyways. I feel like Link or Lucario would be my best options against him.

Darkrain is a pretty well known falcon player from the melee days. He's one of my old favorites. Probably the flashiest falcon around.

As for gimping, you don't need to combo into it. When you send them off the stage just try and predict their recovery and throw a good gimping move in their path. I'm pretty sure Tink has aerials that beat out dive.

 

[Crescent Monkey]

Darkrain: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yxgk2NfqOoM

 

[Reizoko]

You don't /:

 

[Deleted member]

Gimp the **** outta him,

Edgeguard him to death,

Tech chase him to oblivion.

Also IMO, Roy has a really good matchup against Falcon, so that's a very decent counterpick.

 

[MudkipUniverse]

Your mains look a little ridiculous. I mean how much of them there are

 

[BigHairyFart]

Roy has a really good matchup against Falcon, so that's a very decent counterpick.

I found that out pretty quick at my last friendly, so that's good news.

Your mains look a little ridiculous. I mean how much of them there are

Get on my level.

 

[pooch182]

Get on my level.

Your level isn't optimal if you want to be a great player, in all honestly. Five characters is a lot of information to balance when you consider that you'll need to eventually learn combo percents on characters, character specific AT, they've got different jump squats, etc.

At the same time, there's absolutely no shame in losing to Darkrain. For chrissake, it's ****ing Darkrain. Back to how to deal with Falcon when he's off the ledge. You don't necessarily have to use grabs to gimp him. He's got a silly recovery, and if you go out and throw a well-timed nair as TL, or a fair, or really anything, you can knock him far enough away from the stage to where he won't be able to recover. Just work on spacing yourself at the ledge to where you can cover a high recovery, but can safely go out and punish a mix up, or even just hog ledge for a low recovery. Use your projectiles to force an option; arrow is honestly pretty solid at making the opponent jump to avoid, which leaves them either without a double jump, or waiting to go for a sweetspot, which is easily covered.

 

[DoorKnob]

When edge guarding falcon, almost everyone gets greedy and wants to kill early but all you really need to do is repeatedly hit him off stage. Trust me it's a huge momentum killer as well.

 

[Blazing Ambition]

Falcon's hyper-aggressive playstyle is both a strength AND a weakness, as he's based heavily on momentum and comboing into one of his few, reliable kill moves. However, anybody with decent range, spacing tools, or tech chase option kinda screws falcon over, as falcon has ****ty defensive options. (Literally no options out of shield, crappy rolls, etc.). Characters like charizard and metaknight can down-throw -> tech chase for days, and link has that handy up+B spike that makes gimping falcon a piece of cake. Link's boomerang also ruins Falcon's momentum, and is just a pain in general.
Just my two cents as a falcon main.

 

[BigHairyFart]

Your level isn't optimal if you want to be a great player, in all honestly. Five characters is a lot of information to balance when you consider that you'll need to eventually learn combo percents on characters, character specific AT, they've got different jump squats, etc.

That was meant as more of a joke than it came out to be... my bad. But I am handling five characters pretty well, and I can't say that any of them are suffering from a lack of attention.