How do I play as Fox properly?

[Ryu Myuutsu]

I've always gravitated towards heavyweights, technical and standard characters in fighting games, almost never using the speedsters. This time though I'm looking to challenge myself by actually playing as fast characters in this iteration of Smash. I want to learn how to use Fox (and later on Sonic) but every time I pick him up I feel like a blind man gaining sight for the first time in his life. Any pointers?

 

[Omastar]

Watch Larry Lurr or ZD. Watching pro players can be a good way to grasp neutral, what to do in advantage, etc.

 

[Rhus]

Watching pros is definitely very helpful. Here are some other useful tidbits:

• Fox's neutral and advantage are very dominant, but his disadvantage is very poor. Resetting to neutral is often much better than risking getting hit into disadvantage
  • To add onto this - Fox's speed enables an in-out gameplay of zipping in, getting a couple hits, and resetting. Don't be afraid of playing patiently and carefully. You are one of the lightest characters with a predictable recovery and gets combo'd easily so best not to risk your neck
• Fox can only be optimized by being as fast as possible. When practicing him, practice moving around the stage, auto cancelling your Uairs and full hop Dairs, reverse Utilts out of a dash etc.
• Practice your follow ups from your tilts and aerials, and be aware that Fox's speed enables bonkers tech chasing and vortexes. Use his dash, walk, jump, and fall speed all to their fullest when comboing and chasing your opponent.
• Throws are useful, but only because they open up Fox's advantage. You have no combos from throws at all, so use the throw that will put them in the worst position in that situation (except maybe Bthrow...it's almost always bad)
• Fsmash is pretty strong as a kill move. You can't combo into it, but you can read rolls with it and catch landings with it. You can do it out of a dash as well of course, it's an important option to keep in mind
• Generally, pursuing off stage is a no go - Fox falls like a rock and has a mediocre recovery so you have to be safe.
  • You can pursue off stage if your opponent is out of options or you are confident with intercepting their recovery. His best off stage tools are his shine, Nair, and Bair. If you can force someone to grab the ledge twice when getting back, your Dsmash sends at such a vicious angle that they just aren't coming back
  • In lieu of off stage, Fox's get up coverage is fantastic. Practice covering all the ledge get up options and keep your opponent in disadvantage for as long as possible.
• Combo wise, Dtilt has been completely changed to be a hugely useful combo tool, and Nair is very safe and combos into a lot of your ground attacks at early percents and Usmash at killing percent
• Finally, you almost never have to approach. Fox's lasers and reflector make him nigh impossible to camp for zoners and it's important to force approaches on characters that might be worse at approaching to force them into a bad situation

These are just some general tips for Fox - he's a pretty difficult character but stick with him. He's tons of fun.

 

[Ryu Myuutsu]

I've been taking that advice to heart and have been playing as Fox for a while now. I can now see what you guys mean. Initially, I thought I should rushdown my opponents at any given chance to take advantage of Fox's speed but that caused me to get severely punished, I see now why his disadvantage state is considered very poor. This has taught me when I should back down from a pursuing attempt and reset to neutral. I fought against a Bowser player a couple of days ago, and while I played well at first, Bowser was able to inflict me massive damage in my disadvantage state when I should have been more careful in my attacks.
I've practiced combos in training but applying them in an actual match is gonna take getting used to.

 

[Ryu Myuutsu]

The more I play Fox, the more effective my playstyle becomes. It is exhilarating being able to have control over the match because of your speed, reflector and lasers. I've dominated some of my matches against my cousin and brother where I reach the point where I can indirectly control their behavior and punish them for it.
The thing I'm still missing is consistency in my combos. I go training mode to practice every now and then. There is also the Dair cancelling I've seen in some of Skarfelt's videos, but I'm not sure how to cancel it to make a proper follow up.

 

[Rhus]

The thing I'm still missing is consistency in my combos. I go training mode to practice every now and then. There is also the Dair cancelling I've seen in some of Skarfelt's videos, but I'm not sure how to cancel it to make a proper follow up.

Do you mean full hop Dair autocancels?

Trick is to delay your Dair and start it at about half your full hop height. The last hit of your Dair pops them up into a good position for follow ups, mostly being Nair, Fair, and Uair.

 

[HeraSwellow]

Watch Light and ZD for a better idea and a visualization of Fox at its best, but these are also some good tips:

• Up-tilt > up-tilt > up-tilt can work for a long time and do plenty of damage to opponents. you can also follow up with like neutral air or back air after a up tilt
• Up smash is your best kill option
• Down tilt, dash attack, nair, ftilt are all great moves in neutral and should be used a lot
• Dash attack can combo into up tilt at early-mid percents and is safe
• Mix up your recovery (don't always use illusion or dont always use firefox, adapt to the situation and make it difficult for your opponent to intercept)
• fox is light and falls fast. I SD a lot when I play fox so don't be reckless

 

[King David]

Watching pros is definitely very helpful. Here are some other useful tidbits:

• Fsmash is pretty strong as a kill move. You can't combo into it, but you can read rolls with it and catch landings with it. You can do it out of a dash as well of course, it's an important option to keep in mind
• Generally, pursuing off stage is a no go - Fox falls like a rock and has a mediocre recovery so you have to be safe.
  • You can pursue off stage if your opponent is out of options or you are confident with intercepting their recovery. His best off stage tools are his shine, Nair, and Bair. If you can force someone to grab the ledge twice when getting back, your Dsmash sends at such a vicious angle that they just aren't coming back

These are just some general tips for Fox - he's a pretty difficult character but stick with him. He's tons of fun.

Can anyone expand a bit on the comments above in bold?

 

[Rhus]

Can anyone expand a bit on the comments above in bold?

Sure thing.

In smash ultimate, you can do any grounded attack out of a dash. You can do this by running > reset the stick to neutral > input Fsmash. With Fox, his Fsmash has reasonable horizontal reach and does hit slightly above his head with shockingly good kill power. I frequently use it to dash to dodge their landing option and then punish their landing as Fox is lightning fast. I might have a replay of this specific thing so I can upload a gif of it or something after work.

Regarding the second comment, if someone grabs the ledge again a) without hitting the ground and b) without getting hit then they won't regain the normal ledge invincibility that you normally get from snapping to the ledge. If you see someone do this, you can react to it by Dsmashing the ledge. The knockback angle is directly horizontal, so anyone at higher percents is going to have a lot of trouble getting back.

 

[King David]

Sure thing.

In smash ultimate, you can do any grounded attack out of a dash. You can do this by running > reset the stick to neutral > input Fsmash. With Fox, his Fsmash has reasonable horizontal reach and does hit slightly above his head with shockingly good kill power. I frequently use it to dash to dodge their landing option and then punish their landing as Fox is lightning fast. I might have a replay of this specific thing so I can upload a gif of it or something after work.

Regarding the second comment, if someone grabs the ledge again a) without hitting the ground and b) without getting hit then they won't regain the normal ledge invincibility that you normally get from snapping to the ledge. If you see someone do this, you can react to it by Dsmashing the ledge. The knockback angle is directly horizontal, so anyone at higher percents is going to have a lot of trouble getting back.

Thank you for the detailed explanation. I'm currently trying to make that climb from "good" to "great" so this helps.

 

[Rhus]

Thank you for the detailed explanation. I'm currently trying to make that climb from "good" to "great" so this helps.

Here are some examples of using it to punish people's landings!

https://i.imgur.com/94iHpGC.gifv
https://i.imgur.com/sgevI9a.gifv

EDIT: Sorry King David - gifs should work fine now.

 

[King David]

Rhus Thanks!

 

[Ryu Myuutsu]

Old topic but just wanted to give a small update on my journey to become a competent FAX player.

I'm proud of my progress so far. I feel I have good control over him and have nailed most aspects of his playstyle. To the dismay of my brother and my coworkers, I play a fast hit and run style and run in circles around them. I'm still ways to go. The other day, my bro destroyed me as Wolf (This is one of the moments where I understood how detrimental disadvantage is for Fox) and I still have a difficult time recognizing and executing a follow up from Nair to UpSmash. I also don't understand how to auto cancel Dair yet. I haven't practiced as much as I wanted because life you know, but I would appreciate some pointers on the uses of Dair.

 

[Anomika]

Dair autocancels from a full hop, so try using dair as soon as you start doing a full hop (starts at frame 4 after pressing the jump button), and you should autocancel upon landing. It's a pretty useful move for predicting the jumps and for shield pressuring (It's almost impossible to punish it on parry itself unless the opponent has a frame 3 option out of shield).

Landing the last hit of autocancel dair is a pretty underused but great combo starter, it can combo into uair easily. Landing dair has some uses, mainly to combo into up smash at KO% and possibly jab at low%.

It's a good move but it also has bad sides: high landing lag means it's punishable on shield if it doesn't shield poke and the opponent is aware of it (they keep shielding after they attempt to parry it), and its hits aren't very consistent, meaning that the opponents may fall out of it if you drift too far while using the move.