milligraham
Smash Apprentice
Hello everyone, I was wondering if you guys could give me some tips for beating my friend's fox.
First I want to say that both of us aren't playing our characters to our full potential. I'll start off by just generalizing our skill as "entry level competitive skill". I say this because neither of us have been to a tournament and if we were at one with lots of talented players like the videos from tournaments on youtube we probably wouldn't make it super far.
Him
He does not play at the current metagame for fox and isn't very technical, but his playstyle is effective against me and all our other friends who play. Among us, he is considered the best and I'm most likely 2nd. His playstyle consists of mostly smashes, u-airs, b-airs, grab, and whatever move he feels is good to keep the attack/combo going (dash attack, down/forward tilt, etc.). He hardly ever shines, mainly immediately after a down throw. He doesn't incorporate wavedash/landing into an active match. He rarely uses lasers, occasionally if there is a large distance between us. I'm going to assume that he tends to not l-cancel most the time, but I cannot say with certainty at the moment.
Basically he tries to not let up in his attacks to maintain control and win, while not specifically following fox's meta.
Me
Out of all my friends who play melee, I'm probably the one who has been putting the most effort to learn advanced techniques and try to play closer to the current metagame. I know I am still very far from this and still have a ton of room for improvement.
My playstyle: I try to mainly use Falcon's aerials, his grab game, and gentleman (roughly 50/50 that I do this right during a real game). I sometimes do a dash attack, but I don't use it too much because I know it's not one of Falcon's best moves. I sometimes use raptor boost but I don't use it very much mainly because it doesn't work too often and if it fails I usually get punished. Moves like up-tilt and falcon kick tend to be forgotten but if I remember them I'll occasionally throw them in to switch things up a bit and hopefully catch my opponents off guard.
When I'm playing him I am frequently forced into my shield and I tend to roll to try to get away. I know this is a bad habit, I'm trying to break it, but I still dodge-roll very frequently. I also try to get out by jumping OoS and doing an aerial. All of my friends also do an enormous amount of dodge-rolling. This becomes a major problem against my friend's fox because when I try to grab it's very common for him to dodge-roll and I don't get a grab.
During a fight with him it feels like my ability to accurately perform some moves diminishes some. A few main examples are how I end up l-canceling not as often or totally forgetting to do it. Some incorrect inputs that might happen include doing more full jumps when I intended to short hop or doing the wrong aerial (mainly kneeing when I wanted to n-air).
Dash Dancing isn't incorporated into my game as much as I wish. It mostly consists of DD'ing when I'm confident that I won't get hit or after I takes a stock. I'm going to assume that my spacing is terrible since I get hit a lot.
I'm not really sure how to improve my spacing or better utilize DD into my game.
Thanks for the help, hopefully this will help me improve and win more often against him.
First I want to say that both of us aren't playing our characters to our full potential. I'll start off by just generalizing our skill as "entry level competitive skill". I say this because neither of us have been to a tournament and if we were at one with lots of talented players like the videos from tournaments on youtube we probably wouldn't make it super far.
Him
He does not play at the current metagame for fox and isn't very technical, but his playstyle is effective against me and all our other friends who play. Among us, he is considered the best and I'm most likely 2nd. His playstyle consists of mostly smashes, u-airs, b-airs, grab, and whatever move he feels is good to keep the attack/combo going (dash attack, down/forward tilt, etc.). He hardly ever shines, mainly immediately after a down throw. He doesn't incorporate wavedash/landing into an active match. He rarely uses lasers, occasionally if there is a large distance between us. I'm going to assume that he tends to not l-cancel most the time, but I cannot say with certainty at the moment.
Basically he tries to not let up in his attacks to maintain control and win, while not specifically following fox's meta.
Me
Out of all my friends who play melee, I'm probably the one who has been putting the most effort to learn advanced techniques and try to play closer to the current metagame. I know I am still very far from this and still have a ton of room for improvement.
My playstyle: I try to mainly use Falcon's aerials, his grab game, and gentleman (roughly 50/50 that I do this right during a real game). I sometimes do a dash attack, but I don't use it too much because I know it's not one of Falcon's best moves. I sometimes use raptor boost but I don't use it very much mainly because it doesn't work too often and if it fails I usually get punished. Moves like up-tilt and falcon kick tend to be forgotten but if I remember them I'll occasionally throw them in to switch things up a bit and hopefully catch my opponents off guard.
When I'm playing him I am frequently forced into my shield and I tend to roll to try to get away. I know this is a bad habit, I'm trying to break it, but I still dodge-roll very frequently. I also try to get out by jumping OoS and doing an aerial. All of my friends also do an enormous amount of dodge-rolling. This becomes a major problem against my friend's fox because when I try to grab it's very common for him to dodge-roll and I don't get a grab.
During a fight with him it feels like my ability to accurately perform some moves diminishes some. A few main examples are how I end up l-canceling not as often or totally forgetting to do it. Some incorrect inputs that might happen include doing more full jumps when I intended to short hop or doing the wrong aerial (mainly kneeing when I wanted to n-air).
Dash Dancing isn't incorporated into my game as much as I wish. It mostly consists of DD'ing when I'm confident that I won't get hit or after I takes a stock. I'm going to assume that my spacing is terrible since I get hit a lot.
I'm not really sure how to improve my spacing or better utilize DD into my game.
Thanks for the help, hopefully this will help me improve and win more often against him.
