Ayaz18
Smash Champion
I have always been tempted to make a new guide for the Falcon boards and I think that nows the time, since all the spam has seemed to vanish over the last week. So here it is Ayaz's guide to not sucking as Falcon, and potentially making Falcon a threat in Brawl.
First off guys, this guide isn't going to be covering pages among pages of pictures of Falcon's attacks, taunts, outfits and other stuff that I find not important, because I expect that people know his attacks, taunts, ect. With that in mind Enjoy.................oh and don't be afraid to post edits, changes, or entire sections if you want to.
NOTE THAT EVERYTHING I SAY IN THIS SECTION IS TO HELP MAXIMIZE YOUR CHANCES OF WINNING IN A TOURNAMENT SITUATION
What this means is that this is meant to help you in tournies specifically, that means it may not be able to help you beat your friend who chooses MK and hasn't discovered of the "A" button yet. However feel free to skim across it for techs, moves, and other juicy info
Before the match Begins
One of the most important aspects in Brawl is to make sure you have more advantages than your opponent. Since people who are reading this are learning and/or playing Falcon, its clear that we don't have many advantages. That doesn't mean that we can't still help ourselves to make a match-up less difficult.
Counterpick - It REALLY helps Falcon if he's on a stage that compliments his few strengths. An example is picking Norfair to counter Pickachu (arguably Falcon's worst match-up). If you counter picked Norfair you help better your chances for survival because pickachu can't QAC, CG (possible but much harder due to the many platforms), or thunderbolt spam. This counter also helps Falcon in this match-up because Falcon's Uair is arguably Falcon's greatest attack, along with Utilt which reaches through platforms. So if your in position to counterpick, don't choose a neutral stage because chances are that the opponent has an advantage on it (this counts Battlefield).
The Mindset - There are many threads and youtube vids of how your mindset should be so im not going to rant about it for an hour, just search for one. But a summery for the mindset is to think positive and never give up hope on winning because there is always a chance for a comeback in smash.
Act Noobish - The Falcon mainers have it real nice. Everybody thinks that C.Falcon stinks and it's a joke to bring him to a tournament. If there is any conversation between you and your opponent just give noob answers. Like if they say how long have you been attending tournies and stuff like how long you've played Brawl give a real noob answer like this is my first tournament and I got into this game by my cousin two months ago. This let's the opponent underestimate you and potentially lets him/her take it easy on you
DON'T THINK ONLINE SKILLS MAKE YOU GOOD - seriously before I attended my first brawl tournament I thought to myself "hey im pretty good there are only like two people who can consistently beat me online, so no worries". At that tournament I ended last, and for a good reason, because I was relying on online tactics for an offline tournament. The difference between no lag and lag is tremendous, never forget it. A solution is to attend weekly practices that are close to you or just attend tournaments and get names/locations of people that are good.
In The Match
Don't Get Hit - Famous from Isai, basically what this means is that don't do anything stupid, i.e FF Fair (used to get sweetspot). Oh and on the note of Fair, don't use it unless you know you can. In a tournament I went to (second round, first was won by me) a certain Falco just kept phantasming me from the ledge to get some free percent. when he was at 100%+ damage I would get in the air and about to start a knee based on prediction of his phantasm, luckily it hit as he phantasm right into my knee when was pretty epic. That entire match however I never used the knee, simply because its too risky to do so. Safe moves that I recommend is Bair and Uair (reversed), i'll talk about approaches a little later
Gimp!!!!one!!11 - To gimp is to kill a character at low percentages because you distrupt their recoveries. This is probably Falcons best tool at getting KO's mainly because moves like flubbed Fair, Uair, Bair, and is some cases Dair have either low knockback but long hitstun, or because it the move insane speed, or sets up for stage spikes. I will be talking A LOT about gimping in the future but for people who know what/how to gimp, just take the info for what it is. If a character is below the stage but farther along the horizontal axis, gimping with Fair (flubbed) is your best option. If the opponent is below the stage or close to recovering; run off the stage and Bair, Bair has amazing priority, knockback, damage, and usually stage spikes. If the opponent likes to hug the ledge a little longer than they should (if they stay on the ledge after invincibility frames end) again just Bair, 8 out of 10 times it will stagespike. Uair comes out ridiculous speed, Iv seriously been able to "combo" two Uairs jump do another two Uairs and recover. It's that fast. All you have to do is mash up on the C-stick and watch that your DI doesn't push you too far away to not be to recover. However by this time the opponent has been ***** of their jumps so an edge-hog usually finishes the job. Dair I think is a really underestimated move because the nipps don't spike. My reason of why it's still o.k is because of the amount of hit-stun the nipple thrust has, plus it's priority is really good. On stages like Smashville it's wise to stay upon the moving platform because if someone is trying to attack through the platform/recovering the Dair will spike (as long as their body don't pass through the platform). What does this lead to? really annoying/broken spikes. This concludes this brief section on gimping, I will disscuss this further in the guide later.........
Spacing - easily makes the difference between a good Falcon and a not-so good Falcon. Whoever is a melee Falcon vet, this is going to be really hard because Falcon was never about spacing and timing, mainly it was all about landing that grab or Nair, then combo your opponent to death. Brawl's fashion of fighting is really defensive as previously stated, so spacing becomes a key role in Falcon's playstyle. Moves that are nice for spacing are all of Falcon's tilts and Bair. Everything else is pretty bad when it comes to spacing (reverse Uair is good if you become good at doing it) so try to use Falcon's tilts for range. To learn how to space correctly is hard to teach, however how I learned it was to first enter training and study the farthest my hitbox reaches. Then in every friendly match I do I try to incorporate the move at least twice for every stock (and by using is smartly, not spamming it). The key to spacing is hard to say because there isn't any for me to say it, I can give you ideas to improve but thats about it. Know when to stop and space, its real important because if your staying just trying to space effectively your opponent can easily projectile spam or simply just start destroying you. A good time to space is when your going to counter your opponent's faults. An example is Martha using double Fairs, if you simply walk out of range of the second Fair you can counter with a Ftilt in her landing lag. It has been argued so far that Falcon's smashes (in particular Fsmash and Dsmash) are also excellent for spacing, and I don't dissagree either. However I wouldn't space with smashes unless I can kill, because if your smash misses your pretty much screwed. I was facing my bros Meta Knight yesterday with Falcon on FD, I used only safe Bairs, Reverse Uairs, jabs, aand grab releases, thenspaced a stutter stepped Fsmash or Dsmash. I didn't win the majority of the matches but it did win me a couple of rounds, so with deep practice you can match up maybe if your real good/lucky to MK, I can't yet, it's mainly luck that I won a couple of the matches. Your first real step to becoming a ridiculous Falcon is to learn your range.
Stale Moves - Not many people keep track of stale moves in every match, some people develop a system of what attacks are to be used at what percents. A good example of a system in which the player uses less useful moves in order to keep great moves fresh, is Ally's Snake. If you watch his videos it's easy to see that he plays a very different Snake in comparison to the majority of other Snakes. He uses his Dthrow tech-chase often to rack up quick damage, keeps his nades ready for damage, and uses moves like Dtilt that are not "broken" to get percentages up, then uses a powerful Ftilt or Utilt to finish the job. Applying this strategy to Falcon is REALLY beneficial, this allows for kills (on an average weighted character) at low percentages; usually from 90-120. Actually at the practice I just hosted my one friend was talking about how he hates Falco because he can't KO very well, however once I reminded him about stale moves he pretty much wrecked his opponent. Now because I say that stale moves are important to know, don't make yourself suck more by trying to do something un-natural, because if your not familiar with certain moves don't use them, however the goal is to eventually incorporate every move into your game.
Every Percent Counts - as title states every little hit you connect brings you closer to the win. Most people have this mentality (I know I did also before and still sometimes do) that 3% or some other low number doesn't account for much; well let me tell you this, if you were in a tourny and you were facing someone like Sonic and he got 5 grabs for each stock, then from each grab got (on average) three grab attacks on you for three stocks. Would you care? I know I would because if you do the math thats a total of 135% !!!!!. I don't know about you but that's enough percent to take off a stock easily (plus that's calculated without the actual throw, just the hits). So make sure that if you have an opportunity to attack, make sure that you do, no matter how weak or strong the attack.
Mindgames/Mind-Reading - it's sad that Brawl has so little techs (for now.....), because it shortens the amount of mindgames that are allowed to be performed. However the worst part is how mindgame intense Brawl is, this makes for a game focused on very little mindgames, so it is important to know everyone inside-out. But what is a mindgame? Well it's basically when you use your opponents logic against them or tricking them in simpler terms. Earlier I said that you should know every mindgame, what I really meant was to know every option your opponent has that can trick you. But don't over-think the options your opponent has (like me -__-) because you'll be mindgameing yourself, think of what move your opponent is likely to do. How do you predict? There are a ton of ways to read opponents, if your opponent is near the edge of a stage there highly likely to roll away from the edge, if you read them correctly by staying still for example until they rolled, congrats you just pulled of a mindgame. If you dash dance (with no tripping code) your opponent doesn't know of what to do because......well you running around mindlessly, if they think your going to dash attack they may anticipate it but most likely miss the attack, at which time you can counter them in their lag animation. There's no true way for me to tell how to mindgame but with the help of some universal techs some that are exclusive to Falcon, you can make Falcon more dangerous than your opponent thinks
Pacing - this section can tie into the Dtilt jab combo I mentioned earlier, basically it's when you wait to attack, which can go under mindgames but the point is to be sure that it's safe to attack. A little bit of pacing goes a long way my friends, if you try to play Brawl Falcon like melee Falcon you may get something epic, but at a tournament level of play moves like that can get you easily eliminated. Good moves for pacing is primarily revolve around the jab, it works almost like a shine and once you use the jab like a shine the easier it will be to pace. Some of the main Falcon players use pacing and don't even know it, like jab->jab->grab you pace the jabs so you can interrupt the knee with a grab. Learning to pace is really important both as a mind game and to stay safe, this is a more defensive tactic so don't use this too often
Be Broken - you read this title right, it says to be broken. A lot may laugh at this statement but it's true. If you look at MK, he's obviously broken because of attacks with priority, speed and power. All you need to do is apply these same principles to Falcon. What are broken with Falcon? for one his jabs can be the most annoying thing for your opponent to deal with if you literally spam them in front of their face. Another move I find broken is Utilt, the move has a bit of start-up lag but if you space your-self really far from an opponent and literally sit and spam this move (while getting the IASA frames) this move will become quite fast and will likely hit you opponent because of it's disjointed hit-box. These are just two moves that I find abuse-able to every character among the entire roster. Find moves that you find broken and abuse them like Uair; remember top-tier characters are broken so its your job to show them how broken you can be. it's all about playing to win.
THIS SECTION EXPLAINS THE GENERAL AT'S THAT WILL IMPROVE YOUR FALCON GAME
so in short these are Falcons most important AT's, that will help develop a better technical Falcon
Grabs
I actually wanted to add an entire section dedicated to improve Falcons grab game, so not only will this specific section deal with AT's that involve Falcon's grab game but will also talk about why grabbing is important.
Starting where the last mini paragraph left off, why is it important to grab with Falcon? or with anyone in general? the answer is because in brawl grabs take 2/3 of your opponent's basic options: attack (if you get faux-armor) and shield. Also grabs tend to do at least 10% damage (depending on stale moves and the number of times you hit your opponent in the grabbed state) so it's quick damage. Also the grab is a nice punisher to people who are attacking, an example of this counter is shield grabbing your opponents attacks. all in all grabs are vital to all the characters in the game, and lucky for us we don't have a tether to deal with so your grabs aren't that punishable.
Shield grabbing - this is a really old technique and wasn't used very often because of the SHFFL and shield stun in previous smash games. However Brawl is an entirely different game on it's own because it's not as fast or offensive, so shield grabbing becomes pretty big in brawl. I shouldn't have to explain this technique but if you really don't know how to do it here it is:
hold shield then press the normal attack button to grab the enemy after the opponent hit's your shield. if you don't get it go to the dojo or something.
boost grab - what this does is increase the range of your dashing grab, using this you are able to create infinites in some cases (even on MK if done perfectly). But this if your going to grab you may as well get into the nature to boost grabbing because it only helps you. How to do this technique is to:
Dash-->c-stick down-->grab *note that the grab has to come as soon as c-stick down is flicked.
PWG - Pivot Wave Grab - The PWG is a really underused technique that is key to making successful strings. An example is Falcon's Fthrow CG; It doesn't actually CG however your opponent has very limited options. The options that your opponent may have after a Fthrow at low% is to spot-dodge, wait, shield, roll, attack or jump. With the PWG you can Fthrow and eliminate most of these options making the Fthrow chain have a higher success rate, if the wait they get grabbed, along with a spot dodge because of the added grab frames and grab range, jumping is usless because we can grab them out of a jump, and an attack will be absorbed thanks to SA frames. The only option that isn't totally covered is rolling but the sliding animation puts you in a safe location of a punishing situation depending of where they roll. This is just one way the PWG is useful, there are a ton of more ways how this can be used, be creative (just don't abuse this become you become easily read).
Dash---> pivot AND grab http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XELJ03eGElg
*the pivot and grab must be done at the same time for this to work*
Fast Falling Aerials
Nair - Nair is a move that can either be your best friend or worst enemy, when BRawl first started everyone thought Nair was a bad move because of the obvious nerfs from melee. Now that a year has past people like Rebaz have found out that if you FF Nair so the first kick connects the landing lag is very minimal compared to the amount of hitstun of the first kick of Nair allowing for actual combo's. The only drawback to this move is that due to the floatiness of Brawl FF Nair does not come out quickely, so if your opponent is aggresive (i.e MK) this may not be your best choice in terms of an approach.
[Insert 101929837893 ToKneeOrNotToKnee Nair combo threads >_____>]
Uair - Uair is my favorite aerial to FF. It has great priority, speed, and knockback; the problem with this aerial when fast falled is that it's really hard to hit your opponent with it. If you learn the timing so that the hitbox extends infront of Falcon in the first few frames, then the Uair should connect. When Uair does connect a hyphen Usmash is my favorite chase/combo however, if your opponent shields the Uair I find that a simple jab will punish grab happy people. The last thing I would like to note about FF Uair is that it too takes a while to come out effectively, but not as long as Nair.
that's it for now still a lot of work that needs to be done, add whatever you feel is necessary to make this guide successful
First off guys, this guide isn't going to be covering pages among pages of pictures of Falcon's attacks, taunts, outfits and other stuff that I find not important, because I expect that people know his attacks, taunts, ect. With that in mind Enjoy.................oh and don't be afraid to post edits, changes, or entire sections if you want to.
NOTE THAT EVERYTHING I SAY IN THIS SECTION IS TO HELP MAXIMIZE YOUR CHANCES OF WINNING IN A TOURNAMENT SITUATION
What this means is that this is meant to help you in tournies specifically, that means it may not be able to help you beat your friend who chooses MK and hasn't discovered of the "A" button yet. However feel free to skim across it for techs, moves, and other juicy info
Before the match Begins
One of the most important aspects in Brawl is to make sure you have more advantages than your opponent. Since people who are reading this are learning and/or playing Falcon, its clear that we don't have many advantages. That doesn't mean that we can't still help ourselves to make a match-up less difficult.
Counterpick - It REALLY helps Falcon if he's on a stage that compliments his few strengths. An example is picking Norfair to counter Pickachu (arguably Falcon's worst match-up). If you counter picked Norfair you help better your chances for survival because pickachu can't QAC, CG (possible but much harder due to the many platforms), or thunderbolt spam. This counter also helps Falcon in this match-up because Falcon's Uair is arguably Falcon's greatest attack, along with Utilt which reaches through platforms. So if your in position to counterpick, don't choose a neutral stage because chances are that the opponent has an advantage on it (this counts Battlefield).
The Mindset - There are many threads and youtube vids of how your mindset should be so im not going to rant about it for an hour, just search for one. But a summery for the mindset is to think positive and never give up hope on winning because there is always a chance for a comeback in smash.
Act Noobish - The Falcon mainers have it real nice. Everybody thinks that C.Falcon stinks and it's a joke to bring him to a tournament. If there is any conversation between you and your opponent just give noob answers. Like if they say how long have you been attending tournies and stuff like how long you've played Brawl give a real noob answer like this is my first tournament and I got into this game by my cousin two months ago. This let's the opponent underestimate you and potentially lets him/her take it easy on you
DON'T THINK ONLINE SKILLS MAKE YOU GOOD - seriously before I attended my first brawl tournament I thought to myself "hey im pretty good there are only like two people who can consistently beat me online, so no worries". At that tournament I ended last, and for a good reason, because I was relying on online tactics for an offline tournament. The difference between no lag and lag is tremendous, never forget it. A solution is to attend weekly practices that are close to you or just attend tournaments and get names/locations of people that are good.
In The Match
Don't Get Hit - Famous from Isai, basically what this means is that don't do anything stupid, i.e FF Fair (used to get sweetspot). Oh and on the note of Fair, don't use it unless you know you can. In a tournament I went to (second round, first was won by me) a certain Falco just kept phantasming me from the ledge to get some free percent. when he was at 100%+ damage I would get in the air and about to start a knee based on prediction of his phantasm, luckily it hit as he phantasm right into my knee when was pretty epic. That entire match however I never used the knee, simply because its too risky to do so. Safe moves that I recommend is Bair and Uair (reversed), i'll talk about approaches a little later
Gimp!!!!one!!11 - To gimp is to kill a character at low percentages because you distrupt their recoveries. This is probably Falcons best tool at getting KO's mainly because moves like flubbed Fair, Uair, Bair, and is some cases Dair have either low knockback but long hitstun, or because it the move insane speed, or sets up for stage spikes. I will be talking A LOT about gimping in the future but for people who know what/how to gimp, just take the info for what it is. If a character is below the stage but farther along the horizontal axis, gimping with Fair (flubbed) is your best option. If the opponent is below the stage or close to recovering; run off the stage and Bair, Bair has amazing priority, knockback, damage, and usually stage spikes. If the opponent likes to hug the ledge a little longer than they should (if they stay on the ledge after invincibility frames end) again just Bair, 8 out of 10 times it will stagespike. Uair comes out ridiculous speed, Iv seriously been able to "combo" two Uairs jump do another two Uairs and recover. It's that fast. All you have to do is mash up on the C-stick and watch that your DI doesn't push you too far away to not be to recover. However by this time the opponent has been ***** of their jumps so an edge-hog usually finishes the job. Dair I think is a really underestimated move because the nipps don't spike. My reason of why it's still o.k is because of the amount of hit-stun the nipple thrust has, plus it's priority is really good. On stages like Smashville it's wise to stay upon the moving platform because if someone is trying to attack through the platform/recovering the Dair will spike (as long as their body don't pass through the platform). What does this lead to? really annoying/broken spikes. This concludes this brief section on gimping, I will disscuss this further in the guide later.........
Spacing - easily makes the difference between a good Falcon and a not-so good Falcon. Whoever is a melee Falcon vet, this is going to be really hard because Falcon was never about spacing and timing, mainly it was all about landing that grab or Nair, then combo your opponent to death. Brawl's fashion of fighting is really defensive as previously stated, so spacing becomes a key role in Falcon's playstyle. Moves that are nice for spacing are all of Falcon's tilts and Bair. Everything else is pretty bad when it comes to spacing (reverse Uair is good if you become good at doing it) so try to use Falcon's tilts for range. To learn how to space correctly is hard to teach, however how I learned it was to first enter training and study the farthest my hitbox reaches. Then in every friendly match I do I try to incorporate the move at least twice for every stock (and by using is smartly, not spamming it). The key to spacing is hard to say because there isn't any for me to say it, I can give you ideas to improve but thats about it. Know when to stop and space, its real important because if your staying just trying to space effectively your opponent can easily projectile spam or simply just start destroying you. A good time to space is when your going to counter your opponent's faults. An example is Martha using double Fairs, if you simply walk out of range of the second Fair you can counter with a Ftilt in her landing lag. It has been argued so far that Falcon's smashes (in particular Fsmash and Dsmash) are also excellent for spacing, and I don't dissagree either. However I wouldn't space with smashes unless I can kill, because if your smash misses your pretty much screwed. I was facing my bros Meta Knight yesterday with Falcon on FD, I used only safe Bairs, Reverse Uairs, jabs, aand grab releases, thenspaced a stutter stepped Fsmash or Dsmash. I didn't win the majority of the matches but it did win me a couple of rounds, so with deep practice you can match up maybe if your real good/lucky to MK, I can't yet, it's mainly luck that I won a couple of the matches. Your first real step to becoming a ridiculous Falcon is to learn your range.
Stale Moves - Not many people keep track of stale moves in every match, some people develop a system of what attacks are to be used at what percents. A good example of a system in which the player uses less useful moves in order to keep great moves fresh, is Ally's Snake. If you watch his videos it's easy to see that he plays a very different Snake in comparison to the majority of other Snakes. He uses his Dthrow tech-chase often to rack up quick damage, keeps his nades ready for damage, and uses moves like Dtilt that are not "broken" to get percentages up, then uses a powerful Ftilt or Utilt to finish the job. Applying this strategy to Falcon is REALLY beneficial, this allows for kills (on an average weighted character) at low percentages; usually from 90-120. Actually at the practice I just hosted my one friend was talking about how he hates Falco because he can't KO very well, however once I reminded him about stale moves he pretty much wrecked his opponent. Now because I say that stale moves are important to know, don't make yourself suck more by trying to do something un-natural, because if your not familiar with certain moves don't use them, however the goal is to eventually incorporate every move into your game.
Every Percent Counts - as title states every little hit you connect brings you closer to the win. Most people have this mentality (I know I did also before and still sometimes do) that 3% or some other low number doesn't account for much; well let me tell you this, if you were in a tourny and you were facing someone like Sonic and he got 5 grabs for each stock, then from each grab got (on average) three grab attacks on you for three stocks. Would you care? I know I would because if you do the math thats a total of 135% !!!!!. I don't know about you but that's enough percent to take off a stock easily (plus that's calculated without the actual throw, just the hits). So make sure that if you have an opportunity to attack, make sure that you do, no matter how weak or strong the attack.
Mindgames/Mind-Reading - it's sad that Brawl has so little techs (for now.....), because it shortens the amount of mindgames that are allowed to be performed. However the worst part is how mindgame intense Brawl is, this makes for a game focused on very little mindgames, so it is important to know everyone inside-out. But what is a mindgame? Well it's basically when you use your opponents logic against them or tricking them in simpler terms. Earlier I said that you should know every mindgame, what I really meant was to know every option your opponent has that can trick you. But don't over-think the options your opponent has (like me -__-) because you'll be mindgameing yourself, think of what move your opponent is likely to do. How do you predict? There are a ton of ways to read opponents, if your opponent is near the edge of a stage there highly likely to roll away from the edge, if you read them correctly by staying still for example until they rolled, congrats you just pulled of a mindgame. If you dash dance (with no tripping code) your opponent doesn't know of what to do because......well you running around mindlessly, if they think your going to dash attack they may anticipate it but most likely miss the attack, at which time you can counter them in their lag animation. There's no true way for me to tell how to mindgame but with the help of some universal techs some that are exclusive to Falcon, you can make Falcon more dangerous than your opponent thinks
Pacing - this section can tie into the Dtilt jab combo I mentioned earlier, basically it's when you wait to attack, which can go under mindgames but the point is to be sure that it's safe to attack. A little bit of pacing goes a long way my friends, if you try to play Brawl Falcon like melee Falcon you may get something epic, but at a tournament level of play moves like that can get you easily eliminated. Good moves for pacing is primarily revolve around the jab, it works almost like a shine and once you use the jab like a shine the easier it will be to pace. Some of the main Falcon players use pacing and don't even know it, like jab->jab->grab you pace the jabs so you can interrupt the knee with a grab. Learning to pace is really important both as a mind game and to stay safe, this is a more defensive tactic so don't use this too often
Be Broken - you read this title right, it says to be broken. A lot may laugh at this statement but it's true. If you look at MK, he's obviously broken because of attacks with priority, speed and power. All you need to do is apply these same principles to Falcon. What are broken with Falcon? for one his jabs can be the most annoying thing for your opponent to deal with if you literally spam them in front of their face. Another move I find broken is Utilt, the move has a bit of start-up lag but if you space your-self really far from an opponent and literally sit and spam this move (while getting the IASA frames) this move will become quite fast and will likely hit you opponent because of it's disjointed hit-box. These are just two moves that I find abuse-able to every character among the entire roster. Find moves that you find broken and abuse them like Uair; remember top-tier characters are broken so its your job to show them how broken you can be. it's all about playing to win.
THIS SECTION EXPLAINS THE GENERAL AT'S THAT WILL IMPROVE YOUR FALCON GAME
so in short these are Falcons most important AT's, that will help develop a better technical Falcon
Grabs
I actually wanted to add an entire section dedicated to improve Falcons grab game, so not only will this specific section deal with AT's that involve Falcon's grab game but will also talk about why grabbing is important.
Starting where the last mini paragraph left off, why is it important to grab with Falcon? or with anyone in general? the answer is because in brawl grabs take 2/3 of your opponent's basic options: attack (if you get faux-armor) and shield. Also grabs tend to do at least 10% damage (depending on stale moves and the number of times you hit your opponent in the grabbed state) so it's quick damage. Also the grab is a nice punisher to people who are attacking, an example of this counter is shield grabbing your opponents attacks. all in all grabs are vital to all the characters in the game, and lucky for us we don't have a tether to deal with so your grabs aren't that punishable.
Shield grabbing - this is a really old technique and wasn't used very often because of the SHFFL and shield stun in previous smash games. However Brawl is an entirely different game on it's own because it's not as fast or offensive, so shield grabbing becomes pretty big in brawl. I shouldn't have to explain this technique but if you really don't know how to do it here it is:
hold shield then press the normal attack button to grab the enemy after the opponent hit's your shield. if you don't get it go to the dojo or something.
boost grab - what this does is increase the range of your dashing grab, using this you are able to create infinites in some cases (even on MK if done perfectly). But this if your going to grab you may as well get into the nature to boost grabbing because it only helps you. How to do this technique is to:
Dash-->c-stick down-->grab *note that the grab has to come as soon as c-stick down is flicked.
PWG - Pivot Wave Grab - The PWG is a really underused technique that is key to making successful strings. An example is Falcon's Fthrow CG; It doesn't actually CG however your opponent has very limited options. The options that your opponent may have after a Fthrow at low% is to spot-dodge, wait, shield, roll, attack or jump. With the PWG you can Fthrow and eliminate most of these options making the Fthrow chain have a higher success rate, if the wait they get grabbed, along with a spot dodge because of the added grab frames and grab range, jumping is usless because we can grab them out of a jump, and an attack will be absorbed thanks to SA frames. The only option that isn't totally covered is rolling but the sliding animation puts you in a safe location of a punishing situation depending of where they roll. This is just one way the PWG is useful, there are a ton of more ways how this can be used, be creative (just don't abuse this become you become easily read).
Dash---> pivot AND grab http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XELJ03eGElg
*the pivot and grab must be done at the same time for this to work*
Fast Falling Aerials
Nair - Nair is a move that can either be your best friend or worst enemy, when BRawl first started everyone thought Nair was a bad move because of the obvious nerfs from melee. Now that a year has past people like Rebaz have found out that if you FF Nair so the first kick connects the landing lag is very minimal compared to the amount of hitstun of the first kick of Nair allowing for actual combo's. The only drawback to this move is that due to the floatiness of Brawl FF Nair does not come out quickely, so if your opponent is aggresive (i.e MK) this may not be your best choice in terms of an approach.
[Insert 101929837893 ToKneeOrNotToKnee Nair combo threads >_____>]
Uair - Uair is my favorite aerial to FF. It has great priority, speed, and knockback; the problem with this aerial when fast falled is that it's really hard to hit your opponent with it. If you learn the timing so that the hitbox extends infront of Falcon in the first few frames, then the Uair should connect. When Uair does connect a hyphen Usmash is my favorite chase/combo however, if your opponent shields the Uair I find that a simple jab will punish grab happy people. The last thing I would like to note about FF Uair is that it too takes a while to come out effectively, but not as long as Nair.
that's it for now still a lot of work that needs to be done, add whatever you feel is necessary to make this guide successful
Hard Nipples ftw!!!!
