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How to Play Neutral As Falco?

tokenturtle

Smash Rookie
Joined
Dec 16, 2018
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I'm struggling to win neutral with this character. Falco doesn't seem to really have any moves that are safe on shield so pressure people with shields is tough. What moves should I be using in neutral especially against shields? Also, I feel like my only approach options are fast-fall nair or dash attack. Does Falco have any others?
 
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Chrollolith

Smash Rookie
Joined
Dec 11, 2018
Messages
12
Hey, i’m not main falco, and i can’t go too deep in, but lately i saw larry lurr playing falco af and he is actually good, you should check their games, he seems to have a better way to do that’s things that you are struggling.
(and sorry for cannot help you with any more)
 

Nohbl

Smash Journeyman
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Jul 20, 2017
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Location
Chicago, Illinois
I'm struggling to win neutral with this character. Falco doesn't seem to really have any moves that are safe on shield so pressure people with shields is tough. What moves should I be using in neutral especially against shields? Also, I feel like my only approach options are fast-fall nair or dash attack. Does Falco have any others?
Grab people. Really, run up and grab them.
Reflector is one of your best friends.
He still has f-tilt for a reason.
Cheese people with fair.
And sometimes, you just gotta throw out Phantasm.
 

tokenturtle

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Dec 16, 2018
Messages
11
Grab people. Really, run up and grab them.
Reflector is one of your best friends.
He still has f-tilt for a reason.
Cheese people with fair.
And sometimes, you just gotta throw out Phantasm.
Grab is one of my main moves. I sometimes have problems using it though cause Falco is relatively slow.

Are you talking about using reflector against non-projectiles? If so, how should I be using it? I feel like I get punished when I use it against an approaching opponent.
 

Nohbl

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T tokenturtle you aren't committing to grab enough. Yes, you can get shield-grabbed, but usually people wait for the dash attack. If they keep shieldgrabbing your grab attempt, mix up with short hop fair, and try pulling it back.

Yes, use the reflector to stuff approaches and to hit mid range opponents. Spam it against characters that keep trying to barge in, like Samus dash attack. Also useful against sword characters since you otherwise have no disjoint.
 

tokenturtle

Smash Rookie
Joined
Dec 16, 2018
Messages
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Would you say that fair or nair is a better tool in neutral? I assumed nair because it has less landing lag.

What is the best follow up for when you hit someone with a reflector? They usually throw out a jab or tilt in reaction to being hit?

Also, is short-hop dair a good tool in neutral. I assumed so because it auto-cancels.
 
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Nohbl

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T tokenturtle nair has a shorter range, little better combo potential, and fewer hits. Fair should be a better option, especially if the last landing hitbox in tr4sh has not been removed.

What is the best follow up for when you hit someone with a reflector?
Hit them with it again.
Then gauge how they've reacted. They'll probably get frustrated and charge with dash attack, or else roll away.
You should be testing these things yourself as I've told you them, as well. You'll find out better than I what works practically.

Also, is short-hop dair a good tool in neutral. I assumed so because it auto-cancels.
I don't think so since you can't move past people's shields anymore. Seems simple to shieldgrab it.

Anyway, here's an active Falco from tr4sh who does a lot of the stuff I'm claiming should work in tr45h, so you can judge for yourself.

 

Zenemy

Smash Rookie
Joined
Dec 24, 2018
Messages
2
I've noticed that Falco can struggle in neutral. However, I came to realize that isn't the character, but rather my approach to the character. After analyzing some matches today, I can tell you that Falco's tools are great for punishing/juggling. Meaning, in neutral, it would benefit us to learn our opponent and react to them using his arsenal of multi-hit moves, combo moves and swift movement/jumping. In other words play more and BETTER defense, while utilizing all the bread and butter stuff Falco has. Review your matches (replay saving and converting makes this obscenely easy), replace what you did wrong with an option you could do instead, and report back to us when you have some progress!

P.S. If you'd like another bird brain to review your matches, shoot me a message.

P.S.S. Misleading title...make it a question!
 
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tokenturtle

Smash Rookie
Joined
Dec 16, 2018
Messages
11
I've noticed that Falco can struggle in neutral. However, I came to realize that isn't the character, but rather my approach to the character. After analyzing some matches today, I can tell you that Falco's tools are great for punishing/juggling. Meaning, in neutral, it would benefit us to learn our opponent and react to them using his arsenal of multi-hit moves, combo moves and swift movement/jumping. In other words play more and BETTER defense, while utilizing all the bread and butter stuff Falco has. Review your matches (replay saving and converting makes this obscenely easy), replace what you did wrong with an option you could do instead, and report back to us when you have some progress!

P.S. If you'd like another bird brain to review your matches, shoot me a message.

P.S.S. Misleading title...make it a question!
I would love it if you could review my matches! Should I post them here or dm you?


T tokenturtle nair has a shorter range, little better combo potential, and fewer hits. Fair should be a better option, especially if the last landing hitbox in tr4sh has not been removed.


Hit them with it again.
Then gauge how they've reacted. They'll probably get frustrated and charge with dash attack, or else roll away.
You should be testing these things yourself as I've told you them, as well. You'll find out better than I what works practically.


I don't think so since you can't move past people's shields anymore. Seems simple to shieldgrab it.

Anyway, here's an active Falco from tr4sh who does a lot of the stuff I'm claiming should work in tr45h, so you can judge for yourself.

Does Falco have any moves that cross-up shields?
 

Ffamran

The Smooth Devil Mod
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Aug 25, 2014
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Also useful against sword characters since you otherwise have no disjoint.
Falco's Dtilt is a (natural) disjoint since it uses his tail. Same deal with Fox's Dtilt and Falco's kept the same tail sweep in every game so far. The only difference is that in every game, but Smash 4, its range was simply Falco's tail length which sometimes stretches in some of the games. So, if you're coming from Smash 4, don't expect to have that fraudulent, even more disjointed, and invisible range when using Dtilt.

Does Falco have any moves that cross-up shields?
If you mean moves that let him pass through shields, then only dash attack I think. Fox and Falco's Side Specials no longer pass through shields, so they can't use them to cross up anymore. Not sure about their Up Specials, but Fox's and Falco's Up Specials take 43 frames to launch, so your opponent has to be very oblivious to or confused as to what's happening to not punish that.

If you mean moves where Falco can quickly hit someone from behind as they're shielding, then jump over them and use Bair or Uair which hits behind him first or turn before jumping and do Nair, Fair, Uair, or Dair. As noted already, Nair's loop hits probably don't have enough shield stun and Fair has the highest landing lag, 15 frames, out of all his aerials and doesn't auto-cancel, so you're going to have to rely on your opponent dropping their shield and getting caught by any of its hits including the landing hit that people still seem to forget exists.

Would you say that fair or nair is a better tool in neutral? I assumed nair because it has less landing lag.
In my opinion, Fair's 15 landing frames and not be able to auto-cancel from a hop makes it too risky and people are relying on its landing hit to save them from being punished. Its landing hit no longer being that disjointed and more like launch Smash 4's landing hit is going to make it even easier for people to punish it if they weren't already shielding all its hits in the first place.

Nair at least has low landing lag at 9 frames even though it doesn't auto-cancel from a hop, but it has two problems and that is shield stun and connecting. Nair being a multi-hit move means its loop hits, hits 1 to 3, are not going to do a lot of damage, so it probably won't cause a lot of shield stun. Most multi-hit moves also don't have finishers that do a lot of damage either even though most of them have high knockback growth. So, if you're relying on trying to inflict as much shield stun as possible, Nair and Fair aren't good options and Nair doesn't have a landing hit. Ultimate Nair seems to be more like Brawl and launch Smash 4 Nair where its loop hits don't have autolink angles, or it functions differently, but I think it's more likely that it doesn't have autolink angles making it easier to drop people compared to 1.0.8 Smash 4 Nair. Autolink angles make it so that the opponent moves with the move they're being hit by and there are different types of auto-link angles. You can read more about it here: https://www.ssbwiki.com/Autolink_angle.

Nair still works as a fast option with low landing lag, but it not being as reliable as 1.0.8 Smash 4 Nair is a problem. On the bright side, you can use landing Nair and Fair to confirm into other moves. Just avoid landing with their final hit and Fair's landing hit.

Anyway, for aerials to use in neutral, Uair and Bair would probably be safer. Both of them auto-cancel from a hop, both of them are single hit moves, so they will deal more damage and shield stun, and their range aren't as centered on Falco's body like Nair and Fair are. The caveat to using them, however, is that you need to get good at doing aerials from a pivot jump or RAR (reverse aerial rush). People call it reverse aerial rush or RAR, but I find it unnecessarily clunky, so I call it pivot jumping because you run, pivot/turn around, and jump.

On the ground, jab and tilts which you should abuse Ultimate's dash cancel mechanic to use them from his dash and run in addition from his walk, empty hops, and empty jumps, or however else you find yourself able to move with him. Use Blaster as well to control space, especially against characters who are much slower than Falco since if you find it dangerous to approach them or know it's difficult for them to approach Falco, then why approach when you can just tack on damage and annoy them? Punish their bad approaches or calls as they try to find their way around Falco's lasers and other moves.

I don't think Marcbri is a Falco main for Ultimate, but he occasionally play Falco and incorporates Blaster into his game more frequently than other Falco players I've seen so far.

Here's a match of his Falco vs. Jamiro's Mega Man: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbJ4ToiJI4o.

Here's one against Pocafeiner's Villager and Jigglypuff: https://youtu.be/UOw-oESLjfg?t=291. The first match he used Cloud and lost which led to him switching to Falco for the rest of the game.

In general, though, before figuring out what moves you should use with what character for neutral and by extension, what combos, tech, and so on, learning how to move well is the first thing I would advise you to do. Good movement means you have control of your character and allows you to be more deceptive. Make use of empty hops and empty jumps that you can mix in with safe aerials like Uair and Bair. Dash and walk in addition to running. Being able to use any move out of dashes and runs are great and all, but Falco's walk speed is fast and you can do anything out of a walk as well.

Edit: conso's Falco looks like good one to study. He should use lasers a bit more against characters like Peach where approaching her is dangerous. Trying to anti-air her might be difficult with anything, but Up Smash. Up Smash out of shield could work if you don't get caught by Peach's aerials. Dtilt which I feel like he should try to use more might be able to catch low floats and bad landings. Peach looks nuts in this game.

conso vs. Weeb's Snake (Winners Semis): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BS2gbT3Wty0.

conso's Falco and Dr. Mario vs. Linoone's Bayonetta and Peach (Winners Semis): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ue8dappwL4. So, conso gets overrun by Linoone's Peach who looks like that's his main, but Linoone wanted to play Bayonetta for this tournament.

conso vs. Seymour Butts's Inkling (Losers Quarters): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-57kzPZg5Zg.

conso vs. Bigfateli's Jigglypuff and Fox (Losers Semis): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBWyWy4IZpA.

conso vs. Linoone's Peach and Daisy (Losers Finals): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwGyiCm0520. He has a stronger standing against Linoone's Peach and Daisy here than during their previous match.
 
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JuanmaLegend

Smash Rookie
Joined
Dec 30, 2018
Messages
2
I've noticed that Falco can struggle in neutral. However, I came to realize that isn't the character, but rather my approach to the character. After analyzing some matches today, I can tell you that Falco's tools are great for punishing/juggling. Meaning, in neutral, it would benefit us to learn our opponent and react to them using his arsenal of multi-hit moves, combo moves and swift movement/jumping. In other words play more and BETTER defense, while utilizing all the bread and butter stuff Falco has. Review your matches (replay saving and converting makes this obscenely easy), replace what you did wrong with an option you could do instead, and report back to us when you have some progress!

P.S. If you'd like another bird brain to review your matches, shoot me a message.

P.S.S. Misleading title...make it a question!

Currently practicing with the bird. Would you like to share impressions of our matches?
 

tokenturtle

Smash Rookie
Joined
Dec 16, 2018
Messages
11
Trying to anti-air her might be difficult with anything, but Up Smash. Up Smash out of shield could work if you don't get caught by Peach's aerials. Dtilt which I feel like he should try to use more might be able to catch low floats and bad landings
How good of a tool is Falco's up-air as an anti-air? What about his up-smash?
 

Ffamran

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Messages
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How good of a tool is Falco's up-air as an anti-air? What about his up-smash?
If you use an aerial against another aerial or someone in the air, then it wouldn't be considered an anti-air, but an air to air. In that case, it will depend on where the opponent is relative to you.

Up Smash doesn't have a lot of horizontal range compared to in the past games, but it does have good vertical range, so if you're going to use it as an anti-air, you would want to be under your opponent. For the two hits of Up Smash, each kick is invincible during its active frames. That makes Up Smash a safe anti-air as hitboxes that make contact to Falco's legs won't hurt him, but Up Smash's hitboxes would likely make contact with their hurtboxes. Remember that it's his legs that are invincible, so if an aerial can hit the rest of his body, then he'll get hit and at best trade with Up Smash. So, don't use it against something like Cloud's and Ike's Fairs or Shulk's aerials which have a lot of range and are disjoints as they use their swords for those attacks. Against Ike's Dair, maybe, since he only hits downward giving it a narrow area to hit, but Ragnell might outrange Falco's legs. Against aerials that aren't disjoints like Link's Nair, then it will be Falco's Up Smash with leg invincibility versus their likely not invincible aerial. If you catch them before they attack or they don't attack for some reason while in the air, then it's fair game with Up Smash or Utilt.
 
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tokenturtle

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If you use an aerial against another aerial or someone in the air, then it wouldn't be considered an anti-air, but an air to air. In that case, it will depend on where the opponent is relative to you.
Oops I meant to say up-tilt. I don't know how much priority the move has. Oh wow I didn't know up-smash had invincibility. That's really good to know.
 

Ffamran

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Oops I meant to say up-tilt. I don't know how much priority the move has. Oh wow I didn't know up-smash had invincibility. That's really good to know.
Utilt has normal priority. According to the SSB wiki, against ground normals and projectiles, so if they hit each other at the same time, it will clank unless the other move does more than 9%. This is regardless if the other move has invincibility or is disjointed. So, neither Falco or his opponent will get hurt. Aerials cannot clank with other ground normals or aerials, so Utilt will likely trade with the other aerial if the aerial isn't a disjoint or invincible. If the other aerial is a disjoint or invincible, then Falco's going to get hit. Here's the page on priority: https://www.ssbwiki.com/Priority.

Utilt as an anti-air is faster than Up Smash and safer in terms of recovery. Utilt is frame 5 on startup and has 14 recovery frames compared to Up Smash being frame 7 on startup and having 32 recovery frames. So, if you miss with Utilt, it won't be as bad as if you missed with Up Smash. That said, Utilt doesn't have invincibility of any kind, so it's not safe in the sense of essentially having protected hitboxes compared to Up Smash. Both of them work as anti-airs along with angled up Ftilt, but with Utilt and angled up Ftilt, you're aiming to hit them before they hit you or do anything while with Up Smash, you would still want to hit them before they hit you, but you have the ability to hit through some aerials.

Another risky option for anti-airing is Side Smash. Because it arcs in front of Falco, it can hit high. The only issue is that it's frame 17 on startup and its range isn't that great. If you're using Side Smash to anti-air or to catch a bad aerial landing, then you're making a big callout against your opponent. The reward is big since it is a strong Smash attack, but the risk is also big because of how slow it is and that nothing on Falco is invincible during Side Smash. Larry Lurr has used dash back Side Smash as a punish in several of his matches.

Also, if they're far away, you can use Blaster and Reflector as air to air options. If they still kept this property like in the previous games, then both of them have transcendent priority and they're both disjoints. Well, Blaster is a projectile while Reflector is a disjoint. Just keep in mind that they won't do a lot of hit stun.

I was going to edit this in before you posted, but here are some examples of Falco's Up Smash being used to anti-air Link's Dair and Nair. In the last round, there is also an example of Utilt trading with Link's Dair: https://youtu.be/Vstj4iIbc_E?t=664. Falco's Utilt manages to hit Link, but Link's Dair also hits Falco.
A recent video of Lunamado's Bowser and Falco vs. Rido's Link had Lunamado anti-air Rido's Dair several times. I'm guessing Link's Dair doesn't have as large of hitbox as in the previous game, but if you slow down the moments where it happens, you can see Falco's kick bypass Link's sword.

In the second round, the first time it occurs, Lunamado catches Rido trying to land with a Dair with the second hit of Up Smash and takes Rido's stock: https://youtu.be/Vstj4iIbc_E?t=295.

The second time it happens, Lunamado catches Rido trying to land with a Dair again with both hits: https://youtu.be/Vstj4iIbc_E?t=420.

In the last round, Lunamado catches Rido trying to Nair: https://youtu.be/Vstj4iIbc_E?t=482.
 
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Clapgang05

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Joined
Jan 2, 2019
Messages
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Any tips on playing Falco in neutral? I try to run up u-tilt, short hop f-air and neutral b but it hasn't really came to fruition. Any help is much appreciated :)
 

0rangu

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May 29, 2015
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i just spam lasers and when they approach i side b to the other side of the stage. best way to play neutral against k. rool ****ters.
 
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Optihus9657

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An honest tip to understanding Falco, is to understand that he doesn't have the best horizontal poking tools. He is incredibly fast as a vertical(jumping with fast-falling) character. Laser is used to control space and force your opponent into a jump or a shield. This will allow you to grab into an up-throw combo(if they shield), or anti-air them with bairs, up-airs, and up tilts. Down air will combo into everything. Its important to know what percentages to combo into back air in order to kill. Dair also does really well Out of Shield. Movement that is the most optimal is walking and short hopping and fast falling. Along with making your back air as available as possible, so you'll have to face away from your opponent as much as possible. This will best allow for empty hop grab opportunities. Fair works well as a combo finisher, and edge guarding option. Nair is used to cross up shields and combo. Hope this helped!
 

Clapgang05

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Jan 2, 2019
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Thanks. I would also assume using down b a lot would work well against braindead k rools to counter the infamous crown to blunderbuss combo.

Thanks so much for the help! I’ll try to use all this info online. If I can’t quite seem to make success though I have considered the wolf as many top players are picking him up and I could take stuff from them :)
 

ScottTape

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Jan 13, 2019
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An honest tip to understanding Falco, is to understand that he doesn't have the best horizontal poking tools. He is incredibly fast as a vertical(jumping with fast-falling) character. Laser is used to control space and force your opponent into a jump or a shield. This will allow you to grab into an up-throw combo(if they shield), or anti-air them with bairs, up-airs, and up tilts. Down air will combo into everything. Its important to know what percentages to combo into back air in order to kill. Dair also does really well Out of Shield. Movement that is the most optimal is walking and short hopping and fast falling. Along with making your back air as available as possible, so you'll have to face away from your opponent as much as possible. This will best allow for empty hop grab opportunities. Fair works well as a combo finisher, and edge guarding option. Nair is used to cross up shields and combo. Hope this helped!
I’ve been trying to get into Falco since he was my favorite character on Melee but I’ve had trouble. Seems like KO moves are basically limited to Bair and smash attacks, but I have a hard time confirming Bair combos. Anything typically combo well into Bair?

I also gotta work on my Fairs for edge guarding. The two or so times I’ve landed it, it’s been deadly.
 

Ffamran

The Smooth Devil Mod
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Aug 25, 2014
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14,629
short hop f-air
Fair has 15 landing frames which is high in context to Ultimate and you cannot auto-cancel Fair from a hop. It does have a landing hitbox, but don't rely on it to save you all the time. Nair can't be auto-canceled from a hop either, but it has 9 landing frames. Uair and Bair can be auto-canceled from a hop and they're single-hit moves, so they're more reliable in that regard. As noted by Opthus9657, get used to doing pivot aerials or RAR aerials with Falco. Bair is self-explanatory while Uair is a frontflip, so it hits behind him first then in front.

An honest tip to understanding Falco, is to understand that he doesn't have the best horizontal poking tools.
On the ground, Falco has jab, Ftilt, and Dtilt. I doubt jab is safe on shield, but it's fast at frame 2 on startup. Ftilt is average at frame 6 on startup, but has 17 recovery frames which is pretty good. It's probably not safe on shield, especially since it does 6% instead of 9% like in the previous games. Dtilt has the highest startup at frame 10 and hits low, but it does the most damage, 13% up close, 12% with the middle hitbox, and 10.5% with the tipper hitbox, meaning it's the safest on shield.

anti-air them with bairs, up-airs, and up tilts.
A small nitpick here. You don't anti-air with aerials, instead, you air to air with them.

The safest anti-air is Up Smash since Falco's legs are invincible during the kicks. Unfortunately, it doesn't have a lot of horizontal range, so you're going to need to get below people. That said, you can Up Smash out of shield and from a parry. Utilt is faster than Up Smash both on startup and in recovery, but Falco doesn't have invincibility for any parts of his body during Utilt, so you'll need to hit first with Utilt. Same deal with angled up Ftilt or Side Smash.
 

Dcas

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Jul 28, 2014
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324
Ive been trying and labbing the bird, the bair should be used as fox´s/wolf´s nair, as a sex kick. Its a great tool in neutral and can lead to some nasty 50/50.

His neutral is basically spacing bair, jab, dtilt and most important ftilt. Ftilt comes out very fast and has dumb range, with this falco can condition his opponent to shield from a safe space which then we can mix with a grab or fast falling nair.

If you land the weakspot at like 70, you can lead to a phantasm ---> RAR or some other mixups. Imo, falco once again is a bit too honest compared to other spacies to win a match you really need to outplay your opponent since falco wont do anything nasty to you to kill you, you gotta really on a read or such which seals the deal as falco being somewhere mid/low high. Still, happy falco is at least way better than he was in smash 4 (not hard tho, he was garbo in smash 4).
 

Ffamran

The Smooth Devil Mod
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Messages
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Ive been trying and labbing the bird, the bair should be used as fox´s/wolf´s nair, as a sex kick. Its a great tool in neutral and can lead to some nasty 50/50.
I really want to know what the hitboxes are on his Bair because as you noted, it's kind of like a sex kick since I've seen it hit on his body and almost like it's big enough to reach his left knee. Same deal with Fox's Bair, Wolf's Bair, and other moves in general, though. It might be because hurtboxes are larger in Ultimate or it might be because the hitboxes of those (many) moves are larger. With Falco's Bair, it did have a hitbox close to his body in Smash 4, but it wasn't big: https://www.ssbwiki.com/Falco_(SSB4)/Back aerial.

That said, while it might have a bigger hitbox on his body, the one thing about trying to use it as a sex kick is the active frames. Falco's Bair is only active for 8 frames, 2 for the clean hit and 6 for the late hit. In contrast, Fox's and Wolf's Nairs are active for 20 frames, 3 for the clean hit and 17 for the late hit. So, it'd be more of a pseudo-sex kick rather than a true one. If you want a longer lasting aerial that isn't a multi-hit, Dair might be a better option as it's active for 15 frames, 5 for the clean hit which is the spike hit and 10 for the late hit, but it has a much more narrow hitbox.

Ftilt comes out very fast and has dumb range, with this falco can condition his opponent to shield from a safe space which then we can mix with a grab or fast falling nair.

If you land the weakspot at like 70, you can lead to a phantasm ---> RAR or some other mixups.
Falco's just tall, so his legs are long. Poking with Ftilt for Falco has always been something he could do and was considered useful.

Asking for clarification, but what weak hit or sourspot are you talking about? Ftilt doesn't have a sourspot as far as I'm aware because we don't know the knockback values of his moves in Ultimate. What I do know is that Ftilt's damage is lower in Ultimate. In return for 3 less total frames, 27 to 24, Ftilt does 3% less in Ultimate, 9% to 6%. Ultimate marks the first time Falco's Ftilt has been noticeably changed. The thing with Ftilt, at least in Smash 4, was that at very low percents, it wasn't safe on hit as Ftilt had 0 base knockback and 100 growth. So, low/no base, but high scaling like his Bair. The upside to its knockback was that you could use it for locks while also doing pretty good damage. I doubt that if they were to reduce its recovery by 3 frames, 17 now instead of 20 in Smash 4, that it would have been safe on-hit at very low percents, especially considering it does less damage now. What I think is that either it was simply given base knockback to be safe on hit at very low percents or they overhauled its knockback and it's something like 20 base and 80 growth now. The former I don't think is what it would be considering that Wolf's second of Ftilt does 6% and has 55 base and 106 growth. At low percents, it would still do noticeable knockback and having 6 more growth lets it kill fairly well. That is to say, if Falco's Ftilt where to have 15 base for on-hit safety and retained its 100 growth, it would probably be sending people further at higher percents, but not the extent of the second hit of Wolf's Ftilt.

Point is that Ftilt in Ultimate is does lower damage and has lower overall knockback, but it's faster on recovery compared to Brawl and Smash 4. Melee Ftilt has 18 recovery frames, but it also has 5 active frames instead of 3 like in the subsequent games. If Melee Ftilt had 3 active frames, it would have had 20 recovery frames, the same Smash 4 and 1 more than Brawl; Frame 5 startup, if it were active on frames 5-7, and 26 total frames.

Otherwise, the only other ground normals Falco has with sourspots would be late dash attack, late Side Smash, and I'm guessing the thigh hitboxes on Down Smash which I hope did not come back with the stupid 80 degree hit angle it had since Melee. I don't think you're talking about those. In the air, which I don't think you're talking about either, late Bair and late Dair.

I do agree with you that people aren't using Ftilt enough or at all. Most of the time, Falco players just go for Utilt, dash attack, and very rarely, Dtilt. I get that Utilt is amazing and that Dtilt is slower in this game and doesn't have its absurd disjoint, but it seems like a waste in a game that allows characters to use tilts more freely due to being able to dash and run cancel and not use Falco's Ftilt and Dtilt. Dash attack is the one move where unless you need the momentum that Falco retains during the move and its high active frames, Ftilt might be a better option since it's 2 frames faster on startup and is much less committal as a move with 24 total frames as opposed to 39. While dash attack's recovery isn't that high at 22 frames, part of it is made up by its 11 active frames, 4 clean and 7 late. You can also angle with Ftilt unlike with dash attack.

On the subject of dash attack, I think it's basically the same as in Smash 4 and I'm going to assume its knockback values, hit angle, and so on are probably the same or slightly different like it might have 2 more base knockback or something insignificant. That's kind of meh when it was noted that most dash attacks were buffed for this game including Fox's because of course Fox needs a better dash attack. Fox's dash attack had its total frames reduced by 4 frames from 35 in Smash 4 to 31 in Ultimate. It was already fast on recovery, 21 frames in Smash 4 and 17 now, and not that committal, but the developers didn't think so. Nothing else about it really changed as it does the same damage, has the same active frames, same knockback, and same hit angles.

At the risk of sound like woe is Falco, his dash attack could be slightly better. Look, if Fox can run a frame 4 dash attack with 17 recovery frames and that's apparently okay, Falco could probably run a frame 8 dash attack with 17-18 recovery frames too. Alternatively, they could make it stronger and a closer midway between Fox's fast, more setup and combo-orientated dash attack to Wolf's slower, but strong and kill move dash attack. And then there's me thinking that giving Falco Brawl Wolf's dash attack or basically Falco's old Brawl Up Smash as a dash attack might have worked well as it could have a vertical launching hitbox and possibility another anti-air. Anyway, I digress.

So, I was skeptical about this guy, but he does have some sound advice regarding Falco. In this case, neutral with Falco: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1jTedpzGck. Unfortunately, he doesn't talk about Blaster. It's also a take it as you will sort of deal which he notes himself that this is his thoughts on how to play Falco in neutral. The other thing is that as time goes on, new ideas, new refinements, and other stuff will occur, so this will not cover everything.

He also figured out that Utilt is possibly a kill confirm for Falco a bit earlier than pikazono did: https://youtu.be/6Lns6lSy0mQ?t=232.
 

Coccinelle

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Dec 12, 2018
Messages
78
Still trying to figure out what is Falco's best grab option. Looks like many players do up-throw aerial combo but I am struggling a little bit with that move. Any advice?
 

Optihus9657

Smash Cadet
Joined
Dec 8, 2018
Messages
27
Switch FC
199978014389
Still trying to figure out what is Falco's best grab option. Looks like many players do up-throw aerial combo but I am struggling a little bit with that move. Any advice?
Falco's grab is versatile. Up throw being the best for combos at early/mid percents. I'd say understanding your jump height variations is key to connecting your aerial combos. Generally, Up throw at early percents requires a simple full hop to follow up with an aerial. Up throw at mid-percents requires a short hop + a double-jump. Up throw can be DI'd behind Falco and cause your laser to miss and make follow ups impossible. Changing your throw directions works well and there are multiple mix-ups that you have at your disposal. Here's a great throw combo demonstration: https://youtu.be/KniMM5TZrxA

Hope that helps!
 
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