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I give up, What to do with C falcon?

RepStar

Banned via Warnings
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I like this character because hes fun to use but taking him competitively is useless. I noticed about ssbu that projectiles reign supreme in this game (and, swords too). Its like falcon has nothing other than the flashiness of his moves. I lost to a richter because of his infinite projectile spam and, chain reach. Now u can say "u need to get in close with falcon" all u want. But, this is not street fighter, this is smash bros, where your character can jump 20 ft in the air and get launched from attacks within an open field. Its not like i can rushdown and combo in a corner with falcon in this game. Getting in close only does so much after smash physics launch them or space them away after like the 2nd or 3rd attack. Falcon moves are easily underpowered such as his flaming uppercut and his falcon kick which gets stopped by projectiles. Falcon seriously has no tools and his awkward, janky, gameplay makes it unnecessarily challenging to land his knee attack or even neutrals. His smash attacks arent strong enough, his downsmash is weak, his upsmash is suprisingly weak, and his forward smash has awful range so it by default is useless. Falcon really needs armor and, the power of ganon with a falcon kick that can break and go through projectiles, and his useless-state after the flaming uppercut in-air should be removed. I doubt the devs even playtested this game because characters are either seriously screwed over or, ridiculously good with unnecessary tools. This game roster has a thick line between competitive characters and "party" characters that only do decent in FFA item matches because theres no way in hell falcon is even fit to thrive in a game where projectile characters and sword characters are all that matters. I lost to a falco on BF mode for the same reason- falco has his pistol, reflector attack, stronger aerials, falco phantasm THAT HAS NO USELESS STATE ANYMORE (like i said, unnecessary ridiculous tools) and its like falcon has nothing but a falcon kick (forget the rare punch).This games balance really frustrates me.
 

Shieldlesscap

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lmfao alright here we go:
- What with being super fast, getting in is actually really easy, just use your air movement, nair, hell you can even use Falcon Kick in neutral sometimes. Better yet, you can bait your opponent into making a mistake since Falcon's combo and punish game are ridiculous.
- Falcon Kick if you time it right goes through a lot of projectiles, Raptor Boost has super armor if you get close enough for the punch to come out.
- His Smash attacks all have decent range, they just aren't ridiculous like in Smash 4.
- Being put in free fall after Side B doesn't happen if you actually hit someone

Watch footage of Fatality for a few minutes and you'll see all of the crazy **** Falcon can do.
 

Soul Boost

Smash Rookie
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Messages
5
Falcon really needs armor and, the power of ganon with a falcon kick that can break and go through projectiles
As much as I would love for this to be the case, he doesn't need these things at all. If he had armored moves and a falcon kick that, as you described it, would be the best zone-breaking move in the game, he would probably be the new bayonetta.

He has difficult matchups, but he has the second fastest sprint speed in the game, so he's in a better position in these matchups than ganondorf. Just use his speed and focus on learning his neutral game.
 

RepStar

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Ok, since you all say so.

Edit: still think he should be buffed. Falcon needs a buff.
 
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Hugopulous

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Dec 14, 2018
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From my experience, I feel the most difficult thing when using Falcon for "beginners" is a) getting in from neutral and b) the time needed to know what he's truly capable of. I personally don't believe he's an "easy character" to learn in Ultimate, but that's just my opinion.
Getting in and applying the pressure of Falcon's speed and arsenal of moves is crucial for Falcon's play, in my opinion. I know I'm a fairly aggressive Falcon player, so I throw out quite a few moves to ensure the opponent has little time to react or think. Once you land a hit or grab, damage can start skyrocketing fairly easily. The other day I actually landed a ~90% combo on someone from 0% (I don't remember the combo, unfortunately).
Knowing what can potentially combo into what is also extremely important for playing Falcon, which is where time in the lab and practicing comes into play. Once you know what he's capable of and once you have the knowledge of moves that link into other moves, you'll be able to show everyone your moves with ease.
 

RepStar

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From my experience, I feel the most difficult thing when using Falcon for "beginners" is a) getting in from neutral and b) the time needed to know what he's truly capable of. I personally don't believe he's an "easy character" to learn in Ultimate, but that's just my opinion.
Getting in and applying the pressure of Falcon's speed and arsenal of moves is crucial for Falcon's play, in my opinion. I know I'm a fairly aggressive Falcon player, so I throw out quite a few moves to ensure the opponent has little time to react or think. Once you land a hit or grab, damage can start skyrocketing fairly easily. The other day I actually landed a ~90% combo on someone from 0% (I don't remember the combo, unfortunately).
Knowing what can potentially combo into what is also extremely important for playing Falcon, which is where time in the lab and practicing comes into play. Once you know what he's capable of and once you have the knowledge of moves that link into other moves, you'll be able to show everyone your moves with ease.
Yea i just might drop him, hes too demanding with little to offer in return for a win. This game ****s him over in almost every way and its weird how u falcon mains are ok with it when he should be better with a buff. The advice u gave me is advice i already know since theres really only one way to use falcon because he has no tools with only a unreliable falcon kick and neutral air to work with. Im not trying to bash this character because i like him but, this balance pisses me off and playing falcon competitively just frustrates me because these other characters have something while its like the game is always at odds against falcon. Yea he can combo and rack up dmg, but what good is it when he cant ****ing k.o. to save his life, like sheik? He needs a buff. All the buffs he deserve. His knee should be alot easier to land because its been trash way too long.
 
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Ree301

Smash Apprentice
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Man, even Fatality doubts Falcon's potential in the competitive scene. He's said as much on Twitter.
- Him having the 2nd fastest sprint doesn't really matter. Falcon rarely has the space to get to a sprint. Between moving from platforms or opponents controlling space, sprinting is impractical and dangerous. His initial dash speed is what's more important, and he's only middle of the pack there.
- Raptor Boost is inconsistent. Sometimes the hit whiffs, sometimes the armor doesn't proc, and it's priority is bad.
- Rock crocking. While Falcon is recovering, opponents can punish a successful Falcon Dive by intentionally letting Falcon's upB connect, teching off the stage, and gimping him for free.
- Falcon has trouble killing. His combo game is decent, and his jab lock options are great. But there's an awkward % range where he can't combo into knee and bair/ upB won't kill. In a game where most other characters can reliably kill, Falcon is at a disadvantage.
- His arms are tiny. Jab and grab have some of the shortest hit boxes in the game and in micro-spacing, it's just another nail in the coffin.

In a game where swords/ disjoints, projectiles and bury-to-kill cheese excel, Falcon unfortunately isn't really that relevant.
 

saiyan.

Feint - Snake Eyes
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Yea i just might drop him, hes too demanding with little to offer in return for a win. This game ****s him over in almost every way and its weird how u falcon mains are ok with it when he should be better with a buff. The advice u gave me is advice i already know since theres really only one way to use falcon because he has no tools with only a unreliable falcon kick and neutral air to work with. Im not trying to bash this character because i like him but, this balance pisses me off and playing falcon competitively just frustrates me because these other characters have something while its like the game is always at odds against falcon. Yea he can combo and rack up dmg, but what good is it when he cant ****ing k.o. to save his life, like sheik? He needs a buff. All the buffs he deserve. His knee should be alot easier to land because its been trash way too long.
Watch Fatality play him competitively and you’ll understand as to why he doesn’t need to be buffed.
 

RepStar

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Sad to hear, maining CF is very rewarding long term.
How so. Whats rewarding about it besides winning, consistent winning? As in never struggling or having frequently close matches by barely winning but instead plowing through ppl with falcon kind of rewarding?
 
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CaptainRSS

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Ive been trying to get good as CF lately and its tough at first but if you are able to close the gap you clap. Also falcon kick from neutral is good, helps close the gap if truly needed.
 
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R3mainz

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Feb 13, 2019
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Man, even Fatality doubts Falcon's potential in the competitive scene. He's said as much on Twitter.
- Him having the 2nd fastest sprint doesn't really matter. Falcon rarely has the space to get to a sprint. Between moving from platforms or opponents controlling space, sprinting is impractical and dangerous. His initial dash speed is what's more important, and he's only middle of the pack there.
- Raptor Boost is inconsistent. Sometimes the hit whiffs, sometimes the armor doesn't proc, and it's priority is bad.
- Rock crocking. While Falcon is recovering, opponents can punish a successful Falcon Dive by intentionally letting Falcon's upB connect, teching off the stage, and gimping him for free.
- Falcon has trouble killing. His combo game is decent, and his jab lock options are great. But there's an awkward % range where he can't combo into knee and bair/ upB won't kill. In a game where most other characters can reliably kill, Falcon is at a disadvantage.
- His arms are tiny. Jab and grab have some of the shortest hit boxes in the game and in micro-spacing, it's just another nail in the coffin.

In a game where swords/ disjoints, projectiles and bury-to-kill cheese excel, Falcon unfortunately isn't really that relevant.

This is too true. Being out ranged in almost every aspect and only having a nerfed down throw for almost every set up is incredibly frustrating. The fact that it requires you to only land the first hit of nair for every set up this character has is really telling of how limited he is.
-His smash attack/ jab range are too short to be used as anything other than a read option in order to kill
-Although both Raptor boost and Falcon Dive have both been buffed, they still don't provide falcon with enough safety to properly extend or close out combos. The up air to up B combo is pretty much a 50/50, and even is still incredibly situational to the point where i find myself overusing the combo due to his lack of kill power
-There are certain percents where falcon lacks any punish or combo game whatsoever, due to the angles at which some moves work, that lead to falcon not being able to use up air or any ability to properly close out a stock. The amount of times I've racked up 90-100% combos on heavier hard hitting characters like link or smaller characters like pichu, to where they've brought it all the way back and taken my stock first has been telling of the buffs this character needs
-The whiffing problem on his Raptor Boost is infuriating, I don't understand how a move that goes in a straight line can whiff that often, and this is on top of the terrible armor on the move, where you're often hit in the middle of the upper cut and still take the full effect of the hit.

While a speed buff would definitely help the character compete, any range extension on say, his grab, or lowered endlag on his tiny smash attacks would greatly improve the character.
 

RepStar

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Why the **** are his frames so slow for a character thats supposedly supposed to be fast with the "second fastest sprint" . his smash attacks, falcon kick, raptor boost but especially his smash attacks take ****ing forever to execute. Falcon is just a ****ing meme in smash they never do him any justice in any smash.
 

MalanoMan

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Why the **** are his frames so slow for a character thats supposedly supposed to be fast with the "second fastest sprint" . his smash attacks, falcon kick, raptor boost but especially his smash attacks take ****ing forever to execute. Falcon is just a ****ing meme in smash they never do him any justice in any smash.
Gotta learn how to use jabs, the gentleman, grabs, aerials to get good with falcon.
 
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Shieldlesscap

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Why the **** are his frames so slow for a character thats supposedly supposed to be fast with the "second fastest sprint" . his smash attacks, falcon kick, raptor boost but especially his smash attacks take ****ing forever to execute. Falcon is just a ****ing meme in smash they never do him any justice in any smash.
Imagine using smash attacks in neutral.

Falcon Kick and Raptor Boost come out slow if you're using them at point blank, but they're also not designed to be used in that way in the first place. They're designed to be used at midrange where you start out too far away from the opponent for them to punish you.

Jab, FTilt, dash grab, dash attack, and aerials are all fast enough to work in neutral.
 

RepStar

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Imagine using smash attacks in neutral.

Falcon Kick and Raptor Boost come out slow if you're using them at point blank, but they're also not designed to be used in that way in the first place. They're designed to be used at midrange where you start out too far away from the opponent for them to punish you.

Jab, FTilt, dash grab, dash attack, and aerials are all fast enough to work in neutral.
I dont use his smash attacks in a ****ing neutral and LMAO at dash grab. What can a 6ft 7 dude grab with 3ft arms. Not trolling but, lol, his grab is sad.
 
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MalanoMan

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The gentlemen?
The gentleman in the nickname for a special "jab combo" you can perform with falcon. In Melee, I believe he was the only character with this type of combo, but in Ultimate, there are other characters with this type of combo. Young Link can also do something similar.

To perform a gentleman: press a to jab. Then press it again. Then press it again. Dont press A too quickly. If you press A too quickly, you'll see falcon rapid jab. If done correctly, he will jab 2 times, then he does a "grounded knee" which has knocks back opponents quite a bit and is less punishable then the rapid jab.

I dont use his smash attacks in a ****ing neutral and LMAO at dash grab. What can a 6ft 7 dude grab with 3ft arms. Not trolling but, lol, his grab is sad.
Yeah his grab is miserable, but all we can do is hope that they buff the range a bit. His grab range has historically been terrible. If they were gonna improve it, think they would have changed it before the release of Ultimate, but we can always hope!
 

DWIP

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Honestly CF initial dash speed is just ridiculous, freaking Bowser as a faster initial dash. As a character that is supposed to micro-space and punish having such a bad dash dance is just poor design. Also he lacks reliable kill moves (knee is hard to hit, and true combo out of a few moves at very specific percentage). I mostly take stocks because I can edge guard consistently
 

DelugeFGC

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Falcon struggles in Ult, but he's fixable. If they increased his dash speed just a hair, gave his grab (or even JUST his dash grab) a little more range and left him alone from there.. he'd move up to around mid High-Tier. As-is he's low High-Tier or high Mid-Tier at best because of how Ultimate works, the changes made to him combined with the Ultimate engine has left Falcon in probably the worst position he has ever been in historically.

That said, he's still perfectly viable, flashy and has a TON of punish / combo potential.. I also don't see them never buffing him considering how little it would take to make him VERY viable again. The biggest thing that hurts him is his dash speed, it's still fast in general comparison to other ones, but it's not fast enough to allow him to rush in during neutral when the opponent makes a mistake / gives you an opening to start your combos or get a confirm.

His grab range is also bad.. though it always kinda has been. if increased it would do him a LOT of favors because Falcon only really has three consistent combo starters: Falling NAir, DThrow / UThrow & DAir. The throws are probably the most consistent and have some of the best rewards, so him being able to get grabs is a BIG factor.

You could simply JUST increase his grab range a fair bit and fix him, OR give him a quite big dash speed boost.. but I think the ideal solution is a small buff to BOTH factors instead of a larger buff to just one. A small buff to his dash speed and grab range could give Falcon ALL the tools he needs to come in during neutral and start doing what he does best when an opening presents itself.. as-is it's usually too risky with how fast Ultimate is as a game overall because characters recover out of whatever it was they did too quickly for Falcon to consistently get an in.

As-is, this is probably the first time I'd put Ganon ABOVE Falcon in a tier list.. I'd say Ganon is somewhere near the very ass end of high tier, while Falcon is somewhere near the tip top of mid tier.. and that's just strange.
 
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Shieldlesscap

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Falcon struggles in Ult, but he's fixable. If they increased his dash speed just a hair, gave his grab (or even JUST his dash grab) a little more range and left him alone from there.. he'd move up to around mid High-Tier. As-is he's low High-Tier or high Mid-Tier at best because of how Ultimate works, the changes made to him combined with the Ultimate engine has left Falcon in probably the worst position he has ever been in historically.

That said, he's still perfectly viable, flashy and has a TON of punish / combo potential.. I also don't see them never buffing him considering how little it would take to make him VERY viable again. The biggest thing that hurts him is his dash speed, it's still fast in general comparison to other ones, but it's not fast enough to allow him to rush in during neutral when the opponent makes a mistake / gives you an opening to start your combos or get a confirm.

His grab range is also bad.. though it always kinda has been. if increased it would do him a LOT of favors because Falcon only really has three consistent combo starters: Falling NAir, DThrow / UThrow & DAir. The throws are probably the most consistent and have some of the best rewards, so him being able to get grabs is a BIG factor.

You could simply JUST increase his grab range a fair bit and fix him, OR give him a quite big dash speed boost.. but I think the ideal solution is a small buff to BOTH factors instead of a larger buff to just one. A small buff to his dash speed and grab range could give Falcon ALL the tools he needs to come in during neutral and start doing what he does best when an opening presents itself.. as-is it's usually too risky with how fast Ultimate is as a game overall because characters recover out of whatever it was they did too quickly for Falcon to consistently get an in.

As-is, this is probably the first time I'd put Ganon ABOVE Falcon in a tier list.. I'd say Ganon is somewhere near the very *** end of high tier, while Falcon is somewhere near the tip top of mid tier.. and that's just strange.
I'd argue that buffing his grab wouldn't be the best way to make him better. You yourself just said it's your most consistent option, and buffing the range would basically give him the issue he had in Smash 4, where it was easily your best option and there wasn't much reason to go for anything else. Instead, I think Falcon would benefit more from:
- Faster dash speed (As you said)
- A faster turnaround animation (This goes along with what you said and it's the only thing I don't understand about Falcon's balance in this game. Why does he have one of the slowest turnaround animations in the game? His takes 7 frames while someone like Roy only has 4)
- Making Side B's hitbox more consistent. The reason it activates now is because if someone extends their hurtbox or is barely within the detection range, the move will go off right as the opponent is getting in. I'm not exactly sure how you'd fix this, but the best options would probably be either:
A. Snapping to the opponent (at least horizontally) if the hitbox activates, so it would catch stuff like that on the ground
B. Increasing the size of the vertical hitbox so that if you're in the air, if you dip low enough to activate it, you'll always get hit
- Making Side B's armor more consistent
- This would be more of a global chance, but adding a tech that lets you change directions mid pivot grab would be good. I can't tell you how many times I've successfully read the direction someone techs in and then whiffed a Dash Grab because I was just slightly too fast and overshot. Turning around pivot grabs would effectively let you add a slight delay to dash grabbing which would give you a new option that would be too situational to be broken.
 

DelugeFGC

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I've noticed a lot of my Side B's whiff even though I could CLEARLY see the move making contact with my opponent when they had zero iframes. They animation of the raptor boost punch would come out and everything, the sound.. all of it, but no hit would register. It's odd, and I figured it was something with the hitbox. Considering raptor boost combos into basically everything he has, it would help him out.

I still think his grab needs a buff.. but only a VERY TINY one. A lot of his combos and confirms come directly out of grabs (not all, some come out of falling NAir's, DAir and Side B but MOST come out of throws) depending on which throw you go for, %, etc. Despite having all these wonderful combos and confirms out of throws, ACTUALLY getting grabs can be a massive task with Falcon. His dash speed doesn't help, limiting his ability to rush in.. but this is only worsened by the fact he has a PATHETIC grab range. I stick to my guns that the best buff to Falcon would be a modest boost to dash speed, and a tiny buff to grab range. This alone would allow him to be FAR more consistent with his punish game and remedy some of his issues with playing neutral against certain characters.

DI, positioning and blind luck can influence a lot of his setups coming off of moves like falling NAir and Side B, which limits his ability to combo and confirm consistently. While you CAN get NAir combos out of falling NAirs, link knees to DAirs and all that.. they aren't ALL true. A lot of his grab/throw setups are true at certain %'s, so it's gonna be the ideal option to go for no matter what they buff / don't buff. So you either have a situation where Falcon will TRY (and often fail) to go for his best options and set ups.. or you can have one where he's at least somewhat successful on a consistent basis. Falcon is all about biding your time dashing around in Neutral until your opponent makes a mistake like overextension, then rushing in to grab them, throwing them out and getting them into that long combo only to reset neutral, DAir them and get that knee confirm. Falcon and his combo momentum is crazy.. and it's ALL still there, it's just limited greatly by things such as his dash speed and grab range.
 
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