Welcome to Smashboards, the world's largest Super Smash Brothers community! Over 250,000 Smash Bros. fans from around the world have come to discuss these great games in over 19 million posts!
You are currently viewing our boards as a visitor. Click here to sign up right now and start on your path in the Smash community!
It appears that you are using ad block :'(
Hey, we get it. However this website is run by and for the community... and it needs ads in order to keep running.
Please disable your adblock on Smashboards, or go premium to hide all advertisements and this notice. Alternatively, this ad may have just failed to load. Woops!
Seeing how reddit represents Falco as a mid-ranged tier fighter (B-, B, B+ at best) I beg to ask one question. If Wave-shines were available...and ledge trumping was cut... How well would Falco legitimately be? Would he still be mid-tier? Or would he be higher up (A-, possibly A?) Falco has done well in Brawl without wave-dashing. (A-, latest Brawl tier) but that's besides the point. Falco and Fox dominated the Melee tiers and now what? Falco is put to a washed-up mid tier with the likes of Ike, Lucario, and Shulk? Would Falco have to deal with this? If ledge-trumping was cut, and edge-guarding were actually liable...Would he have a chance to re-live his glory days? His combo set-up is sick. His aerials are good for spacing (Fair, mostly.) so why is he in mid tier? Is he just under-played now? Below here is Reddit's (Newest, I THINK.) tier list.
I'm fine with his current moveset. Few things still kind of urk me are his phantasm lacking the last 1/3 hitbox. Lasers having way too much endlag to even force people to approach. And his current run speed/aerial movement, I mean he's a damn bird why is he lacking in that category :/.
Other than what I listed above, he's fine to me I just think he lacks tools to deal with anyone higher than his current placement. And his matchups are not unwinnable, you just have to be safe play smart and captialize on mistakes.
He doesn't need auto cancel laser he just needs to put the damn gun away quicker lol. But I think anyone of these changes would dramatically help him. The lasers alone would bump him up. His close range game is fantastic, but he has no reason to force people to get close to him, so they can just force him over :/
So you're asking if only wave shining and ledge trumping were altered......
Falco would probably still only be B+ in my opinion. If there is a wave shine then there is a a wavedash, meaning it was changed universally. Everyone can now wavedash.
The fact would still stand that Falco has no strong approach game. We still have to deal with his few "safe" approaches and his running speed. His laser game is below subpar and we don't have the old nair or his Brawl or Melee down air. Hell, I don't even know if his shine would link with his down air like it used to in Melee, now with how slowly it comes out. There would be a substitute of possibly using nair/bair/fair/up-air instead of spiking them back, so it would be alright at lower percentages....
Falco would need a bit more work to be done for him to bounce back to the top 5 spot on the tier list. If he had Brawl or Melee lasers he would automatically be top 15 in my opinion, even with no waveshines. It would invalidate any reason for him to approach, meaning he can sit back and rack up chip damage and when the opponent does approach, he has plenty of ways to space out the approach and punish with his jabs and tilts and some of his aerials. Shield-grabbing will still be a major issue in any case when he does try to move in.
Seeing how reddit represents Falco as a mid-ranged tier fighter (B-, B, B+ at best) I beg to ask one question. If Wave-shines were available...and ledge trumping was cut... How well would Falco legitimately be? Would he still be mid-tier? Or would he be higher up (A-, possibly A?) Falco has done well in Brawl without wave-dashing. (A-, latest Brawl tier) but that's besides the point. Falco and Fox dominated the Melee tiers and now what? Falco is put to a washed-up mid tier with the likes of Ike, Lucario, and Shulk? Would Falco have to deal with this? If ledge-trumping was cut, and edge-guarding were actually liable...Would he have a chance to re-live his glory days? His combo set-up is sick. His aerials are good for spacing (Fair, mostly.) so why is he in mid tier? Is he just under-played now? Below here is Reddit's (Newest, I THINK.) tier list.
One, never trust Reddit; never trust anything without questioning it.
The issue with any game is how games generally don't play the same. Even with the same engine, a game can be completely different or play very differently. Case in point: the numerous modern Call of Duty games that are actually different game to game for various reasons such as different developers, different approaches, or even different games. Because of that, if Melee Falco was in Smash 4 as he was in Melee, he could potentially be the best or actually the worse. If the same mechanics of Melee and everything about Melee Falco were the same, he would not be able to grab the ledge like everyone else, he would only be able to air dodge once, his recovery would be even worse because of how Melee Fire Bird functioned and Melee Falco's extreme fall speed of 3.1 in comparison to everyone else in Smash 4 even in Melee, most of his moves would function very differently, especially Fair which would be much worse than Smash 4 Falco's, Side Smash would lose its transcendent priority, and Bair would actually be weaker in terms of knockback.
He would be an abusive character to begin with as his approach would be unparalleled with the ability to wavedash and waveshine, be the only character to have an auto-cancelable projectile, a frame 5 Dair that could not be teched and is as strong as probably Captain Falcon's, and among other things. Here's the other issue: patches exist meaning Melee Falco would be severely nerfed if not removed from the game to be fixed. Potentially, a nerfed Melee Falco could actually end up with even worse than Smash 4 Falco. There are pros and cons to both sides.
What you're requesting might actually not do anything. Waveshining with Falco's current Reflector would more or less be like a DACUS, but with a Down Special, so a DACDS (dash attack cancel Down Special). That doesn't really do anything except probably extend his slide distance before using Reflector. Waveshining with that kind of would be like using a much more punishable dash attack. Removing ledge trumping would actually hurt Falco as his ledge trump is a strong option for him. Ledge trumping in general is a good option for characters, but people just don't go for it. That's the issue with edgeguarding in Smash 4: people don't edgeguard. People edgeguard in Melee, Brawl, and PM because they know you cannot grab the ledge if someone's already there along with the invincibility factor. In Smash 4, people don't go out to even hit people off-stage; you can gimp like 10 characters easily just by hitting them off-stage. That leads to people recovering for free. Sure, covering getup options is a tactic, but when someone is clearly recovering poorly or there's a massive opportunity and nobody does anything, it's cringe-worthy. Case in point: Fox or Falco recovering way to close to the ledge and nobody doing anything. Just hit them. Falco being known for edgeguarding is kind of sad since other characters can edgeguard, but most people can only name like Pikachu, Rosalina, and ZSS and sometimes Falco as good edgeguarders. That's only 4 characters...
For me, the thing holding Falco back the most is that he's only capable of playing at 50% of his game. 50% of his game is close-range and the other 50% is mid-, long-range, or zoning which as most people know, is nonexistent. Falco is a zoner without the ability to zone properly. Why? The removal of auto-cancel windows on his Blaster without any compensation. Note that the newcomers in Smash with projectiles like Greninja, Ryu, post-patch 1.1.0 Robin, Villager, Mega Man, or Wii Fit Trainer have reasonable end lag and reasonable rewards from their projectiles. Falco's Blaster in Melee and Brawl had unreasonable end lag and unreasonable rewards. Auto-canceled, Falco's Blaster are the most abusive projectiles in Smash and used normally, without auto-canceling them, even in Melee and Brawl, they were probably the most pitiful projectiles in Smash. They removed the ability to auto-cancel which is fine, but they didn't compensate him at all; the same end lag from Melee and Brawl still exists on Smash 4 Falco's Blaster. That amount of end lag was always there and it's extreme for the kind of reward Falco gets which is very low. Falco's Blaster shouldn't have almost a second of end lag - it has 58 total frames on the ground - when it only has set knockback and does 3%. 60 frame end lag moves tend to be really powerful or have something like a massive hitbox for Ryu's Haduoken, Samus's fully Charged Shot, or the fact Lucario can use his projectile as a close-range move. At least Mario can weave back and forth with his Fireball, but even that has almost a second of end lag; Fireball has 52 total frames. Sure, in the air, 49 total frame is okay, but there has to be a reason for someone to be in the air and Falco can't just jump and shoot or he'll be hitting the air. Falco with a 49 total frames on the ground and 45 total frames in the air would definitely be a mid-tier and potentially a high-mid with a good projectile, strong close-range game, and while DI-dependent, a strong advantage. Overall low end lag is much better than only being able to auto-cancel Blaster; Falco wouldn't really be able to choose to shoot on the ground and not deal with 58 total frames.
Falco would be in a league of his own. Better than sheik. Amazing frame data, neutral game, ac lasers. Only nerf would be to recovery but honestly he be so good on stage it wouldnt hinder much on his changes.
Changes to falco i think would make him a top tier character or atleast high is having a faster grab, act faster out of dthrow, jump speed increased, full hit box on side b, a safe on shield nairnair, and ground speed increased. ac lasers would be icing on the cake
I don't see many of these changes happening tho even side b hitbox
I know, but if Falcos lasers worked like in melee he would bea very good and hard to beat character, one of the best IMO...but thats never gonna happen and thats ok, but he really need to have a quicker recovery on his laser, this change will help him a lot.
Tbh I really love Melee Falco, but I like SSB4 Falco the way he is. Without all the speed, hitstun, and falling speed of Melee, his Melee version would be about the same, since his shine wouldn't combo that well due to the lack of hitstun. But what I miss the most from Melee is his laser and dair, my two fav moves of the game. I really wish Falco's lasers still autocancelled and his dair still spiked on all hitboxes, but I can understand why that was removed since it was a little too good, but the lasers should've stayed the same imo, along with noticibly shooting faster in the air like in Melee/Brawl.
Tbh I really love Melee Falco, but I like SSB4 Falco the way he is. Without all the speed, hitstun, and falling speed of Melee, his Melee version would be about the same, since his shine wouldn't combo that well due to the lack of hitstun. But what I miss the most from Melee is his laser and dair, my two fav moves of the game. I really wish Falco's lasers still autocancelled and his dair still spiked on all hitboxes, but I can understand why that was removed since it was a little too good, but the lasers should've stayed the same imo, along with noticibly shooting faster in the air like in Melee/Brawl.
I know it still shoots faster in the air obviously, but the difference is not nearly as noticeable as it was in Melee/Brawl. In this game the lasers literally only shoot 2 frames faster. 2 ****in frames. That's terrible, I wish they shot like at least 5 frames faster.
Laser auto canceling is a bit extreme. Buffs that make Falco better (Not saying all of them, but pick and choose):
1) Reduce blaster lag to be in line with Fireball/Thunderjolt, or reduce ending lag.
2) Make his Dair not awful
3) Move speed increase (aerial and/or ground)
4) Allow upair to kill earlier.
5) Fix jab link from jab 2 to rapid jab (This needs fixed. This alone brings falco way down.)
6) Side B Hit box.
Falco has to tools to be very strong, and its why he isnt broadly buffed. I could see him being near Yoshi level if a few of these buffs went through.
Laser auto canceling is a bit extreme. Buffs that make Falco better (Not saying all of them, but pick and choose):
1) Reduce blaster lag to be in line with Fireball/Thunderjolt, or reduce ending lag.
2) Make his Dair not awful
3) Move speed increase (aerial and/or ground)
4) Allow upair to kill earlier.
5) Fix jab link from jab 2 to rapid jab (This needs fixed. This alone brings falco way down.)
6) Side B Hit box.
Falco has to tools to be very strong, and its why he isnt broadly buffed. I could see him being near Yoshi level if a few of these buffs went through.
I agree with this 100%. It's little things about him that bring him down a lot, such as his speed in the air/ground (He's a bird yet he has the 11th slowest air speed, and he's slow as hell on the ground) If they buffed his Blaster with lag, then I wouldn't be angry anymore since they don't autocancel anymore.
Laser auto canceling is a bit extreme. Buffs that make Falco better (Not saying all of them, but pick and choose):
1) Reduce blaster lag to be in line with Fireball/Thunderjolt, or reduce ending lag.
2) Make his Dair not awful
3) Move speed increase (aerial and/or ground)
4) Allow upair to kill earlier.
5) Fix jab link from jab 2 to rapid jab (This needs fixed. This alone brings falco way down.)
6) Side B Hit box.
Falco has to tools to be very strong, and its why he isnt broadly buffed. I could see him being near Yoshi level if a few of these buffs went through.
He doesn't even need all of that to be good, if they just increased his speed OR made his blaster better then he would be a significantly improved character (he doesn't need both). With better blasters we could force more approaches which would help our neutral or with better speed it would add an extra rush down option. At the moment we can do neither of those things.
Everything else is extra, if anything Falco would be overpowered with all of those buffs (upair killing? we don't need another hoo-hah lol). Dair and Side-B would be nice, but let's be honest, both only have situation uses. Jab gets annoying, but I think most Falco mains have learned how to play around it.
I get that they don't want blasters to be overpowered anymore, but they don't auto-cancel anymore. Unfortunately I think the devs are satisfied with where he's at ;(
Everything else is extra, if anything Falco would be overpowered with all of those buffs (upair killing? we don't need another hoo-hah lol). Dair and Side-B would be nice, but let's be honest, both only have situation uses. Jab gets annoying, but I think most Falco mains have learned how to play around it.
Uair always killed and it was stronger pre-patch 1.0.8. As of right now, it's as strong as Rosalina's believe it or not, but before, it was stronger while being 2 frames slower than Rosalina's.
Character|Hit frames|Damage|Base Knockback|Knockback Growth|Hit Angle(s)
Falco (pre-1.0.8)|10-14|11%|27 or 30 (body)|100 or 20 (body)|68 or 80 (body)
Falco (post-1.0.8)|7-11|10%|35|90|65 or 75 or 85
Rosalina|8-10 or 11-21 or 22-29|10% or 5% or 2%|40 or 40 or 20|98 or 98 or 30|88 (all)
The main differences? Falco's always send people towards the side unless you hit with his body pre-1.0.8 or hit with the end Uair, Falco's Uair is also not disjointed, and Falco's a fast faller, so he can't really stay up in the air as long as Rosalina to glide and launch you to your doom. Rosalina's has late hitboxes, only hits above her as she has no hitbox on her body, and lasts 21 frames.
The issue with Diddy's D-throw or U-throw to Uair was how those moves interacted with each other. One, Uair was frame 3-7 and did 8% instead of being frame 4-7 and doing 6%. With Diddy's high jump, the way D-throw and U-throw sent people, it was a perfect setup for killing up top. Hey, at least it wasn't like Melee Fox's U-throw to Uair or even Falco's U-throw to Uair. That would have been even more bonkers if Diddy's Uair did that much damage. Right now, Diddy's Uair is more like Mario's where it's fast, doesn't do a lot of damage, but can be used to rack up damage quickly without killing easily.
Back to Falco, the problem with jab is that they harshly nerfed his jab from Brawl. In Brawl, Falco's jab 1 had 15 total frames, jab 2 had 18 total frames, and rapid jab connected at least 2 frames faster than in Smash 4. In Smash 4, Falco's jab 1 has 22 total frames and jab 2 has 25 total frames. That's an increase of 7 frames to jab 1 and 7 frames to jab 2. For characters like Ike and even Captain Falcon whose jab 1 have 23 and 17 total frames respectively, they also have weighted knockback and their jab 1 (and 2) have them retract their hurtboxes not to mention that neither moves forward until jab 2 for Ike and jab 3 for Captain Falcon. Falco moves forward with each part of his jab and leans in. The amount of total frames for a move that doesn't do much knockback because of its lack of weighted knockback or just high overall knockback kills Falco.
It's not an issue of we have to deal with it, but an issue where unlike Diddy or even Samus thanks to patch 1.1.1 changing her jab 1 a bit so it's a bit safer, Falco dies to anyone with a frame 5 and below move. That makes fights against Captain Falcon, Ryu, Jigglypuff, Little Mac, Mario, Dr. Mario, Luigi, Roy, Marth, Lucina, Fox, Yoshi, and Sheik, although Sheik players never seem to spam Nair, that much more infuriating. Once a player knows that you can just button-mash to punish Falco's jab, a move supposedly the most basic and safest option all characters have, it's just plain stupid. Ryu, Jigglypuff, Little Mac, Dr. Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, and Roy will all kill you with their Shoryuken, Rest, Rising Uppercut, Super Jump Punch, Nair, or Blazer while Captain Falcon, Mario, Fox, Marth, and Lucina will put themselves into advantage by taking 3% to 5% while you take a full jab combo from the Capt. and Fox, a Super Jump Punch from Mario, or a Dolphin Slash from Marth and Lucina. Watch what happens to Rice whenever he goes for a jab against Nitro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdlzF92jZtw.
Fox's rapid jab was given a phantom hit between jab 2 and rapid jab in patch 1.1.0. It's stupid when slowed down and makes no sense animation-wise, but nobody's really going to notice. You could do that for Falco and it would be fine since he's starting to spin. At the same time, why? Why was jab 2 to rapid jab of all things needed to have more delay? Of all the moves Falco had in Brawl, it was nowhere broken like his Blaster and Dair. So, why that? Or even, why anything about his jab? It wasn't abusive and it was nowhere near Smash 4 Fox's pre-patch 1.1.0 or Little Mac's pre-1.0.4? jab or anywhere near as strong and versatile as Captain Falcon's Gentleman. Meanwhile, Rosalina & Luma's all-in-one jab. Kills, sets up, combos into itself, and edgeguards...
Uair always killed and it was stronger pre-patch 1.0.8. As of right now, it's as strong as Rosalina's believe it or not, but before, it was stronger while being 2 frames slower than Rosalina's.
Character|Hit frames|Damage|Base Knockback|Knockback Growth|Hit Angle(s)
Falco (pre-1.0.8)|10-14|11%|27 or 30 (body)|100 or 20 (body)|68 or 80 (body)
Falco (post-1.0.8)|7-11|10%|35|90|65 or 75 or 85
Rosalina|8-10 or 11-21 or 22-29|10% or 5% or 2%|40 or 40 or 20|98 or 98 or 30|88 (all)
The main differences? Falco's always send people towards the side unless you hit with his body pre-1.0.8 or hit with the end Uair, Falco's Uair is also not disjointed, and Falco's a fast faller, so he can't really stay up in the air as long as Rosalina to glide and launch you to your doom. Rosalina's has late hitboxes, only hits above her as she has no hitbox on her body, and lasts 21 frames.
The issue with Diddy's D-throw or U-throw to Uair was how those moves interacted with each other. One, Uair was frame 3-7 and 8% instead of being frame 4-7 and doing 6%. With Diddy's high jump, the way D-throw and U-throw sent people, it was a perfect setup for killing up the top. Hey, at least it wasn't like Melee Fox's U-throw to Uair or even Falco's U-throw to Uair. That would have been even more bonkers if Diddy's Uair did that much damage. Right now, Diddy's Uair is more like Mario's where it's fast, doesn't do a lot of damage, but can be used to rack up damage quickly without killing easily.
Back to Falco, the problem with jab is that they harshly nerfed his jab from Brawl. In Brawl, Falco's jab 1 had 15 total frames, jab 2 had 18 total frames, and rapid jab connected at least 2 frames faster than in Smash 4. In Smash 4, Falco's jab 1 has 22 total frames and jab 2 has 25 total frames. That's an increase of 7 frames to jab 1 and 7 frames to jab 2. For characters like Ike and even Captain Falcon whose jab 1 have 23 and 17 total frames respectively, they also have weighted knockback and their jab 1 (and 2) have them retract their hurtboxes not to mention that neither moves forward until jab 2 for Ike and jab 3 for Captain Falcon. Falco moves forward with each part of his jab and leans in. The amount of total frames for a move that doesn't do much knockback because of its lack of weighted knockback or just high overall knockback kills Falco.
It's not an issue of we have to deal with it, but an issue where unlike Diddy or even Samus thanks to patch 1.1.1 changing her jab 1 a bit so it's a bit safer, Falco dies to anyone with a frame 5 and below move. That makes fights against Captain Falcon, Ryu, Jigglypuff, Little Mac, Mario, Dr. Mario, Luigi, Roy, Marth, Lucina, Fox, Yoshi, and Sheik, although Sheik players never seem to spam Nair, that much more infuriating. Once a player knows that you can just button-mash to punish Falco's jab, a move supposedly the most basic and safest option all characters have, it's just plain stupid. Ryu, Jigglypuff, Little Mac, Dr. Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, and Roy will all kill you with their Shoryuken, Rest, Rising Uppercut, Super Jump Punch, Nair, or Blazer while Captain Falcon, Mario, Fox, Marth, and Lucina will put themselves into advantage by taking 3% to 5% while you take a full jab combo from the Capt. and Fox, a Super Jump Punch from Mario, or a Dolphin Slash from Marth and Lucina. Watch what happens to Rice whenever he goes for a jab against Nitro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdlzF92jZtw.
Fox's rapid jab was given a phantom hit between jab 2 and rapid jab. It's stupid when slowed down and makes no sense animation-wise, but nobody's really going to notice. You could do that for Falco and it would be fine since he's starting to spin. At the same time, why? Why was jab 2 to rapid jab of all things needed to have more delay? Of all the moves Falco had in Brawl, it was nowhere broken like his Blaster and Dair. So, why that? Or even, why anything about his jab? It wasn't abusive and it was nowhere near Smash 4 Fox's pre-patch 1.1.0 or Little Mac's pre-1.0.4? jab or anywhere near as strong and versatile as Captain Falcon's Gentleman. Meanwhile, Rosalina & Luma's all-in-one jab. Kills, sets up, combos into itself, and edgeguards...
Falco's only issue is his weak neutral and nothing that makes up for it. ZSS also has a weak neutral, but an absolutely broken punish game that makes up for it. Wario has a weak neutral but he's hard to kill and can take stocks at 30%.
If Falco is going to have a weak neutral, be slow, AND be light, we need some more reliable ways to KO people. doing damage is fairly straightforward, but KOing people can be an issue. falco had KO problems in both melee and brawl, but this was made up for in each game by a ridiculous neutral/combo game and the best projectile. both of those things have been gutted in this game, for some reason.
I really like Falco's edgeguarding game and think that could be developed. Give him Brawl dair. Let it combo off of dthrow with bad DI. reduce knockback growth on upthrow. Let us upthrow and read an airdodge and bair for the kill.
OR just give Falco good lasers. I'll take that and that alone tbh. improve the neutral by forcing people to approach like Sheik does. short hop single lasers, I'll take that lol.
We could also just give falco a walk/run/air speed buff but imo that would just make too similar to fox and he'd lose his identity.
Falco's only issue is his weak neutral and nothing that makes up for it. ZSS also has a weak neutral, but an absolutely broken punish game that makes up for it. Wario has a weak neutral but he's hard to kill and can take stocks at 30%.
If Falco is going to have a weak neutral, be slow, AND be light, we need some more reliable ways to KO people. doing damage is fairly straightforward, but KOing people can be an issue. falco had KO problems in both melee and brawl, but this was made up for in each game by a ridiculous neutral/combo game and the best projectile. both of those things have been gutted in this game, for some reason.
I really like Falco's edgeguarding game and think that could be developed. Give him Brawl dair. Let it combo off of dthrow with bad DI. reduce knockback growth on upthrow. Let us upthrow and read an airdodge and bair for the kill.
OR just give Falco good lasers. I'll take that and that alone tbh. improve the neutral by forcing people to approach like Sheik does. short hop single lasers, I'll take that lol.
We could also just give falco a walk/run/air speed buff but imo that would just make too similar to fox and he'd lose his identity.
I agree, for him too kill early he need to put himself to much at risk, and his low % kill combos are too situation, because you need to have them in a specific % and close to the edge and i also think it depends a lot in the stage your playing in, a good stage for Falco is town an city, since the blast zones are closer.
If he gets good laser at least like 4 frames or 3 frames less of end lagg, i think his zoning and neutral game will improve greatly, rigth now his laser is so god dam punishable is not even funny
