Is Falco considered overpowered in competitive play?

[hoonmasta]

Titled says it all. Is he overpowered, and if so why? I know he has a cheap chain grab but that's really all I can think of at the moment that might be considered "over powered". I still think characters such as Olimar and Diddy Kong are more overpowered than Falco is. And this question is pertaining to competitive tournament play.

 

[KingofPhantoms]

No, no, he's not overpowered at all. While Chain Grabbing IS allowed in tournaments, Falco's can only be used a few times before the character is damaged to much to be easily grabbed after using his Dspecial. The Ice Climbers have a much more effective chain grab.

The only character currently banned or considered over powered is Meta Knight.

 

[BlueXenon]

Falco has 2 bad match ups, Ice climbers and Pikachu. But other than that, he has one of the best match up spreads in the game and has imo a top 3 metaknight match up. He also had good tournament results including japanese tournaments and an apex tournament.

 

[smashkng]

Falco's chain grab in high level of play can easily lead to 60-70% damage which is a lot of damage of course, but afterwards it doesn't do much else so he doesn't get a nearly as large reward for grabbing someone afterwards. High level players also never get killed by the chain spike. Most characters can just recover from the spike 100% of the time and the few that can't, they can SDI towards the stage and then the chain spike never kills. While the CG does matter, it's not the main thing that makes Falco a very good character. IMO Falco's strongest tool really is his general really strong defensive game with silent lasers + phantasm (you can't hit Falco in the first 1/3 of the distance) that is really hard to get around for almost all characters, especially when combined with his powerful CQC game you have to deal with after getting around his lasers. His spot dodge can be annoying because it has very little vulnerability, which can sometimes (not always) make it annoyingly hard to grab him even if you do predict it and he has pretty good rolls to get away too once the opponent is closer to his face too, especially when used smartly. Another good thing he can do is string pretty well (he often combos with stuff the opponent doesn't expect to combo) and rack up damage fast that way, but his biggest problems against most characters are landing a kill move and his recovery being relatively easy to edge guard. Overall he is an excellent character but I wouldn't call him overpowered, unless you main a mid or low tier who doesn't really have the tools to deal with Falco's camping game properly.

 

[The shadow Kirby]

I personally used to use falco but as I played online I realized how annoying as hell he was (but I don't think he was op) so I switched mains to a more balanced fighter

/just my opinions\

 

[FredFuchs]

concise answer: no
longer answer: while he is one of the better characters in the game, he has some major weakness such as ko-ing, a rather lacking recovery, a rather low weight, and high gravity and falling speed (although, to my knowledge, only pikachu and possibly zss can use this to rack up major damage).