Is fox combo heavy?

[Spoice]

So with certain characters, it's obvious combos are pretty important to racking up damage (C.Falcon, Falco to some extent, Peach, etc), and while fox does have combos, and really good moves that combo into each other, how important would you say combos are to fox, or do you prefer to just rack on damage through other means?

 

[Y-L]

I'd say fox definitely combos more than other characters, but a lot of his gameplay is about mindgames and option coverage as opposed to straight up combos. Falco definitely relies more on combos than fox does.

 

[Flippy Flippersen]

I wouldn't say he's a combo heavy character but yes he has long and good combos and when given an opening going for said combo is better than resetting to neutral game.

 

[Fargoth_]

Fox has a unique playstyle where combos are concerned.

To make this easier for myself to write and explain it, and hopefully for you to understand it, I'll use Falco as a comparision. Falco has shine -> dair. That basically works on a combo on anybody. He also has some great extenders for that in the form of dtilt ("the poor man's shine"), utilt, or a nair/bair. With Falco it's pretty much a flowchart for these combos. There's definitely more to this list, but I'm not very informed with Falco's combo game, so I'm definitely missing some. Basically, Falco's moves lead into each other in a way that makes him arguably the best character when used correctly.

Now Fox has a few to himself. Drill -> grab is guaranteed on Kirby/Puff, he can waveshine Peach, Falcon, Shiek, and many more across the stage and finish it off with a smash attack or grab of his choice, and he can get the "Thunder's combo" depending on an opponents actions. Also, uthrow uair. That's pretty much the Fox stuff that I know and love. The thing with Fox is that most of his moves don't set up for another move, they just cover options (note that this is from my personal experience, and this can vary from player to player, but imo this is how Fox works). But that's a great thing, because you can do anything that you want with Fox because of his amazing option coverage.

So Fox isn't very combo heavy. He's option heavy, and he is quite the force to be reckoned with when it comes to anything in Melee.

 

[Joaco]

Fox gameplay revolves around forcing mistakes. His combos are useful to reduce the number of mistakes you have to force.

 

[BRUJO~]

Most characters in melee have to respond and react to a lot of things during combos, such as di, sdi, techs, etc, but Fox's combos are often absent of some of these factors because of the unique properties of shine. So I would say he is less "combo heavy" and more "punishment execution heavy". That's not to say he doesn't have to respond to things mid combo, he just needs to slightly less often. Fox is still incredibly fun to play though because he gets to do so much more of this option coverage in the neutral, then when I get an opening it feels more like I'm just executing a punish.

I also play Sheik, and I would say she is more combo heavy because she has to respond to more things mid punish if she wants to extend her combos. In the Sheik v. Fox matchup, Fox usually needs 4ish openings to take a stock, where as Sheik may only need 2. I would say this makes Sheik more combo heavy, and characters like Falcon are even more so than Sheik. At least the way I see it, Fox is not very "combo heavy" relative to the other melee characters. I think this makes him much harder to play because you need to be very conscious and quick thinking, but he also has a much greater potential, and for this reason is the broken top tier that we know.

I don't know if that was all important to your question haha, but it was interesting for me to think about.

 

[bearsfan092]

In terms of really long true combos, you're looking for the other spacie if you want that. Fox has super reliable and easy bnbs. For longer stuff, it's about responding so that your opponent has virtually no room to breathe after getting hit. I think this is where the real difficulty in playing Fox is, and why Fox players often get outpaced at all but the highest levels. Punish game is often the biggest determinant of who wins in a match, and it's very easy for a Falco, Sheik, Marth, or even Falcon to come out ahead.