Is there a list of simple falco combos?

[No0dle]

I recently started playing falco and if anyone could direct me to a list of falco's simple comboes that would be pretty rad

 

[FE_Hector]

Unfortunately, BnB Falco stuff is kinda scarce. The simplest stuff by far is pillaring, which is just shine dair shine dair shine dair until ~50%. You do have to WD and react to DI between the shines and dairs, though, along with SHFFL dairing if against a fellow fast faller. Utilt bair is also pretty simple. A LOT of Falco combos are super DI and player-dependent, though. We don't have any kind of flowchart for like any of our stuff.

 

[BloodL10N]

Unfortunately, BnB Falco stuff is kinda scarce. The simplest stuff by far is pillaring, which is just shine dair shine dair shine dair until ~50%. You do have to WD and react to DI between the shines and dairs, though, along with SHFFL dairing if against a fellow fast faller. Utilt bair is also pretty simple. A LOT of Falco combos are super DI and player-dependent, though. We don't have any kind of flowchart for like any of our stuff.

The flowchart is in our hearts...

Edit:
Though to be perfectly honest, that isn't super far from the truth. A lot of what I do personally with Falco and his combos is a mix of reaction/muscle memory. Pillaring is a good standard, but Falco's who rely on just Pillaring are like IC's who only rely on wobbling.

A good example of this is Weon X vs Ally in PM Grand Finals, as soon as Ally switched up his DI from Weon's pillaring it became incredibly one sided and ally took the GF from losers.

Anyways, custom combos will always be the best. Just gotta believe with your heart.

 

[FE_Hector]

Yeah, the thing with Falco is really just that nobody's actually done enough research to put together comprehensive flowcharts for his combos. The 20YY guys and I will probably do that eventually, but it'll be a bit. I generally don't critique other Falco's combo games for that reason. No two Falco's combo quite the same way.

 

[J⩓мє]

I recently started playing falco and if anyone could direct me to a list of falco's simple comboes that would be pretty rad

The issue with 'simple combos' or combo videos vs traditional 2d fighters is that the combo system in melee is incredibly dynamic and subject to a lot of impact by the decisions and actions of the opponent, which one must either account for or address. These differences are both in the definition of the situation (the characters selected, the stage, etc), and in the specific decisions of the opponent, which can either be completely irrational, rational, or even self-detrimenting (which makes it fascinating tbh). The ability to predict, play off of, or impact the DI patterns of your opponent, often referred to as 'DI traps', 'reading DI', or simply an instance of 'reads', are a critical part of mastering the game. Otherwise, before and after a hit (either from winning neutral or anywhere else), selecting an option which allows you the highest possible chance of gaining a follow up is the most effective way to combo consistently in Melee, particularly with Falco, but this philosophy extends to all characters. An example of this, against Fox, on Final Destination, is wavedashing out of shine towards the side where Fox was, since the maximal differences in knockback trajectory from normal DI means he can most greatly move in that direction, and far less backwards. PewPewU once posted a picture illustrating the 4 maximum trajectory angles from regular DI off falco's shine either on FB or twitter and I'm currently looking for it, I'll post it here if/when I find it.

However the TL;DR of that paragraph is that there is an incredibly large set of potential variations to account for when comboing an opponent as Falco, which results in his combos being more about reflexive reactions, experience, and the ability to adapt on the fly to the opponent, than an exhaustive flow chart.

This is a reason why things like edgeguard situations and (for Falco mostly platform) tech chases are so powerful, it effectively limits the set of decisions an opponent can make thereby offering you a distinct and huge advantage towards being able to gain additional hits or a stock. Also, even if your combos are a set of simple actions like shine & dair repeatedly, if all you do is spam shine and dair without the aforementioned reactions, adaptations, and experience, you will drop your combos.

These issues are part of why, even for experienced players, watching tournaments and VODs, and constantly seeking out players with different thoughts and styles, is exciting and a valuable resource to have. For example watching a player extend a combo with a wavedash jab fake into uptilt, when someone else would have done wavedash jab fake into shine greatly changes the entire situation and therefore the knowledge you can gain from it.

The best way to become accustomed to this system is to boot up 20XX 3.02 (4.05 requires a few additional steps to make the cpu not-insane, hmu or ask around if you wanna go that way) which allows for fully random di by the cpu, note that even experience you garner from this should be tested against experienced players, at the least in friendlies, since against even 20XX cpus things like chaingrab upthrows, dthrow regrabs, etc will seem to work and be true combos, when the opponent can often make specific decisions to counter them (like wakeup shines, certain DI techniques, crouch cancels, aerials, air-dodges, mixups, etc). Also cpus often behave effectively randomly in a situation and do stupid things like SD or jump near a dairing falco at the edge of the stage and get murdered, where if a person does that they ****ed up bad.

All that aside, I think it'd be cool to make a general form of ideas to use in comboing as falco based on the hitstun and knockback data of falco's moves.

TODO: Post that shine picture with the arrows PewPew posted in his Marth group and reposted a few times to advertise his Marth fb group.

PS. While most high damage moves, like smash attacks, make follow ups hard, the scariest thing about facing down a good Gannondorf is that one of his strongest moves, dair, effectively can be followed up by itself in a lot of situations, and its high hitstun from all of its properties (high damage, electrical) means that teching subsequent hits requires intuition or experience, meaning that a good gannon against a tilted or inexperienced player can just ****ing dair over and over again in the most dramatic display of like-5-hits-into-almost-120% I can think of. He sucks otherwise, but man when he lands that dair, even if it's on me, I feel impressed and know something ****in cool is about to happen. However, Falco's Dair is better, and therefore, rationally, more formidable. Also, because Falco's dair is better, people can get salty about it when you use it nonstop when that **** is actually hype; ignore those people.

 

[No0dle]

Thanks cool

SeemsGoodMan

 

[J⩓мє]

Thanks cool

SeemsGoodMan

can't tell if you're being sarcastic, it was kinda long-winded