I'm confused; I hear talk of not approaching yet see things about Snake eating dairs and such.
Dair is one of the better punishment tools in the game, as it has lasting hitboxes, is fast, and leads into an arsenal of other attacks. It will be used for punishment, mainly, of predicted attacks and whatnot, rather than approach by good Foxes.
For one, if Snake is crawling and you're firing lasers, you can't call out the Snake for stalling; he's evading your attacks. Neither of you is approaching, but both of you are still able to be hit if need be.
You're right, this is mainly an em passe... I mainly said that to counter the "then we'll just call Fox for stalling" argument that many players bring when they state they can crouch under Fox's lasers...
Snake can pull out grenades in one frame. Fox can't approach well anyway, but he's essentially now limited to grabs because dair and nair can both be nullified with a grenade. Even without that, his disjointed utilt and ftilt would stop any attempt of Fox approaching anyway.
Snake can't just sit there dropping grenades every time Fox gets close for a couple reasons... first of all, it keeps Snake either in shield, or forces him to roll... both of which, Fox can punish QUITE well... Secondly, Fox has attacks that space that situation well... and if anything, get a hit on a shield with no danger of a shield grab. Fox's grab game should also not really be messed with by Snake, because if Fox is able to put Snake into the air while he is on the ground, he has an advantage.
Both of Snake's tilts are punishable... shine stall baits and punishes an utilt (don't get into a mindgame war here... yeah, Snake could start guessing that and adapt...and then Fox could adapt...etc... Fox has tools to get around it, is what I'm saying), and dash shield is an easy enough way to get inside a ftilt.
And still, you're really talking about Fox approaching... which should not be happening... I mean, literally, Fox could try faking an approach, force the grenade drop, and try to laser it in the worst case...
Depending on the stage, Snake can pull out some grenades. FD is the only stage I can really think of where his grenades are severely nullified, but he'll definitely get chances to grenade camp on the other neutrals and many other CP stages; the platforms do help. And I'm not forgetting that Fox mainly uses SHDLs, AKA he jumps, but you also can't forget that Snake can jump too.
If snake is in the air, he is vulnerable here... Fox has to somewhat guess where he is landing, pull a shield usmash, and it will work...beating out every aerial option Snake has, as well as an airdodge into the ground (with proper timing, of course...
This, mainly, is where I feel Fox has an advantage... he punishes an aerial Snake like nothing, and has tools to put him in the air...
For him, Mortar slide isn't really the best approach especially from a really long distance, but around mid-range it's a bit more safe; you have less time to punish a dash attack or DACUS.
Nah, mortar slide is really risky for Snake here, as it's fairly easy to tell when it could be coming... and it's very easy to punish with an usmash (if timed and guessed correctly....risky though), utilt (easy peasy), or Dair (which goes right through the mortar...)
I don't know why you're saying that you completely **** Snake offstage. You do better than some against him offstage, but it isn't instant stock loss. Because just about everyone has a good chance of gimping him if he recovers from below...well...good Snakes don't recover from below. Rising fair in general can hit him if he tries high recoveries, although they're often really obvious, and can be airdodged through. And don't forget about reverse grenade pulls and such.
Going back to my point before...if Snake recovers very high, he is above Fox, and Fox is very good at punishing that...Of course it's not any kind of instant stock loss or anything of the like... but Fox is almost guaranteed to be able to put damage on him. Bair and hard Nair both break Snake's upB...but it's increibly hard to actually gimp him.. Fox just likes putting the extra damage that he is gien basically for free...
