Mission Complete!- Fox Discussion Thread

[Ramserss]

yo so im a bit new to the fox meta in general especially in sm4sh and im considering maining him in mostly everything but mostly sm4sh dose anybody have any tips for relatively new fox player? like some techs to focus on and other stuff like that.

 

[ZeroJanitor]

Up tilt combos into itself up to around 50% for most characters. It's a good way to rack up damage early in a stock.

Also jab combos are good to know: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agTPENb_1gY

 

[Ramserss]

Up tilt combos into itself up to around 50% for most characters. It's a good way to rack up damage early in a stock.

Also jab combos are good to know: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agTPENb_1gY

thanks i make sure to try it out.

 

[Ffamran]

Yo, you might be aware of this, but be careful about using Fox Illusion (and Falco Phantasm if you happen to use Falco too): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZ0Wkn436Kc. It's a great recovery option, but sometimes, it get really predictable and there are times where you can mess up your positioning and have to deal with getting Side Smashed in the face. Even then, if people know you're going to Fox Illusion back, I think they can intercept you even if you're level with the ledge.

 

[DavemanCozy]

I think an amazing teammate for Fox is Little Mac. This isn't just me theorycrafting Mac+X in dubs, I've done this team to surprisingly grear success.

+
I did this team with Frupcakes this past weekend at Enthusiast Gaming Live (Toryuken 4) up here in Ontario. We got 7th place in a very stacked tournament.

So all of us know that I used to beatch about Mac until I got better and noticed how the stage list hates him because he suffers from having a "For Glory" design which screws him in singles every time high platforms are involved. In doubles tho, this weakness is negligible with a teammate to cover it, and I think Fox is one of those amazing teammates with his fast falling speed and ground speed letting him help and cover the places Mac can't. Because of the nature of dubs, opponents are also forced to deal with Little Mac instead of camping him out, unlike in singles where he can be counterpicked relatively easily.

Both of these characters have really good synergy with each other, despite both of them preferring to stay on-stage. The general gameplan is to let Mac engage while you as Fox follow closely behind him, waiting for openings that Little Mac creates which Fox is very good at capitalizing on. Little Mac is very good at engaging in 2v1s thanks to super-armour and fast moves, but Mac being Mac also means he gets tossed offstage and dies.
For this team to work, Fox and Mac stick close together as much as possible while they focus on dividing their opponents and harassing them, helping each other out when one of them gets in trouble. You want to be at a distance where the other one can get there and knock one of the opponents away while still respecting Mac's range to avoid friendly fire. Played right, you have two fast characters that can separate opposing teammates relatively well and create openings for each other.

What Fox brings to the table for Mac:
1. He's really good at separating the opposite team. Should Mac start to get overwhelmed, Fox can help him very quickly and toss an opponent away from him, since his attacks come out so fast.
2. Fox is really good at applying pressure below platforms. Since Little Mac has no air presence, Fox covering them removes Mac's weakness. (Of course, if only one opponent runs to a platform and leaves his teammate, then just sandwich the teammate, which is very easy with how fast both characters are).
3. Good ways of getting a grab, whether it's through conditioning shield or getting a pivot grab on a distracted opponent. Getting a grab is essentially a free sweetspotted U-smash, F-smash or KO punch for Little Mac. This also removes Fox weakness of having no KO throw or guaranteed setup from a throw. Great for ending the 2v1 when you're in the advantage.

What Mac brings for Fox:
1. High KO power, which combined with the many ways Fox has of building damage let's Little Mac get as many KOs as possible.
2. Any opponent that gets knocked in the air by Little Mac, Fox can capitalize on them with aerials for the KO or damage.
3. The KO punch. Such a silly move, so easy to set up when you can be Fox and grab your opponent or set it up for Mac.

Essentially Little Mac's role is to make the ground a deathzone in doubles: it's his bubble, he controls that space and anyone who gets near him gets knocked away. Fox's role is to cover the places Little Mac can't reach, mainly platforms, and catch opponents that get sent flying by Mac.

 

[luke_atyeo]

so I've been away from the boards for a little while
There was a big tourney in Australia last weekend, BAM7, there were heaps of internationals there to play melee (mango, leffen, lucky, alex19, wife, chillin, etc)
I got all the way to grand finals in smash 4 with fox, but I lost in a 10 game grand final :'< ness backthrow why!?

I nearly won a major for us boyz, but I let you all down.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jO1vPSzZaWo&feature=youtu.be

please give me feedback and try not to cringe at the pointblank lasers last stock last game.

 

[VenommousPig]

Hey guys I just watched Megafox tare through all of his opponents at the tournament just hosted by tourneylocator in Austin tx, he seemed to be using a lot of jab 1-2 into reverse U-tilt setting up for all of our combos and frame traps and all that good stuff. I don't think i have seen many fox make great use of it like he was..it was so fast and smooth. it looked extremely strong and my question to you guys is: is it fast enough when mastered to hit most of the cast right after the jabs or were his opponents just not shielding it because it was new to them compaired to normal bread and butter fox? Or is it a true combo?

Thanks for any input!

 

[luke_atyeo]

can you link the youtube channel?

I'm sure you've seen that larry video by now, I was practicing the fair spike utilt fair spike utilt combo last night and trying to think of setups to begin the combo, and I though about DJC turn around utilt.
If it does work on people, then its a perfect setup into spastic fair combos.
Develop that fox meta yo

 

[VenommousPig]

http://youtu.be/Qc4Z93PtBLM

This is not the same tourney I was talking about I couldn't find an upload but this was uploaded a day ago and it still shows what I'm talking about. Jc reverse utilt is def something to work on as a fox main.

 

[Legato]

@ luke_atyeo was looking over your video, I'm not as good as you; but I do know a few things for the Ness/Fox MU. In that MU you can afford to go off stage at certain times. For example at 22 min, I believe Ness used his double jump and a RAR bair would have finished him off at 60%. He was at the perfect spot where he had no options and you could have taken him down. Don't be afraid to pursue off-stage a little imo. I notice you never punished them really when in this position, and I think it would have really made villyness second guess their edge guard options if you got a bair in even once. Dunno if this is too helpful though lol

Another thing, I notice certain moments where you could have punished ness with JC's instead of a grab. Like when he would use pk thunder and you managed to close in on him mid move, it would be better to JC I think in those instances, but I can see why you went with a grab sometimes.

Way to represent though You have a really good neutral game, like top level. I don't think this Ness player ever really bested you in that area. It was mostly finishing off the work you put in that cost you a match, even then you did really well. Better than I ever could. Maybe perfecting JC usmash would work? I think that works on Ness (might be wrong though). I learned a lot from watching this.

 

[EndlessRain]

Re: DJC

Ness can't escape it! I was hoping to see that fact abused a bit more, but I do appreciate the risk around it (miss the timing and they are trading ~3% for a free nair on you). You can usmash Ness after 120% too. It really is one of our best tools in this MU.

 

[M@v]

So I think Dreamland is amazing for Fox. Could potentially be his new best stage. Blast Zones are not nearly as big as in melee so early kills off the top are still viable. Its top blast zone is either as low or lower than battlefield, and the more spread out platforms give fox even more room to move around.

 

[Skarfelt]

Top blastzone is the same as Smashville but the side blast zones are BF size so people can't abuse that against us. Seems harder to AC Dair onto platforms but maybe I suck. Stage is definitely Godlike for us, easily the best one we have now with that ceiling <3

 

[Virgule]

An amusing fact about dreamland (considering melee) is that fox can go under it, at least on 3DS(didn't test on WiiU yet busy watching E3). Not very useful but still a cool thing to know.

 

[ZeroJanitor]

I kinda miss the abnormally large Dreamland from Melee honestly

 

[Dark Dire Wolf]

I took a long break from online Smash and now I've forgotten how to play well. What are good punish options for Fox, I've a bad habit of just trying to dash attack as a punish. I'm rarely in range for most of his attacks.

 

[DavemanCozy]

Dreamland has been my go to stage in Melee (but that's also because lol I play in that game), man bringing it back and the fact it's a good stage makes me so happy.

 

[Dark Dire Wolf]

What moves of Fox are safe on shield?

 

[Skarfelt]

What moves of Fox are safe on shield?

Nothing if not spaced properly besides unpowershielded smashes. Can space Bairs and tilts well though.

Guys, I'm having some frustration right now. It seems people have finally worked out that Fox's recovery is total garbage and I really dunno what to do when I get knocked offstage now. I honestly feel like right now if Fox is knocked far enough offstage at anything above 30%, there is literally no excuse for it not to be a stock as long as you have any form of good hitboxes/lingering hitboxes. Got crushed today in a tourney, was just doin' fiiine then I'd go offstage once and I'd be edgeguarded until death. =[

 

[Virgule]

I know the pain buddy. I just got home from a session with friends and the amount of gimp i had to deal with was unbelievable. Mixing the recovery makes it a little bit better but against talented opponents it doesn't matter in the end. people can react to sideB when they get use to the timing and if you get too low the only option is UpB wich get punished so damn efficiently.
To me it became as simple as : offstage == probably death. i'm even scared to go out to finish a stock with Fair spike as a simple mistake can put me in so much trouble.

 

[Skarfelt]

I got knocked out by a Yoshi that I've consistently beaten for months and while granted he's now much better, every game was just... one hit confirm to knock me off stage. Stock. Nair beats all my recovery options if he times it right and it's really not hard to time your super long hitboxes to beat Fox Side B being more linear than most American highways. Hell, even against Maxy's Zelda I ended up losing despite a huge lead because he got me offstage at 30% and welp, edgeguard 'till dead. It kinda feels like playing Melee Sheik in that if you try to land on stage, your endlag is so bad that you just die but if you go for the ledge you're so obvious that you die anyway. I just got so frustrated trying to get back on the bloody stage that I was trowing away loooaaads of damage, though, so I need to address impatience as well.

 

[Funkermonster]

I keep hearing people talk about how bad Fox's recovery is, but considering my weak edgeguarding skills I've rarely been able to intercept it except when I'm playing custom (in which case I put up a tornado hold to protect the ledge from your sideb, or turn on Leaf Shield/DownB footstool your UpB, but I do this to lots of characters) and most foxes I face almost always get back just by sidebing to the ledge and I don't know how to stop it when I'm not Mega Man. If his recovery is that terrible, do you have advice for dummies like me on how to intercept it with most characters? Is it easy to hit him out of the sideb or something?

 

[Rhus]

@ Funkermonster Honestly, it's mainly the characters with silly strong Nairs that are brainless easy to intercept recoveries with, the main contenders being Luigi and Yoshi. Megaman has a harder time because he doesn't have those. I suppose you could Nair him and stop his Illusion, which will force him to use Firefox if he has used up his jump already.

This gives you the option to Dair him (careful of the reflector) or gimp him with Fair...or something.

 

[DavemanCozy]

What moves of Fox are safe on shield?

Spaced SH N-air is good too.

I've been doing FJ D-air as well: by doing a full jump, hit with the beginning part of D-air, and FF back down poking the shield with D-air again. Depending on when you fastfall, D-air can auto-cancel too. You can also do this while retreating if you're scared of getting followed up in the air.

--
I'm wondering what the angles of Fire Fox are in this game. Anyone know? I've been able to pull off some Melee angles where I lightly angle the control stick to get the most out of Fox's recovery.

Keeping the above tricky angles in mind, I've also been using Firefox when I'm offstage and I'm above the ledge: despite the startup, at a far enough distance from the ledge so the opponent can't punish the startup, Fox gains several options to either aim towards the ledge to grab it (it's scary since your angling yourself down purposely, and if you miss the ledge you're done, but you can do it with practice!), aim to land onstage to autocancel Fire Fox landing lag (take a look at Fire Fox autocanceling) or even aim Fox onstage and straight at the opponent (I've caught some people by surprise who were expecting me to avoid them or go for the ledge).

We don't always need to use Illusion to get back onstage when we're above the ledge. Although yes there is startup with Fire Fox, an opponent expecting Illusion will have their timing to edgeguard Fox thrown off by the startup.

 

[luke_atyeo]

oi so CEO is happening in the next 24 hours, who do we know is repping us?
nakat might play some fox, we got larry, and our boy m@v
@ M@v keep us updated on how you are doing man

 

[Foster J.]

oi so CEO is happening in the next 24 hours, who do we know is repping us?
nakat might play some fox, we got larry, and our boy m@v
@ M@v keep us updated on how you are doing man

http://ceogaming.challonge.com/2015_smash4_13
@ M@v 's pool hasn't updated though

 

[luke_atyeo]

mav getting 4th (3rd?) in pools, good job man

meanwhile larry getting work done, took out mr R holy ****

 

[M@v]

I feel I let a strong chance to advance to top 32 slip away on this one. Myran vs me was a 2-0 but both games were last hit. Whats gonna haunt me is I lost in losers because I went Mario game 3 and probably should of just stuck to fox. If i had won that game, I would of rematched myran to decide who gets second, and feel i could of won the runback set with Mario. Pretty much stomped everyone else in the pool that I ran into. What's done is done I guess; nakat/dkwill among others didn't make it out of pools either so its not like these things were free. Far from it in fact. 2/32 advance lmao. Gonna mm nakat tomorrow if we have time, among others. Larry already took my dollar

 

[Foster J.]

Larry already took my dollar

Larry took Mr. R's chocolate, he's taking yo dollar, Lurr is a greedy ass mofo taking names, cash and games

 

[luke_atyeo]

yeah mav you did really well dude, I bet you weren't on stream at any point though? no videos?

 

[M@v]

No I wasn't. And it's funny because they put one of the winners quarters matches from my pool on stream and the winners semis match I wasn't in was streamed too, but none of my matches LOL

 

[luke_atyeo]

:<

speaking of streaming I created a stream today, come sub and check it out team!
I live in Australia though so probably streaming at funky times for you guys.

http://www.twitch.tv/theakayama

 

[Umby]

Question:

Let's say you get a grab near the ledge (opponent's back to the ledge), which direction do you throw them and why?

I ask because, as a general rule-of-thumb, I throw off stage in attempt to edgeguard/gimp, however I've been largely unsuccessful to that end. However, I've seen people throw the enemy back into the stage to get some free lasers, and I was wondering what other ideas I could get for this type of situation.

 

[luke_atyeo]

I guess it depends on a few things, what percent are you at, what percent is your opponent at, what character are you against, what stage are you on (smashville and battlefield give some characters more recovery options for example)

Throwing them off stage is probably the best option if you've figured out that you can edge guard your opponent well and keep them off the stage (if you click that stream link above and watch like the last 30 minutes of the last session you'll see me keep a yoshi player off stage for like 90% of the match in a lot of matches, shameless self promotion at its finest), or if you have a good grasp on their getup options, since getting a read there can net you a kill.
If they are always getting back on stage against you then its probably better to put them back on the stage and laser, but keep in mind when you do this you are often giving up stage control to your opponent and cornering yourself.

 

[Foster J.]

Question:

Let's say you get a grab near the ledge (opponent's back to the ledge), which direction do you throw them and why?

I ask because, as a general rule-of-thumb, I throw off stage in attempt to edgeguard/gimp, however I've been largely unsuccessful to that end. However, I've seen people throw the enemy back into the stage to get some free lasers, and I was wondering what other ideas I could get for this type of situation.

In most cases just getting stage control is always a good idea, and then you have some options outside of it.
If they get up, you can grab them, if they attack you can shield-grab them, or even punish in some cases.
If they roll you can pivot grab them or usmash / pivot ftilt
If they jump you either read if with a Bair / Uair or react to their landing to keep stage control.

Throwing people back into the stage is generally a decent mix up, if your back is to the ledge most people won't expect to be fthrown into the stage, and then you can lead it into an Illusion and then land the true combo Uair from that, that is if they miss the tech from the throw tumble.

In the end, very situational option coverage, and also depends on the stage, as in some situations the throws might throw them on a platform, in which it becomes a tech chase situation if you read their roll direction or get up option can land a Uair punishment.

grabs grabs grabs.

My favourite is throwing them off, ledge trumping them and then you either try to bair them from the ledge trump, or you get back up on the stage and wait their recovery option, cause if they go for the ledge again they won't have any invincibility and you can punish them with a Dsmash at the ledge which will kill most about 90 % and above depending on their recovery

 

[luke_atyeo]

Good luck to any foxes at EVO this weekend!
Let us all know how you go

 

[roymustang1990-]

Question.Does fox have the best pivot f tilt/pivot grab in the whole game? They're really good for mix ups

 

[Pudgetalks]

Question.Does fox have the best pivot f tilt/pivot grab in the whole game? They're really good for mix ups

I don't know the data or anything but I totally agree with your sentiment on its use.
I've started implementing both of them and have gotten pretty good results.
The Pivot grab's really good for when you're certain they're gonna roll back.

 

[Kaladin]

I simply CANNOT get nair to upsmash to work. Is it not a true combo? Very specific % ranges? Whats the deal? Hellllp me!

(Also, if you have any words of wisedom for a brand new fox player, I'd appricate them.)

 

[ZeroJanitor]

Nair to upsmash is very situational and I'm pretty sure it's DI-dependent. Landing with down-air to upsmash is a bit more reliable but it can still be air-dodged.

In terms of playing Fox in general, use lasers to force opponents to approach (be wary of the move's cooldown though). Side B'ing very slightly off the ground reduces your landing lag so keep that in mind when recovering or moving across the stage. Fastfalling a forward-air causes it to send opponents downward, which can be used for combos or edgeguarding.