Need help beating a lame falco

[JugglerMurdoc]

Hi,
this is my first post on smashboards, so I'm not sure if I'm doing it on the right thread.
Anyway, I've been playing fox for 8 months now, but recently I've been having a lot of trouble against this lame, lame, falco. I'm probably insisting too much on the fact that he is lame, but this is becausing it's been upsetting me a lot. Because it's my fault if I keep losing, first. But the main reason is that this lame falco is my young brother, so my honour is at stake here. I think I have some clue, and I wanted to know if you had any solutions.
I'm not a great player. I can wavedash, shfl, shl, jump cancel up-smash (but not grabs) and I got the main idea of shinespiking. I hope that your solutions won't need too much work, but I'm willing to perfect some techniques, and maybe learn some others.
So, here are the main reasons of me losing all the time, (and I often get 4- or 3-stocked ):

• He ROLLS AND SHIELDS a lot. God, I can't stand it anymore! It upsets me, and then I mess up all my moves. How can I punish his rolls?
• He understood quite fast how to play falcon, so he spams his SHL :

1. • When I approach him, it interrupts me, and then he just has to use side-smash to destroy me.
   • When he approaches, he just dash attacks. And go through my shield, then he can shield stab me with a filthy b-air or just grab me.

• Sometime for no good reasons he spams forward tild and I take like 30% damage... My only solution is to get behind him, and I usually jump.

This falco is just ultra-defensive. I don't understand how to get to him, I mess up because of his lasers, I panick and get angry, especially since he rolls and shields a lot.

I understandd the importance of punishes, and when I get him offstage I know how to deal with him. The problem is that his lame neutral game is too efficient against an unexperienced player like me, and this is the reason why I ask for your help.

By the way, I'm European so please forgive my English

Thank you!

 

[pershona]

Bait rolls and punish them with DSmash.
Use USmash against the dash attack, it should stop it.
Learn the timing of the laser to powershield it

 

[Dominus Felis]

Learn to shield pressure, nair+shine, drillshines, etc. Powershield lasers.

 

[JugglerMurdoc]

Thanks a lot!

 

[Thor]

Lot of information.

When he dash attacks your shield, just jump out of your shield and do an aerial [probably nair or bair]. If you are close to the ledge and he ended up behind you, you can shine him offstage. If you hold a direction slightly while shielding [this is tricky], you can angle your shield to avoid shieldstabs.

You can punish rolls with a lot more than dsmash, but dsmash is good for it. You can also forward smash them, run to where the roll will end and upsmash, or use a nair or bair or dair as well.

If you are willing to practice jump-cancelled grabbing, it's really good. With Fox's up throw, you can chaingrab Falco. If rolls and shielding are getting to you, grab him, throw him upward, then immediately run to where he's going to land after his DI (directional influence - if you don't know it, it's worth searching the internet or forums for a guide on it and reading up on it) and regrab him [this takes practice]. If he misses the DI and goes straight up, you can also just up smash. This does a fair bit of percent and works at kill percentages [around 110% for Fox upsmash].

Grabbing him out of his rolls is also excellent because even if he re-brings up his shield, you will still grab him [and you can upthrow him].

It's kind of lame [that is, it won't work on experienced players], but you can do downthrow downsmash if he tends to miss his techs.

If he's lasering from afar, you can be kind of trolly and just hold down+B. He'll have to run at you, and you can jump out of shine and wavedash so that you aren't stuck in endlag. If you can learn to powershield [this is hard, you have to hit the shield button down fully the moment the projectile would hit you if you didn't bring up shield], you will reflect the lasers at him [and this has far less endlag than using reflector]. If you are on a small stage or close, you should stay grounded, hold down, and hold the shield button - this will crouch the laser to reduce hitstun and then bring up shield, which will block any forward smashes. Falco's laser -> forward smash is annoying, but it can be shielded easily if you are grounded [this can true combo on aerial opponents]. Fox's fullhop can also go over lasers. I'd recommend fullhoping lasers and then landing either in shield or landing next to him and grabbing, depending on if you think he will forward smash or shield/roll - landing in shield will let you avoid forward smash, and grabbing beats shielding. If he rolls away from the grab, you are not at any disadvantage since your grab ends around the same time as his roll, so he can't counterattack before you can bring up shield or an attack of your own.

You can also use platforms to avoid lasers - if he always lasers on the bottom, going to a platform means he has to fullhop to laser you, or else come onto your platform, at which point you can drop back down. And since Fox is fast, you can use platforms and keeping off the same level as him to quickly get close, so that lasers won't work as well.

I'm not sure if you know what crouch-cancelling is, based on your description of his forward tilts, but if he does that, hold down and flick the c-stick down or press A - this will do a down tilt or down smash after getting hit, as the crouching reduces your damage and knockback taken. Alternatively, hold down and then either roll behind him or away to escape the forward tilts.

Keeping calm during games is important. Whenever you lose a stock, don't jump off the revival platform right away, but take a deep breath and think about anything you maybe did wrong or that he keeps doing [for example, if he always landed a forward smash on your options off the ledge, you should probably try choosing different ones]. Playing while mad usually leaves you playing very predictably, which makes his job a lot easier.

 

[EWC]

Fulljump nair over his lasers and then shine to knock him down. Then try to guess/read whether he will roll or get up attack and grab him. Then upthrow upsmash.

 

[JugglerMurdoc]

Thanks all,
all those advices are really helpful, I think I'm going to learn how to jump-cancel grab first, then how to powershield.
The downsmash against rolls look like a good "fix" until I figure out better solutions, idk...
I really appreciate the time you took to help me, especially Thor. This community is awesome, and I will come back, because you reacted quickly and effectively.
Thank you very much!

 

[aerotem]

If he tries to dash attack you, you can easily avoid it with a short hop over him or a roll behind him and chain grab him and maybe shine him.

 

[Vorde]

Thanks all,
all those advices are really helpful, I think I'm going to learn how to jump-cancel grab first, then how to powershield.
The downsmash against rolls look like a good "fix" until I figure out better solutions, idk...
I really appreciate the time you took to help me, especially Thor. This community is awesome, and I will come back, because you reacted quickly and effectively.
Thank you very much!

When it comes to JC (jump cancelled) grabs, get a lvl 7 falco and practice on FD with just chain grabbing him (lvl 7's random DI)

 

[Lame Falco]

Hello dear Fox player !

I know how hard it can be to defeat Falco : It's an extremly strong pick when played among people who begin, because of his smash. I found a thread on the forum who could help you with the problem you got. I can't add the http:/, so do it and you should be able to access the post =)

smashboards.com/threads/not-needing-any-back-up-vs-very-very-easy-to-beat-fox.394666/

Hope it helped !

 

[MysticSkarps]

bait out the fsmash and punish

 

[Deep2]

The only things you need to beat that Falco are Shield > Wavedash out of Shield the lasers and do either running Nair or keep dash dancing until you get a powershield laser then go in, or just eat the lasers and run in anyways. Or, start reading the rolls with a JC Grab and tech chase/chaingrab the hell out of him. If you Up Throw Falco and he lands on a platform you have two choices:

One, stay on the ground and punish the tech/no tech/getup attack by waiting and doing an Up Air/Nair or Back Air.

Two, jump on the platform and react to the tech roll and grab him. If he's on the edges of the platform it's a guaranteed grab since it will push him off the platform at the same time. Make sure if you're on the platform and you react to a roll do running shield since it protects against shine or bair when he slides off or a getup attack.

If Falco's coming down with a Down Air attack wait for him to land then grab him.

Grab is your friend in this matchup. Learn to JC grab.

Do not ever EVER EVER punish rolls with an attack unless you KNOW you can't get the grab for some reason. Ever. Don't do it, just grab him. If you're going to use an attack use only dash attack and that will be past 80% since it leads into grab/usmash/fair/nair. Grab leads to literally every aerial attack Fox has all the way to 150% or a bit more and can go into an edgeguard situation or death.

Run up and shield beats 90% of what your friend sounds like too.

 

[SuperShus]

Approach by using platforms if he's laser spamming.
Don't overuse dair, nair is really good and uair is really really good.

Probably if he's beating you with less tech then you're not respecting his lame play.

Thing with newer players is they tend to think there's a good and bad way to play.
Problem is, sometimes the noob stuff beats the good stuff, that's why we sometimes see mango/pp do the double lasers from the edge.
See, you're playing like he's a textbook falco, but the reality that this play has many more and much bigger faults than textbook falco, but they're different flaws.

Don't try and beat his cheese with your own cheese, but instead think of safe ways to punish what he's doing. Think of a situation and go- dang, if he dodge rolls, I can't hit him .... ah, but you're vulnerable before and after the roll. Maybe if I stand roughly a roll away, I can just hit him before he can do anything about it. Ah but if I'm late he can get his shield up! Then I should grab! that kind of thing. Itll take time, don't get upset. The big thing is don't ever expect to win, don't expect to lose. Each win and loss is merely a result of decisions you both made. If you play like you deserve to win, you'll probably get hit by more random crap than if you give the player lots of respect in the beginning and then adjust more to their play as the match goes on. Some players change up between matches so don't expect them to play the same every match.

Basically you're not wrong and neither is he! Don't focus on who should win - along the same veins of 'stop trying to hit me and hit me'