New to Falco / a couple questions.

[tmonty17]

I'm a Mega Man main but Falco is quickly becoming one of my favorite characters in Sm4sh and I've gotten pretty good with him but I've just got the basics down and still have a lot to learn.

First off, I can't seem to figure out his down air. Is it just a horrible move or am I just using it wrong? The only time I've found it to be the slightest bit useful is when I'm playing someone with a massive hit box. It doesn't seem to spike really and I'm just having a hard time justifying using it over Nair or any of his other air movies really.

Secondly, (this is more for curiosities sake) but what's up with his "laser nerf"? I didn't play Falco at all really in Melee or brawl so I don't really know what was so great about his laser before.

I'm sure that having not really ever played him much previously has actually allowed me to like him more because everyone else is constantly comparing him to how he played in the older games. I really like how he plays so far and I'm looking forward to getting better with him.

 

[BltzZ]

Good thing you haven't played him in the others he plays different in here than in the other games but he's still good people just don't like him cuz he's different but I have a goal to be the best I can with him. His dair isn't bad but does require timing. Go for his fair more though it can gimp and early kill off stage in brawl Falco's lasers went full screen and you can short hop move forward and approach shooting lasers which stunned people you could also space and zone with them ie camp. Here's a post I sent to someone on reddit let me know what you think

I've played mainly Falco since I've bought this game i came in with the brawl mindset which shortly made me sad lol BUT! Hes still ok! just cant use him like in brawl ie Chain grabs shl etc.

Against most medium weight characters Pretty much my Bread and butter to start off the match at 0% goes with

Dthrow -> SH FAIR -> Dtilt -> SH FAIR -> Reflector.

But an all weight class combo I've been able to hit the most was

Dthrow -> SH FAIR -> Reflector -> If reflector causes a trip charge a forward smash, most players when they trip roll forward i dunno why it just is a habit i do it sometimes myself =/. There is also another easier one

Dthrow -> SH FAIR -> DASH Attack -> Up Smash. note for the upsmash to connect your going to have to run towards them a little.

I personally love the reflector one because it works around all characters under 80% and falco gets really good damage based off your reaction on their trips. This will be consistently easier to pull off with a c stick, i keep forward tilting enemies =/ on 3ds.

PRO TIP Falcos bair is amazing as it always was =] HOWEVER! his FAIR off the edge is your best friend. IT CAN GIMP ALMOST EVERYONE AROUND 30% and characters like Marth, Shulk, Lucina, Cpt falcon if they try to recover and they recover into your fair it spikes them downward =] short hop towards recovering enemies and FAIR into them. Its hard for them to airdodge because how many times FAIR can connect and his it also has good priority over MOST attacks so keep that in mind.

Typically if enemies are recovering below stage you want to short hop fair into them. If they are coming back in above you still can fair but its harder atleast for me with the 3DS, thats where BAIRs can do some work. Practice RAR reverse aerial something i forgot what the second R means lol. Basically dash towards enemies with falco do a pivot moving the analog towards the other direction to turn him and slightly slow his momentum and jump and BAIR them in the face!

And last! falco is one of the characters in this game who strongly benefits from Air dodge canceling, His airdodge into the ground give him so much landing lag its scary =/. But what you can do now is short hop Airdodge then hold forward and spam A when he lands he will have zero lag and throw out a forward tilt. This helps with approaching with falco. Also with a C stick it will be amazing for killing! because he can land and immediately forward smash people! This also works with grabbing you can short hop air dodge spam shield and A to shield grab immediately as you land!

Let me know if these help i want people to start using him more instead of saying forget him since hes not like he was in brawl.

 

[tmonty17]

Good thing you haven't played him in the others he plays different in here than in the other games but he's still good people just don't like him cuz he's different but I have a goal to be the best I can with him. His dair isn't bad but does require timing. Go for his fair more though it can gimp and early kill off stage in brawl Falco's lasers went full screen and you can short hop move forward and approach shooting lasers which stunned people you could also space and zone with them ie camp. Here's a post I sent to someone on reddit let me know what you think

I've played mainly Falco since I've bought this game i came in with the brawl mindset which shortly made me sad lol BUT! Hes still ok! just cant use him like in brawl ie Chain grabs shl etc.

Against most medium weight characters Pretty much my Bread and butter to start off the match at 0% goes with

Dthrow -> SH FAIR -> Dtilt -> SH FAIR -> Reflector.

But an all weight class combo I've been able to hit the most was

Dthrow -> SH FAIR -> Reflector -> If reflector causes a trip charge a forward smash, most players when they trip roll forward i dunno why it just is a habit i do it sometimes myself =/. There is also another easier one

Dthrow -> SH FAIR -> DASH Attack -> Up Smash. note for the upsmash to connect your going to have to run towards them a little.

I personally love the reflector one because it works around all characters under 80% and falco gets really good damage based off your reaction on their trips. This will be consistently easier to pull off with a c stick, i keep forward tilting enemies =/ on 3ds.

PRO TIP Falcos bair is amazing as it always was =] HOWEVER! his FAIR off the edge is your best friend. IT CAN GIMP ALMOST EVERYONE AROUND 30% and characters like Marth, Shulk, Lucina, Cpt falcon if they try to recover and they recover into your fair it spikes them downward =] short hop towards recovering enemies and FAIR into them. Its hard for them to airdodge because how many times FAIR can connect and his it also has good priority over MOST attacks so keep that in mind.

Typically if enemies are recovering below stage you want to short hop fair into them. If they are coming back in above you still can fair but its harder atleast for me with the 3DS, thats where BAIRs can do some work. Practice RAR reverse aerial something i forgot what the second R means lol. Basically dash towards enemies with falco do a pivot moving the analog towards the other direction to turn him and slightly slow his momentum and jump and BAIR them in the face!

And last! falco is one of the characters in this game who strongly benefits from Air dodge canceling, His airdodge into the ground give him so much landing lag its scary =/. But what you can do now is short hop Airdodge then hold forward and spam A when he lands he will have zero lag and throw out a forward tilt. This helps with approaching with falco. Also with a C stick it will be amazing for killing! because he can land and immediately forward smash people! This also works with grabbing you can short hop air dodge spam shield and A to shield grab immediately as you land!

Let me know if these help i want people to start using him more instead of saying forget him since hes not like he was in brawl.

This was all really helpful. Thank you for your input.

 

[BltzZ]

No problem bro just returning the favor to the community which is where I learned blue bird in brawl. Tbh I don't mind if people keep sleeping on falco saying he's bad. That way in tournaments I can surprise them haha

 

[-Jax]

After playing around with some of the roster, I wanted to find a nice non-perceived-as-op character that has average matchups against most of the roster.

I think I've found my match now, Falco plays great in this game and feels really balanced. His reflector and laser allow him to deal with keepaway characters easily, and he's just fast enough to deal with fast rushdown characters. He has some weirdly laggy moves or something it seems, which is leaving me open to punishment more than I'd like, but I'm really starting to like him a lot!

My biggest problem right now is getting kills, but I'm think I'm just too scared to start gimping. I'll give it a shot! Any more tips on getting kills as Falco? And does he have any bad matchups? So far I've felt nothing is heavily in Falco or the opponent's favor, which is just amazing if you're looking for fair games like me, I hate the rock-paper-scissors feeling of character picking and want to get around that as much as I can when finding someone to play with.

 

[Zionaze]

After playing around with some of the roster, I wanted to find a nice non-perceived-as-op character that has average matchups against most of the roster.

I think I've found my match now, Falco plays great in this game and feels really balanced. His reflector and laser allow him to deal with keepaway characters easily, and he's just fast enough to deal with fast rushdown characters. He has some weirdly laggy moves or something it seems, which is leaving me open to punishment more than I'd like, but I'm really starting to like him a lot!

My biggest problem right now is getting kills, but I'm think I'm just too scared to start gimping. I'll give it a shot! Any more tips on getting kills as Falco? And does he have any bad matchups? So far I've felt nothing is heavily in Falco or the opponent's favor, which is just amazing if you're looking for fair games like me, I hate the rock-paper-scissors feeling of character picking and want to get around that as much as I can when finding someone to play with.

for me its really easy for me to get opponents up to 150+% and at that point a semi sweetspot d-tilt kills and doesnt leave yourself as wide as your other kill options. worst matchups or trouble that i have is usually fast characters that are harder to gimp such as ZSS, Yoshi, Greninja, and maybe shiek. i myself struggle against CptFalcon and sonic simply because i get overwhelmed by their combos, but a simple f-air easily gimps these 2 characters. on the other hand falco absolutely dominates scrub little mac players with a grab to f-air

 

[Turrin]

I've found that I like Falco better in this game than any other he's been in. He may not actually BE better, but he feels better to me.
His down air is ridiculously useful if you time it right. It takes a while to come out, but the very beginning of the attack spikes straight down. I've killed tons with it. His laser isn't any good for doing damage. I just use it at the start of a match in order to force my opponent to approach me. His downthrow combos pretty nicely into a f-air at low percent, and I usually get kills with his dash attack or his b-air.