New to Falco, looking for some advice

[BDawgPHD]

I've tried him out, and from watching people play him, I've had a decent idea on exactly how to play him, but I've never had the technical skill to be able to work with him. I could never shorthop with him before, and consequently I couldn't bring out Falco's sweet goodness well enough. Well I took a break from smash, and mysteriously I can now shorthop with Falco, with reasonable lack of thought and consistency, so I've been practicing and I'm not half bad. But I'm looking for some tips because I have a problem or two.

The first problem is because I have stupid fingers. I'm having trouble SHL-ing because I can't fast fall before or after lasering without doing something stupid like shining, and even when I do, I can't lather rinse repeat without doing something stupid (exactly the reason I can't wavedash). Is there anyone with my problem that have had more difficulty with WDing and SHLing than most and found a way to practice that worked for them? Regardless, does anyone have any good ideas on how to practice other than the straightforward "spend a few hours trying to do it and you'll get it eventually " method?

My second problem is that I'm new to Falco and I'm pretty sure I've barely scratched the surface. Anyone have any super special awesome tips that most newcomers to Falco don't get right away? Any help is appreciated.

P.S. for some reason it's harder for me to shorthop with Captain Falcon than it is with Falco. Am I just a sped, or is it really supposed to be harder?

 

[Imperial Wraith]

Falco's pretty much the easiest character in the game to pick up. All it requires is practice and more practice. Get SHLing, Waveshining and to a certain extent pillaring into your muscle memory.

And a protip? Spam SHL, and NEVER stop .

 

[BDawgPHD]

Thanks. Well pillaring is pretty simple, I usually try a dair to L cancel, to get close, then I try to pillar, and it works to some extent. But thanks to stupid fingers, the SHLing is a pain, but that's probably something I need to work out -_-' I just wish someone else had the same problem as me and found an efficient way of doing it.

EDIT: Does anyone pillar with dtilt to dair? I find that a lot of the time it sets up more cleanly, whereas sometimes the shine doesn't send them up at a good height, probably too high. Then again I somehow manage to mess up when I try to cancel the shine cuz I got stupid head too =/

 

[Imperial Wraith]

Read the Falco terms . I don't think you understand what pillaring is, Mr. Bitter made a good thread about it. Take a look, its informative.

Main thing is practicing SHL. It means you beat any noob almost instantaniously, and lets you control the stage and positioning extremely well.

 

[BDawgPHD]

Read the Falco terms . I don't think you understand what pillaring is, Mr. Bitter made a good thread about it. Take a look, its informative.

Main thing is practicing SHL. It means you beat any noob almost instantaniously, and lets you control the stage and positioning extremely well.

well I already knew what pillaring was after talking to friends and reading the guide (or at least I thought I did, I understood it to be shine to dair to shine to dair etc etc.)

but yea, I've been practicing SHL a bit, but my biggest problem is mainly the fast fall, when I try so hard to do that, I end up doing weird **** like shine and full jump

 

[Salaad]

Pillaring is Short Hop->Dair->Lcancel->Shine used for shield pressure. For SHL just short hop and quickly press B then FastFall, it looks to me as if you're trying to FastFall while you're shooting. Make sure you press B as fast as you can and then fastfall.

 

[gkrackerr]

Well, glad to have another falco player in the community, always a good thing. For the SHL thing, are you talking about SHL, or are you actually talking about RSHL. Both are essential to falco's game. Yeah, as Salaad said, it seems as if you are trying to fastfall before you shoot, or as you shoot. Practice just SHL (no fastfall), to get the idea down. Then try and practice fastfalling. Make sure you laser before you fast fall.

But for awesome tips and such, i dont have too many, but just some things that you should watch out for. Falco, is easily gimped, so when you play him, you have to be extremely weary of spacing. Some falco players hide behind SHL and think that they are fine, however, opponents will easily get through this if you dont space properly.

Falco is easy to pick up yes, however doing well with him requires much more than tech skill against decent opponents. They will grab you through your dair to shine if you mess the timing up, they will get you off the edge and take a stock off if you don't play smart, and they will break through your combos if you don't follow their DI well and don't L cancel everything.

I don't want to come off as saying that falco can't be learned. All I am trying to say is that, while his technical aspects can be learned quickly, you have to play really smart to win with him.