OOS as Falco

[valakmtnsmash4]

So I've been pressured on shield by foxes and sheiks a lot recently, and I want to know some good OOS options to deal with that. Also, can anybody give some tips on how to avoid shield pressure?

 

[tsm2k420XX]

Shine oos is an amazing option for falco, and wavedash back oos is good also

 

[valakmtnsmash4]

Shine oos is an amazing option for falco, and wavedash back oos is good also

about Wavedashing, a sheik that is in my area can read that and punishes. shine oos is more viable than that, but the Sheik spot dodges that. Do you know any mindgames that I could do to fool the sheik? Or am I just looking like an idiot

 

[nuev0_]

Try mixing things up. If a shiek reads my shine OOS and spot dodges, I like to jump above their head and then drop with a dair, or you could always just wait for their animation to finish and then shine lol

 

[GenNyan]

If he can read you every time, you might have a "tell." For instance you might angle your shield down when you plan to shine OOS, and he just observes this and expects the shine. You can also give them a taste of their own medicine and nair OOS to surprise them.

 

[valakmtnsmash4]

If he can read you every time, you might have a "tell." For instance you might angle your shield down when you plan to shine OOS, and he just observes this and expects the shine. You can also give them a taste of their own medicine and nair OOS to surprise them.

Wow! Nair oos is something I never considered.
Is it good for fox?

 

[AirFair]

Nair OoS or Shine is good depending on how far they are. If you don't want to wavedash back, then you could try jumping to a side platform depending on stage.

 

[`Rival]

if fox is pressuring with aerial-->shine, you can shine OOS if they do high aerials.
if sheik is pressuring you by spacing f-airs on your shield, then falco's shine OOS won't hit them. also, if they throw out a ftilt or jab immediately after the f-air, then it will catch you as you attempt to jump out and nair/dair them. if they know youre respecting the jab/ftilt then they might grab/track your movement.
your oos option depends on what you think will get you out of the situation.

to avoid shield pressure look at what happens before they get on your shield, and find countermeasures to avoid/change that scenario.

 

[J⩓мє]

if you have the tech skill you can punish the spot dodge with a timed double shine or a fast triple shine

 

[tsm2k420XX]

While double shine can cover spot dodge, I prefer to dair or nair if I can read a spot dodge. But remember to use a lot of lasers as that can help you get into these situations less

 

[TallandGangly]

Nair OOS will definitely cover fair->spot dodge. I would be careful, as if you'll hove to do fade back nair OOS if they start shielding after the fair. Especially if you are slow with your nair. Nair is also good against fox depending on how he spaces his aerials. It covers alot of realty in front of you, so if he spaces far enough away that he can't shine, I think nair OOS is a great option. You could WD back, but then you'll risk getting clipped by something and having awful DI.

 

[J⩓мє]

While double shine can cover spot dodge, I prefer to dair or nair if I can read a spot dodge. But remember to use a lot of lasers as that can help you get into these situations less

shine->aerial seems way better in terms of risk/reward. At mid to high percents the nair would probably set up for (in lieu of follow ups) stage control or a nice edgeguard situation. At lower percents the dair would probably lead into a nice combo because of the gratuitous spikestun dair provides at lower percents.

about Wavedashing, a sheik that is in my area can read that and punishes. shine oos is more viable than that, but the Sheik spot dodges that. Do you know any mindgames that I could do to fool the sheik? Or am I just looking like an idiot

Since Fox/Sheik's spot dodge leaves them in an inactionable state for a good third of a second (feel free to mess around with the frame data in debug mode via 20XX/whatever) you can probably punish the spot dodge on reaction with a dair if you practice identifying the startup frames for it. Basically, if you train your ability to do things on reaction to the startup frames of sheik's spotdodge, you could train yourself to do either a dair or a shine out of shield, but that'd be the godlike punish solution, and might not even be optimal.
The mixups you have are: sit in shield (maybe find a way to wiggle your shield around so they think you're going to do something and punish), buffered rolls, aerial oos (i recommend not uair), shine oos, spot dodge, empty jump oos, wd oos, or shieldgrab. The correct option is based upon the given arms-race of the situation, basically. if the sheik inputs a spot-dodge whenever they see you in your jumpsquat animation (to get ready to punish your shine oos) then, congratulations! You've conditioned them to get punished by any of the other attack options that you have, you just have to capitalize on your investment.

The thing with Melee is that you and your opponent should constantly have an arms-race going on over adaptations to each other, so the thing to practice if you find yourself constantly punished is consciously being aware of that arms race, which is something you would need to do with human beings in friendlies, or if you have a training buddy. That is to say, practice trying to adapt your options choices to what the opponent is doing on the fly, either in friendlies, or artificially practicing similar situations with a friend. Like, as an example for the latter case, you could take turns sitting in shield against a training partner, practicing both your options as the person pressuring shield, and your options in shield in order to defeat, counter, or minimize the effectiveness of the options of the person who is trying to pressure you. Once you start being more aware of the situation you'll be able to have a better grasp on what option, oos or otherwise, is 'good' or not given the entire context of: your opponent, what has occurred, what they've adapted to before, what options have led to rewards for them or you, etc.

So tl;dr, the key is not only the tech for the mixups, but training the ability to adaptively mix up what you're doing to better utilize the options Falco gives you.

edit: added shieldgrab to shield options

 

[tsm2k420XX]

shine->aerial seems way better in terms of risk/reward. At mid to high percents the nair would probably set up for (in lieu of follow ups) stage control or a nice edgeguard situation. At lower percents the dair would probably lead into a nice combo because of the gratuitous spikestun dair provides at lower percents.



Since Fox/Sheik's spot dodge leaves them in an inactionable state for a good third of a second (feel free to mess around with the frame data in debug mode via 20XX/whatever) you can probably punish the spot dodge on reaction with a dair if you practice identifying the startup frames for it. Basically, if you train your ability to do things on reaction to the startup frames of sheik's spotdodge, you could train yourself to do either a dair or a shine out of shield, but that'd be the godlike punish solution, and might not even be optimal.
The mixups you have are: sit in shield (maybe find a way to wiggle your shield around so they think you're going to do something and punish), buffered rolls, aerial oos (i recommend not uair), shine oos, spot dodge, empty jump oos, wd oos, or shieldgrab. The correct option is based upon the given arms-race of the situation, basically. if the sheik inputs a spot-dodge whenever they see you in your jumpsquat animation (to get ready to punish your shine oos) then, congratulations! You've conditioned them to get punished by any of the other attack options that you have, you just have to capitalize on your investment.

The thing with Melee is that you and your opponent should constantly have an arms-race going on over adaptations to each other, so the thing to practice if you find yourself constantly punished is consciously being aware of that arms race, which is something you would need to do with human beings in friendlies, or if you have a training buddy. That is to say, practice trying to adapt your options choices to what the opponent is doing on the fly, either in friendlies, or artificially practicing similar situations with a friend. Like, as an example for the latter case, you could take turns sitting in shield against a training partner, practicing both your options as the person pressuring shield, and your options in shield in order to defeat, counter, or minimize the effectiveness of the options of the person who is trying to pressure you. Once you start being more aware of the situation you'll be able to have a better grasp on what option, oos or otherwise, is 'good' or not given the entire context of: your opponent, what has occurred, what they've adapted to before, what options have led to rewards for them or you, etc.

So tl;dr, the key is not only the tech for the mixups, but training the ability to adaptively mix up what you're doing to better utilize the options Falco gives you.

edit: added shieldgrab to shield options

shieldgrab is not a very viable option if the player knows how to space aerials

 

[Klemes]

Hey. I think I'll throw in a post I made to answer a similar question before. It might help.


How good is he at handling lasers ? Pestering him with lasers (at a safe spacing = just outside of his shffl nair range*fox) is a good way to keep him grounded, make him get in his shield. Then take care to mix up what you're doing after the lasers / when he tries to get through : nair>shine on his shield, laser>grab, keep shooting, DD right outside of shield-grab range.

AC bair>shine and dair in place/fading away will both beat his nair clean, when you feel he's gonna jump on you.

When he's above you/on platforms, make him understand he just cannot fall on you with drill/anything : by facing away and bairing him immediately if he does, bair will always win. You can also u-tilt (wich will give you a huge punish on hit), but it's a harder commitment and could get you punished, especially if you spam it and he sees it coming.

You can basically control the pace of the game with laser and AC bairs alone : it's you who determines when he can or cannot approach you. This way you can anticipate before him when he will see an opening, thus allowing you to punish him for going in (for example fade-away dair). When you whiff a defensive option like this, don't take the habit of always shielding/rolling after : instead WD back, AC bair again, laser...

So the key word here is : ANTICIPATE. You know he's going to approach, all you need to do is to have a stong answer ready for when he commits to approach.

When he does hit your shield, like the others said before : shine OoS (I still struggle with this one), buffer roll away by holding c-stick away (avoid rolling in, it's pretty easy to catch), FH to retreat on platform sometimes.
If his pressure isn't super clean, you can be patient and wait till after the shine to punish with easier stuff than shine OoS : nair/bair OoS, WD OoS > shine, or shieldgrab (risky).

#8Klemes, Jan 20, 2016

This should help you not getting caught in shield too much. Oh and about shiek spot-dodging your shine OoS, just dair her, that smart ass ninja !

 

[TeeJay308]

if fox is pressuring with aerial-->shine, you can shine OOS if they do high aerials.
if sheik is pressuring you by spacing f-airs on your shield, then falco's shine OOS won't hit them. also, if they throw out a ftilt or jab immediately after the f-air, then it will catch you as you attempt to jump out and nair/dair them. if they know youre respecting the jab/ftilt then they might grab/track your movement.
your oos option depends on what you think will get you out of the situation.

to avoid shield pressure look at what happens before they get on your shield, and find countermeasures to avoid/change that scenario.

This is the most important thing to consider when you find yourself stuck in shield a lot. I feel like this is overlooked a lot by people who are just starting out. ask yourself more why you got in that bad position in the first place. Being in shield is a very big disadvantage in Smash. Knowing what to do OoS is good, but spend more time trying to figure out ways how to avoid getting stuck in shield instead of perfecting your OoS options. There is one guy I play with occasionally who has incredibly crispy shines OoS, but because he's practiced it so much, he kinda focusses just on landing that shine OoS as soon as I pressure him a bit and starts shielding a lot. I mean, it definitely makes his shield kinda scary to attack recklessly, but it's still a disadvantageous position for him to be in shield.

Kinda like when theres a leak in the roof, and you put a bucket underneath the hole. It'll catch all the water coming down, but it won't stop the water from coming down.

 

[Abaddun]

Buffer-roll CC Shine or Dair is a decent option.

 

[valakmtnsmash4]

Hey. I think I'll throw in a post I made to answer a similar question before. It might help.


How good is he at handling lasers ? Pestering him with lasers (at a safe spacing = just outside of his shffl nair range*fox) is a good way to keep him grounded, make him get in his shield. Then take care to mix up what you're doing after the lasers / when he tries to get through : nair>shine on his shield, laser>grab, keep shooting, DD right outside of shield-grab range.

AC bair>shine and dair in place/fading away will both beat his nair clean, when you feel he's gonna jump on you.

When he's above you/on platforms, make him understand he just cannot fall on you with drill/anything : by facing away and bairing him immediately if he does, bair will always win. You can also u-tilt (wich will give you a huge punish on hit), but it's a harder commitment and could get you punished, especially if you spam it and he sees it coming.

You can basically control the pace of the game with laser and AC bairs alone : it's you who determines when he can or cannot approach you. This way you can anticipate before him when he will see an opening, thus allowing you to punish him for going in (for example fade-away dair). When you whiff a defensive option like this, don't take the habit of always shielding/rolling after : instead WD back, AC bair again, laser...

So the key word here is : ANTICIPATE. You know he's going to approach, all you need to do is to have a stong answer ready for when he commits to approach.

When he does hit your shield, like the others said before : shine OoS (I still struggle with this one), buffer roll away by holding c-stick away (avoid rolling in, it's pretty easy to catch), FH to retreat on platform sometimes.
If his pressure isn't super clean, you can be patient and wait till after the shine to punish with easier stuff than shine OoS : nair/bair OoS, WD OoS > shine, or shieldgrab (risky).

#8Klemes, Jan 20, 2016

This should help you not getting caught in shield too much. Oh and about shiek spot-dodging your shine OoS, just dair her, that smart *** ninja !

The SHIEK I know faces fox a lot, so he knows how to handle lasers decently.
And thank you for the excellent post!

 

[Mr Snak3_]

Maybe with the sheik in your area stay away from them if they can keep reading your oos. Sh laser hitstun really annoys people if you can do it quickly enough

 

[CP Adagio]

Quick question, is shine OOS done by jumping out of shield and canceling with a shine?

 

[Klemes]

Quick question, is shine OOS done by jumping out of shield and canceling with a shine?

Yes.

 

[1000g2g3g4g800999]

shieldgrab is not a very viable option if the player knows how to space aerials

Shield pressure tends to be impromptu since if they actually expect a shield they have better options do deal with it than hitting it, or hitting just outside of its range (unless they're trying to cover for spotdodges as well). If you were sliding towards them in shield, or ran at them and suddenly shielded, it would be significantly harder to safely space an aerial than if the opponent just stood there in shield and let them take their time. If they aren't assuming or preparing for shield (which if they do, opens them to being whiff punished on descent or landing if the opponent doesn't), they won't necessarily try to space attacks for shield pressure purposes. Also, shield DI exists, and can eclipse the distance one can travel horizontally on descent.

---

Ideally, don't get into the situations where you have to shield in the first place, or insert your shielding where their attack is most frame negative. Sheik spacing fairs at your shield? Instead of shielding, take a page from what some other characters do, crouch or move back a little, and downtilt Sheik's landing (if it was spaced to barely hit a shield, it will definitely miss Falco, for instance, moreso if it was meant to beat an input of shield DI), or ASDI down and in and grab or Shine. Altenatively, back air as she rises, roll or wavedash under her, or usmash or utilt (facing away) before the fair could come out. If you feel you have to shield, shield DI out to avoid mixups after something hits, if it's relatively frame safe, and shield DI in to be able to retaliate better. Same principle applies to Fox. Likewise, back air, utilt, and upsmash can beat him jumping in (as can dair), but these are fairly likely to trade. However, if he's in the air, he can't CC/ASDI down while you can for any of these but dair or bair, so you can, so you can get a combo off of it. You can also CC shine, or CC double shine in anticipation of them holding down to shine on landing.

If you don't feel very safe without shielding, just wavedash out of shield quickly if nothing's happening. Generally not into the opponent unless you have ample room or really think you can catch them with a shine (though if you make them respect this as an option, covering your retreat while being ready for it is astronomically difficult). If the opponent jumps at you, is decently close, and you react quickly, you can roll through them. If you were in the corner, this means stage position. Alternatively, you can work of a clean ledge game and space invincible ledgedashes to either put you in range to hit if you know you can go the distance, or just out of their range to punish an attempt to outspace a ledgedash approach.

Also consider what the opponent does after an aerial, pressuring that way. If they jab, just mashing shield grab while holding down and in (if done correctly) will beat this until the jab starts to knock you down (which is like, past 100%).

Consider the opponent's percent when acting OoS. From grab or shine, you can at the very least, escape any opportunity for the opponent to hit you for landing one of these, but realistically can get decent damage. If the opponent is grounded when the attack connects, aerials OoS and usmash could potentially get you hit if the opponent holds down. Dair, if done before the opponent had the opportunity to shield, will almost certainly result in the opponent being able to act before your landing lag ends, if not before you even land. At lower percents, given how limited options seem to look if the opponent CCs, it may be better not to retaliate, but to just get out of the way, or again, avoid having to shield in the first place.

Also, practice retreating laser downtilt/turn around utilt. If the opponent was spacing for a shield or CC or something, catching them with a laser before they land into either tilt can start a combo to build percent and open more options to you. This can be especially useful vs Sheik, who has relatively slow jumps compared to Fox, and while she can jump over the lasers, if she lands on them, after they've gone further out, it means you could potentially combo something that hits much harder off the laser. I'm not saying to do this one out of shield however, but in anticipation of, or upon seeing a jump spaced for a certain range (and ideally not to close to you).

Finally, if you're sure they're going for an attack meant to end up on top of you, you can take it back to 2001 and just time a spotdodge towards the point they land, or the start up of a grounded move. If you don't have confidence in your timing, or that you'll be able to hit them afterward, you're better off rolling. Spotdodge eliminates the battle between shield stun and endlag of attacks, so only the lag is relevant. Under ideal conditions, if Fox nairs and lands just as invincibility ends, and doesn't miss his L-cancel, you can act on the same frame. Any other aerial, you act first. Realistically, you have a few advantages going into this. If Fox was nairing, there's a decent chance he wasn't expecting a spotdodge, and a high chance he wasn't expecting to miss. Moreover, if hitting a shield was at all expected, you would be pushed back to some degree, unless you overcame this completely with shield DI. You're altering the any change in range he's expecting, but also, making him miss an attack at that range. If he was doing an extemely low nair, this probably doesn't change much, but for higher heights, you can mess up both the fast fall and L-cancel timing. Of course, this isn't a technique I recommend for going against Fox's nair in particular, active frames counter spotdodges. This has the potential to be much more useful vs aerials with lower active frames, higher lag, or higher shield stun, however. But the most important detail is that you don't have to act out of shield if this works. You can do any option.