Opening Attack Methods For Falcon

[Phoenix Reborn]

Falcon is my secondary character but I find him really fun to play as. I can nail people in the air most of the time, but the trouble I'm having is actually opening an attack to get people flying or at least knocked away.

Usually what I'd do is:

Dash-A - (Works on beginner opponents, but experienced people Shield-Grab it)

Dashing SH-Nair - (If I SH REALLY well, I can probably get a hit on the bigger characters, but the shorter characters are still hard to hit and can still hit me)

Falcon Kick - (I only do this when people try to rush me from afar and underestimate my distance)

Side-B - (Same as above. Sometimes I use this to spike people off ledges, after a dodge-roll from a slow attack, or during ledge recovery)

However I find these to be increasingly predictable and inconsistent the better my opponents are. I've tried using the knee, but that move is too hard to land on the ground for me to use consistently. What are some good opening attack methods for Falcon?

Thanks!

 

[Esca]

opening attack method for Captain Falcon, huh?

Here's the best thing to do. Realize that Captain Falcon is more defensive than offensive, so the best thing to do is get on the defence from the beginning. Let your opponent attack you, just shield grab, or dodge roll, and after the dodge roll, just SH, f-air. that's the best way to start a match.

 

[Runeblade279]

Falcon's best approach is letting the opponent approach you, it's true. Another good one is try and jump over them and use bair. Just mix it up. Even if a technique doesn't seem like a good approach, throw it out there, they may fall for it since they don't expect it.

Dashing shield grab is also good, I use it against pit with great impunity. =)

 

[Phoenix Reborn]

Okay, I'll have to practice with that to get into the habit then. Thanks for the advice!

 

[Brilliance]

I like using his Dair as openers. If you dont know how to perform the lagless Dair, you have to flick the C-stick down immediately after hitting the jump button, I have jump mapped to R to make this easier.

Anyways, the lagless Dair is unshieldgrabable/counterable really.

 

[Phoenix Reborn]

I actually use the R button to shield & roll a lot of the times. Somebody suggested mapping my jump button to the "L" button because it'll make it easier for me to jump and use directional "A" attacks easier. Haven't tried it yet, but does mapping the jump button to one of the shoulders make short-hopping easier too?

 

[Classic Yayo]

Basically everybody is telling you to camp, which works great in brawl since they took away many of the methods of approach. Honestly I hate camping and I pay for it a lot but I have a few things down.

1. Empty jumps, these work great run toward the opponent. All you do is jump since they're use to you doing a dash or air attack they'll wait for the shield grab but if you DI it correctly you'll be behind them or just out of grab range. You can air dodge or not to mix this up even more.

2. Run into shield now this works great, it worked great in Melee and it still works. When people see you running at them their brain goes into what I call panic mode. They're waiting for an attack so they'll try to counter you with a better attack or shield. If you run into shield it throws people off so they spot dodge or roll or you shield their attack. Once you see the roll or spot dodge animation you can punish. Other people just hold their shield that’s when you grab and punish.

3. Run into grab, this was C.Fal bread to this tech chase butter in Melee, believe me dash into shield cancel grab still works.

4. Dash dance sucks but it's a good stall, so mixing up the pace of the fight with a side-b out of dash dance will work. I'll run away into side-b sometimes catches people off guard or just a plain dash attack

You can basically do anything out of shield and shield cancels your dash. So take advantage. Like I said before if you run into shield it throws people off this along with C.Fal's run speed and the ability to do anything out of shield will help your approach game, especially if your an aggressive C. Fal if not you can camp it does work. Hopefully I helped.

 

[Phoenix Reborn]

I'm going to go and try dash-grabbing out when I get the chance. I can't believe I never thought of that one lol. I've considered dash to ground dodge, but that seems to require rather precise timing, and against multi-hits like Pikachu's down-smash, it does me very little good. Thanks!

 

[waks]

Not dash-grab, what you should do is dash, shield cancelled grab.

Yeah, Falcon is more defensive now, and the fact that if you run, then jump gives you a slower momentum kinda breaks me

 

[Ayato]

I'm still working around with this one, but RAR'ing with Falcon works fairly well as an approach (though you need to set it up with some mindgames because the sweetspot is a little high on some of the shorter characters if you want to attack out of the shorthop).

RAR would be a reverse air rush, which can be accomplished either by B-sticking (see SamuraiPanda's compilation in the tactics section) or by turning around just before attacking, keeping your forward momentum and slamming into them with a bair. I tend to fight with Falcon while running backward as a result of this. It's still got high priority, comes out fast, and is perhaps his most viable killing move now that the knee has become only slightly more potent than the Falcon Punch as a kill move (I say this because it's really hard to set one up, not because it has higher knockback or anything).

Bair, bair, bair. That's all I can say for Falc. Though you can opt for nair on taller opponents, true. Always fuse with mindgames. Camping is also a plus with Falcon's new moveset.