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Patch suggesiton: What buffs does Falco need?

Mellos

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Here is a List of buffs, I want to see for Falco (should we get another patch).
While I truly main + love Falco and I have good uderstanding of smash mechanics, these numbers are ONLY ROUGH indicators, of what I would want to suggest. There are not final OR the "only way to go".
I want to spark a
Discussion, so Falcos player can come in and leave their feedback.
Note: I want to ceate a good, but well balanced Falco. I'm not aiming to make him a solo God-Tier, meta braking or broken character. Solid high tier is what I aimed at.


"Let's get to it, Einsetein!"


3 core changes:
(The most important ones, to keep it realistic)


Air Speed:
0,93 [46th] - > 1,06 [24th , tied with Shulk]

Something I never understood: Falcos vertical air mobility with his high jumps is AMAZING. His horizontal air speed is utter crap. Falco is a brid. Air game > Ground game.
Why? Falco has amazing air combos, but only on heavy weights and combo fooder characters (like Captain Falcon, …)
Medium and light weigths just slip out of his air combos, by a tiny bit. Increased air speed would let him true combo the big(er) part of the cast, instead of only the minority.


"Personally, I prefer the air"

Running Speed:
1,472 [43th] -> 1,56 [around 33th, tied with Rob]

Falco has the 10th best walking speed, but the 43th best running speed, which makes little to no sense. Even after the buff he would be still a ton slower than fox. By actually having a difference between his walking and running speed, Falcos neutral options would improve a lot: A more serious dash grab and more ways to get around your opponent.
His low-% throw follow ups are great, but at mid and high-% throw follow ups are barely functional (beside UpThrow). The window for Nair cancels (on the ground) into more Nairs strings and throw follow ups wolud shift from only low to low and mid %.



Blaster (NeutralSpecial):
End lag: FAF 59 -> 44; 15 frames lag removed
Landing lag: 50 -> 35; 15 frames lag removed
Damage: 3% -> 3,5%

Okay, auto-cancel lasers will NOT happen. Smash 4 is a way slower game than Melee. Good players can deal with ac-lasers, bad players or casuals can NOT. While it is fun to play with ac lasers as Falco, it is NOT fun to play against ac lazer spam Falco. Probably the reason he lost this on his way from Brawl to 4.
HOWEVER: The move as is now, is pretty much useless. A single projectile which takes a full second (59 frames) from start to finish, does laughable 3% dmg and only makes opponents flinch and can't kill anyone. The only use is locking opponents, who missed a tech. Or be annoying very, VERY slow characters on max range. And even then, there are straight up better specials in the game. By far.
Why? Falcos approaches have never been good. His buffed neutral special can now force opponents to approach you, while you are a lot more safe by doing so. Close range lasers should still get you punished, but atleast at medium range you can hold off enemies.



Additional changes:


UpThrow:
FAF reduced by ~2 or 3 frames
First hit (throw): KBG (first hit) 100 -> 85
Second hit (laser): KBG 80 -> 95

UpThrow is in this weird spot. It neither a decent kill throw or his throw kill settup. If the laser connects (wich can be avoided by DI rather easy) it kills around ~ 150% on a stage with medium celing. At lower % you can sometimes follow up your UpThrow with a UpAir (thanks to his amazing jump power) for the kill. But only on some fast fallers (works only a selected few, maybe 30% of the cast).
The reduction of the thorws KBG should give Falco a better follow up, even if he has rage. Most of the times opponents go to high, as soon as you get a little rage on you.
The increase on the lasers KBG should increase the kill power, once the shot connects. With the reduced lag your UpThrow follow ups should be a lot easier.
If people DI your second hit at higher percent, you should be able to follow up with a UpAir for the kill (Thanks to the reduced lag). Or maybe get them in a bad position and secure the kill by a mix up.


UpAir:
KBK 90 -> 105
Landing Lag: 15 -> 13

Increase the kill power of his UpAir, this move lacks in kill power, while keeping his low – mid% combo potential. Less landing lag for better low percent follow ups (on the ground).


Falco Phantasm (SideSpecial):
Hitbox now travels from roughly 66% of the distance to ~ 85%
His SideB at the end has a dead zone and I needs to go. This would not only make his recovery safer (trough colliding and canceling some ground moves), but also allow for easier and more reliable set ups. To challenge his SideB off stage would also be more dangerous.
High % SideB into BAir/ UpAir set ups would make this a decent kill setup at higher %.


DownAir:
Hitbox active (early hit): 16-19 -> 15-20; (late hit): 20-30 -> 20-27
BKB: 10 -> 7
KBG: 80 -> 90
Landing Lag: 23 -> 21

This would bring his DAir closer to his melee one. The increased window for the sweet spot should make hitting easier, while shortened late hitbox and reduced lag should make the move a little safer to use, once you whiff.
!The base nerf, because Down Throw into Dair would now be a serious option. Grabbing someone at the end of a stage would result into a low-% DThrow into DAir follow up, which would hurt character with bad recoveries way to much.


IS HE S-TIER NOW?!

No.
If we get atleast the major 3 buffs, I can see him rise from lower Mid-tier to solid High-tier (Or atleast lower High-tier).
He still has problems approaching and rather unsafe moves on shield. With the laser and air + running speed buffs he can force opponents (better) to approach him. And punish more efficentely, when you get your opponent.


Thoughts?

Glossar (by Kurogane Hammer): http://kuroganehammer.com/Glossary
Sorry for my english and the spelling errors, this isn't my native language >.<
 
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NotAnAdmin

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I agree, air mobility and lasers are a huge thing that nearly every other iteration of the bird had.
I honestly don't get why they took away Falco's lasers. It was his saving grace in both the neutral and his combo game also had a benefit. Now it's a mostly useless special attack.
 
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Mellos

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El_Beslic
I agree, air mobility and lasers are a huge thing that nearly every other iteration of the bird had.
I honestly don't get why they took away Falco's lasers. It was his saving grace in both the neutral and his combo game also had a benefit. Now it's a mostly useless special attack.
I assume it [laser "spam"] was so anti fun to play against (or boring to watch) in Brawl. So they took that away for smash 4 and tried to give him some boxing and combo game instead. I understand that, but sadly it's not quite where it should be :/
 
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Elray

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I would like to see Falco's reflector have a bit less ending lag (FAF 51 --> 47 or 48), or at least reflect projectiles while coming back to Falco.
 

Ffamran

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I agree, air mobility and lasers are a huge thing that nearly every other iteration of the bird had.
I honestly don't get why they took away Falco's lasers. It was his saving grace in both the neutral and his combo game also had a benefit. Now it's a mostly useless special attack.
Falco was actually slower in the air in Melee and Brawl. It's just the average was much lower whether or not you consider Mario, air speed of 1.15, or Little Mac, Robin, and Rosalina & Luma, air speed of 1.0, as the average in Smash 4. Smash 4 Falco, as of 1.0.8, is the fastest in the air which is a little sad when he's slower than Fox and of course, Wolf. Melee would be the slowest clocking at 0.83 air speed and an unknown air acceleration -- PM had it at 0.05 assuming the PMDT tried to get stats as close to or exactly like Melee -- Brawl and launch Smash 4 is in the middle at 0.893 air speed and 0.07 air acceleration, and Smash 4 is the fastest at 0.93 and 0.09 air acceleration. He's faster, but it doesn't matter when Fox is slightly faster at 0.96, however, main thing is he accelerates much faster which makes sense since he's a bird and because of Arwings. Falco could rock a 1.0 air speed, but I don't know if he should come close to Mario's. We're talking about a character whose aerial startup outside of Dair is fast, has really high active frames, and the highest jump in the game. Had his aerials been slower or he had much lower active frames like Greninja and ZSS, he could have an even faster air speed, but then you end up getting close to usurping Wolf's niche. I'd cap his air speed at below 1.10 to be on the safe side.

Speaking of aerial movement, people who've played Star Fox know you can brake with Arwings... Might be a neat idea to give Falco a high air deceleration. Also, birds can stop in the air much more easily than other animals, so there's that too. Right now, the highest air deceleration is 0.07, Mr. Game & Watch's and the majority of characters have 0.01. It might be okay for him to have an air deceleration around 0.07, but it's kind of weird to figure this out since few characters have notable air deceleration and you have to figure they're trying to go from top speed back to 0 and then up to top speed again to move backwards if that makes any sense. Main thing it lets characters do is stop their momentum in the air. Might let him feint and weave more suddenly with in the air which fits with Arwings being able to move freely in the air.

Falco doesn't have to be fast in the air, but if he had a unique trait where he's capable of accelerating and decelerating quickly in the air, it could play on his comfort in the air which no character has. Sure, Mr. G&W has the trait of being able to slow down and stop quickly and Jigglypuff has the trait of being able to move quickly through the air, but who has the trait of being able to control themselves in the air (without multiple jumps) easily? Who better to fit that than the ace pilot and a bird from Star Fox? Right now, Falco still has a niche of his amazing vertical movement through having the highest jump and high fall speed, but that's been crept on by Greninja and ZSS who by default also have high jumps and high fall speed and in the case of temporary statuses, you've got Shulk in Jump Art. Even Link could count since he's the only character whose fast fall speed exceeds a 60% increase; Link's goes up by 90%.

Also, you can give Falco an average run speed, Bayonetta, Mario, and Ryu's run speed of 1.6, and he'll be fine. Just don't exceed that and go into 1.8 or something. Someone suggested Falco have a run speed of 1.92 in a thread somewhere and I'm questioning why? Properly changing characters needs you too look at so many factors and one of them is other characters. Falco running that fast would break Fox's niche as the speedy, combo monster since Falco would be the same, but slightly slower, stronger, and with a deeper off-stage game. It'd be like if Toon Link wasn't just fast, but also as strong or even stronger than Link hit per hit. At that point, you'd have to question why Link is even in the game when Toon Link exists. It's also something to keep in mind if you all decide to nerf anyone for whatever reason. Do not go the route of 1.1.6 for Bayonetta or the transition between Brawl and Smash 4 which more or less killed Falco, Marth, and Meta Knight. You have a character whose niche, her combos, were made to be unreliable, you have and still have a character with half his game plan, you had a character who was not being rewarded or rewarded less for his spacing, and you had a character whose moves in concept were fine, but their hitboxes were nonexistent. Yes, those 4 were really good and dominating, but you don't mess with their niches. You're supposed to re-tune them so they keep what makes them special. That's what appeals to people; when they see something interesting, they want to try it out, but if there's nothing interesting, then why bother? People will play the character for the character, but it is frustrating knowing what the character should be doing isn't there. In most cases, you're forced to play other game plans that don't exactly fit with your character. Luigi's combos too potent and him being able to combo all the way to KO'ing? Reduce that, he can still combo, but not when he can KO and KO's aren't freebies. That's what they should have done to Bayonetta. They shouldn't have made it so SDI can make some her moves almost useless. High-level technique or not, the idea is there: make her combos unreliable. What's the point of playing Bayonetta then beside for the character?
 

Mellos

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I would like to see Falco's reflector have a bit less ending lag (FAF 51 --> 47 or 48), or at least reflect projectiles while coming back to Falco.
I love using the reflector off stage, when they slip out of my aereal reach. Honestly, some knockback increase in the reflector as well as some slight lag nervs would make this a potent gimp tool offstage.

Speaking of aerial movement, people who've played Star Fox know you can brake with Arwings... Might be a neat idea to give Falco a high air deceleration. Also, birds can stop in the air much more easily than other animals, so there's that too. Right now, the highest air deceleration is 0.07, Mr. Game & Watch's and the majority of characters have 0.01. It might be okay for him to have an air deceleration around 0.07, but it's kind of weird to figure this out since few characters have notable air deceleration and you have to figure they're trying to go from top speed back to 0 and then up to top speed again to move backwards if that makes any sense. Main thing it lets characters do is stop their momentum in the air. Might let him feint and weave more suddenly with in the air which fits with Arwings being able to move freely in the air.
Didn't knew air deceleration was a thing. Honestly, the brake function sounds amazing (and would fit the Star Fox games).
Oh well,
 
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Ffamran

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I would like to see Falco's reflector have a bit less ending lag (FAF 51 --> 47 or 48), or at least reflect projectiles while coming back to Falco.
Falco's Reflector, according to sixriver, reflects on frame 1-33? -- they haven't confirmed the last active frame. Since it hits, the actual hit and not the reflected hit, on frames 5-14, it probably does reflect on its way back, but it probably comes back faster than it's sent out and Falco does deactivate it when he catches it again. So, for reflecting, it has about 33 active frames, but for hitting, it only has 8 frames. I'd say it has a fair amount of reflect frames which considering its the only reflector that was found to be frame 1, is pretty damn good. Next fastest is apparently Fox and Mii Gunner's that reflect on frame 4. Granted, they can hold theirs indefinitely and next up is Zelda's at frame 5-43, but she also has a trick which is being invincible frames 5-15, 11 frames. Reflector data: http://kuroganehammer.com/Smash4/Reflectors.

Falco's Specials page: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...EdoDwnB43BFU/edit?pref=2&pli=1#gid=1692533177. Use Google translate to get bits and pieces of words or find a friend who can read it.

I love using the reflector off stage, when they slip out of my aereal reach. Honestly, some knockback increase in the reflector as well as some slight lag nervs would make this a potent gimp tool offstage.
A weird thing is that they could make it so his leg invincible when he kicks Reflector out since while Reflector itself is transcendent, his leg isn't. Another idea that I'm hesitant about is increasing hitbox size since I don't know what the hitbox is on Reflector. In Brawl, his Reflector's "size" was said to be 3 -- from here http://opensa.dantarion.com/autoframe/FitFalco.php -- while in Smash 4, it's 3.5 -- from here http://opensa.dantarion.com/s4/mastercore3/dump/160/falco and search for SpecialLW; it's also in hex, so search for a hexadecimal to decimal convertor if you can't read it. The problem is that the numbers don't work linearly since a size of 3 could be different for anything like, hypothetically, Mario's jab 1 has a size of 3 but is smaller than Ryu's which is also size 3, so I don't trust it to translate from game to game. There is a hitbox of it from Brawl, but I don't know if its for the hit or the reflect. Thread: http://smashboards.com/threads/falcos-hitboxes-complete-credit-to-toomai.317402/.


In-game, it has the iconic graphic, but you have to remember, it pulses. Better just wait on a hitbox viewer if Furil can manage to get its hit hitbox and not its reflect hitbox. If it matches the graphic, then whatever, but if it doesn't, then maybe it should...

Didn't knew air deceleration was a thing. Honestly, the brake function sounds amazing (and would fit the Star Fox games).
Oh well,
I just learned that a lot of stats went by unnoticed because either people didn't think they were important or they didn't know what they really did. It was only recently that people found or looked at numbers like air acceleration, air deceleration, dash length (in frames), initial dash speed, initial walk speed, walk acceleration, etc. People knew they were important to how characters move, but they couldn't explain it through values; they had to explain it like, "Shulk's inertia in the air makes it hard for him change directions in the air", which is true, but now we have the numbers. KuroganeHammer's site has most of them, but in Brawl and Melee? You're going to have to be lucky or dig for them yourself and sometimes, that might mean you have to dump the games yourself.
 
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NotAnAdmin

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I should have elaborated a tad more when I made that post, I meant having both of those attributes in unison.
Now that everyone's faster to keep the balance, it doesn't make much of a difference at first glance....
 

Sipikahew (~)

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I agree with most of the things here, except run speed. Who cares? You jump faster than you run, with better aerials than 70% of the cast.

I would like more priority on aerials. Annoying as crap when the guy who prefers the air is smacked out by a ****** blonde swordsman during an attack.
 

Lethrokai

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Long story short, Falco needs mobility to become a complete character. I feel any other buffs are welcome, but not as necessary. They tried to make Falco a boxing character in this game but without the speed to weave through it feels incomplete.

I don't know if it's air or ground mobility he really needs but either way it feels like the one buff which is more of a need than a want.

As for wants, I'd perfectly fine keeping the **** laser as long as they fixed the dair. Currently you HAVE to get a hard read to use it successfully and even then the payoff isn't that great compared to other spikes. I'm not asking for a return to Melee/Brawl glory but at least give me a reason to use it over literally any other move. Quicker active frames and a stronger sweetspot.

Also as a final note maybe some landing lag reductions on uair or nair would be nice just to give a bit safer aerial approach and make him into a character which truly prefers the air.
 
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Snipnigth

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personally, i wanna see him with a bit more running speed, to have the same lagg duration on his laser than foxes plus 5 more frames, his dair should have more knockback, nair, should have 10 frame landing lagg, and his phantasma should have full hitbox
 

Ffamran

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Thought about this and the examples I'm going to throw out won't be entirely thought out -- basically a brainstorm of ideas. First question and this goes to both the developers and players. Developers won't directly answer, but we can assume what they want or planned while for the players, there are a lot of people and the Smash 4 Falco boards aren't entirely active, still... The question to be answered is what do they want Falco to do? Specifically, rushdown or zone. Roy or Marth, Fox or previous iterations of Falco and Wolf, or in terms of other games, Ken or Ryu, Cammy or Guile, or Kyo Kusanagi or Iori Yagami. It's probably been thought about and answered, but I just want to put it out there.

Pick one first and you can easily guess what Falco would need. One major problem of Falco is that he doesn't really have a game plan like other characters that can easily be described as a rushdown, so an in-fighter -- using boxing styles --, a fighter who wants in and pressures up close or a zoner, an out-fighter, a fighter who prefers to fight in their range and pressures in their "safe range". Falco, has, believe it or not, been on both sides of the spectrum and was even fighting as both; Melee Falco can be described as both an in-fighter and an out-fighter, Brawl Falco was generally more of an out-fighter who could fight as an in-fighter, while Smash 4 Falco is kind of forced to be an in-fighter since he doesn't do well as out-fighter.

Both are easy to figure out, but I will say that if Falco went the rushdown route, he would drastically change as a fighter even if the changes don't seem all that big. I want to emphasis that a rushdown Falco could invade Fox's gameplay since Fox is the rushdown of the Star Fox characters with Wolf being in the middle and Falco leaning towards zoning after Melee. It's something that I wonder if people think about when they say, "Falco should be faster and put in numbers like a 1.9 run speed". Even with Falco's different moveset, it could still be argued a rushdown Falco is a lesser Fox, especially if he was a rushdown. Still, if hypothetically, that's what the developers do and what the players ask for, then rushdown Falco would be a thing. Zoning Falco, on the other hand, would probably have the least changes, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't have a big impact to his gameplay like if he went down the rushdown route. Zoning Falco would also be the "safer route" since he wouldn't invade Fox's gameplay and allow himself to standout by his own merits and have his own niche.

Rushdown Falco pretty much needs tools to pressure and higher mobility. Before anything, characters can rushdown without having very high mobility. An example is Mario who outside of air speed, is pretty average. That being said, average movement is much higher compared to past games. Bayonetta can also count since outside of her burst movements, she's not fast, but she's not slow. Anyway, examples of changes would be:

Code:
Air speed 0.93 -> 1.04
Jump startup 6 -> 5
Jump vertical velocity ??? -> up from whatever value
Gravity 0.13 -> 0.21
Run speed 1.472 -> 1.83

Ftilt
total frames 27 -> 24

Nair
hit 1, 2, 3
     angle 367° -> 110°
hit 2
     damage 2% -> 3%
hit 4
     startup 23 -> 21
     landing lag 15 -> 10

Uair
startup 7 -> 5
active frame 5 -> 6
total frames 34 -> 32
all hitboxes
     angle 65° / 75° / 85° -> 75° / 75° / 75°
     damage 10% -> 8%
     base knockback 35 -> 25
     knockback growth 90 -> 115
landing lag 15 -> 11

Fair
landing lag 25 -> 17
landing hitbox removed
These are just examples and not a completely well-thought out idea of what a rushdown Falco should be like. Much higher run speed and higher air speed means Falco's sustained movement becomes incredibly fast. His burst movement, his 1.9 dash and high 0.09 air acceleration, remains. Slightly lower jump startup also helps for empty hops and jumps. Gravity is something that might be questionable... I only raised it up to make Falco more of a glass cannon based on his stats in Assault where Falco was fast, but very fragile. Gravity affects vertical knockback and I just boosted that sucker up to above Fox's 0.19 to make Falco die off the top even earlier. That being said, it also affects how fast Falco reach his fall speed; higher gravity means Falco will reach his fall speed faster. His jump vertical velocity probably would need to go up since higher gravity lowers jumps; so if two characters have the same jump velocities, but different gravities, one will jump higher while the other lower. This is just to make it so his jump height is the same.

Move changes are pretty simple. Lower recovery on Ftilt so he can go up and poke people; recovery would drop from 20 to 17. Nair essentially becomes Brawl Nair with lower landing lag, no auto-link angles, and its last hit has 4 active frames instead of 2. This is just to give Falco a decent horizontal jump-in aerial and to make Nair not overlap with Fair. It could possibly give Falco a falling Nair setup like in Brawl, but I'm not sure on the knockback for the loop hits -- the set knockback might need to be raised a little. Last hit of Nair could probably work since Falco's much faster. Nair to Up Smash. A Star Fox-patented combo. Speaking of Fair and skipping Uair for a bit, Fair just has lower landing lag and the landing hitbox removed to compensate for that. That and landing Fair being frame 1 and really disjointed has lead to some players to rely on it as a crutch and a way to cover an aerial that wasn't made for use so close to the ground. Uair becomes a mix of Mario, Pikachu, and ZSS's where they have low damage and low starting knockback, well, Mario does since he only has 10 base, but anyway, it's faster -- twice as fast as Brawl and launch Smash 4 --, but much weaker in damage and pretty much similar in KO potential with 1.0.8 Uair. Also, active frame ending 1 frame later and lower landing lag is another thing to help out with being able to use it as a jump-in aerial.

That's pretty much rushdown Falco in a nutshell. Faster movement for mixups and "empty pressure" and jump-in aerials for pressure along with a potential setup with falling Nair.

Zoning Falco would need tools keep and control space. That's just Blaster being more useful as a projectile. End of story. Other stuff would just be icing on the cake. That being said, Blaster shouldn't be straight up better, but tweaked a little. My argument on this is that projectiles tend to be problematic for lower-level players or even just players in general and in Smash. A tweaked Blaster would be like this:
Code:
Blaster
     ground Blaster
          startup 11 -> 22
          total frames 58 -> 46
          set knockback 2 -> 5
          total shots infinite -> 3
     aerial Blaster
          total frames 49 -> 40
          set knockback 2 -> 3
          total shots infinite -> 2
Ground Blaster becomes a high startup, low recovery projectile. Its doubled 22 frame startup with its lowered to 45 total frames means it would only have 24 recovery frames. Set knockback was also increased a bit to compensate for its much higher startup. In a way, it's kind of Melee Blaster, but with lower recovery -- 25 to Melee's 35 -- and much lower range -- 2/3's of Final Destination to Melee's one end to the blast zone range. What should be noted is the shot limit. This is to prevent massive spamming which wouldn't be that useful considering even though it has low recovery, it has really high startup. Still, a check in place and realistically, in no mode would Falco really want to sit in place and fire a low set knockback projectile all day. Makes him a sitting duck in FFA, teams, 1v1, whatever and can't rack up as much damage as Fox's Blaster. Speaking of which, hopefully this not as thoroughly checked tweaked Blaster didn't power creep on Fox's Impact Blaster like what the developers did to Falco's Burst Blaster with Fox's Blaster. Anyway, main use of this is to let Falco be able to poke people at range without fear of high recovery.

Aerial Blaster pretty much only has lower recovery, but higher recover. Same 9 frame startup with its lowered 40 total frames means it will have 32 recovery frames. The startup was preserved to keep Falco's unique ability to reliably end his combos with Blaster. It doesn't do much, but it's pretty stylish. The recovery won't be as low as ground to stop it from being a bit... crazy, especially since Falco's Blaster is currently one of the fastest projectiles on startup even without its lowered 9 frame startup in the air. Fox and Sheik come to mind as others. Anyway, Falco can only shoot twice before holstering. Most of the time, people don't fire more than that and it's enough for Falco to finish his combos with double laser. Thinking about it, with Falco's fall speed and the fact Blaster locks his momentum in the air, I don't know why Falco would ever need to continuously fire like that.

That's pretty much zoning Falco in a nutshell. Falco's issue with what he is now is that he can't really do much about forcing approaches or controlling spaces. A lot of characters can force him to approach and easily invade his space. Yes, he has good normals to poke people and stop their approaches, but against some characters, this can be exhausting like against Captain Falcon, Fox, Marth, Mewtwo, Roy, or Sonic who are either very fast or have much more range if not disjointed range making counter-poking not really a viable option for Falco who only has a ground-only Dtilt and a Reflector, which while transcendent and a disjoint, has high recovery making whiffs terrible for Falco. The Blaster example won't shoot Falco up tiers and the rushdown example might not either, but it would make MUs more manageable for Falco by having a defined game plan and more options.

Note: I will explain all of the change suggestions in here, but I'll do that later. Brain's fried after typing so much stuff.
I want to argue that zoning Falco is probably the easiest and what Falco "really needs" to function better. The problem of his shaky neutral, especially when it comes to dealing with approaches, whether he has to approach or force approaches, is one thing that's always brought up. Most people just say auto-cancel lasers, but I'd say that's a bit too much and a band-aid that ignores the real problem of his Blaster: its insanely high recovery and against others, its ability to continuously fire which would seriously piss off people fighting him. Everything else is fine for the most part outside of jab. That's the only move I would say really needs a fix. A list of changes from me which once again, I did not completely thoroughly think out would be this:
Code:
Air speed 0.93 -> 1.00 or to be unique 1.01
Fast fall speed 2.88 -> 3.6
OPTIONAL: Gravity 0.13 -> 0.14 to 0.17 max
     Jump vertical velocity will need to be adjusted to maintain current jump height
     Weight will need to be adjusted so that Falco doesn't die even earlier than Fox
Dash speed 1.9 -> 2.2
Run speed 1.472 -> 1.6

Jab 1
hitbox 3, the furthest hitbox
angle 80° -> 140°

Jab 2
all hitboxes
     base knockback 30 -> 0
     set knockback 0 -> 20
     knockback 30 -> 100
total frames 25 -> 18
     recovery 21 -> 14

Rapid Jab
all hitboxes
     set knockback 3 -> 6 to 10
     SDI multiplier 1.2x -> 1.0x or possibly even lower; x0.4 at the lowest
frame transition 8 -> 7

Rapid Jab Finisher
all hitboxes
     base knockback 60 -> 100
     knockback growth 100 -> 60
total frames 39 -> 35
     recovery frames 34 -> 30

Dash attack
clean hit
     active frames 4 -> 3
     damage 9% -> 11%
late hit
     active frames 12 -> 13
     damage 6% -> 8%
    
Ftilt
base knockback 0 -> 16 to 20 max
OPTIONAL
angled up
     hit angles 361° -> 65°
angled down
     trip rate 0%? -> 15%

Dtilt
hitbox 3 "removed" i.e. moved closer the tail tip and making Dtilt no longer very disjointed
     hitbox 2 probably will need to be adjusted as well
hitbox 1 and 2 (and 3)
     damage 12% / 11% -> 13% / 13%
     base knockback 50 / 35 -> 50 / 50
     knockback growth 90 / 88 -> 90 / 90

Up Smash
hit 1; right leg
     startup 7
     active frames 6 -> 3
     damage 4% -> 3%
     angle 110° / 110° / 130°
     base knockback 70
     knockback growth 18
hit 2; right leg
     startup 13 -> 9
     active frames 8 -> 3
     damage 12% -> 13%
     angle 80°
     base knockback 31
     knockback growth 104
late hit; left leg
     startup frame 13
     active 8 frames
     damage 11%
     angle 135°
     base knockback 30
     knockback growth 98
     facing restriction set to ?; always sends target flying behind Falco
OPTIONAL
all hitboxes
     foot invincibility

Side Smash
late hit removed
priority transcendent -> normal
startup 17 -> 13
total frames 48 -> 44
all hitboxes
     damage 15% -> 12%
     base knockback 42 -> 30
     knockback growth 90 / 93 / 96 -> 125 / 125 / 125
     hit lag x1.0 -> x1.2

Down Smash
all hitboxes
     damage 15% / 12% / 12% / 15% -> 15% / 15% / 15% / 15%
     angles 25° / 80° / 80° / 25° -> 25° / 25° / 25° / 25°
     OPTIONAL: foot invincibility

Nair
tweaked Brawl Nair as described in rushdown Falco
OR
Melee Falco and Fox Fair inspired
hit 1 frame 3-5
     damage 9%
     angle 367° -> 361°
     base knockback 0 -> 10
     set knockback 22 -> 0
hit 2 frame 6-9
     damage 7%
     angle 367° -> 361°
     base knockback 0 -> 10
     set knockback 22 -> 0
hit 3 frame 14-17
     damage 5%
     angle 367° -> 361°
     base knockback 0 -> 10
     set knockback 22 -> 0
hit 4 frame 21-24
     damage 4% -> 3%
     base knockback 55 -> 50
     knockback growth 135 -> 100
     hit lag x2.0 -> x1.0
total frames 48 -> 43
     recovery 25 -> 20
landing lag 15 -> 11

Uair
all hitboxes
     damage 10% -> 11%
     base knockback 35 -> 27
     knockback growth 90 -> 100
hitbox 1 and 2
     angle 65° / 75° -> 68° / 68°

Fair
landing lag 25 -> 17
landing hitbox removed

Dair
startup 16 -> 10
     total frames 51 -> 44
clean hit 10-12
     active frames 4 -> 3
     damage 13% -> 11%
     angle 285° (airborne target) / 80° (ground target) -> 77°
     base knockback 10 -> 15
     knockback growth 80 -> 95
     hit lag x2.0 -> x1.3
late hit 13-24
     active frames 11 -> 12
     damage 8% -> 6%
     knockback growth 90 -> 100
landing lag 23 -> 18
auto-cancel window 4-37 -> 4-30

Standing grab
     startup 8 -> 7

F-throw
something to make it more different than Fox's
reasonable, Captain Falcon-esque KO throw route
     hitbox 1 / setup hitbox
          unchanged
     hitbox 2 / launch hitbox
          base knockback 35 -> 60
stronger, Pit-esque KO throw route
     hitbox 1 / setup hitbox
          damage 4% -> 3%
     hitbox 2 / launch hitbox
          damage 3% -> 4%
          base knockback 35 -> 70
Ganondorf F-throw damage route
     hitbox 1 / setup hitbox
          damage 4% -> 5%
     hitbox 2 / launch hitbox
          damage 3% -> 6%
          angle 45° -> 38°
          base knockback 35 -> 75
          knockback growth 135 -> 60

Blaster
     ground Blaster
          startup 11 -> 22
          total frames 58 -> 46
               recovery 48 -> 25
          set knockback 2 -> 5
          total shots infinite -> 3
     aerial Blaster
          total frames 49 -> 40
               recovery 41 -> 32
          set knockback 2 -> 3
          total shots infinite -> 2

Fire Bird
something change...
64 Fire Fox / Melee Fire Bird
charging hitboxes removed
loop hitboxes and finishing hitbox replaced with
     hitboxes also increased and placed differently...
clean hit frame 44-46
     damage 16%
     angle 85°
     base knockback 60
     knockback growth 60
late hit frame 47-50
     damage 12%
     angle 85°
     base knockback 60
     knockback growth 60
later hit frame 51-61
     damage 10%
     angle 85°
     base knockback 60
     knockback growth 60
OR
Fire Wolf, basically
charging hitboxes removed
launch frame 44 -> 22
could not care if the launch or loop hits even worked at this point

Falco Phantasm
distance traveled halved
faster travel speed?
ground Phantasm
     angle 80° -> 125°
     total frames 60 -> 43
          recovery 43 -> 26
aerial phantasm
     all hitboxes
          aerial target vs. ground target hitbox removed
          damage 7% / 6% -> 7%
          angle 80° / 270° -> 140°
          base knockback 68 / 40 -> 68
          knockback growth 60 / 50 -> 60
     total frames 66 -> 43
          recovery 49 -> 26

 
Last edited:

Bobert

"...And His Music Was Electric"
Joined
Sep 11, 2012
Messages
568
Location
North Carolina
NNID
MetallicBlur
Switch FC
SW-1415-6753-4608
1-Less "end lag" on Ground Neutral B. 59 FAF is pretty terrible. I liked Ffamrams idea of lowering it to 46.

2-3%>4% Damage on Neutral B. It's already painfully slow. Why is it so weak?

3-Running Speed 1.472>1.6 (Matches Mario's Run Speed)

4-Make it so that you can't DI his throws until being hit by the laser, which gives Falco actual kill throws. Or lower knock back on down throw so he can use it to kill with Down Throw>Bair. Either of these give him a way to reliably confirm kills.

5-Up-Smash FAF 50>45/40

Edit:5 is a terrible idea actually because the move would be way to safe to throw out having only 20 recovery frames(Thanks Ffamram for pointing that out to me). Not sure what I was thinking with that one.
 
Last edited:

Ffamran

The Smooth Devil Mod
Joined
Aug 25, 2014
Messages
14,629
2-3%>4% Damage on Neutral B. It's already painfully slow. Why is it so weak?

4-Make it so that you can't DI his throws until being hit by the laser, which gives Falco actual kill throws. Or lower knock back on down throw so he can use it to kill with Down Throw>Bair. Either of these give him a way to reliably confirm kills.

5-Up-Smash FAF 50>45/40.
Addressing some of your ideas...

2. Most projectiles don't do much damage unless they're chargeable like Aura Sphere, Charge Shot, Needle Storm, or Shadow Ball or have some special property like Ryu's Shakunetsu which requires you to do input. For the most part, most projectiles do around 3%-5%. For Bayonetta, Falco, and Fox's case, they're one of the few characters to be able to fire repeatedly, so their damage is much lower to make up for higher DPS compared to other projectiles. Also, keep in mind that 64 Blaster did 5% per shot while having everything that Melee and Brawl Falco's Blaster had; the basically infinite range, pretty fast rate of fire, and ability to auto-cancel. In Smash 4, yes, Falco's recovery is very high that even at max distance, the risk is high. Arguably, Falco shouldn't even be able to fire more than once since it's pretty pointless in any mode as you're only doing low, set knockback instead of engaging the opponent and sending them flying or compared to other projectiles, be able to zone a bit to force them to do something so you can knock them flying. A simpler, single shot, but low recovery projectile would be more useful (and less annoying for players against him).

4. Eh... Kill throws aren't really necessary. Helpful, but not necessary. If anything, the can piss off people. For kill confirm throws, kind of the same thing and it's a bit... obsessive with how some people view kill confirm throws. An option make D-throw a kill setup is to pull a Melee D-throw where the opponent just lies there -- think Flame Choke. The problem with this is that in Melee and in Smash 4 if it's done is that Falco (and Fox) stand right on top of them. Free sweet-spot Dtilt, Up Smash, etc. from Falco and Fox so long as their opponent doesn't tech D-throw in Melee or whatever. They would need to reanimate it to make it not as busted and that would be to force Falco (and Fox to land a bit aways making D-throw a bit more like a regular throw or a command throw from games like Street Fighter. Y'know, it's a bit curious why there aren't throws like that for D-throw. Yes, the whole Smash is about knockback thing, but to just plop someone down could work as a bait in FFA and teams as much as it could work for a mixup in 1v1. Anyway, the other option is yes, just lower the knockback. Also, I'd rather see a F-throw kill confirm setup despite the issue that it could wreck any character's ability to use it for positioning.

5. Falco's Up Smash, out of the other flip kick Up Smashes, so out of Fox, Kirby, Mii Brawler, kind of Pikachu, and Yoshi, has pretty good recovery. Falco's Up Smash has 30 recovery frames which is where most of the others hover; Kirby's at 29 frames, Mii Brawler at 34, Pikachu at 28, and Yoshi at 31. Fox is the only exception; his Up Smash has 45 recovery frames, the highest. Makes sense considering that it's the strongest with Kirby and Mii Brawler? coming in second. The other thing is that Falco's Up Smash has the longest lasting strong hitbox; the second hit is active for 8 frames and can kill on its own around 130%. Everyone else has around 2 to 4 frames for their clean, strong hit with Kirby only having 1 active frame for the clean, strong hit; the others do make up for being strong KO moves, especially when landed clean. It also has the most invincibility frames, 14 frames, 6 for the first hit and 8 for the second hit, and good placement on it too since Fox's is the only one with head invincibility for some reason. Fox has 9 I-frames (invincibility frames) for his head, Kirby has 6 for his legs, Mii Brawler has 5, Pikachu has none, but it's as protected if we assume the tail is a disjoint, and Yoshi 3 for his legs. Consider those since with a 45 FAF, it would have 25 recovery frames and with 40 FAF, it would have 20 recovery frames which is 1 frame higher than Ganondorf's 19 recovery Up Smash.

Updated the list and I tried explaining all of them... Geez, that's a lot of stuff. O_O
Code:
Air speed 0.93 -> 1.00 or to be unique 1.01
Fast fall speed 2.88 -> 3.6
OPTIONAL: Gravity 0.13 -> 0.14 to 0.17 max
     Jump vertical velocity will need to be adjusted to maintain current jump height
     Weight will need to be adjusted so that Falco doesn't die even earlier than Fox
Dash speed 1.9 -> 2.1 maybe 2.2
Run speed 1.472 -> 1.6

Jab 1
all hitboxes
     angle 68° / 77° / 80° -> 68° / 77° / 140°
     base knockback 35 -> 0
     set knockback 0 -> 20
     knockback growth 30 -> 100
     SDI multiplier x0.5 -> x1.0
total frames 22 -> 19
     recovery 19 -> 16

Jab 2
all hitboxes
     base knockback 30 -> 0
     set knockback 0 -> 20
     knockback growth 30 -> 100
total frames 25 -> 18
     recovery 21 -> 14

Rapid Jab
all hitboxes
     set knockback 3 -> 10
     SDI multiplier 1.2x -> 1.0x or possibly even lower; x0.4 at the lowest
frame transition from jab 2 8 -> 7

Rapid Jab Finisher
all hitboxes
     base knockback 60 -> 100
     knockback growth 100 -> 60
total frames 39 -> 35
     recovery frames 34 -> 30

Dash attack
clean hit
     damage 9% -> 11%
old late hit
     damage 6% -> 8%
  
Ftilt
base knockback 0 -> 10 or 16 to 20 max

Dtilt
hitbox 3 "removed" i.e. moved closer to the tail tip and making Dtilt no longer very disjointed
     hitbox 2 probably will need to be adjusted as well
hitbox 1 and 2 (and 3)
     damage 12% / 11% (/ 9%) -> 13% / 13% (/ 13%)
     base knockback 50 / 35 -> 50 / 50
     knockback growth 90 / 88 -> 90 / 90

Up Smash
hit 1; right leg
     startup 7
     active frames 6 -> 2
     damage 4% -> 3%
     angle 110° / 110° / 130°
     base knockback 70
     knockback growth 18
hit 2; right leg
     startup 13 -> 9
     active frames 8 -> 4
     damage 12% -> 13%
     angle 80°
     base knockback 31
     knockback growth 104
late hit; left leg
     startup frame 13
     active 8 frames
     damage 11%
     angle 120°
     base knockback 30
     knockback growth 98
     facing restriction set to ?; always sends target flying behind Falco
OPTIONAL
all hitboxes
     foot invincibility

Side Smash
late hit removed
priority transcendent -> normal
startup 17 -> 13
     total frames 48 -> 44
all hitboxes
     knockback growth 90 / 93 / 96 -> 96 / 96 / 96
OR a very weird idea
all hitboxes
     damage 15% -> 12%
     (OPTIONAL: shield damage +0% -> +3%)
     base knockback 42 -> 30
     knockback growth 90 / 93 / 96 -> 125 / 125 / 125
     hit lag x1.0 -> x1.2

Down Smash
all hitboxes
     damage 15% / 12% / 12% / 15% -> 15% / 15% / 15% / 15%
     angles 25° / 80° / 80° / 25° -> 25° / 25° / 25° / 25°
     OPTIONAL: foot invincibility

Nair
hits 1, 2, 3
set knockback 22 -> 44
hit 4
     startup 23 -> 21
     active frames 2 -> 4
landing lag 15 -> 12
OR
Melee Falco and Fox Fair inspired
hit 1 frame 3-5
     damage 9%
     angle 367° -> 361°
     base knockback 0 -> 22
     set knockback 22 -> 0
hit 2 frame 6-9
     damage 7%
     angle 367° -> 361°
     base knockback 0 -> 22
     set knockback 22 -> 0
hit 3 frame 14-17
     damage 5%
     angle 367° -> 361°
     base knockback 0 -> 22
     set knockback 22 -> 0
hit 4 frame 21-24
     damage 4% -> 3%
     hit lag x2.0 -> x1.0
total frames 48 -> 43
     recovery 25 -> 20
landing lag 15 -> 11

Uair
all hitboxes
     damage 10% -> 11%
     angle 65° / 75° / 85° -> 68° / 68° / 80°
     base knockback 35 -> 27
     knockback growth 90 -> 100

Fair
landing lag 25 -> 17
landing hitbox removed

Dair
startup 16 -> 10
     total frames 51 -> 44
clean hit 10-12
     active frames 4 -> 3
     damage 13% -> 11%
     angle 285° (airborne target) / 80° (ground target) -> 77°
     base knockback 10 -> 15
     knockback growth 80 -> 95
     hit lag x2.0 -> x1.3
late hit 13-24
     active frames 11 -> 12
     damage 8% -> 6%
     knockback growth 90 -> 100
landing lag 23 -> 18
auto-cancel window 4-37 -> 4-30

Standing grab
     startup 8 -> 7

F-throw
something to make it more different than Fox's
reasonable, Captain Falcon-esque KO throw route
     hitbox 1 / setup hitbox
          unchanged
     hitbox 2 / launch hitbox
          base knockback 35 -> 60
stronger, Pit-esque KO throw route
     hitbox 1 / setup hitbox
          damage 4% -> 3%
     hitbox 2 / launch hitbox
          damage 3% -> 4%
          base knockback 35 -> 70
Ganondorf F-throw damage route
     hitbox 1 / setup hitbox
          damage 4% -> 5%
     hitbox 2 / launch hitbox
          damage 3% -> 6%
          angle 45° -> 38°
          base knockback 35 -> 75
          knockback growth 135 -> 60

Blaster
     ground Blaster
          startup 11 -> 22
          total frames 58 -> 46
               recovery 48 -> 25
          set knockback 2 -> 6
          total shots infinite -> 1 or maybe 2
     aerial Blaster
          total frames 49 -> 40
               recovery 41 -> 32
          set knockback 2 -> 6
          total shots infinite -> 2

Fire Bird
64 Fire Fox / Melee Fire Bird
charging hitboxes removed
loop hitboxes and finishing hitbox replaced with
     hitboxes also increased and placed differently...
clean hit frame 44-46
     damage 16%
     angle 85°
     base knockback 60
     knockback growth 60
late hit frame 47-50
     damage 12%
     angle 85°
     base knockback 60
     knockback growth 60
later hit frame 51-61
     damage 10%
     angle 85°
     base knockback 60
     knockback growth 60
OR
Fast Fire Bird-ish
charging hitboxes removed
launch frame 42?-43? -> 22
loop hits removed...
travel hit frame 22-38
     active frames 17
     damage 6%
     angle 361°
     base knockback 80
     knockback growth 60
last hit frame 39-40
     active frames 2
     damage 9%
     angle 361°
     base knockback 100
     knockback growth 40

Falco Phantasm
distance traveled halved
faster travel speed?
ground Phantasm
     angle 80° -> 125°
     total frames 60 -> 43
          recovery 43 -> 26
aerial phantasm
     all hitboxes
          aerial target vs. ground target hitbox removed
          damage 7% / 6% -> 7%
          angle 80° / 270° -> 140°
          base knockback 68 / 40 -> 68
          knockback growth 60 / 50 -> 60
     total frames 66 -> 43
          recovery 49 -> 26

Big list of changes, right? Yeah, since you can strengthen and weaken a lot of things easily. To make it easier, I'm going to split this up into several groups: major changes, immediate changes, and long-term changes. They're pretty self-explanatory.

Changes that drastically affect how Falco or his moves works.
Up Smash. A weird thing about Smash is that unlike other games, there aren't multi-hits that look like single-hits e.g. if Mario's Utilt hit twice similar to Ken's Shoryuken while Dr. Mario's hit once like Ryu's. In most cases, they're Special moves like Mario's Super Jump Punch or Roy's Blazer. So, a little bit of uniqueness. The main thing this does is make Up Smash much more reliable since the gaps between the first and second hit is shortened. It also contains Up Smash a bit since right now, the strong hit lasts 8 frames which if Falco was a bit more popular, could piss off people like Mario's head invincible, "Why are you challenging this move?" Up Smash. The late hit is the old second hit and sends people flying behind Falco. Might need a "facing restriction" thingie to always make it send people flying behind him. Essentially, this brings Falco Up Smash closer to Street Fighter's Charlie and Guile's Somersault Shell / Flash Kick. To Charlie, it's his heavy Somersault Shell, but doesn't have Falco jumping up and to Guile, it's SFV's EX Flash Kick that hits twice. The Smash-only thing is the late hit. Also the second hit is slightly buffed -- might not need to, but seeing as it doesn't last 8 frames anymore, could be fine -- and feet invincibility since it's kind of weird at times where Smash doesn't cover all of the parts with invincibility.

Dair. This part might be something people might not like, especially people fond of Melee Falco's Dair. The reason for it no longer being a spike is that unless Smash changes things, Falco having even a frame 10 spike is out of the question. Most characters have frame +14 spike Dairs which really hurts them since they're so situational. Characters that don't like Cloud, Luigi, the Pits, Ryu, and Villager or characters with non-spike Dairs like Fox and Peach tend to have really good Dairs in general since they're much more versatile. For Falco, we're talking about the highest jumper and a Dair that has high active frames. Even if it only spiked on frame 10, it would destroy Luigi's Dair in terms of active frames. Luigi probably won't be able to edgeguard with his. That being said, Luigi at least has lower recovery, lower landing lag, and can auto-cancel his. Now, consider other characters like Captain Falcon, Mewtwo, Roy, etc. They might have better hitboxes or whatever, but Falco's would probably be more versatile as a spike. Anyway, point is that a fast spike would need major changes to not only Falco's, but everyone else. This suggestion kind of tries to make Dair into a weird vertical setup. So, if Dair did what Melee's Shine did, but much slower since Shine was frame 1... So, kind of this dive kick thing. Another idea is make the clean hit have a shallow angle like 30°. I'm hesitant on that one since it could make Dair a monster gimp move. Right now, it's a stupid vertical move that could lead to Falco being the only character to reliably KO off the top with a Dair.

Blaster. Do I need to say anything? One of the biggest issues for Falco is his inability to control and keep space. At the same time one of the biggest issues against Falco is that his projectile has always been frustrating for players to deal with. This is mostly in part of its ability to fire continuously which in previous games, was even worse due to auto-canceling and Blaster having what was essentially infinite range and a naturally high rate of fire -- about +20 frames between shots to Smash 4's +40. Falco in previous games, not only zoned, but he also rushdowned, approached, with a projectile that had very low recovery and a high rate of fire. Few if any projectiles in Smash or any fighting game comes to close to what Blaster did.

So, the suggestions tries to address these problems. On the ground, the doubled startup and lowered recovery emulates Melee's ground Blaster, but even lower recovery -- 25 to Melee's 35. Set knockback was also slightly increased for some more hit stun. The max number of lasers was dropped to 1. Maybe 2, but I don't really think Falco needs to fire more than once in quick succession; I don't think Falco needed to be able to fire continually in the first place since it's kind of pointless to sit in place doing low, set knockback in any of Smash's game modes. Anyway, this pretty much makes ground Blaster a mid to long-range poke. So, something to let Falco challenge from afar much more safely compared to now where challenging from afar with Blaster is very risky. In the air, recovery was reduced, but not as much as grounded. Part of this is to balance it with the fact aerial Blaster would have much lower startup. For aerial Blaster, its limited to 2 lasers to keep Falco's ability to follow up with aerial Blaster. Not a lot of damage or knockback, but it's something and a pretty unique trait Falco has of being able to followup with projectiles in a The King of Fighters and Street Fighter way. So, aerial Blaster can still be used to zone, but with its already low startup, is a followup and off-stage pressure that is balanced by its higher recovery compared to ground Blaster, a more zoning-based projectile.

Fire Bird. At this rate, any change is welcome... First suggestion is simple. It's just Melee Fire Bird that had no charge hitbox, but hit hard. To contain it, though, there are late hits. This just aims to make it a high risk, high reward move where the high risk comes from not being protected since it doesn't have a charge hitbox, it travels less than Fire Fox and Fire Wolf, it travels slower than Fire Fox and Fire Wolf, and it locks Falco's momentum during free-fall unlike Fire Fox and maybe Fire Wolf, but it hits hard so challenging it and failing will lead to damage and potential death. Compared to Brawl's change and Smash 4's ported over Fire Bird, it has lower damage potential, but is much, much, much more reliable. The other change is based on Fast Fire Bird. Essentially, Fire Bird becomes a faster launching, but weaker, slower, and shorter-traveling Fire Fox. Still better than what Fire Bird is now where it's weaker, slower, shorter-traveling, less reliable, but launches at the same time as Fire Fox; an inferior Fire Fox and an inferior Twisting Fox. Compared to Fire Wolf, it would be a single-hit version that does lower total damage, travels less, and probably travels slower. Fire Bird really needs a rework... Anyway, either of these changes would help Falco's recovery. Particularly the second option since he'd launch faster. Right now, Fire Bird being worse than Fire Fox pretty much is a death sentence for Falco if he's ever forced to use it.

Falco Phantasm. First off, the angle changes alone could justify Falco Phantasm having hitbox that covers its entire travel. Why? Because it would no longer be the largest spike in the series. So, what this does is cut the distance in half which funny enough, kind of happens in-game. When you use Falco Phantasm, Falco does a slight pause halfway before continuing on and possibly at a slower speed. This is noticeable with ground Phantasm and when slowed down; at the start Falco actually hovers a bit above the ground and when halfway, "lands" and slides to a finish. So, this just forces Falco to stop instead of sliding. What it does, along with a reduced recovery from 43 frames ground and 49 frames aerial to 26 frames, is give Falco a sort of command dash strengthening his short, burst movement. The angle changes is to contain Falco Phantasm, but also keep the idea that if you get hit by Phantasm off-stage, you're likely going to die. In this case, you're going to be sent flying behind Falco which isn't as bad as being spiked, but still pretty bad. Might be worse if for whatever reason, you decide to go far off-stage and Falco decides to Phantasm because he can. Welp... Guess who died? The drawback is of course, Falco's horizontal recovery is weakened. As Falco's recovery isn't that great, playing on his strengths on-stage might be fine trade.

Suggestions that have an immediate effect without drastically changing anything.
Air speed and run speed. Just pushes Falco from having below-average to low air and run speed to average air and run speed. Nothing really much to say about this. Are they necessary? Not really, but they do help. Arguably, though, they might be necessary since compared to Fox and Wolf, Falco is just straight up slower than both of them. He does win in vertical lift, but in fall speed, he's about equal. So, Falco being average to Fox's fast on the ground, but slow in the air and Wolf's fast in the air, but slow on the ground might be fine. Also, it's not like Falco's suddenly going from below-average air and run speed to high or above-average air and run speed.

Jab as whole. Not in major since while it's dysfunctional, improving it doesn't effect Falco's game plan as much compared to Blaster. So, the run down lowered recovery and tweaked knockback on both jab 1 and jab 2. For jab 1, this might not work, but a problem with spacing jab 1 is that against some characters in the air such as Kirby, they get popped up and being small and/or floaty, they can just jump out of jab 1 or after jab 2 since you're still hitting hit. The angle change was to pop them into Falco similar to DK's jab 1's furthest hitbox. That's the idea. It might not work; it might work. Then again, looking at the patch changes to jab 1, I don't know why the hit angle was switched from 68° to 80°. That being said, Brawl and Melee rocked 80° and 70°-only angles, respectively, and worked fine. The recovery was dropped to 16 frames which with its set knockback, will usually create a 0 frame advantage situation -- previously, with its 19 recovery frames and 35 base and 30 growth, it was -4 on-hit at 0% and wouldn't become 0 on-hit until his opponent was at 100%. This means that neither Falco or his opponent will have a frame advantage or disadvantage and it's just up to who makes the call. Set knockback was to ensure this since at higher percents, normal knockback can make it positive for Falco which could lead to some outcries... I'm inclined to make it -1 or -2...

Jab 2 is pretty much the jab mixup now since set knockback generates 15 frames of hit stun and it has 14 recovery frames. It's +1 which isn't anything amazing, but is still an advantage for Falco. Rapid jab... Trying to fix its connection issues first by lowering its SDI multiplier. For some reason, Falco's rapid jab has the highest SDI multiplier, x1.2 over Greninja's x1.1, despite doing the lowest damage per hit, 0.4%, prior to Bayonetta's debut -- hers does 0.3% per hit --, the lowest set knockback at 3 -- kind not a big deal since there are other rapid jabs that only generate 4 frames of hit stun to Falco's 8 --, and having issues with connecting. It's questionable when a rapid jab that most characters can easily escape during its transition from jab to, during it hitting, and during the transition to its finisher also does low damage per hit and has the highest SDI. So, drop to normal x1.0 SDI or maybe lower to x0.4, the lowest as of right now held by Duck Hunt and Fox. Set knockback was increased since while it's low right now, it does generate decent hit stun for a rapid jab, but despite this, people manage to escape when it transitions to its finisher. Maybe 2 more frames of hit stun will stop that, but I just don't trust rapid jab. Also, lowered the frame transition to its Brawl one.

For rapid jab finisher. The move itself is fine, so it doesn't really need a change. It's just attached to a dodgy rapid jab. That being said, it does have low overall knockback compared to other rapid jab finishers. The only others that come to mind are Greninja and Mewtwo's. Everyone else tends to have much higher growths instead other normal 100 growth -- multi-hit finishers tend to have high growths to ensure decent knockback. Could easily bump up the growth to 120, but I wanted to do something interesting. This pretty much emulates Captain Falcon's whose rapid jab finisher has high base, 110, but low growth 70. For Falco, his just got flipped; base is 100 instead of 60 and growth is 60 instead of 100. Also, the recovery was lowered from 34 frames to 30 just 'cause. Mostly since I don't trust rapid jab and having 30 frames of recovery on whiff is a bit helpful. Didn't want to go any lower since I don't think any other rapid jab finishers have lower than 29 recovery frames. Some even have about 40 if I recall correctly. A part of me feels like a reason why rapid jab finisher isn't connecting well from rapid jab might be that it has a high-ish frame transition. Can't say for sure since I don't know if that's how rapid jab finishers works.

Dash attack. Straight up buffed. Why? Just 'cause. This pretty much makes it about Ryu's dash attack strength which has me worried since the clean hit lasts 4 frames. Yes, 1 more frame than Ryu's clean hit, but still... With its startup, it does makes sense for it to feel strong which it kind of doesn't a problem that's also shared with Wolf who has a frame 11, 2 active frame dash attack that's pretty meh. Not really necessary, but helpful. This would definitely work better if Falco's dash attack animation was different like it was a reverse side kick. Anyway, I digress.

Side Smash. Just faster. The thing about Falco's Side Smash in Melee was that it was fast and strong. And it also had really high active frames, but anyway, this is to go back to that. Since Brawl, Falco's Side Smash became this slow, but not really strong Side Smash. There are other Side Smashes with as much if not more power and as much if not more range as Falco's. In some cases, they're able to be set-up like Diddy's frame 12 Side Smash. The thing with Side Smashes is that most of them are the slow(ish) punish moves. That's fine, but in Falco's case, it's slow, but not really that great of a punish compared to other slower, but stronger Side Smashes. In other cases, slower Side Smashes have a lot of coverage and range such as Ike and Triple D's. It's a bit difficult to justify making Falco's Side Smash go from one of the slower ones to one of the faster, average ones. Anyway, lowered startup is the main gist of this. The other things would be the removal of its transcendent priority and late hit. As a hit that uses his arms, so not a disjoint, transcendent priority doesn't really do much for Falco except ensure a trade if it lands. Removing it was to justify the lower startup since it's more of a regular Side Smash now. The late hit was removed since it's pretty much a nuisance and it doesn't fit with the animation at all in either games; in both games, Falco's arms no longer make contact with an opponent, but an inexplicable hitbox is called that's really weak and just reminds you that you didn't land Side Smash clean. There is also a weird idea of making it one of the weakest in terms of damage, but its backed up by high knockback growth so it should be just as strong. Side Smash being buffed isn't really necessary, but it is helpful. In the triangle of Fox has the strongest Up Smash, Falco strongest Side Smash, and Wolf strongest Down Smash, Falco's just seems lackluster when it's a slow, purely punish Smash to Fox and Wolf's versatile Smashes used for punishes and used from setups.

Down Smash since Melee, has always had these weird 80° sour-spots. Fox has sour-spots too, but they're 361°, so they at least still send people flying out. Change is to just make it not stupid. It's rare to hit with these sour-spots, but it's still annoying since you expect people to fly out, but they don't. Since it's rare, it's probably not even a reliable team set-up. Also, animation-wise, it kind of doesn't make sense. Yes, Falco's doing the splits by dropping down, but he's still kicking out. It's not like doing the splits down and somehow, his upper legs connecting means you fly up... Feet invincibility can be a thing too, but if that happens, a ton of other characters need it too since for some reason, characters have leg invincibility, but their feet aren't invincible.

Nair's first suggestion is a slight buff. It's mostly to patch up that while Nair connects much better, there is a slight problem that 1.0.8 created and its the frame gap between the third and last hit. Previously, the frame gap was 3 since the last hit was called on frame 21. 1.0.8 made the startup on the fourth hit 23 to match other multi-hits which is fine, but Falco's Nair is already a weird multi-hit since it has an irregular rhythm unlike other multi-hits. Most multi-hits hit like 2(3)2(3)2(3)2 while Falco's hits 3*4(4)4(3)2 pre-1.0.8 and 3*4(4)4(5)2 post-1.0.8. The first two hits have no frame gaps, then follows a 4 frame gap, and 3 pre-1.0.8 or 5 post-1.0.8. 2 frames don't seem like much of a difference, but there are times where and opponent can end up too high, exit their hit stun, and can hit Falco before the last hit connects or after it whiffs. One way to fix this is have the last hit be called earlier and even if it matched pre-1.0.8 Nair's actives, 4 frames is kind fine since it's not particularly a strong or far-reaching hit. Now, called earlier, but with 2 frames, the recovery goes by 2 frames from 25 frames to 27 frames. That's also fine and can be dealt with by lowering the total frames. Anyway, another option is to increase the set knockback on the loop hits to tighten it. 30, 44, or even 100 set knockback would definitely create enough hit stun to tighten it. I'd go with both lowered startup on the last hit, the 4 active frames on it, and 30 to 44 set knockback. The landing lag decrease was just to lower it and try to make it a bit more different than Fair where Nair can be used to the ground and Fair's primarily for aerial combat. A problem about this is with the higher set knockback, it could lead to falling Nair to whatever setup Falco wants. Granted, Nair is short-ranged and moves like Utilt, Dtilt, Up Smash, and Down Smash aren't exactly Fox ~110% Up Smash KO-level. Well, there is the Dtilt change... Eh, it's fine. :p

Fair's simple. Lower landing lag. This part comes from the idea that the landing hit should be removed. Why? For one, it's heavily disjointed compared to other landing hits. Two, the animation makes no sense for a hitbox to even exist. Three, it's a crutch that some lower-level players rely on to make an aerial that is designed to be used in the air to be a followup interrupter and even an approach by abusing the frame 1 landing hit. It's not a Diddy, Marth, Sheik, or Yoshi Fair. It's not even a Pit Fair. The 17 landing frames is just there to cover that yes, you used it too low to the ground, it's not the 25 frames, but please try not to use it close to the ground. You have other moves for that.

Standing grab lowered startup. Yeah, I don't know why the developers decided Falco's standing grab in Smash 4 should be the second-slowest melee-ranged grab under Bowser and Little Mac's frame 9 standing grabs. Yes, chain-grabs existed in Brawl and Falco abused it. No, his frame 6 grab he shared with Fox in Brawl explained why chain-grabs existed, so why the frame 8 grab? Why not frame 7, the average grab frame that he had in Melee? It's 1 frame, but it does help, especially against the rest of the cast with frame 7-below melee-ranged grabs.

Similar to immediate changes, but tend to be more subtle changes that have an effect over time for Falco.
Fast fall speed increase. Almost all characters have fast fall speed that go up by 60%. This is a 100% increase, double Falco's 1.8 fall speed and higher than his Melee fast fall speed. Why? To play with Falco's vertical capabilities. Falco's known for his vertical lift, so why not make him also be known for his vertical descent? That high of a fast fall speed can help with Falco landing or messing around with his opponent if he's going for an aerial followup since he can dive down quickly. The obvious problem with this is that Falco will probably die if he fast falls off-stage. Another potential problem is with Falco's gravity which is still high, it might not be high enough he can reach that high of a fast fall speed. Not sure. Increase to his Melee 0.17 or around there can help, but in doing so, Falco would need to have his jump vertical velocity changed so he can still jump as high and his weight increased since he might end up dying even earlier than Fox from vertical KO moves because of that gravity. A fickle thing, really. Main idea is to help with Falco being able to mess with people by descending very quickly due to a very high fast fall speed from his jumps. The cost is, as I said, it would probably wreck Falco's fast fall aerial game off-stage since he's likely to just SD.

Dash speed increase. Not run speed which was covered earlier. This is to increase Falco's already good short burst movement since Falco rocks the third-highest dash speed, 1.9, under Little Mac (2.05) and Fox (2.4). So, from a dash, Falco will move even faster and would help with his ability to suddenly close short distances. This doesn't help his long, sustained movement which would require run speed to be increased or air speed if you're looking at aerial mobility. 2.1 is fine, but not much above Little Mac while 2.2 is also okay, but getting the point of where it could be really stupid like Fox's 2.4 dash. That being said, he doesn't have their run speeds, especially since Fox's dash speed is higher than his run speed, 2.184, unlike Little Mac who's run speed, 2.24, is a bit higher than his dash speed. I'm wondering what a 3.5 dash speed would be like... We know what a 3.5 run speed is like already...

Ftilt doesn't seem like it has much problems, right? Yes, and no. Its problem is that without any base knockback, it's unsafe on-hit until 40%, when it's +1 frame advantage, against Mario's average weight. This is because at 0%, it's -11 on-hit and barely sends anyone anywhere. Compare this to Captain Falcon, Fox, ZSS, etc. who aren't as unsafe on-hit or in Fox's case, has low enough recovery that he can repeatedly Ftilt you to be safe on-hit which for him is around 20%. It's kind of fine and other characters with check kick Ftilt have this problem -- (Dr.) Mario and Luigi have it the worst --, but because Falco is more reliant on using Ftilt for poking in Smash 4 since he doesn't have the ability to put so much damage on you quickly like in past games, it would be helpful if Ftilt is less unsafe on-hit. The easiest is 20 base which would make it 0 on-hit at 0%. Problem with that is it will probably wreck Falco's ability to reset with it which considering that resets are situational, might not be a thing. Putting it at 10 base would make it -7 on-hit and it would be 0 on-hit at 20% while 16 base would make it -4 on-hit at 0% and 0 on-hit at 12%. 10 base might be the better choice if you want to possibly let it reset longer while 20 can work better to just boot people back away from Falco.

Dtilt. Some people might not agree with losing the disjoint and losing a good poke, but I do view the disjoint as being unfair since it's not just a small disjoint like on Marth's Fair, but a well-ranged invisible hitbox that lets Falco rival sword-user Dtilts. With the suggestion to jab, Ftilt, and Blaster, Falco might not need to rely on Dtilt anymore as a poke. The other thing is with Smash 4 continuing to break apart the hitboxes on Falco (and Fox's) Dtilt, it's inconsistent. The 12% sweet-spot is basically like a Roy sweet-spot that's very close to Falco's body, his hurtbox, and while it's a fairly good KO move, it doesn't KO until ~136% a far cry from Melee's ~100%. If you hit with the 11% hitbox, his tail, then it doesn't KO until ~171% which is when Utilt KOs, and the 9% disjoint KOs at ~206%. Despite the variances in KO potential, all the hitboxes work similarly as set-ups at low to mid-percents. At high percents when you're looking to KO, it just falls apart into a mess. The change here is to make it more consistent at the cost of its range which isn't that bad. I think with Smash 4's animation change, it would still have more range than Melee and Brawl Dtilt since Falco steps forward and swipes his tail instead of sweeping in place. So, what you get is a "short-ranged", versatile, but consistently powerful Dtilt. You also get a unique Dtilt since it would still be a low- to mid-percent set-up and end as a high percent KO move.

Similar to Dtilt, Uair's suggestion is to make it more consistent. 1.0.8, in my conclusion, actually nerfed Uair more than it did to buff it. Lowered startup and the body hit not being the sour-spot it has been since Melee were the only buffs that were just short-term, immediate buffs. You could tell right away it's a bit faster and doesn't have a sour-spot. In the long-run, however, the changes to knockback from 27 base and 100 growth to 35 growth and 90 base effectively killed its KO potential. With the legs, Uair used to KO from the ground around 162%. Now? It KOs around 194% which is around when Mario and ZSS's Uair KO. With good DI and still being in the air, opponents can live long against his Uair. High up, pretty much any move can KO and even with Falco's high jump, you being up there in the first place was your problem and not the move hitting you. Now, if this Uair KO'd at 50% on the ground, then sure, it needs to be changed, but it isn't. Continuing, the body hit KOs at ~175% because of the more vertical hit angle making DI not as effective, but its the body hit, the smallest hitbox and on Falco's hurtbox. The knockback changes also didn't change anything either since there wasn't a notable gain in hit stun, it didn't make it so Uair could set up Nair, Fair, and Bair like it always did and Uair to Uair isn't really a thing for Falco in the first place because of the knockback pre- and post-patch. This is just a return to the old Uair's damage, angle, and knockback, but with 1.0.8's startup and without the body sour-spot's knockback. If the damage still seems high for some reason, with 1.0.8's 10% hit, it would still KO earlier than 1.0.8's Uair at ~178%.

F-throw. Kill throw or damage throw. The main reason for why F-throw is getting suggestions is that since Melee, it's practically the same thing as Fox's. So, just to differentiate it a bit, especially since Brawl when with the whole Falco uses his hands more while Fox kicks more. Kill throw is simple and acts as a stock cap. Hopefully, neither of kill throw suggestions end up being better than Capt. and the Pits'. Personally, I'm not fond of kill throws mostly because it could lead to Falco getting a bad reputation. In terms of animation, an elbow bash doing that much knockback doesn't make sense to me. If it was an one-inch punch, then sure. Also, while not as reliable, U-throw and B-throw do still function as stock caps. Damage, positional throw also goes with the Falco is the arm man to Fox's leg guy. Just more damage, but won't KO like Ganondorf's. In the long-run, while it won't be as threatening, it will be Falco's most damaging throw and the most consistent next to D-throw which would be doing half the damage of this suggestion. Currently, B-throw does the most damage followed by U-throw, but they start to not connect the laser at a certain point, so having a throw that consistently does 10% can add up for Falco.

Random suggestions below.
The second suggestion to Nair essentially makes Nair into a lingering aerial where its late hits are through its "multi-hits". So, it won't connect like Melee Fair, but will generate enough knockback to push people out. Going this route definitely destroys any overlap Nair has with Fair, but also would wreck the ability to chain Nair and being able to edgeguard with it through trapping people into a high active multi-hit. It can be used to edgeguard, but more like how Fox, Mario, Sheik use Nair to edgeguard. With the lowered landing lag and having normal knockback on all of its hits, it could act as set-up like Fox's Nair. Just a random suggestion.
 
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Bottlez

Smash Rookie
Joined
Oct 30, 2015
Messages
5
I love playing Falco, but I demoted him to a secondary in favor of Fox a few months ago. However, I've been trying to make a personal 1.1.7 for myself where I buff my liked characters. lol I've already restored his dair to its Melee glory. I plan on using your all's ideas in this thread to buff him further.
 

EXPBoost

Smash Rookie
Joined
Jan 25, 2015
Messages
12
Location
California
NNID
EXPBoost
3DS FC
2895-8267-0085
Hey, guys! Yesterday, I decided that I was going to mod my Wii U and put some fancy looking skins. After 7 hours of dumping my game into the computer, I took the time and look up tutorials on how to change the moveset/attributes of a character. I main Falco so I thought to myself, "Hey, maybe I can make this char a bit more interesting?" So today, I changed the attributes of Falco making him slightly faster and a little less laggy. I have not gone around changing his specials, but hopefully I'll get to it soon. (I'll post the changes I made don't worry!) I may share this mod with you peeps once I figure out how on Gamebanana. So let me know what you think about the changes I made.

Changelist:

Running speed: 1.472 → 1.52 (On par with Shulk and Pac)
Airspeed: 0.93 → 1

Aerials

N-Air Landing Lag: 15 → 12
F-Air Landing Lag: 25 → 23
U-Air Landing Lag: 15 → 14
D-Air Landing Lag: 23 → 21
D-Air Start-up slightly decreased: 16 → 13
Late-hit of D-Air: 20-30 → 19-29
 

Ffamran

The Smooth Devil Mod
Joined
Aug 25, 2014
Messages
14,629
Hey, guys! Yesterday, I decided that I was going to mod my Wii U and put some fancy looking skins. After 7 hours of dumping my game into the computer, I took the time and look up tutorials on how to change the moveset/attributes of a character. I main Falco so I thought to myself, "Hey, maybe I can make this char a bit more interesting?" So today, I changed the attributes of Falco making him slightly faster and a little less laggy. I have not gone around changing his specials, but hopefully I'll get to it soon. (I'll post the changes I made don't worry!) I may share this mod with you peeps once I figure out how on Gamebanana. So let me know what you think about the changes I made.

Changelist:

Running speed: 1.472 → 1.52 (On par with Shulk and Pac)
Airspeed: 0.93 → 1

Aerials

N-Air Landing Lag: 15 → 12
F-Air Landing Lag: 25 → 23
U-Air Landing Lag: 15 → 14
D-Air Landing Lag: 23 → 21
D-Air Start-up slightly decreased: 16 → 13
Late-hit of D-Air: 20-30 → 19-29
There's already a thread for this: https://smashboards.com/threads/patch-suggesiton-what-buffs-does-falco-need.437382/, so this thread will be redirected to that thread.
 

Mellos

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Mar 17, 2015
Messages
359
Location
Vienna
NNID
El_Beslic
Hey, guys! Yesterday, I decided that I was going to mod my Wii U and put some fancy looking skins. After 7 hours of dumping my game into the computer, I took the time and look up tutorials on how to change the moveset/attributes of a character. I main Falco so I thought to myself, "Hey, maybe I can make this char a bit more interesting?" So today, I changed the attributes of Falco making him slightly faster and a little less laggy. I have not gone around changing his specials, but hopefully I'll get to it soon. (I'll post the changes I made don't worry!) I may share this mod with you peeps once I figure out how on Gamebanana. So let me know what you think about the changes I made.

Changelist:

Running speed: 1.472 → 1.52 (On par with Shulk and Pac)
Airspeed: 0.93 → 1

Aerials

N-Air Landing Lag: 15 → 12
F-Air Landing Lag: 25 → 23
U-Air Landing Lag: 15 → 14
D-Air Landing Lag: 23 → 21
D-Air Start-up slightly decreased: 16 → 13
Late-hit of D-Air: 20-30 → 19-29
Would you mind uploading your Falco script, so I can try it? :)
 

EXPBoost

Smash Rookie
Joined
Jan 25, 2015
Messages
12
Location
California
NNID
EXPBoost
3DS FC
2895-8267-0085
Would you mind uploading your Falco script, so I can try it? :)
Sorry I took long to reply. I haven't been on SmashBoards for a long time. I'm currently working on Falco buffing his moves here and there.
 
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