PPMD's Falco Discussion Thread

[mers]

That is kinda the exact opposite of what he really does imho.

He always criticizes ppl about trying to cover every option, always choosing the best option and just "reacting" like a robot. He mindgames, he takes chances and if he fails he fails, but he usually doesnt.

Huh. I've never looked at it that way. I guess I don't see him getting ****ed up for making the wrong choice very often. That might just mean he's mad good at predicting though.

Hmmmm.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

******, learn what hit lag is please. The data was directly gathered from the falco frame data thread, go read it.
And double shining cant be rolled out of, jeez.

In scotu's data, "shield stun" includes hitlag. Falco's shine has 9 frames of shield stun, INCLUDING hitlag. I actually don't know where you got 15 from, since there is 4 frames of hitlag and 9 frames of shield stun, so even if you made the mistake and added both numbers, thats only 13.

[collapse=SuperDoodleMan]

Reflector

Total: 39 (or more)
Hits: 1
Invincible: 1
Reflects: 4-21 or release+1
Jump cancelable whenever it reflects
Lag upon release: 19

Shield stun: 9
(shield) hit lag: 4
Reflection lag: 19

[/collapse]





.... ******.

 

[Veetaak]

He is no ****ing God, he's human just like the rest of us. Learn 2 beat him.

Ofc you can beat him =)
But it's not an easy task when he is playing his best.

 

[FoxLisk]

yo can i just mention abt all that shine waveland shine discussion that anyone who wasn't aware that that is easily punishable has a gaping hole in frame data knowledge? like, discussing it is in fact valuable, as is discussing other things, but like. Shine -> WD down -> shine fails miserably and shine waveland on a platform fails almost as miserably. you shouldn't need to look up the frame data to know that it fails if you're a falco main.

 

[Druggedfox]

Good thing everybody here mains fox

 

[Divinokage]

I love punching Fox's nose.

 

[SSBM_or_GTFO]

Good thing this is the Falco boards. :D

 

[Kason Birdman]

who is fox

 

[Acryte]

with edge guards, he covers his options very well, as in his spacing pressures you and reduces your options without him actually doing any moves, and thus committing to something. He cuts off certain options like high or mid, or if he commits, he knows he will recover quick enough to continue to edgeguard. He then is able to wait and as you fall lower and lower your options keep decreasing until its a much simpler coverage... usually resulting in the termination of your stock.

 

[Redact]

who is fox

The other falco with the weak gun

 

[Divinokage]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hmeLhcrVGk

Have fun with that..

 

[Dr Peepee]

Everything in Melee can be punished. Nothing is perfectly safe.

I think if people started accepting this principle more, discussions like these might be a little more productive. Instead of searching for the "perfect" shield pressure or shine trick or whatever, we could work on talking about how to think about the game while you're playing. I'd love to hear discussion from people better than me (aka everyone) about how to read your opponent, or how to make yourself harder to read, or something like that.

I'm not saying that knowing how punishable a certain option is is a bad thing. But it seems to me like people get very caught up in meaningless details.

Maybe this is somewhat related to what PeePee has been saying recently. All we do is mimic each other and play like robots, and this is a problem. We need to be learning to play on our own, and sharing philosophical stuff instead.

The most helpful posts I've ever read on SWF have been from players like Cactuar, Taj, and Wobbles, and they're always posts about thinking or strategy rather than specific attack/defense choices. I don't think they're inherently more suited to that kind of thinking than we are. They just understand that the game is between the minds of two players. It's no accident that they're better than most of us.

This kind of became a confusing rant. Oh well.

Well nothing in Melee is perfectly safe in the way nothing in any fighting game is perfectly safe. Some tricks are way better than others though. In that light regardless, everyone should be striving to find new holes in the game and how to make their own less obvious.

Philosophy would be much better and more productive if we could do that but it seems difficult to discuss these days, even for me.

My latest form of keeping myself hard to read is by keeping a threatening distance to my opponent so that my approach is always formidable but my laser game and defensive punishments can still be worked(aided by DD). I did this before kind of but usually the DD was only a means of making my approach harder to read instead of actually utilizing the entire gambit of options one can use from such a tight position. Getting a few grabs always tends to make people jumpy as well which lets you force your positioning much better as well as get more solid hits off instead of grabs.

I don't mean to claim that the discussion has no value at all. I get that exploration of the game mechanics is really important, and to some extent you have to analyze any kind of new trick to see if it is worthwhile to implement. I just hate when the discussion turns into "super frame perfect bros."

I'm just trying to say that as a whole, our community focuses too much on that stuff. There's a place for it, but I believe it would be more beneficial to, idk, try to deeply analyze just why Mango is so good. Obviously Mango isn't good because he uses the best frame perfect shine tricks all the time, and his tricks are better than everyone else's. He's good because he is better at "Mango vs. opponent," not "Mango vs. Melee."

That's just one example of a valuable conversation idea that I think we're ignoring.

I also don't want to tell people what to talk about. Obviously you all can talk about whatever you want and whatever you think will help you. I'm just suggesting that most of us could improve more effectively if we changed the focus of our discussion. Make of it what you will.

I agree that we don't focus on strategy as much as I'd like anymore, but instead we focus on tight executions of attacks and such because I suppose everyone feels like matchup knowledge can't be pushed farther. It's true that lots of minor adjustments to one's game can give them an edge but I've always focused on fundamentals so I'd never get tired of reading about that haha.

Always telling yourself about what your character "should" and "shouldn't" do is helpful because you never lose sight of what you want to build your character/strategy around. The tricks will always be there to supplement your base ideas too.

...which is exactly not what this conversation was and is exactly why I'm sorta confused by your whole tirade. Someone talked about a technique, and then the frame data was brought up and discussed. How is this at all turning into super frame perfect bros? Frame data and calculating advantages pretty much has to assume frame perfection, as 0 frames of ****ing up is just a better base line than anything else. That doesn't mean we're talking about the same sort of useless **** as discussing how Bowser should be top tier because he has a move that has an invicibility frame on frame 1 and an invulnerable ledgestall. This is practical frame data and is a perfect example of when we should be analyzing this sort of thing.



As someone who probably does focus on that stuff too much, I am quite frankly offended to hear that you think the community as a whole does so too. 99% of this community is completely clueless when it comes to frame data and examining frame advantages and their implications.



These conversations are actually very frequently useless amongst the vast majority of the community. Straight up, most people need to be better at tech skill than they are to take anything away from Mango's play because his confidence to not **** anything up is the groundwork for how he plays and he says so himself. And even when you're at that level it's tough to actually get a useful conversation going about why someone is actually so good because it's a nebulous and somewhat subjective issue. I would never really try to dissuade this sort of discussion from happening, but it's also not the sort of thing we should realistically expect on a regular basis.



Then why are you derailing a perfectly legitimate discussion? Honestly, there was nothing offensively hypothetical or unrealistic in the discussion and you shot it down for no real reason as far as I can tell. Hell, the last post before you made your little rant I even mentioned how the fact that shine -> waveland -> shine is grabbable makes me condition people and gave a specific example. I dunno, w/e, I'm getting too defensive, but I still think you went off about a perfectly reasonable discussion that had a hell of a lot more value than you gave it credit for.

I value frame data knowledge but like Mango I'd rather use it as a supplement(or in his case something to disregard lol) than law. People mess up, your own pressure could work funny, or other human factors or oddities could get in the way of your ideas. Heck creativity could even be limited if one were to say "this shouldn't work so I'll disregard anything related to it." I'm not trying to say the way you do things is wrong or limits all creativity or anything but I'm just wary of getting locked in to frame-based mindsets.

ps: I liked your mixup with the thing to beat grab and I've done it before myself. Hmmmm, what about waveshining backwards from someone to beat the buffered grab or doing that shine that puts you directly on the platform to double shine or grab or fadeback aerial(whatever typically beats grab)?

I don't want to turn this into a "discussion about a discussion" thread, so I'll just try to explain myself and answer your objections one more time.



I wasn't trying to say the discussion that was just going on was horrible or something. I do think the shine>waveland>shine thing was good to discuss, and that only lasted a few posts before everyone had gained a little knowledge. That's fine.

Honestly, most of the discussions in this thread have looked like that, and each of them was fine in and of itself. The problem (in my eyes) is that if you look back at just about every page in this thread, that's all you will see. It's not that each conversation is a bad thing, it's that this is all we talk about as a community. Which brings me to your next paragraph...



I don't mean to offend you, or anyone. I'm not trying to say "gosh, y'all are such n00bs, quit being scrubs and talk about meaningful ****, n00bs." I guess I did condemn previous discussions a little too much. I really just mean to suggest a way for all of us to work on improving.



This may be true, but does that mean I shouldn't try to encourage it? I get that I was a little aggressive about the frame data stuff, and I apologize, but I still think encouraging people to talk about new things is good. After I finish replying to this post, I'll try to start a discussion of the kind I've been talking about, and we can see how it goes.



I didn't mean to derail anything, and I'm sorry if I came off as aggressive. The only way this kind of thing gets discussed is if somebody brings it up (obvious sentence, facepalm), so I figured I would do it. I didn't mean to harm anyone else's conversation, but simply to add my opinion.

So.

Anyhow.

Why do you all think Mango is so good? Good theories on this are surprisingly hard to come by, so I'd love to hear what you all have to say.

Well I plan on making a big post on Mango sometime this week so I'll save my ideas for then. =)

 

[SSBM_or_GTFO]

I still think multishines could break shields, at least weakened shields. I think this mostly because of this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jEBH2WYVUk&feature=channel_video_title

Couldn't weakened shields be broken by Fox/Falcos multishine? Perhaps in a matchup where the opponent shields a lot? (Like Samus)

 

[Dark Hart]

Kevin, tell me how to beat your Fox, when I'm Falco

I feel like you just tease me for 2-3 stocks then decide to **** me

 

[Dr Peepee]

I still think multishines could break shields, at least weakened shields. I think this mostly because of this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jEBH2WYVUk&feature=channel_video_title

Couldn't weakened shields be broken by Fox/Falcos multishine? Perhaps in a matchup where the opponent shields a lot? (Like Samus)

I think shield DI or just letting go of shield would come into most players' heads before that happened, but maybe on a fairly small shield sure?

Kevin, tell me how to beat your Fox, when I'm Falco

I feel like you just tease me for 2-3 stocks then decide to **** me

I don't know dude my vs Falco with non-Falco characters is weird XD

If you camp my Fox then you'll probably do well since I like approaching with Fox haha. Uhh other than that we'd have to record it since I don't really remember what I do with Fox....

 

[Strong Badam]

I'm never disappointed when I read this thread.

Shield DI overcomes advancing multishines btw.

 

[V3ctorMan]

I have videos of my bad Falco.. help me get better!... I wish falco was like Yoshi.... No shield stab would be soooooooooooooooo good.. ^^

oh yeah I have to link it too huh? Nah this is prolly on behalf of Rubyiris, not sure if he's banned still.. but I'm sure he'll post it here so I guess i'm doin it for him... help him out? or if you love me I'm always down for help. n_n <3 you guys

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGPyc30dEIE

Spoiler

Yoshi's still better than Falco.. Jus sayin.. <3

 

[SSBM_or_GTFO]

I'm never disappointed when I read this thread.

Shield DI overcomes advancing multishines btw.

What's shield DI?

 

[Strong Badam]

Smash DIing during shield hitlag. You stay grounded and in your shield, so traction prevents you from moving as far as regular Smash DI, but it's more than an advancing JC shine.

 

[Dark Hart]

Kevin all I know

is that I wasn't impressed

 

[Dr Peepee]

I have videos of my bad Falco.. help me get better!... I wish falco was like Yoshi.... No shield stab would be soooooooooooooooo good.. ^^

oh yeah I have to link it too huh? Nah this is prolly on behalf of Rubyiris, not sure if he's banned still.. but I'm sure he'll post it here so I guess i'm doin it for him... help him out? or if you love me I'm always down for help. n_n <3 you guys

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGPyc30dEIE

Spoiler

Yoshi's still better than Falco.. Jus sayin.. <3

You force too much. Definitely work on changing up your timing for attacks more.

Also jab to grab is usually bad/not worth it. If they don't CC the jab then you could aerial or Dair or Fsmash after lol so much better.

Also I thought you were quitting?

Also also, I'm not going to critique any more of these unless they're in the critique thread. Speaking of which I'll probably get on more of those tonight....

 

[V3ctorMan]

You force too much. Definitely work on changing up your timing for attacks more.

Also jab to grab is usually bad/not worth it. If they don't CC the jab then you could aerial or Dair or Fsmash after lol so much better.

Also I thought you were quitting?

Also also, I'm not going to critique any more of these unless they're in the critique thread. Speaking of which I'll probably get on more of those tonight....

Yay, a reply.

Thx, PP, in general the critique part wasn't exactly for me. more towards Rubyiris, (not sure if he's still banned, so I was postin for him) I'm just the aggro falco that tries to look cool. (not stuff i'd actually do in tourney) otherwise, i'd prolly not get views) but thanks always honored to hear from you <3

Haha, I have man.. loook at the date of those videos. I'm still on retired status...until that motive comes my way... it just pains me a bit, cuz I know I was just gettin started w/my Yoshi. I feel ackward for leaving when i'm nearly at the top of my game ya know?

 

[JPOBS]

why are u retiring vman?

 

[Kanelol]

Falco boards will miss youuuuuuu

 

[RaynEX]

Was scanning this thread and saw this a few pages back:

Whats all this nonsense about perfectly shine landing on platforms? thats some SW ****.

on another note, you know when someone is above you shielding on a platform and you do jump shine (bottom of their shield) -> waveland -> shine and then start doing pressure or whatever?
is that sequence of shine->waveland->shine impervious to most counterattack? is the opponent in shield stun the whole time? I wouldnt think so but people do it all the time.

on another another note, shine to waveland shine grab in this situation is the best thing ever.

Aerial shine on shield -> DJ waveland -> shine is a pretty tight link. On the ground, shining their shield and wavedashing out into another shine is really slow, but I think this is an exception.

Double jumps are faster than jumps off of the ground, so if you connect the aerial shine while close to the platform, you should be safe from most forms of retaliation. You'll still be out of your shine in the same number of frames, ground or air, but you'll spend less time actually jumping - which will give you more shield stun to work with. By the time you waveland next to them, you should have a pretty reliable string going.

Granted you start all of this close enough and don't mess up. Now that I that I think about it, going behind them during this might be a good idea.

 

[Lightsyde]

Okay, so last night I was teaching people and I had a lot of interesting new thoughts but I only remember a few. Actually, some are new and some are just fundamentals people need to appreciate more.

When someone is on the edge and you miss your aerial (or are in lag from whiffing a move etc), it is essentially the same situation as when someone is standing beneath you on a platform. It's a guaranteed hit/combo for them so when you approach the edge, always be spacing (duh) and not forcing the situation when you should be at advantage (stage control), especially if you have good range. The best edgeguard (to start) will always be to cover the fast option then reacting to either the kill or them catching the edge (wd back and try to bait an aerial or ledge dash etc). Spacies' pivot bair after they catch the edge to beat the immediate rising aerial (vs most characters) is too good.

Falco's best vs Marth is bair, for spacing, for getting him off the stage, for combo'ing (weak bair <3). Force Marth above you and always stay under him pressuring/punishing with bairs. Falco's jump height and fall speed make it SO SO good. Chipping away with bair's stacks damage fast. Fade out bair OOS is so good too, especially for not getting grabbed out of shield pressure, but is riskier vs characters with OOS options that have a lot of range.

When using spacies, utilize the shine, if you haven't double jumped already, after you come out of lag from doing an aerial (FH bair for example) and then shine close to the ground and use your double jump to either space another aerial (since they likely thought you'd land first) or waveland to shine/aerial/laser. Basically, if you don't land, you aerial sooner and it messes with their timing. The fact that you can shine turn around waveland after jumps gives you even more options for switching up your movement.

Falco's SH first hit fair hits through/pokes feet on BF, YS and PS. If you can combo them onto a platform above you, shuffled SH fair can lead to dair kills or at least continued combos. It's best because it's fast, underused, and it's relatively safe (mid combo anyway).

Not shining after Fox's aerials (if they hit) is **** and at very least an amazing mixup because Fox (other characters to a slightly lesser extent) because grabs after aerials tend to set up for way more than just shines (shines can be DI'd away or DI'd down and teched). Not to be used in every situation but good to mix in with SH uairs, SH bairs (higher percents), DJ dair (beats get up attack) and shine waveland to whatever.

The most important part of a combo is the part where they are off the stage but above the edge. Try to move to a position where it looks as if you are too far away (great with Falco since his FH is ****, bair's disjoint/dair trades etc) and then **** their jump/air dodge. If they haven't been jumping straight out of hit stun (which is great sometimes if you're really high up, extra height = extra horizontal and more chances to live), then do something to catch them/bait them out of fast fall. The point is to be ****** them if they are jumping, adapting if they aren't, but always making them have to focus harder on a combo they likely thought they were out of. Combos aren't over until you are combo'ing or they are dead.

Air dodge is an amazingly good, lagless third jump, especially if you can get the last part to wavesomething onto a platform to (angled) shield or light shield. So many times people do a decent combo and have to up B/side B/anything laggy afterwards and they lose their advantage/positioning, miss combo/kill opportunites, or get killed themselves (this happens more with dumb Falco/Falcon recoveries).

This is more obvious but PS's transformations are amazing for characters with linear/laggy recoveries (Sheik, Falcon, Ganon etc) because you are given an option to land on platform and then either try to shield/spot dodge or (what will likely happen) get hit and DI/tech. Getting hit and immediately tech or even just DI'ing down and get knocked to another part of the stage is infinitely better than dying, obviously.

If you are tech chasing, move to the spot where they tech and react. This is so basic but so many people don't do this enough; it just makes sense. If they have four options, two of which are covered by hitting where they land, the other two being their rolls either in or out, then a fast character should easily be able to get a grab/hit, and it's even better with a character like Sheik whose dash attack is also one of her best launchers. If you predict the tech, you will get a **** punish/combo/kill but if you miss you lose your advantage. Reacting vs Predicting is low risk vs higher risk. If you can tailor your reactions to make them eventually do the tech you're waiting for, you will get the most damage and likely your kill. iIt's all about tech chasing/reacting faster than who you are playing and keeping them guessing. If they are being predictable with rolls, by all means take the predictions and **** them.

Related to previous, close up spacing/solid shield pressure is just as much about getting people to overcommit/jump/roll than it is about actually hitting them with the pressure. If you're pressuring with Falco, it's better to dair/dash attack/fsmash/dsmash their roll than it is to get a shinegrab (most the time though this is preference). The longer you pressure, the more chances they have to shield DI, shield grab or **** you OOS. Falco's shine's range sucks so either make sure it's hitting their shield (hitlag<3) or immediately fade out with nair/dair/bair. However, even if you're pressuring near perfect, almost all of the top tier has a deadly response to Falco's pressure so you have to be fast and mixing up fast.

EVERYTHING in this game works and NOTHING in this game works.

I'll add more in a bit.

 

[Mogwai]

Was scanning this thread and saw this a few pages back:



Aerial shine on shield -> DJ waveland -> shine is a pretty tight link. On the ground, shining their shield and wavedashing out into another shine is really slow, but I think this is an exception.

Double jumps are faster than jumps off of the ground, so if you connect the aerial shine while close to the platform, you should be safe from most forms of retaliation. You'll still be out of your shine in the same number of frames, ground or air, but you'll spend less time actually jumping - which will give you more shield stun to work with. By the time you waveland next to them, you should have a pretty reliable string going.

Granted you start all of this close enough and don't mess up. Now that I that I think about it, going behind them during this might be a good idea.

it's 5 frames faster to do it midair with Falco (airborne on frame 1 instead of frame 6), but as we've already discussed, it still leaves a big enough window to shieldgrab for characters with 7 frame grabs (most chars, if you don't think of their grab as specifically slow, it's probably 7 frames).

 

[KirbyKaze]

I approve this information.

 

[RaynEX]

So its only 1 frame? I knew it was fast but I thought it was 2 or 3.

If shield grabs work consistently, than so will a myriad of other oos moves. Both space animals' usmashes are 7 frames out of shield as well. I forgot to factor in the 7 frames of wavedash lag you have to endure after making it to the platform. What the hell is it with the number 7 and frame data?

Haha thanks for the clarification Mogwai.

 

[Rubyiris]

@pp:

You don't get punished for shine > waveland > pressure because people are afraid of you. That shield pressure is very vulnerable.

late response, but w/e.

 

[Divinokage]

You won't get punished if you do it right.. or I mean if you don't commit too much.. Just a simple shine on shield > waveland backwards is safe since they'll still be in shield stun. It's basically the same principle as a max range punch on shield, it's not punishable.

 

[Lightsyde]

Lmao typing a wall for no one to read. Oh wells.

 

[Mogwai]

I read a bit of it, but it seemed like a bunch of unrelated and poorly expressed thoughts and I couldn't really keep myself interested... sry

 

[Rubyiris]

You won't get punished if you do it right.. or I mean if you don't commit too much.. Just a simple shine on shield > waveland backwards is safe since they'll still be in shield stun. It's basically the same principle as a max range punch on shield, it's not punishable.

shine > waveland backward is safe but you get no follow-up from it. Vs characters with a good OOS game, the game state may as well have returned to neutral, but that's not what they were arguing.

Also whoever said that shine oos frame perfect is hard:

Lol. you must be slow. I have terrible technical skill and I can still do it consistently with Falco. :|

 

[Mogwai]

the difficulty in Shine OoS is knowing the shield stun duration.

 

[Druggedfox]

Ruby, how can you tell if you're doing it frame perfectly... >_>

 

[Rubyiris]

the difficulty in Shine OoS is knowing the shield stun duration.

This just came from playing a lot.

The annoying thing is that even though I'm consistent with perfect shine oos is that I'm usually TRYING to delay it slightly. Muscle memory ftl.

When I'm shining OOS, I'm usually trying to delay it for the double-jump follow ups. I freeze up when I do perfect shine oos since I'm still grounded, so the shine ends up acting like a burst from GG/BB rather than a punishment tool.

@DF:

Fox/Falco stays grounded.

 

[Divinokage]

I read a bit of it, but it seemed like a bunch of unrelated and poorly expressed thoughts and I couldn't really keep myself interested... sry

Kinda agreed, it's hard to read. And I don't really understand.

 

[Mogwai]

that's only 1 part of it ruby. the other parts are starting your jump on the 1st frame out of shield stun and jumping out of your shine on the first actionable frame (which actually will always be a double jump with Fox, he needs to sit in shine 2 frames longer than necessary to get back down to the ground iirc).

 

[Lightsyde]

I read a bit of it, but it seemed like a bunch of unrelated and poorly expressed thoughts and I couldn't really keep myself interested... sry

Kinda agreed, it's hard to read. And I don't really understand.

I just reread my post and I don't really understand how you don't understand? I suppose I could make every sentence single purpose but I assumed no one who reads this thread would need simplifying. In almost every paragraph I had one statement which explicitly stated the point I was trying to make. Maybe I should just go back and bold. EDIT: Bolded each main idea. Don't understand how this is confusing.

I said in my post that I realized or reitterated a lot of random things. I tried to touch on a simple idea then expand generally enough to justify what I meant and then leave room for discussion.

It definitely wasn't poorly worded just because you didn't understand though. I feel like typing stuff about Melee is much harder than discussing in person because of how many variables there are in every situation. :\