PPMD's Falco Discussion Thread

[Beat!]

My favorite ruleset is a 3 stage strike between yoshis, battle field and dreamland with stadium, fountain and final destination on counter pick

Ban Stadium and we have a deal.

****ing rock transformation...

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

LOL the transformations on that stage are annoying as ****, but i don't see the stage as banworthy tbh

 

[Beat!]

Yeah, I guess

It's just

I ****ing hate the rock transformation

Fire sucks too

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

I dont mind any of the transformations tbh. Its the 5 seconds or so between the transformations that bothers me the most.

 

[JPOBS]

^ holy crap yes.

its easy enough to avoid the bad transformations and just camp one side. but the transition phase SUCKS and the unseeable clipping edges that ruin combos and break hitstun. smh

 

[King Funk]

Btw, just a few questions. Sorry if it's been answered before.

On which characters at which % does jab to f-smash surely combo?

Is there situation, distance or %, where laser to fsmash on a grounded opponent can actually combo?

 

[Wenbobular]

I don't think Jab Fsmash or Jab laser true combos like ever <_<
Jab Dsmash is more practical because it comes out faster than Fsmash
Laser Fsmash sometimes works when your opponent is in the air

Jab combos are kinda sketch to begin with because when your opponents get better they'll start crouchcanceling things that can be crounchcanceled (especially jabs)

 

[Bones0]

Jab doesn't have enough hitstun to combo unless you catch them off guard (using a double jab as a mixup can help). If they are paying attention, they just have to spam an aerial and it totally destroys whatever you were doing. I play a Marth all the time, and whenever I jab him off the ground (at higher %s, not jab resets) or just regularly to set up a jab fsmash, he just fairs out of it 90% of the time. Same goes for lasers, but they are definitely better because of the lower amount of lag (or at least it seems much faster to laser -> fsmash someone out of the air than to jab -> fsmash)

 

[Cyrain]

Any general tips for falco vs. sheik and marth from any of the top/seasoned falco's in here? I haven't been maining him for too long, but I honestly feel like my falco is a ****ing monster and is better than my fox atm. Trying to keep going with Falco, but I just don't know a lot of the matchups because I haven't used him in tournament enough.

 

[Bones0]

Any general tips for falco vs. sheik and marth from any of the top/seasoned falco's in here? I haven't been maining him for too long, but I honestly feel like my falco is a ****ing monster and is better than my fox atm. Trying to keep going with Falco, but I just don't know a lot of the matchups because I haven't used him in tournament enough.

Being one of the TOP FALCO PLAYERS, I shall give my expert opinion on the Marth matchup:

1. Grab him at 0%
2. Uthrow fair for 30%
3. Laser and dash dance until you're bored
5. Don't go down there!
6. Shield pressure perfectly or else you get grabbed and take 100%
7. You didn't notice there was no #4
8. You're quickly checking now
9. You just lost 2 stocks for losing focus for three seconds; welcome to Falco

 

[Cyrain]

Lawlawl. I do enjoy me a bit of upthrow to fair, given the opportunity, but I use fair as an all around mixup in tons of different situations. **** is too good. I spend most of the match short hop lasering, dash dancing in and out of the range of his shield game (so he cant do quick short hop fairs, etc.) and use nair to shield pressure him because it's so god damn fast and hard to respond to. I try not to shine after each one, just dance around him and throw quick aerials in and out until one connects. My combo game on him isn't perfect, though. I know when/where to DI, but just the general keep away game is my problem, I guess? Really fast WD OOS and powershielding really frustrates me. ill get caught by a loooot of quick wavedashe out --> punish me if im not supremely careful. I dunno what I'm even asking for here, but advice is always nice. =3

 

[Bones0]

Yeah, WD OOS has been my most recent conquest in the matchup. I think it's easy to get too shield-pressure happy with Falco because it's so fun, and when you practice it all the time against comps or w/e, you want to do it to humans. Once I got the habit of just trying to shield break Marth every time I touch him, I started mixing in other stuff. Below are the ways I view the options once I land a nair/dair shine on his shield. A lot of prediction and status evaluations (by which I just mean knowing if I should do something risky because he's panicking or play it safe because I'm getting too predictable or w/e; also base a lot of stuff on stage locations, %'ages, and previous things I've done to condition).

If anyone disagrees with anything or simply wants to critique something, I welcome it. I know I have room to improve in this area; I'm just putting down my current best strategies. ^_^

Punish #1: Standard aerial-shine shield pressure

When you aerial as late as possible, but BEFORE the fast fall. It seems to cover a lot of basic options unless they commit fully to an option and time it perfectly. If they hesitate on a WD OOS or even try to grab, I usually get the hit in. From there it's just basic combos. I use this basically as a way of being noncommittal when they are expecting the second and third punishes (early aerials after shine, or late aerials after shine to lead into another aerial-shine pressure). I feel like it's a good way to keep them in check with using a wide variety of stuff OOS. If I have no clue if they will WD OOS, grab, roll, w/e, I usually stick with this, at least for one iteration. After two aerials, I typically shield spike Marth, so I just think of it more of being a matter of controlling the timing of the first two hits.

Risks: They have to predict you won't do an early aerial, but theycan WD OOS or roll, and you can get punished pretty hard because if they get out you're just coming down the the ground without a hitbox covering you (like you would with a late nair to at least get a trade or something).

Punish #2: Late aerial-shine

This is just not fast falling the aerial so you can hit their shield as late as possible. It's okay for shield stabbing depending on where their shield is covering, but I mainly use this as the opening aerial-shine combo. It REALLY seems to throw off the opponent's rhythm when you late aerial-shine the first time, and then you early aerial right after landing that. There's really no reason to use this against people who are too scared to WD OOS or roll right after you make the initial contact with their shield. When I am focused on doing shield damage as opposed to actually hitting them, I use this.

Risk: If they predict it, you're pretty much screwed. WD OOS and roll are obnoxiously easy to time when you do it. I wouldn't be surprised if they have time to drop their shield regularly and just put it back up before you hit. It definitely isn't my favorite thing to do when I'm in the middle of the stage just because I have trouble following up if they just WD OOS or roll and are able to reset to neutral.

Punish #3: Early aerial fade away

My most common follow ups when he whiffs a grab are to fsmash @ high %, grab at low % (I will grab at high % if uthrow dair will spike them off the stage though), and other random stuff if I feel like it (I like laser-shine at high %s, aerial-shine @ mid-low %s, grounded dair to aerial dair spike, pretty much w/e you want before his grab lag subsides).

Risks: If they WD OOS instead, you are pretty vulnerable, but usually only if they WD towards you (pretty sure WD OOS in place would put him at tipper range, but I've never seen anyone do that; may also happen if they don't WD back as far as possible).

Punish #4: Shine-Grab

I'm probably just going through a shine-grab phase, but I think it's pretty underrated in terms of punishment. No one spot dodges Falco shield pressure (for damned good reasons lol), and even when it happens, it seems like I can usually avoid getting punished by running and resetting to neutral after the grab. Probably not viable against better spot dodges, but I believe Marth's lasts pretty long.

Risks: WD OOS backwards puts you in perfect tipper range. I don't think you can grab them even if you're frame perfect as long as they do the WD correctly, but I guess I just use this more near the ledge or on platforms because WDing to tipper range would send them off the stage/plat.

Punish #5: Multi-Shine

Probably gonna be the next thing I majorly experiment with. I feel like multishining can cover a lot of options efficiently. Basically anything Marth does OOS, he has to double check for the second shine, and that tiny bit of hesitation can completely open the door to all of the above punishes. Biggest issue seems to be dealing with shield DI'ing away, but if you tilt down and towards them, I think it's virtually always going to guarantee you at least 2 shines. I've tried 3, but aside from just being plain hard to do, it seems like they can roll out a lot more easily than if you only give them the options between shine-aerial or a shine-shine.

Risks: Will slightly slow down your follow-ups if you actually connect with the first shine, but tbh I don't think there are any solid risks beyond that. In fact, I've had a lot of scenarios where multishining completely negates an effort to CC the shine and avoid getting launched. I guess another risk could be technical consistency, but I really don't think just 2 shines is that hard once you have practice with it. I use Y though, so someone using X may have a much rougher time of it.

Other stuff would be chasing their WD or roll with your own WD into a shine, but I don't really know what I would recommend that for. I only do it when I predict it, and I'm still working on actually forcing myself to do it. I've also been advised to SH blaster after shines, but I haven't gotten that to work for me either. If he WD OOS and fsmashes immediately, I still get hit, and he has no lag because of the laser. Even when it DOES hit him before he can move, it doesn't seem that good because he can recollect himself and I have to approach again, or give him some space to approach.

Completely forgot you mentioned power shielding. Honestly, I just shoot lasers low and mix in a few empty SH-grabs when I approach close. Low lasers seem to shield stab a lot; I don't think it's even possible to power shield them tbh. My friend is MAD good at PSing, but we've sat on FD and tried to see how many he could PS and he literally could NOT PS any of the ones I sent along the ground. Even if they aren't the lowest possible, if you are continuously lasering, your next SH will typically put you safely over top of the reflected one (depends entirely on how far away you are). It's definitely mindgames when he tires to PS fsmash and even when he lands the PS correctly I'm right up in his face with a nair anyway cause I just jumped over it. lol

OMFG I wish I could type school papers as fast as I type about Melee. Sorry if I went overboard and WallOfText'd. I always get caught up with random explanations. LOL

 

[Lightsyde]

Cameron, your Fox is good and your Falco sucks.

Get outta here.

****

 

[ChivalRuse]

Hahaha! Bones, you're awesome.

 

[Cyrain]

Listen here darksyyyyyyyde, you haven't seen my falco in forever. I may not be the best falco in the world atm, but I've been putting a lot of time into it and learning the combos and matchups and tech skill. It's a difficult task because I'm SO used to fox after all these years that simple things like wavedashing can be an epic struggle for me. While my Falco as a character probably is not yet as developed as it should be, I'm obviously a smart and high/toppish level player, so whether or not my falco is amazing, I'm still pretty damn good. I can pretty much guarantee I won't do as well at Zenith with mah fliggity flaco as i would do with my fox, but it's a work in progress. I'm pretty excited to be busting out my new **** in tournament and hopefully impressing/pleasantly surprising my fans (If I have any xD)

 

[Mogwai]

I think cyrain's Falco is pretty ****ing legit for whatever that's worth.

 

[Divinokage]

It doesn't matter, play people, crush faces.. take names! If not you've got work to do, that's all there is to it. =P Especially someone that plays FALCO! Grrrrr

 

[Lightsyde]

His Falco is good as hell. I just enjoy trashtalking him since I scraped him in dittos last time we played. I'm pretty sure he was super sleep deprived or some other legit Richmond john.

His Fox is just too good at double shining and PS'ing so it makes fighting him with Falco a pain. :[

 

[Mogwai]

I always feel like his Falco gives me more trouble than his Fox, hahaha. I dunno, maybe I just suck at dittos (spoiler:

Spoiler

I do

)

 

[Cyrain]

I'm not particularly amazing at Falco dittos, but you'll see next time we play Darksyde. **** has undergone some extreme changes =D

 

[Lightsyde]

Don't think that only your bird has transformed.

You haven't seen innovation like my Falco since Genesis 1, and I don't mean the tournament.

*****

 

[Cyrain]

Bahahaha totally legit. I just need a new controller now. The one I was using got lost by one of my crewmates at *Pound* so I'm currently using the jankiest jank ever. Can't wait to buy a new one and break it in ^_^

 

[Druggedfox]

Yoo cyrain, your falco's legit :D Random notes on falco vs marth/sheik:

Sheik:

Until falco hits around 30-40% sheik only has three viable moves as far as I'm concerned: fair, grab, downsmash. Abuse the hell out of this. Sheik can't even nair OoS safely without getting punished at low percents. Sheik has generally bad approaches, so if you stick essentially to baiting a reaction to sheik to whatever you're doing you're golden for the first 1/3 of each of your stocks; this is the main thing that I feel gives falco an advantage in the matchup. Falco is a momentum based character, so ride the fact that his momentum is nearly unstoppable for sheik unless she manages to continuously fair/grab you.

Dair pretty much ***** sheik, with the exception of fair. As I said earlier, pretty much just waiting until sheik does something is the best solution. Alternatively you could use nair to beat out fair, which I've found actually works pretty well for some reason. If you're not nairing/baiting to beat out her fair... dair pretty much beats the rest of her stuff, its ridiculous. Dair dair dair

As far as edgeguard game, just standard press forward/roll to get up from the ledge depending on situation etc etc you know that I'm sure. For combo purposes, I personally prefer to keep it with simple and devestating. My most used combo that can be seen in pretty much *every* match I play vs sheik is: dair waveshine shine bair. This does 42%; while you sacrifice super **** 0-80 or death combos, the consistency you get from this is retardedly good. I always stick to that, and respect my opponents ability to DI; of course, if I notice they're consistently not DI'ing the shine well, I'll just do standard dair shine dair uptilt etc etc etc. I go back to the 4 hit combo I mentioned earlier though, because it means if you land two clean dairs sheik is literally at 83%. As far as I'm concerned, that's pretty much kill percent because all that's left to do is get her off stage. Sheik off stage just gets baired off repeatedly, downsmashed, whatever'd. Two clean hits = good % for edgeguarding and killing? That's retardedly good. Additionally, that combo often leaves the opponent either on your height or slightly above you; because falco falls so much faster (particularly if you fastfall), you end up on the ground and with an opponent above you, or above you and to the side. So that combo lands you a solid 42% guaranteed, *and* sheik ends up above you, in position for some uptilts, dash dance grabs, or something? Hopefully it's clear why I love it so much =D

Hmm, there's a lot more to say about the matchup obviously, but I'll leave it at that and go on to marth.

Marth:

My favorite matchup with falco =D

I'll just go ahead and say the same thing about the combo game. Dair shine shine bair is ****, consistent, gives you good positioning, and if you notice they do'nt know how to DI you can always switch to more ******** falco combos that assume your opponent has no clue how to DI. Once again, marth can't do **** from above you... so this is great.

If marth ever jumps actually moving towards you, anticipate it and run under him if you can. From there you pretty much get a free bair --> marth is in a bad, manipulatable position. Do what you want with him from there. If you can't/don't anticipate marth jumping? Dash dance. As soon as marth commits to a fulljump, he literally has nothing he can do to beat out falco dash dancing assuming you react appropriately etc. At that point you wavedash into an uptilt, grab, bair... whatever the situation calls for. As soon as you teach marth he has no right to be jumping around you, you're about halfway to winning the match already imo. Any jumps he does from that point onwards can only be baits or retreats. As long as you don't take the bait as he quickly DJs then comes down with a fair or something, you're fine. Just punish whatever marth does upon landing, never challenge him in the air unless you can get behind or under him.

The other half of winning comes in the ground battle. If you've established the pace of the match such that he doesn't go into the air, there are only a few very specific options you have to watch out for.

Spacing is key in all matchups, but I think it's particularly noticeable whether or not the falco knows the matchup based on where he is while making certain choices. For example, know marth's dash attack range. That's the stupidest marth gimmick in the world, and it works amazingly anyway. Know the timing's such that you never end up about to shoot a laser, then realize he's already at you with his dash attack. Marth players are all going to try this, as it is one of marth's best options, *assuming the falco player lets it happen*. If you're conscious of your lasers and overall spacing, marth's dash attack just means you get free dash dance--> dair --> free half a stock.

Another strong option for marth is simply WD'ing backwards. Play it safe at first, and observe how marth tries to counteract what falco does before committing to anything risky here. If you just try to aerial his shield and he WDs backwards and it gets you grabbed or tippered fsmash? You may have to say goodbye to your stock; don't risk that. Because falco's lasers set the pace of the match, respect marth's options at the beginning, and simply observe his tendencies. If you can overshoot an aerial, there's nearly no risk in doing so, as marth has very little going for him when the opponent is behind him. This sort of ensures that you can hit WD backwards, but if he decides not to you're still in a good position. Rather than take the aggressive way (overshooting) to beat this, I usually prefer staying safer with my approaches. If you just waveland backwards out of your approaches and wait marth out, that usually works perfectly fine. Personally, I think you should just let marth WD backwards all day. If he does this, he loses stage control. He can't retreat forever, and this forces marth to be proactive with how he tries to counter you. Marths that try to simply rely on safe/relatively unpunishable ways to counter falco just end up cornering themselves and losing.

The same can be said for another of marth's best options: fair OoS, specifically retreating. It's incredbily hard to punish, as you have to straight up call it and fulljump or something. Once again, I say don't bother. There's no point. Just let him do it, then punish the fact that he just gave up stage control by being falco If he decides to approach/stay in place with fair OoS, you can usually punish it with a grab or an aerial. Remember that if marth correctly calls an aerial approach and fairs you OoS for it, if you DI appropriately marth *probably* gets no real punishment off of it. On the other hand, if he guesses wrong and you end up hitting him or his shield, he's in for a world of hurt.

One of the most obnoxious ground things marth can do to beat out falco is uptilting after lasers. This reminds me a lot of dash attack, in that it only works if you're not respecting marth's range and priority. As long as you don't leave gaps, either in timing or in spacing, between your lasers and approaches you should be fine for the most part. This, however, is a lot more of a momentum shifter than fair OoS; it's high risk/reward. Remember though that once again, if you DI appropriately (down and in teh direction that the uptilt sends you) there's a strong possibility that you can end up avoiding any major punishment. On the other hand, if you call his uptilt and hit him, you should get a minimum 42%.

Meh, there's a lot more to say, but I'll leave it at that.

Hope that even if you knew all this stuff, I at least gave you a different perspective on it; good luck maining falco, can't wait to see the **** at zenith.

 

[Orko]

Falco dittoes are soo hard.

Turns out Falco's lasers are hard to play around.
/shrug Who knew?

 

[Divinokage]

Dittos are bull**** though, it's pretty much the first one to do a mistake will get massively owned. lol.

 

[Orko]

True. Dittoes are my hardest match.
I'm at the point that if they're better than me, I get owned.
And if their worse than me, their style is super ugly and i can't read them well. I still usually win, it's just stupidly difficult.

 

[Deleted member]

vs marth:

ban FD, CP to RC 2nd match, switch to sheik match 3 because all marths suck as vs sheik and don't know how to play other characters. accept your free set even if you lost the first match hard.

screw you sami, don't you say a god damn thing LOL

 

[KirbyKaze]

To **** Darksyde all you need is sloppy shino stalls

 

[Wenbobular]

Falco dittoes are soo hard.

Turns out Falco's lasers are hard to play around.
/shrug Who knew?

Everybody

 

[Druggedfox]

I'm convinced falco dittos are execution battles that PP will never lose...

 

[KirbyKaze]

Lasers are terrible.

 

[JPOBS]

Being one of the TOP FALCO PLAYERS, I shall give my expert opinion on the Marth matchup:

1. Grab him at 0%
2. Uthrow fair for 30%
3. Laser and dash dance until you're bored
5. Don't go down there!
6. Shield pressure perfectly or else you get grabbed and take 100%
7. You didn't notice there was no #4
8. You're quickly checking now
9. You just lost 2 stocks for losing focus for three seconds; welcome to Falco

aahahahaha one of the best things i've ever read on smashboards. good stuff

I'm not particularly amazing at Falco dittos,

seriously, who is? falco dittos are a flustercluck

btw any vids of your falco?

 

[tarheeljks]

weird, falco dittos are my favorite matchup. love'em

 

[crush]

It doesn't matter, play people, crush faces.. take names!

wait.. you're telling him to play the people i face?

 

[Divinokage]

wait.. you're telling him to play the people i face?

You can't crush people if you don't play power characters. Falcon is not a power character.

 

[Beat!]

Idk man

Falcon may have flaws in some areas

But power ain't one of 'em

 

[linkoninja]

If Falcon doesn't have power then Marf doesn't have range...

 

[Divinokage]

Ya but he's not fat like Ganon/DK and Bowser.

 

[linkoninja]

Ya but he's not fat like Ganon/DK and Bowser.

Fatness =/= Power.

 

[Deleted member]

pretty sure falcon is way more devastating that ganon, bowser, or DK will ever be.