PPMD's Falco Discussion Thread

[genkaku]

I started using edge cancels after a bout of falcon ffas on yoshi's where the winner was determined by number of edgecancels x number of knees x number of SDs x number of kills. They help out your score a lot.
But also your game in general, lol.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Yeah, I mean don't get me wrong, I love playing many characters, but I easily spend around 75% of my time playing Falco, so it's not like any of my other characters are nearly as good.

lol It's funny you mention edge cancels because ever since I saw that Mango vs. Lovage GFs a while back where Lovage edge cancels like mad, I've just been spamming the crap out of edge cancels. It's definitely paying off though. I now constantly use edge cancels to cover two options (often if I find myself on side platforms I will ledge cancel a dair towards the middle and then bair immediately after; it seems to cover the opponent jumping up to hit you as well as chasing you to the center of the stage before you land). It's also really useful for edgeguarding because you can completely avoid people recovering off of techs (like CF teching into an Up-B won't hit you if you jump right away).

Edgecancels seem to be more and more popular these days. That Dair to Bair thing you do is a pretty good start to it, and if anyone watched S2J's performance at that socal tournament then you could see his stomp to edgecancel Uairs which he literally never got punished for. Seems like that technique is taking over haha. I'll have to play around with them and see what I can come up with. I'm always afraid I'll miss with them but hey I felt like that about other stuff before and got it together lol.

I just recently found out about ledge cancel bair to edge guard with Fox. I can't believe it never occurred to me before, but it seems like it has a fair amount of utility.

Ohhhh yeah that one is great but even I'm a little nervous about using it with Fox just because dying on the reversal with Fox sucks more than with other characters for some reason lol.

Edgecanceling Marth's Dair seems incredibly **** I think, especially for edgegaurding since it sticks down so low you probably wouldn't get hit by a tech jump aerial or up-B if you jumped away/shielded in time....or just hit them again I guess lol.

I started using edge cancels after a bout of falcon ffas on yoshi's where the winner was determined by number of edgecancels x number of knees x number of SDs x number of kills. They help out your score a lot.
But also your game in general, lol.

LMAO sounds like a sick game.





Also, I updated the OP with all of my bigger posts and the titles of what each one is about. Hopefully I can add more to that list soon enough. =)

 

[Bones0]

If you are worried about missing ledge cancels and airdodging off, you can learn to L-cancel with the light shield part of the trigger. I just started trying to do it, and it has started to help a little. It's just hard to focus on both. I would definitely like FoD a lot less if I couldn't do all of the SHed double dair ledge cancels. lol One day I dream of ending a game with a triple ledge canceled suicide dair off the ledge... One day...

 

[Battlecow]

All of those long PP posts are great reads.

Continue making them.

For America.

<3

 

[JPOBS]

i think with ledge cancels its more important to realize when your move is going to cancel off an edge naturally, than to actively go for them. I'm talking about during combos and approachs, there are times when actively looking to edgecancel can be super nice (like marth dair edgeguarding)

granted, i rarely actively go for them so perhaps im not seeing the green grass on the other side, but being able to tell mid-aerial that you are going to edge cancel s important too and lets you do baller things.

or you cud just go learn to do it manually anyway.

 

[Walt]

just learn to do them manually. edge canceling is so boss. doesn' take that long to learn. with fox today I edge canceled 1st hit of dair>shine against marths up-B and that just always looks awesome. just silly stuff like EC weak nair>dair/nair wit falco is super excellent.

 

[stabbedbyanipple]

I have no idea how to ask this or what kind of advice I'm asking for, so I'm just gonna write about it and see how it pans out at the end of the post (besides, PP is a doctor, he's got this helping stuff DOWN lol).

So here's the backstory: I've been watching a bunch of Falco vs *insert character here* videos, specifically zhu/pp and writing down the stuff I saw + what I already knew to make matchups sheets for myself so I can remember all the necessary matchup information.

They've been working well for me so far, I played Fly/zhu/connor in a lot of friendlies over the past couple weeks, and I felt like I'm a lot more agressive and less wasteful of my movements, because I'm playing by the book, so to speak.

Anyway, saturday rolls around, and with it, a tournament. Playing friendlies, everything is going alright, but then I decide to MM S2J cuz I'm feeling confident and even if I didn't win, I could look at my notes and edit them accordingly or see what I was doing wrong.

So as the mm goes on, I'm totally stunned for a few reasons
1. Johnny played so, and overwhelmed me no matter how I tried to slow the pace down
2. My shield pressure was so totally worthless vs him. This one hit me the hardest, anything I did vs his shield was countered. Whether I landed behind him, or did fade back aerials, or tried aerial -> utilt, or laser -> grab, or running shine, or dash dance to mix up the timing, he'd always get around it. I don't usually feel like my shield pressure is inadequate, but johnny just KNEW man lol. It was bad enough to where I had very little confidence in my shield pressure for the rest of the day.
3. Rolling. I guess this should be part of shield pressure but w/e. He would roll a lot of the time I jumped at his shield, and I saw it pretty early on and tried and reading them, but to no avail. When I think he'd roll, I'd get naired in the face or something along the lines of that.
4. I feel like I shot too many lasers, either that or I made my lasers horribly obvious or something. When I tried to slow the pace of the game down or try locking down his falcon, he'd easily get around my lasers. I didn't really stop shooting, so much as I just tried making sure I wouldn't get ***** for each laser x_x

tl;dr - feel like I was really starting to delve deeper into the mental aspect of the game, and matchups/spacing, but s2j thoroughly beat me, leaving me in awe

Again, not sure what advice I'm asking for with this post, but I feel like just getting it out there will lead to good things

 

[Bones0]

Do you have any vids of any of your matches on your channel?

 

[joeplicate]

stab u gotta think about how much experience johnny has rolling out of shield

oscar must have hit that **** like
83873872 times with hella nairs, bairs
you name it

shield pressuring johnny's tough because he's been shield pressured his whole life by every fox in socal
if you keep up YOUR shield pressure, your shield pressuring skills will eventually get to his shield-pressure-avoiding skills
but that might take awhile =\

basically johnny's just got a lot more experience in that situation imo
you should probably think of him as the "final boss" of shield pressure or something haha
(he also won the tournament, so i wouldn't feel too bad about it not working that well >_>)

 

[Druggedfox]

A big thing about things like rolling is understanding why he has certain reactions to your movements. For example, in fox vs ganon, rolling behind fox is generally *really* safe if he's already committed to a short hop at ganon. On the other hand if fox is just running at him a good ganon is unlikely to immediately roll. That's when you realize that the SH at the opponent is what's triggering the roll, and you can start wavelanding backwards or something.

Also, as far as shield pressure goes, learn to pressure so that you can't be shield grabbed. The only counter to this is an immediate aerial OoS; if falcon (or most characters) do anything else you can usually just react because its a fairly delayed timing. This allows you to react to rolls/WDs with lasers, and hit him if he tries to do something like stomp OoS/shield grab. If you're facing a better opponent then you will obviously have the disadvantage in situations where he can read what type of pressure you're going for, so until you improve at mixing it up and knowing when to abuse each type of pressure you should try to go for some pressure that covers the majority of options and allows you to react to what he does (falco's kinda good like that >_>).

You can also go with some general conditioning; the majority of the time I fight falcon players I just do ungrabbable shield pressure for about the first 2 stock of the match. I literally don't grab at all at first and test out how effective my pressure is (obviously with some variations). Often times the pure reward from having good solid pressure is enough to beat the opponent; if this isn't enough, you can usually arbitrarily select a point (I usually pick around 2 stocks in) to start grabbing. The reason this is so good is that even if your opponent realizes what's happening, it is often difficult for them to immediately fix their gameplay. This is becuase you've just spent the last 2 stock convincing them they're pretty safe in their shield and don't need to worry about being grabbed, which is something that's really hard to unteach (as in, the opponent unteaching themselves). Even if they do adapt, just the one or two grabs you've gotten off should generally shake them up enough that if you go back to strictly standard pressure you'll eventually get them (becuase they'll be worrying about grabs).

Even though I kinda already said this, I'll say it again: don't worry about predicting as much as reacting during shield pressure. Even if you don't completely read his roll, if you have it in your mind that "oh, he might roll here" then react to what he does, you'll be fine. You don't need to get a hit off the roll, just continue your pressure; following a roll with a laser, or waveshining his shield once to see if you can follow a roll after your waveshine is really good becuase they'll usually be forced to shield/roll/something else bad again.

Without videos or more info I'm not really sure what more to say, though I guess I could have talked about the pace of the match a bit more... maybe later, gonna go do school stuff now >_>

 

[0Room]

I was gonna ask how the Falco/IC mu works
But this is interesting

 

[Mogwai]

I was gonna ask how the Falco/IC mu works
But this is interesting

shoot lasers, dthrow, kill nana then kill popo

 

[ShroudedOne]

So I need to get more opinions on this besides my own. What do you guys think about any character (so it doesn't necessarily have to be Falco) having a playstyle that is SO aggressive that they can effectively shut down all of their opponents options, give them absolutely no breathing room to even put up a defense, and be able to win with only being defensive a little bit?

I do not think that this is possible, but a friend of mine does, and I want to get other opinions, and see exactly to what extent this is theoretically possible, and for what characters, if any? Certainly Pichu can't be as successfully aggressive as Fox, so arbitrary definitions are necessary.

And what better place than the Falco boards to ask about aggression?

 

[Mogwai]

super theory brother's melee says that the game is decided by powershielding, 1-frame hitboxes, and invulnerability frames. basically the existence of powershielding makes perfect offense that completely denies all options an impossibility, even assuming perfect execution.

 

[0Room]

No
There are always answers to everything. You can in practicality scare people into eliminating options [see Druggedfox's post above] but in reality you don't have the ability to shut down every option ever

At least that's how I see it

 

[Wenbobular]

We're playing Super Theory Bros Melee, where everything is made up and options don't matter (or something like that)

Fox probably has some way of like, abusing moving doubleshines to get them to the edge or something ********
Also I hear that Bowser has an unbeatable ledgestall

 

[Mogwai]

according to magus, Bowser and the spacies are the only viable characters in super theory brothers melee. No one cares, let's get back to the real world.

 

[Bones0]

You're never going to be able to cover every option. If the frame data of the game even allowed it, we'd have realized it by now. As far as I know, Fox's nair shines are the tightest aggression you can put on someone, and it's possible to get out of that. It's really just not going to happen considering the defensive tools people have. Powershielding and shield DI alone tend to ruin any theoretical instant-shield breaker pressure. If your friend is adamant that pure aggression can win games, just keep abusing how predictable he will be playing.

@DruggedFox
That was a really helpful breakdown to me, thanks.

 

[Winston]

Successful aggression works by figuring out what options your opponent does have, and good baiting/predicting of those. You can't eliminate all of them, except in really specific situations.

And afaik the theory behind the Fox/Falco/Bowser only metagame in frame perfect land is that Fox and Falco just walk -> shine on reaction any melee attack anyone could do to them. Bowser is only sort of part of this metagame cause he can fight those two to a draw with his ledgestall. (I imagine something about invincibly djing onstage -> fortresshog stuff?)

edit2: and yeah sick post from druggedfox

 

[ShroudedOne]

Yeah, powershielding would be the ultimate defense, and no matter how you cut it, there are a limited amount of approaches in the game. If you were to only approach, you would get predictable. Not even Mango approaches ALL the time (though he does it most of the time). And there are simply times where defense is just better.

And I never knew about this Fox/Falco/Bowser metagame theory. That's pretty interesting.

And it's rare that I read a post where shield pressure is discussed in detail. Good post, Drugged.

 

[ph00tbag]

I don't know any real "staple" combos other than pillar. As long as I'm pillar comboing I look like I'm spamming d-air. I can look at tons of awesome off-the-wall combos done situationally in videos, but it's harder to realize which combos are more applicable across the board, strings I should be actively looking to start.

The thing about Smash is that there are really very few "staple" combos to begin with. You can't simply rely on any one series of moves to deal your damage. It's more important to understand the properties of every move you have at your disposal and knowing when they can be used in combos as a result, as well as be aware of your opponent's percent. As a result, combos aren't something that can just be taught through a combo video. You just need experience with every move that you're comboing with.

Really, the goal of any combo or even single hit should be finishing with a significant positional advantage over netting the KO. The nature of this advantage changes with each match-up, although usually, ending with the opponent directly above you, on the ground, or off the stage are good things to go for. Combos that end in the opponent standing can still be useful in that most players stay in defense mode even when they can do anything they want, but that's not as reliable.

So basically, look for moves that either put your opponent in a bad position, or that link easily in to moves that do. This is where the knowledge of move properties and awareness of percent come in. Just focus on maintaining a positional advantage, and one day, you'll do some absurd zero to death, and you'll realize you've learned how to combo.

 

[Bones0]

Uhhh, that's a pretty lame "perfection" theory. It completely overlooks the fact that they can get grabbed.

 

[0Room]

I agree with ph00tbag
Comboing comes naturally and it's not like SF where there are guaranteed combos
Everything works off of DI

 

[Mogwai]

Uhhh, that's a pretty lame "perfection" theory. It completely overlooks the fact that they can get grabbed.

grabbing takes 7 frames at least. they can just dodge or counter attack on reaction in super theory bros. this is not the ****ing point of the thread, get back on track people, don't dwell on this stupid ****, it's not worth the time.

 

[Palpi]

Mogwai, I could look at the 2nd gif in your sig for hours. Unreal.

 

[ShroudedOne]

Mogwai's right. This isn't the place for theory. Sorry.

 

[Mogwai]

isolated and relevant theory is perfectly fine here, but super duper theory bros melee where we're talking about things beyond the realistic human limit of play is just not worth this thread's time.

 

[Bones0]

lol wow, I just got enlightened by Super Theory Bros.

I'm just going to start approaching with walk-up shines until I can react frame perfectly. I'll see you scrubs in 2045.

 

[Strong Badam]

according to magus, Bowser and the spacies are the only viable characters in super theory brothers melee.

yo, Young Link's bomb drop hitbox comes out frame 1. AND if he crouches he can block lasers and then immediately dash forward.

 

[leffen]

"ungrabable shieldpressure". With Falco. Jesus, what a ****ing joke.

 

[crush]

Why bowser? His up-b?

 

[Lovage]

I have no idea how to ask this or what kind of advice I'm asking for, so I'm just gonna write about it and see how it pans out at the end of the post (besides, PP is a doctor, he's got this helping stuff DOWN lol).

So here's the backstory: I've been watching a bunch of Falco vs *insert character here* videos, specifically zhu/pp and writing down the stuff I saw + what I already knew to make matchups sheets for myself so I can remember all the necessary matchup information.

They've been working well for me so far, I played Fly/zhu/connor in a lot of friendlies over the past couple weeks, and I felt like I'm a lot more agressive and less wasteful of my movements, because I'm playing by the book, so to speak.

Anyway, saturday rolls around, and with it, a tournament. Playing friendlies, everything is going alright, but then I decide to MM S2J cuz I'm feeling confident and even if I didn't win, I could look at my notes and edit them accordingly or see what I was doing wrong.

So as the mm goes on, I'm totally stunned for a few reasons
1. Johnny played so, and overwhelmed me no matter how I tried to slow the pace down
2. My shield pressure was so totally worthless vs him. This one hit me the hardest, anything I did vs his shield was countered. Whether I landed behind him, or did fade back aerials, or tried aerial -> utilt, or laser -> grab, or running shine, or dash dance to mix up the timing, he'd always get around it. I don't usually feel like my shield pressure is inadequate, but johnny just KNEW man lol. It was bad enough to where I had very little confidence in my shield pressure for the rest of the day.
3. Rolling. I guess this should be part of shield pressure but w/e. He would roll a lot of the time I jumped at his shield, and I saw it pretty early on and tried and reading them, but to no avail. When I think he'd roll, I'd get naired in the face or something along the lines of that.
4. I feel like I shot too many lasers, either that or I made my lasers horribly obvious or something. When I tried to slow the pace of the game down or try locking down his falcon, he'd easily get around my lasers. I didn't really stop shooting, so much as I just tried making sure I wouldn't get ***** for each laser x_x

tl;dr - feel like I was really starting to delve deeper into the mental aspect of the game, and matchups/spacing, but s2j thoroughly beat me, leaving me in awe

Again, not sure what advice I'm asking for with this post, but I feel like just getting it out there will lead to good things

ur biggest problem is you can't deal with my rolls

besides that your shield pressure alternated between slow and ****ing slow

decent technical players make the mistake of going way too fast which I'm completely used to

but too slow is pretty bad too

-s2j

 

[Tekk]

Lol, I just figured when falco/fox tries to shinegrab you, you can shieldgrab them between the shine and their grab.

I love this game.

Also PP, I'd like your opinion on the Puff matchup: how actually effective is camping puff with falco ? Asking that because during your match vs Hbox at P5, you didn't camp that much.
So how even do you think this matchup is ?

 

[crush]

What are some uses for up air other than in the dair shine autocombo vs fox?

 

[leffen]

Lol, I just figured when falco/fox tries to shinegrab you, you can shieldgrab them between the shine and their grab.

I love this game.

 

[Druggedfox]

"ungrabable shieldpressure". With Falco. Jesus, what a ****ing joke.

Its only a joke if you have never heard of this cool trick called spacing, try it out some time. There's nothing wrong with you being a jerk when you're pointing out something dumb, but don't be a jerk AND completely wrong at the same time: its not good for you.

 

[Strong Badam]

leffen's kind of abrasive sometimes
but you're wrong. shield DI forward + proper grab timing beats spaced shine -> fadeback whatever (excluding wavedash back).
even multishine can be shieldgrabbed if they keep doing it mindlessly with shield DI

 

[0Room]

http://www.smashboards.com/showpost.php?p=8756781&postcount=5357

Is this what you're talking about?

Also since everyone loves when strong bad says frame things
here's the response to that post

http://www.smashboards.com/showpost.php?p=8756857&postcount=5360

 

[Strong Badam]

ugh, those old posts of mine are so bad, don't link them. that frame data is wrong on at least 2 accounts just at a glance.

 

[0Room]

Lmao then edit them
You still can, it's not like there's a time limit