PPMD's Falco Discussion Thread

[Strong Badam]

My frame data isn't even secret or anything... I use SDM's frame data most of the time (though his Gentleman data is wrong; correct numbers) and calculate shieldstun with the formula. You can use my excel sheet to do so.

 

[silentSWAG]

so ive been useing shine bair instead of shine dair against fox to combo. for some reason it keeps them in the air and i can react to the double jump if they do. or i just wait under them and get an up tilt or something. for me it is easier to combo fox because when i just pillar them with shine dairs i cant keep up with there DI . is this better or what i want to get really good at the fox match up

 

[Vaccine]

i have questions!

i was playing against a marth and i was really really close to him and he had his shield up and i shined it and then i went for a fadeaway nair/dair (i dont remember) but i got shield grabbed before it came out. is shine -> nair/dair unsafe when u shine their shield at that distance? or am i just slow? or maybe my shine was stale cause i used it to much?(idk how to tell when that happens also idk how much of a difference it makes) im thinking that i could have shinegrabbed or double shined him instead, and been safe?

i try to play really safe cause i hate getting shieldgrabbed so i go for a lot of nair/dair -> shine -> fadeaway aerials but idk how to choose between nair and dair when i fadeaway? i want to no the difference between both of those moves in that situation, assuming my opponent stays in shield and take either the dair or nair

Thank You

 

[Bones0]

i have questions!

i was playing against a marth and i was really really close to him and he had his shield up and i shined it and then i went for a fadeaway nair/dair (i dont remember) but i got shield grabbed before it came out. is shine -> nair/dair unsafe when u shine their shield at that distance? or am i just slow? or maybe my shine was stale cause i used it to much?(idk how to tell when that happens also idk how much of a difference it makes) im thinking that i could have shinegrabbed or double shined him instead, and been safe?

i try to play really safe cause i hate getting shieldgrabbed so i go for a lot of nair/dair -> shine -> fadeaway aerials but idk how to choose between nair and dair when i fadeaway? i want to no the difference between both of those moves in that situation, assuming my opponent stays in shield and take either the dair or nair

Thank You

As long as you aerial immediately after you're airborne, you won't get shield grabbed. Not sure if it could happen with a fully staled shine though... Typically nair is safer for shield pressure because it comes out a few frames sooner than dair so they can't use their OoS options as quickly.

Fading away is great for baiting shield grabs, but if they just wait in shield you can get punished pretty hard. I would just recommend you keep learning to mix up your shield pressure and react to their roll/WD OoS instead of fading away every time. Even if you wait until you're at the peak of your SH before attacking it's typically too dangerous for them to go for a shield grab.

 

[JPOBS]

so ive been useing shine bair instead of shine dair against fox to combo. for some reason it keeps them in the air and i can react to the double jump if they do. or i just wait under them and get an up tilt or something. for me it is easier to combo fox because when i just pillar them with shine dairs i cant keep up with there DI . is this better or what i want to get really good at the fox match up

I'm assuming you're talking about low percent pillar combos. In which case, I have to strongly recommend you to practice practice practice until you get the bread and butter dair->shine->dair combos down perfectly.

They are absolutely the best combo and damage builders between 0-> ~50% and theres no reason you shouldn't have those down perfectly vs fox.
With proper wavedashes out of the shine, combined with your short hop, you should be able follow any kind of DI from fox without issue, at reasonable percents. Even if you initially wavedash the wrong way, you still have time to turn around and give chase and still combo

Shine bair at low percent combos are strickly inferior for a lot of reasons.
Work on the bnb dair pillars, eventually you'll get good enough that their DI won't matter.

 

[Sinji]

I agree that a lot of discussion on smashboards is rehashing the same questions that come up over and over, but it's partially because most of our stickies/guides in the character forums are so outdated/bad. They don't talk about the basic flowchart combos, edgeguarding option coverage, important zones for matchups, neutral game RPS situations, etc. It's mostly specific details about mechanics (how to do techniques, frame data) or purely qualitative writeups of matchups.

Good point

But it all depends on who is asking the question. I don't mind if players that joined smashboards this year ask a question or two about a certain matchup. I mean their rookies. We have to recycle answers for the new players so that smash wont die as a whole. New players want to know about certain frame data, combos e.t.c. because they are inspired by top players like Mango, Armada, PP e.t.c.

I honestly see the need for new upcoming players to ask questions. The community has grown well. Our metagame has risen to the point where new players can even emulate the same play styles the top players are using in tourneys. When new players ask questions and receive answers, they feel confident enough to try it out at a tournament. This is what increases tournament attendance. The questions asked and answers received. It's called a smash community for a reason. We help out each other.

 

[Mogwai]

so ive been useing shine bair instead of shine dair against fox to combo. for some reason it keeps them in the air and i can react to the double jump if they do. or i just wait under them and get an up tilt or something. for me it is easier to combo fox because when i just pillar them with shine dairs i cant keep up with there DI . is this better or what i want to get really good at the fox match up

at what sort of %s? I dunno exactly what you're talking about.

 

[GOTM]

so ive been useing shine bair instead of shine dair against fox to combo. for some reason it keeps them in the air and i can react to the double jump if they do. or i just wait under them and get an up tilt or something. for me it is easier to combo fox because when i just pillar them with shine dairs i cant keep up with there DI . is this better or what i want to get really good at the fox match up

what DI would you chase after a shine dair? you mean chase their tech?

 

[Lightsyde]

I think he means they're going to be able to DI the Dair in whatever downward direction, onto a platform etc. I guess he means chase that in general, or chase their tech if they manage to tech it when they land.

 

[Bones0]

I'm pretty sure he's talking about the DI after the shine.

This stuff.

 

[Mogwai]

I'm pretty sure he's talking about the DI after the shine.

This stuff.

if that's what he's talking about, you just gotta learn to follow that. that's bread and butter shine combos, gotta be able to hit that ****.

 

[silentSWAG]

i mean at low percents. and i also get them out of jumps when i dair witch causes them to tech or come up with getup attack. i really just need to learn how to combo better. and by di for another reason idk they always di away and i feel like i wont get them in time so i shoot a laser hopeing to get a regrab or something

 

[Kason Birdman]

lets say a falco wants to be annoying for a couple seconds and put up a good bair wall.

would you be able to get more bairs out by short hoping and not fast falling them (no lag) or by shffl them?

 

[Bones0]

I'm pretty sure auto-cancelled bairs are faster.

You could check by how much. Just do a bairs-per-minute challenge. One with all auto-cancels and one with all SHFFLs.

 

[Wenbobular]

Bair stats
Auto cancel: <3 23>
Lcanceled: 10

First Jump (short hop)
SH Air Time: 25
SH FF air time: 17

So if you can autocancel on the 23rd frame and there's 4 frames of regular landing lag (I think) that's 27
And fastest possible short hop + FF = 17 + 10 frames of landing lag on Bair is also 27

But I might be wrong with some of my numbers / interpretation of the frame data

I don't think spamming AC Bairs is terribly effective though, if they react fast enough and are fast enough to close the gap or have really long moves (like Falcon's Nair) they can catch you as you're retreating

 

[bossa nova ♪]

it's called a mix up

 

[EWC]

You did that correctly Wenbo. Doing either frame perfectly will give you the same number of bairs per minute. However, that is the wrong question to ask; More relevant is the effect that spacing and other things has on which bairs you should do. I'll let someone who (unlike me) actually understands that kind of thing explain further if they want.

 

[sulliman1]

so basically the decision you make as falco is where you want your vulnerability window to be in between bairs...and i think ron is right in saying there's no "best way" except to keep it unpredictable or to play to your opponents weaknesses

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

AC bairs are incredible... Yes you can spam the **** out of them. One of the strongest walling moves in the game.

This reminds me of a story. Last tourney i was at, Vro walked up to me and said, "hey whats the best move in the game" and I said "falco's bair" and he said "i would have also accepted 'foxs bair'"

 

[Mogwai]

AC bairs are better because they leave a proportionally higher number of frames of the hitbox out.

 

[Winston]

AC bairs are pretty sick, but I would recommend mixing up with a turnaround laser after the first one though instead of just spamming them all the time vs. opponents who aren't bad enough to just run into them all the time

You sh backwards like you're gonna bair but turnaround laser instead to regain control/pressure if they are waiting to punish your bair

or... do anything else. I'm just saying it's not safe enough that you should do multiples in a row regularly.

 

[leffen]

I think AC bair is EXTREMELY overrated by the average to slighly above average smash player. A bair that doesnt hit anything is very bad for falco and a bair hitting something isnt that big of a deal anyway. If you are "walling" someone with AC bairs you're doing it wrong, if you are stuffing/punishing someone trying to break your wall of dash dancing / lasering with a relatively safe, autocanceled bair then you are doing it right.

Falco is way to slow to actually wall someone with bair in the way Fox/Sheik/Puff can use theirs.

 

[unknown522]

I agree with leffen on this.


More to add: a lot of time that b-air is out, is mostly the weak hit. It's pretty susceptible to CC, or getting straight up beaten. Also, depending on when you hit on the shield it is usually unsafe (the strong part hits high, and if you hit it low you will get the weak hit. So less shield stun).

Oh, and on top of that, b-air has pretty low range compared to a lot of characters' moves, so not only do you usually have to retreat with it but also it can still be punished by some characters even if you are retreating

 

[silentSWAG]

canada knows whats up.

and when you coming back to pittsburgh

 

[Sinji]

Another good one would be pivot bair. It covers a lot of options and almost always stops your opponent's dash dancing momentum in tight areas.

 

[Kason Birdman]

I dunno... I think I agree with Sveet that ac bair is pretty ****. but ofcourse, you can't abuse the **** out of it. Once you start doing it too much its just too easy to out smart it for like a marth or a falcon, or every one even. but its great to just mess up peoples flows and force them to try and nair through or something stupid so you can hopefully land quick and get dat sheild out quick enough to do ghey ****

 

[JPOBS]

I was gonna say the stuff unknown said, and agree with leffen too.

Nothing is absolute but yea
mostly for shield pressure i prefer SHFFL bairs because can aim exactly where the strong hit lands, as opposed to having it hit high on a shield (as ryan said) and then they can attack you out of shield if they are quick. I save AC bairs mostly for when I call them on a jump oos.

 

[Winston]

^ Spaced AC bair should be safe against every direct OOS attack, I think. Nobody has a fast enough move that hits far enough, and if they WD towards you you should be able to recover first and hit them with something first. Or am I just slow?

But it still isn't that great because they can wd oos to reset the situation pretty easily

 

[JPOBS]

marth fair oos? ^

 

[Bones0]

It doesn't reach (at least not unless they wait a little, but by then you could have your shield up). I played M2K at Pound and he kept having me do fade-away shield pressure, and he couldn't fair me OoS when I did fade away dairs so I doubt bairs are any different.

 

[JPOBS]

heh? i swear fair oos hits retreating aerials but watevs

 

[Niko45]

nah, I've made that mistake many many times

 

[Mogwai]

spoiler alert!

Spoiler

it's possible to do retreating aerials from different spacings. in fact, there are all sorts of different spacings in this game and talking about what "works" from a spacing standpoint is fuzzy science at best.

i know, i know, mindblowing.

 

[Bones0]

Obviously you can do it from different spacings, but if there was no way to avoid fair OoS even if you fade away perfectly after barely hitting their shield, then that is important to consider. As it stands, I am pretty sure that even if you are almost on top of them fair OoS won't hit if you fade away the max distance, which means it's an extremely safe option that you can use reliably regardless of how you spaced the initial aerial.

 

[Mogwai]

too hard to fully model it. the marth can probably shield DI into your aerial, shine, aerial, and hit you every time, but you have to consider the likelyhood of **** like that happening.

 

[JPOBS]

speaking of shield DI, how prevalent is it in todays metagame?

as in, do people currently actively think "if he does X, I'm going to shield DI to adjust my spacing, then counter with Y" or is it mostly something that happens willy nilly?

 

[Pi]

@mogwai
doesn't seem that outlandish...

i usually just lightshield if i don't want to UB them OoS to get pushed away
and if i do want to UB OoS then i just normal no shield DI shield and get ready for the UB

but i know certain things if you don't shield DI you cant' shieldgrab, or things like that, it should be pretty prevelant if it isn't, just don't think it applies a whole lot to samus' game

 

[Mogwai]

it's been getting more popular from what I've seen. it's still not extremely popular though, it's like running powershields back in 08. You'd see a bunch of top level players doing them, but it hadn't trickled all the way down the community yet.

 

[JPOBS]

how exactly does one shield DI?

 

[Mogwai]

you smash DI during hitlag on your shield.

EDIT: basically I only ever think to Shield DI in spacy matches when someone hits my shield at a slightly questionable range for Shine OoS so that I can get close enough to Shine OoS.