PPMD's Falco Discussion Thread

[Pi]

samus is the best char lol
CC everything, UB everything else, can't combo out of throw, can't gimp, really good projectile game, good shield, heavy, long legs, blonde, single

i mean what more can u ask for (i prefer red heads but w/e)

 

[Warhawk]

Who's character johning? Also then why would a character be placed first on the list then? Is it not because spacies **** the entire cast? The options are endless!!

Arguably Sheik ***** more of the cast than Fox and Falco do, its just Fox and Falco do better against the entire cast overall. There probably isn't a matchup in the top 11 that is worse than 65-35. The matchups that are worse than that that are lower in the cast and aren't exclusive to just the spacies. Generally it seems if a character has a matchup worse than 65-35 then much of the top 8-11 ***** them and not just the spacies.

 

[Niko45]

It's certainly not bad when you basically have double the moveset to combo with since each move has a tip and nontip option, but it's certainly not simple.

I mean reverse fair fsmash wasn't even discovered and implemented that long ago and that's a fairly huge breakthrough at this point for melee.

Plus it adds extra stress on your spacing during comboing. Your margin for error for a marth aerial you're trying to combo into a tipper is way way smaller than a Falcon up air knee for instance.

 

[Druggedfox]

Marth combos might be circumstantial, but they've been *figured out*.

Just watch m2k vs spacies for your bnb combos, he does it right.

Falco combos haven't even been figured out yet. Just because you *can* get away with dairing repeteadly does NOT mean that is anywhere near to ideal. It's way easier to get close to ideal with marth because arbitrarily up tilting and upairing is actually somewhat similar to the ideal combo.

Be realistic guys, just because falco can do better by facerolling doesn't mean the optimal combos are faceroll. Marth is harder to do well by facerolling with, but his optimal combos are pretty close to his faceroll ones... you just have to make slight adjustments.

Sheik? Come on now; I'm pretty sure KK even made a thread that was like "Here's how you combo marth, guys." There's also a pretty similar outline for comboing other floaties, and fastfallers is just generic tech chase ending in dash attacks to fair.

Edit: What winston said at the end. Exactly. Falco combos are more about decision making; falco's decision making tree isn't optimized yet. Marth and sheik's? It's a lot closer to being optimized, and you can usually make an objective assessment on what decision would have been better. Look at chainthrowing on FD, or tech chasing. That **** has been perfectly outlined for *years*. Falco comboing fox on FD? Not outlined past 40%. Is it better to try to land a dair then tech chase, or go for a fair/nair -->dsmash/fsmash, or dair immediate uptilt, or go for a waveshine, or upair, or jfsoaijfioasjfiojaofa. There's a huge difference, don't be biased guys.

I'll reiterate; just because sheik/marth combos could be optimized a bit better doesn't mean facerolling isn't closer to the optimal. You're fooling yourself if you think falco's optimal combos are dair-->dair, but it wouldn't be too far off from the truth to say marth's combos on spacies are uptilt+upair.

Second Edit: Yeah np foxlisk... I figured you knew what I meant -.-

 

[Warhawk]

Marth combos might be circumstantial, but they've been *figured out*.

Just watch m2k vs spacies for your bnb combos, he does it right.

Falco combos haven't even been figured out yet. Just because you *can* get away with dairing repeteadly does NOT mean that is anywhere near to ideal. It's way easier to get close to ideal with marth because arbitrarily up tilting and upairing is actually somewhat similar to the ideal combo.

Be realistic guys, just because falco can do better by facerolling doesn't mean the optimal combos are faceroll. Marth is harder to do well by facerolling with, but his optimal combos are pretty close to his faceroll ones... you just have to make slight adjustments.

Sheik? Come on now; I'm pretty sure KK even made a thread that was like "Here's how you combo marth, guys." There's also a pretty similar outline for comboing other floaties, and fastfallers is just generic tech chase ending in dash attacks to fair.

I'll reiterate; just because sheik/marth combos could be optimized a bit better doesn't mean facerolling isn't closer to the optimal. You're fooling yourself if you think falco's optimal combos are dair-->dair, but it wouldn't be too far off from the truth to say marth's combos on spacies are uptilt+upair.

I feel like Marth has the most trouble finishing his combos of anyone in the top 5... except maybe Jigglypuff, but she edgeguards well enough that it doesn't matter too much for her. It just seems like alot of times he can't get that last move to put the finishing touches on a nice chain and take a stock. Not that it can't happen, he has options to do so, just that they seem more based on their DI and harder to get the opponent in just the right position to pull off.

 

[Druggedfox]

I heard marth's edgeguarding is pretty good or something

 

[Warhawk]

Yea but forcing an edgeguard situation still gives your opponent more options to survive than finishing a combo and straight killing them. That seems to be the trouble for Marth nowadays.

 

[Thanos828]

I heard marth's edgeguarding is pretty good or something

Where on earth would you get that notion from?

 

[CK Momentum]

Druggedfox: I think that the idea of combo optimization isn't one really worth exploring. Rather than thinking if falco has an optimal combos, just think about what answers you have for certain situations. I think thats all we can do is look at scenarios where we go wrong, come up with an answer for it, see if it works, then repeat.

There's not really a point in like wishing we had a combo that covered every option in a certain situation. Falco's combos **** and the only reason we should stop doing what works is if people adapt to it. We should just focus on what can be done with our characters abilities.

Sort of a generic explanation but whatever.

 

[Druggedfox]

Marth players should work on their edgeguarding thing. Combos should either end in tipper, your opponent off stage, or your opponent above you in a position where he can't get down. If you can't get a solid edgeguard, you should use the chance to hit them into another one of those three positions.

@CK: I don't really see why you wouldn't want to optimize your combos. Just because they're working doesn't mean you can't improve upon them. That's how people improve, innovate, stay ahead of the metagame, etc. "We should just focus on what can be done with our character's abilities." Precisely. Focusing on your character's abilities is precisely what optimizing does; you focus on your options and figure out the best you can do with them.

 

[CK Momentum]

Marth players should work on their edgeguarding thing. Combos should either end in tipper, your opponent off stage, or your opponent above you in a position where he can't get down. If you can't get a solid edgeguard, you should use the chance to hit them into another one of those three positions.

@CK: I don't really see why you wouldn't want to optimize your combos. Just because they're working doesn't mean you can't improve upon them. That's how people improve, innovate, stay ahead of the metagame, etc. "We should just focus on what can be done with our character's abilities." Precisely. Focusing on your character's abilities is precisely what optimizing does; you focus on your options and figure out the best you can do with them.

Haha, I feel now like we are talking about the same thing, but in different words. Like that married couple who constantly bickers. I think we have the same idea.

 

[Sinji]

Falco should recover upwards when facing Marth. Not sweet spot the edge. They can get tippered. Better to get an upair from Marth and lose a little bit of % then lose a stock.

 

[Bl@ckChris]

unless that uair leads to a tipper fsmash.

such an unfortunate combo.

 

[Divinokage]

=) Well.. that was fun. Hehe.

 

[Beat!]

Yeah, it's not as simple as "always go upwards". You need to mix it up and treat every situation individually.

You're still going to die a painful death most of the time, but that's Falco for you.

Ahhh.

 

[Dr Peepee]

All of the top tiers do dumb stuff to each other, but Falco is the one doing the best at the moment.

Back in the day Marth was "every move tippers and kills me and I can't stop being juggled/edgeguarded waaaaa."



Also this combo optimization discussion got me thinking about the proper ways to combo with Falco. I like comboing with uptilt a lot and Shiz Chops and Mango all like comboing with Dair stuff(Mango a little moreso with Nair too). I noticed my style of comboing is pretty good against floaties but not spacies necessarily(except Fox but that took forever to work out lol). The main reason M2K's/Umbreon's Dair Dsmash advice took forever to sink in is because I was just being stubborn in my old combo ways. I just should have obviously separated floaties from FF'ers in my head more solidly when considering comboing.

/small revelation

 

[CK Momentum]

Using side B and shine to recover would be pretty good cos you can mix up the elevation and the timing. It's also decently fast. Definitely don't go below the stage cos they can counter/dtilt/run off fair/run off up b..... and basically falco below the stage is a dead bird.

Edit: if i'm below the stage probably the best thing I could do to survive is double jump to the ledge, otherwise sweet spot my firebird. I think that being ledgegaurded is really a guessing game once you're off the stage. Similar to another situation I've been thinking a lot about, which is being on a platform with Marth underneath me. You basically have to make them guess wrong.

 

[Druggedfox]

If you guys learn to shorten and shine stall you'll seriously get 100% free recoveries against almost every single player.

I know it sounds like something easy or I'm overestimating how good it is... but seriously, just do it. Nobody knows how to cover those options yet, because it's not common in the metagame; you're short changing yourselves if you're not doing it.

Edit: Yeah CK I think we're talking about the same things =P

 

[ShroudedOne]

I think I shorten my side B a little too much. I've so far been killed twice from having them hard predict it (at least twice, maybe more than that). But it's a really good option, nevertheless. Shine stalling is something I do once every time I remember, which isn't often, but I never get edge guarded when I do. So yeah, DF, these options (from what I see, anyways) ****.

 

[Niko45]

lol I was trolling about Falco, honestly he has a ton of combo flexibility too and that's one of the reasons I enjoy playing him.

You're way off about m2k, I've seen like every m2k vid ever and he still does things with Marth I've never seen before and he doesn't even put any effort into Marth anymore. Same reason why all the fanboys clamor for him to play Marth. Yea people have figured out that up tilt and fair are good but yea there's way more to explore (all circumstantial setups, mostly not guaranteed stuff, but still...)

I mean it just strikes a nerve to be putting Marth and Sheik in the same boat cause they're on complete opposite ends of the spectrum as far as combo complexity/difficulty/flexibility. Sheik just rams you with her big fat dash attack hitbox and then has like 8 days to jump and land her big fat fair hitbox and then get on the ledge and stick out her big fat bair hitbox in the general vicinity of where you might be recovering and this is the way she kills virtually the entire cast. She's been doing that since launch and it'll be done til the game is completely dead.

Yea the optimization ties into the edgeguarding thing cause frankly I wouldn't say Marth has particularly good edgeguarding now. Basically edgeguarding is heavily dependent on the opponent's DI and the trajectory of the move you launched them with because it rules out options for recovery instantly and with one less option to worry about covering the others becomes that much easier. Falco dsmash/Fox shine/sheik fair/falcon knee are so good for setting up their edgeguards but unless Marth gets a fthrow dtilt or dthrow near the ledge all his launchers launch at a really high trajectory and it becomes basically impossible to cover all options in a lot of matchups.

Honestly more recently I've switched from sitting back and trying to cover options to being more aggressive and going for reads on edgeguards or doing things in an attempt to bait particular recovery choices and it's definitely been paying dividends.

If Falco is launching from bair instead of dsmash all the time he basically suffers from the exact same problem as Marth in terms of edgeguarding. All the good characters and even the lesser characters have edgeguarding tools but the launch trajectory and DI are the dominant factor in recovering.

And DI (imo) greatly contributed to Marth's early success in the game. Just go back to evo vids and you can see Ken killing PC off hilt of sword fsmash on stage WITH his jump still. Nowadays that might as well be a gimp. When people miss survival DI Marth becomes a billion times more scary.

 

[Deleted member]

marth and falco can both dial-a-combo and it's free as ****. but it doesn't always mean you should.

falco doesn't need "optimized combos" because half-***** combos still do 60% and/or kill you. falco players underrate the character SO bad.

for low tier mains, dittos are EVERYTHING.

 

[Niko45]

I think dittos are the BEST snapshot in general of a player vs player because it is literally a completely even matchup. There's no ambiguity whatsoever about "x character beats y" or anything like that. Plus, not only is knowing the matchup a factor but the ditto will also display who has the better knowledge and understanding and control of their OWN character both as far as strengths and weaknesses.

Plus even matchups that are genuinely viewed as "even" by the entire community can change drastically at different levels of play so judging off of non-ditto matchups can be misleading in that regard too.

Of course you have to look at how players do against the entire field for a really complete evaluation but I think as a snapshot the ditto is the best measuring stick.

 

[Blistering Speed]

Armada's Falco's shield pressure is possibly the most impressive thing I've seen in Smash this year.

 

[leffen]

What Niko said.

 

[Divinokage]

I think dittos are the BEST snapshot in general of a player vs player because it is literally a completely even matchup. There's no ambiguity whatsoever about "x character beats y" or anything like that. Plus, not only is knowing the matchup a factor but the ditto will also display who has the better knowledge and understanding and control of their OWN character both as far as strengths and weaknesses.

Plus even matchups that are genuinely viewed as "even" by the entire community can change drastically at different levels of play so judging off of non-ditto matchups can be misleading in that regard too.

Of course you have to look at how players do against the entire field for a really complete evaluation but I think as a snapshot the ditto is the best measuring stick.

Ganon dittos ftw then? =P

 

[Druggedfox]

Armada's pressure is honestly not really possible to judge right now, besides that he has good spacing/timing. Armada goes with either a delayed aerial or a waveshine every time. If the opponent would simply do a shine OoS/upsmash OoS immediately, they'd hit armada's falco pretty much every time.

It's kinda hard to call armada's pressure good when he hasn't been forced to switch it up at all >_>

 

[leffen]

add doubleshines, early retreating aerials, jabs, pivot jabs emptys among other things druggedfox.
I've played with him a lot and his pressure is probably close to mango's

While his shield pressure isnt that good at mixups as Mango (I honestly cannot call PPs pressure that varying) its more the fact that he NEVER messes up and is almost frame perfect every time.

Of course, this isn't from the vids, I've played a lot with his falco in friendlies so your post could be very true druggedfox.



Also: he 3stocked Axe's falco in a ditto (afaik they played 2 games, other one was a bit closer), who beat PP last time they played. He could very well beat PP in the ditto, esp since pp openly admits that he is lacking in that matchup.


EDIT:
Side B shortening isn't THAT good. Try doing it vs Ice (he just uses a second jab with marth if the first one misses).

 

[FoxLisk]

add doubleshines, early retreating aerials, jabs, pivot jabs emptys among other things druggedfox.
I've played with him a lot and his pressure is probably close to mango's

While his shield pressure isnt that good at mixups as Mango (I honestly cannot call PPs pressure that varying) its more the fact that he NEVER messes up and is almost frame perfect every time.

Of course, this isn't from the vids, I've played a lot with his falco in friendlies so your post could be very true druggedfox.



Also: he 3stocked Axe's falco in a ditto (afaik they played 2 games, other one was a bit closer), who beat PP last time they played. He could very well beat PP in the ditto, esp since pp openly admits that he is lacking in that matchup.

priy sure PP beat axe since then, if you're thinking of... um... what tourney was that... P4 or Apex 2010 or something? i might be wrong but thats the last time i saw PP lose to axe.

anyway its interesting that you say 'Armada's pressure is more varying than PPs but i only know that because I played him and youve only seen videos of it' and ignore the obvious converse. Armada may well have incredible shield pressure, but PP obviously does too and I think it's silly to assume that Armada's is better.

 

[leffen]

Foxlisk- I didn't really compare Armadas pressure to PP's - I just said that PP's wasn't very creative (but its still good obviously)

 

[JPOBS]

My opinion of dittos are that Marth dittos are the most skillful ditto to win. i think all the other dittos in the top tiers are full blown face rolls.

I wasn't particularly blown away by armada's shield pressure any more than by any other good falco. What liked most about him was his insistence on using jump-shine as an approach/combo starter

edit: @leffen. pp wasn't the beast he is now last tim he played axe i nthe ditto, that was at pound 4? apex 1? i think axe would get rolled in the ditto these days.

Actually I take back what I said about armada's pressure. I kinda agree with leffen. It was really different/unique. I don't know if that makes it better or not. I kinda agree that pp's pressure is pretty "standard" but maybe tht because I've come to accept that style as being the prototypical pressure for todays metagame. I can't say which is better

 

[ShroudedOne]

Peach dittos are facerolls? Loooool. Those matches are so slow...

I actually think that Falco dittos need to be handled very carefully and specifically, just cause the neutral game seems so difficult to play. Puff probably takes some skill, too.

Sheik dittos are...never mind.

 

[JPOBS]

i admit i dont know anything about peach dittos.

 

[Blistering Speed]

A ditto being more boring =/= requiring more skill.

 

[leffen]

I think Marth dittos are a bit too simple - its a lot of fsmash spam (fthrow to pivot fsmash is stupidly op- too bad everyone is a scrub) and stupidly easy juggles and edgeguards - they're pretty fun, though

Fox and Falco dittos have extreme depth but they look faceroll (and are face roll for) medium level players.


Falcon dittos are horribly boring though, uthrow regrab+never approach+brainless edgeguard >_>

 

[ShroudedOne]

Um...well, Peach dittos are very odd to play. One learns just how annoying her down smash is when used against you. They are like Puff dittos in some ways, but they don't require as much skill as spacie dittos, I'd say (whatever we're defining skill to be) >.>

On Armada's pressure: That was one of the things that looked really weird to me. It is really individual, at least compared to what we consider standard pressure. He was linking things that I didn't really think would work...

 

[Brookman]

dear PP,

check my **** on fb when you get a chance.

your friend,
mike brookman


/logs off indefinitely

 

[crush]

dear PP,

check my **** on fb when you get a chance.

your friend,
mike brookman


/logs off indefinitely

there are pictures of your dick on facebook?? where??

 

[Veetaak]

I think falcon dittos friendlies are fun when you do not play to win.

Falco dittos are alot of fun if the match has a nice flow.

EDIT: LOL@ crush

 

[JPOBS]

i'll give you falco dittos having a lot of depth involving the first hit confirm and laser battles. but after the first launcher its nothing.

whats so deep about fox dittos. its pretty much guaranteed chainthrows and tech chases for days.

 

[EWC]

Spacing and stage control and pacing control in fox dittos is pretty interesting. And the combos are also pretty cool; At least with platforms around there's a lot of room for variety in combos and techchases.

Fox dittos on FD are stupid though.