PPMD's Falco Discussion Thread

[Battlecow]

Powershield->rest

THE POWER NAP

 

[ThatGuy]

Wow that's a lot of stuff to work off of! Thanks a ton guys!

you hesitate a lot when you don't have to and you don't place your lasers for any specific reason, which indicates that you play falco for some reason other than knowing why he's a dumb/broken character. i think you should go back and read all of the posts in this thread from the last month or two talking about lasers specifically. you can have mediocre tech skill and have the strength of the character carry for you really hard until you start playing better players, so for now i don't think you should be focusing on tech skill but rather solidifying your game plan and actively practicing it.

Countless matches of getting beat up on by skilled hyper-aggressive players made me way more hesitant and defensive than what's necessary. My inexperience with Falco really shines with the lasers, as you've already noticed. I'll give the thread some reading and try to develop a more refined projectile game.

I'm not really focusing on tech skill per se, but actively trying to get better at it so my fingers can catch up with my mind. It sucks when you input something and you end up with a different result you didn't expect, and it throws me off sometimes when I turn around in my shine and fail the jump cancel like 3 times in a row.. Most of my retreating lasers in that match ended up being standing turnaround lasers for example.

You don't laser with much purpose and need to focus on how people respond to your lasers and work reacting from there. Also you do too many scared Bairs that you don't need to do because most people respect those automatically(also you should do those AC'd and retreating if you're going to do them so they're safer anyway). You also put up your shield when you get hit too much and don't try to get momentum going quickly enough, which will get you ***** as Falco. You always want to get a laser out/get moving as quickly as possible whenever you can.

Lots of random DJs you start doing a while into the video will only serve to get you ***** usually. Burning your DJ as Falco/spacie usually gets you ***** super fast. FH if you expect Fox to FH Nair at you if you want to counter it that way, but otherwise keep yourself from using DJs at least.

You don't act well when you get on top of a platform. You should laser off of it or aerial off of it so you can keep momentum. Getting on one in itself seemed okay for you but you just didn't do too much with the position.

You also continue jumping/baiting and other similar things when the other player is respecting you. Once you establish the threat of your moves then you should go on applying pressure or at least lasering.


That'll do for now.

That'll most definitely do .

Yeah, Falco's definitely not the type of character that I should be using to put up a big hitbox wall and block the opponent out. I'm playing like I'm facing a Falco when I actually AM the Falco :/.

Shielding too much has been a big Achilles Heel for me. People seem to have too easy of a time making me their ***** .

I like using quick DJ for the vertical acceleration and lower height giving me a quick vertical attack point. I used this a lot when I played Falcon/Marth because it allowed me to work a lot more angles/timings. But I definitely see where you're coming from. Falco has enough priority and a quick enough moveset that maybe I don't need to worry about getting those angles as much. I should be using lasers to get them into a position I want them to be in, rather than moving myself into the position I want to attack from.

Yeah, my platform game sucks. I feel like I'm too obvious with what my options are once I get on a platform and I end up just trying to establish ground level again.

Thanks a lot for your time and astute observations!

at the beginning of the match u stale ur lasers by hitting him before he gets rid of his stock...

work on shine out of shield to get out of pressure

work on your laser height, mogwai has a good guide on that with gifs... you kept shooting them too high, just make sure you can control them really well

fox seems decent...

12:19- shine after spotdodging their grab is godlike, jab woulda been worse even if it hit cuz of crouch cancel etc.

13:14- again spotdodge shine woulda worked... its one of the most broken things falco has

lol **** fsmash at 13:17

14:17- coulda dair fsmashed, or something else, not sure why you started moving, just react

you get him to shield a lot with lasers, but then don't pressure the shield... once you get him in shield, go up and grab or shield pressure more

you did well vs the samus not much to say...

try to get more vids up after you practice more tech skill, lack of tech skill is too significant with falco... other than that, try to play a little more reactive, a lot of times it seems like you've already planned what you are going to do and don't adjust it according to your opponent's spacing, and you play to get single hits a little too much... thats not really what makes falco good, if you just wanna space and poke, i would recommend someone else, you should be trying to get solid hits that lead into autocombos (especially against fox) rather than a bunch of single hit bairs/rising dairs etc.

The early lasers were accidental, I forgot he lost a stock .

I was working the shine out of shield a lot more earlier on in the tournament. I'm not quite sure why I didn't use it more often here, specifically during those periods where I sat in my shield for prolonged periods of time. I guess I was playing too conservatively or something.

I'll try to work the spotdodge shines more often...I noticed they were used against me often in Falco dittos when I approached from above and they were pretty awesome combo starters.

That whole sequence from 14:17 to 14:28 was totally embarrassing...no follow up on the dair, no edgehog, spamming the panic stick in an attempted bailout...I have no clue what was going on there .

Those lasers seem to be the story of the day lol.

I guess I need to do a playstyle overhaul. I've played Marth and Falcon for a very long time, and developed an overly conservative mindset due to the people I normally sparred with. The lack of followups on the lasers, the dash away from the sidesteps, the cheap pokes and the lack of aggressiveness off of an opponent's whiff seems to point that out. I'll definitely try to push the pace a little more (or at the very least make myself capable of doing it).

Really appreciate how you pointed out the specifics, especially not working the sidestep->shines. It's the little things like that that accumulate and really make a difference.

Thanks a lot again everyone.

 

[Dark Hart]

Powershield->rest

THE POWER NAP

This is one of the cutest things I've ever read

 

[Deleted member]

I guess I need to do a playstyle overhaul. I've played Marth and Falcon for a very long time, and developed an overly conservative mindset due to the people I normally sparred with.

It's odd that you say that, because I think at top level play you can be more aggressive with marth than with falco if only because falco is so frail and sometimes fairly slow. W/e thats just point of view.

It's not really so much as a style overhaul as it is learning how to focus your actions. A big reason behind falco's potency is that you can place his lasers for control and in doing so you immediately have a stage advantage unlike any other character. Of course, it can also be risky, but you learn over time. Instead, consider what it is that your moves actually do for you when you do them. Eventually it's okay to "go through the motions" per se but you should understand why those are your best tools until it's natural.

For example, something you see for falco often is the running joke of "oh it's a falco, aka laser > dair > shine just like every other falco". of course, what it really means is safe invincible lead in that restricts defensive options or movement (laser) that sets up for an equally safe lead-in that negates the remaining defensive options of crouching or trading attacks (dair) that sets up for yet a third optimal move that is the superior choice regardless of whether it hits or not and negate the last defensive option of a movement out of shield (shine). the whole process is massively high reward for little risk so long as it is executed correctly. after you know why you're doing those moves, it's cool and it's just laser > dair > shine. without knowing your game plan or how your actions further your game plan, falco isn't going to be any better than marth or falcon. if anything he'll be worse because falcon/marth are so good at "oops i killed you" stuff and falco dies a lot.

again, once you understand what you're doing and why, you can start learning in other areas and expect to see reasonable improvement whereas other players never really seem to improve.

 

[Bones0]

What do you do when you go through that phase where your Fox is 10x better than your Falco?

 

[Mogwai]

What do you do when you go through that phase where your Fox is 10x better than your Falco?

real Falco players never hit this phase. if you hit this phase, you're a closet Fox main, but don't fret, Fox is pretty strong too!

 

[Warhawk]

What do you do when you go through that phase where your Fox is 10x better than your Falco?

You pull a PC Chris lol

 

[JPOBS]

What do you do when you go through that phase where your Fox is 10x better than your Falco?

Yuuuuuuuuuuup. dat feel brah

I mean, i woudln't say my fox is "better" than my falco, and my falco certainly has more tourny experience because i rarely use fox in singles, but, lately i've been analyzing my game and realizing that, i feel my play with falco is a lot weaker fundamentally than my fox play.

eh, maybe its cuz i've kinda slacked off of using falco because i find marth/fox much more fun to mess around with.

But yea, falco just feels so...bleh these days.

real Falco players never hit this phase. if you hit this phase, you're a closet Fox main, but don't fret, Fox is pretty strong too!

>_>

 

[Bones0]

Part of me thinks it has something to do with Falco being slow, making spacing in general really hard. When I play Fox/Marth, I don't have to worry too much about where I am, which lets me focus mostly on WHEN to approach. With Falco, I still focus on when it is okay to approach, but I also have to make sure I am as close to my opponent as possible without getting hit to ensure my approach actually gets to them in time.

 

[FoxLisk]

my fox sometimes plays better than my falco. i attribute it to the fact that i kind of can't autopilot with fox. Even when I'm pretty much on my game, it's easy to slip into suboptimal (but not bad) patterns with falco, but since I'm less comfortable with fox in general I put more thought into stuff.

also the fact that you can do reasonably well with fox using only dash dance, grab, and some nairs is nice... if i'm not feeling very smart, extremely straightforward play with fox is often more effective than extremely straightforward play with falco.

 

[Deleted member]

What do you do when you go through that phase where your Fox is 10x better than your Falco?

laser better.

 

[JPOBS]

it really does just boil down to lasering. with fox, if i don't like a situation, i can just move out of the way and do other things.

can't do that with falco. Wih falco, if you don't like a situation, you have to actively do things to change you situation, because passingly moving doesn't work with him. slow flightless penguin a** motherfugger

 

[Warhawk]

also the fact that you can do reasonably well with fox using only dash dance, grab, and some nairs is nice... if i'm not feeling very smart, extremely straightforward play with fox is often more effective than extremely straightforward play with falco.

I actually really agree with this. When I play Fox better than Falco I tend to relate it to being able to crutch myself on Fox's incredibly strong funamentals when playing bad to not outright lose the match until I can get my feet set and start playing well again. With Falco as soon as you start playing bad or get pressured hard there's an extreme amount of pressure on you to regain control of the situation since Falco's game revolves a ton around stage control since not having it can cause those "oops you just died moments" since he's so frail. Hell it can happen even when you have control. And that pressure on you can make you play better or much, much worse it seems like. With Fox you don't die quite so easily it seems and so you can afford to let the opponent take control a bit and hold them back until you can get in the right frame of mind to play better and take control of the match again. Plus Fox is just naturally more elusive with his speed and can get out of pressure situations. That's my thoughts on it anyways.

 

[giovannig22311]

Changed the title until I get another suggestion. XD

Fixed that stupid error. I come back to my writing in between fits of spacing out sometimes and that happens haha.

I can do a Marth one sometime.

ay peepee i hav a question how do u shield pressure someone like wen there shielding? do u... Dair shine,jump out of shine,shine again, or waveshine into them ,then jump outta shine and shine again, lik wat do u do? cuse i watched ut videos n u kept shining there shield like 3 times but how do u do it? ? or whos videos do u recomemd i watch urs n bombsoliders? hope u write back thanks man

 

[Bones0]

laser better.

Any tips on capitalizing on lasers more? I feel like I used to be able to get away with SHL into SHFFLs, but now that my opponent is so good at dealing with lasers, especially as a Marth, I can't do anything with them. Like I will land a laser, but then I don't have enough time to actually hit him before he moves or attacks unless I landed right on top of him with the laser.

 

[crush]

Any tips on capitalizing on lasers more? I feel like I used to be able to get away with SHL into SHFFLs, but now that my opponent is so good at dealing with lasers, especially as a Marth, I can't do anything with them. Like I will land a laser, but then I don't have enough time to actually hit him before he moves or attacks unless I landed right on top of him with the laser.

this is what side b is for bro. not even ing right now side-b ***** marth after lasers, there will be so many different primary colors flying by him so quickly he won't know whats happening and he'll pretty much **** himself (advanced hermaphrodite technique)

 

[FoxLisk]

ay peepee i hav a question how do u shield pressure someone like wen there shielding? do u... Dair shine,jump out of shine,shine again, or waveshine into them ,then jump outta shine and shine again, lik wat do u do? cuse i watched ut videos n u kept shining there shield like 3 times but how do u do it? ? or whos videos do u recomemd i watch urs n bombsoliders? hope u write back thanks man

its good you clarified there

 

[StriCNYN3]

My bad, wrong thread =P

 

[Bones0]

this is what side b is for bro. not even ing right now side-b ***** marth after lasers, there will be so many different primary colors flying by him so quickly he won't know whats happening and he'll pretty much **** himself (advanced hermaphrodite technique)

I actually do use side-B a lot. Not just vs. Marth either. It's so good for tech chasing when they tech roll away. Side-B after lasers is way too risky though...

 

[crush]

I actually do use side-B a lot. Not just vs. Marth either. It's so good for tech chasing when they tech roll away. Side-B after lasers is way too risky though...

Yeah but sometimes you just have to take risks bayb. Where would martin luther king jr, abe lincoln, rosa parks, etc be if they didn't take risks? You're the one shooting marth bro, if you just take that risk he's probably gonna get shot. JFK took a risk, got shot, martin luther king jr took a risk, got shot, rosa parks took a risk, got shotgun.

tl;dr: take more risks and your lasers will hit

 

[genkaku]

where is that post about chu(?) ending arguments with "I'm better than you at smash?"

 

[Dr Peepee]

What do you do when you go through that phase where your Fox is 10x better than your Falco?

Haha I've been there before man. I feel like UGHHHH I don't wanna commit to lasers then make my way over, then blah blah blah, when I could just RUN OVER AND **** THEM FOX YEAHHHH(I'm in a good mood).

I think it has something to do with playing a character too long. Ideas get stale, creativity runs out, and playing Fox sometimes feels like you're taking the ankle weights off. Really, this is a good feeling to experience and it's one worth going into for a while. See, by playing Fox/other characters you get their perspectives on things and you get more experience playing them overall. You also get a break from Falco and when you do decide you want to play him again(which usually happens) then you'll be ready to put more ideas together and will likely have a new approach to the system(or at least a fresh start on one) thanks to the time off from Falco you have spent. It's healthy.

I like shine tech chasing shine killing Twitch with Fox in dittos LOOOLLL. friggin yoshis

it really does just boil down to lasering. with fox, if i don't like a situation, i can just move out of the way and do other things.

can't do that with falco. Wih falco, if you don't like a situation, you have to actively do things to change you situation, because passingly moving doesn't work with him. slow flightless penguin a** motherfugger

Wavedashing certainly does help speed Falco up(Shiz and Mango both use a good amount of WD'ing with him and I'm going to start doing it more[don't think I did it at Apex but knew it by then]) so maybe that could be a good way to start things off if you don't wanna just laser(which is a good idea honestly because just lasering in tricky situations can be bad).

ay peepee i hav a question how do u shield pressure someone like wen there shielding? do u... Dair shine,jump out of shine,shine again, or waveshine into them ,then jump outta shine and shine again, lik wat do u do? cuse i watched ut videos n u kept shining there shield like 3 times but how do u do it? ? or whos videos do u recomemd i watch urs n bombsoliders? hope u write back thanks man

(delayed)Dair/Nair to shine(jump out of shine), either early retreating nair/dair or more delayed nair to shine

lemme know if you need more explanation. =)

where is that post about chu(?) ending arguments with "I'm better than you at smash?"

I dunno but I'd definitely enjoy seeing it again LOL.

 

[giovannig22311]

Changed the title until I get another suggestion. XD

Fixed that stupid error. I come back to my writing in between fits of spacing out sometimes and that happens haha.

I can do a Marth one sometime.

so then do i repeat that?? the dair/nair shine jump outta shine for shield pressure? cuse i wanta be able to keep shining while ther shielding or get as many shines in?

 

[Dr Peepee]

so then do i repeat that?? the dair/nair shine jump outta shine for shield pressure? cuse i wanta be able to keep shining while ther shielding or get as many shines in?

That works until people start countering your dair/nair shines, in which case you start mixing in double shines and early retreating nairs.

Basically you want to mix up your things you do on their shield because they can counter any type of pressure you do but they can't counter them all at one time(they have to guess).

 

[Divinokage]

Aren't you assuming you are fighting another spacie?

 

[Bl@ckChris]

yeah. ganon can't do ****.

cept roll maybe. maybe.

 

[Blistering Speed]

Oh my god, crush is my hero.

 

[Deleted member]

Aren't you assuming you are fighting another spacie?

thats probably the case anyway.

bones: shoot them whenever it would be annoying for the opponent. if lasers feel weak, it might be because your opponent is able to deal with them. stay out of marth fair range with them should he jump over them. if you show me a video i can say something better than super generalized advice.

kevin: going from fox to falco is taking off the training weights to me. I'm like OH YEAH MY DAIR BEATS ALL YOUR MOVES LOL. Sometimes when i play falco i just dd camp and laser until my opponent attacks, and then i dair that attack and it ALWAYS WINS. sometimes it still surprises me how stupid falco is. **** yeah, best neutral game into best approach game into best combo game into obvious free kill via obvious things to an opponent in a bad position.

my favorite part is that you can disrespect your opponent at any time by putting an attack out, and if your opponent does the same thing they lose 100% of the time unless the opponent is ALSO falco. brilliant.

 

[Vaccine]

how should i di falco combos

 

[Rubyiris]

Down and away at low percent. At higher percentage, sdi as far away from falco as possible.

 

[ShroudedOne]

What does the DI input down achieve? Why not just DI away? Or does it not matter?

 

[Vaccine]

Down and away at low percent.

even if it means going off stage?

 

[Rubyiris]

Down is crouch cancel, away to avoid the shine.

 

[Dr Peepee]

how should i di falco combos

In the ditto you're gonna get hit hard no matter what. Down and away like ruby said is really good, but if you can DI onto a platform to edgecancel your body then you can break out as well. Sometimes mixups in general are really good because the other Falco has to waveshine in a certain direction they're pretty positive you're going to DI in so they can continue comboing, so mixing up DI can be more important than any one standard DI at times.

It also kinda depends on what percent you're at and where you are. Middle of the stage, ehhh you could afford to DI a Nair away(mid percents anyway). Edge of the stage maybe not so much(unless your percent is low so you can avoid getting spiked or whatever).

Just watch how your opponent hits you and try to keep them from doing that the same way. Make their lives really hard lol.

 

[Bones0]

You can also SDI the dair so that you get shined on the other side of them to make it a little harder for them to react, or you sometimes even miss the shine entirely if they were moving too far in between.

Also expect nair -> fsmash on FD (DI away).

 

[Dr Peepee]

^that's also a great point

 

[Rubyiris]

Fair fsmash counters the di against Nair.

 

[Lightsyde]

You can also SDI the dair so that you get shined on the other side of them to make it a little harder for them to react, or you sometimes even miss the shine entirely if they were moving too far in between.

Lots of this. I feel like I have a much better rate of survival in Falco dittos if right before I get hit I adjust my positioning in more and get sent at some funky or unexpected direction. Normally gets me out of some of the more brutal stuff a little faster. Anything that makes you harder to chase during a combo is generally good. haha

 

[hippiedude92]

PP I always read you posting about " respecting their options" what do you exactly mean by that?

And any general advice vs Doc Mario?

Thanks =).

 

[Dr Peepee]

PP I always read you posting about " respecting their options" what do you exactly mean by that?

And any general advice vs Doc Mario?

Thanks =).

Respecting options means to be aware of their range or potential use. For example, if I throw a Falco offstage in a ditto and then run to Dair by the edge to intercept his DJ and kill him, but he DJ Dairs and kills me first because his % is too low, then I will learn to "respect" that DJ Dair eventually by spacing outside of the range of that much more often.

Make sense?


Vs Doc/Mario.....


Doc's pill game is annoying but you can weave lasers if you want. Capes are kinda obvious but they're also slow at times so as long as you don't mindlessly spam laser then you might be able to bait cape and punish some.

Don't try to straight hitstun combo too much, but rather you should focus on comboing them into a position where you can get another uptilt/Bair/Dair and set up for an eventual Dsmash/Fsmash/spike.

Try to avoid hitting Doc high because his recovery from high is good. Mario's isn't as big of a deal due to fireballs sucking lol.

You can attack through pills which makes Dair really fun lol.

Try to avoid being really close to them and respect their CC game(CC dsmash is a pain lol as are their jabs).