PPMD's Falco Discussion Thread

[ruhtraeel]

1. Jab if you don't think he will grab on reaction or if his percent is too high to CC. Dash attack when he's running away or holding shield and won't jump away. Dash attacking and jabbing are both relatively unsafe. If he's in the air then both moves can be okay but it's still toughish to land.

2. Keeping Puff grounded with lasers and Dairs is good. Bair'ing/Uptilting her approaches is good. Grabbing or shieldstabbing her when she shields is good for abusing her bad ground game. Being below Puff in general is great.

Am I not supposed to crossover my dash attack when Marth is running away? If I crossover, I would get shield grabbed, right

 

[Bones0]

You should only really be dash attacking when it's guaranteed, either by hitting them out of tech rolls or when they're in the air (often useful for when they've lost they're jump and you're okay with trading with fair or something).

That's pretty much how I use it. I would never try to approach with laser dash attack or something.

 

[ruhtraeel]

My friends all said dash attack ***** Marth, and it is sort of annoying getting pushed up a bit as Marth and not being able to shield grab it

If that's not the case, then I'll never beat the Marths in my province, probably my hardest matchup

FalseFalco/Superboom is too good

 

[Bones0]

If you're spaced for a dash attack, you should be spaced fine for a SHFFL or grab instead.

 

[ruhtraeel]

Marth's WD back F-smash 2 good

God I hate Marth so much, he messes up my techs and then just ***** me all over the place

 

[crush]

WD back 2 good

fixed




also bonezero hows basketball lately?

 

[Bones0]

lol wut?

 

[crush]

I will play basketball

 

[Bones0]

That was a post explaining why I can't play basketball because my flimsy *** rim, and wind johns (that ain't Dream Land).

So to answer your question, it's terrible. I should just play Melee by myself. :|

 

[Dr Peepee]

My friends all said dash attack ***** Marth, and it is sort of annoying getting pushed up a bit as Marth and not being able to shield grab it

If that's not the case, then I'll never beat the Marths in my province, probably my hardest matchup

FalseFalco/Superboom is too good

If they shield DI backward it's a free grab. Shield DI'ing backward is also really good vs pressure so you don't want to make that easier for him.

It's a pretty good mixup once in a while but generally Marths can react to it when you get on their shield and WD out and reset or Dair OOS and hit you, neither of which really help you. It can be great if you catch them running away/jumping after the laser, but it is quite risky.

Why don't you just mix up between grab, attack(mainly aerials but not always), and DD'ing after lasers? That's pretty good right there lol.

 

[Rh1thmz]

Marth Match

[COLLAPSE="Critique"]21:00 - Make sure you're comfortable L-cancelling early so you can land on low plats. It's extremely useful because you can alternate rising and drop through dairs and do stupid 80% combos without any real work.

21:10 - You almost always want to DI utilts behind Marth so he can't get easy followups. You will get daired by the ledge a lot if your kneejerk reaction is to hold in against it.

21:30 - You don't want to throw out laggy moves vs. a shielding Marth, especially by the ledge. Either just grab them or do something like a fadeaway shine-aerial to bait the grab.

21:35 - You seem to tech in place a lot. Look at how the Marth is spaced before you land, and evaluate whether your can escape with a tech roll away or not. In that case, you definitely could have.

21:45 - There was no reason to empty hop there. Lasers AC, so you almost always want to be lasering instead of empty hopping, especially when they are shielding already. By spacing a little closer you could have just laser-shined without any risk of being grabbed.

22:00 - Always WD out of your shine in the direction that you hit them. So in that case you hit him with the right side of your shine, so you should have WDed right since that makes it easier to compensate for whatever DI they do. In that situation it would have enabled you to close the gap to the ledge much more quickly and probably knocked him off with another for an edgeguard.

22:25 - I would have daired him again instead of using bair because he wasn't at high enough % that he would be far enough off stage to be edgeguarded. Any time you can force Marth into a teching position is a very good opportunity to take because the only way he can avoid a punish is by sliding off the edge, and he would have had to DI at a perfect angle to slide off that close to the ledge. He probably would have landed on the platform or edge of the stage, and then it's just a simple matter of dsmashing missed tech/tech in place and reacting to the other options.

22:30 - You have a bad habit of trying to DJ back onto the stage with an attack. It is usually too risky, especially because Marth has so many overhead moves with his disjointed sword. You could have ledge cancelled a Phantasm off the top platform and completely taken control of the center stage as he whiffs an fsmash.

22:45 - This is why I am constantly telling people to never jab Marth when he's facing you. It's honestly just never worth it. You are risking getting shield/CC grabbed, and the benefit of hitting that jab is almost nothing. The only time you'll ever link a dash attack or something else out of a jab is if you catch them off guard and they are at a decently high %. Instead, you would be much better off just running up and grabbing him, or in this case, since he was trapped at the ledge, I would have dashed back to adjust my spacing and SHFFLed to initiate shield pressure.

22:50 - There's the tech in place again. Obviously your opponent was potentially covering all of your tech options, but the fact that he wasn't facing you means you can actually miss the tech intentionally without worrying much about jab reset. Teching through him you get regrabbed, teching in place you get utilted, teching away you get dash attacked (which you could try to ground tech), but utilt usually won't hit a missed tech, and he also can't chase and grab. At that point most people would turn around and shield for a get-up-attack letting you roll away. If he doesn't, then you just have all of the various options out of missed tech that you usually have, and you will just have to do risk-assessment to decide what he is most likely to cover properly and what is the most risky option to do. Ex. Picking the option that results in you getting grabbed or utilted at high %s is a lot less devastating than rolling into an fsmash.

23:23 - FHing a nair like that is way too risky. He was just coming up out of a missed tech, so you can usually predict defensive options. He's either going to try to escape (WD off the plat/jump), or he's going to shield. Obviously he countered, but I like to just think of counter as a shield combined with a really good OoS attack. lol He could also get-up-attack or wait, but those options only work when you get impatient with waiting underneath him. So just looking at those options, your best bet would probably be to do something like SH, then see what he does, then DJ to punish. Even if you can't reach him with an attack as he WDs away, you can always just hold down center stage while he struggles to find a way off the side plat. More often, people will simply shield because they are afraid of getting hit. This means you can simply DJ onto the top plat and grab him, and this would work vs. counter too of course.

23:40 - Here's another situation where I would rather dair to force a tech chase on a plat than hit him further into the air. Right after you do uair, you shouldn't have DJed. Any time Marth is recovery high, you can at the very least trade bair to knock them back off. There's almost nothing they can do. So if you look at when you did that DJ and instead imagine positioning yourself under the side plat with your back to him, you can see how he's virtually guaranteed to get knocked off stage again.

24:05 - Ugh, that hurt to watch. lol It was the same thing you did at 22:30.


Overall, not too bad. Most of the stuff getting you killed are bad habits, or missed DI on utilt/dash attack. When you can learn to DI all of Marth's setup moves, it makes it so much harder for him to land a KO move, and it make sa huge difference because you can swing matches back in your favor by racking up damage while you sit at 100%+ unable to be comboed into anything. It was sort of hard to give advice on the neutral spacing since you both seem pretty awkward with DDWDing still, but I definitely think you should use more lasers. They are hard to use on FoD unless you practice it a lot, but simply lasering and then DDing to react to them is extremely powerful, and you also didn't seem to like doing laser into anything. One last thing is I would recommend learning to Firebird stall by hitting away on the control stick and rolling it upwards to jump, then pressing B. It's way easier than trying to go straight down then straight back up. It also looked like you were doing your LHDLs like that because you went so high and got fsmashed. lol I highly recommend using Y as it gives you much more control while still letting you shoot extremely low lasers. I actually learned to LHDL by first learning to SHDL with Fox, and then just added in the downward press before the jump. [/COLLAPSE]
Hope this helps! ^_^

Real talk. Now that I look back with a closer eye, I do definitely identify more clear bad habits that I need to iron out. Blake's Marth and Falco scare me a bit right now, too, haha, so maybe that drew them out more than in the other matches, but who knows, no johns. And yeah, I do tech in place a lot, especially when I'm scared; my friends call me out on it all the time, haha. Trying to fix that, but it's so damn reflexive Guess I'll just have to try harder, lol. Thanks for the critique! It was definitely helpful.

If anyone has anything to say about any of the other matches, it would be highly appreciated

 

[Bones0]

Fear isn't always some random emotion that uncontrollably messing you up. It is quite often a reaction to someone covering your options. My training partner who uses Marth played PP at Zenith and he said he felt like he couldn't do anything even when PP wasn't attacking. It isn't just that PP is such a beast that his brain shut down, but rather he could sense PP cutting off all of his usual options that he does vs. me. My advice is to do your best to let go of your fear, and just commit more quickly to decisions. You have to recognize that hesitation almost never works in Melee. You can't DD for a split second longer to make sure of your spacing because if your gut told you to aerial then you have no time to lose. That extra DD or extra few frames you wait means the difference between a hit and getting shield grabbed. You want to keep in mind the risks of your decisions, but once you make the decision just deal with the punishes as they come.

As for tech in place, I would recommend trying to ALWAYS make a decision. I used to do the same thing (and still sort of do) because tech in place is just a good decision with spacies when you can shine out a lot. As long as you make it a conscious decision it is okay though. So when you get dash attacked, you have to work on recognizing that you are going to tech sooner, so that you can decide to tech in place or tech roll instead of just deciding to tech roll or defaulting to tech in place. Having default habits like this is what kills a lot of players, and they often don't catch on to their habits because they aren't making that decision consciously.

 

[Sion]

i really like zhu's first hit uair -> move(utilt usually)

too bad i suck too much to use it in actual game

 

[Mogwai]

i really like zhu's first hit uair -> move(utilt usually)

too bad i suck too much to use it in actual game

it's kinda gimmicky. I'm pretty sure it almost never actually combos, it's just a WTFFLASHY thing that catches people off balance.

 

[Bones0]

What? It's not gimmicky at all. I use it all the time. The only way they'll get out is if they SDI, and they have to pretty much guess what follow-up you'll use or else they'll just be SDIing into it. Plus trying to SDI those uairs will completely screw up your DI if they do anything else.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Done late enough, it's possible people trying to jump out on reaction would jump into the Utilt I believe. I've never seen this happen but I'm pretty sure it would at some (mid) percents even with SDI.

I never really use this but I probably should haha. I could always use help comboing Falco in a more reliable fashion. Before asking, that combo is more reliable right now because it is underused/underexposed to Youtube.

Updating the practicing post now btw. I'll confirm when it's done!

 

[Bones0]

I've never seen anyone jump out of it at all.

 

[Rubyiris]

Hey sion, I am the worst falco in smash history, and I use weak uair on a regular basis.

 

[Dr Peepee]

I've never seen anyone jump out of it at all.

Doesn't mean it can't happen. I imagine most people get caught off-guard. It's worth testing to see how and when it's doable because I really feel it is, especially at 80+%s, if not earlier.


I updated the practicing post(everything went into the Miscellaneous section+revising the teching section). Everyone tell me what you think. =)


How exactly is C Sticking down and Control Sticking down and to the side beneficial? I thought ASDI only came from one stick or the other if both were held?

 

[Xyzz]

I think it's especially fun if it messes up their tech window, because they expect a dair -> shine or sth :D
Wish I could do it reliably, but I'm only slowly beginning to see whether I will get it when grinding combos on low level CPUs. I don't go for it in real matches yet, because there's too much other stuff I'm mentally occupied with (with Falco I still have to think about the way I do stuff... one day he'll be there with Peach, where my brain basically delivers a combo - tree from the different combo starting move I might go for in the given situations with the different DI options my opponent might take, without me wasting one bit of conscious thought on it :D).


edit: @Peepee:
I'm fairly sure if you use both sticks, you can DI one way (probably/hopefully perpendicular to the original launching angle :D ), and ASDI another (C-stick gets priority here).

 

[Moooose]

Hey sion, I am the worst falco in smash history, and I use weak uair on a regular basis.

theres a difference between using a move to combo and using it to combo effectively

 

[Bones0]

How exactly is C Sticking down and Control Sticking down and to the side beneficial? I thought ASDI only came from one stick or the other if both were held?

ASDI comes at the end of hitlag, and moves you 3 units of distance (SDI is 6 units). You can ASDI with the control stick by simply holding it, but if you are holding the control stick and the C-stick, the C-stick overrides the control stick for ASDI. It's basically an easier (but less effective) version of quarter circle DIng becuase you don't have to time the SDI.

 

[Dr Peepee]

edit: @Peepee:
I'm fairly sure if you use both sticks, you can DI one way (probably/hopefully perpendicular to the original launching angle :D ), and ASDI another (C-stick gets priority here).

ASDI comes at the end of hitlag, and moves you 3 units of distance (SDI is 6 units). You can ASDI with the control stick by simply holding it, but if you are holding the control stick and the C-stick, the C-stick overrides the control stick for ASDI. It's basically an easier (but less effective) version of quarter circle DIng becuase you don't have to time the SDI.

First off, are you guys suggesting the same thing? If so then this makes sense.

So holding both sticks but in different directions is like(but not as effective) quarter-circling without rotating the control stick for SDI? If C stick overrides control stick as you say, then why control stick anything? Is it because you input a different direction then both come out as different ASDI inputs?

 

[Bones0]

Yeah, what he posted was correct, I just felt like elaborating.

As for your question, C-stick ONLY overrides ASDI. You can't DI or SDI with the C-stick. There is also no benefit from holding both sticks in the same direction because the control stick ASDIs when you aren't holding the C-stick. You could actually hold the C-stick and then go for a SDI so that in case you miss the SDI you still get ASDI, but those situations just don't come up a lot, and if you miss the SDI then you'll probably also miss the regular DI, which is way more important than both ASDI and SDI combined.

 

[Rubyiris]

theres a difference between using a move to combo and using it to combo effectively

I use it effectively. I'm still bad at smash.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Yeah, what he posted was correct, I just felt like elaborating.

As for your question, C-stick ONLY overrides ASDI. You can't DI or SDI with the C-stick. There is also no benefit from holding both sticks in the same direction because the control stick ASDIs when you aren't holding the C-stick. You could actually hold the C-stick and then go for a SDI so that in case you miss the SDI you still get ASDI, but those situations just don't come up a lot, and if you miss the SDI then you'll probably also miss the regular DI, which is way more important than both ASDI and SDI combined.

As long as this all means I should hold one stick one way and the one the other then I got this+will mess with it.

Thanks a lot for explaining it to me. =)

*writes this down*

curious now, what is the difference between ASDI and regular DI? I always thought they were the same. ASDI comes at the end of the move and does what exactly? And is DI the main influence in which direction you fly in?

 

[Bones0]

DI only affects trajectory. Easy way to remember this is that DIing Fox's uthrow up or down won't affect how far you go. When you get stomped, you DI to the side because it is perpendicular to the stomp's default trajectory. When you are talking about surviving a move, you have to take the blastzones into consideration. If a stage's ceiling is significantly higher than the side blastzones (FoD), you will want to DI higher by going slightly above perpendicular. On a stage like PS where the ceiling is low and the stage is really long, you will be more prone to DIing slightly less than perpendicular.

ASDI and SDI effectively do the same thing. There are three main differences:
1. ASDI is easier because you just hold the direction at the end of hitlag instead of having to smash the stick.
2. ASDI is not as effective as SDI because you only go 3 units instead of 6. I am pretty sure if you SDI you will still get ASDI though, so SDIing is effectively 9 units because you will probably never SDI something and then let go of the stick before hitlag ends.
3. You can ASDI into the ground to tech, but you cannot SDI into the ground to tech. ASDIing down is often mistaken for CCing. For instance, when a Puff player holds down after missing a rest, they aren't CCing (no reduced KB/stun), they are simply ASDIing into the ground so that they can get close enough to tech (or fall down entirely from weaker hits that let them stay lower to the ground).

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

^Just refer to that.
At the end of hitlag, the game will automatically smash DI for you a bit in the direction of the control stick (or C-stick if held). During that, you will DI and alter your trajectory.

 

[Bones0]

I saw that Xeylode! ;D

 

[Warhawk]

it's kinda gimmicky. I'm pretty sure it almost never actually combos, it's just a WTFFLASHY thing that catches people off balance.

I actually think it true combos on fast fallers at mid percents if it is done late enough, but they can still sdi out of the follow-up. I saw unknown post in the Fox boards that late uair->uptilt true combos with Fox on fast-fallers so I can't imagine its much different for Falco and I know I've tried it in training mode and it said it comboed but that combo counter is always one frame off so maybe I'm wrong.

 

[Dr Peepee]

DI only affects trajectory. Easy way to remember this is that DIing Fox's uthrow up or down won't affect how far you go. When you get stomped, you DI to the side because it is perpendicular to the stomp's default trajectory. When you are talking about surviving a move, you have to take the blastzones into consideration. If a stage's ceiling is significantly higher than the side blastzones (FoD), you will want to DI higher by going slightly above perpendicular. On a stage like PS where the ceiling is low and the stage is really long, you will be more prone to DIing slightly less than perpendicular.

ASDI and SDI effectively do the same thing. There are three main differences:
1. ASDI is easier because you just hold the direction at the end of hitlag instead of having to smash the stick.
2. ASDI is not as effective as SDI because you only go 3 units instead of 6. I am pretty sure if you SDI you will still get ASDI though, so SDIing is effectively 9 units because you will probably never SDI something and then let go of the stick before hitlag ends.
3. You can ASDI into the ground to tech, but you cannot SDI into the ground to tech. ASDIing down is often mistaken for CCing. For instance, when a Puff player holds down after missing a rest, they aren't CCing (no reduced KB/stun), they are simply ASDIing into the ground so that they can get close enough to tech (or fall down entirely from weaker hits that let them stay lower to the ground).

Ahhh wow great post, I'm saving that. Thanks again!

I actually think it true combos on fast fallers at mid percents if it is done late enough, but they can still sdi out of the follow-up. I saw unknown post in the Fox boards that late uair->uptilt true combos with Fox on fast-fallers so I can't imagine its much different for Falco and I know I've tried it in training mode and it said it comboed but that combo counter is always one frame off so maybe I'm wrong.

What percents/characters did you test that at?

 

[Warhawk]

Ok well I couldn't remember percents or characters from the fast time I did it (though I do know it was on a fast-faller) since it was awhile ago and half the time I did it on accident so I just tried another experiment on Fox and Falco with it where (as Falco) I shined them, then late uair'd into uptilt. I didn't do it very long but on Falco I could consistently get it to combo at 45% on Fox however I only got it to combo once at 40% and could not figure out how to get it again, but I didn't try it very long on either but later when I have more time I'll test it more.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Suggestion: Make sure you test lots of percents and timings each percent to see how long a combo is possible(and if it even is anytime). Impromptu tests for combos don't tell us very much. =(

Working around that tough 38%+ range after shine is a really good start though. It's when Dair starts knocking people into teching positions, so it would be neat if Falco could transition into weak hit Uair/Utilt then for free.

 

[Rubyiris]

Weak uair no tech reset is classy.

Sent from my LG-VM670 using Tapatalk 2

 

[EWC]

Another option to consider at that percent range after the shine is laser->stuff.

If you position it right, you can get laser to combo into shine or (reverse) uptilt. You can probably also get it to work with dtilt, grab, upsmash, dash attack, dsmash (useful at the ledge?), although I haven't tested those so much. But the frame data says they should work, it's just a matter of positioning.

 

[Warhawk]

Suggestion: Make sure you test lots of percents and timings each percent to see how long a combo is possible(and if it even is anytime). Impromptu tests for combos don't tell us very much. =(

Working around that tough 38%+ range after shine is a really good start though. It's when Dair starts knocking people into teching positions, so it would be neat if Falco could transition into weak hit Uair/Utilt then for free.

Yea I plan on working with more percents later I just wanted to quickly test the range where shine->dair combos start knocking people down so I started at 35%. I'll do more in-depth later as it doesn't seem that hard to get it to chain on Falco. Fox for some reason its really hard to chain on, I got it again at 45% one more time but I can't seem to get it with any kind of consistency. Weak uair->shine seems to work better on Fox but that seems like it would be more vulnerable to sdi.

 

[Mahone]

you should post all that practice on your own thing in melee discussion as its own thread, its more useful than anything thats going on there

 

[~Twitch~]

grapes .

 

[Dr Peepee]

Weak uair no tech reset is classy.

Sent from my LG-VM670 using Tapatalk 2

That's mean but oddly specific. It's good if you know for sure they won't tech I suppose haha.

Another option to consider at that percent range after the shine is laser->stuff.

If you position it right, you can get laser to combo into shine or (reverse) uptilt. You can probably also get it to work with dtilt, grab, upsmash, dash attack, dsmash (useful at the ledge?), although I haven't tested those so much. But the frame data says they should work, it's just a matter of positioning.

Have you factored SDI into this positioning equation? I've seen people get shines out on laser to Fsmash in the air and hit the Falco(in a ditto).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkWkda4fYUU

This is probably worth messing with more. I could see laser to shine or uptilt being REALLY good if one could quickly read the shine DI before lasering again.

Yea I plan on working with more percents later I just wanted to quickly test the range where shine->dair combos start knocking people down so I started at 35%. I'll do more in-depth later as it doesn't seem that hard to get it to chain on Falco. Fox for some reason its really hard to chain on, I got it again at 45% one more time but I can't seem to get it with any kind of consistency. Weak uair->shine seems to work better on Fox but that seems like it would be more vulnerable to sdi.

Well there are other ways to combo Fox without weak hit Uair so I'm not as concerned about that. The fact that it works better on Falco makes me happy to hear =)

Please let me know what you find out! I'll hopefully be looking into it soon as well(trying to practice lots more combo-related stuff).

you should post all that practice on your own thing in melee discussion as its own thread, its more useful than anything thats going on there

You're the second person who has recommended this.

If everyone thinks it is THAT good then I will post it there. I'd like to see a couple more people's input on it though. I don't want to just throw this stuff around in multiple places if they're finding it already, you know?

 

[Warhawk]

Worked some more with it and it works on Fox and Falco both, Falco it just seems like has a larger window where it combos him and its less timing dependent (but still requires a lot of timing with how late and low you do the uair). It doesn't seem to link into itself very well though from what I could do with it, but either way it gives you an uptilt after your standard shine->dair combos even if they DI away the last shine which is good because uptilt easily leads into a bunch of other stuff. Now weak uair->shine leads into itself for awhile, but I didn't test as much with that because it looks easier to sdi out of.

Still haven't tried weak uair->uptilt on Falcon, but I'm not sure it really matters since he's pretty easy to combo even after your standard dair->shine combos stop working. It might not true combo on him because he's heavier but he also doesn't have a shine to interrupt your combos with, so for all intents and purposes it probably combos him too.