PPMD's Falco Discussion Thread

[Rubyiris]

fighting as double falco when there's a TaJ on the field is suicide.

 

[unknown522]

Oh yeah?

 

[Bones0]

When you get pinned in shield by the ledge, you always (or very frequently) go for an early dair OoS towards them.

Better get scopin' on that. :3

 

[stabbedbyanipple]

*snip*

Thank you!

*snip*

And thank you

Oh yeah?

Roflllllllllllllllllllll

 

[Deleted member]

falco has 2 roles in teams

- 2-4 hit combos that end in dair for low % KOs or to set up time/positional advantage
- lasers to save his teammate.

if you play falco in teams and don't know what to do, focus on those two things. remember that if you have to choose between "finishing" a combo or just leaving the opponent in a bad position, it's usually better to just leave them in a bad position. if you're not sure what a bad position is, just play more and always look out for it until you figure it out intuitively.

 

[JPOBS]

guys, remember when we used to think falco's grabs were bad and didnt combo into stuff?

lol

 

[Bones0]

Falco's grabs don't combo into anything. People are just too lazy to SDI lasers. As soon as they catch on, we're ****ed.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Falco's grabs don't combo into anything. People are just too lazy to SDI lasers. As soon as they catch on, we're ****ed.

If you throw fast enough/with solid conditioning, then sometimes it doesn't matter if they know to do that or not.

Falco has some sweet throw mixups(hence the conditioning[in part]).

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Even if they do react, you're falco and they're above you... ****

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

Falco ruins people if they are below him (dair!).

Even if they do react, you're falco and they're above you... ****

Falco ruins people if they are above him.

What if one falco Uthrows another falco? Which falco gets wrecked?
Paradox...

 

[Deleted member]

guys, remember when we used to think falco's grabs were bad and didnt combo into stuff?

lol

no, i don't remember that.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Falco ruins people if they are below him (dair!).

Falco ruins people if they are above him.

What if one falco Uthrows another falco? Which falco gets wrecked?
Paradox...

The one in hitstun. If neither is in hitstun, whoever puts the other into hitstun first wins.

 

[Tirno]

It's simple. We kill the Falco.

 

[Xyzz]

Falco ruins people no matter where they are on the stage :D

 

[JPOBS]

no, i don't remember that.

must be the alzheimers, old timer.

 

[Supreme Dirt]

Oh god help me I'm slowly gravitating towards Falco why

 

[Bones0]

Because he has cool combos and you haven't experienced being gimped 24/7 yet.

 

[KirbyKaze]

Oh god help me I'm slowly gravitating towards Falco why

Because good characters are more fun to play than bad characters

At least in Melee, anyway

 

[Cactuar]

Because more options are better than less options.

 

[Deleted member]

must be the alzheimers, old timer.

I think it's more like "speak for yourself", i've been telling falco players to base their first hit games on shine or grab since before your join date.

that and fox-style nairs on retreating opponents (DD back, WD back)

 

[ShroudedOne]

Oh god help me I'm slowly gravitating towards Falco why

There are varying amounts of fraudulence and dishonesty in each one of us. When we can no longer deny these base desires that remain locked deep within us...we begin to play Falco.

Embrace it...there is no turning back.

 

[Xyzz]

Come to the dark side of the force, we have lasers? :D

 

[Dark Hart]

Kevin how do I dash dance with Falco?

 

[Bones0]

Kevin how do I dash dance with Falco?

Left, then right, then left again, and then just repeat that over and over again.

Spoiler

You can also begin with right, then left, then right, etc. It's a little trickier though. I just look at my controller while I'm doing it to make sure I don't mess up.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Kevin how do I dash dance with Falco?

1. Establish a threat of laser/retreating Bair.

2. Laser from safe/appropriate distances to help establish that threat.

3. Dash instead of laser.

4. Ask questions for more in-depth stuff. That question's too vague and I don't wanna write on this all day when I have old stuff to catch up on lol.

 

[Dr Peepee]

melee isn't solved. of all the characters, i think falco is the most (correctly) understood.

if you don't think the character is solved, we can go into some gritty detail with it. i'll go as far down the rabbit hole as you're willing to go, chief.

we should talk about how to pin marth from neutral without risking a dash attack under your laser. that would actually have some merit in this thread, since marth's spam dash attack these days whether its a set-up or blind.

what i do is i dash/SH "at" marth but not in that horrible way that i say to never do, but far away enough where you're not actually committing to anything. aggressive movement behavior generally triggers marth to do 1 of 2 things:

1. dashdance
2. not dashdance

if they DD by reflex, i make it a point to try to laser him after the dash away but before he can both turn around and dash attack. when marth is facing backwards, his ground control and defensive options are much more limited so my rate of exchange is exceedingly favorable. for marth to deal with this properly, he has to admit that he was caught off guard, respect falco's advantage, and forfeit a part of the stage, but then his dashdance is much worse too. this circumvents both the risk from dash attack, but it also uses dashdancing against marth to limit the tactic and to reverse momentum on him.

if the opponent doesn't dashdance or dashdances poorly (same thing) you know you're in the clear to mash buttons at him and you don't have to actually play around what the character can do.

this is also a general idea of what i mean when i say that falco has "free stage control everywhere forever".

Getting this stuff done gradually, bare with me people.

Falco could be most correctly understood in this metagame, but then how does that explain the large differences in the playstyles and sometimes even fundamental choices between Mango and myself? Would we attribute this to Melee not being solved, Melee possibly being unsolvable/having different solutions, 1 or both of us having some inaccurate solutions, etc?

Falco avoids getting dash attacked by Marth when he shoots low lasers+doesn't laser predictably. Marth can't dash attack on reaction when Falco shoots, so he has to try and condition or bait Falco into doing a bad laser he can punish. Combining that move with powershielding could yield interesting results though.....ENOUGH OF THIS it's Falco boards not Marth boards lol.


DD'ing allows people to turn around on 1 frame, so why would Marth dashing backward be susceptible to lasering in then? Further, Marth's PS when dashing away is realllly easy to do, so that'd be playing into his hands. Sure, he might be kinda forced to do it if you can condition him to do so, but that may not be the matchup/Falco being broken if the tables get turned/the player gets outplayed.
I will admit that I feel I have to retreat as Marth against Falco to get an opening, but I do not see that as an OP part of Falco so much as the way one must fight him. They have to draw him in or trick him into committing in an unsafe fashion. If he doesn't come in then the opponent can take stage and throw off Falco's momentum very well. Falco can't handle someone coming in on him unless he AC Bairs(meh) or FHs(which Marth is quite okay with).

What if Marth swings and trades with Falco as Falco comes in? That's not necessarily bad. Also, CC/ASDI down.


Long story short, I agree that Falco is probably most solved atm, but that doesn't mean he is close to being solved. I disagree with that. It also doesn't mean he has free range of stage control because the other characters must develop ways to counter Falco's control(which many Europeans have, such as Armada or IVP).

 

[Dr Peepee]

shinegrab is basically a free grab whenever you want it

it seems like the reason top players dont do it as much is because they value a clean dair hit way more than a grab, so if they only get the clean hit like 1/5 of the time theyd still take it over the grab

i dont think this is correct in many matchups, but i believe they could be right in some mus and maybe there is more to it than that

shine-turnaround grabs are especially free, i have never had one of those not work because no one expects it i guess

except for like fox shine oos, most of the the common mus solution to dodging shinegrab is so ****ty for them, like spotdodge or rolling, so i dont understand how people count that as a huge negative towards doing it...

also, you can easily adapt to them avoiding it and do the axe doubleshine where u waveland the platform with the 2nd airborne shine and now u've suddenly netted a clean shine hit from your shinegrab usage

also, also, when factoring advantage on shield you dont have to worry about the staleness of moves since it uses its base damage for the calculations...

i feel like ive seen people arguing about how good shinegrab is talk about how stale the shine is but that shouldnt matter...

i could be wrong about this, but its easy to test so one of u can try it and let me know


uh.... some other falco stuff

ive seen even top players use falco's run way too much when moving around...

once i realized that his walk was faster i have tried to only use that, you just move the stick a little to the right then u can slam it all the way and you'll walk, you just have to make sure u dont just start moving by slamming it all the way or ull run

it really helps because you have all your ****ing options at all times and its faster so i cant understand why i see top players still running in so many spots and barely not getting to their opponent in time

also ive testing angled upwards forward tilt more vs peach float and it still works really well against one of the common peach float heights

shortening is still broken... i remember talking to bones about how its so ******** people dont do it more since you can just set up to edgecancel a platform then shorten to grab the ledge so its really hard to edgegaurd it in A LOT of spots

i still cant shielddrop for **** but i know thats broken... when i played bones he kept shielddroping to shine when he was on a platform and i was attacking from above... the shine like platformcancels??, im not sure if thats the right term but basically if u shielddrop shine u stay above the platform, it seemed that the shine hit me regardless of how late i did the dair on his shield but im not 100% sure if shielddrop shine always beats that

i cant think of anything else atm, im just hella bored and main falco now so i thought id post this

shine grab isn't always free because of staling. depends on the character/conditioning though. your other reasoning about clean hits is also part of the reason shine grabs aren't overused.

I've decided I should shine turnaround grab more lol. That junk too goods.

Wait what are you talking about stale moves not affecting shields? I'm pretty sure I've seen staleness keep me from getting what would have been a free shine grab....can you give me some backup on that idea?

Axe double shine is indeed very good. His double shine waveland Dair thingy I saw at FC in one of his sets particularly interested me in how it worked out. Axe being fast during pressure nets him a lot of hits and I should really keep that in mind. I like what his pressure does.

Walk is super good and I should use it more. I know I'm guilty of running at some silly times and it's just a habit. I'll try to break it more.

I'm still kinda iffy on up angled Ftilt beating a good Peach float height. I need a decent Peach to test this with......

ya, it feels like it comes out faster, im sure it does but not sure by how much.

and its much easier...

like if u do the shielddrop right, ull automatically have a super fast low shine, but with shine oos, there is a lot of variance on how fast you do it

and im talking about getting the shine off before their shine... like i said it felt like u can beat the latest dair shine with shielddrop shine and hit them after their dair but before their shine

late dair to shine is not able to be shined oos normally

didn't know that. nifty

 

[ShroudedOne]

Perhaps he meant that moves done on shield do not go into the "stale moves queue" (that is to say that if you dair a shield, it doesn't stale), and worded it oddly, but stale moves deal less shieldstun. Shieldstun uses the damage of the move at that point in time, not the base damage.

 

[Dr Peepee]

i think this argument approaches the idea of utility vs decision-making. your attacks have different properties and you can use them for advanced purposes. your style is how you choose to use them and what utility you choose to focus on. different characters have different responses to dealing with what your attacks can do, and that's also part of your style.

consider m2k's marth. if you randomly pause the match with m2k's marth in it, he is going to be within 1 WD length of the edge like 90% of the time. jason focuses on marth's ability to cut off options near the edge to force a no-win situation. however, this also forfeits a lot of the stage control and it might be one of the contributing factors as to why he's so bad against falco or jigglypuff.

there are certainly many directions to take character interaction, since there are many complex interactions and those change value depending where they happen as well. a very basic approach is to maximize the ability of your character, or to minimize the ability of your opponent's character. once you decide what your game plan is, you need to execute it to the best of your ability.

for example, let's say that we've decided that m2k's marth is soft to falco because he doesn't assume stage control. he fixes this by assuming center stage for stage control, and working his neutral game positioning to minimize the influence of lasers and to gain the best utility that he can out of his grabs. even with no relative change in skill level, his marth is going to be significantly harder for you to beat simply because his decision to play that way is stronger against your character.

while this method has always been my style of choice, I tend to lean more towards minimizing the utility of my opponent rather than maximizing my own because I play predominantly low tier. I think it is better for better characters to maximize their ability with attention to detail and refinement. I know I tend to give you the hyperbolized and facile version of these methods for the humor value, but the focus has remained the same.

Why couldn't you play both? Why couldn't you trade off between maximizing your own character and minimizing your opponent's character?

Your method is not wrong, but I can't tell how to really feel about it because it encompasses so much. What is maximizing my character's ability and where does that line cut off from minimizing my opponent's utility? Is it meant to be subjective? If so, then where would this line be for you? If not, why?

 

[Bones0]

I'm still kinda iffy on up angled Ftilt beating a good Peach float height. I need a decent Peach to test this with......

I wasn't a believer until I saw him do it live like 3-4 times... IN A ROW. o_o

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Professor Urine, you have 23,714 posts, how do you expect me to catch up to you when you quadruple post (i dont count the ninja by shrouded) and hide behind the red name tag.

 

[Deleted member]

Why couldn't you play both? Why couldn't you trade off between maximizing your own character and minimizing your opponent's character?

Your method is not wrong, but I can't tell how to really feel about it because it encompasses so much. What is maximizing my character's ability and where does that line cut off from minimizing my opponent's utility? Is it meant to be subjective? If so, then where would this line be for you? If not, why?

You're thinking too hard. You do both actively, and you choose whichever is more effective. For example, you can use your lasers to 1.) disable your opponent's ground defense, or 2.) enable your own offense. Do the one that's most effective.

For example, Zelda doesn't have things that you or I would describe as "effective" so I usually craft her positioning game to mitigate how easily my opponents can just ignore me if they ever feel like it- let's be honest, you rarely have to actually worry or care about fighting Zelda. But your opponents should rightly fear your Falco, and you should use everything you can to make your Falco better, or your opponent's character worse. Since goodness in competitive games is naturally relative, it usually ends up being the same thing.

 

[Dr Peepee]

I wasn't a believer until I saw him do it live like 3-4 times... IN A ROW. o_o

Is it just out of the float height or out of her FC aerial?

You're thinking too hard. You do both actively, and you choose whichever is more effective. For example, you can use your lasers to 1.) disable your opponent's ground defense, or 2.) enable your own offense. Do the one that's most effective.

For example, Zelda doesn't have things that you or I would describe as "effective" so I usually craft her positioning game to mitigate how easily my opponents can just ignore me if they ever feel like it- let's be honest, you rarely have to actually worry or care about fighting Zelda. But your opponents should rightly fear your Falco, and you should use everything you can to make your Falco better, or your opponent's character worse. Since goodness in competitive games is naturally relative, it usually ends up being the same thing.

So they both happen together? Cool

 

[Bones0]

He did it as Peach floated towards him. I tried it a few times just today at a tourney and it didn't really work. lol

 

[DoH]

I'm still kinda iffy on up angled Ftilt beating a good Peach float height. I need a decent Peach to test this with......

Come over kevin

 

[Dr Peepee]

I can't just come over anymore!

Bones: So this means it's when she descends then, which is slightly more believable. Even so Peach could just start her FC (probably Fair) aerial early and beat it if Falco is facing forward, but that honestly seems like a handy mixup to have if it works anyway.

 

[Supreme Dirt]

turns out the Falco thing was just gas.

 

[Bones0]

I can't just come over anymore!

Bones: So this means it's when she descends then, which is slightly more believable. Even so Peach could just start her FC (probably Fair) aerial early and beat it if Falco is facing forward, but that honestly seems like a handy mixup to have if it works anyway.

It might be nifty if they are trapped at the ledge and you see them FH up to float height. I wouldn't actually just do it as they're floating towards me because of what you said about just fairing sooner.

 

[ruhtraeel]

Grounded shine OoS is easy, into SH or FH

Why is WD forward/backward out of grounded shine OoS so hard

 

[Bones0]

Critique me! :D

As always, I'm not really looking for play-by-play critiques (though if that helps you and you don't mind the extensiveness of it, go for it). I'm mostly in need of general things to think about/work on/experiment with. Any specific situations you want to point out would also be helpful.

WB1: Bones (Falco) vs. Arkadia (Sheik)

WB2: Bones (Falco/Fox) vs. DoH (Peach)

LB3: Bones (Falco) vs. BigWenz (Falco/Dr. Mario)

LB4: Bones (Falco) vs. KlunkyMonkey (Ganondorf)

Bones (Falco/Fox) vs. Nintendude (Peach)


[COLLAPSE=My thoughts on my gameplay]I attended a tournament last Saturday, and even though I didn't really beat anyone I haven't before, I felt pretty good about my game play. For the first time, I felt like I was really in control of my brain during matches. I wasn't constantly spacing out or preoccupied with something else, and the general effect that has on my game play is really beneficial. Not only did I feel like I was making smarter decisions, but I was noticing things I was doing wrong or suboptimally. I think my next tournament I will focus on fixing these things as fast as possible. Especially since the sets I play in will only last 2-3 games, it was killing me to be noticing stuff and not being able to adapt quickly enough to benefit from my knowledge. The one example that stuck out to me was in my first set vs. Arkadia's Sheik. I kept LHDLing despite getting punished multiple times for it, and I noticed this during the game, but was unable to quickly implement all of my alternative options that I've practiced (ledgedash, LH Phantasm, WL onto plat, etc). This even carried over to my other sets where I had more instances of getting wrecked for LHDLing when other options would have been great at turning the tide.

The other major thing I was happy with was how I avoided too many habitual situations (which I know sounds like what I just said I did bad at, but it's slightly different). Too often I get stuck in patterns of dumb things (thanks PP and KirbyKaze for pointing this out in my previous videos). I made it a point to avoid shield dropping unnecessarily and repeating the same attack just because I failed using it already. I still did some dumb and pointless things in between stocks that could have costed me (stupid tech skill stuff mainly), but as far as actual combat went, I think I did good at picking the option based on the situation instead of picking the option first and forcing it into whatever situation came up. This is something I think a lot of players do and sometimes get away with too often. For instance, I will notice my opponent at a high % and start looking for fsmash openings instead of noticing openings for fsmash and immediately evaluating whether or not it's the optimal option.

A final thing I'm not too sure about and would like to hear someone's opinion on was my lasering. I didn't really notice during the tournament, but after watching a few of my videos, I am wondering if I didn't laser enough. I guess I was so preoccupied with spacing my attacks properly that I wasn't focused enough on spacing my SHLs, but maybe it was also just the characters I played against making lasers a little trickier (Peach's float, Doc's cape). Maybe it wasn't a problem at all, and using lasers sparingly is why I did as good as I did, idk.[/COLLAPSE]