PPMD's Falco Discussion Thread

[Beat!]

i saw one the other day that i thought was awesome, it was a drag and click picture. i spent a solid hour looking around on it. thats about the begging and end of my exposure to it. i've been meaning to go back and look at more of them, but homework death has stopped me thus far.

Oh yeah, that one's cool.

Although I asked because of this comic:

 

[Stevo]

Oh yeah, that one's cool.

Although I asked because of this comic:

That was a good one lol.

I legitimately used that on people for a month straight after seeing that comic

 

[Veetaak]

lol, what a scumbaggy thing to say

 

[Bones0]

Mizuki imposter incoming!

 

[Squirt]

omg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1m1a_qYvWdc&feature=g-user-u

Not much else I can think about. Mango's falco is just beautiful to watch.

 

[MattDotZeb]

Just rewatched my BH2 matches... Tunnel vision is a dangerous foe in Melee. -_-

Gonna tap at ROM and APEX.

On topic: Falco dittos! Yay.

Athletes most certainly are affected by this state of being. Having your entire body function perfectly without conscious thought and performing your best on one of the few instances it "counts" is pretty crucial, but of course inconsistent.

That next question is a subject of a lot of debate(or it should be). On one hand, it stands to reason that you can recreate that state of being much more often if you think about the game very often, do things that put you in the proper successful state like when you did it once(maybe you ate toast that morning or listened to some dumb song, doesn't matter what if it works). On the other hand, intuitive knowledge is pretty, well, intuitive....so it's hard to just concretely nail down what can be done to maximize its benefits other than simply keeping your mind on what you hope the intuitive knowledge will help you with and hoping for the best.

On the subject of intuitive knowledge: Your intuition improves the more you place yourself in various situations that you need to think to get out of. All intuition is is quickly processing information gathered from past experiences and choosing the decision route that feels the most effective to you. You best learn from feedback which, if you're looking for it and quickly processing your movements to respond it, you can receive plenty of while you play melee.

tl;dr -- Play lots of melee when you're in a state of hard focus and you'll get better.

PS. The more you play in hard focus the longer you'll be able to maintain this state. Your mind is a muscle. Play once or twice a day under serious focus (Really requires only 3-4 times a week, though... 1-2 a day is more for learning other matters educationally or musically, but it wouldn't hurt) -- preferably in the morning and afternoon because the evening time is the worst time for most people mentally speaking (of course, this is relative to your sleep schedule. "afternoon" for you could be 8pm). Stop playing when you notice you begin to drift, or can't focus on the match as much as you previously were.

This isn't to say don't take occasions where you sit down and play for 5 hours or more at a fest or whathaveyou, though. You'll need that endurance for tournaments.

 

[Strong Badam]

WRONG THREAD it's bones' fault

 

[Bones0]

Got 'em.

 

[Deleted member]

falco's shine is basically a rest that you can jump cancel.

discuss.

 

[Bones0]

Multiresting.

 

[Vixen]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yy0GYdTobzE&feature=youtube_gdata_player

any advice? I suggest watching one early game and maybe a game or two close to the end of the segment when I get a better feel for what I was doing wrong in the beginning

 

[Deleted member]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yy0GYdTobzE&feature=youtube_gdata_player

any advice?

stop missing free hits.

when you shine or grab them, do lots of damage.

 

[Mahone]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yy0GYdTobzE&feature=youtube_gdata_player

any advice? I suggest watching one early game and maybe a game or two close to the end of the segment when I get a better feel for what I was doing wrong in the beginning

ill probably watch it all later and give more... but for now, ill give my half-asleep advice

*all this advice is for falco matches, i didnt watch fox at all

you tend to just shine after aerials out of habit like a lot of falco players, i think it happens cuz we are so used to playing cpus.. idk, anyway, if u rewatch ull see a lot of spots where u hit with a dair or nair and miss the shine when u could have reacted and fsmashed or jabbed or grabbed or something else

a general thing that relates to the first thing is that you don't play reactively enough, i think you just plan out a series of events (like im going to dair shine, dair shine shine waveland), when it would be beneficial sometimes to just wait a millisecond every so often and react... falco is really good at doing this because he is so goddamn scary, but ofc if they start just nairing oos everytime you wait or hitting you, you can adapt, however, often times they will roll or try to get out of ur pressure (not only shield pressure, even if u just have center stage, or hit them with a laser, etc.), especially if u mix up waiting with strong pressure

you didnt seem to deal with sheik landing on stage too well... i think if u can perfect waveland that can help alot, although thats just in theory ive never seen it or tried it, but otherwise just bair her off again, or at least practice hitting the dair correctly, u kept hitting with the wrong part

- the match im currently watching ur struggling to hit low "reset" lasers, maybe something to practice

when on the ledge u seem to regrab a lot and think about how to get on, and i just wanna say that wavelanding the platforms with falco is SOOOOO GOOD... i really feel like its a super underrated way of getting off the edge, its not one dimensional either, u have different lengths of the plat u can go, different options off the end, idk, i just really think its one of his strongest options and it looked like the sheik was in the right spacing for u to take advantage of it a lot

wow, whatever match it is at time 1:07, you played the whole match really well, fixed a lot of the above problems so im not sure if its just a consistently issue

i think one thing that helped is that u used more dash attack, which i find really good vs sheik

stop rising dairing sheik off the ledge ahahha, please just punish her for upbing on stage

ughh... my roommates want me to play dota with them... i hate dota. anyway ill finish this later

 

[Vixen]

ill reply later.
hard to read and reply whilst watching my matches on a phone.

 

[Bones0]

Can anyone give me a breakdown of the ICs matchup from neutral? Once I get a hit I feel like I'm doing fine. I'm good at keeping them separated while protecting myself, and with a little more practice I'll be able to gimp Nana really quickly. The problem is getting that hit. I will be staying up on side plats to keep away from blizzard and wavesmash stuff, but then my option of jumping off the plat and dairing onto their shield seems super telegraphed and just doesn't work. Lasers also seem pointless because of Nana. I'm also not sure what do with my grabs. Uthrow and bthrow feel like they leave me too vulnerable to the other IC, and fthrow/dthrow I just don't know how to followup because they can shield before I can do anything.

 

[Wenbobular]

Laser often hits both
Once they're shielding just be able to Lcancel on 2 shields and you're good to go

Should've seen my almost 4 stock comeback on Nintendude I was playing pretty good on my last stock

 

[Bones0]

I didn't know laser could hit both. Is that some IC-specific trait?

 

[Vixen]

When at neutral i laser in place a lot because lol PP.

what you want to do is space your laser approach so that you can laser shine immediately. laser aerial and laser grab are usually too slow, so you go for laser shines until you condition them to expect it.

if ice climbers go above you, poke the platforms. If they try to WD back, shoot more lasers.

if they want to WD in to you, I like do go for a deep dair. The way I time it is short hop > Ff/Dair simultaniously after the apex of the short hop, usually with max distance in mind. You hit them at the very bottom of their shield and usually shield stab nana in the process. It's something I've only ever seen european Falcos do, and it's really strong.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Can anyone give me a breakdown of the ICs matchup from neutral? Once I get a hit I feel like I'm doing fine. I'm good at keeping them separated while protecting myself, and with a little more practice I'll be able to gimp Nana really quickly. The problem is getting that hit. I will be staying up on side plats to keep away from blizzard and wavesmash stuff, but then my option of jumping off the plat and dairing onto their shield seems super telegraphed and just doesn't work. Lasers also seem pointless because of Nana. I'm also not sure what do with my grabs. Uthrow and bthrow feel like they leave me too vulnerable to the other IC, and fthrow/dthrow I just don't know how to followup because they can shield before I can do anything.

Zhu broke it down in a pretty cool way, saying that staying at a range inside ICs WD range was awesome because then they can't really touch you without WD'ing back first or committing to something obvious. Doing that and lasering into Dtilt is tight because ICs get stunned/stabbed by Dtilt pretty hard and opens up more stage for you regardless.

Move off of platforms with lasers usually and maybe space Bairs other times. Just getting level with them while close and your laser is out is pretty tight though.

Dthrow is the best according to ICs but it's gotten me shield grabbed by Chu before iirc. I try to Fthrow when they are going to move OOS or panic when I get close because then I knock them both away. I should mess with more grabs but I just don't because it's kinda risky and I never fight ICs lol.

Oh yeah, and spacing Dair/Fsmash is also awesome.

Oh yeah oh yeah, and doing any poke and then going in with like Dair/Dtilt is sweet because then you start shield stabbing and the ICs players tend to freak out before that happens so free hits come up then.

 

[Bones0]

Thanks guys, I'll mess around with that stuff.

 

[S.D]

Hi guys, first time posting in this thread so hi.

Wanting some critique on my vs Marth game; it's easily my worst matchup and my play gets really jerky when the spacing gets tight between characters. Anyway - anything would be appreciated - these vids are from the most recent Australian national - I won but I'm really not too happy with how I played it vs Marth.

GF vs Dekar (Marth matches start at game 2 (3:00)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TES_PK2h-NU&feature=plcp

WF vs Syke
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lxe1aV6eOwM&feature=relmfu

Thanks in advance people.

 

[Vixen]

@Mahone:

A lot of the issues you mentioned I was aware of. That's why I mentioned to try out a match or two later in the segment, because I had time to adjust my gameplay.

It's both a matter of consistency, and I'm still kind of rusty/relearning everything I knew back in March/April.

Good advice as always.

 

[Bones0]

Hi guys, first time posting in this thread so hi.

Wanting some critique on my vs Marth game; it's easily my worst matchup and my play gets really jerky when the spacing gets tight between characters. Anyway - anything would be appreciated - these vids are from the most recent Australian national - I won but I'm really not too happy with how I played it vs Marth.

GF vs Dekar (Marth matches start at game 2 (3:00)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TES_PK2h-NU&feature=plcp

WF vs Syke
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lxe1aV6eOwM&feature=relmfu

Thanks in advance people.

GF vs. Dekar

Game 2:
3:10 - On all of those throws you could have slid off onto the ledge.
3:50 - Use Firebird stall instead of DJing. It's faster allowing you to finetune your invincibility to restart right before he's within range.

Game 4:
9:45 - I probably would have uaired there just because it's easier to combo off of, especially on PS where you don't have a top plat.
10:25 - Same thing.


WF vs. Syke:

Game 1:
0:45 - You should have dropped through with a laser.
1:25 - A slide off would have been better than a techroll.
2:20 - Shine stall for Randall.
2:25 - You did a RSHL and then tried to jump back at him. That tempo of laser to aerial kills a lot of Falcos because you become really predictable. Mixing in a quick DD or more lasers keeps him from just spamming fair OoS, and it will give you more safe approach opportunities.

Game 2:
5:15 - You miss way too many techs that should be automatic.

Game 4:
13:45 - Another predictable laser to aerial attempt.

Game 5:
15:10 - If you're just buffering stuff out of techs, I recommend rolling more often than spotdodging. Spotdodges only help if you guessed their grab properly, and since he didn't seem to be grabbing much, rolling makes it harder for him to figure out where you're going because you have two options instead of him just focusing on one area and getting 50-50 potshots vs. spotdodges.



Overall:
- You seem to JC your shines really slowly, and it's making it harder for you to combo.
- You miss a lot of L-cancels when you run off plats and FF.
- I think you could afford to laser a little more, especially since neither player was powershielding at all.
- You mess up a lot of Isai drop lasers.
- You laser too slowly in general. If you laser and FF asap during a SH, it will go at Marth's head height. Because he is dashing a lot you will want to shoot lower, but you do not need to delay your FF. Only delay the timing of your lasers (unless you are intentionally delaying it as a mixup to catch OoS movement or something like that).
- I don't know why you want PS vs. Marth so bad. It's almost as bad as FD, and in some ways it's even worse because he gets easy KO setups on the platforms. The only way it's going to play out in your favor is if you emphasize lasers and really force them to try and chase you.
- You never space with WD.

 

[S.D]

Thanks Bones, appreciate your time.

Question re: JC my shines slowly - generally I'll WD out of shine to cover good DI - this way even if they get a strong/correct DI I can chase but still have time to do standard combos if they pop straight up. Not sure if this is what you noticed (because it does make the combo timing harder in general) or whether I was just slow out of shine.

Re: the 3:50 comment about firebird stall - the DJ in that instance was to avoid the threat of a DJ fair from Marth in that spot. As it was he just side b and saved jump, but I feel like the DJ there and on Marth's upb to avoid hitboxes is pretty handy and avoids the awkward situation when you get caught stalling without invincibility, take a hit and get gimped for it. I agree that overall the firebird is a better overall stall for the purposes you mentioned.

I was choosing PS because for some reason we were still allowed a ban with the limited stage list BF was banned, I wasn't going FD and FoD was last stage I won. I guess DL is possibly better for the match though now you mention it.

You're right about the spotdodge, I fell into a bad habit in the day because most of the poorer players fall for it every time and give me a free shine, generally I'll try to avoid spamming spotdodge. That being said what do you recommend as a standard response from wake up against Marth? I've never really found anything super safe, but rolling is probably a start.

Any other critiques would be appreciated

 

[Bones0]

Thanks Bones, appreciate your time.

Question re: JC my shines slowly - generally I'll WD out of shine to cover good DI - this way even if they get a strong/correct DI I can chase but still have time to do standard combos if they pop straight up. Not sure if this is what you noticed (because it does make the combo timing harder in general) or whether I was just slow out of shine.

Re: the 3:50 comment about firebird stall - the DJ in that instance was to avoid the threat of a DJ fair from Marth in that spot. As it was he just side b and saved jump, but I feel like the DJ there and on Marth's upb to avoid hitboxes is pretty handy and avoids the awkward situation when you get caught stalling without invincibility, take a hit and get gimped for it. I agree that overall the firebird is a better overall stall for the purposes you mentioned.

I was choosing PS because for some reason we were still allowed a ban with the limited stage list BF was banned, I wasn't going FD and FoD was last stage I won. I guess DL is possibly better for the match though now you mention it.

You're right about the spotdodge, I fell into a bad habit in the day because most of the poorer players fall for it every time and give me a free shine, generally I'll try to avoid spamming spotdodge. That being said what do you recommend as a standard response from wake up against Marth? I've never really found anything super safe, but rolling is probably a start.

Any other critiques would be appreciated

@Slow JC
I was talking about the actual JC. I also WD for the hard to reach DI so that I can get the other one, but I don't think you can legitimately combo if you're wasting frames trying to react to their DI before WDing. I would just recommend WDing in place if you really don't know which way they might go because you can almost always just get a FH nair from the WD in place. I did notice the slow JCing even in situations where the DI was obvious like when he was trapped at the ledge or when you were just DJing straight out of the shine instead of waveshining.

@Firebird stall
Frame perfect Firestall is invinc, and obviously that's not reliable for humans, but you should still be able to achieve a speed that leaves you vulnerable for ~5 frames max. As a general rule, you should get on the ledge as late as possible (i.e. grab right before he is within range of DJ fair or just drifting down and side-Bing). From there you can refresh your invinc during his side-B stalls, or you can use ledgestand dsmashes to beat early up-Bs on reaction. If they are ever close enough to hit, you'll want to shine-bair/dair or just drop down DJ bair/dair, though most Marths avoid getting that close.

This is an old vid, but it has a good example of how I approach edgeguards. At 1:30, I hop onto the ledge and do my Firestall so that I regrab the ledge right before he can hit me with a fair. With my new invinc, he has drifted about halfway down to sweetspot height. If he waited a split second more to up-B, I would have simply rolled and he'd die. If Marth still has his good side-B, I'd recommend using a ledgestand right before you think he would up-B. This way if he up-Bs your invince from the stand will last long enough that you can dsmash his up-B, but if he side-B stalls you have time to get back onto the ledge. So instead of going too far down, he is forced to up-B at which point you just do LH bair/dair (mixing up trying to catch DI away with bairs or DI in with dairs for a double spike KO). If you go back and envision me DJing to regrab instead of Firestalling, you can see how I become exposed to more things. He could simply react and side-B me or up-B into me. He could also airdodge towards the stage knowing I am not going to have enough time to get back to the ledge and then LH an attack. Firestalling tightens that window so I am on the ledge as often as possible, and the only time I leave I am invinc for 95% of the time. That 5% for human error will you will be vulnerable is simply worked around by timing the initial grab and reacting to side-B stalls with another Firestall.

@Picking PS
I think DL is definitely the best stage vs. Marth, but I also think FoD is a close second. The platforms are awful for him a lot of the time because they are too low for him to just sit there and utilt/uair. He also can't auto-tipper all of your tech options from a single position when the plats are low. Then you also have the fact that Falco's combos on FoD are amazing when you are comfortable with dairing onto low plats. Then there's ALSO the fact that low plats mean you can easily reach Marth on plats with bairs (and even dairs) from underneath. SHIELD POKE HIM ALL DAY. I highly recommend getting as used to FoD's low plats as possible, and you will find it good vs. Marth in no time. After DL and FoD, it's sort of a tie between YS and BF. I like YS because I am pretty strong when it comes to not getting shield grabbed or gimped so being by the ledge a lot doesn't bother me. Some people prefer the extra space on BF for lasering, and if the opponent is bad vs. lasers, that might be the smarter option. I would say Marth's combos are slightly better on YS as well, so if you find yourself getting stuck on the top plat constantly, BF might be a good choice.

@Spotdodge
The best standard response vs. Marth out of wakeup is to not have a standard response. lol Doing the same thing most of the time is always just going to make it easy for them to adapt. You also shouldn't fall into the habit of ALWAYS alternating however because humans tend to do that stuff when trying to be random. Your options are shield, spotdodge, roll, jump, shine, or some other attack. You have to play a bit of RPS and keep in mind how stage positioning and percents will affect the different risks/rewards. At higher percents you may want to be shield happy because even if he gets a grab you're not going to suffer much, whereas if they're spamming attacks to get you off the stage you'll be able to get good counter damage for proper shielding. At lower percents where you are expecting more grabbing, you can mix in spotdodges and rolls and jumps. The key to spotdodging and rolling is to not decide before you need to. If you've chosen an option before you've even teched, then you're wasting potential information. Wait until right before your shield comes up before buffering an option, and sometimes you may even want to shield for a split second. I quite often find myself shielding in anticipation of dash attacks, and then as soon as I realize they're too close and are probably going to grab, THEN I spot dodge. Almost all spotdodges and rolls fail because people aren't using them out of panic instead of actually making a conscious decision to use them and TIMING them.

 

[Van.]

felt bad about dropping that fake shiz video a while ago, so get at the real one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFpdHDTTtWY&feature=g-all-u

 

[Deleted member]

[17:17] SWF Strong Bad: alright so
[17:17] SWF Strong Bad: hypothetical situation
[17:17] SWF Strong Bad: i'm at a tournament and my opponent selects Falco
[17:17] SWF Strong Bad: what do I do???!?
[17:18] mycatgoesmow: can they laser
[17:18] mycatgoesmow: are they willing to laser
[17:18] SWF Strong Bad: All Falco's laser.
[17:18] mycatgoesmow: ok
[17:18] mycatgoesmow: then outplay him
[17:19] SWF Strong Bad: Bbut he presses buttons and I die
[17:19] mycatgoesmow: SORRY TOM, YOU HAVE TO OUTPLAY HIM
[17:19] SWF Strong Bad: who the **** is tom
[17:19] mycatgoesmow: you in this situation
[17:19] SWF Strong Bad: is this a reference to something
[17:20] mycatgoesmow: no
[17:21] SWF Strong Bad: why is my name tom
[17:22] mycatgoesmow: i don't know
[17:22] mycatgoesmow: you should get that changed
[17:22] SWF Strong Bad: it's adam
[17:22] mycatgoesmow: not when falco is shooting you
[17:22] mycatgoesmow: then you're tom
[17:22] SWF Strong Bad: i don't get it
[17:23] mycatgoesmow: just don't be a tom against falco
[17:23] SWF Strong Bad: WHAT DOES TOM MEAN

 

[FrootLoop]

umbreon is doing a good job keeping anti-falco discussion tied up.

now we can win more tournaments

 

[Bones0]

TOM = Trolled On Melee

Don't be TOM.

 

[knightpraetor]

that dialogue was too funny^_^

also i never stop getting a kick out of umbreon's sig. Whenever I feel bad because a sheik wrecked me for the umpteenth time I ask myself..would pp have been dumb enough to try this in tourney...smile and just move on with life

 

[Jake13]

What causes the no stun action after the dair-shine?

Like when you shine fox and he flies straight up and can perform an action immediately (air dodge/drill/etc)

 

[Strong Badam]

it's when you shine them when they've missed a tech.

 

[Anand]

it's when you shine them when they've missed a tech.

and shine is staled, right? because the hitbox has to be below a certain damage threshold which unstaled shine is slightly above, I think.

 

[Beat!]

Shine has to be staled more than once.

 

[Strong Badam]

iirc the move has to do 7.00 or less, so staled that much.

 

[Dr Peepee]

The shine has to be staled twice to pick them up off the ground when they miss a tech. I think the memory of the game is 10 moves so 2 or more of those last 10 moves you connected with have to be shine in order to pop them up.

 

[Xyzz]

I think I only have used less than two shines in my 10 move queue when I haven't filled it up after a fresh respawn :D

 

[Strong Badam]

Depends on how recent in the queue the shines are, Kevin.

 

[Vixen]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41WP8K26llk

any idea how do deal with falcon fullhop camping? I'm not used to Falcons not pushing L.

 

[ruhtraeel]

So I watched Smashers Reunion again

PP why do you not jab Peach('s shield)? Is lv 9 CPU nair/jab too good to be worth it to try a spaced one?