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PPMD's Falco Discussion Thread

Ballin

Smash Apprentice
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Sep 29, 2009
Messages
122
I'm a Marth main trying to switch to Falco.
I have a hard time grasping the concept for actually having to move around and not just swinging my sword in place lol.

I would love any critique you guys are willing to give.
Probably mainly focusing on neutral game, laser control, and positioning.
I know my tech skill isn't good with falco yet, but I'm working on that.

http://www.twitch.tv/peefsmash/b/336899017
from 28:00 - 42:00
at times, I troll pretty hard with 8 bairs in a row/ 6 fsmashes in a row... but just critique the parts where it looks like I'm trying my best =)

and if you have some extra time, here are 2 more matches from earlier in the night.
http://www.twitch.tv/peefsmash/b/336890444
Watch matches at 6:04 and 1:09:19

thankssss <33
 

Dr Peepee

Thanks for Everything <3
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Depends on how recent in the queue the shines are, Kevin.
interesting, can you elaborate please?

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?
Jabbing Peach in general can have great reward but that character is always trying to WD away from you or jank a CC Dsmash on you so it's not worth it lol.

For her shield, yeah I just don't like Nair OOS(Falco extends his hurtbox with jab booo) but I think jab is actually fine vs her shield if you have pretty good mixups. It's just not my preferred method of handling her shield *shrug.*
 

Strong Badam

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interesting, can you elaborate please?
The Stale Moves Queue works like this: It tracks the last 9 moves that you used that hit an opponent (shielded hits don't count) and each slot has a value. For each attack, the values of each slot the move is in are added up, then subtracted from 1 to find the Stale Moves Modifier. Slot 1 is the most recent, while Slot 9 is the least recent. Slot 1's value is 0.09, Slot 2's value is 0.08, ..., and Slot 9's value is 0.01. Because of this, Shine can be in your queue a few times and still end up doing more than 7.00 damage, so long as the Stale Moves Modifier doesn't go lower than 0.88. For example, Shine can be in slots 2 (0.08), 7 (0.03), and 9 (0.01), adding up to (1-0.12)=0.88. Shine does 8 damage, so 8*0.88 = 7.04, so the opponent won't get knocked up with no hitstun and weird floatiness.
 

Dr Peepee

Thanks for Everything <3
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The Stale Moves Queue works like this: It tracks the last 9 moves that you used that hit an opponent (shielded hits don't count) and each slot has a value. For each attack, the values of each slot the move is in are added up, then subtracted from 1 to find the Stale Moves Modifier. Slot 1 is the most recent, while Slot 9 is the least recent. Slot 1's value is 0.09, Slot 2's value is 0.08, ..., and Slot 9's value is 0.01. Because of this, Shine can be in your queue a few times and still end up doing more than 7.00 damage, so long as the Stale Moves Modifier doesn't go lower than 0.88. For example, Shine can be in slots 2 (0.08), 7 (0.03), and 9 (0.01), adding up to (1-0.12)=0.88. Shine does 8 damage, so 8*0.88 = 7.04, so the opponent won't get knocked up with no hitstun and weird floatiness.
Very interesting, thanks Strong Bad. It's cool to realize that combo choice can be planned around this mechanic as well, since platform tech chasing becomes infinitely easier when you can shine if the opponent misses a tech(much like with missing a tech on Dair).
 

FrootLoop

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watched 3 games and didn't really see what you were talking about. if he's full hopping just punish his landing, it shouldn't be too tricky because you have greater mobility once he's jumped
 

Vixen

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he full jumps on to platforms or on stages like fd/pokemon full jumps as i approach him or if i back off he double jumps away, or just does a fj regular landing to shield or runs away.

also its in the middle-later games. i did fine the first few games.
 

Bones0

Smash Legend
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The Stale Moves Queue works like this: It tracks the last 9 moves that you used that hit an opponent (shielded hits don't count) and each slot has a value. For each attack, the values of each slot the move is in are added up, then subtracted from 1 to find the Stale Moves Modifier. Slot 1 is the most recent, while Slot 9 is the least recent. Slot 1's value is 0.09, Slot 2's value is 0.08, ..., and Slot 9's value is 0.01. Because of this, Shine can be in your queue a few times and still end up doing more than 7.00 damage, so long as the Stale Moves Modifier doesn't go lower than 0.88. For example, Shine can be in slots 2 (0.08), 7 (0.03), and 9 (0.01), adding up to (1-0.12)=0.88. Shine does 8 damage, so 8*0.88 = 7.04, so the opponent won't get knocked up with no hitstun and weird floatiness.
Oh, cool. How much damage does an attack need to do to not send them into the floaty state? I believe I've seen this same sort of stuff happen with jabs. Does that means stale moves can make this affect occur with any moves as long as they are weak and staled multiple times?
 

Xyzz

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how do i beat samus ? lol
Samus sucks at approaching and Falco is better at shooting her, so you can always (ab)use that. Be careful to not get hit though. Rockets obviously are a lot better at killing people, so if you enter the range where they start to set up edgeguards be super careful to avoid them.

Treat her shielding game the way it is, and not like some random other characters. She can up b out of pretty much everything (it hits on frame 3 or something), on the plus side the range on that thing isn't too high, so you can space around it pretty well, especially because her shield grab is horrible (frame 18 or sth), so don't worry about that one too much.

Dair combos her really well.
 

Bones0

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I played vs. Samus the other day, and I think the best way to approach her shield game is to bait up-B OoS or wavedsmash or w/e option they think will work. Also, I didn't experiment much, but it might be potentially better to just shinegrab and work off of uthrow. I'm not sure how well Falco can keep her from coming down though, let alone initiate a pillar combo like how you will get off of a shine or dair during pressure.
 

Bones0

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Yeah, I figured she could, but it will still usually work because, like you said, they wont have frame perfect timing. It's also fairly low risk if you are good at DIing out of her up-B. I also have never much trouble doing shine to early fade away aerials, but I've only played like 2 Samus mains ever. lol
 

FrootLoop

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he full jumps on to platforms or on stages like fd/pokemon full jumps as i approach him or if i back off he double jumps away, or just does a fj regular landing to shield or runs away.

also its in the middle-later games. i did fine the first few games.
watched a few more. You don't move while he's full hopping, mostly you just laser in place at nothing or you jump after him and try to beat his big aerials. he lands on you with a move and you have to shield it because you weren't moving during his jump. You should be abusing your ground control to get good position/attack timing on his attempts to land, which should be obvious since his jump arc is super obvious.
 

Strong Badam

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Oh, cool. How much damage does an attack need to do to not send them into the floaty state? I believe I've seen this same sort of stuff happen with jabs. Does that means stale moves can make this affect occur with any moves as long as they are weak and staled multiple times?
7.01 or more, as I said.
 

Bones0

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0:20 - Heads up. lol
0:22 - That nair wasn't spaced well at all. Make sure you get into the habit of overshooting all the time. He could have easily WDed back or DDed and grabbed you. He also could have CCed, so make sure you dair at low %s. Being able to potentially beat any CC is one of Falco's greatest strengths, so make sure you abuse it.
0:23 - You should have immediately chased him to the top plat to threaten his tech. In this case, he didn't even tech, so you could have knocked him right off for free damage and to push him away from the middle. Uairing like that is just too easily shield punished.
0:30 - Fsmash. Always look for opportunities to push Falco off, and fsmashing, even at sub-50%, will definitely do the trick. Alternatively, you could have tried something like SH reverse soft bair/soft nair to combo off of survival DI into an fsmash/dsmash/run off dair.
0:38 - Learn to LHDL. He was way too far to do anything, and it gives you a free pass off the ledge.
0:48 - There's that misspaced nair again. It looks like you are assuming he will run forward all the time.
1:15 - Be prepared for lasers so you can side-B right after the stun ends (which is almost immediately; you can do it fast enough that you can't even tell if you've lost height).
1:17 - Get used to side-Bing immediately after ledge techs. It will save you a lot of distress for when you make clutch techs and then get killed anyway.
1:18 - I highly recommend learning to ledge dash. It makes getting off the ledge 10x easier. In this particular instance, you could have easily ledgedashed and shined, grabbed, shine-grabbed, shined and initiated pressure, or whatever.
1:25 - I probably would have edgeguarded with a reverse ledge canceled dair so that I grab the ledge immediately afterwards. I don't think he was high enough of a % to tech anyways, but even if he did, you would already be in place on the ledge to cover all of his options.
2:00 - You aerial way too early on shield, and never FF.
2:09 - Laser OoS would have been perfect there since you empty hopped anyway.
2:39 - Could have utilted from underneath the plat.

That's probably enough to work on for a while. lol

General stuff:
- You don't laser nearly enough. ESPECIALLY when your opponent loves rolling. I predict and chase rolls with laser all the time because it's a quick and efficient way to pressure them without committing and giving up your space.
- You seem to have decent movement, but only in between stocks. lol Try and use some of that DD WDing in the actual match. If you have trouble figuring out when are good times to use them, just pick a situation and spam it until you get a feel for when it's most useful. For instance, any time they shield, instead of jumping on top of them, just DD and focus all of your attention on what they do OoS. Chances are they will do the same thing most of the time and you will be able to start punishing. For WDing, you could try WDing back every time you see them jump towards you, or force yourself to adjust your spacing with a WD before every attack. These obviously aren't ideal strategies, but they are simple exercises to help you develop your spacing.
 

Squirt

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0:20 - Heads up. lol
0:22 - That nair wasn't spaced well at all. Make sure you get into the habit of overshooting all the time. He could have easily WDed back or DDed and grabbed you. He also could have CCed, so make sure you dair at low %s. Being able to potentially beat any CC is one of Falco's greatest strengths, so make sure you abuse it.
0:23 - You should have immediately chased him to the top plat to threaten his tech. In this case, he didn't even tech, so you could have knocked him right off for free damage and to push him away from the middle. Uairing like that is just too easily shield punished.
0:30 - Fsmash. Always look for opportunities to push Falco off, and fsmashing, even at sub-50%, will definitely do the trick. Alternatively, you could have tried something like SH reverse soft bair/soft nair to combo off of survival DI into an fsmash/dsmash/run off dair.
0:38 - Learn to LHDL. He was way too far to do anything, and it gives you a free pass off the ledge.
0:48 - There's that misspaced nair again. It looks like you are assuming he will run forward all the time.
1:15 - Be prepared for lasers so you can side-B right after the stun ends (which is almost immediately; you can do it fast enough that you can't even tell if you've lost height).
1:17 - Get used to side-Bing immediately after ledge techs. It will save you a lot of distress for when you make clutch techs and then get killed anyway.
1:18 - I highly recommend learning to ledge dash. It makes getting off the ledge 10x easier. In this particular instance, you could have easily ledgedashed and shined, grabbed, shine-grabbed, shined and initiated pressure, or whatever.
1:25 - I probably would have edgeguarded with a reverse ledge canceled dair so that I grab the ledge immediately afterwards. I don't think he was high enough of a % to tech anyways, but even if he did, you would already be in place on the ledge to cover all of his options.
2:00 - You aerial way too early on shield, and never FF.
2:09 - Laser OoS would have been perfect there since you empty hopped anyway.
2:39 - Could have utilted from underneath the plat.

That's probably enough to work on for a while. lol

General stuff:
- You don't laser nearly enough. ESPECIALLY when your opponent loves rolling. I predict and chase rolls with laser all the time because it's a quick and efficient way to pressure them without committing and giving up your space.
- You seem to have decent movement, but only in between stocks. lol Try and use some of that DD WDing in the actual match. If you have trouble figuring out when are good times to use them, just pick a situation and spam it until you get a feel for when it's most useful. For instance, any time they shield, instead of jumping on top of them, just DD and focus all of your attention on what they do OoS. Chances are they will do the same thing most of the time and you will be able to start punishing. For WDing, you could try WDing back every time you see them jump towards you, or force yourself to adjust your spacing with a WD before every attack. These obviously aren't ideal strategies, but they are simple exercises to help you develop your spacing.
I g2g to work. I'll review everything when I get back. I greatly appreciate the quick and insightful response. Thanks Bones.

Does anyone else mind evaluating my vs fox matchup a little later in the video?
 

oliman

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Hey PP/ other falcos, I'm having difficulty with the peach and marth matchups, and I would like input

Marth: should stay back or charge in? should i pressure him or let him come to me?

Peach: just need a lot of tippers for this matchup, esp from PP. Yeah I know KK, dair dair blah blah blah I need something other than that dumb dairy queen post
 

stabbedbyanipple

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Hey PP/ other falcos, I'm having difficulty with the peach and marth matchups, and I would like input

Marth: should stay back or charge in? should i pressure him or let him come to me?
Ideally you should mix it up between the two, disguise what you're looking for and make him guess which.

If he knows you'll ALWAYS do one, then he is in control. The only situation I'd almost always approach in is when he has low percent and you are a stock above with really high percent, because they're more prone to getting opened up and the risk reward is definitely way in ur favor

Ex. Dash dance in the zone where marth will likely dash attack or wd in dtilt, and based on ur positioning on stage/what the marth favors/what you've been doing then either p00p on his approach with dair or something, or approach him with one of falcos many approach options lol

:phone:
 

ruhtraeel

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I would also be interested in when to approach vs Marth and Puff, especially Puff. When should I run in there and put pressure versus playing it safe against a campy ball?

Also, this may sound like a noob question, but what is the proper response to bair spam?
 

Vixen

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N-air falcon when he's landing. B-air when he's trying to d-air/knee from above

:phone:
and when hes jumping specifically to avoid my attacks? or when hes jumping on to a platform, what then?

How do i train myself not to seize up when he jumps? Whenever I see someone jump i instinctively shield because im afraid of getting hit.

also how is nair supposed to beat a falcon landing? that doesnt make sense to me. can someone show me a video?
 

stabbedbyanipple

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I would also be interested in when to approach vs Marth and Puff, especially Puff. When should I run in there and put pressure versus playing it safe against a campy ball?

Also, this may sound like a noob question, but what is the proper response to bair spam?
vs puff

in neutral you play wack and space **** all day, use bair/lasers/utilt to zone her and her bears until she lands in a position that's not too far from you

when she lands, if she tries to jump again and continue zoning aerials then immediately try and trade with a dair, and then dair a million more times

if she decides to stay in her shield then u play the shield pressure game lol. Puffs like WD out of shield at this point cuz her roll BLOWS and usmash won't work if u do your aerials well. her shield its self isn't great either, so its not hard to whittle her shield down enough to get shield poke dair and then dair her 1346536246 more times

I'd write about marth but I go sleep sleep now

How do i train myself not to seize up when he jumps? Whenever I see someone jump i instinctively shield because im afraid of getting hit.
If it's REALLLY ingrained in your head then you have to forcibly go out of your way to NOT freeze up when he jumps. You might get ***** for it for a bit cuz you'll be playing slower/more deliberate and tunnel visioning on that specific situation but if it's friendlies then it doesn't matter and you'll eventually break your habit.
 

ruhtraeel

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vs puff

in neutral you play wack and space **** all day, use bair/lasers/utilt to zone her and her bears until she lands in a position that's not too far from you

when she lands, if she tries to jump again and continue zoning aerials then immediately try and trade with a dair, and then dair a million more times

if she decides to stay in her shield then u play the shield pressure game lol. Puffs like WD out of shield at this point cuz her roll BLOWS and usmash won't work if u do your aerials well. her shield its self isn't great either, so its not hard to whittle her shield down enough to get shield poke dair and then dair her 1346536246 more times
So I don't approach at all until they get close?

Can I shine grab instead of shield pressure? I don't like shield pressure very much because it feels like I can never capitalize out of it
 

stabbedbyanipple

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So I don't approach at all until they get close?

Can I shine grab instead of shield pressure? I don't like shield pressure very much because it feels like I can never capitalize out of it
eh my wording was a little ambiguous

It's not really approaching (you can't really jump in on a good back air wall unless they **** up), but it's not strictly running away and shooting her/platform camping.

It's that you want to slowly push HER toward the edge of stage with your bair/laser/utilt fiesta instead of running away and letting her push you towards the edge of the stage with her aerials.

and yea, shinegrab *****

edit: also, pushing her away gives you middle, and center stage is where all the b****es are at vs puff (aka good position)
 
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