PPMD's Falco Discussion Thread

[Xyzz]

The SDI inputs aren't about the shine, but it's super doable to SDI the drill far away enough to not get hit by the shine and pick your favourite punish for a whiffed shine right next to you (e.g. Peach dsmash, Marth can grab, etcpp). And if you advocate two up air hits, well that's two more opportunities to SDI, although those of course just avoid the damage and not lead to guaranteed punishes in return.
Jumping over power shielded lasers isn't that easy, and doesn't lead to guaranteed stuff. It's about as good as laser > aerial on shield is in the first place, which is to say: Yes, it works against a wide array of players (even really good ones). But you need to keep in mind that it is super possible to act between the laser and the aerial, and people are just horrible at timing their OOS responses.
It's depending on the height of aerial (I'm not sure whether you can do nair oos or whatever against laser > rising aerial, but well you can just hold shield and then it's an early aerial on shield. We all know those are punishable as hell. And you can easily get a offensive OOS response in between laser > late aerial).
Sure again that's an rps situation, but I don't really think this kind of 50-50 mixup is something Falco should go for, because he does get punished hard for these things and doesn't even have a guaranteed combo in return if he guesses right.

 

[Bones0]

I assumed we were speaking in a relevant context not just an isolated "he dies early because he is light". Yes, he is light, but everything is relative in this game. I'd argue that fox kills most of his opponents *effectively* earlier than they kill him. So yeah, you're right... he dies earlier to a move off the side than peach or falcon do, but bairing falcon off the stage around 60 already spells death for him: 100% guaranteed. Also, weight vs fall speed; once again, this is all relative to fox. Fox kills off the top earlier than most characters can kill him off the side, so for the sake of fox's best kill tools they actually die earlier than he does.

You can SDI at 4 different points? First of all, with realistic DI that is exhibited at top level play you can definitely follow their DI on your dair. Second of all, SDIing your shine doesn't prevent them from getting grabbed/upsmashed/whatever you want to do. Third of all, I don't believe anyone can consistently SDI fox's upair right now assuming the fox places it well and drifts to match their best SDI options off a low % upthrow. Fourth of all, this whole situation leads to DI traps where DIs that get you out of fox's uair stuff tend to get you ***** by things like upthrow -->bair-->uptilt-->whatever you want because you know, it's fox. Generally speaking, even if you're not in hitstun all the time like with marth's uair stuff, if it's guaranteed it's still a combo for all intents and purposes. It's like, if sheik is directly above me on FD and I uptilt as she falls to me she can either get hit or she can jump...but once she jumps she's still under me and gets upsmashed or baired or DD grabbed... but if she airdodges I just punish the lag of that. This is completely separate from fox's "legit" combo game, where he definitely has guaranteed strings, but this is another part which makes him definitely have 0-death potential. Fox grabs marth on FD: upthrow bair, DD grab landing, upthrow bair uptilt (or another bair)-->ends up with marth at like 65% and either off stage or at a % where the next hit leads to an upsmash/uair. What does falco/sheik/peach/puff/marth do if they hit marth at 0? Way less potential as I see it.

As far as how many characters it works on, I'm pretty sure fox can get a guaranteed hit (at some % or another) off throw on fox, falco, marth, sheik, peach, puff, falcon, and ICs... you know, the entire list of viable characters. But even outside of that, vs fox/falco/falcon one upsmash easily leads to two more relatively for free so your EV off an upsmash is like 50% easy which is way more than what most characters get guaranteed. On sheik/peach/falcon he definitely gets shine combos that lead to them being above you off stage where fox also gets guaranteed hits...

Fox might not convert his stray hits into combos as well as falco or marth or something, but if he lands his ideal hits for combos he combos you just as hard as the rest of the cast easily.

I guess we're just disagree about what counts as an actual combo because you're including stuff like uthrow bair, DD grab them? I mean, that's definitely not even a pseudo combo, but whatever. Maybe I'm bad at uthrow uairing, but I don't think uthrow uair combos at any % on any of the following characters: Peach, Puff, Samus, ICs, Mario, Doc, and Luigi.


I love shooting low lasers and jumping over them if they get PSed, but it isn't exactly safe because if they just WD back after the PS, you could get grabbed or something. I prefer shooting high lasers and running under them these days, and even if the laser just goes over their head, they are still going to shield which gives me a chance to SHFFL or just grab them (a little riskier).

 

[-LzR-]

Uthrow -> Uair definitely combos on Puff.

 

[Dr Peepee]

marth can handle lasers

dash back PS is mad good and so is crouch PS

dashing PS means marth gets his DD back which is phenomenal for him

 

[Bones0]

Uthrow -> Uair definitely combos on Puff.

Yeah, nvm.

 

[BTmoney]

marth can handle lasers

dash back PS is mad good and so is crouch PS

dashing PS means marth gets his DD back which is phenomenal for him

Doesn't dashing make the PS easier (because your shield is tilted forward)?

 

[Dr Peepee]

yeah that works too lol

 

[Bones0]

Doesn't dashing make the PS easier (because your shield is tilted forward)?

The shield doesn't get tilted. There is just more room between the edge of the shield and Marth's hurtbox because he leans over. The shield actually barely covers ANY of his body depending on how soon after shielding the laser hits you. I don't think Marth can PS low lasers at all unless he times it so the laser hits his shield right at the end of his PSing window (I forget what it is for projectiles; first 2-3 frames of shielding I think).

 

[BTmoney]

yeah that works too lol

Wait then what were you suggesting lol

The shield doesn't get tilted. There is just more room between the edge of the shield and Marth's hurtbox because he leans over. The shield actually barely covers ANY of his body depending on how soon after shielding the laser hits you. I don't think Marth can PS low lasers at all unless he times it so the laser hits his shield right at the end of his PSing window (I forget what it is for projectiles; first 2-3 frames of shielding I think).

Ah alright

 

[Rocketpowerchill]

how can you get quicker with di cuz how can u be quick enough to di a crazy random marth tipper

 

[Dr Peepee]

I was talking about dash away because the shield is behind him lol

 

[Swann]

how can you get quicker with di cuz how can u be quick enough to di a crazy random marth tipper

Don't be there

 

[ElloEddy]

how can you get quicker with di cuz how can u be quick enough to di a crazy random marth tipper

you gotta always be ready to
DI like hold up at least so your ready and react as well

 

[Xyzz]

There's many DI things where you can't react in time, because the move hits you too fast. The best idea here is to just look where you might get hit by what and then just input according DI.
E.g. I play Peach against a fox and do something that I realize won't hit him. I now know that there is very possible that I will get grabbed and up thrown, so I'll hold to the side to input my DI before the grab happens just to be safe.

random marth tippers would be the same thing; it hits on frame 10, which means unless your reaction time is below .16 seconds (it isn't) and you instantly realize what's happening from the visuals you can't DI it in time. Which means, you have to know when your opponent is likely to hit you with one.

 

[Bones0]

There's many DI things where you can't react in time, because the move hits you too fast. The best idea here is to just look where you might get hit by what and then just input according DI.
E.g. I play Peach against a fox and do something that I realize won't hit him. I now know that there is very possible that I will get grabbed and up thrown, so I'll hold to the side to input my DI before the grab happens just to be safe.

random marth tippers would be the same thing; it hits on frame 10, which means unless your reaction time is below .16 seconds (it isn't) and you instantly realize what's happening from the visuals you can't DI it in time. Which means, you have to know when your opponent is likely to hit you with one.

Frame 10 is the soonest frame it hits (I'm guessing), and you usually don't get hit until the end of the hitbox because that's when it's outstretched the most. Hitlag also adds a decent number of frames, so you can definitely react to DI Marth's fsmash.

 

[Xyzz]

Oh right, totally forgot about those, silly me :x (I don't really think about DI, just input something hopefully appropriate when I see that I'll definitely get hit or just fear that it might happen (: )

 

[BTmoney]

thing I learned today

1. tournament play is fun
2. Falco takes a lot of conscious effort to be effective with
4. I have a super defensive play style when it matters
5. I have a pocket Falcon


Edit:
LOOOL I CAN'T COUNT AND IM KEEPING IT

 

[Rocketpowerchill]

thing i learned today:
1.Project M
2.Fox dittos
3.Smashville
4.No Items
ggs m2k

 

[stabbedbyanipple]

So after getting pwned at KoC 2, I resolved to do a lot of things, but most glaringly to me was to shape up my combo game because I think it's one of my weakest traits as a player. I especially felt this in my set vs tai. The neutral game was going just fine imo, but he'd kill me off hits at mid percents while I was floundering around, and just couldn't lead into a kill move. Anyway, I've been watching matches of myself and writing down how each of my combos end, and I'm starting to see a pattern of maybe 5-7 **** ups I consistently make in either timing, move choice or tech skill, and am starting to iron those out of my games to give me a more consistent death touch. Definitely need to catch up on some PP videos, because I know the doctor breathes consistency lol.

Ideally, I'll practice a lot this week and see how it fairs at Norcal Regionals. Didn't plan on going originally because of really high venue fee, but by some twist of fate wes wasn't at the tournament yesterday (420 blaze it), so I won and got enough to register for NCR right before online registration ended haha

 

[BTmoney]

How does Falco abuse his nair?

Is it comparable at all to how Fox uses his?

 

[Rocketpowerchill]

wait why does stab and internet explorer look like the same person?

 

[Bones0]

How does Falco abuse his nair?

Is it comparable at all to how Fox uses his?

In combos, Cactuar told me to use it to sort of carry people across the stage in situations where continuing to hit them upwards isn't as good. After hearing that and later rewatching PP do that one nair to fsmash on PPU at KoC1, I've been spamming nair to fsmash/dsmash/dair/grab/whatever. I really like the fsmash because it just steamrolls through any trade they may have had in mind, and at like 30-40% they're almost always going to be DIing it away. As far as using nair when approaching, I tend to just use it when I'm worried about them dashing/WDing out of range of my SHFFL and when a punish from a nair would be better or as good as a punish from a dair. I wish I could use it in neutral as well as PP. Specifically vs. Foxes but also vs. other chars, it just seems like he does a bunch of cross-up nairs and somehow never gets punished, and then just the pressure from the nairs lets him do other stuff. Idk what's really going on with that though, so hopefully he can explain.

 

[BTmoney]

In combos, Cactuar told me to use it to sort of carry people across the stage in situations where continuing to hit them upwards isn't as good. After hearing that and later rewatching PP do that one nair to fsmash on PPU at KoC1, I've been spamming nair to fsmash/dsmash/dair/grab/whatever. I really like the fsmash because it just steamrolls through any trade they may have had in mind, and at like 30-40% they're almost always going to be DIing it away. As far as using nair when approaching, I tend to just use it when I'm worried about them dashing/WDing out of range of my SHFFL and when a punish from a nair would be better or as good as a punish from a dair. I wish I could use it in neutral as well as PP. Specifically vs. Foxes but also vs. other chars, it just seems like he does a bunch of cross-up nairs and somehow never gets punished, and then just the pressure from the nairs lets him do other stuff. Idk what's really going on with that though, so hopefully he can explain.

Yeah my nair usage is pretty unsophisticated. As far as carrying opponents horizontally goes are you using the weak hitbox(es)? I really want to get better at cross up nairs with Falco. I think it's probably good but I just don't fully implement it because I'm at the point right now where I know how to do everything with Falco but I'm still putting it all together.


Also as a character I don't understand Falco I've noticed and I have pretty short combos. It's actually to the point where I went Falcon in tournament yesterday and played better when I really don't ever even practice my Falcon. I know what optimal plays to make with Falcon, Fox, Marth, and Sheik but with Falco I'm pretty lost in neutral. I don't get the theory or concept of the character yet. It's more of a complex problem than choosing the right moves to edge guard or grabbing the ledge (those things are intuitive). Maybe I don't laser enough.

I think my issue with Falco is that I am used to playing characters with great dash dancing and grabs. Falco has neither of those so I feel pretty naked when I'm not spamming tech on shield.

 

[Squirt]

Yeah my nair usage is pretty unsophisticated. As far as carrying opponents horizontally goes are you using the weak hitbox(es)? I really want to get better at cross up nairs with Falco. I think it's probably good but I just don't fully implement it because I'm at the point right now where I know how to do everything with Falco but I'm still putting it all together.


Also as a character I don't understand Falco I've noticed and I have pretty short combos. It's actually to the point where I went Falcon in tournament yesterday and played better when I really don't ever even practice my Falcon. I know what optimal plays to make with Falcon, Fox, Marth, and Sheik but with Falco I'm pretty lost in neutral. I don't get the theory or concept of the character yet. It's more of a complex problem than choosing the right moves to edge guard or grabbing the ledge (those things are intuitive). Maybe I don't laser enough.

I think my issue with Falco is that I am used to playing characters with great dash dancing and grabs. Falco has neither of those so I feel pretty naked when I'm not spamming tech on shield.

Idk but is sounds like you don't use lasers enough. What you are describing sounds like my neutral when playing fox. Fox relies so much on baits and punishing whereas falco relies on his lasers, really all you need to do in neutral is land lasers and know when you have a guaranteed approach. I feel the same way sometimes though with falco because it is easy to get overwhelmed with all the combos and it's hard to choose the best moves or best combo with so many available moves.

I would have to disagree with you on the DD and grabs, falco has moderate to good grabs and great DDing in my opinion. The grabs need to lead into specific combo's based on specific DI but once you start learning the options grabs become great fillers.

 

[BTmoney]

I would have to disagree with you on the DD and grabs, falco has moderate to good grabs and great DDing in my opinion. The grabs need to lead into specific combo's based on specific DI but once you start learning the options grabs become great fillers.

Well objectively Falco has a poor DD, it's short and he is "slow" out of his DD.
Play Falcon, Fox, or Marth then go to Falco's DD lol.
And really I think Falco's grab game comes down to uthrow->LOL guess
dthrow->easy tech
fthrow->positioning
bthrow->positioning

It's not like He's marth and gets those huge gains from positional advantage (uthrow->uair indefinitely). Nor can he consistently combo off throws unless I am missing something but that's why I'm here.

Blah, Falco is such a unique character.

I was talking about dash away because the shield is behind him lol

See well that's counterintuitive lol, I didn't think it worked that way. At first glance you would think the shield came out in front of him and not behind him. Can you speak (or clarify) on how this makes powershielding easier? I'm not 100% sure what the mechanic is so I'd rather ask an obvious question. Does the laser have to be within your shield's "hurt box" but not touching your character's hurt box in order to power shield?



warning, extremely high quality photos


/*
edit: took out the bad pictures lol, look at the new ones below
*/



That is a power shield happening from a Falco laser while Marth is dashing away lol, sorry It's hard to get a good picture real time even when you pause etc.
I imagine that the shield is actually disjointed from his hurtbox unless the game is stupid.

 

[BTmoney]

I was talking about dash away because the shield is behind him lol

double post cuz I'm excited.
Here I got better pictures and yes this actually makes power shielding 50 times easier but I still have a few questions on the mechanic (like if a Light press shield can PS just as well or better [or at all] as a full shield or anything like that I should know)
I think this actually is super important to the MU because it allows Marth to DD like he wants too, which is bad for Falco.

Great find/knowledge. Here's better pics for anyone who cares. I bet I wasn't the only person who didn't know this. Look at how disjointed his shield is lol wow.

 

[FrootLoop]

afaik you can't PS with light shield.
It looks like low shots can negate the usefulness by quite a bit

 

[SpiderMad]

You can't PS with anything but Full Shield

 

[BTmoney]

afaik you can't PS with light shield.
It looks like low shots can negate the usefulness by quite a bit

I personally don't understand why Falco's don't always shoot low lasers, it's not hard.

And I can see this being proficient except for when Falco shoots those flat ground level lasers (most people's low lasers are pretty sloppy) because the hurt box on marth's legs obviously stick out really far in most of his run animation.

 

[FrootLoop]

It can be useful to cover short hops with lasers, otherwise falcon/spacies can aerial approach over your laser while you lag

 

[KP17]

shooting lasers at only one height is pretty bad. shoot low lasers if youre expecting a ps so you can sh over them and shoot high lasers to catch a jump. specifically for falcon, raptor boost goes under high lasers and nair goes over low ones. So its extremely useful to mix those up. But even more important is to mix up movement with your lasers.

 

[Bones0]

Yeah my nair usage is pretty unsophisticated. As far as carrying opponents horizontally goes are you using the weak hitbox(es)? I really want to get better at cross up nairs with Falco. I think it's probably good but I just don't fully implement it because I'm at the point right now where I know how to do everything with Falco but I'm still putting it all together.


Also as a character I don't understand Falco I've noticed and I have pretty short combos. It's actually to the point where I went Falcon in tournament yesterday and played better when I really don't ever even practice my Falcon. I know what optimal plays to make with Falcon, Fox, Marth, and Sheik but with Falco I'm pretty lost in neutral. I don't get the theory or concept of the character yet. It's more of a complex problem than choosing the right moves to edge guard or grabbing the ledge (those things are intuitive). Maybe I don't laser enough.

I think my issue with Falco is that I am used to playing characters with great dash dancing and grabs. Falco has neither of those so I feel pretty naked when I'm not spamming tech on shield.

First thing you need to do is work on your combo game. Improving your neutral is actually kinda hard if you don't know what kind of punishes you are looking for. You might be playing neutral in such a way that you're getting a bunch of small taps that Falco is too slow to capitalize on. Just watch PP and Mango vids and look at how all of their big combos start. Pay attention to what each player was doing right before they hit them, what attack they did, how they timed the attack (especially aerials), and how were they spaced in general.

Several times throughout my time playing I've attributed problems at certain points to not enough lasers, and it's never been the proper solution. You just cannot rely on lasers to really do anything of significance on their own. Their job is more to accentuate things you should already be doing to make them more potent and keep the opponent in check long enough for you to do what you want. If you need a style to think about when playing, I would just say try to make them shield, and then try to punish their OoS option. If you focus on that simple two-step neutral game, you should pretty quickly get a feel for how neutral needs to be played. If your opponent doesn't seem to be shielding much, then you need to make sure your lasers are doing what they are supposed to (limiting their movement, not building damage or allowing you to approach). Whenever you laser, just evaluate where you lasered from and move to a slightly better spacing during the time your opponent is unable to move properly. You might just move your DD closer to them than you were before you lasered, but that's often enough to get them to shield or do something dumb that you can punish.

As a really simple example, vs. Marth I often laser to stop his movement (he shields the laser), DD just outside of his fair OoS range, and then he will fair OoS and I get a free punish. Next time I'm in the same situation he may just WD back OoS instead of challenging my DD, but then I can simply SHL again towards him and take more space, and do the same situation. Obviously it gets much more complex when you add in more options, and there are definitely times where you want to skip the step of getting them into shield and just hit them outright, but my baseline for neutral is to laser and space myself so that they shield, then punish from there.

I personally don't understand why Falco's don't always shoot low lasers, it's not hard.

And I can see this being proficient except for when Falco shoots those flat ground level lasers (most people's low lasers are pretty sloppy) because the hurt box on marth's legs obviously stick out really far in most of his run animation.

I tried only shooting low lasers, and I can tell you it really doesn't work. A lot of people probably don't believe that people will jump over them constantly, but they do. Falco often needs lasers to stuff approaches, so if you do low lasers, your opponent will constantly be hopping over your lasers when you could have been stuffing them without even meaning to.

 

[Rocketpowerchill]

is uthrow-> arial guaranteed with falco?
uthrow bair is hella chill


are you guys taling about the lazers that go to the heart or the ones that go to the shoes?
the ones that go to the shoes are redic
any tips

and wouldnt people like marth not be able to crouch or sh to avoid medium height lazers?

 

[Cactuar]

@Bones: After that first game in WF, I was discussing Armada's reactions to PP falling from FJ/DJ heights. Specifically, I was pointing out how quick Armada was to jump early against a falling laser, expecting it to be shot at standing height. This allowed him to get above the laser and set up his float position for free.

Nair can boss opponents around when they are expecting Falco to establish some kind of shield pressure. It works wonders as a crossup because they are thinking about how to react in their small space, defensively, while the Falco dives in and through, creating a lot of space to react to a backwards motion with shacbair or establish a position behind them with a land->DD.

There is a lot of strength to having a short DD that gets overlooked because of the more obvious advantages of the Fox/Marth length/speed DDs. Learn to view Dash->Stand and Dash->Run as very separate techs. Dash->Stand leads to a lot of interesting plays and really opens up the short dash game's options.

 

[Bones0]

is uthrow-> arial guaranteed with falco?
uthrow bair is hella chill


are you guys taling about the lazers that go to the heart or the ones that go to the shoes?
the ones that go to the shoes are redic
any tips

and wouldnt people like marth not be able to crouch or sh to avoid medium height lazers?

I don't think uthrow aerial combos on any character if their DI allows them to avoid the lasers. Unfortunately, I don't know what different DIs are best for avoiding lasers, or what percents they are relevant at. Even if the lasers do hit and it's possible to combo, you have to worry about them SDIing to avoid your aerial. You can probably space yourself so that you can react to all the options, but people who are competent at dealing with Falco's uthrow are few and far between, so as much as I'd like to explore the scenario, it never really comes into play except on the occasional accidental SDI.

I am pretty sure Marth can either SH over or dash under any laser height, but it's not something that's done on any consistent basis anyway. Like someone said before, just stick with low lasers when you are sure they won't SHFFL towards you, and use mid to high lasers in all the other situations. You just have to change the height based on the situation, what the opponent has been doing, and what character they're using. Against Peach, I'm almost always going to be shooting high lasers to catch them trying to jump into float (except when they could DA me), but against ICs/Samus/Luigi I stick with low lasers because they are very WD heavy and avoid jumping at people. Even with those cases where I almost always do the same height, I still have to consider spacing. If I am lasering onto a Luigi's shield, I'm going to high laser because it comes out a bit quicker and it will protect me from him SH dairing my approach.

tl;dr
Just evaluate your lasers on a case-by-case basis.

@Bones: After that first game in WF, I was discussing Armada's reactions to PP falling from FJ/DJ heights. Specifically, I was pointing out how quick Armada was to jump early against a falling laser, expecting it to be shot at standing height. This allowed him to get above the laser and set up his float position for free.

Nair can boss opponents around when they are expecting Falco to establish some kind of shield pressure. It works wonders as a crossup because they are thinking about how to react in their small space, defensively, while the Falco dives in and through, creating a lot of space to react to a backwards motion with shacbair or establish a position behind them with a land->DD.

There is a lot of strength to having a short DD that gets overlooked because of the more obvious advantages of the Fox/Marth length/speed DDs. Learn to view Dash->Stand and Dash->Run as very separate techs. Dash->Stand leads to a lot of interesting plays and really opens up the short dash game's options.

"Empty" dashes sound interesting. I actually did something like that by accident last night. I dashed towards someone and whiffed an input, and then I realized they misspaced their own attack so I got a free fsmash. I'll definitely have to explore that, thanks.

 

[Rocketpowerchill]

how do i get good at stopping my dd by standing up
i remember this in a silentwolf video

 

[Bones0]

how do i get good at stopping my dd by standing up
i remember this in a silentwolf video

WD straight down or empty pivot. Not sure how feasible it is to actually use empty pivots though.

 

[ElloEddy]

thing i learned today:
1.Project M
2.Fox dittos
3.Smashville
4.No Items
ggs m2k

lol where did you play m2k ..he' like all over i saw him at sudden death as well

 

[BTmoney]

The Blacktician can't count

 

[Rocketpowerchill]

lol where did you play m2k ..he' like all over i saw him at sudden death as well

na but i was watching SD
give it up for m2k for always traveling to locals and regionals along mid atlantic region
giving us reason to travel
to watch
and get better as a smasher
we need more of tristate to commit weekly to smash <3
like they dont? lol jk ggs

im gonna catch m2k at xanadu one day
hopefully the next monthly comin up in a couple of weeks