PPMD's Falco Discussion Thread

[Alulim]

I have a question regarding the low SHFFL aerial -> shine -> immediate nair stuff.

Is there a way to punish the immediate nair before it comes out? Wondering because xyz said that nair oos from Sheik and her grabs lose to it.
If it's immediate then it could probably be grabbed right after hitstun ends since high aerials don't combo into shine (though couldn't it be spaced in a way that makes it not possible to punish via grab? Like nairing and then moving back from your opponent while you're still in midair - I think Mango talked about it in one of his MIOM streams) or spot-dodged before it starts up / after the shine though.

Would frame perfect wavedash oos get away or would I be hit by the instant nair / grab shielding a shine?
Also, would spot dodging the shine and immediately grabbing be able to punish the nair before it comes out? (I'm thinking I'd be able to grab any of the spacies during their jump startup animation before the nair actually comes out).

Thanks!

 

[Xyzz]

Hey hey, we already revised that Sheik's nair comes out the same frame as yours, if you both are frame perfect. And yeah, if you do an immediate nair, you want to move away while doing it. It won't protect you from stuff with a lot of reach though (marth can fair, samus can shield grab, ...).

I'm not sure about how punishable wd away is. In my experience it works really well if your shine barely connects on them, but I really don't know about the frame data [summon Kadano. I'd love to see a gif of this :D].

 

[Alulim]

@ Kadano

Please enlighten us with your answer!
I bow to you as much as I do to Magus haha.

 

[Kadano]

I have a question regarding the low SHFFL aerial -> shine -> immediate nair stuff.

Is there a way to punish the immediate nair before it comes out? Wondering because xyz said that nair oos from Sheik and her grabs lose to it.

After the non-stale strong nair hit on the shield and before the shine, your opponent never leaves shieldstun if you time it perfectly. Perfect timing here means doing the nair just one or two frames before the fastfall and doing both of them so late that you land on the first frame after your nair hitlag has ended.
So, if you manage to do get this kind of perfection, no character in the game can punish you. If you are off by even one frame (in the gif at the end of this post, Falco is off by one frame – he did the nair and fastfall slightly too early so that there was a falling frame after the nair hitlag and before he landed), Samus can do an up-B out of shield. Her up-B is intangible immediately, so she is only tangible during the one frame Kneebend (“jumpsquat”) which is necessary to do the up-B out of shield.
If your timing is perfect, your shine will catch her on this κneebend frame. If it isn’t, she will be intangible by the time your shine comes out and hit you with her spinning hitboxes.

I don’t think any other character has such a ridiculous out-of-shield option, so Samus should be the only character you shouldn’t use this technique against.

Would frame perfect wavedash oos get away or would I be hit by the instant nair / grab shielding a shine?

Marth’s grab would catch you. I Didn’t test Sheik. Also didn’t test your spot dodge idea because I don’t approve of pre-emptive spot dodges, especially when you’re in such an advantageous position.

[summon Kadano. I'd love to see a gif of this :D]

You want it? It’s yours, my friend, as long as you have enough bandwidth!

(Click it for a less resource heavy, frame-navigationable gfycat version)
(Disregard the crappy Marth texture, it’s a work in progress that shall eventually become a Naushika Marth, but I suck at texture editing and now he (she?) has weird deer eyes, haha.)


I made the Marth attempt a wavedash in after the shine, but as you can see Falco can shine him before he is out of LandingFallSpecial.
If he had done a short hop fair instead, it wouldn’t have hit. In fact, I don’t believe that he can punish Falco at all after he put up his shield.
At the very beginning, when Falco starts dashing, Marth has a 4-frame window to grab Falco. The latest frame he can input the grab is frame 9 of your short hop, so he can grab you by reacting to your jump if his reaction times are very good. I’m not 100% sure that it’s humanly possible to react to such a rather sublime visual key within 8 frames, but there’s a good chance it’s possible.

 

[Alulim]

Thanks for the explanation! Showing the Marth isn't able to grab falco after it immediately is pretty useful : P
Guess it'd be a mixup in itself as to whether Marth will wavedash or delayed wavedash after the Instant Nair to avoid getting shined after the shield pressure ends.

Though I think I might have caused you to misunderstand something (due to my bad wording):
When I talked about Wavedash OOS and buffered spot dodge to get away, I was referring to Sheik, not Falco.

What I theorized was that Wavedash OOS right after the hitstun on the shine ends could potentially allow Sheik to escape before Falco's able to land his instant nair. The same theory's applied to buffered spot dodge - Where I thought that the Spotdodge could eat up Falco's active frames and give Sheik some time to punish him before he's able to recover from his attack's lag animation and jump landing animation.

If it isn't too much of a hassle, could you confirm whether these 2 things are possible to avoid Falco's instant Nair?

(Oh and on a slight side note: Is Fox worse than Falco at shield pressure solely because the hitbox on his shine is greater? Does it also happen to have a lower number of shieldstun frames in general? Because it seems like from this, Fox could potentially get out a Nair in 5 frames as opposed to Falco's 7 given that it only takes 3 frames for him to start his jump animation.

Frame 1 - Shine
Frame 2 to 4 - Jump Animation Startup
Frame 5 - Nair (Now Airborne))

Thank you Kadano!

 

[Kadano]

When I talked about Wavedash OOS and buffered spot dodge to get away, I was referring to Sheik, not Falco.

Ah, right, that makes sense. My bad.

What I theorized was that Wavedash OOS right after the hitstun on the shine ends could potentially allow Sheik to escape before Falco's able to land his instant nair. The same theory's applied to buffered spot dodge - Where I thought that the Spotdodge could eat up Falco's active frames and give Sheik some time to punish him before he's able to recover from his attack's lag animation and jump landing animation.

If it isn't too much of a hassle, could you confirm whether these 2 things are possible to avoid Falco's instant Nair?

Sure. I like researching things that are properly requested, and the way you ask and explain is very motivating. =)

1. Buffered spot dodge: Spot dodge works similar to Samus’ up-B, which I explained above. Both are intangible on the second frame they are done out of shield – Samus’ up-B requires one frame Kneebend while spot dodge’s intangibility starts on frame 2, so frame 1 is still vulnerable.
Thus, a perfectly executed unstale late fast fall nair is not escapable by spot dodges. That’s asking pretty much, though. Not only does it require extreme technical execution that I doubt has ever been performed by a Falco player, you also need to ensure that none of the last three attacks you’ve hit an opponent with was a nair, because the resulting staleness would already be enough to decrease shieldstun by 1. This would decrease your frame advantage and enable the spot dodge option.

Therefore, it would be unrealistic to disregard the spot dodge option. We need to expect that Sheik can spot dodge, and this is easy to do frame-perfect for her with C-stick buffering.
Let us look at what happens when she spot dodges:


(Again, click on the image for gfycat options)

It is important to land very close to Sheik. Otherwise, shine would not hit her if she opts for shield grab. Also, if you don’t land that close to her, the fading nair does not connect.
I added 4 frames delay after the shine and before the jump – this many frames hitlag would occur if Sheik does not spot dodge, so I used a timing that would work on shield hit as well, which is much more realistic.

2. Wavedash out of shield: Sheik’s backward wavedash has her crouch down so low that she will indeed escape your fading nair. She can dash attack you just in time to punish your landing lag.

(Oh and on a slight side note: Is Fox worse than Falco at shield pressure solely because the hitbox on his shine is greater? Does it also happen to have a lower number of shieldstun frames in general? Because it seems like from this, Fox could potentially get out a Nair in 5 frames as opposed to Falco's 7 given that it only takes 3 frames for him to start his jump animation.

Frame 1 - Shine
Frame 2 to 4 - Jump Animation Startup
Frame 5 - Nair (Now Airborne))

I’d say that Fox’s pressure is better than Falco’s, actually. Fox’s shine hitbox is much larger and although it does less damage and thus shieldstun, he has 2 frames less jump startup to make up for it. His short hop is lower so he can pump out aerials at a faster rate.

Also, it’s a bit different from your list. There are stickied threads about shield pressure in the Fox and Falco boards, which are a great reference.

 

[Alulim]

Thanks for the explanation again. It all makes perfect sense now - I can even see that spot-dodging after the shine, when the Instant Nair comes out will not work given that it takes 4 frames to startup. With 3 frames of shieldstun and 4 frames of startup, it becomes active at frame 8 where Falco's instant nair comes out at frame 7 after a shine. The main problem (actual practicality) I see is that Falco's nair is active between 4-31 according to the Falco hitbox thread. As such, it being active for 28 frames eats up the 26 frames of invincibility when spot-dodging.

So in conclusion, Sheik can challenge instant nair with her own instant nair assuming that the Sheik player is more technically precise and consistent over the falco player OR, as a better option, wavedash away to avoid the fading nair and punish with a grab/dash attack as you've said. Your research is very very VERY much appreciated and your posts should always be sticked : D

And also thanks for debunking the Falco's shield pressure > Fox's shield pressure statement. I've always thought that Fox was better but people kept saying otherwise. Well I guess it'd be safe to say that Fox's pressure comes out faster while Falco's capable of more shieldstun from his moves : D

 

[Kadano]

Thanks for the explanation again. It all makes perfect sense now - I can even see that spot-dodging after the shine, when the Instant Nair comes out will not work given that it takes 4 frames to startup. With 3 frames of shieldstun and 4 frames of startup, it becomes active at frame 8 where Falco's instant nair comes out at frame 7 after a shine. The main problem (actual practicality) I see is that Falco's nair is active between 4-31 according to the Falco hitbox thread. As such, it being active for 28 frames eats up the 26 frames of invincibility when spot-dodging.

While all that is true, are you really going to react to her spot-dodge and not fade back your nair, in order to hit her with your late nair hitbox? I doubt you can react that quickly.
On fade-back, nair will whiff a spot-dodging Sheik. That’s not too bad, she can’t punish you in time if you do it the same way as in the animations before:

So in conclusion, Sheik can challenge instant nair with her own instant nair assuming that the Sheik player is more technically precise and consistent over the falco player OR, as a better option, wavedash away to avoid the fading nair and punish with a grab/dash attack as you've said.

Exactly. If both Falco and Sheik try to do a nair as quickly as possible after the shine, they will trade. If shine is stale, Sheik will hit first.

 

[BTmoney]

Do you have a gif/image or simple word answer for the lowest Falco nair that can be shield grabbed?

Can his nair->shine be shield grabbed before the shine comes out if the nair hits a non-angled full shield at the peak of his SH (and you fast fall of course)?

 

[Kadano]

Do you have a gif/image or simple word answer for the lowest Falco nair that can be shield grabbed?

No, but I can make one, haha.
Non-stale nair can’t be shield-grabbed before your shine comes out if it was done after frame 7 (Jump 6 ) of your short hop or later and fast-falled as soon as possible.

Can his nair->shine be shield grabbed before the shine comes out if the nair hits a non-angled full shield at the peak of his SH (and you fast fall of course)?

No, that is not possible. It might be possible if nair is completely stale, but I can’t test staleness as quickly.
In the animation above, you can see that non-stale nair can’t even be shieldgrabbed before the shine if it’s done 5 frames before your short hop apex (Jump 11 ). IIRC, a completely stale nair ( ⇒ The last 9 times you’ve hit someone with an attack, it was nair) has 2 frames less hitlag and 3 frames less shieldstun than a non-stale nair. Thus, I guess even then shield grab would be impossible.

 

[Alulim]

Oh wow. Did not think about the fact that not all of nair's frames are actively in contact with Sheik's hurtbox because its a fading nair. Nice point you've made again!
From there, Sheik should be able to CC downsmash to cover the early jab option or grab to cover an immediate shield. It seems to be a micro-guessing game at this point.

After researching, I found that Falco's shine has its shieldstun and hitstun reduces upon its damage being staled to 0.85 (Basically connecting 3 shines in sequence is enough to stale it or any sequence of closely related moves to that - essentially close to a standard pillar combo. As you said, stale moves are quite variable and difficult to calculate because the number of possible combinations).

Just wondering - Can stale moves be reset to its original damage/hitstun/shield stun in some way?

If it cannot be reset (ie. from losing a stock) then Sheik will hold an increasing advantage in the micro-shield pressure battle given the reducing shieldstun of Falco's shine. Though it also means that spacies are at the greatest advantage at shield pressuring in the beginning of each match. Of course, this is assuming that stale moves cannot be reset.

On a side note, I think I've calculated the frames wrong initially and think that Sheik might actually have an advantage.

Falco:
Frame 1 - Shine (active) - Hitlag
Frame 2 - Hitlag (2)
Frame 3 - Hitlag (3)
Frame 4 - Hitlag (4)
Frame 5 - Hitlag (5)
Frame 6 - Shine frame 2
Frame 7 - Shine frame 3
Frame 8 - Shine frame 4 AKA when Jump Animation is Inputed
Frame 9 - Jump Animation Startup (2)
Frame 10 - Jump Animation Startup (3)
Frame 11 - Jump Animation Startup (4)
Frame 12 - Jump Animation Startup (5)
Frame 13 - Jump Animation Startup (6) - Now Airborne - Nair is inputted
Frame 14 - Nair Startup (2)
Frame 15 - Nair Startup (3)
Frame 16 - Nair Active (1)

From a shine, a perfect immediate nair starts up 15 frames later at frame 16. In comparison, let's look at Sheik:

Sheik:
Frame 1 - Shield Hitlag (1)
Frame 2 - Shield Hitlag (2)
Frame 3 - Shield Hitlag (3)
Frame 4 - Shield Hitlag (4)
Frame 5 - Shield Hitlag (5)
Frame 6 - Shieldstun (1)
Frame 7 - Shieldstun (2)
Frame 8 - Shieldstun (3)
Frame 9 - Shieldstun (4)
Frame 10 - Shieldstun (5)
Frame 11 - Jump Animation Inputted
Frame 12 - Jump Animation Startup (2)
Frame 13 - Jump Animation Startup (3)
Frame 14 - Jump Animation Startup (4) - Now Airborne - Nair is inputted
Frame 15 - Nair Startup (2)
Frame 16 - Nair Active (1)

Gonna Test Falco's Shine Grab too:

Falco:
Frame 1 - Shine (active) - Hitlag
Frame 2 - Hitlag (2)
Frame 3 - Hitlag (3)
Frame 4 - Hitlag (4)
Frame 5 - Hitlag (5)
Frame 6 - Shine frame 2
Frame 7 - Shine frame 3
Frame 8 - Shine frame 4 AKA when Jump Animation is Inputed
Frame 9 - Jump Animation is Cancelled into Grab - Grab Animation Startup (1)
Frame 10 - Grab Animation Startup (2)
Frame 11 - Grab Animation Startup (3)
Frame 12 - Grab Animation Startup (4)
Frame 13 - Grab Animation Startup (5)
Frame 14 - Grab Animation Startup (6)
Frame 15 - Grab Active (1)

(Falco's Shine is jump cancellable at frame 4 - Falco's nair becomes active on frame 4 - Sheik's nair becomes active on frame 3 - Assuming that Falco's Shine is jump cancellable on its fourth frame after hitlag.)

 

[BTmoney]

No, but I can make one, haha.
Non-stale nair can’t be shield-grabbed before your shine comes out if it was done after frame 7 (Jump 6 ) of your short hop or later and fast-falled as soon as possible.


No, that is not possible. It might be possible if nair is completely stale, but I can’t test staleness as quickly.
In the animation above, you can see that non-stale nair can’t even be shieldgrabbed before the shine if it’s done 5 frames before your short hop apex (Jump 11 ). IIRC, a completely stale nair ( ⇒ The last 9 times you’ve hit someone with an attack, it was nair) has 2 frames less hitlag and 3 frames less shieldstun than a non-stale nair. Thus, I guess even then shield grab would be impossible.

damn I guess my falco just sucks lol, thanks though!

 

[Kadano]

@ Alulim : Sheik undergoes shield hitlag as well.

 

[Alulim]

Ah - I was confusing it with shield hitstun. Now it seems to make perfect sense.
Summary Post for all the Findings done by Kadano:

Assume no moves are stale | Spot dodges are buffered
- Sheik's frame perfect nair out of shield will trade with Falco's perfect nair that he does by jump cancelling his shine | ALWAYS lose to Falco's shine grab.
- Over time, Sheik retains an increasing advantage against Falco's shield pressure when Falco's shine has reduced by at least 15% damage as hitstun will drop to 4 frames and shieldstun will drop to 3 frames (generally after being staled twice consecutively or staled 3-4 times closely). [Still unsure if stales moves can be reset DURING the match - Somebody tell me if they figure out whether a stock resets it or not.]
- Spot dodging Falco's shine allows Sheik to be hit by Falco's instant fading nair
- Spot dodging after Falco's shine allows Sheik to avoid instant fading nair and be locked in a mixup situation where CC downsmash beats Falco's jab while grab beats Falco's shield. Incidentally, Falco's jab will beat Sheik's grab and his shield will beat Sheik's CC downsmash. A non-fading instant nair after the shine will hit Sheik - Shield grab however, will beat a non-fading instant nair.
- Wavedash back after the shine's shieldstun animation ends into an immediate grab or dash attack can punish Falco's instant nair | wavedash back after the instant nair does not allow any punishes to be made. Wavedashing forward after the instant nair appears to set Sheik and Falco into another mixup situation as specified earlier | after the shine's shield likely gets Sheik hit unless her crouch when wavedashing forward also allows her to duck through the instant nair. In any case, wavedash back after the shine's hitstun ends is the best option.

On separate scenarios | Other Miscellaneous Stuff
- Spotdodging the shine will allow you to punish Falco via grab if Falco does not op to use an instant aerial
- Stale nair into shine is essentially a very safe shield-string | Shine can only be avoided off buffers options out of shield or potentially a few character's fast up-B's

 

[tauKhan]

Doesn't falco's shine have electric hitbox though? If that's the case, and your calculations are otherwise correct (which they seem to be) sheik would have two more frames of hitlag, meaning that falco's unstale shine -> nair beats sheiks nair oos.

Edit:
@ Kadano Thanks for the correction. I was searching the boards and only found strong bad's posts indicating electric hits had increased hitlag on everything.

 

[Kadano]

@ T tauKhan : Electrical hitlag boost is only applied on direct hits, not on shield.

 

[d z]

Whats the best way to grab ledge from a dash? I feel like Falco is so slow in the air, run off ledge->shine turnaround->up-b and shine turnaround ->short hop both feel really slow. Crouch Cancel -> PC edgegaurd seems ok, what do you guys do/think? Edge Cancle laser seems pretty good, but I find it hard to do consistently.

 

[Kadano]

Whats the best way to grab ledge from a dash?

Here is a video done by mugg1991 that compares Fox’s options to grab the ledge from a run:

Shine → jumpsquat → ledgecancel should be the fastest for Falco as well.
Out of a dash (before you enter the run animation), pivot edgehog is the fastest, but it’s really hard. Even when using TAS, lol.

 

[bolt.]

I'm a big fan of pivot wavedash ff to grab the ledge. I'm not sure exactly how fast it is but i think it's the fastest way to the ledge from the standing animation.

 

[whitemountain123]

Thanks Kadano for all of the helpful posts; they were super helpful!

How do you guys deal with foxes who can reliably do the invincible ledgedash? Just try to space around it and punish any move they do (usmash or whatever)? I feel like I have to give up more stage than I'd like to to do this.

 

[Dr Peepee]

You can just stand back a little farther and shoot them lol. Or do the Mango and drop through a platform Bair unless they do the edgedash perfectly.

 

[Scarlet Bean]

You can just stand back a little farther and shoot them lol. Or do the Mango and drop through a platform Bair unless they do the edgedash perfectly.

Hey, Peepee--huge fan. I picked up Falco after playing Fox for a solid year and a half; I've gotten down all the basics, but everytime I go for a laser into dair at my opponents shield, he immediately shield grabs me. Got any tips?
Thanks in advance

 

[whitemountain123]

You can just stand back a little farther and shoot them lol. Or do the Mango and drop through a platform Bair unless they do the edgedash perfectly.

Thanks, though I guess that I should've been able to come up with that myself :/

Pretty random, but, whenever you have the time, I'd love to hear your thoughts on Leffen's fox and how you think your matches would go with him.

Hey, Peepee--huge fan. I picked up Falco after playing Fox for a solid year and a half; I've gotten down all the basics, but everytime I go for a laser into dair at my opponents shield, he immediately shield grabs me. Got any tips?
Thanks in advance

You should check out the posts on this page from Kadano, but, in direct answer to your question you're either:

a) missing your fastfall
b) missing your l cancel
c) doing the aerial too early/high on their shield
d) some combination of the above

but probably c.

nair is less likely to be shield-grab-able than dair, too, (i forget the frame-reasoning, but I think it's because nair has less cooldown) so often that's the better choice against shields.

 

[Scarlet Bean]

Thanks, though I guess that I should've been able to come up with that myself :/

Pretty random, but, whenever you have the time, I'd love to hear your thoughts on Leffen's fox and how you think your matches would go with him.




You should check out the posts on this page from Kadano, but, in direct answer to your question you're either:

a) missing your fastfall
b) missing your l cancel
c) doing the aerial too early/high on their shield
d) some combination of the above

but probably c.

nair is less likely to be shield-grab-able than dair, too, (i forget the frame-reasoning, but I think it's because nair has less cooldown) so often that's the better choice against shields.

I just get scared of the opponent popping out an aerial, which is why I have this dumb do-now-think-later mentality

 

[Dr Peepee]

Scarlet: observe what he does after your lasers or movement more so you don't feel so rushed to hit him

whitemountain: Haven't watched it in a bit but he knows his stuff. He's actually good at the game and improving his fighting game fundamentals. I think I could still take him right now but regardless I am looking forward to playing him in tournament soon.

 

[KingDozie]

You can just stand back a little farther and shoot them lol. Or do the Mango and drop through a platform Bair unless they do the edgedash perfectly.

Ok whats a edgedash is it just a wavedash to ledge.

 

[dkuo]

@ KingDozie yeah, waveland from edgehog to stage
since edgehog gives you invuln you can have actionable frames with invuln if you do a clean ledgedash

 

[Bones0]

Modesty Translation: He's gonna trash him just like that last Swede that got in his way.

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

Modesty Translation: He's gonna trash him just like that last Swede that got in his way.

'Mr. Bones that's terrible....'

Although, have you made the switch to falco or do you marth as well anymore?

 

[Bones0]

...

I'm done with SmashBoards...

 

[pkblaze]

So, Falco's shield pressure is essentially psychological on most (if not all) of the cast, and the only thing that seems guaranteed is to SHFFL nair/dair > shine> grab. Falco doesn't seem to get much off of throws though, so it's not used as often. Should I try to build my shield pressure game on just the fear factor of aerial shine chains, or should I go for the safer shinegrabs? Obviously I should mixup both and try not be predictable, but what should I consider my default and what should I consider to be the mixup?

Also, once I get a grab, what should I be going for? Fthrow is nice for positioning and stuff but things reset very easily to neutral off of that, which kinda sucks because I just won neutral and all I got was an Fthrow's worth of percent and some breathing room. Up throw is supposed to be good but I never seem to be able to convert off of it. Back and down are OK I guess.

 

[Bones0]

So, Falco's shield pressure is essentially psychological on most (if not all) of the cast, and the only thing that seems guaranteed is to SHFFL nair/dair > shine> grab. Falco doesn't seem to get much off of throws though, so it's not used as often. Should I try to build my shield pressure game on just the fear factor of aerial shine chains, or should I go for the safer shinegrabs? Obviously I should mixup both and try not be predictable, but what should I consider my default and what should I consider to be the mixup?

Also, once I get a grab, what should I be going for? Fthrow is nice for positioning and stuff but things reset very easily to neutral off of that, which kinda sucks because I just won neutral and all I got was an Fthrow's worth of percent and some breathing room. Up throw is supposed to be good but I never seem to be able to convert off of it. Back and down are OK I guess.

There aren't really any correct answers to the questions you're asking. It's heavily dependent on character, percentage, location within the stage, previous conditioning, and a ton of other subtleties. Write down all of the different variables you can think of and when you watch matches or play, try to figure out if the decisions in the video are yielding the best results possible.

 

[pkblaze]

There aren't really any correct answers to the questions you're asking. It's heavily dependent on character, percentage, location within the stage, previous conditioning, and a ton of other subtleties. Write down all of the different variables you can think of and when you watch matches or play, try to figure out if the decisions in the video are yielding the best results possible.

OK. Melee is hard. I need to start keeping a notebook. Thank you though.

Another question: Who are the falcos to watch right now, and for what reasons? I feel like PP is the #1 resource for matches but I also feel like treating the way one person plays a character as the bible for that character is the wrong way to look at things.

General impressions I get: PP's everything is super solid (movement, combos, choices, etc). Westballz has very good spacing and really strong punish game, partly due to his techskill/movement. He's famous for his shield pressure but that's not what I think makes him so good. Zhu's lasers seem really efficient and he does some weird **** with the first hit of Upair. IDK what else about Zhu to pay attention to, cuz his style is really entertaining to me and it's hard to view it intellectually.

Afterthought: I think that Westballz uses lasers the least out of the three, but he seems to think he has the best laser pressure. Is there any basis to that besides Westballz being Westballz?

Obviously I'm missing things I should be paying attention to since I'm very new to analyzing videos, but what else should I be paying attention to, and are there any other Falcos worth the time to watch? If so, why?

 

[Bones0]

OK. Melee is hard. I need to start keeping a notebook. Thank you though.

Another question: Who are the falcos to watch right now, and for what reasons? I feel like PP is the #1 resource for matches but I also feel like treating the way one person plays a character as the bible for that character is the wrong way to look at things.

General impressions I get: PP's everything is super solid (movement, combos, choices, etc). Westballz has very good spacing and really strong punish game, partly due to his techskill/movement. He's famous for his shield pressure but that's not what I think makes him so good. Zhu's lasers seem really efficient and he does some weird **** with the first hit of Upair. IDK what else about Zhu to pay attention to, cuz his style is really entertaining to me and it's hard to view it intellectually.

Afterthought: I think that Westballz uses lasers the least out of the three, but he seems to think he has the best laser pressure. Is there any basis to that besides Westballz being Westballz?

Obviously I'm missing things I should be paying attention to since I'm very new to analyzing videos, but what else should I be paying attention to, and are there any other Falcos worth the time to watch? If so, why?

PP, Mango (new stuff is a little more rare), Zhu, Westballz, Thorn, and StricNYN3 are the major ones to study. Idk the skill level of the European Falcos, but the top ones I remember are Baxon, Aldwyn, Calle W, and Leffen (no new stuff, sadly).

 

[Xx swift xX]

I'm going to preface this by saying that I believe StricNYN3 has the greatest tech skill I have ever seen. I could watch him combo a lvl 1 fox for days. StricNYN3 was actually the reason I started drilling tech skill as my main avenue of improvement. But I'm just so tired of seeing Stric lose to people with tech skill orders of magnitude lower than his own.

I understand that tech skill isn't everything, but I guess I always assumed that it was a prerequisite to winning. My tech skill has improved exponentially over the past year, but that has only enabled me to take a stock or two off of the local superstars (from initially being consistently 4-stocked). I'm not even sure most of that is from improvements in tech skill. I think my progression mostly stems from stopping myself from doing stupid stuff like trying to hard read ledgedashes with fsmash (yea, I can't believe it either) or trying to force combos that just weren't there. I think tech skill just isn't a high-yield avenue of improvement anymore.

TL;DR: when did you guys stop practicing tech skill and move on to pure friendlies/tourney games?

Also, how do you keep yourself calm while getting combo'd? (a common situation while playing falco)
I tend to get flustered, which causes me to tunnel my punishes or resets when I finally manage to DI/jump out. I used to think it was just a matter of tech skill, but I'm messing up things I can do with 95% consistency on computers. Is it just something that comes with a lot of experience? I feel like I've been playing this game for so long...but I guess I need more experience in high-pressure situations?

 

[BTmoney]

just leaving this here, incase anyone was wondering what 20xx falco looked like

 

[Xyzz]

Being good at neutral position / having good punishes is way more important than techskill. You can always practice techskill in your free time where you don't get to play people, but doing just that is far more important. It'll help your neutral, and gets you the experience to stop getting flustered, and it really helps with consistency (playing people forces you to think about what they're doing, and you'll be less relaxed as when practicing vs cpus)

 

[Bones0]

ChuDat could make bracket at a national with nothing but WD, uair, grab, and smash attacks.

Tech skill is obviously great because you have more tools, but it's definitely overrated.

 

[The Jizzard]

Not sure if this is the right thread but I have 2 videos and was looking for some tips in the fox match up. Falco vs Fox and Falco vs Falco/Fox. Also looking for advice on my neutral game and edgegaurd options although anything is appreciated

oh and how do you deal with choking?

 

[whitemountain123]

I wanna talk about a basic concept if that's alright.

I noticed recently—actually from playing teams—that I need to understand stage control and spacing (spacing in the sense of that video lucien made a while ago, more like zoning rather than hitting with the edge of specific hitboxes) and their interactions better.

When I've been playing teams recently, I've been focusing mostly on just holding center for our team and not approaching the opponents when they're waiting by the edge (especially vs. sheik, for example). But I also noticed that with the cramped nature of teams, I wasn't really sure what to do as the player by the edge started to challenge center stage. In singles when I have center stage, I can apply pressure with lasers and approach if I feel like I have a safe approach. If the opponent tries to take center, I can try walling them, and if I need more space I can go toward the opposite side of the stage to readjust my spacing.

So, I guess, what this made me question is, how do you balance the need to readjust spacing without losing stage control? I feel like falco is strong both in tight spaces and also from a distance where he can't get punished for lasering, but what do you do as an opponent tries to put falco in a spacing between that—where you could be punished for throwing out a laser, bair, utilt, etc if you whiff? In teams, how do you control center without throwing out whiffs when you can't as easily move across the stage because of the opponent's teammate? Do I just need to get better at reacting in those middle spacings so that I choose the right timings to throw out my moves and win the encounter?

Feel free to tell me that I'm wrong about my assumptions as well.

Edit: I find myself in teams (and in singles vs some chars, like peach and puff) escaping to the top platform. While in singles, this seams alright, esp against the aforementioned slow characters, in teams, it's not just a matter of me taking my time to regain stage control, but also I've now forfeited it for my teammate as well, which seems like a bigger issue.