PPMD's Falco Discussion Thread

[FE_Hector]

@L33thal I'm still working on giving advice for other Falco's and stuff, but it looked like your edgeguard and neutral games were relatively weak. After the first or second time he teched your dair when he tried upBing onto stage, you probably should've switched game plans. Maybe get him with a rising dair that puts you back onstage, or use your invincibility to shinebair him. In the neutral, it's really just a matter of staying mobile. It seemed like there were times when he was all the way across the stage and you didn't even bother lasering. Stay safe, but remember that lasers should help to make your opponent antsy and use it to your advantage.

 

[Klemes]

Yet again, I have problems vs marth. My punishes are fine and keep getting better, but I have good deal of specific issues with the neutral game, and dealing with marth's own punish game.

1-Marth's u-tilts chains. It's become very annoying. Whether it's from under a platform or not, I get hit by 3-4 of them all the time, at any %. They sometime drive me offstage or set me up for a free f-smash tipper. I mess up all my DI attempts because I can't predict with what kind of hitbox I'm hit, tipper, no tipper, front of marth, above marth... I can't seem to tech ever as I buffer tech for the 1st one,but he catches me with another one just by spamming u-tilt in place, so I fall down and can't tech because of the previous input, leaving me open for grab, f-smash, or ... another u-tilt [rage].

2-Getting out of the chaingrab. Any tricks ? Like some % where you should try some DI+ shine DJ ? What's the best thing in general to make it the hardest for marth ?

3-DI on f-smash / f-smash tipper. Is DI-ing straight up best ? Diagonal up and towards marth ?

4-Safest ways to get down from platforms when marth is below you ? I'm very good at shield-dropping, but he's often able to be at a safe distance then dash > JC grab me after landing. I try to run / WD off / FF through platforms, but he's always threatening with u-tilt, u-air, punish landing.

5-Beating / staying safe from marth's DD grab. As long as he has stage position to dash back, nothing feels very safe vs marth, and he can punish the smallest mistakes very easily, while he doesn't do anything you can punish yourself. Should you be content to play his game and just keep him out of your face until something happens ? What can you do safely threaten his space ?

6-How to punish marth's dash attack. I've become pretty good with laser zoning, and my friend replies to that with good PS, and dash attack under not so safe lasers into death combo. The PS I can deal with : better DD, tricky lasers heights etc. Now I've got a sense of when he likes to trow out a dash attack so I can bait him, but for some reason I have trouble punishing them. In addition of missing opportunities, it doesn't even discourage him to spam dash attack, which makes me feel pretty dumb.

7-Teching marth's d-throw... I've lost a jillion of fresh stocks in 5 seconds to marth's d-throw > d-tilt / f-smash offstage > absurdly perfect impenetrable edgeguard. Stupid bird, why do you fall so fast jeez. d-throw is just so fast ! I actually don't expect any hidden secret on this one, I just wanted to rant about it while I was at it .

Anyway sry for the 2km post, help on any of these points is greatly appreciated !

 

[FE_Hector]

Klemes
There's actually an ongoing Falco discussion in the Ask Dr. PPMD thread... it seems that nobody knows what to do from this MU on either side. Anyways:

1) You may just wanna try holding the C-stick in some direction so you get ASDI on top of whatever your hard DI is. It should help you to escape. Besides that, if you're at point where he CAN hit you with another utilt and his fsmash isn't guaranteed for a kill, expect him to utilt again.

2) Very slight DI behind him. Also, if you're under 4%, he actually DOESN'T have a CG if you DI behind him. I don't think there are any magical tricks for escaping the CG, though.

3) I'd say that DIing in and up is probably your best bet vs his fsmash. Definitely no DI down at all.

4) If he's at a distance where he wants to just grab you again, then try shield dropping and WLing back to screw up his spacing. If he's threatening run off with SHFFL uair or a utilt, you should be able to bait it out. Just fall off and DJ to avoid him, then FFL with a dair or whatever you already had in mind. Just be proactive. If he doesn't buy the bait, WL on the top platform to keep yourself safe.

5) This all depends on how well he handles lasers. If he handles them poorly, just spam lasers on approach and end with a laser shine into a combo. If he handles them well, play his game a little bit. DD and WD around him, make use of plats for clever WLs back to avoid him, but most of all, don't approach with dair. The extra reach on your nair will really make a difference.

6) To be 100% honest, if your opponent likes punishing higher lasers with a dash attack, try to start putting your lasers low enough to catch his dash attack. Just counter his playstyle. Alternately, you could make it look like you're about to laser, but just beat out his dash attack with an aerial or simple evasive jump/WD out.

7) With teching dthrow, it honestly sounds like we may have a similar problem: not exactly being ready to tech at any moment. My bro mains Sheik, and she combos SUPER hard if you miss one or two techs. I'd honestly just suggest that you play against somebody who can punish your missed techs insanely well regularly. I promise that once you start realizing you're losing most of your stocks to the fact that you missed one or two techs, you'll get more used to being used to tech at any given moment. At least, it's helped me a lot.

 

[OninO]

@L33thal

Mindset too defensive as someone else mentioned. You can't just laser, or just AC bair, with no laser why would someone come forward to your bair? Also mix in jump in shine->grabs (with/without laser or nair) if someone won't come forward to you. Be prepared to cover roll in to stage.
Edit: The above is actually critiquing two different things. The first, in general, as stabbed mentioned, you're thinking too defensively overall, that's not to say go full aggro, but you're you're not prepped mentally to punish **** ups (air dodges etc) by your opponent, which indicates you're playing speculative/defensive and act on hit confirm. You should be ready to pounce on spacing mistakes when possible.

The second is about your corner pressure, it's better than last time I remember it, but now too conservative, i.e. you're not trying to force your opponent to bust out of the corner. Get a little bit closer with those AC bairs (put them tippy toe on shield). Mix in non AC, late bairs etc. Basically you have to get in and make them act, not just wall out and hope they run into it.

Edge guarding sub par (1st game, short hop lasering 3-4 times when he's recovering high is epitome, get up high with the laser, sometimes go out and challenge directly).

Tech chasing has improved a lot.

Paniced responses to being forced off stage (always jump->dairing out of hitstun is what lost you last stock game 2)

Shine->grab more (opponent comfortable waiting in shield until you mess up).

Don't be afraid to come down from high with a laser instead of an aerial as a mix up, the timing/location of the hitbox is often enough to prevent someone executing a punish on an aerial descent.

 

[AnonymousID]

If I laser grab, what can someone do to avoid it?

 

[FE_Hector]

Well, lasers have very little hitstun overall, either 6 or 8 frames of hitstun when your opponent is grounded (I forget which). Either way, that gives them a lot of options. Basically, if they're grounded and you land on the exact same frame that your laser connects, they can't do anything. Outside of that situation, they're almost always able to escape unless they're shielding.

 

[tauKhan]

Well, lasers have very little hitstun overall, either 6 or 8 frames of hitstun when your opponent is grounded (I forget which). Either way, that gives them a lot of options. Basically, if they're grounded and you land on the exact same frame that your laser connects, they can't do anything. Outside of that situation, they're almost always able to escape unless they're shielding.

Laser does 12 frames total stun (4 frames hitlag 8 frames stun, hitlag is advantage here because it's projectile). 7 on crouch and on shield.

 

[Bones0]

If I laser grab, what can someone do to avoid it?

Assuming you are talking about on shield, they can spotdodge, roll, or various OoS options (Fox shine, Samus up-B, Doc/Mario up-B, etc).

 

[Klemes]

Klemes


I'd honestly just suggest that you play against somebody who can punish your missed techs insanely well regularly.

I got that covered don't worry... Anyway thanks for your answer !

 

[Scruffy_Scoundrel]

How do you all feel about Lightshield to escape Marth's pressure from below?

If he attacks our lightshield he has to commit to the lag afterwards and combined with proper shield DI we may be able to get off platform and punish him before he recovers.

I haven't had a chance to apply this yet but it may just work, I'm curious to hear all of your thoughts.

 

[Bones0]

How do you all feel about Lightshield to escape Marth's pressure from below?

If he attacks our lightshield he has to commit to the lag afterwards and combined with proper shield DI we may be able to get off platform and punish him before he recovers.

I haven't had a chance to apply this yet but it may just work, I'm curious to hear all of your thoughts.

It's really good. Just be careful of getting empty land-grabbed, pushed off by nair into the second it, and shield broken (light shield takes more damage and shield breaker is already scary on low shields).

 

[Klemes]

It's really good. Just be careful of getting empty land-grabbed, pushed off by nair into the second it, and shield broken (light shield takes more damage and shield breaker is already scary on low shields).

Yeah I actually got my lightshield broken once like that.
I often like to lightshield on platform to wait out the opponent respawn invincibility. Honestly it's super good, there's almost nothing any character can do that you can't easily see coming. Well... Except that time my lightshield got rekt by shieldbreaker. Can't even imagine how I would feel if that happened to me in tournament lol.

 

[Unidex]

Hey guys, I'm having a lot of trouble in the ditto lately, seems like I get shut down by lasers super hard and while I combo well I struggle in the neutral because of my issues against lasers, especially if the opponent is aggressively approaching using lasers as well, I don't have so much of a problem if I'm the aggressor. How do I get around this?

 

[OninO]

Hey guys, I'm having a lot of trouble in the ditto lately, seems like I get shut down by lasers super hard and while I combo well I struggle in the neutral because of my issues against lasers, especially if the opponent is aggressively approaching using lasers as well, I don't have so much of a problem if I'm the aggressor. How do I get around this?

Play someone else. How do other characters deal with laser approaches? The same strategies are available to you, with the addition of ejecting via full hop and trying to time a laser to re-establish control.

In laser trades, not fast-falling is often very useful. It puts your laser high so they get caught in it on their jump then you get a chance to establish full control.

Don't turtle in shield.

 

[Unidex]

Is escaping to platforms a bad idea to avoid lasers or not? I feel like obviously I avoid laser pressure that way but from below the other Falco can be very threatening, though I can just time a dair to keep them off of me. I know if I get shield drops down it'd be much better of an option as well.

 

[GenNyan]

Is escaping to platforms a bad idea to avoid lasers or not? I feel like obviously I avoid laser pressure that way but from below the other Falco can be very threatening, though I can just time a dair to keep them off of me. I know if I get shield drops down it'd be much better of an option as well.

Yeah, falco can't do much to falco on platforms. His SHLs will obviously miss, so he'll need to do other laser tricks to continue applying the pressure. And if he keeps shooting at nothing like an idiot, just dair him or something. Falco's super vulnerable if the laser whiffs. Also you can SHL over low lasers. Hard to do on reaction, but it's amazing.

Make sure you practice being able to do the max length WD OOS to help with the laser pressure as well.

 

[FE_Hector]

I'm going to be completely honest, just listen to them... I struggle super hard with the ditto, even theoretically. I'd say just play it a ton and try to figure it out.

 

[OninO]

Oh, last key, watch the opponent. A jump almost always indicates a laser unless they're close enough to start a pressure string. Cue off the jump for your own rhythm (absorb and act is classic anti-laser strategy for other characters).

So, see jump, prepare for laser, wait till laser hits, act asap out of hitstun. Or you can see jump, jump yourself (full hop), come down with laser after their laser passes underneath.

Use 20XX Falco (3.02 build, not current 4.0 r3 beta), set to spam lasers, color overlays on, move after the hit so that you don't go green (or don't have more than 1 frame green).

 

[Bones0]

You should just use your reflector, obviously. What could go wrong?

 

[FE_Hector]

You should just use your reflector, obviously. What could go wrong?

Sakurai would be proud. Nothing wrong with that.

 

[Pops1086]

Thanks for all of the Shiek edge guarding advice, coincidentally Kira just made a guide on it and even uses Falco for most of his examples. If anyone's interested in watching the video I provided the link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=820utmlAqnU

 

[stabbedbyanipple]

Hey guys, I'm having a lot of trouble in the ditto lately, seems like I get shut down by lasers super hard and while I combo well I struggle in the neutral because of my issues against lasers, especially if the opponent is aggressively approaching using lasers as well, I don't have so much of a problem if I'm the aggressor. How do I get around this?

You want to be the one to establish laser control. A trick I used to do a lot is to shoot some high lasers and if they're doing normal mid to low height lasers then they'll jump into it and their laser won't come out. As soon as a single laser of theirs doesn't come out then you can take laser control.

A more aggressive option is to run up shield on one of their lasers and then shine out of shield because lasers do almost 0 shield stun.

Similar to the last option, you can shield them with your back facing towards falco and if they're approaching recklessly with lasers then you can just bair him.

 

[LozNerd]

Hey, looking for a secondary for my Falco. I play more laser-zoning than hyper combo-aggressive Falco. The only matchup I really don't like is Marth.

Also, which characters are considered to be Falco's worst matchups? (I know he doesn't officially have any bad matchups)

 

[C-SAF]

Hey, looking for a secondary for my Falco. I play more laser-zoning than hyper combo-aggressive Falco. The only matchup I really don't like is Marth.

Also, which characters are considered to be Falco's worst matchups? (I know he doesn't officially have any bad matchups)

Floaties (puff, peach) are usually considered the most annoying matchup for falco. They aren't really bad matchups but are pretty volatile and take a lot of mental focus for the falco to play disciplined. That is also why I think they are two of the most important matchups to play out as falco. I hate playing peach but I cant deny its made me better overall at the game.

That is also why I would generally dissuade u from picking up a secondary for tournament. Until high level, its not the matchup that's giving u trouble, but something that other players do with that character (if that makes sense) that works against u. Overcoming it will help u with all aspects of ur game.

 

[C-SAF]

I don't think I need to make a whole thread about this, so i'll ask it here.

Pools for the next tournament im attending just got posted and one of the players in my pool is a luigi player. From the video ive seen of him, he likes to use tornado in neutral a lot. The commentators actually point out in many of them that he just abuses it if the other person doesn't have an answer. So does anyone have any advice on how to deal with that? Can it be stuffed with AC bair, or should I just cc it at low percents and avoid it at high?

 

[FE_Hector]

I'm relatively sure that his Tornado can be stuffed by nair, dair, or bair if you're spaced properly. Ftilt is also a slightly more disjointed option if you wanna opt for that. Other general Luigi tips: take him to FD and laser the **** out of him, it seriously messes up his movement. Cuz he's so floaty, you probably won't get too much in the combo department and his aerials are fast and strong, so don't overextend for fear of crazy punishes.

 

[OninO]

Haven't tested, but looking at the hitboxes, dair should beat tornado pretty handily. Especially dair in place or faded back. Short hop, no fast fall when you have a read on him advancing with tornado.

 

[C-SAF]

Haven't tested, but looking at the hitboxes, dair should beat tornado pretty handily. Especially dair in place or faded back. Short hop, no fast fall when you have a read on him advancing with tornado.

Thanx, ive been advised similarly by a friend aswell. Apparantly bair can work but it depends on what hit of the tornado meets it, so its unreliable. Lasers should keep it from starting, but if I think I can bait it out ill use dair to stuff it.

 

[C9_VT]

When you 4 stock someone with falco

 

[Bones0]

I wouldn't advise attacking tornado unless you're willing to trade, which should really only be when you'll KO him and/or you're at pre-knockdown %s. I played a Luigi on Wednesday and was able to just shield his tornado (doesn't seem good at poking) then WD OoS and shine him after the last hit. Even if he pulls back at the end and is out of range from your shine, Falco's WD at least goes far enough that you can put significant pressure on him. The only crucial thing to know is Luigi actually has an extra hitbox in his feet if he starts the move in the air. Definitely check it out in 20xx so you know what you're dealing with.

 

[AnonymousID]

So when I watch pp I see him laser jab a lot, does anyone know what it does?

 

[FE_Hector]

It depends on the situation, character, and %. It could be that he wants a laser f/dsmash but doesn't want the laser to get SDId in a way that would keep him from getting the optimal followup (ie they SDI the laser down an land before the smash comes out), so he puts in a jab to pop them up in order to ensure the smash attack. Not 100% sure about that, though.

 

[C-SAF]

So when I watch pp I see him laser jab a lot, does anyone know what it does?

Laser --> Jab is pretty matchup dependant. I know he likes to use it against falcon a lot b/c his grab is poor and he doesn't get oos too fast. It kinda acts like a close range laser in that matchup. Other than that im unsure of it myself, I know jabs have progressively become more and more unsafe b/c of ccing. If u watch videos from even 2 years ago or so it seems like jabs were used quite a bit more.

 

[Klemes]

So when I watch pp I see him laser jab a lot, does anyone know what it does?

Laser > Jab leads to numerous things, and is pretty safe if spaced.
Laser > Jab > grab. Very standard, can be kind of free for falco. You see Westballz do it quite a lot. U-throw for punish / f-throw offstage in corner pressure scenarios, although laser > f-tilt will push him further away. I'd say practice this one first, as you shouldn't get punished too hard for this one, and it'll help you realize what you can go for when you hit laser > jab better.
Laser > Jab > F-smash. Obviously devastating, but DI dependant. Works well on floaties / mid wheights, and airborne opponents.
Laser > Jab > D-smash. In corner pressure again. DI dependant like the above, so they might escape it. But the great thing about those mixups between weak hits / killing moves is that it's a DI trap : meaning they might DI full away to avoid another jab, sending them flying at ridiculous speeds to an early death.

Laser > Jab > nothing. Might seem stupid but it's actually a good thing. When your opponent gets the right DI away, you can't follow up safely. What you can do is immediately take his spot and keep the pressure on. You gain stage, which is crutial for falco, and it's good to get momentum rolling your way. So it's a great spacing tool.

 

[RevySSB]

So i still havent learned how to play the Marth matchup so i mostly just pick Falcon against him. Mainly because i cant combo him with falco

 

[Bones0]

So i still havent learned how to play the Marth matchup so i mostly just pick Falcon against him. Mainly because i cant combo him with falco

Maybe you can't combo Marth as Falco because you always use Falcon against him...

 

[Land0]

Does anyone have a good video/explanation on how to do running shield drops?

 

[Klemes]

No, and I'd very much like some knowledge on it myself.

 

[FE_Hector]

Klemes Land0

I'm not 100% sure, but I'm pretty sure you can do a running shield drop by doing the following.
1) On a platform, run (duh)
2) With the control stick still fully forwards, press L/R (this way you already have your full shield DI forwards)
3) Slide the control stick down one notch (it should be at SE or SW)
I'm pretty sure that the one video I looked at for shield dropping explained it that way. I'm relatively sure it'll work.

 

[EZPZ]

yeah thats all there is to it