PPMD's Falco Discussion Thread

[FE_Hector]

Can you link me to the discord?

The permanent join link is https://discordapp.com/invite/0YJhlv0hgS3z2Fpk (or bit.do/20yys for easier sharing)

 

[Tylt]

Fox is widely regarded as having the best neutral in the game right?

If a player perfects his movement with Falco like PP has and uses his DD and WD in the same vein that Fox/Marth/Falcon use their dash dance, and then has amazing use of lasers, other than power shielding, what's saying that at that point Falco doesn't have the best neutral in the game?


Wait I forgot about his horrid jump squat lol. (But I think my point still stands)

 

[FE_Hector]

Fox is widely regarded as having the best neutral in the game right?

If a player perfects his movement with Falco like PP has and uses his DD and WD in the same vein that Fox/Marth/Falcon use their dash dance, and then has amazing use of lasers, other than power shielding, what's saying that at that point Falco doesn't have the best neutral in the game?

If you have 100% control over lasers (anti-powershielding level) then nobody. Before that, Armada's powershields.

 

[Choice Mheat]

No? He's objectively the slowest even with snowboarding. His FH is great but he still gets outclassed. And lasers aren't that great against proficient players.

 

[FE_Hector]

No? He's objectively the slowest even with snowboarding. His FH is great but he still gets outclassed. And lasers aren't that great against proficient players.

Snowboarding........? Anyways, I'd say the other Gods are proficient players and PPs lasers still do an amazing amount. He was talking about Falco as a sum of the godlike things we've seen other players doing. And outside of that, I think Falco's WD is super underrated. It actually gives him an incredible speed boost, even if not for long.

 

[rnv]

I think "snowboarding" was referring to dash > WD, correct me if I'm wrong.

Also, I have something interesting to bring up that may or may not be in here:
I first saw Beerman (NYC Falco) do this to Minty (LI Samus) in a set at an LI Local (AON).
Basically, to edgeguard the Samus, he sometimes went for a dair while the Samus was bombjumping back to the stage and tried to get the dair to trade with the bomb while still hitting the Samus so he could edgeguard + recover. To me, it looked really smart, but I only saw him do it twice, and one of the times he got stuffed by the bomb before the dair could hit Samus.

Any idea if people are able to do this consistently? Any idea if it's actually viable? Also, general tips on how to edgeguard Samus would be great b/c I always seem to let her back to stage somehow...

 

[FE_Hector]

I think "snowboarding" was referring to dash > WD, correct me if I'm wrong.

That would make sense. I've always heard that referred to as wavesurfing.

As for the rest of your post, it is a relatively intuitive solution, but I think that trying to trade with the bomb is pretty hard and I wouldn't be surprised if Samus had some amount of counterplay to this (even just delaying the bombjumps and opting for a weirder grapple recovery).

 

[Bones0]

You can jump out to babysit the bomb jump and DJ dair them on reaction if they do it. Whether you trade with the bomb usually isn't relevant as long as you hit them and can make it back. Just be ready to Phantasm in case you do get hit by one. Also be wary of them fading back after the first bomb instead of setting up a second to jump. You can't overcommit to the point where you're too low to DJ dair and also need to be able to DJ Phantasm back without getting hit by their DJ nair or something.

 

[ChivalRuse]

^ Liked this post because you actually wrote "wary" instead of "weary".

 

[WondrousMoose]

^ Liked this post because you actually wrote "wary" instead of "weary".

Would you say you're both weary and wary of the words' misuse?

 

[V_x_I_D]

I'm trying to get better st my ledge combos, but whenever I dair, shine, then try to pop up for my next shine, sometimes falco doesn't jump cancel the shine.

What gives?

 

[FE_Hector]

I'm trying to get better st my ledge combos, but whenever I dair, shine, then try to pop up for my next shine, sometimes falco doesn't jump cancel the shine.

What gives?

I'm not entirely sure of the situation you're describing. Could you try to be a little more thorough in the explanation of what happens?

 

[Bones0]

I'm trying to get better st my ledge combos, but whenever I dair, shine, then try to pop up for my next shine, sometimes falco doesn't jump cancel the shine.

What gives?

You have to wait longer to JC shines if they connect with an opponent because you undergo hitlag. Both characters are frozen for a few frames during hitlag, which means you won't be able to JC (or do anything) as soon as you normally would. Be sure to practice attacking a character or shield to develop a good sense of timing your attack sequences.

 

[Alexander Duprey]

I think "snowboarding" was referring to dash > WD, correct me if I'm wrong.

Also, I have something interesting to bring up that may or may not be in here:
I first saw Beerman (NYC Falco) do this to Minty (LI Samus) in a set at an LI Local (AON).
Basically, to edgeguard the Samus, he sometimes went for a dair while the Samus was bombjumping back to the stage and tried to get the dair to trade with the bomb while still hitting the Samus so he could edgeguard + recover. To me, it looked really smart, but I only saw him do it twice, and one of the times he got stuffed by the bomb before the dair could hit Samus.

Any idea if people are able to do this consistently? Any idea if it's actually viable? Also, general tips on how to edgeguard Samus would be great b/c I always seem to let her back to stage somehow...

Thats the legendary porkchops from south Florida if you didn't know.

 

[Choice Mheat]

I really suck at the techchase, and it doesn't help that falco is a brick. I've been thinking of rules to make a consistent effective techchase.

-cover tech in place, this will also cover a missed tech, either with shine or uptilt
- tech in can be reacted to with WD back into shine up tilt, grab, dair etc
- tech away can probably only be covered with laser grab or has to be read.

On platform, the process is simplified and and all options can be covered. I'm just thinking of a super consistent punish game like Armada or leffen. Is this plausible?

 

[FE_Hector]

I really suck at the techchase, and it doesn't help that falco is a brick. I've been thinking of rules to make a consistent effective techchase.

-cover tech in place, this will also cover a missed tech, either with shine or uptilt
- tech in can be reacted to with WD back into shine up tilt, grab, dair etc
- tech away can probably only be covered with laser grab or has to be read.

On platform, the process is simplified and and all options can be covered. I'm just thinking of a super consistent punish game like Armada or leffen. Is this plausible?

This was brought up in a conversation I had a while ago, and I believe what Westballz does is actually overshoots a dair that'll clip both tech in place and roll forwards due to how long invincibility lasts, and he can actually still establish laser pressure if they roll back. Like I said, I might be remembering incorrectly, but that's what I think I heard. Based on whether or not he thinks they'll tech back, he just alters the positioning of the dair.

I've been messing around with techchasing a lot too, and it seems to largely come down to conditioning. Make your opponent think they're safe rolling one way and just set yourself up to cover the way they think they're safe along with tech in place. Worse case scenario is that they tech the other direction and give you more info + the ability to set up laser pressure. Lemme see if I can dig up the aforementioned conversation though.

EDIT: After going through Middle Tennessee Smash Bros for like 10 mins I found the thread. You only needa read 1 and 3. http://prntscr.com/c61ahw

After thought: I really really really like sliding off of a platform to cover missed tech with a laser reset if you're in a position to do so. A lot of people miss techs on dairs they don't expect, and it often lets you do that if you're prepared. Sliding or running off plats with lasers is just really cool in general imo though.

 

[Choice Mheat]

An option that I've been testing is running shine to cover tech in place/ missed but then also puts you in position to punish tech away.

That covers 3/4 options, I think I remember m2k one saying that's how he does his tech chase. Cover as many options as possible because you can't perfectly cover all. Although this wouldn't cover tech in, which may give up stage control so it becomes a risk reward deal.

 

[FE_Hector]

An option that I've been testing is running shine to cover tech in place/ missed but then also puts you in position to punish tech away.

That covers 3/4 options, I think I remember m2k one saying that's how he does his tech chase. Cover as many options as possible because you can't perfectly cover all. Although this wouldn't cover tech in, which may give up stage control so it becomes a risk reward deal.

IDK what the frame data looks like, but would it be possible to WD out of the running shine to react to their techroll direction and get a followup? Sounds like it'd be really really close frame-wise if possible at all.

 

[Choice Mheat]

Missed tech is vulnerable for 26 frames. Tech in place is vulnerable for frames 20-26 so there's a 6 frame window that would let you cover both. Pretty good amount of time

Tech left/right is generally vulnerable for frames 21-40 and visible horizontal movement at like 9 so if you shine at the latest frame 26 you have 17 frames to react to what side it's going which would be pretty hard, then 14 frames to get to one side or another and punish. Really really tight timing. If someone wants to go super 20YY and learn it I'll be impressed. But it wouldn't be nearly as useful as like shiek reaction chase.

But I do think it's worth and feasible to center a tech chase around covering those 6 frames for missed/in-place and reading the roll.

 

[`Rival]

Missed tech is vulnerable for 26 frames. Tech in place is vulnerable for frames 20-26 so there's a 6 frame window that would let you cover both. Pretty good amount of time

Tech left/right is generally vulnerable for frames 21-40 and visible horizontal movement at like 9 so if you shine at the latest frame 26 you have 17 frames to react to what side it's going which would be pretty hard, then 14 frames to get to one side or another and punish. Really really tight timing. If someone wants to go super 20YY and learn it I'll be impressed. But it wouldn't be nearly as useful as like shiek reaction chase.

But I do think it's worth and feasible to center a tech chase around covering those 6 frames for missed/in-place and reading the roll.

it's possible to tech chase on reaction with upsmash if you can determine where they will be and also act within 12-13 frames ish frames or a fifth of a second. i forgot, i did extensive testing on this a long time ago. you need to position yourself right where they hit the ground to do it though. so this set up often happens when you hit them with an aerial that puts them into tumble, but they hit the ground before you are able to combo into a next move (for example, landing a nair/dair on a grounded fox at 37%-43% or something). remember, even though horizontal movement is only recognizable after frame 9, the tech in place animation can be identified much faster - fox kinda spreads his legs on frame 5 ish when he is teching in place. idk how other characters tech chase on reaction but for me it's been about identifying if they are teching in place, because covering the other options in this position isn't too hard. this set up doesn't happen that often, but when it does, i almost always land it if i'm focused enough.

in other situations where you can't be in this position, yea you have to do it based on conditioning/covering multiple options i'm pretttttty sure.

edit: it was around one fifth of a second (12-13 frames ish)

 

[Choice Mheat]

On the topic of,

What's the best way to punish getup attack if you're standing over them. I usually shield grab but I feel like shine would be better. Or is upsmash oos better than shine?

 

[FE_Hector]

On the topic of,

What's the best way to punish getup attack if you're standing over them. I usually shield grab but I feel like shine would be better. Or is upsmash oos better than shine?

Oftentimes I opt for dair oos because a lot of people won't be ready to DI it and I get nice followups from it. Shine OoS is obviously a good option, too. I'm not sure you can really consider any option generally "optimal" though because of how important character, %, and stage positioning are.

 

[Klemes]

dair OoS, shine OoS. I'm also confident you can WD OoS > shine if you're pushed too far.
bait by walking up to him and dash back > come back in with a dair.
PS > dsmash in the corner (hehe, too hard though)
CC > dash > JC shine at low%.
the destroyer of foxes = CC > fsmash. You actually can delay it just a few frames, so chances are he'll be holding/tapping away to escape with a roll/dash. If you catch him you can help him escape to the blast zone.

usmash is nice on mid% spacies, everyone else gets out of hitstun too fast. even then I think you can always get out (especially on platforms) with super DI away.

 

[Mikkelmann]

Is this the group that thinks Falco is the best character in the game?

 

[WondrousMoose]

dair OoS, shine OoS. I'm also confident you can WD OoS > shine if you're pushed too far.
bait by walking up to him and dash back > come back in with a dair.
PS > dsmash in the corner (hehe, too hard though)
CC > dash > JC shine at low%.
the destroyer of foxes = CC > fsmash. You actually can delay it just a few frames, so chances are he'll be holding/tapping away to escape with a roll/dash. If you catch him you can help him escape to the blast zone.

usmash is nice on mid% spacies, everyone else gets out of hitstun too fast. even then I think you can always get out (especially on platforms) with super DI away.

How effective is shine OOS for Falco? Obviously, it can set up potential combos, but it's a pain to learn, and the hitbox isn't especially large.

 

[FE_Hector]

How effective is shine OOS for Falco? Obviously, it can set up potential combos, but it's a pain to learn, and the hitbox isn't especially large.

It's a frame 6 option. AFAIK, Fox shine OoS, Peach upB OoS, a few shield drop options, Marth's Dolphin Slash, and Samus' upB OoS are the only relevant moves that can contest it. Aslo remember you're invincible on that one frame. On top of that, being a frame or two with a shine oos is actually NOT big deal most of the time because if you surprise them with it then they'll probably miss their DI and you can DJ out and dair them to set up the pillar. PP does that a lot.

 

[Alexander Duprey]

Shine hitbox has a much better hitbox on the backside of falco. In the front hitting Shine OOS is nigh impossible if your opponent space properly. plus if you have your back facing the opponent, you can also opt for AC bair OOS if you don't think shine will connect.

 

[L33thal]

Can anyone critique this set? My opponent is a Fox main with a strong vertical game and I struggle so much against him lol. I was doing some weird stuff to try to counter him, but I think there should be a lot of better ideas?

 

[Audos]

Can anyone critique this set? My opponent is a Fox main with a strong vertical game and I struggle so much against him lol. I was doing some weird stuff to try to counter him, but I think there should be a lot of better ideas?

There were a lot of parts in the fox's gameplan that, at least from that game, looked unexploited. He seems to approach with weak ariels a lot, which can be countered pretty easily at low percents with CC. Fullhops especially that he did you could have reacted to and dealt with in a way that could net you a shine. I wouldn't say his drift in the air was bad, but at the space you were in most of the time you could react and do quite a bit. If I'd focus on anything to counter him it would be preparing to react to fullhops or falling approaches.

He also seemed to edgeguard high up-b really often, you could mix up with sweetspots and shortens more. He also had a pretty big tendency to roll inward toward stage after one or two hits of shield pressure, which he was probably doing because he was always looking for a certain amount of room to approach the way that he wanted to. I'm willing to bet the direction of this roll would be a hard habit to break of his, since it goes so hand in hand with what he wants to follow the roll up with. If I were you I'd mix in a lot of shield pressure that can cover the location fox will be at, like laser dashback or waveshining back and preparing to shine him at the end of his roll.

If anything else I would say your combos weren't crazy good, but that is probably because you looked out of your comfort zone the entire game due to his approaches and couldn't land the moves you probably like to start up your combos with. That and he was able to lock you down on the edge a ton, sitting on side platform a lot. It is risky but you could roll on stage a bit more or do the classic ppmd and the moment he looks like he is going to waveland to the side platform and get set up you can just immediate ledge hop side-b to take center stage. You can mix up your timing on when you act from ledge by firestalling. Getting off the ledge with the way he plays is way more about reading his set up habits unless you can master your ledgedashes which I recommend long term anyway.

 

[Klemes]

Can anyone critique this set? My opponent is a Fox main with a strong vertical game and I struggle so much against him lol. I was doing some weird stuff to try to counter him, but I think there should be a lot of better ideas?

Interesting set.
Watch it again : in what situation do you get the vast majority of your hits ?
When you have the stage and you're zoning/baiting to keep him out and cornered. You can see it better on the PS game.

So you need to make this your gameplan for now, have it in your mind at all times.
You can get more out of this scenario by practicing :
1. your spacing. it was fine really, just pay attention to the moves that got you punished and ask yourself if it was the smart thing to do, if you got baited by his movement, if you did your move too slow/close etc.

2. your movement. again you're moving pretty well, but you can always be faster and trickier, and when you're in control the payoff is there. where you're lacking the most is on platforms and on the edge. might have been the nerves, but that's all the more reasons to practice those. ledgedash, shine>waveland, waveland off the plat>bair / dair, and my personnal advice : learn the shielddrop. I swear shielddrop > shine / bair : dair are HUGE.

3. limit his movement. this means standing your ground and call out / punish his aproaches as well as his escape attempts. utilt/auto cancel bair are great, dair in place/fade back is great. But fox is too fast, so you need to slow him down and keep him grounded with your laser. On YS you suffered A LOT from having no control on the game. No control from stage positioning, and no laser pressure. The laser is an amazing tool, he has to get through them to even get in your space, and that leaves you time to either be gone by the time he's there, wall out with an aerial for him to jump into. Lasers get reactions out of him that can often be punished. You can laser>dash back>come back in with a dair to destroy his attempt to move forward, laser>jab to catch jumps/OoS stuff, laser>ftilt to push him away/offstage, laser>grab if you see he sits in his shield too easily.
Be sure to mix in your lasers with your movement to keep him guessing, in addition to actually dealing with your lasers. That will hinder his stage presence and his aggression quite nicely.

As you said yourself he got a lot out of his strong vertical game, falling on you with nairs etc. Well I have news for you, the bird has quite a strong vertical game as well. Many foxes like to full hop to go around lasers, but you WANT him there : utilt callout = your best possible combo starter, it's just pretty hard to time it correctly. full hop nair/bair to hit him out of the air, if you catch his double jump he can be in trouble, dair him on platforms/shine waveland, both start combos very well.

Other than that you could do better in your punish game and edgeguard/recovery. But you know it already, it's only a matter of practice and analysis.

 

[Audos]

So I was watching a bunch of melee sets crying into a tub of Ben&Jerry's (you know, usual thursday afternoon), and I got an idea. I've seen a bunch of SD's in amsah tech situations where they make a flubby input, and I was wondering if there is a way to options select so that doesn't happen. This isn't really falco specific but it still seemed worth bringing up.

Is there a way to make 2 inputs, one for the tech directly after another action you can try to cover for you if you don't want to airdodge offstage? The only real problem I'd see would be that trying to input an action that can't buffer would just potentially delay the tech input, causing more problems. Like you might input an up air as fox then R to tech, and because you pressed R at a frame later you might miss the tech and not have your up air register anyway. I dunno, just thought the concept was worth bringin up if it hasn't yet.

(btw I'm still looking through the thread from the beginning so if somebody already mentioned something I say then my B)

 

[FE_Hector]

So I was watching a bunch of melee sets crying into a tub of Ben&Jerry's (you know, usual thursday afternoon), and I got an idea. I've seen a bunch of SD's in amsah tech situations where they make a flubby input, and I was wondering if there is a way to options select so that doesn't happen. This isn't really falco specific but it still seemed worth bringing up.

Is there a way to make 2 inputs, one for the tech directly after another action you can try to cover for you if you don't want to airdodge offstage? The only real problem I'd see would be that trying to input an action that can't buffer would just potentially delay the tech input, causing more problems. Like you might input an up air as fox then R to tech, and because you pressed R at a frame later you might miss the tech and not have your up air register anyway. I dunno, just thought the concept was worth bringin up if it hasn't yet.

(btw I'm still looking through the thread from the beginning so if somebody already mentioned something I say then my B)

I think a really simple example for this would be if you're at a high % dairing vs Sheik. IDK why you're approaching her in this situation, but you are because it's easy to visualize. I think that the simplest solution in this exact situation would be to actually digital press L/R for once so you get the L-Cancel if you hit OR the tech if she dsmashes you (front leg first hit is invincible). You've just gotta make sure you buffer the tech while you're not actionable at all. Technically aren't any actual option selects in the game, but you can mimic one with a situation similar to that. (Also, I liked your post for the first sentence)

 

[Audos]

I think a really simple example for this would be if you're at a high % dairing vs Sheik. IDK why you're approaching her in this situation, but you are because it's easy to visualize. I think that the simplest solution in this exact situation would be to actually digital press L/R for once so you get the L-Cancel if you hit OR the tech if she dsmashes you (front leg first hit is invincible). You've just gotta make sure you buffer the tech while you're not actionable at all. Technically aren't any actual option selects in the game, but you can mimic one with a situation similar to that. (Also, I liked your post for the first sentence)

Yeah that makes sense, amsah techs in general should have the input to tech buffered. That being said mistakes happen and people react with trying to tech but just airdodge. I'm proposing the idea that players start implementing something that covers for themselves should they time it late, the question is whether or not this will cause other problems.

Let's take this example: Say you are a falcon onstage recovering and you aren't sure if you are going to need to amsah tech or not. You aren't prepared for the situation so when the the downsmash from the sheik connects you airdodge offstage. If the Falcon had worked into his muscle memory to always use an ariel input just before the tech input, would that cover for situations when his reactions were too slow/timing was a bit late? Or would this tech cause more problems in other ways than the issue it tries to cover?

 

[FE_Hector]

Yeah that makes sense, amsah techs in general should have the input to tech buffered. That being said mistakes happen and people react with trying to tech but just airdodge. I'm proposing the idea that players start implementing something that covers for themselves should they time it late, the question is whether or not this will cause other problems.

Let's take this example: Say you are a falcon onstage recovering and you aren't sure if you are going to need to amsah tech or not. You aren't prepared for the situation so when the the downsmash from the sheik connects you airdodge offstage. If the Falcon had worked into his muscle memory to always use an ariel input just before the tech input, would that cover for situations when his reactions were too slow/timing was a bit late? Or would this tech cause more problems in other ways than the issue it tries to cover?

I think that, at least in that situation, it probably creates more issues because he's then risking throwing out a random hitbox that ultimately just puts him in lag and limits his recovery... mixups I guess, given that it's Falcon. Even if he just did a uair, which doesn't waste a ton of time, it's still wasting some. I think the better solution is to identify when you can/need to Amsah tech and work on your reactions to it, identifying that if you can't because you're in the air, you just adjust your DI to TRY and get on a platform. You'd probably die anyways, so at least give yourself a shot.

 

[Audos]

I think that, at least in that situation, it probably creates more issues because he's then risking throwing out a random hitbox that ultimately just puts him in lag and limits his recovery... mixups I guess, given that it's Falcon. Even if he just did a uair, which doesn't waste a ton of time, it's still wasting some. I think the better solution is to identify when you can/need to Amsah tech and work on your reactions to it, identifying that if you can't because you're in the air, you just adjust your DI to TRY and get on a platform. You'd probably die anyways, so at least give yourself a shot.

If you do start doing this idea then you would never be risking an ariel offstage, because the only moment you would actually do the up air would be moments when you would have airdodged anyway, which is way worse since you just flat out die in that case. Also falcon was just an example, theoretically you could do it with anyone to prevent accidental airdodges when attempting to tech at a low angle.

 

[Ixtamacunxi]

Is Dair->Utilt guaranteed on Puff at low percents? Been using it on 20xx but i'm not sure it really works.

 

[Audos]

Is Dair->Utilt guaranteed on Puff at low percents? Been using it on 20xx but i'm not sure it really works.

Even turnaround up tilt links at 0%, just make sure you land the dair really low. One issue is that they can SDI different directions on the dair to make whether you can shine, up tilt, or turnaround up tilt very hard to react to.

 

[Bones0]

Is Dair->Utilt guaranteed on Puff at low percents? Been using it on 20xx but i'm not sure it really works.

You can test it in Training Mode or turn on the timer combo counter in the Debug Menu.

 

[RedGamer]

Yo. I haven't posted on here in like 3 years lol.

I'm currently top 5 in my city and I "main" falco. I got good with falco and I put the most time into him, but lately competing hasn't been fun so I've switched to other characters in tournament to avoid becoming stale in my mentality.

I guess what I'm trying to ask is: what can i work on tightening to make my bird the word? Both in game (tech chasing, laser spacing, etc) and out (diet, mentality, discipline, etc)

 

[FE_Hector]

Yo. I haven't posted on here in like 3 years lol.

I'm currently top 5 in my city and I "main" falco. I got good with falco and I put the most time into him, but lately competing hasn't been fun so I've switched to other characters in tournament to avoid becoming stale in my mentality.

I guess what I'm trying to ask is: what can i work on tightening to make my bird the word? Both in game (tech chasing, laser spacing, etc) and out (diet, mentality, discipline, etc)

It's honestly difficult to provide any kind of an answer without having seen your Falco play (or if I have I don't remember). One thing that often helps me remember how much I love Falco is playing other characters a lot. After a little while playing Fox, Marth, or Falcon (my fun/goofy characters), Falco feels a LOT more fun as soon as I go back.

For out of the game stuff though, honestly just make sure you're eating properly the day before and of a tournament and get a good amount of sleep. A lot of people seem to underestimate the value of things like these, so it's important.

If you have any problems with mentality or discipline that you can enumerate in here, then it would be far easier to provide advice