PPMD's Falco Discussion Thread

[Bones0]

Falco's fthrow knocks down at 37%. Throw hitstun is not weight dependent, so this is true for everyone.

I feel like WDing forward would be faster than walking while still giving you enough time to punish the TIP/MT. Alternatively, you can SH towards their landing spot and dair on reaction to TIP/MT, and if they TR instead, you empty land and chase their TR with a SHFFL dair. This is usually what I go for, at least on Fox. RTCing off of fthrow is so much easier when their TR away is shortened by the ledge though.

I think dtilt is strictly better than usmash in this situation. Not only do I feel like it always has stronger KB, but there's no risk of them DIing behind you towards center. They either DI in and get hit with a followup or DI away and end up at the ledge. Not sure why you wouldn't be able to react with shine since it's obviously faster than either of those options.

As for Marth, I'm not sure he's even forced into knockdown in these situations. At 37%, I think he is floaty enough that he can wiggle out, jump away, and maybe even fair to protect himself landing.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Ok first off, I have many questions. My first is, what would be a good pressure option for those above me on the platforms? Usually I go for SHFFL up airs, but that may be easily punished due to predictability. I want something to mix my options up. Leading to my next question, I must point out that one of my strong suits as a Falco player is pulling off the Bombsoldier (JC shine to up-b) consistently. Do you think this and down tilt are viable KO options? My prominent use of getting out of multi-hit moves is to use down tilt or shine to break out and start a ko setup or combo. I am also good at reading DI, baiting recoveries, and overall being defensive. But, my pressure options are lacking, I have work on multishining, waveshines, and shine grabs to do, and I struggle in some matchups that are particularly defensive themselves. (mostly Marth and Peach) So I ask, what are some tips on the matchups? I may have more questions, just hang on.

SHFFL Uair into Utilt or FH Bair, SHL, lasering on the opposite side platform, FH/DJ above them into spaced/late Bair/Dair or mixing that with landing below them(can also SH into DJ instead or SH land and then repeat the mixup or land and shine), attacking from the top platform, transitioning between many of the things I listed, and more will attack the side platform.

Not in every matchup at all times are those the best options, and in some matchups like Peach the Bombsoldier doesn't combo. Dair to Dair is good as is Nair to Dair or Dair tech chase Dsmash to send them low, or Utilt/shine into shine on floaties on YS/PS for example if you want kill ideas.

I want to explore this a little bit more, and also look at fthrow in the ditto. I was sitting with 20xx and trying to figure out the optimal trees for the fthrow knockdown when you are close enough to the ledge that both characters get a reduced distance out of their tech to ledge, but far enough away from the ledge that they can't slideoff DI the throw. For reference, this length is somewhere between ~1/3rd and ~2/5th the distance of FD away from the ledge.

So in this position, I want to make Marth or Falco maximally suffer. This knockdown happens at roughly 45% on both characters, so it's a great weight to set up a combo or knock them offstage with a strong move. The tree, as I have it figure out now, looks similar to this:

fthrow > walk forward to prepare for missed tech/tech in place

Tech in place -> D-tilt or Up-smash. I don't think it's possible to reach Marth or Falco with shine at that %, pivot up-tilt is the best option but too volatile for tournament conditions, and jumping after them to pop them up with a dair is too high-commitment and gives up the ability to react to the rolls. These two will launch the opponent barring godly downwards DI, but can be done at range in that case such that you're out of range of Falco's tech in place shine and can retreat from marth's tech in place grab. I'm not sure which option of the two is better; Falco's up-smash is laggier, but can be done out of a run in case they DI the Fthrow full away, whereas dtilt can be done out of a crouch, and thus is better able to cover tech roll in. Looking for input here, or potentially a better followup for this situation. It may be possible (and likely) that dtilt is better when they're closer to 45% than 90%, and up-smash only when getting that godlike ASDI down becomes near impossible. I considered dash attack, but it clanks with too much, can be ASDI'd down until much higher %s, and is ten frames laggier than dtilt to boot. So at the moment, these are the two in my tree.

Missed tech -> I think the above options will cover this before they're able to input anything, but it's possible there might be another, better option for either the low- or high-range %s. Walk up shine maybe? Regardless, below around 60% I think the best option is probably just to walk up and crouch to block against the getup attack, then react to the other three with the options below. Marth is invincible for longer if doing a getup-attack off his back, but both should be punishable with F-smash or run-up shine/shinegrab, right?

Tech roll to ledge -> Move towards and either f-smash or ftilt, depending on %. I think f-smash is better near the 45% range and t-tilt nearer to the 90% range, but I'm not sure exactly where the cutoff would be. Probably closer to 80%, I'll start using ftilt. Couple of reasons for this. Fsmash will get them offstage at lower %s, whereas ftilt is more likely to be ASDI'd down and provide snap-to-ledge DI for Marth or instant dj recoveries with Falco. But at those higher %s, they're more ready to survival DI the f-smash and less ready to be holding down for the ftilt DI. Against Falco, that means you cover the instant dj and instant dj side-b, and with marth that should give you enough time to set up the faux-marth killer (rolling to the ledge like you're going to marth killer, and forcing out the option). I'm pretty sure about this one, the goal is to get them offstage and prepare for the edgeguard.

Tech roll towards stage -> this is actually where I'm most stuck. The intuition for me is to f-smash to punish the roll, since I can easily react to that after my tech in place/missed tech option. But that doesn't lead to anything from this position except to knock them away and reset neutral. Even at higher %s (90% and up), most opponents are DI'ing well enough to have a lot of recovery mixups from this position. But I also know that the opportunity to have Marth knocked down at this %s needs to be taken full advantage of, so I don't think regrab is the best solution.

If any of my fellow Falcomasters can take a look at this tree and help me figure out where I can shore it up, it'd be much appreciated. Thanks all.

Without seeing where the tech in place is myself, I'd guess you could also Fsmash that tech in place. If not, then I'd SH and react to in place or roll most likely. SH can mix between Dair and Nair(and shine sometimes iirc) which is useful, and I can FF and land and shine or whatever I want if they try to tech roll past me toward center.

Your options seemed fine enough but I just figured I'd add how I'd approach it.

 

[Chiggaman23]

Thanks, the pressure options could be a stepping stone to improving Falco play on FoD. (I actually think the stage is not bad for Falco)

Most Bombsoldier combos are reserved for spacies, Marth and Falcon. My recent pickup of Fox just starts to poison that.

Mostly down throw will be a steal of a stock for me since I can down tilt if my opponent misses their tech.

I'd also need to know what a utilization for back throw. I'm not stupid, I'm asking because I have down throw to lock and set up kill confirms, up throw for aerial setups and just overall juggling, and forward throw to chaingrab and force edgeguard situations. I find back throw to be obsolete after seeing their uses.

Next, I need to say that I suck on Dream land. Like, really bad. My ko options are pretty hard to do now, and it gives problems with my recovery should the wind be blowing in my direction. Plus, I'm also pretty light myself so that means I'm at a disadvantage here. I'm not gonna lie, I've had multiple times where an opponent wouldn't die till 220%. I also feel like countering opponents on platforms isn't as effective, the size of the stage can be a detriment to my lasers, and my recovery mixups get pineappled SO many times. I need to know what could be best to improve my play there, because I personally just despise that stage as a whole, and I need situations to help in case of a counterpick to there.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Bthrow is good for positional advantage/putting someone offstage for a gimp situation, as well as pseudo comboing into another grab or running shine and sometimes dash attack(Westballz does this variety vs spacies on platforms). It tends to mix with DI people want to do on Fthrow/Uthrow well.

Sounds like focusing on edgeguarding and killing out of combos such as Dair to Dair or Dair to tech chase Dsmash will serve you well on DL.

 

[Barron]

I love down smashing Peach at 0% thoughts?

 

[Nils.]

Can someone explain to med why when you downair Falcon at like 30% he gets almost no hitstun when he lands? I just tried this in 20XX and it's driving me nuts.

I make Falcon hold shield and then I combo him. After the first shine > dair the second shine hits no problem, but after a second dair, which I tried several times doing as late as possible it was as if he landed with no hitstun and got the shield out before my shine every time.

It doesn't seem to have anything to do with dair being stale. I'm lost.

 

[ande]

you probably already now this, but if not it could be pretty helpful i guess.

if you wavedash back off the top platform on yoshis and reverse laser, you land on the side platform.
it´s the fastest way i can get from top to side platfrom, but i`m very new to falco so i don´t know if this is really the fastest way or if there´s a diffrent way other than just drift to the side after you off the platform but i can´t seem to fastfall and drift enough to land on the platform.

also i tried to think of it as a mix-up for shine>waveland techchases, if you shine a spacie on the ground under the edge of the top platform then immediately jump to the top platform and waveland off reverse laser you could possibly make them think you missread the DI´d to follow up and make them tech a certain way or if they really DI so that you could followup with shine>waveland on top platform, you could react to that.

i have to say that i´m very new to falco and generaly not that long in the smash scene and know absolutly nothing about neutral since i only play cpu´s, but would still love to hear what you think about this.
peace

 

[Bones0]

Can someone explain to med why when you downair Falcon at like 30% he gets almost no hitstun when he lands? I just tried this in 20XX and it's driving me nuts.

I make Falcon hold shield and then I combo him. After the first shine > dair the second shine hits no problem, but after a second dair, which I tried several times doing as late as possible it was as if he landed with no hitstun and got the shield out before my shine every time.

It doesn't seem to have anything to do with dair being stale. I'm lost.

From what I remember, what you're describing is dependent on a lot of weird stuff, such as knockback velocity and knockback stacking/trajectories. If you dair Falcon out of the air at 0%, he will do what I call a "ground cancel", which is when landing on the ground puts you in the standard landing animation (4 frames for most characters). When Fox shines an airborne Marth or when you ASDI into the ground pre-knockdown percents, you are ground cancelling (commonly confused with crouch cancelling since CCing requires holding down and thus, you generally ASDI down as well).

I think it was @tauKhan who made a post earlier explaining it as best he could, but it's painfully complicated and basically impossible to keep track of in game. For the specific situation you are describing, I would recommend trying to dair earlier rather than later. I find that when I keep characters in stun the entire time, they are less likely to escape the pillar combo. This is also useful as some players have started SDIing the dair down to ground cancel, and doing your dair as early as possible makes this quite difficult, if not outright impossible.

you probably already now this, but if not it could be pretty helpful i guess.

if you wavedash back off the top platform on yoshis and reverse laser, you land on the side platform.
it´s the fastest way i can get from top to side platfrom, but i`m very new to falco so i don´t know if this is really the fastest way or if there´s a diffrent way other than just drift to the side after you off the platform but i can´t seem to fastfall and drift enough to land on the platform.

also i tried to think of it as a mix-up for shine>waveland techchases, if you shine a spacie on the ground under the edge of the top platform then immediately jump to the top platform and waveland off reverse laser you could possibly make them think you missread the DI´d to follow up and make them tech a certain way or if they really DI so that you could followup with shine>waveland on top platform, you could react to that.

i have to say that i´m very new to falco and generaly not that long in the smash scene and know absolutly nothing about neutral since i only play cpu´s, but would still love to hear what you think about this.
peace

The waveland you're describing is really useful, and I think Axe in particular is notorious for his crazy WLing. I use the run off laser to land on side plats and shine without dropping through (the laser lets you hold down as you land), but when discussing this with Ginger, he actually noticed you can start an up air right before you land and get a similar effect since it will autocancel before the hitbox comes out.

 

[xeaid]

Hey guys, so I've been having trouble with foxes who try to time quick running shines / shffled arials in neutral. I have the problem both when cornered and with stage control. My question is, what does this mean for my neutral game? Am I leaving to much space/ not applying enough pressure? Am I playing in a non -reactionary way? Right now, its pretty hard for me to anticipate. How do I get better at anticipating these quick approaches / playing pro actively against them? Any thoughts and advice appreciated.

 

[Nils.]

From what I remember, what you're describing is dependent on a lot of weird stuff, such as knockback velocity and knockback stacking/trajectories. If you dair Falcon out of the air at 0%, he will do what I call a "ground cancel", which is when landing on the ground puts you in the standard landing animation (4 frames for most characters). When Fox shines an airborne Marth or when you ASDI into the ground pre-knockdown percents, you are ground cancelling (commonly confused with crouch cancelling since CCing requires holding down and thus, you generally ASDI down as well).

I think it was @tauKhan who made a post earlier explaining it as best he could, but it's painfully complicated and basically impossible to keep track of in game. For the specific situation you are describing, I would recommend trying to dair earlier rather than later. I find that when I keep characters in stun the entire time, they are less likely to escape the pillar combo. This is also useful as some players have started SDIing the dair down to ground cancel, and doing your dair as early as possible makes this quite difficult, if not outright impossible..

I think I've seen Westballz do that early dair.

Hope it works in PAL.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Hey guys, so I've been having trouble with foxes who try to time quick running shines / shffled arials in neutral. I have the problem both when cornered and with stage control. My question is, what does this mean for my neutral game? Am I leaving to much space/ not applying enough pressure? Am I playing in a non -reactionary way? Right now, its pretty hard for me to anticipate. How do I get better at anticipating these quick approaches / playing pro actively against them? Any thoughts and advice appreciated.

You might just not be aware of your options. Retreating late Bair or retreating early Dair cover these things, as does Utilt and retreating laser. You can also aerial into them first. You can also do an early action and land then hold down if you think they'll Nair(you can SDI drill anyway) and punish whatever you want that way. So I'd say mess with those types of options first before looking at the bigger picture.

 

[Cucumber]

Anyone know how to wall tech marth's counter? I'm pretty sure you're supposed to sdi down + in, but I don't know when to input the tech.

 

[Bones0]

Anyone know how to wall tech marth's counter? I'm pretty sure you're supposed to sdi down + in, but I don't know when to input the tech.

The counter has its own freeze frames, so just delay the tech later than normal.

 

[Barron]

Thoughts on using cross up rolls as Falco? This might be more of a smash 4 thing but I was thinking maybe if your opponent is wasting their frames trying to zone you out, you can potentially roll into them with your invulnerability frames and get an up tilt / shine

 

[makehersquirtle]

I’ve been noticing that fox’s even of lower level have been having a really easy time teaching my dairs aimed at the ledge to edgeguard a low up b. Is there a way to space/ timing mixup this move to increase my success with the move, or should I resort to other options like fade back nair/ grab ledge into bair or shine bair.

 

[makehersquirtle]

Barron “cross up roll” is not something I would recommend. With DD and the fact that rolls are way slower it’s way to easy to punish, and often times leads into a characters best combo tool which is usually a grab. In melee you typically want to roll to regain control of center, if your frame negative, or if you recognize you’ve spaced an aerial very poorly and can be punished or something. Of course, that being said understand what your other options are in these scenarios and try not to get predictable.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Thoughts on using cross up rolls as Falco? This might be more of a smash 4 thing but I was thinking maybe if your opponent is wasting their frames trying to zone you out, you can potentially roll into them with your invulnerability frames and get an up tilt / shine

It's okay, but like the above commenter said it's pretty slow and you'd need them to be in a lot of lag or run into you as you go through them for it to work. Wouldn't recommend doing it very often even with these sorts of things though.

 

[AnonymousID]

I noticed that when falco is on the ground, its really hard for puff to hit falco without her landing after. Idk this makes it a lot easier to predict when she will land.

Any other thoughts on this?

 

[KEYLIME SSB]

Usually if you're around puff players a lot their approaches become pretty predictable and dash dancing around them can lead into a lot of different punishes.

 

[Bones0]

I’ve been noticing that fox’s even of lower level have been having a really easy time teaching my dairs aimed at the ledge to edgeguard a low up b. Is there a way to space/ timing mixup this move to increase my success with the move, or should I resort to other options like fade back nair/ grab ledge into bair or shine bair.

I like to grab the ledge and shine. If they tech jump, you can JC the shine and bair on reaction. If they got hit away from the stage and get sent upwards, you can react to that by WLing on stage instead of bairing, then jump up and bair them before the shine stun ends. If they are coming from below you such that they can't angle around you, you should drop down as far as possible to shine them to limit their options from tech jump.

 

[Klemes]

I have a few technical questions.

1. I can hit shine>bair, but often get stuck in shine when I try to shine-turnaround>bair, when I connect the shine, to hit them offstage. So I practiced it and I found out (or am I wrong LUL ?) the turnaround takes some frames in addition to the hitstun, so you need to delay the DJ>bair.
I still struggle to hit it consistently tho... Can I get an idea of the breakdown on frame data for the inputs Bones0 (or where do I find the ressources to figure it out) ?

2. Are shine-turnaround and turnaround-utilt sensitive to controller issues ? I just can't turnaround-utilt consistently and it's killing me. What could I be doing wrong if the problem comes from me ?

3. What's the method to shinestall>DJ bair ? I can't DJ out with tap-jump seems like. Is it better to let the stick reset to neutral position, or to hold down to keep it from burning your tap-jump input or something ?

Thanks !

 

[Bones0]

I have a few technical questions.

1. I can hit shine>bair, but often get stuck in shine when I try to shine-turnaround>bair, when I connect the shine, to hit them offstage. So I practiced it and I found out (or am I wrong LUL ?) the turnaround takes some frames in addition to the hitstun, so you need to delay the DJ>bair.
I still struggle to hit it consistently tho... Can I get an idea of the breakdown on frame data for the inputs Bones0 (or where do I find the ressources to figure it out) ?

2. Are shine-turnaround and turnaround-utilt sensitive to controller issues ? I just can't turnaround-utilt consistently and it's killing me. What could I be doing wrong if the problem comes from me ?

3. What's the method to shinestall>DJ bair ? I can't DJ out with tap-jump seems like. Is it better to let the stick reset to neutral position, or to hold down to keep it from burning your tap-jump input or something ?

Thanks !

1. Just use 20xx frame advance. I think it's 3 frames, but I'm not sure; it should be really easy to test. If you try to DJ during those frames, you will get stuck in shine. Keep in mind you can't turnaround until after hitlag ends, so you should be practicing this while hitting an opponent (ideally with move staling disabled).

2. Any sort of tilting will be controller dependent in the sense that it will feel different. I can't confirm whether or not some controllers are significantly easier than others.

3. I always use tap jump to JC airborne shines. If I want to shine turnaround, I do a half circle motion. Otherwise, I go from straight down to straight up. Unless you're hitting an opponent, you don't even have to time the tap jump input because it hold-buffers for several frames.

 

[makehersquirtle]

I've been playing a lot of puffs recently, and have been struggling to get kills without having to fish for a stray bair or d-tilt. (shocker!)

I feel like falco has good kill setups, but only if you know how to effectively tech chase a puff.

So I have a couple questions.
1. I have been getting knocked over by get up attacks despite crouching on reaction tech chases, how do i sdi down to avoid this, and is there a percent range where this will stop working.
2. What are the best ways to set up kills at high percent on a puff out of tech chase.

 

[Dr Peepee]

1. I just Fsmash it or jump over it and Dair/Nair mixup it(though if you backward jumped you could Bair/Dair mixup which would be stronger at high percents I suppose).

2. Starting the tech chase on a platform/where she can tech roll to a corner(limiting the amount of space she can cover which makes hitting Fsmash vs some alternate option easier) is usually your best bet. SH'ing in on reaction and mixing Nair vs Dair is also not bad. You might be able to react and dash WD Dtilt some of her rolls but I don't know much about setting this up. Any time I can I like to run up to her and either Fsmash or instant Dair out of run(or shine if her reactions are good and it's a stage/percent and position it can kill out of) since that mixes up her DI pretty well.

 

[Bones0]

WLing off of plats (either towards or away from her) can be a good way to quickly reposition for a bair. Hit confirming lasers into fsmash or usmash is also good. I frequently catch Puff's with laser fsmash as they drift to the ledge, and usmash has less range but is faster and generally underused by Falco mains. Make sure you're mixing up your throws good enough that you occasionally convert from them as well. Uthrow is the easiest for her to escape direct followups, but often puts her high up where a single drift read can give you a uair KO. I don't think she can feasibly react to bthrow vs. fthrow, and dthrow fsmash/usmash is also pretty hard to escape (get in the habit of buffering the dthrow with C-stick).

 

[FM360]

This might sound like a dumb question, but how do you get out of Cpt. falcon down throw tech chases if the tech chaser has really good reactions. I try mixing up my techs with intentional miss tech and some wake up shines but every time I try to mix up, I can’t seem to get out of the tech chase.

 

[Dedgehog]

I find myself losing stocks very quickly in matches. It seems like everyone I play is able to 0 to death me or gimp me at 10%. I know Falco can get comboed fairly easily but I die way faster than any other Falco I’ve seen. Other than di-ing away and mixing up techs I don’t know much about escaping combos. What are good ways to escape combos with Falco? Are there any Falco exclusive techniques I can use?

 

[Dr Peepee]

This might sound like a dumb question, but how do you get out of Cpt. falcon down throw tech chases if the tech chaser has really good reactions. I try mixing up my techs with intentional miss tech and some wake up shines but every time I try to mix up, I can’t seem to get out of the tech chase.

The harder things he struggles with is miss tech stand up vs getup attack and also tech in place(usually on DI away). Falco also goes pretty far with DI away tech away so that can be useful too. Sometimes the Falcon will read you and sometimes they will wait so if they are using reads then you'll definitely want to be teching into them a good bit as well. Teching/rolling in can be good if they wait for you after you miss tech just because dash back can be harder than doing something in place or forward. For more specifics you may just need to analyze matches of the situation.

I find myself losing stocks very quickly in matches. It seems like everyone I play is able to 0 to death me or gimp me at 10%. I know Falco can get comboed fairly easily but I die way faster than any other Falco I’ve seen. Other than di-ing away and mixing up techs I don’t know much about escaping combos. What are good ways to escape combos with Falco? Are there any Falco exclusive techniques I can use?

That would depend on how it gets set up, but often holding down if you get hit onto a platform or SDI'ing up/away/both can get you away often. May need to find the specific problems that are getting you in matches and analyze top players in those positions. Also if you're getting hit offstage early, be sure to mix between shine stall or not, airdodge vs walljump vs dj at different times vs side b...etc

 

[Barron]

Not a necessarily a Falco post, but I wasn't sure where else to post this to get some help.

I feel as though smash has certain unwritten laws. People talk about the rock paper scissors aspect of the game, which does exist, but I never see any discussion about the act of positioning itself. In an interview a few years ago, Hungrybox talked a bit about the space between two characters at any given time. This is something I had never thought of before as a concept. To the best of my understanding, Hungrybox was addressing the conscious decisions players make to alter / stay in an area.

I'm interested in learning about this sort of thing. The fundamentals of smash that aren't commonly discussed anymore. If anyone has links to some old school threads about this I would greatly appreciate them.

 

[Bones0]

Not a necessarily a Falco post, but I wasn't sure where else to post this to get some help.

I feel as though smash has certain unwritten laws. People talk about the rock paper scissors aspect of the game, which does exist, but I never see any discussion about the act of positioning itself. In an interview a few years ago, Hungrybox talked a bit about the space between two characters at any given time. This is something I had never thought of before as a concept. To the best of my understanding, Hungrybox was addressing the conscious decisions players make to alter / stay in an area.

I'm interested in learning about this sort of thing. The fundamentals of smash that aren't commonly discussed anymore. If anyone has links to some old school threads about this I would greatly appreciate them.

http://alexspuffstuff.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_24.html

 

[Yort]

Dr Peepee

I have questions regarding your understanding of conditioning and influencing the opponent.

I will use an example of marth in the beginning of laser stun in the corner, while falco is about 1 dash distance away, marth has room to dash back, and falco has a slight frame advantage. Please assume that before this, marth did dash back and falco did approaching laser to get into this scenario. Assume that both falco and marth are at 30%. I'm going to use marth in the corner because I think it's an important scenario and I want to understand it well.



1. If I have frame advantage, do I have more ability to condition after, or before, I've gotten frame advantage? Assuming i'm in slight frame advantage from marth in laser stun and marth is going to act out of laser stun immediately.

2. on this note, after this dash back laser connects with marth, is it the action before this situation happened that plays on conditioning and what the marth will do? (the approaching laser). Assuming actions out of laser are primarily read based, I'd imagine that the approaching laser has some influence on what he expects me to do, along with position on stage, what I've done in this scenario before, his own personal habits, percentage, etc.

3. What do you think about the basic rule that people want to escape and restart neutral when at a disadvantageous position, such as normal get up across the stage and the other character is running at you, vs attacking relentlessly when they have the advantage. I use this as a general rule of thumb sometimes when attempting to compare what people do.

4. Related to earlier, whatever action I did last, not what action i'm about to do, is the most important in conditioning? Not the start up of my current move?

5. Assuming marth does dash back here as he expects approaching aerial, and I expect this as i've seen him do this before, I like to this that approaching laser, 1 dash dance in place, laser in place are all good here. Assuming he puts himself into the hard corner and has no space to dash back anymore, can I start expecting more aggression / hastiness in trying to get some space back? and then possibly do something like dash back whiff punish da, sh dj wl on side plat, etc? is this a good thought process?

6. Assuming the above scenario, falco is allowed to act first, therefore he can choose to set up a reaction point which would involve possibly throwing out stimuli such as dash back, OR he could immediately read which could be based on previous data? Is this a good thought process?

7. In another post you mentioned it's possible to discourage marth from throwing out moves, can you give me some ideas on how to do this? I'd imagine it involves staying at a certain range safe from dash attack, keeping him in the corner and whiff punishing him if he throws out hasty moves.


part 2:

I practiced playing to learn with the idea of throwing out stimuli to see how my training partner reacted yesterday for 2 hours. I tried dash forward short hop, Dash forward in general, Dash back laser, Sh in place dj wl, and sh in place laser.
I made the distinct observations that he almost always did dash back and attempted to pivot grab when I did dash forward sh, If I did a dash back first it often invoked him to move forward and full hop drill or attempt a running shine on my landing, if I did dash dance in place he would often dash dance in place as well, signifying to me that he is waiting for something to react to.

I have a few questions regarding this session.

first: after I had frequentely used sh dj wl underneath platforms he would begin to attempt to full hop nair the platform when I did sh in place, is this a good example of direct conditioning? It took a while for him to start doing this, and I started attempting to punish it later.

I have a few less concrete questions I am troubling to understand.

a) How do I know when people are looking for a reaction on some sort of stimuli? When I was sitting around trying only this, it seemed like he would sometimes just attack randomly, and not react, and obviously many players rely on reads / random attacks in neutral. How do I know when he's looking to react to stimuli and not? I assume empty dash dance is a guess.

b) How do I keep track of both when he's reacting to my stimuli and watching him and reacting to him myself?
I'd imagine this involves both sides in the game; how do I balance when I react to his stimuli and influence him with my own?Do these play a part with each other or are they separate? sometimes when I am focused so intensely on him reacting to me I feel as though i'm not really reacting to him or outplaying him for his stimuli. I guess i'm having a problem with understanding the reconciliation between my conditioning and his, and how they play apart together? I'm finding this problem very abstract and difficult to word.

c) before, you've mentioned that you don't think constant in game analysis is good but to do it inbetween games / stocks if necessary and to keep a clear head. When I am playing to learn like this and intensely focused on what he's doing on reaction to my stimuli, I find myself constantly do in game analysis. Do you think in game analysis is acceptable when playing to learn? How do I balance these two notions? I do completely agree in the reduction of excess mental noise while playing but I don't know how to balance it, when I can't stop trying to rationalize his decisions, and i'm focused so hard on doing that.

d) After the session, i played a "play to learn" session in hopes of intuitively applying what I was learning. I notice that when I got hit for something such as me dash forward sh and him dash back grabbing me for it, I instantly knew why and things kind of clicked. I also was playing more aware of why certain actions were happening, and it felt really good. I was just wondering if you think this is one of the nice benefits of analysis and playing to learn, when you do end up playing to apply all of this, you can know exactly why things are happening in the moment, and quickly adjust?

e) Lastly, in another post a while ago I was re reading recently you threw out five potential ways to play to learn, such as defense (sdi etc), neutral, throwing out stimulus and seeing how they respond, and punish game. Wouldn't neutral playing to learn and throwing out stimulus / conditioning be the same thing in this context? What would the difference be between playing neutral only matches and just throwing out stimuli etc, is this just trying all the stuff?

Thank you for your patience.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Marth has room for more than a dash back including WD which will change the scenario some.

1. I'm not sure I understand your question. Wouldn't it be obvious you'd get more manipulation after the laser since you have frame advantage? Compared to not having frame advantage anyway. There is still plenty of very strong manipulation you could get before the laser, but I don't think I understand your question correctly.

2. Your wording confuses me here as well. I'll answer what I can. Moving forward with the laser heavily implies further approaches and aggression, and combined with frame advantage gives Marth a very strong incentive to move back or jab(maybe) in the given position. As you noted, if you as Falco do this laser and then wait or dash back often out of it, Marth could adapt at some point and close space on you.

3. It is a pretty good rule about wanting to restart neutral but you will find the expression of that rule different between different people even if it's true. Some may restart ASAP by moving away, others may wait in shield or stay in place a little, others may move up, and of course this will depend on character as well but you can find themes there too. As for relentlessly attacking, I don't find that to be as true. Many people take their time, even if only briefly before attacking when they have advantage. Some people take a lot of time/don't know how to press their advantage or approach and that type of player seems to be more common now.

Also something I learned is that if you punish people hard enough for their overly defensive habits especially they may instead switch to desperately attacking without seeing eventually. Also any rule comes with its fair amount of exceptions but I think this is all on the right track.

4. Most important in conditioning.....this is maybe an impossible question. Sometimes it's what happened last time in the same situation, so your last move wouldn't matter so much as last time the whole situation player. Maybe it depends more on how an earlier situation(s) went and they just want to do something differently so they don't get punished. More calm players or ones that aren't as influenced yet may be taking in multiple factors and playing such that they can react to what you just did and give themselves ways to see your current move startup or action before the startup such as dash or jump....and so on. I don't know if I can give you an answer you want here.

5. What is one dash dance? One dash or two? Which direction is the one, and which one of the two do you do first if two? These are very important distinctions.

If they are cornered you can expect them to either come in, to begin swinging, to shield, to go to edge, or to even go to the side platform as you said. You can spend time baiting them to get observations if you'd like, or you can go into an action that can cover most of what they'll do and give you good reward, or whatever you think is best. Taking stock of all of their possible options and then applying the psychology of those options and their thinking when some of their best ones are taken away is very useful, yes.

6. Yep that is correct. It can certainly be deeper than this if that's what you mean, but nothing you said is wrong or not useful.

7. Punishing dash attack then sitting in range for it so you're safe from other moves, making him Fair OOS by moving in to pressure quickly and then faking it later or just putting pressure on quickly to force it, and really just generally punishing moves he throws out will always be good for discouraging them. Some people try to use a move more if you beat it, but most just give up on the move entirely or switch to using it in a weaker fashion if you prove you can successfully beat an option.


First: Yes that's exactly how the conditioning worked. Chances are something like this will get you far in a set if it takes an opponent a long time to adjust to in lower-pressure friendlies.

A. Some players will have decided what they want to do before you do anything, some are waiting for you to get closer before doing anything or put yourself in some lag so they can act, and some just have their own timer they wait on, while others will take more or less time based on your own tempo. However some will be directly conditioned by your actions just like you're saying. The easiest way I can explain this is to isolate more factors and situations and actions and positions you believe to be useful and test test test. You are definitely on the right path though. This question is difficult and I certainly am welcome to you asking more about this now or later since it is really important.

B. Hmm....that's a really good question. In my own framework with developed strings of actions, I allow myself to adjust with my opponent and enjoy the interplay. However, that isn't so useful to say to you. I think what really helped me with this was spending lots of time trying to understand players I didn't understand. When I could feel how they were trying to manipulate people in the game from watching, and then from playing with them I felt I understood them much better and could use their ideas and also respect their influence and by extension felt more comfortable exerting my own. Maybe it's just better to say that you should continue on learning how to make your own presence felt, while asking at every opportunity how your opponent achieves this for themselves. That interplay will start to come together and feel more intertwined over time if done right I believe.

C. Oh yes, that's a good point. I do think a little more when playing to learn, but it's usually something like "let's try this" or "how does X work?" instead of just focus or a little phrase to focus myself on some area of the game. I think you have the right idea thinking more when playing to learn, just don't overwhelm yourself. =p

D. Yeah that's exactly right! That feeling is what adaptation truly is, and many don't really experience it which to me is sad. You can eventually combine this feeling with playing to win and become really strong as a competitor but it takes a lot of work and discipline that isn't just Melee-related imo. Keep it up!

E. I think I just didn't want to blanket statement neutral since it covers so much if I had to guess.

Good luck and I hope this is useful.

 

[SpongeAssassin]

Hey guys, I'm a new dude (first post and literally just made my account) and I just had a question/discussion point to bring up: What do you guys think of SHL>WDForward>Jab with the SHL being from a medium to right-on-the-verge-of-being-close range? I've found WDF>Jab to stuff a lot of common approaches, not just against Falcon but I get the impression that it might be most effective against Falcon (a close second is fox, maybe, I'm not sure). I'm pretty new to melee, haven't even gone to my first tournament yet, but me and a few my friends play competitively against each other and keep up with the current meta, and we all have fairly good and consistent tech-skill (wavedashing, L-cancelling, shielddropping, shortening, etc.) so I'm not sure if this has been discussed or if it's already made a cycle through the meta years ago or what. It was just something I thought I'd share, what do you guys think?

 

[Bones0]

Hey guys, I'm a new dude (first post and literally just made my account) and I just had a question/discussion point to bring up: What do you guys think of SHL>WDForward>Jab with the SHL being from a medium to right-on-the-verge-of-being-close range? I've found WDF>Jab to stuff a lot of common approaches, not just against Falcon but I get the impression that it might be most effective against Falcon (a close second is fox, maybe, I'm not sure). I'm pretty new to melee, haven't even gone to my first tournament yet, but me and a few my friends play competitively against each other and keep up with the current meta, and we all have fairly good and consistent tech-skill (wavedashing, L-cancelling, shielddropping, shortening, etc.) so I'm not sure if this has been discussed or if it's already made a cycle through the meta years ago or what. It was just something I thought I'd share, what do you guys think?

I think it's a bad habit to commit fully to such a long process. SHL, WD forward, and jab are all separate, distinct tools that can be used in coordination with tons of other options. After you shoot the SHL, you should evaluate whether you have a good opportunity to move forward.

If you want to move forward while retaining ground options, WD forward can be decent for that, but Falco's dash is really short so I'd say you should get used to using empty dashes first if you're not entirely sure you want to move in that direction. If you dash forward after a SHL and realize mid dash that the opponent is going to attack, you can dash dance back to retreat. If you WD forward, you're committed for those 15 frames (5 jumpsquat, 10 landing lag), and even if you dash away immediately after this, the momentum from the WD will hold you back more than if you are dash dancing.

Then the last thing is jab. Even if you decide you want to SHL and moving forward seems good, you shouldn't have a commitment to jabbing. Maybe by the time you've done your SHL and WD forward, you notice the opponent is too far away to jab or they ran up and shielded. Jab is very weak in these areas so you'd be much better off with lasering them again as they retreat or shining to initiate shield pressure if they ran up and shielded.

With all this in mind, the option of moving forward with jab is not very reliable. You laser does allow you some leeway when it comes to advancing, but if they're within range of WD jab, there's still a chance they attack after the laser and jab's poor range, active frames, and disjointedness all make it liable to trade or lose outright hitbox vs. hitbox battles. Additionally, jab is weak, making it liable to be CCed or just not leading to anything if it hits. I think I find most use out of it vs. floaties at high percent, especially when they have their backs turned, as this keeps me safe from grab and other quick OoS options, and the reward of hitting with jab is you pop them up and potentially lead into a KO move.

Against Falcon specifically, PP has shown he really likes to favor jab, but more of a shield pressure option at high percents, similar to what I described. The reward for landing a jab to hit Falcon out of the air won't be much if they have good reactions, and you're likely to lose a lot of the interactions in the first place. If you want to stuff Falcon's approaches with a hitbox, I highly recommend turnaround utilt or, if you are prepared in advance, SH AC bair. Utilt is only a few frames slower than jab, but the hitbox is much larger and leads to tons of juicy followups (more utilts, shine combos, or KO moves at high %s).

 

[Nils.]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_SvNgbNjQY&feature=youtu.be

Labbed some edgeguards. If your reactions are on point low laser > dsmash seems to be one of the most optimal options.

Discuss.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Hey guys, I'm a new dude (first post and literally just made my account) and I just had a question/discussion point to bring up: What do you guys think of SHL>WDForward>Jab with the SHL being from a medium to right-on-the-verge-of-being-close range? I've found WDF>Jab to stuff a lot of common approaches, not just against Falcon but I get the impression that it might be most effective against Falcon (a close second is fox, maybe, I'm not sure). I'm pretty new to melee, haven't even gone to my first tournament yet, but me and a few my friends play competitively against each other and keep up with the current meta, and we all have fairly good and consistent tech-skill (wavedashing, L-cancelling, shielddropping, shortening, etc.) so I'm not sure if this has been discussed or if it's already made a cycle through the meta years ago or what. It was just something I thought I'd share, what do you guys think?

I'm not sure what kinds of moves it's stuffing, but if it's working for you then keep on with it. I like the option somewhat as Falco but against more inclined to hold down against me like Peach/Samus I would definitely not use it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_SvNgbNjQY&feature=youtu.be

Labbed some edgeguards. If your reactions are on point low laser > dsmash seems to be one of the most optimal options.

Discuss.

Yeah I think Dsmash doesn't hit perfect sweetspot side B based on what I've heard/experienced but I've never been sure. Sometimes I'll turn around after doing the laser to Utilt/Bair high side B or just WD to edge if they seem to favor that. I can also just SH out and DJ Dair or shine turnaround Bair if they start another up-B.

 

[Bones0]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_SvNgbNjQY&feature=youtu.be

Labbed some edgeguards. If your reactions are on point low laser > dsmash seems to be one of the most optimal options.

Discuss.

- There is a sweetspot height where Fox and Falco can side-B under dsmash, but it's ridiculously precise. I remember testing regular ledge drop DJ, and many iterations went from too low to too high in a single frame, meaning Fox would have had to FF before or after DJing or DJ on a different frame in order to get the sweetspot. For all intents and purposes, I simply act as if dsmash is guaranteed on side-B recoveries (ignoring horizontal sweetspots ofc).

- I tested laser run off DJ dair. I'm pretty sure it's guaranteed on Fox and Falco if you do it immediately and aren't super far from the ledge. You can't wait to react. It's extremely good, but if they up-B immediately after being hit by the laser instead of side-Bing, your DJ dair whiffs and they can up-B to the ledge for free (assuming they are high enough to angle downwards to it).

- Rather than dash attack, it seems much better to dsmash side-B on reaction. If they are too high, then ftilt (mid-high %) or utilt (low %) are both better. You can even just let them land if they go over your head and start a combo to push them back off stage.

- If I get a laser on one of their recovery options, my Theory Bros. edgeguard is to keep lasering them. Once they go too low to be lasered, they either have to side-B to the ledge or up-B below/at ledge height. I think that even if you laser one more time (since you can't react to whether they dip into ledge height or not) you should still have enough time to dsmash side-B on reaction even as your laser goes over their head. If someone can test and confirm, that'd be dope. Assuming this works, then once they dip to ledge height, you either react to the side-B with dsmash, or they up-B (may be right at ledge height, may be really far down; it only gets easier to react to). Once you react to the fact that they didn't side-B and they will be up-Bing, you can work a typical edgeguard with run off DJ dair, grab ledge LH bair, etc.

- I might have underestimated immediate fsmash after hitting a laser. It hits relatively high and reaches down pretty low as well, and the cool down might be good enough that you can run off DJ dair or at least ftilt an attempt to angle to the ledge. The main flaw with fsmash (and indeed any on-stage attack) vs. immediate run off DJ dair is that it doesn't cover shorten, so it will only be useful when they are too far (additionally assuming they can't mid-shorten).

 

[Indigogo]

Okay, so I feel like writing something and am kinda bored lol. I think I'll write about how I learned to be confident and why it's so important in smash(you guys told me to write my stuff here so I will lol).

I've always viewed Melee and my improvement in smash as my own personal little life journey. Confidence was something I always wanted and knew I needed but I never knew how to get it. This aided me early in my smash career actually since I always set conservative, realistic goals and always pushed myself for validation from others to give me a semblance of the real confidence I needed in life. Despite improving, my early Falco style was extremely defensive because I never felt very confident in my approach. I always overwhelmed myself with what the opponent COULD do rather than what they WERE doing(a problem I struggle with in theory and in practice to a much less degree these days lol). I would never really figure out how to be confident on my own turns out. I needed to be shown how to do it. Lambchops was a huuuge factor in my push towards self-confidence. Everyone knows how raw that guy plays haha. Well, he came to HERB 2(big NC regional a couple of weeks after genesis) while he was staying in GA and I decided that I at least had to learn to aggro spacies(the matches I saw of him vs Jman were nasty so this helped convince me as well as me getting whupped by him too lol).

As I watched Chops, Mango, and Shiz play, my style naturally became influenced by them. I began to think of this game/character in terms of opportunities made and when they were capitalized upon. Shiz seems solid to me still because he takes the "correct" openings and always takes them(taking them so much gets him punished but people still succumb to the pressure so it tends to work out for him if his tech is on point lol). I made up my own rules for what openings I wanted to make and how I wanted to punish them(character/player dependent) and my style gradually became more aggressive the better I became. My struggle to get combos down was largely influenced by my confidence, and it's part of the reason why you can see me end combos early with a smash instead of dair tech chasing on a platform and continuing the combo a little farther to get that better damage to hit someone offstage with(sometimes I still advocate this but that's not the point lol).

I lost my set to Armada in WFs at Pound 5, and went off on my own to think about why I lost. A lot of old doubts started to creep in on me, and I found myself fighting a familiar fight. However, I was fortunately able to maintain control of my situation that time, and began to tell myself that Armada wasn't better than me necessarily. I re-watched a couple moments of the match where I felt stuck in my head, and realized that Armada was okay with me slowing the game down a lot because that let him cut me off stage-wise and get all of the trades he wanted. I felt like I lost confidence, and I knew that if I wanted to stand a chance, that I would have to believe in myself. I told myself I'd do it, but I hadn't finished working up the courage to keep the plan going when I was told I had to play Hungrybox. Fortunately, I was able to pull that set out so I could try my hand vs Armada again.

My strategy didn't really work more than usual, as I was down 2-1 in GFs quickly. That's when Hbox helped me find the drive to push. He told me I was having lapses in my play where I lost momentum, and he said that he wanted me to think of "someone who had wronged you" in order to keep my spirit going. Anyone that knows what my past year was like knows that this made it all too easy to get my fire started.

I was finally able to remain unphased by Armada's triumphs mid-game and felt myself controlling the match once again. Using my personal struggle for my benefit, as well as allowing the crowd to boost me gave me all the confidence I finally needed to turn the tides of our matches. The feeling after Pound didn't compare to taking control of myself and the set while it was going on. It really was a personal landmark for me.




...............

So why do you guys care? Well, I believe that, no matter who you are or what style you play, you have to be confident when you do execute. Even a bad read/play can be recovered from easier if you don't freak out and lose control of yourself after you execute. Learning to be a more competent smasher involves having faith in your own matchup knowledge/experience and then sticking to your ideas once a given match has started. If I think laser grab is a good idea vs Sheik, but that particular strategy doesn't work on someone like, say, Kirbykaze, then I have to re-evaluate my spacing and timing decisions regarding this tactic, not necessarily the tactic itself. If you're flip-flopping the whole match then you're taking away from time you could be spending to understand your opponent and learn how to build on what you already know about a matchup. Chances are, if you thought an idea was good in the first place, it probably is. Sometimes player habits and/or your own habits get in the way of its effectiveness though, and that's something you have to adapt to, not change all of your ideas/playstyle for it.

You can be a confident camper I believe. You just have to keep yourself from getting frustrated when you get booed or when your strategy isn't immediately effective/fails at times. Everyone gets figured out/punished sometimes, and it's important to remember that you don't have to fully change your style to an offensive/approaching one(unless you just enjoy the mixup) when you're losing.

Conversely, being punished for foolish approaches if you feel like being an aggro player will make your life frustrating as well. Resorting to angrily camping or simply trying to push harder are rarely effective options. Even if you're offensive-minded, there needs to be some way you allow for reading your opponent so that you can adapt and continue your comfortable onslaught as you see fit. There are different ways to allow for this as well, so one should never feel locked into a narrow mindset when adapting or solving a particular matchup. The higher you go in skill, the more flexible you have to be. You have to remember that your opponents will all be trying to change up on you as well, and this is only made harder by the fact that you have videos out so your habits will be even more identifiable. That gets into a much bigger topic that I may write about later though lol.

Anwyay, there are many ways to play this game well, and every style can be effective. You just have to be confident in your own way of doing things. =)




ps: sorry if I got too personal with this stuff. I'm a flowery-thinking guy and enjoy deeper meanings of things, especially writing, so I hope you guys can look past that stuff when responding to this and see the smash elements haha.

<333 if I get decent feedback from this I could start taking requests for topics or something lol. I have more I want to write about on my own so it doesn't matter to me either way lol.

I know I'm a late for a response, but this post is all I could ask for to feel more confident in how I play in Smash. I'm going to Full Bloom 4 in March, and it's my first tournament. With this word of confidence, I feel like that, despite my end results, I'll be able to play much stronger. I really appreciate this, thank you PPMD

 

[Bones0]

I know I'm a late for a response, but this post is all I could ask for to feel more confident in how I play in Smash. I'm going to Full Bloom 4 in March, and it's my first tournament. With this word of confidence, I feel like that, despite my end results, I'll be able to play much stronger. I really appreciate this, thank you PPMD

Don't worry even 1% about your results for your first tournament. Try your hardest with your current skill set and knowledge, but focus on having fun and meeting new people. I think those two things alone are often what make or break someone's longevity in this game, the same as any other sport or activity.

 

[Indigogo]

Don't worry even 1% about your results for your first tournament. Try your hardest with your current skill set and knowledge, but focus on having fun and meeting new people. I think those two things alone are often what make or break someone's longevity in this game, the same as any other sport or activity.

Thanks dude! I'll keep that in mind when I'm there