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This is damagelw3, it happens when you hit their legs within a certain knockback range.
Given this, can you help me to explain how Mango was able to get the spike stun animation despite him hitting the top of Sheik's head as she was in the landing lag from her up-air?
Dr Peepee
Dr Peepee
I'm Albert, a Falco from Texas. I was wondering what your solution is to Foxes that constantly full hop and spend 70%+ time on the platforms? My current game plan has been to wait them out, dash dancing under and catch them coming down with a laser. On occasion, I'll jump up with a drift aerial to catch some stray hits while staying safe. It has been relatively successful, however I feel like in some ways it is a bit unsustainable and prone to possibly bad trades, since Fox is better IMO in the squabble.
1. That's what I mean.
1
What do you mean by you need slight lasers in the mix up game vs marth?
Do you mean things such as slight dash back laser in place and slight laser forward?
Would you say laser in place > slight dash back laser in place is a good mix up to laser a marth nairing oos to beat an approach?
In the laser mix up game, where exactly would I want to incorporate more dashes versus marth?
I am imagining spots where he wants to jab or ftilt or nair oos after taking laser, usually at a mid range when he expects an approach, because if he dashes back I imagine you don't really gain too much as he can move forward instantly again. I think this understanding might be flawed though.
I guess this leads me to ask, if you laser a marth and dash dance 3-4 times and observe him dash back into the corner out of laser stun at a mid range, my next decision will likely interact with him attempting to take that space again, which often doesn't feel like a great position for me but i'm sure it's a good one. I'm wondering, do you know the position i'm taking about and do you advice for playing it?
I know a shiek player in my region who spams run up take laser wd back into the corner, and immediately dashes forward again looking for another PS and sometimes goes to platform. I plan on just doing delayed nair into her when I observe wavedash back, does this sound good to you?
Also, I notice that extra lasers are great versus players who like to move forward out of lasers, which marths do frequently these days after an attempted powershield.
From my perspective in watching you, mang0 and the other top falcos it seems to me you have the greatest grasp of laser and laser mix ups, regardless of your clear focus on ground movement and dash. It surprises me that you thought you were so off track with lasers in the past.
What exactly do you think you were doing wrong with the amount that you lasered in the past?
Why do you think you didn't laser "right"?
What would you do differently if you could go back in time and develop the laser mix up game instead of focusing so hard on connecting with dash?
I am also kind of obsessed with dash, wavedash and ground movement in general. I have always been since I started and before I started watching you so I wouldn't say you should blame yourself if you think it's a bad thing that I like this stuff haha. I think it's because of the way I play games in general.
Do you think this a problem as a falco player?
2
When you say a dash has "purpose" are you only implying that it has purpose in the sense that it influences the opponent in a certain way? I am under the impression that dashes can also have general purposes, such as 2 dashes to wait for a certain timing to whiff punish shiek approaching nair oos.
Should I strive to make all dashes have a purpose in the sense that it influences the opponent and feeds into my understanding of what happens next?
You've talked before about making actions conscious through development of setups, but I was hoping I could get you to write more about how it feels when you actions become conscious. I find that if I focus really hard on the influence of my dash back I can notice and feed into my predictions but it takes a lot of mental energy and i'm not sure i'm doing any of this when i'm playing without working on that in particular. The way I look at it, an action that i'm focusing on it becomes conscious for a certain time as i'm working on it then it becomes less conscious. Do you mean the action becomes more conscious and purposeful in a general sense? Sorry about the more theoretical question i'll ask only practical stuff next.
I've never heard the term stutter step before. Is this just a slight dash back dash in nair?
"Marth's main advantage over Falco is mobility. You want to encourage him to slow down and even stand in place or shield vs lasers so he doesn't try to resume moving after getting hit for example. Then you're free to begin moving after one laser sometimes since Marth is used to a second laser coming, and this opens up your chance to outmaneuver him. Also vs Marth, he generally stays on the ground, so there isn't much danger of shooting useless lasers he could FH to avoid. Any time you know an opponent will prefer to be grounded, you can shoot a little more. Shoot too much and they often jump away knowing you prefer to shoot than pressure, which gets Falcos into trouble a lot. However you can use this knowledge to abuse other matchups. Against Marth you just need to know more of the first part and be patient. "
I get confused by the first sentence sometimes.
Couldn't marth just continue to move after taking the second laser regardless?
If I laser once, he dashes forward out of the first laser, and I laser him in his dash, doesn't it just change the range the mix up is played at but regardless he's just taking a laser at a certain range. I'm wondering, how does this encourage him to slow down and stand in place / shield when he could keep moving and playing the mix up from different ranges?
Should I be going for movement after laser when I feel the marth is going to shield / stand rather than when he's going to dash again?
If I push him into his shield shouldn't I be going in at this time, do I use the movement to bait something like an ftilt or aerial so I can punish?
How exactly does movement play into this spot where he's forced to stand still?
Why exactly would a player prefer jumping if you laser too much rather than pressure?
By pressure do you mean threatening with aerials or movement or both?
For example, even at a mid range if you laser > aerial at falco he can still jump over the aerial. Fox also often does full hop oos after taking laser a mid range, and the nair doesn't even pressure in that spot. I was somewhat under the impression that continued movement and lasers were good against jumping away, as you can laser them out of the air.
I guess this culminates in the question of how do I pressure a player after lasering them to prevent them from jumping away?
LASTLY on this, the thing where people fh to avoid lasers on the ground which makes them useless. I've noticed this especially with foxes who react to your short hop to full hop and pressure your laser.
Does this prevent you from lasering when you're both on the ground sometimes?
If i'm fighting a fox and we're both on the ground in raw neutral at a mid - long range at 40% each, is a laser somewhat risky because of this FH over to avoid it? In a spot such as this I don't really know what to do, as the fox can either full hop over to avoid my laser or move really fast and outmaneuver me on the ground. I don't know if this paragraph makes sense but I just want to know more about this people fhing to avoid lasers and how to avoid it.
3
I'm going to ask some questions about basic set ups and mix ups
Could you tell me more about the laser in place > approaching laser set up from a long distance?
I often notice you using this when you're far away to attempt to lock them in shield or hit them for dashing away, and then doing a dash back after the approaching laser incase they jump after the first laser.
Could you tell me more about the usefulness of the laser > slight dash forward > slight dash back setup?
I see you do this often and do a laser in place / approach / etc after the slight dash back. I see this from mango too. I often imagined it as the slight dash forward pushes them back slightly allowing you to safely move back and laser. How does the timing mix up playing into this one. I also notice it whiff punishes at a different timing than laser > dash back > nair / dair in.
Could you tell more more about the utility of full hop double lasers onto platform followed by laser in place on the platform? I see you do this a lot version shiek and peach. Is this to get them off the platform and onto the ground while also preventing them from getting up there in the first place?
Do you think approaching laser jab is still good? People are so much more primed to shield grab approaching laser in general, and thus they are usually ready to grab the jab as well if they get shield up. How can I use approaching laser jab effectively at a mid percent without putting myself at risk? I find myself getting grabbed for it often and I feel like you would not. I want to use it because I want to chase people down and often after the approaching laser i'm not close enough to shine while jab covers this distance.
One last thing.
Do you think people should prioritize self analysis or top players?
Ah hello Albert.Hey
I tinkered around with taking up the platforms myself, however this also seems a bit gimmicky, once again feels unsustainable due to Fox being able to now weave under you (and again jump up if you decide to come down), and again doesn't seem to play to the strength of my usual Fox game plan, controlling and reacting off the laser.
Do you have any suggestions on possibly deterring the Fox from doing this game plan or still keeping control of the pace? I think that's possibly my main gripe; not being able to control, play the mix up game, and instill fear like I usually do.
I feel like you're misunderstanding what I'm describing because you aren't just in this endless loop of Fox jumping over your laser. If Fox FHs in place when you laser, he isn't threatening you at all. You can shoot a second laser, and if he lands on it, you can hit confirm and approach. You can approach with jump shine, grab, DA, or aerial if you laser them high enough off the ground. You will have to bait out immediate DJs/shines after these antiair lasers, but the mixup is heavily in your favor. If the Fox DJs to avoid the second laser, you should be able to confirm that it whiffed and shoot a third laser, repeating the mixup but now he can only shine, or you can whiff punish his landing if you read his drift which I already went into.
roboticphish
Thanks for the advice man- I really appreciate what you do for the falco community.I feel like you're misunderstanding what I'm describing because you aren't just in this endless loop of Fox jumping over your laser. If Fox FHs in place when you laser, he isn't threatening you at all. You can shoot a second laser, and if he lands on it, you can hit confirm and approach. You can approach with jump shine, grab, DA, or aerial if you laser them high enough off the ground. You will have to bait out immediate DJs/shines after these antiair lasers, but the mixup is heavily in your favor. If the Fox DJs to avoid the second laser, you should be able to confirm that it whiffed and shoot a third laser, repeating the mixup but now he can only shine, or you can whiff punish his landing if you read his drift which I already went into.
If Fox is retreating horizontally, then you will of course have to take space and reestablish laser pressure before approaching, but that's just the reality of Falco being a slow character. This may sound like some long, drawn out process of laser camping for small chunks of stage, but in practice you must react at a very fast pace, and most laser pressure consists of only 1-2 lasers. You are welcome to attempt to develop a strategy where you somehow read their jump and approach that way, but even Mango has resigned to the fact that he just has to laser when Foxes FH camp. They are doing it specifically to counter approaching so if you want to out-approach their approach counter, you'll quickly realize how much you're simply banging your head against a wall.
There really aren't any characters who can directly beat proper defensive walling from most of the cast. The main drawback to this kind of play, at least in this meta, is that you give up stage and quickly run out of options. Faster characters like Fox/Falcon/Marth/Sheik/ICs/Luigi can occasionally time a fast approach at just the right time, but it requires engaging in very bad risk-reward scenarios. This dynamic has become insanely prevalent with the Fox vs. Marth matchup where you see almost every Marth relying heavily on DDing in anticipation of Fox approaching. The most reliable way for Fox to beat this is to simply move forward and force Marth to back up to respect the possibility of an approach. For Falco, he doesn't have the speed Fox does to threaten Marth, so he needs lasers.
Obviously, taukhan already explained what determines the ground stun animation, but I wrote a post about it a while back if it helps at all:
https://smashboards.com/threads/falco-discussion-thread.256826/page-602#post-21814892
You can laser and then turn around to FH/DJ Bair them, or just FH/DJ Nair/Dair them if they want to get away so often. If you're closer and they waveland onto a platform, you can jump shine them as well. If they're already on the platform, you can abuse FH/DJ Bair to threaten them, and if you're drifting away they usually can't hit you but you can damage and dislodge them. Doing this a bit will start to encourage them to get down. Most people just go up there then wait a little then come down, so you are free to fake and intercept them with lasers/Utilt/Bair or shine OOS if you want. If you struggle with specifics you can always link me situations.
Generally when I say opening I mean an opportunity to attack the opponent directly or to at least get into a pressure position(usually the former). Smaller openings could be taking space due to taking a small win in a position, due to things like a lapse in opponent awareness or an increase in yours, or just overall understanding of a position, etc. Openings are basically what you try to make in a given position if you're aggressive, or what you want your opponent to present when being defensive.
Backwards SH over laser to get another laser out(or mix that up) is also another option if you shoot low enough. I don't like empty land since most people want to take advantage of Falco not having laser control if they get a PS, but if you can keep someone in shield then empty land isn't so bad. DJ might actually not be a bad idea sometimes, I'll look into that. I'm wary of doing it vs Marth especially, but there may times it can still work.
I agree. I call this type of thing "threatening range," or the distance of a character's farthest reaching attack that is also quick. Falco and somewhat Falcon include FH in their threatening range, so you have to look at a bigger space than just ground to ground like you might in SF. From this neutral space, how one begins to push in and cancel out the opponents' options, or how far one lets the opponent come in while covering certain approach options becomes very important.
By backwards SH do you mean turning around then doing sh towards the opponent to mixup between bair and laser? How would you keep them in shield even if they like to ps? By doing another sh laser over the ps laser?
MambaGreenFalco
I think dthrowing Peach on plats can be decent, especially since most Peaches are unaware of how to handle the situation and don't know to just slide off. Even if they do, I think if you're positioned in the center of the plat, or perhaps if your back is to the nearest ledge, she will struggle to get a slideoff without good SDI. It's definitely something to consider testing if you think it has potential. Don't be afraid to try things out in debug mode and post your results!To add to what PP said, in my recent analysis I've almost exclusively been focusing on two things:
Sami is obviously a good resource for coaching, but if he's booked up, you can also sub to Ginger on Twitch. I think he still does sub analysis, or maybe would do it for a certain donation amount.
Falco doesn't have many good options to gimp Nana imo. A few to mess around with:
Yeah I think it's pretty clear that the idea is more honestly formulated when approached from a micro perspective. Something that is emergent from the various hitbox properties and percent ranges rather than a top down idea that really generalize-able. One thing I wonder about is how much utility a somewhat dishonest simplification of the game might have as an idea to hold in mind in match.
To add to what PP said, in my recent analysis I've almost exclusively been focusing on two things:
2. The bubble you talk about is essentially threat range, but an important distinction to make is the action state of each character. If you are being dthrown by Falcon, then you don't have a threat range. That may seem quite obvious, but also consider if you dash away to escape their threat range and break out into a full run. Once you're in the run animation, the threat of you DDing back towards them and doing an attack is gone. I bring this up because you don't want to imagine every threat range as a perfectly spherical bubble, but more like "pre-hitboxes". Depending on what each character is doing, they are threatening different options, and you envision each option as a hitbox in itself.
To add a bit more complexity you can combine threat range with threat time as an additional variable. As a visual aid, you can envision that your fastest options (shine, utilt) are signified by dark red pre-hitboxes, and your slower/further away threats (SHL, dash SHFFL) are a faded red with them being lighter and lighter the more frames it would take to threaten with that option. For a fast character like Falcon, there is a much less drastic gradient within his threat range. His run up grab pre-hitbox would still be quite dark because of how fast it is, but Falco at the same range would have very light-colored pre-hitboxes reaching Falcon.
One final factor that makes things even more complicated is that percent can influence threat ranges as well by changing which options are feasible/worth worrying about. If Peach is at 0% and Falco is at 200%, Peach's nair threat range is obviously something you need to be aware of because if you don't respect it, she will nair even if it trades and KO you. If the percents are reversed, her nair range is less of a threat because if you're ready to bair her, a trade will not be in her favor, and even if she does land a nair, it won't knock down like a dash attack would (and you could weight dash attack as something very important to space around at low %s for this exact reason).
Yeah I was kind asking for you to give me a hypothetical example with a setup involving the foxtrot. I'm just curious really.
So then how does mang0 not do the character justice now? He clearly doesn't have the overfocus on dash like you think you did.
Dr Peepee
So recently I learned about soft-input l-cancels and its upside and I wanted to ask if this is something one should always do?
Dr Peepee
I'd love to know if you think I'm barking up the right tree with my current line of thought.
I'll admit I haven't looked into soft L-cancels in a minute, but they're normally good if I'm remembering them correctly.
If not - why? Are there any MU's where it's more useful than others?
My second question is: What do you think about using Uair or Fair as shield pressure? I like the idea of using an aerial with 2 hits where the first hit is high and the second is low to throw of the timing of the enemy or shield poke him (as a mixup of course). Especially Uair can lead to some good follow-ups in certain situations... do you believe it is a valid option sometimes or is it generally to risky?
Much love from Germany! =)
Yeah Mango is good at not wasting time and forcing interactions and making people respect his threats on his dash in. The times he lasers or dashes back he gets to observe what they do and get his info so he can go in. There's nothing wrong with this, but high Dairs are generally super unsafe so they require very specific reads and actions he doesn't always have, and otherwise you need slightly more patience at times to get in, which he isn't willing to use. That being said he actually makes his gameplan pretty simple, which is why it's always been odd to say it's all reads or whatever. Simple gameplans are great since they don't put lots of pressure on your brain to do tech or hard complicated plays and just let you put everyone into boxes quickly. Not sure if that directly addresses your point since I tend to forget what terms like Bayesian mean, but this is how I view it and there seems to be decent overlap.So this talk about mang0 has me pretty intrigued, because studying his bird has started to change both how I viewed the game and about more general competitive smash pedagogy.
So I've heard time and time again players lumped into two camps, as either analytical or intuitive. There's all sorts of history in this breakdown between the east coast vs west coast playstyle debates, but the more I think about it, the more I'm sure that this is a false dichotomy. The more I study Mang0's play, the more frustrated I get with the semi-mystical tone that people use when describing his 'reads' and more generally his decision tree. It's almost like most people would rather keep the narrative that he's in touch with some mystic plane of melee not accessible by mortals than actually break down what he's doing and incorporate it into their own play.
My take on it is this: Lots of the discussion of the bird's neutral focuses on tactical/positional play that emphasizes Falco's ability safe laser play and big hitboxes. This line of thought is that Falco's win condition is best obtained by using his tools to maximize 'absolute' advantage, or the type of advantage analysis we do when we pause a VoD and map out every option treating. In this framework risk/reward estimation is usually seen as the emergent solely from game mechanics and is invariant from game to game.
In contrast, I think Mang0's style is designed to maximize 'propositional' advantage. In the absolute framework if player A can choose option 1 or 2, and both have equal risk and equal payoff, we assume that they have equal probability of occuring. When dealing with propositional advantage, we start with some assumed model of player behavior, then adjust the probability weights based on observations we make in match.
Now the community has been talking about reads, mindgames, conditioning, mix-ups, habits, adaptation, etc. for years at this point. Why add a bunch of new confusing terminology and probability terms to a discussion that so well worn? First off, I’m a math/stats nerd, and I think that the intuitive/analytical or read based/positional dichotomies are really just Frequentist vs.Bayesian approaches to the game in disguise. Secondly I think that if we look at Melee through a Bayesian inference and optimization lens, it will give a new and useful ways to describe what exactly Mang0 does to achieve his win condition.
The process goes something like this. You enter a MU with a ‘propositional’ model and a chosen gameplan. Game play interactions, both positive and negative, generate data which the player then filters into observations which they use to classify their opponent. This classification updates the probability weights in the ‘propositional’ model which now adapts to favors certain options. Now with the new updated model, the player then attempts to adapt gameplan to account for the change in model. The gameplay loop looks like this:
- Collect Data
- Filter Data
- Classification
- Update Propositional Model
- Update Gameplan
- Execute Gameplan
- Go to: 1
It’s not hard to cook up a scenario where a ‘propositional’ model of player behavior provides a much clearer and more obvious win condition than the ‘absolute’ style thinking. For instance, even if respecting fox’s ledge dash is optimal in some ‘absolute’ sense, if your opponent lands one ‘atta’ sloppy LD and tournament winners a bunch of other times, it becomes stupid to not pressure him more at the ledge.
So what does any of this have to do with Falco? I think in this view of the game, Mang0 views falco’s strengths as relating more to data than to absolute advantage. Lasers can be seen more as questions that demand answers, than as a safe approach or for their pure frame adv. The important question then isn’t “should I do this yolo dair?” but “will they let me land this yolo dair?”. The yolo elements of Mang0’s style can be explained as an instinct that is willing to ‘absolute’ advantage for data, and a bold confidence that his filters and classifiers will allow him to get a read on you faster and from less data than you can on him. This perspective on the game harkens back to the Melee=Poker analogy Mang0 and Tafo seem so fond of. Falco’s strength as a character boils down to his ability to force your opponent to flinch to get a read, while minimizing your own tells.
The reason I came up with this massive wall of text was because when I was asking myself "what is mang0 good at", I found I lacked any real language to describe it. And I thought it might be worth sharing these thoughts since I think it could provide a constructive framework for the 'intuitive' side of Melee that could be used in a coaching/teaching setting.
How do you feel about "drive by" high dairs, like wizzy has been implementing against armada? I've been using it callout forward movement a recently to try and force tech scenarios on hit. With full momentum it seems relatively safe on block as a crossup. On hit best case scenario you get an panic tech roll in and a free punish, but worst case it seems like you get stage and a freeish laser approach on tech away, and freeish pressure on tech in place. Is this a tactic that will get blown up at higher levels? I haven't tested its susceptibility to much wavedash back oos punishes yet, but it feels pretty safe even on weak dair on shield.
