Safe Pressure and Conditioning

[Sirocco]

These are concepts I'm struggling a bit with in this game. My neutral game is definitely very weak; I'm not exactly sure how to approach it. I think it's mostly because of my lack of knowledge on the character and the game. Basically, I don't know how to safely threaten my opponent. In tandem with that, conditioning them to expect a specific action from me and prepping them to counteract. Against good players, getting those important dash grabs becomes very difficult. However, if I can get them to hide in shield, roll or spotdodge a lot, it becomes a lot easier. But how can I achieve this? I imagine the answers are right there in Falcon's air game, but I'm particularly bad at using his aerials, outside of during obvious combos. My poor spacing and timing with them reflect this. I guess what I'm asking is, how can I use Falcon's aerials intelligently, keeping myself safe while threatening my opponent? What aerials are the most effective for accomplishing this? And, how can I set up situations where I can use my aerials to condition my opponent into taking a defensive action? An over reliance on dash grabs and rudimentary mixups using dash attack exposes my weak neutral against good players, and this is something I want to work out quickly.

 

[ItsIve]

When you're in neutral, dash-dancing and walling with bairs is super important. Movement is also really important for Falcon too. He's only slower than Sonic so it's important to use his movement optimally. Dash-dancing is a really good mix-up option because it lets you fake out your opponent and play some serious mind-games with them and could bait out an unsafe approach option and then punish it. Neutral with Falcon definitely requires some serious patience.

If you also get a lot of grabs during a match, you can condition your opponent to start spot-dodging. Then you can punish it with a pivot-grab, or a falling up-air (which is a true combo into knee at certain percents), bair (which can combo into a dash-grab at certain percents), dair, or even a knee if you're confident.

As for using your aerials intelligently, bair and upair autocancel and are both safe on shield if they are spaced properly. So doing a lot of falling upairs and bairs sets up a wall that's surprisingly hard to get through. Running power-shield also works really well too (I'm mostly referring to the Link/Villager/Samus/Mega-Man match-ups, but this works for a lot of characters that get a lot from projectiles, like Luigi and ZSS). Over time, as you understand Falcon better, neutral becomes much less of a hassle. This all might be a little hard to visualize, but if you watch Fatality or other high-level Falcon play, try to notice how well he handles neutral. Hope I helped a little, good luck

 

[TheSausXL]

Yea basically what @Itslve said. But I want to clarify what he means by dash dancing. Don't just mash the left stick right and left, but do what I think is called dash trotting. It requires some time to master, but it is VERY well worth it. If you look it up their should be a great guide.

Also, you never want to chase your opponent down, you always want to, like he said, set up bair/uair walls and dash trotting in and out until they make a mistake or you see an oppening in their defense. C.Falcon's speed and dash grab will 90% of the time catch them off guard if you are within half the stage away from them. Once you get that grab/dash attack, you usually don't want to pull away until they push you back or they are off stage. Don't be too aggressive at high percents and just let the match come to you.

Hope this helped and be with you.

 

[Kathuzada]

Here is something on Dash Trotting
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3aKhPRxOUo
Knee setups were mentioned
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OTNHLG0aqA

 

[Silvalfo]

Be very careful with dashdancing, though. Falcon can't shield for the first frames of a dash, so that leaves you vulnerable to most projectiles and quick approaches.

 

[Sirocco]

Thanks for the advice guys. Definitely starting to see some improvements in my game.

 

[perseus]

id like to thank you guys for this information. I've been to a couple of locals and could not find out what was wrong with my falcon but this gave me a lot of insight into how to improve upon my skill set.