Upke
Smash Journeyman
1. Dair is almost entirely for disrespect. It does have a few uses, but it's rare to actually warrant using it. One situation I think it works out is when a Falco is up-Bing under the stage in an awkward spot to land a kick, so instead you can fastfall a dair. The only problem is, if they meteor cancel it immediately, a weak kick might actually have more hitstun, lol.
2. Nair kinda blows. I use it a lot for platform shenanigans like you said, but other than that I don't really use it.
3. If you can powershield effectively, it's pretty useless. I sometimes use it to punish an attack on shield if I can't shield grab them, and they aren't spaced right for a kick or an upsmash. There are probably better options though. You can also use it to eat through annoying recoveries because it has invincibility, like TheLake has challenged Falco's recovery with it I remember seeing.
4. I highly doubt you can follow up a jab. I use it to keep people from mindlessly approaching and sometimes I use it in combination with fsmash for shield pressure. It's not REAL pressure, but it's far-reaching, so it's just a way to safely eat at their shield a little bit until they decide to actually jump/roll out. You'd be surprised how long some people will stay in shield while doing that. As for dtilt, I've only ever used it on floaties at high percents to try and cheese an uptilt follow-up kill. Not very useful, imo.
5. Sure, they are horrible matchups, but they sometimes feel worse than they really are. Falco can be in control of the match 100% of the time, but you may still win. Even if he hits you with forty lasers and a handful of shines, you can kill him in five or less hits. The most important thing is to stick it out and watch for even the smallest of openings in their play. Also chaingrabbing is cool and dash attack is pretty good at beating certain approaches. And once you get them offstage, you should usually try to follow them and kick them when they first start their up-B or side-B. It's much easier than trying to react to angles or shortens with Zelda's slow speed. The only reason not to is if you're simply too far away. But yeah, spacies suck.
6. She's pretty much 100% spacing. As I mentioned earlier, she has faux-pressure, but it's really just a mindgame. The opponent will never get stuck in shield by Zelda's attacks, but you can scare them into feeling stuck. I know when I'm approaching a character after they teched or something and I know I won't get there in time, I short hop and just float through them as they bring up their shield, then I wait until the last possible moment when I've gone through them to go for a cross-up kick and hope they try to jump OoS. Even if they don't, you're pretty safe.
I hope that helps you, but keep in mind that I'm not the best player and my advice should be taken with a grain of salt.
2. Nair kinda blows. I use it a lot for platform shenanigans like you said, but other than that I don't really use it.
3. If you can powershield effectively, it's pretty useless. I sometimes use it to punish an attack on shield if I can't shield grab them, and they aren't spaced right for a kick or an upsmash. There are probably better options though. You can also use it to eat through annoying recoveries because it has invincibility, like TheLake has challenged Falco's recovery with it I remember seeing.
4. I highly doubt you can follow up a jab. I use it to keep people from mindlessly approaching and sometimes I use it in combination with fsmash for shield pressure. It's not REAL pressure, but it's far-reaching, so it's just a way to safely eat at their shield a little bit until they decide to actually jump/roll out. You'd be surprised how long some people will stay in shield while doing that. As for dtilt, I've only ever used it on floaties at high percents to try and cheese an uptilt follow-up kill. Not very useful, imo.
5. Sure, they are horrible matchups, but they sometimes feel worse than they really are. Falco can be in control of the match 100% of the time, but you may still win. Even if he hits you with forty lasers and a handful of shines, you can kill him in five or less hits. The most important thing is to stick it out and watch for even the smallest of openings in their play. Also chaingrabbing is cool and dash attack is pretty good at beating certain approaches. And once you get them offstage, you should usually try to follow them and kick them when they first start their up-B or side-B. It's much easier than trying to react to angles or shortens with Zelda's slow speed. The only reason not to is if you're simply too far away. But yeah, spacies suck.
6. She's pretty much 100% spacing. As I mentioned earlier, she has faux-pressure, but it's really just a mindgame. The opponent will never get stuck in shield by Zelda's attacks, but you can scare them into feeling stuck. I know when I'm approaching a character after they teched or something and I know I won't get there in time, I short hop and just float through them as they bring up their shield, then I wait until the last possible moment when I've gone through them to go for a cross-up kick and hope they try to jump OoS. Even if they don't, you're pretty safe.
I hope that helps you, but keep in mind that I'm not the best player and my advice should be taken with a grain of salt.
Kinda in a good way though.... > _ >
