How much do you know about Smash Bros. Melee? Just curious. Do you know how to wavedash, Short hop, fast fall, or L-Cancel? L-Cancel and Wavedash mainly.
Cuz some of my advice isn't too useful if you don't know how to do those...
Long post below. I tried my best to format it so it doesn't look like a wall of text...lol
Let's get started! ^_^
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GRABS (HUGE part of Fox's gameplan):
On most characters: Grab --> Upthrow --> Upair
On characters that fall fast (Fox/Falco/Captain Falcon): Grab --> Upthrow -->Upsmash/*regrab
*Against Fox/Falco...and sorta Captain Falcon (except not really...), you can chaingrab them to hell and back. How to do it: Grab --> Upthrow --> Press Grab again. If they DI forward or backwards, it makes it even easier. This is very good at low percents; helps rack it up to about 50% or higher (basically it's GG), right from 0%. There comes a point where you have to upsmash them though.
Sidenote: It's kinda funny...like, back in 2006-2008, though people used grabs a lot with Fox, people seem to emphasize shine combos more, at least when they're talking about it. lol These days though, all people talk about in Fox discussions is getting that grab. Because it's so damn strong and a lot easier to use. Theoretically, Shine is broken as all hell and pretty much 0-death combos everyone. Just in practice it's so much harder to hit-confirm those moves, especially with the flow of battle constantly changing. That's not to say that people have stopped using the shine in battle. It's still a damn good move.
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AERIAL COMBOS:
Aerial --> Shine --> Wavedash --> anything.
*Note: Shine --> Wavedash is synonymous to Waveshine. Waveshine is the term most people prefer to use.
Or just hit and run tactics with aerials. It's still very effective.
Usually if you're approaching, you'll approach with Dair or Nair. Sometimes Bair and Uair is fine too. Just depends. Make sure you short hop, fast fall, L-cancel those. Then after you hit them with it, you Shine. This is usually what you want to do when you connect with your aerials. Then after you hit with shine, you'll wavedash forward and upsmash/grab. Or...if you want, you'll shine again, and you can keep doing this over and over until you push them off stage, or end it with upsmash or grab.
OR if you want: You can Dair --> Turn-around uptilt. You know how your uptilt usually hits behind you and slightly in front? If you dair them, you usually have enough time to turn around and face away from them, then uptilt.
OR if you want: You can Dair --> Grab. Easily one of the best things to do. Dair --> upsmash can work alright, but honestly I think Dair --> Grab is better. Besides, if you want to do Dair --> upsmash, it's better to Dair --> Shine --> Wavedash --> Upsmash.
At low percents, Dair/Nair --> Waveshine works, because Shine always pushes them a set distance. You can use it to rack up percent quickly like this.
There's also Nair --> Downtilt. That one's nice when they're slightly too far for shine. It pops them right up for you. Though, the combos afterwards is all improvised. Just follow them and hit them accordingly.
Or if you're a real baller, you can Dair --> Waveshine --> Dair --> Waveshine --> Upsmash. It racks up quite a bit of damage for sure. Of course, there are flaws to it, but there are flaws to all techniques. This one's flaw is that it kinda takes a lot of tech skill, and your opponent can smash DI the dair to fk it up...along with a slew of other problems. But for the most part, it's good to know. Usually though, grab and upthrow is the bare minimum you really need for Fox. lol
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BAIR:
Reason why I made this section is because I want to emphasize how stupidly good Bair can be. It's great at playing defensively. Just run away and face away from your opponent. Whenever they try to come at you, jump and bair. Or you can use it offensively too; you can oftentimes replace nair with bair in combos and it'd work.
Strong damage, high priority, long range, sticks out for a long time. Bair's good. 'Nuff said.
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DASH ATTACK:
Ah yes, the moment you've been waiting for. Look, I'm not gonna kid with you. This attack is kinda meh. It's very situational, and honestly, I would try not to use this attack too much. It does have its uses though. You can use it to block Link's and Young Link's Boomerang. Dash attack it, which completely negates the boomerang and almost all lag from your attack, so you can dash again.
It's also sometimes good at extending combos in unconventional ways. Like, dashing into shffl'd Nair --> Dash attack --> Upsmash on Fox/Falco works from time to time.
Or say if you want to clip someone who's falling or slightly airborne above you, dash attack can fit into your offense here too.
The biggest thing to remember about Dash Attack is that it only starts being useful at mid to high percents. Seriously...it's really not that useful early game. Opponents don't have that much lag after the move, and they can easily punish you. And it's also bad on shields. If they shield this, you're gonna get shield grabbed so easily. And so...this is why you use this technique sparingly.
Dash Attack combos:
There's not that many set-in-stone combos, as it's mostly strange and unusual stuff.
But if you do want something concrete:
Dash Attack --> Uptilt --> Upair. Also known as "Champ Combo." It's a bit of a troll combo in the sense that, yes, it works, but it's...situational...and...only in certain situations. If you want Champ Combo to work, try to have them at mid to high percents; they need to be knocked up by the Dash Attack, if you want the uptilt to connect.
Here's a link to a video of Champ Combo. lol
Dash Attack --> Upsmash works too...but again, just really depends. And only if Dash Attack knocks them up off the ground. And that's basically only at higher percents. Or if they're already airborne.
Tl;dr: Dash Attack is really situational. Every time I think about Dash attack, I replace it with Upsmash and it's 100x better. What I mean is, dash then do a jump-canceled up smash. Really easy to do. Just dash then do up smash like you normally would. lol
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GUYS CHARGING IN AT YOU:
There's plenty of ways to take advantage of this. Some basic ways are:
Shieldgrab
So you know how holding L/R lets you shield? Also while holding L/R, if you press A, you grab? Yeah. Do that. Someone attempts to attack your shield. You shield and block the attack. Then press A while they're lagging from their attack, and you'll grab them. Pretty much all moves lag after their attack, especially smash attacks. Abuse the Fk out of your shieldgrab. Do be mindful of your spacing though; if they attack you and it ends up pushing you a little bit, you might not be able to grab them (which is where Wavedash out of shield into grab is very useful, but that's for another day).
Bair
Either turn around and jump and bair them. Or run away while you bair them.
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MISCELLANEOUS THINGS:
So...computers, especially level 9's...are not that great to practice against, because they're frame-perfect. Powershield everything and aerial out of everything (though, if they are aerial'ing out of everything, it might mean that either you're slow or you're missing your L-Cancel's). Also, they're not good practice, because they're stupid and predictable. Smashes pretty much auto-win against them. But then you develop bad habits against humans, which won't work.
As far as killing them, and then they respawn while you have high percent and they have low percents:
Two main things you need to keep in mind are very simple: Hit them. And don't get hit.
Question is how to go about it. For one, know how to avoid attacks without having to do something that keeps you wide open. Such as, roll/sidestep/airdodge. But it also wavedashing, and simply dashing away. Not all the way across the stage, but juuuussst far enough that their attack stops right in front of you.
And then strike them. But strike them with moves that can't be punished too easily (such as poorly spaced dash attack at early percents -- quickest way to die). Like Grab. Grab is great for this as it sets up high percent combos for next to no effort. And boom, now you can combo with almost anything.
If you can't get the grab, you can do the combos I told you earlier, like short-hopped aerials into shine combos or grab combos. Or simply hitting and running.
Remember: Hit them but don't get hit. This introduces these concepts/new techniques:
Shielding tricks like shield grab, wavedash out of shield, and dash dance.
Dash dance is basically what you see in most smash vids these days. Dash towards them then away from them. Repeat. Looks like they're spazzing hard, eh? The key is to be able to manipulate your distance in a way that tricks them. Be it dashing longer towards them then dashing away only slightly then dashing longer and deeper towards them and then moving slightly away. Or whatever. It's so basic and simple, but it's very hard to truly master, because there's so much that's involved with it. Seriously, you can write a book on it.
But yeah, the concept is to dash towards them and bait them to make a move. They make their move while you're dashing away to dodge it, then dash back in and beat them up.
Dash dance --> grab. Or dash dance --> shield their attack --> wavedash out of shield --> destroy them.
Examples of good Dash Dancing Vids:
Dalal's Movement Guide (First few seconds of video shows Dash Dance; the rest of the stuff is cool, but not *necessary*
Mango's Dash Dance Compilation
Another Dash Dance Clip
Also, lasers. You can short-hop laser to help out with the low-percent thing. And it's pretty good at baiting them to come to you. Just use sparingly, as it's easy to lose your positioning and die.
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Gimp:
This'll also help you out with killing opponents who have low percents, while you have high percents. You really don't need to beat them up till 100+ to kill them. Just knock them off stage and prevent them from recovering. Plenty of ways to do this. Again, like dash dancing, you can write a book on it, as it's delicate. But basically kick them off, then jump after them and shine them. Shining them sends them diagonally downwards, which makes pretty much all characters die...as most won't be able to recover after this. It's so stupid it's gold. Just hitting with it can be hard. You can also forward tilt to edgeguard and dair too...god there's lots of options.
Edit: Btw, the Shine technique is called Shinespiking. Mega-douchey move, but can kill people at 0%.
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Closing Comments:
Man, took me like, an hour and a half to write this up...lol. Let me know if you want to know more or if you want me to clarify something. There's so much more to be said about Fox. Thunder's Combo...Tech Chasing...platform positioning...I just don't have the time or patience right now. XD Hope this helped.
Keep training, and you'll be super awesome one day.
This list isn't really set in stone, but rather gives you tangible things to work towards. I might go back and revise this post a bit, if I feel like I should re-explain it or add more to it.
