Meta SSB4 Falco Matchup Discussion 09 - Yoshi - Falling With Style

[Ffamran]

Welcome to the Yoshi matchup discussion.

All credit goes to Quas-quas for the original images.​

Here's a link to the main post: SSB4 Falco Matchup Discussion - Main Post. This will be more for general matchup discussions like making a suggestion and such. Or, you could head over to the social thread and ask there: Where We Prefer The Air And The Points Don't Matter!. Or PM me if you really have to, but don't make a habit out of it.

Oh, and if you guys and girls want to play each other to have fun or learn about the MU, check out the NNID and FC sharing thread on the Falco boards: http://smashboards.com/threads/anyone-want-to-exchange-nnids-or-friend-codes.386513/.

There's also the regular NNID and FC sharing threads in the Online discussion if you just want to ask anyone to play.

Notice: Some rules, guidelines, and tips. Some of these are a given since you joined any forum.

1. Be respectful of each other. No insults, no trolling, no flaming, or any of that nonsense.
2. Be aware that some of the discussions can and will be old, so don't call out someone for "wrong" data if that post was referring to say, patch 1.0.3 stuff.
3. Be impartial; learn to see things from other sides. So, don't boast about all the advantages. Notice weaknesses and strengths from both parties.
4. Stay on topic.
5. Have fun.

And here is a frame speed ranking of their regular attacks and grabs - no Specials yet, sorry - to clear up on things since sometimes a move may feel slow, but it's actually fast and vice versa. Plus more information doesn't always hurt. Data from List of attacks/grabs from fastest initial frame to slowest (Frame Speed) and the Complete Hitbox/Frame Data For Every Character threads.

As of patch 1.1.4.

Move Hit Frames||
Jab|2-4, 10-12, 17-21, 22-26, 27-31, 32-36, (infinite), 41-42|3-4, 10-11
Dash Attack|8-11 or 12-19|10-12 or 13-20
Ftilt|6-8|5-7 or 6-8 (angled up or down)
Utilt|5-9, 12-16|8-15
Dtilt|7-9|8-10
Side Smash|17-19 or 20-20|14-14
Up Smash|7-12, 13-20|11-13 or 14-16
Down Smash|7-9|7-8 or 22-23
Nair|3-5, 6-9, 14-17, 21-24|3-4 or 5-11 or 12-25
Fair|10-13, 14-17, 18-21, 22-25, 26-27, 28-29|16-20
Bair|4-5 or 6-12|11-11, 17-17, 25-26
Uair|7-11|5-6
Dair|16-19 or 20-31|26 to 32 (6 hits), 40 to 47 (7 hits), 41-41
Grab|8-9|14-24
Dash Grab|10-11|11-21
Pivot Grab|11-12|10-19

 

[Captain Rage Quit 69]

Yoshi is the most annoying dinosaur ever.

His moves are so safe, holy moly it's just so difficult to get a hit in without eating a face full of nair.

That dair that deals a million hits and destroys shields, a bair better than ours, a fair spike, and even his uair is good for juggling and way faster than ours.

Don't even get me started on how jab beats everything, and then the eggs he throws on every spot of the map. He doesn't even have much trouble killing, down b kills, all his smashes can kill, it's possible his grabs can kill or setup for kills but don't quote me on that.

Basically we need to force the dinosaur to approach and try to disregard the eggs he'll toss at us to make us approach. Punish everything as soon as possible with the fastest option available. Which aerials break his double jump's armor? I believe it's knockback-dependent, correct me if I'm wrong. What are our best stages to fight this prehistoric beast?

 

[Ffamran]

For me, fighting Yoshi is sort of like fighting Fox except Yoshi's Egg Throw can be exploited more so than Fox's Blaster. If you reflect Fox's Blaster, then he gets damaged, but if you reflect Yoshi's egg, then he gets hit by knockback and hit stun. Try using Reflector so that it hits Yoshi and makes the egg hit Yoshi too. Obviously, this won't work all the time, but keep in mind. It's one of the reasons why I love Falco's Reflector over everyone's.

 

[IsmaR]

Don't forget B-reversed Egg Lay. Yoshi + momentum = hell to deal with.

 

[NotAnAdmin]

I find myself throwing out fairs trying to break the super armor.
Bair works sometimes, but it seems at high percents only.

Yoshi is just an all around quick character in this game. I seriously can't find a weakness in his moveset outside of his somewhat short range. All of them have some kind of use even close to the ground upair, nair seems to auto cancel, and fair and bair have next to no land lag. Fair spikes are mad strong and are easy to connect. Smashes come out quick too, upsmash and dsmash are amazing.
He's floaty in the air.

He's got him beat in just about every category, and a patient Yoshi player will force you to approach, and then smack you around while you try to find an opening.
I want to say 40-60. Falco can win but it he needs the Yoshi to follow him high into the air. Which is an huge issue, as a human player isn't going to give you the opportunity without some kind of struggle.

Patience is the what Falco needs most. I would say FD is the best stage to take a Yoshi if you do go for this MU, Falco needs as much space as he can to make his move, and to stay out of range of eggs with full hops.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Yoshi is the most annoying dinosaur ever.

His moves are so safe, holy moly it's just so difficult to get a hit in without eating a face full of nair.

That dair that deals a million hits and destroys shields, a bair better than ours, a fair spike, and even his uair is good for juggling and way faster than ours.

Don't even get me started on how jab beats everything, and then the eggs he throws on every spot of the map. He doesn't even have much trouble killing, down b kills, all his smashes can kill, it's possible his grabs can kill or setup for kills but don't quote me on that.

Basically we need to force the dinosaur to approach and try to disregard the eggs he'll toss at us to make us approach. Punish everything as soon as possible with the fastest option available. Which aerials break his double jump's armor? I believe it's knockback-dependent, correct me if I'm wrong. What are our best stages to fight this prehistoric beast?

I currently don't mind this matchup honestly. Falco does better on the ground with a faster Jab that has similar range to his and better tilts. While he moves very quickly in the air, I find that all of his aerials can feasibly be contested with Shine (retreat aerial Shine can be a fairly safe go-to if you expect him to make an aggressive move in the air), N-air, and Smashes if your spacing is on point. The main difficult part of this matchup is securing a kill given his massive air mobility while Yoshi in contrast can make your life offstage sorta lame with his lingering hitboxes, but other than that I don't necessarily feel neutral is bad for Falco. Yoshi's favor slightly because he works less hard for KOs, but completely doable if you know the right responses and play your ground game solidly.

Smaller stages imo are better in this matchup for easier KOs with U-throw/B-throw and to minimize his advantage in harassing your recovery. Taking him to Halberd for instance is good.

 

[Captain Rage Quit 69]

Sup guys.

Fought a few Yoshis yesterday, and all I can say is wow is this matchup way more manageable than I thought.

Sure we have to put the work in but when don't we? #JustFalcoThings

So long as we manage our ground game perfectly, we can keep things from tipping in Yoshi's favor. We can provoke the dino with lasers, retreating shines (also good for negating eggs while being offensive), and we can break double jump armor with fair. Our tilts and grabs are absolutely necessary for this, as we need all the damage we can get to put Yoshi in KO range.

Fsmash for the win, Dsmash versus rolls. Usmash OoS if we can. I honestly think this matchup is more 45-55 Yoshi than anything else.

The only problem is that we need to be on point, because Yoshi is one scary reptile. That dair? Does like 20% and wrecks shields. He's got one of the best spikes in the form of fair. Nair is quick and has priority, and I can't say off the top of my head what beats it up close. Bair is bad news at high percents, especially that last hit. Oh, we shouldn't throw out lasers unless we're far enough to move before Yoshi can dash towards us, because his dash attack sends him forward fast.

Let's see, what else? Oh, of course down-B is still a threat. If we're at high percents we should be wary of getting up close and personal with Yoshi. There's no frame data for this in the OP, but I know it's a kill move.

How do we punish Egg Roll? I honestly don't know how to handle it, it turns quick and there isn't much to do on block as the guy already speeds off to hit us again. Let's see if we can contest it.

Darn it, I come in feeling confident like I've got Yoshi figured out, and I finish with more questions! Oh well, discussion's good right? What does anyone else think? I could elaborate if you want later, I'm typing this at 1 am when I should be asleep by now. ><;;;

 

[Ffamran]

Egg Roll? If it's like Sonic's Homing Attack?, Spin Dash and Charge, then Reflector just destroys it. I don't remember though since I haven't fought a lot of Yoshis and most of them don't use Egg Roll while Spin Dash and Charge are essential tools to Sonic.

 

[Zionaze]

i smash open that darn egg with a hefty Bair

 

[NotAnAdmin]

Egg Roll seems to be much easier to stop than before...
I managed to hit with just a Jab 1 and d-tilt last weekend, it's all about the timing. Easiest way to intercept is with a shine though.

I think his dair needs a good nerf though, while it's not easy to do, I've seen it get to 30% with no hits being connected beforehand. It's crazy

 

[A2ZOMG]

How do we punish Egg Roll? I honestly don't know how to handle it, it turns quick and there isn't much to do on block as the guy already speeds off to hit us again. Let's see if we can contest it.

Darn it, I come in feeling confident like I've got Yoshi figured out, and I finish with more questions! Oh well, discussion's good right? What does anyone else think? I could elaborate if you want later, I'm typing this at 1 am when I should be asleep by now. ><;;;

Punishing Egg Roll is about calmly reacting quickly.

You can shieldgrab it or Jab out of shield if you know which side he will end up on.

Reflector is a good consistent response at midrange.

At long range, I just laser...lol.

In general the best way to try to KO Yoshi in my experience if he's not in throw KO% range is to find a way to pressure him offstage. Try your best to read when he will double jump while being careful to avoid Egg Toss. I either try to wait and anti-air him with U-smash or try to go low and do a double jump aerial to cover options. If he tries to drift ultra high I often just pressure him with Shine and then try to see what I can do as he gets lower.

As I said earlier though I like smaller blastzones in this matchup because it makes getting KOs with U-throw and B-throw or U-air hard read juggles much easier while I feel in contrast this doesn't really hurt your exploitable recovery quite as much.

 

[Legato]

I played quite a few good Yoshi mains last week. The key to this MU seems to be staying grounded. You want Yoshi to jump first because this will create a number of options for you in neutral game. Your laser pressure does a great job at forcing Yoshi into the air, and most will try to space an egg. This egg is the exact reason why you want to position yourself below Yoshi. Most will attempt to dair after throwing an egg which you can easily dash away from and catch him in a grab. Also, if he decides to throw an egg (and most will) then it is the perfect time to take control of center stage. Yoshi cannot use eggs as effectively if you position yourself this way. Occasionally throw in a utilt to mix things up. Most Yoshi mains decide to stop broadcasting their dair and try to space close to you. I have found that utilt comes out fast enough to catch them when they do this.

Grab Yoshi often. He is one of the easiest characters to force into grab because of Yoshi's lack of range. His nair begs to be shielded into a grab. Roll-cancel grabs are beautiful in this MU as well. I also was able to dtilt--->fair a lot against the Yoshis that I played.

Use lasers often in weird places (like meet him in the air but laser instead of attacking). Yoshi needs momentum to push you into a corner and your lasers will keep him from doing so. NEVER jump against a grounded Yoshi (unless you are spacing a reflector towards him). As far as I know reflector is the only safe(ish) aerial approach Falco can rely on in this MU. Even then he has a number of options dealing with you in the air like eggs, bair, fair, uair, and shield which punish pretty much anything you will throw at him. Typically, you can only jump when he jumps. Fair/nair are wonderful options against an air-bound Yoshi, and trust me, he will be in the air most of the game if you use your lasers well. Some grow keen to the air tricks and start to roll towards you for ground positioning, at this point start to switch up into dtilts and d-smashes. In this MU I manage to hit a lot of dtilts, which always combo into fair from low-mid %s.

Also, a neat trick to get the kill: Force Yoshi into the air and then do a [full jump--->fair] diagonally away from Yoshi in the air. Many people think that this fair is not safe and position themselves close to behind where Falco will land. If you used fair immediately after jumping you can actually bair before landing on the ground. The fair encourages your opponent to move behind you to avoid the hitbox, which has allowed me to land this bair multiple times on the same opponent.This trick works on many characters, but especially Yoshi because he typically has to space into the sweet spot of the bair. This kill switch-up should be used sparingly, but it is a very deceptive and powerful move.

Sorry about the wall of text I've had a lot of experience with this match-up. I'd say it's 40-50 in Yoshi's favor since we really have to make some good reads to get the kill. It is by no means impossible though.

 

[Forty4]

Guess I'll add my two cents. Yoshi is quick, with fast attacks with eggsellent (sorry) priority. But his range is somewhat poor and he can't really recover vertically. His Eggs are annoying, but Falco has a Reflector. Mainly what Yoshis do is they try to get their opponent in the air for Uair strings for damage and to kill. Yoshi is surprisingly good on the ground, with Eggs and fast moves with high priority, which can get an opponent in the air. Yoshi's Dair does 34% (be glad it's not 56% like in 64) which can put on damage, but Yoshi has to commit somewhat. Both Dair and Down B can break shields. Yoshi has a plethora of kill options, but not really a way to get to them except for Jab confirms. Don't really have MU experience, but I think Falco's reflector and his ability to keep Yoshi away from the ledge (his DJ only has HEAVY ARMOR, not super btw) makes this close to even. The reptille thing wins this, but only slighty. If I made any misconceptions about Falco, please correct me at the risk of sounding stupid.

Sorry for the long post. :/

Edit: Good Yoshis never use Egg Roll, but I believe a good way to punish it is to shield and then grab Yoshi or hit him with an attack because the prority on ER sucks. Also, for stages, you don't really want Yoshi to have room to run around or not have platforms, so BF or Smashville or stages like those aregood against him.

 

[Ffamran]

Reflector doesn't always mean everything. It's not an auto-win tool when someone comes up against a character with projectiles. In this case, Falco's Reflector allows him to space and deal damage at a fair range and as I said before, if Reflector hits Yoshi when he uses Egg Throw, Yoshi gets hit by both Reflector and the Egg which has good knockback from what I remember. At that point, Reflector won't be doing much besides spacing, reflecting, and giving out free damage. Yoshi, like everyone else can bait out a Reflector. I think Yoshi could just throw an Egg up and trick Falco into throwing out Reflector and have enough time to punish Falco. I'm not sure on default Reflector, but I think Accele-Reflector and Reflector Void have more end-lag - that and they come out later -, so Falco will have to be wary.

 

[Snipnigth]

One thing i have noticed fighting one of my friends that is a yoshi main is that he can hit you with nair or jab out of your own jab combo even if your hitting him...its really annoying and the yoshi jabs are just god link everytime im in he starts trhowing them, its imposible to find an opening...this matchup its really on yoshis favors in all lvls, faster, heavier, stronger......the falco player must put a lot more effort and cocentration because almost every move beats yours...the best way as mentioned before is playing defensive annoying from afar with lasers let him aproach you...and be careful punishing he recovers fast! Unless its a smash he lags a lot with smashes if he misses or if you shield them....this matchups is one of the hardest for falco imo

 

[A2ZOMG]

One thing i have noticed fighting one of my friends that is a yoshi main is that he can hit you with nair or jab out of your own jab combo even if your hitting him...its really annoying and the yoshi jabs are just god link everytime im in he starts trhowing them, its imposible to find an opening...this matchup its really on yoshis favors in all lvls, faster, heavier, stronger......the falco player must put a lot more effort and cocentration because almost every move beats yours...the best way as mentioned before is playing defensive annoying from afar with lasers let him aproach you...and be careful punishing he recovers fast! Unless its a smash he lags a lot with smashes if he misses or if you shield them....this matchups is one of the hardest for falco imo

Pretty sure if you're doing it as fast as possible he shouldn't be interrupting you. Only if you wait too long to hit confirm and try to go into rapid Jabs he'll interrupt you. Falco's Jab is really really good in this matchup given it's a frame faster than Yoshi's and in close range this typically keeps you in control of the match.

Also I've often N-aired and B-aired Yoshi out of various aerials, but in situations where he's well spaced, usually it's not hard to Shine him out of everything in the air which then forces him to play really respectfully against Falco.

Falco wins neutral honestly pretty convincingly this matchup if you ask me, but Yoshi's superior positive and negative state give him the advantage due to risk/reward. Technically if everything Falco does is spaced correctly, Yoshi doesn't have a real way in on him because Falco's normals have superior hitboxes and frame data overall, but the mistakes you make in this matchup are overall more costly.

On Halberd though where you can get easy U-throw/B-throw KOs, I'd say it's probably Falco's favor.

 

[Snipnigth]

Pretty sure if you're doing it as fast as possible he shouldn't be interrupting you. Only if you wait too long to hit confirm and try to go into rapid Jabs he'll interrupt you. Falco's Jab is really really good in this matchup given it's a frame faster than Yoshi's and in close range this typically keeps you in control of the match.

Also I've often N-aired and B-aired Yoshi out of various aerials, but in situations where he's well spaced, usually it's not hard to Shine him out of everything in the air which then forces him to play really respectfully against Falco.

Falco wins neutral honestly pretty convincingly this matchup if you ask me, but Yoshi's superior positive and negative state give him the advantage due to risk/reward. Technically if everything Falco does is spaced correctly, Yoshi doesn't have a real way in on him because Falco's normals have superior hitboxes and frame data overall, but the mistakes you make in this matchup are overall more costly.

On Halberd though where you can get easy U-throw/B-throw KOs, I'd say it's probably Falco's favor.

im really sure they can interrupt you, today i was fighitng a marth player i got my jabs 2 jabs in and then into the rapid jab, he started spaming up-b, and after like 2 hits of the spinning jabs, the up b came out, the same thing happens with yoshi's nair....and you could think "well just do 2 jabs and go for a tilt or grab" if your opponent figures out this he has a big window to punish, specially when he is at high %.

His jabs are not terrible they come out really fast, but they aren't great either, very easy to DI on top off that.

Its not an auto lose but i do think its a hard matchup for Falco.

 

[A2ZOMG]

im really sure they can interrupt you, today i was fighitng a marth player i got my jabs 2 jabs in and then into the rapid jab, he started spaming up-b, and after like 2 hits of the spinning jabs, the up b came out, the same thing happens with yoshi's nair....and you could think "well just do 2 jabs and go for a tilt or grab" if your opponent figures out this he has a big window to punish, specially when he is at high %.

His jabs are not terrible they come out really fast, but they aren't great either, very easy to DI on top off that.

Its not an auto lose but i do think its a hard matchup for Falco.

Marth's aerial Up-B is invincible frames 1-4. However I just tested right now. If you do your Jabs as fast as possible even at 0% it combos on Marth properly and he cannot interrupt it with his invincible Up-B. Similarly you shouldn't have any problems linking it on Yoshi whose N-air is not invincible. It's up to you as a player to have good enough hit confirmation skills to do your Jabs fast and continue to Rapid Jabs if they aren't blocking, and stop if they do block. If you only ever use Jab in punish situations you should absolutely never get interrupted, but even outside of those it's very feasible to use Jab in footsies and confirm rapid Jabs quickly without getting interrupted, and doing that consistently as Falco actually makes the matchup very manageable for him.

As I said earlier, Falco's Jab is REALLY good in this matchup because it basically beats everything Yoshi does on the ground for pretty decent damage. And you can handle Yoshi's aerial game just fine with your own and Shine.

 

[Lukingordex]

I've only played against 1 good falco since this game came out, even though I won the majority of the matches, they were really close and I really struggled to understand how to play that MU correctly.

I'd be glad if any falco main with experience in this MU could give me some advice about Falco's strong and weak points in this MU.

Also I know those posts are like 3 months old but I have to disagree with the guy who said Yoshi has invicible frame data and is extremely safe. All his aerials have considerably ending lag and are unsafe on shield most of the time.
Dair has terrible landing lag and almost never breaks shields with 100% health. It just ALMOST breaks it or ends up poking it with the last hits and doing like 2~4%.
A well spaced Fair is safe on shield but it has like 20+ frames of ending lag so yoshi isn't going to gain much from it other than doing some shield damage.
Bair is a terrible aerial, extremely unsafe on shield, terrible ending lag, and isn't a good option in almost never situation since it's outclassed by Uair by power and safeness and by Dair, Fair and Nair at edgeguarding.
Nair is good and quick but has poor range and isn't safe on shield unless you DJ with it. But if you DJ Nair a shield then you're now above your opponent which is a bad position.

 

[KenMeister]

Can we bump this thread again since the shield changes really effect Yoshi's game plan?

 

[Zelryem]

I just played my friend who's way better than me for about three hours, and the major question I have right now is, what's the best way to get kills on Yoshi? Besides our massive gap in skill level, I had trouble getting kills a lot of the time. Fsmash when he double jumped back on stage worked, but if he went high I could not chase him down at all. I got a lucky spike one time, but otherwise I had to hope that my smashes or a lucky bair hit him, or he messed up a recovery. Any advice on what I should be looking for specifically as well?

 

[KenMeister]

I just played my friend who's way better than me for about three hours, and the major question I have right now is, what's the best way to get kills on Yoshi? Besides our massive gap in skill level, I had trouble getting kills a lot of the time. Fsmash when he double jumped back on stage worked, but if he went high I could not chase him down at all. I got a lucky spike one time, but otherwise I had to hope that my smashes or a lucky bair hit him, or he messed up a recovery. Any advice on what I should be looking for specifically as well?

If they recover high, drop off the ledge (to condition and avoid eggs) and do a rising fair after a full jump to KO him offstage. Yoshi is also pretty easy to catch at the ledge, so see if you can condition his getup to where you can ledge trap him with Falco's lingering up smash.

 

[Shichi]

To start this message off I want to open up by stating that Yoshi is heavier than Falco and has an easier time killing.
At low percents both characters can threaten each other with jab which, as Falco, I find myself using quite commonly because of the speed of the jab and the damage it can rack. However, Yoshi's jab is a one-two jab combo that always put Falco in a bad position due to his fast speed so Yoshi takes percent while Falco takes damage and a bad positioning. My goal of this first statement is that even though Falco will probably get more percent on Yoshi, our prehistoric friend can continue with things such as grab or maybe another jab combo.

The next important thing is that Yoshi outranges Falco and has a better projectile. Any Falco laser (aerial or grounded) forces Falco to enter lag from putting his gun away so it's never a move to use up close unless it forces a jab lock situation. For newcomers, when i say Jab lock I don't mean using the actual jab, it's where if Yoshi was knocked on his back and Falco shoots a laser at the right time the opponent will bounce and be forced to get up.

To sum it all up I believe that Falco loses this matchup slightly due to having a difficult time hitting Yoshi due to his range and I personally believe that Yoshi will have a much easier time hitting Falco while our feathered friend will have to carefully pick when to attack. Any opening Falco must work hard to maximize the punishment on. Grabs are important as they lead to strings and can kill off of the top or the side blastzones. Yoshi weighs more and kills earlier so I feel that it's possible but it's very hard versus a Yoshi who is very aware and knows their stuff.

 

[theONEjanitor]

It's in Yoshi's favor imo. Yoshi has a better projectile and just better hitboxes over all. He has the dreaded nair combo breaker (characters with that all make Falco's life hard), and a lot of his moves are pretty safe and have low lag. He's also heavy and hard to kill.