U-tilt/Bair follow-up help

[djbenny89]

Hello, so I have recently started playing Melee again, and for the first time seriously and I have a few questions if someone could help. So, everyone is always talking about utilt and AC Bair as two of Falcos best moves, and I get it they are ridiculous, so easy to hit with. Now, there are times that I get follow ups and keep the combo going after hitting either of these, but often I miss it and the combo dies. My question is what are these follow ups because I know they are there I just cannot find them? Is it easier to combo out of them on platforms? I should specify this is mainly at low/mid percentages, but what are your favorite follow ups to keep combos going out of utilt and AC Bair??? Thanks for the input in advance!

 

[LeadRod]

I think uptilt, personally, is one of the best combo starters in the game. At low percent you can uptilt a fastfaller into a free shine then from there do Falco's signature Dair -> Waveshine combos. For floaties at low % (or fastfallers around mid %) I find uptilt doesn't always reliably lead into a grounded shine so I like to do a shine waveland. At this point you have a couple of options including doing another uptilt to a bair, a shine backair, or anything really. Now I dont often use Bair as a combo starter but instead use it more as a spacing tool or to knock an opponent offstage for an edgeguard. That being said one situation I can think of is if you are spacing with Bair then the opponent runs in to try and CC it at low % you can typically get a shine if you immediately fastfall the bair. Anyway hope that helps!

 

[FE_Hector]

A lot of the time, you'll probably be able to get utilt shine waveland, though not at super low %s. I want to say, though, that both utilt and AC bair are sorta kinda risky to use in neutral and are better used as combo extenders when you're not using them in a defensive manner (especially anti-air, where I think they're amazing). According to iKneeData, utilt can be CCd by Fox till ~55% and bair can be CCd till about the same % if it's clean and to ridiculous %s if it isn't. As I touched on a bit before, the moves are best used in a defensive position as an anti-air or mid-combo. Most of your openings will probably be created by smart movement/lasering to limit your opponents' options, shortly followed by an aerial into a shine.

 

[djbenny89]

Awesome! Thank you very much fellas. And all that makes sense, usually I would be using them defensively it just had seemed like even I was using them that way, I was still missing opportunities to follow up from them, but this should help a lot

 

[FE_Hector]

Just to add something real quick, you can always learn a lot from watching how top Falco's use certain moves. PP, Zhu, WBallz, and Mango all have very different styles of Falco, so you can learn a lot by taking individual ideas from their play.

 

[Audos]

Yeah they use the u-tilt pretty differently. I know one of the most common things that almost all top falcos except mango love is roll > turnaround u-tilt. Little spots where the opponent is trying to punish something that is barely unpunishable is usually a good spot to u-tilt. Just watch out for them doing a true, crouching CC as it can wreck you, but agile foxes that love to ariel and grab usually run right into it.