We need to make serious improvements

[gravy]

I think us falcons need to be talking now more than ever about how to improve our standing in the metagame. After Evo, there's certainly a falcon hype killing vibe going on, and I'm not down with that. That being said, I'm not trying to claim to be the best, or put myself above anyone, BUT, we need to figure out how to do better than we've been doing. I'm not sure exactly what we need to do, but I know for sure that conversing amongst ourselves will help. With that in mind, anyone who Pms me on the subject can have either my Facebook or phone number to message or text me anytime you have something to discuss, and maybe if we come to good realizations we can post our results on the boards.

Guys, keep in mind that falcon IS an adequate character, and IS capable of not only placing well, but having an armada-esque dominant reign. We have the tools to do it, we're simply not using them perfectly. I know you guys watched hax vs peepee, and I know that I'm not the only one who saw that as completely winnable! Hax was ahead on game three for Christs sake!

Now, in my opinion, there's a few specific things that REALLY need work from us, and the only way we're going to make progress is by having intellectual conversations about them. We have to use our brains guys!

1. Let's be real about it guys, our edgeguards are sub par. If you watch any falcon in any match, you're going to see him fail to close the deal at least once when he could of. This is so crucial to fix! Especially against characters with limited recoveries like the fastfallers, marth, etc... It's one thing to have a hard time hitting a peach as she floats back and forth and using umbrella shenanigans, but trying to edgeguard a spacie and just getting burned into a death combo is just NOT acceptable if falcon's ever going to be the best. So what do we have to do? What can our collective minds come up with to ensure significantly more precise edgeguards?

2. Our tech chases need work. Now, I know that this is a really hard subject, but tech chasing should be our most dominant aspect! I, for one, thing we need to start working on two things to improve our tech chases significantly. First off, we need to make sure we're taking guarenteed tech chases when they're presented. See; dsmash and raptor boost. We also need to really start moving more towards reaction based tech chases. Guys, even if you can't get a knee, it's much better to react and at least start choking out their space/pressuring them! It's incomparably better than just whiffing a stomp or something.

Listen, I went to stress again that I'm really not trying to say this stuff from a high horse. I REALLY just want falcon to do better, and I'll do whatever I have to with you guys to improve. PLEASE provide feedback to this, and lets finally get the ball rolling. Like I said, if you Pm me I'll let you know how to contact me, and I hope to hear back from you guys.

 

[6VI6]

Expect a PM from me sometime tonight.

 

[GCS Gaming Customs]

Neat thread, I can't contribute too much right now because I suck.

 

[CyberZixx]

How does Falcon even edgeguard? I figured the reason falcon dropped so many edgeguards versus spacies is because they lack the tool to gimp them that Marth/sheik/Peach/puff all have. I agree that Falcons need to more patient with tech chases and not go for the knee/stomp reads so often.

 

[gravy]

Well, in my opinion, falcon has a lot of edgeguarding tools under his command. Figuring out how to edgeguard perfectly is just a combination of choosing the right edgeguarding tool and refreshing invincibility at the right time. To be clear though, I'll list every option that I can think of.
First off, we have the options presented while hanging from the ledge, which include every double jump aerial onto the ledge, ledge hop knee, bair, and uair(which allow us to regrab the ledge) and falling off bair and uair, which allow us to get back. They all cover different ranges and have different effects, so they all need to be analyzed extensively.

Now, if we're on the stage, our options become a little different. We can run off stomp, uair, or knee, or wavedash off and do any of those. Keep in mind that the ability to wavedash off both forwards and backwards allows for us to use multiple different hit boxes (most noticeable with uair. We can also wavedash or run off and double jump into any aerial of our choice.

If, however, we decide to stay on the ledge, we gain a myriad of edgeguarding options, including every aerial, tilt, smash, and grab. I think if given the time and effort required, falcons edgeguarding could be ridiculously solid. We just need to get someone using all his options correctly.

 

[6VI6]

Falcon should have all the tools to edgeguard spacies imo, though pp was doing something smart to avoid hax's edgeguards iirc. Gotta rewatch the set.

 

[gravy]

Mainly he was just jumping back to recover, but in my opinion the way to counter that just requires a bit more commitment.

 

[Double Helix]

Well, I have a bit of perspective on the edgeguarding stuff as a Ness main. I know something I have had to do is work on trying to TRADE with their recovery move and sdi my way back to living, or at least make my worse-than-Falcon up-b easier to deal with. That said, I think, overall, Falcons just have to play smarter than more of the cast than most high-tiers. Falcon can be combo'd by most of the cast (though not chain-grabbed like spacies that I know of) so great combo di is a must. I think that uair needs to be utilized much more. In my opinion, it is Falcon's best move, and better extends an edgeguard than a missed knee for sure. Falcon has a lot of tools that aren't used as much as they should, and while they may not look as cool, I feel they are safer.

Of course, I feel like Fox is a more favorable matchup than Falco or Sheik, and I feel like those matchups should really be addressed a lot here. When it comes to Falco, I feel like Yoshi's is a better stage than FD, even for Falcon. Having the platforms at least allows you to move, rather than shield and get hit by lasers all day. From what I have seen, Hax loves FD and has come close to beating PP there, but I still think Yoshi's might be more favorable.

On the Sheik matchup, I say treat it like Ice Climbers. Just don't get grabbed. Tech-chases are good, and if you are read teching in place or doing a getup attack, it could lead to the more deadly Ftilt. The needles are annoying, but not as bad as lasers.

I may be completely wrong, but I feel like just playing more patiently and playing safe (i.e. less knees and more uairs) could go a long way. Having a stronger platform game could help, and trading with recovery moves to get the edgeguard and make it back.

 

[gravy]

Oh I wanted to mention that actually, I was thinking that if fox is firefoxing low, maybe we should just go down and stomp/knee and use the trade to make it back. I agreed with you on most things though helix, except instead of using knee less, I think we should just focus on using it more safely, either by doing it late into shields, spacing it well, or pulling back with it.

 

[Double Helix]

Sounds fair (pun intended). I think that Mango's use of the knee is something that would be handy to incorporate. He barely fastfalls it, and using it and nair to apply shield pressure. Mix that in with grabs and tech chases and Falcon's placement may shoot up. I guess I forgot to mention Falcon's tech chases because I really don't know them that well, but maybe I can say really general stuff and never be wrong like Nostradamus.

When it comes to his tech-chases, while I am all for going for guaranteed stuff, I never see a Falcon player go for hard reads. I am not saying it is optimal, but sometimes it just gives you the huge mental edge. Also, regrabs happen a lot in the Falcon game, and I hardly see a Falcon use both Dthrow and Uthrow. It is usually one or the other, which is odd to me. Don't they both have slightly different uses? Anyways, if you mix up those throws, assuming they have different tech-chase opportunities attached to them, it could really mess up combo DI.

So much for being general. Anyways, stuff I would like to see more from Falcon players:

Falcon kicks. Why is this move not used more? It seems super useful even though it is not the best of moves. It seems like a lost move due to Falcon players' obsession with combos and such, which I would not be able to resist if I played Falcon for sure. But on the topic of playing smarter, I would say incorporating this move to the bag o' tricks would be a good thing.

Most importantly, dtilt edgeguards. It doesn't work on every character I think, but this is a really cool edgeguard that could lead to a knee. Plus it is just useful if you cannot get offstage or if you don't have the stock lead or something silly like that.

 

[Zhea]

Our biggest problems:

1) Lack of hard combo/di info on anyone who is not the big 4. Seriously, low/mid tiers and even some of the less popular high tier have next to no solid numbers on them. Try finding any combo info on pikachu on these boards. Every falcon should know what his go to punishes are.

2) We don't take advantage of our ridiculous crouch canceling power. Falcon has better numbers then any top tier when it comes to CC and since grab is the best thing since sliced bread for falcon we should really abuse this.

3) Recovery. Up b can be ledge canceled which would give us so much more options when people just grab edge and wait for us to land. Additionally You can ledge cancel knee and drop back on to the edge from the ledge with a decent chunk of our invincibility.

4) Polish up out DD game. Seriously this is some of the best stuff we have this should be the focus of most up and coming falcon mains.

Just my 2 cents

Sounds fair (pun intended). I think that Mango's use of the knee is something that would be handy to incorporate. He barely fastfalls it, and using it and nair to apply shield pressure. Mix that in with grabs and tech chases and Falcon's placement may shoot up. I guess I forgot to mention Falcon's tech chases because I really don't know them that well, but maybe I can say really general stuff and never be wrong like Nostradamus.

Mango gets away with a lot of **** that really only works because people are afraid of him. S2J has some of the best falcon shield pressure around.

When it comes to his tech-chases, while I am all for going for guaranteed stuff, I never see a Falcon player go for hard reads. I am not saying it is optimal, but sometimes it just gives you the huge mental edge. Also, regrabs happen a lot in the Falcon game, and I hardly see a Falcon use both Dthrow and Uthrow. It is usually one or the other, which is odd to me. Don't they both have slightly different uses? Anyways, if you mix up those throws, assuming they have different tech-chase opportunities attached to them, it could really mess up combo DI.

Experienced falcons can cover a lot of options without going+ for hard reads. Wenbo made a good post somewhere about how you should cover tech options that really goes into why hard reads are usually not worth it. I think there is a time and place for it so I have been limiting myself to hard reads off throws lately to work on this.

Falcon kicks. Why is this move not used more? It seems super useful even though it is not the best of moves. It seems like a lost move due to Falcon players' obsession with combos and such, which I would not be able to resist if I played Falcon for sure. But on the topic of playing smarter, I would say incorporating this move to the bag o' tricks would be a good thing.

The thing is Falcon kick has a lot of terrible properties. Long wind up, bad knock back, low priority on ground and in air, long recovery and it's pretty slow. The one use outside of recovery I have found for it is recovering high vs shiek and marth at mid to higher percents when they are just throwing out aerials to juggle falcon all willy nilly.

Most importantly, dtilt edgeguards. It doesn't work on every character I think, but this is a really cool edgeguard that could lead to a knee. Plus it is just useful if you cannot get offstage or if you don't have the stock lead or something silly like that.

Any time you could dtilt, you could stomp or up tilt and have better results. It's really just a combo extender for poorly di'ed combos. It can also be cc'd to 90% by most of the cast and had a long recover time.

 

[Ziodyne]

Sounds fair (pun intended). I think that Mango's use of the knee is something that would be handy to incorporate. He barely fastfalls it, and using it and nair to apply shield pressure. Mix that in with grabs and tech chases and Falcon's placement may shoot up. I guess I forgot to mention Falcon's tech chases because I really don't know them that well, but maybe I can say really general stuff and never be wrong like Nostradamus.

When it comes to his tech-chases, while I am all for going for guaranteed stuff, I never see a Falcon player go for hard reads. I am not saying it is optimal, but sometimes it just gives you the huge mental edge. Also, regrabs happen a lot in the Falcon game, and I hardly see a Falcon use both Dthrow and Uthrow. It is usually one or the other, which is odd to me. Don't they both have slightly different uses? Anyways, if you mix up those throws, assuming they have different tech-chase opportunities attached to them, it could really mess up combo DI.

So much for being general. Anyways, stuff I would like to see more from Falcon players:

Falcon kicks. Why is this move not used more? It seems super useful even though it is not the best of moves. It seems like a lost move due to Falcon players' obsession with combos and such, which I would not be able to resist if I played Falcon for sure. But on the topic of playing smarter, I would say incorporating this move to the bag o' tricks would be a good thing.

Most importantly, dtilt edgeguards. It doesn't work on every character I think, but this is a really cool edgeguard that could lead to a knee. Plus it is just useful if you cannot get offstage or if you don't have the stock lead or something silly like that.

Mango's shield pressure is cool.


Most Falcons DO mixup uthrow and dthrow though. Perhaps more thought could be given into how either could mess up combo DI, though I think optimal DI for both is just away or down + away.

Where do you see uses of Falcon kick that other Falcons haven't explored? I wouldn't use it anywhere in the neutral game, since it gives up a lot of space, has a LOT of ending lag, and has pitiful knockback with anything but the initial KYECK. I like that some Falcons use it as a GTFO move from the ledge, but it's still pretty situational and I don't think it solves some of Falcon's bigger problems when getting back from the ledge.

Dtilt edgeguards are interesting, but I when is it a useful edgeguarding move? From what I can tell, the biggest success I have with dtilt is when spacies do illusion to edge, but even then I think dtilt fails when they shorten IIRC. I have not seen dtilt work on Fox/Falco UP-B to ledge yet (if it did, would be ****ing amazing). BTW, would utilt be able to catch up-B to ledge at certain angles? I watched Hax's match against PP again to see where he succeeded and where he failed with edgeguarding. We should think about how to deal with Falco's faster Illusion because it's the only thing that makes edgeguarding Falco a goddamn pain.

In general, I think a matchup that could use a LOT of re-exploring is the Falco MU. I wanted to talk tech-chasing against Falco because against Fox, tech-chase regrabs are relatively simple and getting hit with a wakeup shine doesn't kill you. From what I can tell, no one's particularly confident in tech-chase regrabbing a Falco, because it feels like the regrab is too slow more often than not and we get combo'd to hell if we miss. Hax did some solid work tech-chasing PP though in game 2 IIRC.
One thought I've had was that Falco has a longer tech roll than Fox, and it is actually relatively fast enough that timing the regrab is tight. That said, I've watched matches and thought Falco was a bit fatter than Fox. So, I was wondering if we could make the regrab easier by simply choosing to time the regrab earlier and grabbing closer to the edge of Falco's larger hitboxes.

Gravy and Zhea have some good posts. I'm particularly interested in Zhea's invincible ledge-cancelled knee from the ledge, which doesn't even make sense in my mind, but hearing about it makes my mouth water and I'd be stoked to see implementation of it.

 

[6VI6]

Mango's shield pressure is cool.

Gravy and Zhea have some good posts. I'm particularly interested in Zhea's invincible ledge-cancelled knee from the ledge, which doesn't even make sense in my mind, but hearing about it makes my mouth water and I'd be stoked to see implementation of it.

This definitely works but it's probably easier to ledge regrab knee...which is still really hard. Not necessarily better though.
People should remember side B is a viable recovery move in certain situations, especially when edge-cancelled.

But dash dancing is the most important part.

 

[Ziodyne]

Side-B looks like it can trick people up occasionally. Edge-cancelled side-B? You mean, like, edge-cancel by the ledge or edgecancel a platform? Because I feel like if you're close enough to side-B to edgecancel a platform, you're close enough to the stage that edgeguarding is much less of a factor.

DDing is important for Falcon at all levels, but is it really what separates our top Falcons from the other top players? If so, in what way and how can Falcon's improve their DD game more in certain MU's that would benefit him the most?

Rather than talk vaguely about what advantages Falcon might have, why not explore all these options so we can flesh out what advantages Falcon exactly has?

EDIT: Basically, for every option we think Falcon has that's good, we should come up with at least a few situations in which the option would be best suited.

 

[gravy]

Yah we really need to focus on our dash dancing a **** ton. We should think of entering that ****ty turnaround out of run animation as a cardinal sin, resulting in shame from your village and loves ones. With that in mind, tech skill practice should surely consist of very precisely spacing moves of our choice out of dash dances. Also, I've been thinking about how to "refresh" our dash dance so we can move quickly around the stage with sacrificing versatility, and I've come to the conclusion that the best options are wavedash, fox trotting, and a really fast dash dance in place are the best ways to go about it. However, in order to know when to do either choice, we need to become perfectly familiar with the max distance of our dash.

 

[Ziodyne]

how many ignore lists am i on right now lol

 

[Zhea]

Side-B looks like it can trick people up occasionally. Edge-cancelled side-B? You mean, like, edge-cancel by the ledge or edgecancel a platform? Because I feel like if you're close enough to side-B to edgecancel a platform, you're close enough to the stage that edgeguarding is much less of a factor.

DDing is important for Falcon at all levels, but is it really what separates our top Falcons from the other top players? If so, in what way and how can Falcon's improve their DD game more in certain MU's that would benefit him the most?

Rather than talk vaguely about what advantages Falcon might have, why not explore all these options so we can flesh out what advantages Falcon exactly has?

EDIT: Basically, for every option we think Falcon has that's good, we should come up with at least a few situations in which the option would be best suited.

The problem with Side-b is that at pre 40-50 it can be cc'd complete and post 50 to 90 it just puts them on the ground. If they get used to this they can actually get up attack before falcon can do anything.

The knee bit is tricky You basically do a high ledge hop, knee as early as possible, guide yourself on stage and then fade back. Zaanda utilizes this quite a bit, and is the falcon I got this from. Also DD ledge grab is totally possible and can lead to some amazing edge guarding.

Out side of PP and Mango I feel DD is one of the most under-polish aspect of our top players. There is a lot of subtle variance that can be put into DD and most up and coming players ignore it completely. If you go back and watch PP vs Armada 2013, PP gets close to every neutral opening by DDing. Falcon has one of the fastest and THE longest DD of anyone in the game. Darkrain basically made his smash career out of DD grab. Falcon can do more with DD then anyone else in the game. He should use it more.

 

[gravy]

Ziodyne I'm not ignoring you lol I just posted at the same time.

 

[Ziodyne]

The problem with Side-b is that at pre 40-50 it can be cc'd complete and post 50 to 90 it just puts them on the ground. If they get used to this they can actually get up attack before falcon can do anything.

I was, uh, replying to the idea of using Falcon's side-B as a recovery move. Can aerial side-B be CC'd (I assume not cuz it's a meteor)?

Ledgehop knee trick sounds interesting. Can it really be done with a good amount of invincibility frames?

Edit:
@gravy I feel better already haha

Chinese internet probably ****ing me up

 

[gravy]

Zhea can you link a vid of zaanda doing this?

 

[Zhea]

I'll look for one. And yes you can do this completely invincible, at least for the hit of knee.

 

[Double Helix]

The only reason I brought up Falcon Kick is because I know Mango likes it. I mean, Mango will be Mango, but I just wanted to explore the uses of the move. Just a reminder, I do not in any way play Falcon.

If I remember correctly, against Falco you need to do two things. Stay in a range that you can punish lasers, and don't get shined. It is why I like Yoshi's better than FD for everyone that isn't Peach, Fox, or Jiggs personally...or maybe a ditto, I don't know. Either way, another problem is how do you out-pressure and out-space Falco? I think that gentleman pressure is really good along with Nairs. Obviously powershielding is a really good thing to do. What else can be done? (on the topic of Falco anyways).

For edge-guarding, maybe a good help would be looking at Ganon videos? I mean, Ganondorf has similar properties, but his edgeguards are more limited due to not being able to recover as well as Falcon, being slower than Falcon, and lacking the silly moonwalk bair edgeguard. That being said, Ganondorf edgeguards should, for the most part, be able to be used by Falcon right? This should give Falcon even more options than Ganondorf and the only thing Falcon doesn't quite have is the raw power.

Another thing to consider with edgeguards may be just keeping it simple. Utilt is a good tool for edgeguarding, angled down ftilt seems good for most characters, and jabbing an illusioning spacie is always funny. So sometimes the tough thing isn't always right. People forget that there are simple edgeguards, and not all of them have to be a string like moonwalk -> bair -> ledgegrab -> utilt angled down and away.

One more thing I noticed about Falcon that all of you guys know: his recovery is easy to punish. Maybe if someone could find a way to further mix up his recovery, Falcon would be a bigger threat because he gets on stage and is suddenly faster than you and dangerous.

Also, yes, DDing is a HUGE part of Falcon's game. Maybe another (really tough thing) to practice would be working simply on having an effective pivot game. Pivot grab is an obvious one, but because his dash dance is probably the best in the game, what other pivot -> move could you do to further make Falcon ridiculous. Obviously nothing would be more hype than pivot -> Falcon Punch, but I think there maybe, just maybe are more useful moves.

 

[BTmoney]

I like you gravy, and I like you falcon guys. You're all so diehard.

Is anyone else baffled by this btw?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqgKbPJwQfo

I really think it's amazing how bad and consistently Mango can beat Westballz with Falcon. And it's not like Westballz is free at all, probably the 3rd best Falco and he normally beats on S2J. Mango makes it look like a fair MU.

Edit:
You top Falcons need to be shield dropping (or at least) dash shield dropping (which is a lot easier and there's no excuse not to use it if you're any good. I'm still working on consistency because I'm bad but still). Imagine being able to comfortably platform camp Falco and pretty much neutralizing his lasers.

 

[Captain Smuckers]

I think the number one thing we should do is stop quittin falcon. everybody is quitting falcon.


Anyway, I didn't know other people knew about that ledge hop knee stuff, I figured it out a while ago but didn't really explore it much lol. Frankly though, I think hax plays(played) falcon the most....correctly. I don't think hard reads should be a part of his game at all (certainly not for punishes at least). As prog mentioned a lot in his evo commentary, falcon should do things in a very flowchartesque manner. He should be played pretty much robotically, and just systematically cover everything one at a time. I'm fairly confident that it is possible, it's just hard as ballssssssssssssssssssssssss.

Also yeah, I'm quite the fan of shield drops. However, it has also enforced some really bad habits. I suppose that's my fault for using it "improperly" but it makes me just wanna sit on platforms with my shield up, which is really dumb. What's even dumber is that it works on most people, but when someone punishes it I'm just absolutely baffled lol.

 

[Double Helix]

I'm not sure why you wouldn't use reads. If you have a read on an opponent, why not go for it? Either way, playing a robotic [insert character here] should be how all characters are played. If there is an optimal play, you should always take it. I thought that was common sense. But since people have weaker areas and usually will not maximize a character's potential, no character can be played robotically, especially once you go higher and higher on the tier list (though there are exceptions that go both ways). Plus it is best to have multiple options available, reads being one of them. For instance, people read you are going to shield drop (just because it is a habit of yours) so rather than making the optimal play, they do something that baffles you. Every player has habits, and if they are readable, go for it. I am not saying to overuse them, but to not make a hard read seems silly to me sometimes.

That said, it is tough to cover multiple options, but you should always make the play that covers the most (especially with edge guarding). I mostly agree with you, but I just feel like capitalizing on a read does MUCH more than making the correct play. For example:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkF4KuDiRRs#t=04m10s

That one dealt more of a mental blow than anything else in that set, if I remember correctly (even though awesome stuff happened in that set).

 

[gravy]

I think you should use reads as a way to amplify your reaction time. You should, in my opinion, be trying to pick apart your opponents movement patterns so as soon as you see then moving in the way you expect, you can react and punish, while still being able to react different if they act in an unexpected way. Mangos rest is a good example, he expected him to roll, but once he saw it happening its a very simple matter to rest on reaction. It was really jumping forward with such good timing that's the most impressive.

 

[Captain Smuckers]

The reason I'm not a fan of using reads, is because you can never be truly certain of them. Just because you think a player will roll from the ledge cause they have multiple times already doesn't mean they will again. Regardless, I was thinking more so in terms of tech chasing. Despite the fact that I still do it constantly, going for hard stomp reads usually isn't a good idea. Also, yes, obviously you'd wanna play every character robotically. However, I don't feel like anybody is really making strides towards doing that, what I'm suggesting is that falcon mains need to do that before others do.

 

[Zhea]

1) Mango has one of the best reading games of the current top players.

2) Mango helped train and plays with Westballz regularly.

3) Captain Falcon, when he knows the mind of his opponent is arguably the second best character in the game, and definitely the third.

Because of 1,2 and 3 Mango knows Westballz's tech patterns and can capitalize on an embarrassing amount of reads. Because of this Mango get's in Westballz's head and West is to afraid to challenge approaches that are incredibly risky, and misses several easy edge-guards because of it. Same goes for falcon dittoes with S2J.

 

[gravy]

I'm going to bring up a specific situation that we can talk about. Lets imagine that a fox is falling down about a shortened illusions distance away from the ledge, and we're standing on the edge in a position to edgeguard. We have to think of what our options are in specific situations. In my opinion, the situations go by in this progression.

1. The fox draws parallel to our head, and now has the ability to either hit us with illusion or shorten it to the ledge
2. The fox draws parallel to our waist, and the same options are present as before
3. The fox draws parallel to our feet, again with the same options
4. The fox is now parallel to the ledge
5. Now the fox has dipped below the ledge, and has lost the ability to illusion to the edge. Now, however, he gains a different set of options. In order to keep this easy to respond to, I'll keep numbering the options
6. Fox can double jump above the ledge and illusion directly into you
7. Fox can double jump above the ledge and shorten illusion to the ledge
8. Fox can drop down low and double jump sweet spot the ledge
9. Fox can drop down to the edge of our fall off knee range or above it and start a Firefox
10. Fox can drop down below the edge of our fall off knee range (I speak of the range in which we can fall off knee and still double jump and recover to the ledge) and start an up b
11. Fox can double jump back outside of our dropzone range and start a Firefox .

Now, I think we should come up with a comprehensive list of decision to be made as these options unfold themselves, and attempt to come to an agreement.

 

[Animal]

Hax would disagree, falcon has to work harder than any other top tier for his kills/wins. There is a ceiling for falcon and I can't see him winning an event like evo or apex ect

 

[Zhea]

Hey Animal, had fun playing you at Evo. Second, yup.

This aversion to reads that has come about in the last few years is not healthy in my opinion, for a character with the best punishment game of the top tiers. I think a lot of up and coming falcons have very weak reading skills while being technically sound. I have lately been forbidding my self to regrab as my first option (I'll use it to when covering multiple options), in order to work on this. It's been interesting to say the least. You start picking out peoples patterns of thought. I think that falcon could use his regrab game to pick these patterns out then start capitalizing until they adapt, then go back to that. Will work on this.

 

[Zhea]

Zhea can you link a vid of zaanda doing this?

Double post but whatever, can't find a vid of him doing this (****ing show off) So I will make a video on this some time before Wednesday.

 

[gravy]

How consistent is he at doing it? I'd be super interested in doing it with uair and nair.

 

[Zhea]

Trying it tonight, I am not super consistent at it and I think the timing is pretty tight(less so for upair), he is really good at it. Also had another thought, we do a lot of wave land on platforms, but how utilized is empty hop wave land back or forward?

 

[Hax]

Out side of PP and Mango I feel DD is one of the most under-polish aspect of our top players. There is a lot of subtle variance that can be put into DD and most up and coming players ignore it completely. If you go back and watch PP vs Armada 2013, PP gets close to every neutral opening by DDing. Falcon has one of the fastest and THE longest DD of anyone in the game. Darkrain basically made his smash career out of DD grab. Falcon can do more with DD then anyone else in the game. He should use it more.

no he can't. spacies have the best DD in the game (in fox's case: by far) because of the variety of options they have out of DD. nair (which is disguised so well by the DD; the main reason people **** their pants when spacies DD quickly in front of them), bair, shine on the ground, and in fox's case a throw that is better than any of captain falcon's. while falcon's DD may be faster, you don't have to respect it nearly as much. I don't mean to be negative, I'm just clearing up the facts.

 

[Zhea]

no he can't. spacies have the best DD in the game (in fox's case: by far) because of the variety of options they have out of DD. nair (which is disguised so well by the DD; the main reason people **** their pants when spacies DD quickly in front of them), bair, shine on the ground, and in fox's case a throw that is better than any of captain falcon's. while falcon's DD may be faster, you don't have to respect it nearly as much. I don't mean to be negative, I'm just clearing up the facts.

True. I was referring to the length of falcon's DD. He can put more variance in the movement itself. You've probably done more with this than I have so I'm interested in what that variance can afford him over his competition. Spacies definitely have more options out of it.

 

[gravy]

Guys I really want to try and redirect discussion to the post I made about foxes recovery options. I think we need to focus on discussing how to shut things down and maximize our chances for success if we want to get anywhere with this.

 

[Zhea]

Zhea can you link a vid of zaanda doing this?

Said I would do this before Wednesday. BEHOLD: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KGg66iN94o

 

[Double Helix]

@gravy: I don't really know Falcon's wavedash that well...but it seems like the safest option there would be to wavedash back off the ledge (without grabbing the edge) so you can uair off reaction or edgehog if you need to. It just seems super good and tough to do. That way worst case scenario (I think) is a missed edgeguard opportunity and back to the neutral game, which against Fox, kinda sucks lol.

I may not understand Falcon's game that much, but I don't see many bairs unless it is an edgeguard. Why is bair the worst on stage aerial? It seems like at mid-%s it has a lot of potential for knee setups.

 

[tarheeljks]

just think bair doesn't have as much utility as other aerials. in the neutral game it seems most useful as an intercepting move (e.g.dd into pivot bair or w/e), which is useful obv, but you can achieve this with other aerials (e.g. retreating nair) so it doesn't stand out in that regard. also, bairing grounded opponents can be a little awkward. if you need to approach bair is prob the last move you want to use. in the combo game i have found bair to work as a mixup, say if someone expects you to knee, but if they di well you are voluntarily ending a the combo in many (most?) cases