Well call something out, don't be all passive aggressive about it.
Sure, it wasn't that serious lol but yeah.
A few things. Or several.
-New specials all kick ***, reversing the Paunch for forcing rolls out of shield is too much fun
-Updated recovery makes recovering so much easier and more well rounded. Gives the Falcon more options which he needed badly. New up+b seems to reach a biiit higher as well
-Grab game seems easier
-Combos seem to be smoother overall, might just be aesthetically different.
Well I know you know that falcon punching to try to bait a reaction oos isn't a good idea lol.
His recovery for all intents and purposes (survival without excess punishment) is still utter buns and a large reason why he is viewed to be "bad" or underwhelming by a lot of players whether it be subconsciously or actively. He still gets absolutely man handled by simply grabbing the ledge. The only real difference is now you have to refresh your invincibility to take out the possibility of eating a raptor boost and getting meteor'd into a reversal situation as you hang on the ledge preparing your **** for when he lands on stage. Also he is slightly less punishable when he is at the same height as the ledge because it takes less time to raptor boost into a sweet spot horizontally than it does to up B and fade backwards into a sweet spot (instead of going on to stage). But once again both those options are still easily covered so he now effectively has a bad/worse version of a space animal side B which doesn't even make the edge-guarder sacrifice option coverage to stuff.
As far as I know, the hitboxes are the same for his grab. I am also inclined to believe the frames are the same but I couldn't tell you about how his grounded momentum works while grabbing in PM versus melee. So that could be a difference you are feeling, or it might just look different since it's PM or it's placebo. Can't really speak on the smoothness of combos but I am going to go ahead and assume that he accelerates at the same rates with the same top speeds and has the same L-cancel'd landing lag frames as before along with the same range his combos should be almost exactly the same.
This is the juicy part, I want people to focus on this section below. This is the first time I am attempting to form and voice a relatively complete opinion on Falcon.
IMO, falcon is a very technical/momentum character in melee. Combos are started when you are in the zone and can feel him. (Same with all characters i know, but ESPECIALLY falcon).
I think that that is a wrong and bad mentality for Falcon players to have. Combos are started when you grab at the correct percent or land one of his decent combo starters. Lucky for me, as a fairly new player, I was able to harass Umbreon enough to get him to explain to me some of his views while I was still in my game-theory infancy. Here is a post of his, it is about why Fox is a broken character:
Umbreon said:
oh, so you're going to play stupid. or you are stupid. okay, let's do this.
fox operates in the neutral game based on his movement. due to the nature of his initial dash, full run speed, jump speed, and jump height, fox has the ability to move faster than most characters have the ability to cover options when neither character has the ability to punish prior to a conversion (the neutral game). the strategic element to fox's neutral game is therefore basic exploitation of the opponent's inability to cover his options prior to fox dedicating/over-extending on his own error. unlike other characters, fox's core strategy is based fundamentally on his movement and not his moves.
shine does not aid in this functionality. shine is an option for punishment or conversion into punishment only. to complain about fox's shine is to complain about his punishment game. your argument is an inability to deal with his strategic movement with attribution error. if you really wanted to make fox worse or less broken, you would remove his ability to choose when to attack by making his jumps and dash less effective in some way. removing shine does not solve the problem at all, and actually may aid fox by giving the player less incentive to over-extend and reducing poor decision-making on the part of the fox player.
if you're implying that shine is strategic for fox because it encourages the player to play worse when he need not do so, then congratulations, you're just better than me.
Wasn't that utterly delicious? Here is my opinion now, applying this to Falcon. With a better dash dance, more horizontal air speed, and a falling speed that isn't too far off, Falcon effectively is similar to Fox with some differences of course. In a realm of perfection even when considering the flaws of the character, Falcon is a pretty great character due to reasons mentioned above as they can be applied to him. However in the realm of a tournament, sub-optimal play, and "play styles" (having a play style [i.e. "I go for a lot of stomps" or "I play really aggressively"] that involves anything other than correct decision making is degenerative) Falcon beings to struggle and that only gets compounded with his comparatively (relative to the rest of the cast) flawed design.
Falcons instead need to learn optimal play and stick to it. For example you can uthrow Marth into a knee at 68% (if that number is wrong, which I don't think it is, that's not the point, just bare with me). At 68% there is no more chaotic neutral game to flirt in where you can make mistakes and get punished and all the variance becomes negligible because you just knee'd him and he's either going to die or be put in a position to be edge guarded or abused while he tries to fall. All of those situations are very advantageous and if you want Falcon to be good you need to create as many of those situations as possible. When you grab Fox, downthrow him into a tech chase regrab. Do not raptor boost, do not stomp, do not try to knee hoping he missed his tech. Master that sequence and perform it over, over, and then one more time again. Be as lame as possible. However I will say when calling a roll is fairly safe it is okay (i.e. they are by the ledge and they always roll in, then go ahead and try to call it sometimes because if they don't roll into center stage, you still have stage control). Falcon's strengths are his speed, his low kill percents, decent edge guarding, and his grab game.
It does not matter how hard (and easily) Fox can punish you when you are punishing him. But it matters a ton when you start making mistakes, making guesses, and doing other bad things. It is MUCH easier to win the space animal MU has a spacie (because they can play much less perfectly than you and still win) but he has what it takes to do it. When you grab Falco, uthrow him, position yourself correctly and tech chase regrab him. Don't let him pillar you and do 100% before you can reestablish neutral because you grabbed him and decided to stomp in place as a guess and missed your punishment then you got put into a reversal situation. All that being said, Falcon is forever going to have a hard time with Fox and especially Falco simply due to the structure of the game but he is not as flawed as people think.
Some of Falcon's flaws are as followed:
- low percent game
- stages can mess with his grab game
- combo fodder
- edge guard fodder
- crouch cancel game
The biggest flaw to me is his low percent game. If that can be optimized then he can become a pretty good character. Also he needs to manifest grabs versus violent characters such as space animals which currently are hard to come by. I believe proficient shield dropping will also help Falcon improve a ton versus Falco so he can platform camp him hard and more or less do what peach does with her float.
While I'm at it, I'll say that S2J and Windrose are probably the two Falcon's with the best and most efficient "play style" (while Hax obviously is the most successful and best Falcon, throw Mango in somewhere too but he does what he wants lol). They emphasize the correct things. Darkrain too I guess when he's active. Mango said that Darkrain is by far the lamest Falcon to play because all he'll do is dash dance grab tech chase. Those are all great things for Falcon to do coincidently. Generally speaking, being lame is playing the game optimally. (i.e. Marth, uthrow->uair juggling repeatedly, Sheik stalling the ledge, Fox platform camping, Falco laser'ing correctly, chain grabbing in general, etc. lame styles are the best styles).
/end. I think that's pretty interesting stuff but that's me and my opinion of my own opinion isn't all that important. lol.
He got his reversal punch, which is more of a mind game tactic.
He can grab the edges if he fails to hit with his side B (He fails to squirm away if he hits them in the air with it though, since it only works if your opponent doesn't know what's going on)
He has a better recovery when blasted up top with his Falcon kick allowing another jump after executed.
He received "easy combos" which is a fairly nice way to get the enemy from 0-60% real quick
All of those things appear as buffs as they are, but they feel centered more towards mindgame tricks/recovery options. Except for the last item on the list.
I'm not saying any of it is bad, it's welcomed. Compared to other players in the fray Falcon still stands smack dab in the middle.
It's where he's been, and apparently in the eyes of P:M that's where he will stay.
Only real problem is what posters are saying up there with those faulty Nairs and "weird feeling/weight" on him, but the second seems to be pointed towards his size increase overall.
I really don't know, and I don't care. All I know is that I love to play with him for friendly matches, because he's a blast to play as!
Not to be a fun sucker but I was told to call out posts I didn't like. lol. Reversible Falcon punch is for all intents and purposes useless. I already spoke on side B and his recovery above, the falcon kick recovery was already in melee, he did not receive "easy combos" idek what you are talking about, and what PM developer said their goal is to make Falcon an average character? There is nothing suggesting that. Falcon most likely is just going to be Falcon with slight and eventual changes and he will wind up being as good or bad as that lets him.
Tiers only matter if you make them matter. Pretty sure Salem won Apex with ZSS against a Meta Knight. Just saying.
God. Lol, read the red section. Tiers matter, a lot.
Tiers as we perceive them to be might not be accurate but you would be a fool to think that some characters are not better than others and it affects the outcome of matches and all kinds of other fun stuff.
