Why is Falco alot worse in PM than Melee

[Denjinpachi]

Falco's dair is melee dair with the size reduction, it isnt pal dair.

Their kill power wasnt nerfed at all, just heavier characters are more viable. people who died at 90 from falco's fsmash were either di-ing awfully or were fox / jiggly (which still happens the same).

and falco can still edge guard fine against a large majority of this cast. you just need to abuse ledge invincibility at the right time to kill them. bair is bigger than most characters recovery hitboxes and honestly its somewhat easy to flow chart an edge guard on the entire cast outside of a select few who have stupid recoveries.

True, but a size reduction as well as a spike window reduction is pretty harsh to be real. It isn't "Melee" D-air by any comparison. If it were, then it's actual spike window wouldn't change like that. Not that drastically at least. If he were melee anything besides his Up-B, he would kill a lot earlier. That's just in general. I would only wish that he was his melee iteration. That would be a lot better overall imo.

 

[Landitty]

Falco's dair is melee dair with the size reduction, it isnt pal dair.

Their kill power wasnt nerfed at all, just heavier characters are more viable. people who died at 90 from falco's fsmash were either di-ing awfully or were fox / jiggly (which still happens the same).

and falco can still edge guard fine against a large majority of this cast. you just need to abuse ledge invincibility at the right time to kill them. bair is bigger than most characters recovery hitboxes and honestly its somewhat easy to flow chart an edge guard on the entire cast outside of a select few who have stupid recoveries.

Those are really valid points man. That helps give some positive perspective right there for Falco.

 

[Denjinpachi]

True true, this is the version we are stuck with now and at least their won't be anymore nerfs. That's a great way of putting it though- if somebody has multiple perfectly usable zero to death plans for Falco (same goes for Fox), then he should also have those for them! This has actually been really productive. I think that is what we need to work on as Falco/Fox players in PM. Other characters have really put in a lot of time now figuring out perfect zero to death setups and the matchup against Spacies in general. I guess if we want to keep playing Falco & Fox in this game, we're just gonna have to do the same, like aMsA did with Yoshi in Melee. It may be harder in this game now. But it might be worth it

I intend to find out more about how they can be developed. In the end of it all I use Fox more than I do Falco in PM, but im interested to see how well people can work together to make him better. He's not out of the game by any means, but I'd honestly say that with his nerfs he been put down all the way from second of S to maybe second of A tier. Like almost how falcon was in melee, the lowest top tier, or the highest low tier. That's a little less of a true statement in PM cause everyone is good, but I think its relatively true here. there are better characters than him besides Fox now, and I think it shows through his use and result in tourney.

 

[Landitty]

I intend to find out more about how they can be developed. In the end of it all I use Fox more than I do Falco in PM, but im interested to see how well people can work together to make him better. He's not out of the game by any means, but I'd honestly say that with his nerfs he been put down all the way from second of S to maybe second of A tier. Like almost how falcon was in melee, the lowest top tier, or the highest low tier. That's a little less of a true statement in PM cause everyone is good, but I think its relatively true here. there are better characters than him besides Fox now, and I think it shows through his use and result in tourney.

Yeah I've found myself using Fox more as well. In general Fox does have a bit more versatality and just that plain ole up-smash and speed to keep him going as a better matchup to the rest of the cast. Or so it seems...but at the moment it does seem that Falco is in a similar tier position as Captain Falcon was in Melee...if not a little worse though, because Melee Captain Falcon has a MASSIVE punish game and I feel PM Falco's sort of pails in comparison.

 

[prem]

True, but a size reduction as well as a spike window reduction is pretty harsh to be real. It isn't "Melee" D-air by any comparison. If it were, then it's actual spike window wouldn't change like that. Not that drastically at least. If he were melee anything besides his Up-B, he would kill a lot earlier. That's just in general. I would only wish that he was his melee iteration. That would be a lot better overall imo.

I mean you know I basically only play falco in this game, and I can tell you that there are ways to manipulate the dair spike hitbox to get it the way you want. RAR dair is good at getting the later spike hitbox because when your body is facing backwards the hitbox you want is more in front of you, and it ****s with their di angles. just having RAR bair is godlike and makes up for the dair nerf imo because now dair that leads them near the ledge is a di mixup of sdi in the dair and tech or hold up and get baired, which wasn't nearly as applicable as melee.

Like I get that melee falco is a better character and would obviously be better in this environment, but when I lose its so easy for me to point out what i did wrong without a doubt in my mind. if oyu get gimped a lot its because you did something unsafe, so fix that. His punish game is still really strong on most characters, and he still does win neutral against basically the entire cast. He is still really strong at edge guarding yo just need to know how characters recoveries work because obviously you cant egde guard what you dont know. The only real problem with him is how well you have to play on average to not lose but that problem imo exists in melee too compared to other characters because of how incredibly unforgiving his character design is.

 

[Landitty]

So, lately I have really been taking time to explore PM 3.6 Falco's own unique options against the other characters.
First off, let me just say- Reverse ariel rush back air- SO USEFUL! It's one of Falco's only solid approach options that doesn't involve lasers and it can totally catch people off guard in the neutral.
I'm finding that winning with Falco in PM requires extremely matchup-specific tactics. You have to know the matchup inside and out. Trying to just play your general Falco on a matchup your not familier with is going to be sloppy and embarrassing looking.
Also, PM characters have a wacky neutral game, and Falco can't play quite the same in the neutral as he did in Melee.
For one thing, the facts are the facts-
-Lasers now deal less damage the further away someone is, and characters need to be at higher percents to killed by Falco in PM then they would have needed to be in Melee.
This just means your simply going to have to do some of the same things for a longer time then in Melee to rack up the appropriate damage, which often means learning how to be a little bit more evasive at lower percents.
I've also had to learn that I can't just jump in and dair as soon as I see an opening, because usually they have a trick up their sleeve, and that's exactly what they are waiting for me to do. So I really have to be extra patient. More lasers, more movement...throw in a little bit of moonwalk swag here and there...really try to bait a bad approach on there part, and then once they do it, punish hard. I'm finding that doing more clever baiting and learning to have an insane punish game is getting me better results then trying to play super agressive in the neutral like I could in Melee. It's not losing any of the things that make Falco great in Melee. It's just taking them and applying then to the realities of a different enviroment with strange, less then straightforeward matchups. The PM cast just has too many tools to combat a aggressive Falco in the neutral. Instead, save it for the punishes, edge guarding and classic off stage kills.

 

[Landitty]

I recently watched this match of Leffen playing Falco in Europe, PAL Melee-
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Y76forERL0o

I found that the way he was using lots of shine into shine over and over works really great on the project m cast. I have been getting better results simply by using shine as much as possible, keeping them stunned in the air.