of course it's not. nair has 8 landing lag.
falco. details (cg, laser game):
his fresh dthrow has no follow-up from 28%. jab to grab can be stopped with shine. jab, away roll will work too...these are emergency exits. SDIing his spike from cg is BASIC. just QCDI upwards and your air-jump will reach the ledge. watch out from the ledge: falco can gimp with any move of choice. though your illusion can go through falco by spacing for invincible frames, from this distance, his downb will reach fox and can also gimp him. ledge jump is fox's best option from the ledge. ledge jump to air-jump fair is good.
autocancel bair is safe on block but takes awhile to set up. you can't really approach falco when you're at cg %. he has spot-dodge, grab, jab, nair to grab, dash attack to grab (yes you read correctly)....
if there are platforms, they can be used to drop + blaster and to have mix-up vs falco's grabbing ability. platform drop with air-dodge through falco will evade his sh nair and allow for utilt to grab or utilt to utilt depending on his %. platform drop, autocancel bair will probably be fine too.
you can only short hop blaster falco if your opponent lets you. if he blasters high, there's not much you can do, but if he short hop lasers x2 and the second one is lower, it's a good shine. if it'd go above his head upon shine, it's not a good reflection. if he short hop lasers from too close, you can sh fair, dash attack or dash usmash him. if falco uses downb and you weren't busy, he's easy to dash usmash or dash shield-grab from skid.
once you're at 28% or have already been chain-grabbed, you're free to use all of your options (hopefully he has more damage than you by then).
neutrality:
so you reached 28% or fell into falco's cg. an important part of this match-up is committing. pretty BIG options of fox's are walk block and walk shield-grab. important options to wait for while blocking are his jab and his spot-dodge.
learn to react to his spot-dodge by timing your grab so it'll be active during the 30th of a second that falco is vulnerable after spot-dodging.
nair stays out long enough to counter spot-dodges easily, by the way.
also, learn to react to his jabs: you have a free usmash or shieldgrab if falco executes jab2 on your shield, since he doesn't have time to act between that and rapids or jab cancel.
if you predict only a jab1 (without the opponent going into jab2), you can shieldgrab or usmash immediately upon being hit by it. i don't think you NEED to commit, but i've been read for my away roll with jab1 into dash and then been dash attacked/dash usmashed. rolling into falco when you don't want to commit will most likely work.
useful data for fox's shieldgrab and usmash: grab comes out in 6 frames and reaches slightly farther away than usmash. usmash comes out in 8 frames. the extra couple frames and lack of grab armor make it a bit less accurate.
some more on shieldwork. falco's sweet-spot fsmash is easy to dash usmash (or for you to grab him if he's at too low % for usmash). sour-spot fsmash (the wind from farther away) is not...maybe you can reach him with a dash attack, but i wouldn't know right now. i'd rather not act.
falco's dash attack is very difficult to shield-grab or usmash immediately from block (usmash will most likely sour-spot as falco goes through fox). the lower half of his body is INVINCIBLE during this, as he's supposedly jumping. this attack does have a lot of cool-down though, so unblock dsmash, or unblock, turn around grab/usmash will work just fine (besides the fact that usmash will, thankfully, sour-spot if you mess up and execute it...which sometimes sets falco up for edgeguarding).
falco's usmash and dsmash have a ton of cool-down. you -should- unblock and usmash him after blocking them. if you take too long to react, don't try it though: it's fine, and it's better to miss the punishment and abstain from action, than to be power-blocked or spot-dodged (same goes for his fsmash).
falco's aerials are easy to shield-grab or utilt from block after being power-blocked (they're also easy to power-block as falco can't mix-up his aerial's timing much). if you regular block and falco drifts away and the punishment isn't possible (or you think it isn't), it's fine to abstain from doing something dumb. upon whiff, falco's aerials are also easy to dash attack (he has to miss by an inch though). nair is the toughest to dash attack because of its low cool-down but still possible.
defense:
you don't need to land! you have fox's great downb for a reason. if the opponent charges a smash below you, you can shine until he releases and fast-fall nair/dair him (nair is easier to land because of its range). if you don't think you'll reach him in time, you can drift away or jump away. i like turning around during the shine and landing a bair.
stay away from falco's bair, and remember that your opponent probably won't fair you (if he does and you react, try to air-dodge/shine him). it's not very dangerous anyway. staying away from falco's bair can result in you hanging at the ledge, from where you need to be careful. reading it and fast-fall air-dodging will allow punishment/momentum.
when recovering, watch the opponent's laser game. you don't want your air-jump fair cut short. you don't want to air-dodge them either. just shine them or get hit (it's much less of a big deal than being hit out of your air-jump).
when surviving, shield-work is very, very good. the opponent will usually throw you (unless you grab him first) and try to KO you off of the momentum, since you should be very difficult to hit with cheap KO shots. you need to stay safe from uair, bair, and his smash attacks. uair/bair are meant to hit in the air; usmash is meant to hit you on the ground or counter a falling aerial of yours. defensive positioning with shine and drifting will work OK.
offense:
lol this is pretty fun. air-dodge can be dsmashed or dash attacked, even dash usmashed or faired if it's performed in the air without fast-fall and will end high (which your opponent shouldn't do, but there are many possible of both noobs and mistakes out there).
treat his landing aerials well. power-block and shield-grab, unblock utilt or usmash from block is good. if you predict him whiffing a bair (hehehe...), that's his (useful) aerial with the most cooldown, so you can wait for the whiff and dash usmash him (this even works if he doesn't land with it since it has a lot of cool-down).
note on dashes: dashing to the side you're facing is immediate. dashing towards your back takes much longer: it makes reaction dash attacks a bit more difficult, and dash usmashing on reaction almost impossible. if you input dash backwards and c-stick down too quickly by the way, you'll execute a turn-around dsmash (during the meddlesome frames that fox hasn't started dashing).
continuing offense:
if you predict a phantasm through you, you can face your back to him and time an usmash. this makes for a good KO. if this usmash can KO the opponent already, usmash will kill him for using phantasm into you, while a ledgehog will kill him for phantasming to the ledge. it's a coin flip.
otherwise, utilt while facing him is an EXCELLENT move vs phantasm if you have the mind to react to it (you need some weird conditioning that i've forgotten), if that's too difficult, dash attack stays out longer, and away walk into block can allow you to punish it from block. dair and nair take a ****load of time to set up and are probably very inaccurate, but they **** the phantasm. dair to jab (so he pops up and falls back down to suffer landing lag) to a smash attack is golden.
if there's enough time, you can dash off-stage, fast-fall, and air-jump dair falco's phantasm. this WILL kill him. i don't know the timing/spacing for it so he doesn't spike you (which would kill you LOL), but i've done it, and whoever practices it will be very, very dangerous for falco players.
you should shine the firebird when falco needs it, and you should air-jump and shine by the ledge to make time before hanging on it. invincible frames from the ledge help a lot. firebird's trajectory also helps: you can wait for him to shoot into you and hit him without recoil thanks to shine's 3 invincible start-up frames.
watch out for falco's dair when he's on defense! it's best to bait it and hit him later, since fox's aerials are ineffective on countering that.
i couldn't sleep without typing this up because i watched cloud vs kasper.
expect full write-ups like this once in awhile. i do full write-ups from memory only so i can refresh my knowledge on match-ups. it makes it less likely for me to forget details. i also hope it helps, of course.
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