Mistakes Falcon Make: BAD HABITS exposed.

[ PREAMBLE ]
I have had a lot of interest in learning Falcon recently. I already play Marth, Fox, and Sheik pretty proficiently, so I want try to bring my Falcon up to par.

[ PURPOSE ]
When one starts learning a new character, there is a tendency to recycle bad habits. These bad habits may be from trying to play one character like another (my Falco plays like a Fox, for example), or from watching other players who also have bad habits. This thread serves to expose specific mistakes that Falcon players often make while playing.

[ METHODOLOGY ]
Mistakes are often matchup-specific. In fact, what is a mistake against one character is a great technique against another. I will make a list of characters that Falcon often fights against, and I ask that YOU post and point out bad habits you have as a Falcon player, or bad habits you've seen in other falcons. Detail is important here: at what percentages is it a mistake to _____ ? On which stages? Is it not a mistake against aggressive opponents?

I'm not a Falcon main (yet?), so I can't contribute much, but I'll set this up. If the idea takes flight, then we'll add more characters. Whether this is a success or a failure is up to you!
___________________________________________________________


GENERAL:
- being scared to go offstage to edgeguard space animals. Sometimes an offstage uair will get the quick kill-- it's not always safe, but it's good to make them think twice.
- attempting to extend non-guaranteed combos, instead of just finishing with a knee and going for the safe edgeguard.

FOX:
- DIing Fox's u-smash away at high % on stages with high roofs. This will often knock Falcon offstage, preparing him to be edgeguarded. Sometimes it's better to just not DI so that Fox cannot continue the combo and so you remain above the stage.

MARTH:
- attacking from the edge with nair when Marth is at low %. The first hit can be crouch-cancelled and you can be knocked off again.
- DIing away on Marth's uthrow at 50-60%. This usually lets Marth combo more easily than if there was no DI at all. Marth can tipper Falcon from uthrow at this range. Even if Marth utilts, you can DI the utilt and have a better chance of escaping the combo than just DI away, where a fair ->grab or uair -> combo can ensue.

FALCON:


SHEIK:
- teching her dthrow every time. Nasty chaingrab is nasty, but mix it up by not teching every time.

PEACH:


JIGGLYPUFF:

For against Fox, one of the mistakes that you can fall into is not DI-ing the up-throw. It just leads into an up-smash at low/mid-low percentages, and, especially at the semi-lower percentages, even DI-ing the up-smash can lead to other JC up-smashes.

Not teching your recovery when you can is a bad mistake. With Falcon's already-horrible recovery, not teching is baaaaad.

Against other Falcons, getting grabbed is a bad mistake, lol.

Against Sheik, playing them is a bad mistake, loool.

Last two were kinda jokes, but the first two are what I know from my experiences (as much as that can count).

Choosing Falcon against all the above characters

diakonos you dont even play falcon leaveeeee =)

approaching is always a bad habbit vs everyone lol

don't be a greedy ****

keep the combo going as longgg as possibleeeeee....^ bhahaahahah

nice try we ain't giving u falcon secrets u marth f@ggot *** face

the common problem with most falcons is trying to keep combos going longer than they should instead of just taking the knee then edgeguarding

vs space animals, falcons need to take advantage of their up b startup time when edgeguarding. we've all been in that situation where we knock a spacey off the stage, and know pretty much for sure that theyre going to up b from above downwards toward the ledge, but we try something weird like ftilt to hit it. if youre pretty sure they are gonna up b, go out there and dj uair them from below. sure its got a tiny bit of risk, but youre playing falcon, you gotta kill them if you have the chance.

^ BigD is right in that offstage edgeguarding vs Fox is way underused.

The thing is, at certain angles the firefox downwards towards the edge avoids pretty much all forms of onstage edgeguarding from Falcon/most characters. Even downward angled ftilt. Besides, if they see you scoot up towards the edge like you're going to try and cover that option they can always just go straight at your or something, which requires a different action to cover it, and at midrange distances it's extremely difficult/impossible to react to after they start moving.

As a result, that midrange firefox downwards to the edge is extremely safe in a lot of matchups right now for fox, and a lot of foxes go for it really often. Falcon is fast enough so that he should be able to react to them starting the firefox and jump out there to uair if you suspect they are going to do it.

Basically there's a certain range that you can't let them start their up B in safely. If they want to start their up B farther out, you have more time to react and cover all angles. If they want to start their up B below the stage, their options are limited and you can cover all of them.

juggleguy, you are correct

however, if they do that, and you dont jump out, edgeguarding them is easy as hell

and, since hardly anybody ever jumps out, they probably wont do that

their up b is so slow that you can wait and jump basically as their up b starts and still easily make it; you can probably even react to it but i usually dont even try to

you wont kill them if you try to edgeguard from on stage and they go diagonally downwards; if you do commit enough to do so then they will up b > uair you if they go straight into you

its a gamble just like everything, but its a pretty good option that people rarely use

psh diakonos the new other canadain falcon main???? lol ill post **** in here when i got time

bad spacies get caught all the time when you jump out and they don't shine stall/ wait to double jump

for the good ones, you want to jump out and make it seem like ur gunna go after them so they go low and jump back and get a relatively easy edgeguard

because in 95% of cases, you will whiff/ force yourself to do a suicide kill/ get placed into a bad spot against good spacies

sometimes you can make them not up-b so long they end up dying or they hit u to safety while they die, risky though

it's something you should look for when u fight somebody u have never faced, if you jump out there and they have time to react and jump like a noob, keep that memory in ur head and keep doing aggressive double jump up-airs or jumping weak knees


---

if they are in the bubble, you can do a full hop weak knee to maybe nick them,

First off, great thread Manuel. I'm ever so happy to hear that you're picking up falcon or maybe even considering maining him. I would tip my hat off to you good sir, if I had one. Just remember, I'll always be the best falcon in Canada. (too soon?)

For simplicity's sake, I'm going to use fox in all my examples. That is unless I note otherwise.

For me, I tend to jump the gun when it comes to techchasing. For those who have played me enough or watched enough of my vids, this is quite obvious. Say I D-throw a fox at low %, I may often try to knee them right away only to find that they have teched away or waited for me to throw out that pre-emptive knee and I've wasted a perfectly good tech chasing opportunity (which falcon cannot afford to do). I'm only recently working on slowing down my game so I can make the better choice like a jab reset or just waiting for them to tech/tech roll. Considering falcons game revolves around getting a grab and (ideally) getting a kill from it, this is very detrimental to his success at high level play and is what really separates the top falcons from the lesser ones.

Edgeguarding... what can I say? Alot of falcons fail to see and make use of edge guarding opportunities when they have a fox, offstage. There are many things to consider...

What percent is fox at?

How far are you from eachother?

How is fox situated horizontally and vertically relative to the stage once he recovers from the hitstun of your last attack?

What was the trajectory of (how did they DI) fox when you hit him offstage with your last attack?

Have you got "BAAALLLLS OF STEEEEEL"? =P



Alot of falcons don't know if it's safe to go offstage in certain situations. The fox could JUST be hovering outside the safe range for falcon to go offstage and hit him. What does falcon do then? If you know you can't get to them, then grab the edge or wait on the stage. Patience pays off with falcon. Alot of falcons just run around like chickens with their heads cut off.

I'm starting to ramble and what not. I'll update and edit this later when I got time/feel like it.

xXx-NoobKing-xXx said:

I'll always be the best falcon in Canada. (too soon?)

Click to expand...

hmmm funny man

Afro_Chris said:

hmmm funny man

Click to expand...

<3 <3 <3

For the record, KK said we're relatively close in skill so I dunno, lol. He said your combos are fatter but I edgeguard more proficiently. Who knows

ive never hit someone with the dj uair and died afterwards

if the fox is at high enough % to be out there at all, they probably will die from the uair

keep in mind, i only do this when its one of those really obvious situations that they will up b downwards toward the ledge, which means they are recovering from kind of high and out there, so they must have a decent % on them.

i use to try to just knee them in this situation, but that actually leaves you with a good chance to get burned by fox's up b while its charging up. also, if they arent really far away, kels has done this bull**** to me where he DI'd the weak knee down and away so i couldnt dj uair him and he could up b from down low and make it back before me

its pretty reliable, and you can do it late enough for them to not be able to react im sure, maybe even late enough for you to react

a lot of falcons commit to grabs that are too early/late and get punished for it one way or another. like spotdodge -> shine blah blah

xXx-NoobKing-xXx said:

<3 <3 <3

For the record, KK said we're relatively close in skill so I dunno, lol. He said your combos are fatter but I edgeguard more proficiently. Who knows

Click to expand...

LOL thats not the only thing thats fatter lol naw but u should come to the EW n we should play the ditto n settle WHO IS THE BEST FALCON IN CANADA!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Diakonos said:

[ PREAMBLE ]

...


GENERAL:
-.....
-attempting to extend non-guaranteed combos, instead of just finishing with a knee and going for the safe edgeguard.

Click to expand...

I fail to see a problem with this.

also, tl;dr

I think that was supposed to be a fix, looool. But seriously, I've played against my Falcon friend, fooling around with Marth, and, I don't know if he just doesn't really look at %s and realize that he can basically throw > knee me at ~69% and up (to practical percentages) because he ends up throwing me and trying to combo me.

Falcon dittos:

in a lot of situations (basically if the other Falcon isn't recovering hugging the wall of the stage) it's best to edgeguard with knee . The default edgeguard Falcons seem to like to use in dittos is hanging on the edge, but this allows stuff like DI back to the stage, edge canceling on the edge, landing on platforms, landing out of range of a ledgehop stomp, etc.

bair is weaker and knee isn't really harder to land than those moves. There are other situational options too like bair -> bair that work. Basically unless the opponent is recovering above Falcon's DJ height, or he can get back without using his up B, letting them back in dittos is a mistake. Seems basic but I see it happen kinda a lot.

edit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xpb8sNnmDA#t=9m53s

an example of the situation BigD is talking about I think

During heavy spacie pressure i find myself buffering rolls a lot.

Against Sheiks i find myself staying on the ground way to much. I don't use platforms of the stage, i or full/DJ to get space. I resort to SH and DD approaches which can be shut down super easily with tilts and WD back grab. -.-;

I know I'm not the only one who does this, and it always has the same result with everyone.

Basically, there will be that ONE time I get knocked off and instead of dropping low and trying to recover , I think "hmm I haven't DJ returned with a knee for a while, maybe it will hit this time...

And it always ends up with losing a stock.

Moral: jumping back with a knee is NEVER a good idea EVER.

A personal problem of mine is using an aerial off the ledge. I do that way too much.

Aussierob123 said:

I know I'm not the only one who does this, and it always has the same result with everyone.

Basically, there will be that ONE time I get knocked off and instead of dropping low and trying to recover , I think "hmm I haven't DJ returned with a knee for a while, maybe it will hit this time...

And it always ends up with losing a stock.

Moral: jumping back with a knee is NEVER a good idea EVER.

A personal problem of mine is using an aerial off the ledge. I do that way too much.

Click to expand...

it's true that it sux dix against good players but there are times when double jump knee *****. It's simply a mix-up you should use like 1 out of 10 times while the other 9 times you should double jump grab the edge


You can also trick people by double jumping kneeing while you are a bit far from the stage and grabbing the edge since

most people think you will still be in knee lag when you suddenly grab the edge

--

every falcon in the world loves to aerial from the ledge lol #1 bad habit


a good way to get on the stage is to barely jump onto the stage, most players cover falcon perfect waveland or aerial onto the stage

and when people catch onto u barely jumping on the stage and trying to punish it is very obvious (to me)

gustav that situation is close to what im talking about, but a lot of people still forward b after nairs. i feel like when you hit people nice and high and far off the ledge, and both of you have a lot of time to think, they almost always up b downwards

i think dj nair is better than dj knee after you get knocked barely off the level. theres almost nothing you can say is NEVER a good idea though, i live from dj kneeing back decently often but you gotta read the situation and where they are standing, moving, etc. and adjust accordingly. basically it works when theyre really trying to overextend themselves in order to prevent you from just grabbing the ledge. but even then, consider just dj nairing back, it comes out faster and has longer horizontal range. you probably wont have to worry about crouch cancel because they probably wont expect it

I meant the approximate position of the up b and not the setup, that's about where it is usually right?

but yeah, good point about them having time to think/set up their recovery. That's pretty true now that I think about it