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@ earlier comments:
Falco beats G&W. All of my little tricks I use against G&W as Peach, Falco does better; no Falcos have nearly the level of G&W experience as I have though.
Anyway, Falco's definitely top four IMHO; and I could even see him as second. I still think that place belongs to Snake, but I also feel Falco has a slight advantage on Snake. This is assuming, however, a Ledge Grab Limit.
By SBR ruleset, with no LGL, Falco gets demolished by MK and might be significantly lower.
I find Falco extremely annoying to play against, as well >-(
However, I will cling to the fact that I have two stocked DEHF in tournament to console myself. 8-)
MK's d-smash is definitely not safe on block. I hope it wasn't misconstrued as me saying that; I just said it was a good kill move.
I also think you're severely under-rating Marth's ability to punish Falco's spot-dodge. Dancing blade is really, really good at that, and you also get shield pokes out of it. It doesn't need to have a 2 frame-startup to punish a 2-frame window of vulnerability, because it's a lingering move.
No, it's OKAY at punishing Falco's spot dodge, and it's the only move that can do it somewhat consistently. Often, an entire Dance can go through a Falco spamming spotdodge and completely whiff (this is the most infuriating thing) and sometimes, since Dancing Blade moves you forward, you might end up behind Falco with lag, and not even get to swing hit 4 down, which would have otherwise reliably hit.
Also, since it's the ONLY tool Marth has to really put in work on Falco using a lot of spot dodge, it ***** an airborne Marth, and is VERY easy to punish both on block and with a roll mix-up, and Falco's roll is also pretty good.
Marth has 0 lingering moves. The vast majority of his hitboxes are not active for more than 2 or 3 frames. Dancing Blade simply rapidly produces up to 4 (or 7) hitboxes, but it's just one move that is otherwise easily punishable by Falco's whole game.
All that being said, I still think Marth slightly beats Falco, but that's just because I know so many little tricks to help me in that MU, it's silly. It's one of the most even MUs in the game. I tend to beat most Marth's with Falco.
I think Falco beats Snake as well, and probably Diddy too.
Lol falco. He is so horrible, he gets destroyed by me :D
But for serious, I think you guys are giving him a little too much credit. Yes he is top tier, but I don't think he is top 3 or 4.
Not only does he have a glaring weakness with his vertical recovery, but he also has problems with being juggled. His dair, while good, doesn't have a large hitbox so a lot of characters can hit him up and not worry. The only thing they would have to worry about is when he phantasms away, but that is really REALLY punishable.
Falco also has a range which is really difficult for him to deal with. It is outside his jab range, but too close to laser (I would say 4 falco lengths). A lot of times I can pressure a Falco to that range and then he instinctively phantasms away, but then fast characters can react and get a punish on him. Falco can't do much in that range, and it is also where I force many of my Chaingrabs...but enough about MU specifics.
I would definitely give Falco 5th on the tier list. MK, Snake, Marth, and either Diddy Kong or Pikachu above him.
Serious though, he doesn't have that much of a problem with being juggled. MK and Marth are probably the only character that can Juggle him well consistently.
There is a huge difference between Rob spotdodging, who has 5 frames of cool down where he is vulnerable, and Falco who is spotdodging, and has 2 frames of cool down when he is vulnerable.
No, it's OKAY at punishing Falco's spot dodge, and it's the only move that can do it somewhat consistently. Often, an entire Dance can go through a Falco spamming spotdodge and completely whiff (this is the most infuriating thing) and sometimes, since Dancing Blade moves you forward, you might end up behind Falco with lag, and not even get to swing hit 4 down, which would have otherwise reliably hit.
Also, since it's the ONLY tool Marth has to really put in work on Falco using a lot of spot dodge, it ***** an airborne Marth, and is VERY easy to punish both on block and with a roll mix-up, and Falco's roll is also pretty good.
Marth has 0 lingering moves. The vast majority of his hitboxes are not active for more than 2 or 3 frames. Dancing Blade simply rapidly produces up to 4 (or 7) hitboxes, but it's just one move that is otherwise easily punishable by Falco's whole game.
I disagree, wile Marth does not have many lasting hitboxes, he has higher range and equivalent speed to his attacks.
He has no need to worry about spotdodging too much because that is all Falco will be able to do at that range.
his jab does not have greater ranger than Marth's Dtilt.
It i also hard to punish Marth because how quickly his moves begin and how quickly they end.
I do agree marth does beat out Falco(not by much), but I dont think his spotdodge really **** Marth's aerial game.
I disagree, wile Marth does not have many lasting hitboxes, he has higher range and equivalent speed to his attacks.
He has no need to worry about spotdodging too much because that is all Falco will be able to do at that range.
his jab does not have greater ranger than Marth's Dtilt.
It i also hard to punish Marth because how quickly his moves begin and how quickly they end.
I do agree marth does beat out Falco(not by much), but I dont think his spotdodge really **** Marth's aerial game.
DEHF can you explain to me the IC's vs Falco match-up from your viewpoint? How do you play it?
I've never even come close to losing to a falco with IC's in tournament or even friendlies really. I've seen people that barely play IC's (esca) beat pretty good falcos like Kismet in tournament. Didn't Atomsk beat you at MLG with IC's?
I just personally think that pika/ics are both just as bad for Falco. Falco has no safe way to kill IC's without getting grabbed, he has to rely on trying to separate them and killing nana and in my experiences falco is one of the easiest characters to stay synched against. Falco can't outcamp IC's, even side-bing into them is a chance of getting grabbed you can't even abuse the lag on their moves the side-b if they desynch properly. Ice blocks stop lasers and desynched ice blocks will make it so no lasers get through while IB's are still going towards falco. Reflector also does nothing to them really.
They also apply a lot of pressure from below with one of the best uairs in the game and are great at edgeguarding falco using blizzard/IB's properly.
DEHF can you explain to me the IC's vs Falco match-up from your viewpoint? How do you play it?
I've never even come close to losing to a falco with IC's in tournament or even friendlies really. I've seen people that barely play IC's (esca) beat pretty good falcos like Kismet in tournament. Didn't Atomsk beat you at MLG with IC's?
I just personally think that pika/ics are both just as bad for Falco. Falco has no safe way to kill IC's without getting grabbed, he has to rely on trying to separate them and killing nana and in my experiences falco is one of the easiest characters to stay synched against. Falco can't outcamp IC's, even side-bing into them is a chance of getting grabbed you can't even abuse the lag on their moves the side-b if they desynch properly. Ice blocks stop lasers and desynched ice blocks will make it so no lasers get through while IB's are still going towards falco. Reflector also does nothing to them really.
They also apply a lot of pressure from below with one of the best uairs in the game and are great at edgeguarding falco using blizzard/IB's properly.
2-20 / 22 Link
2-20 / 22 Pikachu
2-20 / 22 Falco
2-20 / 22 Yoshi
2-20 / 22 Toon Link
That's the frame data for those character's spot dodges.
Those are the fastest ones int he game, Marth doesn't get his aerial game murdered by them.
By no means am I saying that such a quick spotdodge doesn't affect Marth, I am saying that Marth does have the tools available to him for dealing with it.
Lain barely beat me last time we played, I lost to his solo popo last game last stock high % >_>.
Falco can avoid getting grabbed very well with his side b, it has invincibility on nearly half of it and he can control the length, which makes it incredibly hard to grab Falco if he's using carefully.
ICs using the ice blocks to camp Falco isn't very effective since he can just full jab them away. Blizzard isn't a good move to use to try to approach Falco since his reflector out ranges/ reflects it. Falco's ftilt is safe on ICs shield as long as Falco spaces it and Falco is safe to land aerials behind ICs shield.
Once Falco gets ICs seperated he can keep them seperated by knocking Nana away and making a wall for popo. If Nana is in the air by herself falco can juggle her offstage with bair and kill her with dair.
Since ICs strictly go for grabs it's pretty easy to just walk up and grab them. Falco's d throw and f throw are his best moves for knocking ICs away from each other. His d throw puts a hitbox around Falco and has very little cool down lag. Falco's f throw has great knock back if it hits the person not being thrown, so the ICs will always be slightly away from each other if they both get hit.
Falco's laser can make it difficult for the ICs to desync, but Ice block can beat stop lasers.
ICs having Falco offstage is can be difficult create a wall for him, but since ICs are fairly slow they shouldn't be able to do much to him unless Falco is recovering fairly low.
I forgot to mention that if Falco shields IC's short hop uair on a platform Falco can up smash out of shield or drop shield d smash.
Overall I think Falco loses this match up, but no worse than 60-40.
Lain barely beat me last time we played, I lost to his solo popo last game last stock high % >_>.
Falco can avoid getting grabbed very well with his side b, it has invincibility on nearly half of it and he can control the length, which makes it incredibly hard to grab Falco if he's using carefully.
ICs using the ice blocks to camp Falco isn't very effective since he can just full jab them away. Blizzard isn't a good move to use to try to approach Falco since his reflector out ranges/ reflects it. Falco's ftilt is safe on ICs shield as long as Falco spaces it and Falco is safe to land aerials behind ICs shield.
Once Falco gets ICs seperated he can keep them seperated by knocking Nana away and making a wall for popo. If Nana is in the air by herself falco can juggle her offstage with bair and kill her with dair.
Since ICs strictly go for grabs it's pretty easy to just walk up and grab them. Falco's d throw and f throw are his best moves for knocking ICs away from each other. His d throw puts a hitbox around Falco and has very little cool down lag. Falco's f throw has great knock back if it hits the person not being thrown, so the ICs will always be slightly away from each other if they both get hit.
Falco's laser can make it difficult for the ICs to desync, but Ice block can beat stop lasers.
ICs having Falco offstage is can be difficult create a wall for him, but since ICs are fairly slow they shouldn't be able to do much to him unless Falco is recovering fairly low.
Overall I think Falco loses this match up, but no worse than 60-40.
2-20 / 22 Link
2-20 / 22 Pikachu
2-20 / 22 Falco
2-20 / 22 Yoshi
2-20 / 22 Toon Link
That's the frame data for those character's spot dodges.
Those are the fastest ones int he game, Marth doesn't get his aerial game murdered by them.
By no means am I saying that such a quick spotdodge doesn't affect Marth, I am saying that Marth does have the tools available to him for dealing with it.
Uh, because those characters don't have other options. Actually, Yoshi's is also pretty annoying, but you can approach Yoshi more passively because he doesn't have a laser. The laser dictates when you shield. In a fight against Falco, you are FORCED to frequently block. This is not really the case with Yoshi, or any other character on that list, except maybe Toon Link, who also doesn't have the same options.
He can't Dancing Blade and Dtilt at the same time. He's not just going to magically going to be at the range to dtilt Falco's shield often. In fact, against Falco, Dtilt is used almost exclusively as follow up pressure. People like to talk about Falco's blind spot (the area where Marth's sword can reach Falco, but Falco can't hit him back) but then they seem to forget that Falco can just dash back phantasm, or continue shooting lasers and just respace if they didn't pin themselves at a ledge. They forget Falco can run in and shield, or DASH ATTACK. Marth can't just freely walk to wear he wants in a MU where my opponent is constantly firing a lagless projectile. He can't cover every option all the time, it's Marth, not MK.
You NEED Fair or powershield to even get where you want to be, and Falco can move. If you're not in the right spot, Falco's got advantage with a fast jab, safer ftilt, and better dodges. Rolling ***** Dancing Blade completely, and spot dodging ***** everything else. Marth wins this MU for two main reasons.
A) He punishes Falco consistently. Marth dashes quickly, and has Dancing Blade, which has long reach. He can really put on hurt if he manages to actually land a hit on the bird.
B) Marth has good follow ups. Falco lacks a quick forward aerial, and he falls quickly. This makes him combo/trap bait, because after Marth hits him once, he doesn't really have options except airdodge can be read and punished. This lets Marth get Falco to high percent, and then off the stage or in the air, which gives him opportunities to make reads for a kill.
In this MU, Marth is heavily discouraged for retreating his second Fair, because all it does is finally take hard earned pressure off the Falco, and open him up for escape and projectile. This makes rolling also effective, and now that Falco is given the option of TWO offensive dodges, it makes things a nightmare. Marth's range is NECESSARY to combat Falco's speed, escapes, and projectile. Thank GOD he doesn't get ***** by CG. With a character that controls the pace of the match so easily (seriously, map wide laser projectile and warping?), you're not just going to space against him all that easily. He limits movement towards him on a new level.
Also, you wanna talk about killing? Where are Marth's kill set-ups? You basically MUST set up this character by reading a recovery or catching him from falling. If Marth is at kill percent, and Falco's at kill percent, Falco's at advantage, because Falco can decide to execute a kill move since he has the Usmash. Marth's main pokes are punishable EXCEPT Fair and Dtilt (and tipper Fair on shield can be punished with a boost Usmash, and can be punished if rising against a spot dodge). Trying to grab Falco is one of the biggest mistakes ever, unless it's a pivot grab (which shouldn't be punished if done properly). Falco has the real options up close, and far away, so Marth is always the one chasing, and has to space BEAUTIFULLY and read movement properly the whole match, to avoid getting grabbed into a reset position or hit away.
Marth's favor, but the spot dodge is still a really good tool vs. Marth.
FYI, Larry is the only Falco I've lost to in tournament since SK92 at Genesis. Larry defeated me at Viridian City 6. Before that, it was only Keitaro in 08 (I've beaten him 3 times since then, and I've beaten all other Falco's encountered). I know the MU. I secondary Falco. I've trained two Falco's, and I'm working on a third. This is one of my MOST experienced MUs. I wouldn't just throw out something like "Oh, Falco's spot dodge is really good in this MU" unless I had some reasonable backing. I did main Marth for like 2 and a half years, and I still secondary Falco.
No lingering hitbox's pierce?
Be careful what you say around me.
Especially when Marth's nair is out for a "block" of 15 frames (6-7, 13-21), and has that ever BEAUTIFUL ability to have more knock back the longer the hitbox is out for.
Marth's usmash is also out for 6-7? frames. So is uair. So us utilt (but that's not exactly too helpful).
Falco spot dodging is a failure as his "only" defence, but yes, because of how good his spot dodge is, it definitely means good things for him.
I'll keep it short.
You kind of missed the point of what I was getting at Pierce.
Everyone knows about Falco's options.
He has options that make the other characters look far worse, phantasm, jab, Ftilt.
My point was that as a defense only, as his singular defense, spot dodge is bad.
So one cannot say "spot dodge ***** Marth's aerial game". Sucha thing is misleading.
It is far more accurate to say "Spot dodge hurts Marth's aerial game because he has options afterwards that marth has difficulty punishing."
I do have a question though.
in the event Falco is being pushed back by Marth, since he can do it even though he is not as offensively strong as MK, could one not predict or react to the side B and then properly punish it afterwards?
Falco is irritating to a lot of players because a lot of his regular tactics are difficult to react to and break up autopilot playstyles. Mixing up Lasers/Side B/Dash grab means you have to predict the character to a huge extent.
Imo he's probably better than Snake. His lack of "easy" kills like Snake/MK/Diddy are the only reason he isn't the best character.
And @Shadowlink some things that are easy to punish on paper aren't easy to punish in game because of the way they look. Some spotdodges have visually obvious endings (which are sometimes made easier by the sound they make).
LOL@first one. How is that an easy kill setup that's like saying everyone has good kill setups (just grab them, throw them off, and hit them).
And you can DI the Dthrow but w/e.
MK/Diddy/Snake can literally walk up, and kill someone with a move that's either extremely fast, has long range, is hard to punish, or safe on shield. Falco is waaaay more likely to get punished for trying to kill with Usmash or Utilt and whiffing it.
Falco is my favorite match up! That said, I feel like the number superb Falco's isn't that high, but then again, that's true with a lot of characters.
Anyways, I feel like Falco has great match ups, a great moveset (minus the recovery) and moves that work at a wide variety of ranges (laser, ftilt, fsmash, jab, grab). I think he goes even-ish with MK, though I'd only apply that to high levels of play. In my personal experience, I've only really felt outdone by Falco when playing SK92 and Larry.
He can have the problem of becoming predictable. If side b is predicted too much, he gets punished a lot, but good players will vary their recovery/movement better than that. Lasering patterns can also get read a lot too. In the case of the MK match up, this leads to a lot of tornado. Speaking of tornado, it can beat bair, if spaced right. I've been working on that, but it's hard to do. That said, someone mentioned earlier that shine is good for tornado, and I agree.
Outside amateur mistakes like that, I think that Falco has all the tools to be great. It gets to a point where it depends on who mixes up their game the best and who reads the best.
==
A technical point though... dthrow to dacus isn't inescapable, is it? I want to say that it's not...
A good friend of mine also tends to terminate his chain grabs with spikes near the edge of the stage. He then backs off and preps a fsmash. If it's not teched, it works similarly to DDD's dsmash trap. It's outside the range of the get up attack and it hits the opponent if they choose to roll either way, get up or get up attack. It then becomes one player's timing against the other. It's pretty cool. Techs can be read too. React fast enough, and the fsmash can just be aimed in the opposite direction to catch the tech roll.
Another technical note, I've never seen shine -> dacus.
About lasering to usmash, it's really good when the opponent is close to (but not touching) the ground. From my limited peach experience, ground floats get wrecked this way.
===
Oh, and as for a a tier position... I'd say 2nd or 3rd. Though I'm not so sure about him replacing Snake. I personally feel like Snake's killing power is just too monstrous >.>. But don't regard that opinion too heavily... Snake is one of my worst match ups.
Marth loses to Falco.
Falco can fight Ic's. Choice is more skilled at the MU than DEHF I'm afraid to say, and I don't see him losing to very many IC's. I'd like to see an IC vs him.
But I still think Falco is at a disadvantage.
In relevance to this topic, Falco is 3rd best in the game.
![[FBC] ESAM](/data/avatars/l/92/92614.jpg?1365783210){kind=avatar}
