Falco Training movement questions

[ZDEG]

I play melee here and there. Least, I try my best before I get burnt out from time to time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czezU3p_fCo

Here's an example video of Shiz, A fav falco player of mine

I can't seem to understand how they move the way they do. Is it all wave dashing, and wave landing?)

What is it that makes them so darn fast. I seem to be lost on how this is working.

 

[SAUS]

It's a combination of a lot of things that make them fast. It takes a lot of practice to play that quickly, and no it is not all wave dashing and wave landing. Actually it's barely any of that a lot of the time. The most important part of playing fast is probably the short hop. That and L-cancelling. Short hop allows you to perform air attacks at a very close point to the ground. L-cancelling is simply hitting the shield button before you hit the ground while you're doing an air attack. It cuts the lag time of landing with the attack in half. Try it with Link's down-air to see its power.

Falco also has a special move - his laser. If you use it on the ground, it is amazingly slow and completely terrible. If you use it in the air, however, the second you land, you are magically out of the entire animation. This allows Falco to fire lasers while moving and at the same time, avoid the lag of firing lasers entirely. Falco also has one of the most powerful moves in the game - his reflector shield (often referred to as "shine"). If you hit them with it (the very beginning of the move hits enemies that are near you), it hits the opponent up, and allows for some of the most devastating combos. However, there are unique properties of this move that make it so powerful.
1) It takes only 1 (I think, I actually can't remember the exact amount, but it's extremely low) frame to hit meaning it's basically instant
2) You can jump out of it

If you can jump, you can wave dash. You can short hop. You can do ridiculous things really fast. These are many of the techniques that falco players use all the time.

Now, one of the biggest things is that once you've mastered all these small, individual techniques, you have to tie them together. It means nothing to L-cancel if you do absolutely nothing with your 5-10 extra frames. You have to get used to the timing of it, and you have to use all of your available frames in order to maximise speed.

What makes them so fast is simply short-hopping lasers or air moves (which are L-cancelled), and doing something the moment you can. The shine is basically a free action if you plan on jumping anyway, so you can throw them out here and there.

 

[4 Aces]

Dash dancing also gives the illusion of speed, because of the constant erratic movement, coupled with the unpredictability of what may/may not happen out of it (Dash Dance OP). But yeah, everything that SAUS said too.

 

[Graymatter]

Shield dropping can also improve speed (it is the fastest way to drop though platforms), it helps me a lot ... also getting creative with tech skill by mixing movement patterns like wave dancing and dash dancing... For example wave landing the same platform you shield dropped (good for throwing your opponent off) though then momentum dropping off said platform with an attack... experiment with what you can do is all I'm saying then you will naturally become fast at what you do...

 

[ZDEG]

So far, I've gotten the laser technique down, and I can SHFFL. As for the timing after the L cancel that's a different question. Sometimes I'll get combo's but it's far from being an every time thing. (Probably the most frustrating part)

Dash Dance left and right repeatedly, i've been able to do that for awhile. I think what get's me is managing the extra 10 frames from the L Cancel. The best combo that I can do for the most part is Repeated Nairs on the opponent bringing them from one end of the map, to the other. Edge Guard's are a still work in progress.


Gray Matter I have yet to see a shield drop? I've seen people kind of insta shield and then attack but for some reason I can't seem to get the shield away quick enough to start my attack right after. Any Tips?

 

[Graymatter]

You can shine out of shield (jumping out of your shield and pressing down b, before Falco leaves the ground), wave dash out of shield and you can also jump and attack out of shield... For shield dropping here is a video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQA7vbttZkQ and an explanation from Axe http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfAlxODHc48. As for combos once you get your L cancels down start practicing with shine combos, pillaring, and shield pressure (level 6 CPUs are good for getting use to an opponents DI when preforming combos but to truly get good at it you will have to play other people).... Almost forgot the same tactic used for shine out of shield can be used for multi shining (think wave dashing but you shine instead of air dodging)....

 

[Xx swift xX]

Gray Matter I have yet to see a shield drop? I've seen people kind of insta shield and then attack but for some reason I can't seem to get the shield away quick enough to start my attack right after. Any Tips?

It sounds like you're either describing powershielding or up-smashing OoS (out-of shield). The only offensive OoS options are grabbing and things that involve jumping. So aerials, jump-cancelled Up-B, and jump-cancelled up-smash are typically the only options. Fox and Falco have their shine OoS alongside these options. Unless you're good at powershielding (which is highly unlikely, since no one seems to be able to consistently powershield non-projectile attacks), dropping your shield and trying to fire off a grounded attack will be too slow to punish anything. For an example of powershielding and how it works, just play against level 9 CPUs; they powershield almost everything.

 

[ZDEG]

Powershielding would be an excellent thing to have handy. However, idk if a character gets out fast enough to punish much when they do powershield, at least in terms of human speed. CPU's do it all day.

 

[REC_NEPS]

One of the things that makes the pros look really really fast is that they all know EXACTLY when their attacks end and how they can move afterwards. A good example of this is Axe. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDhbNFzdEik (Not a falco main, but the principle is there) First of all he's crazy smart, but he's also running around like a freaking lunatic right out of his moves. Know when you can start moving and then jam that control stick.

*Match starts at 1:50