Q&A -Fox Advice/Questions Topic-

[omgwtfToph]

well, when you fight falco, you don't necessarily HAVE to powershield his lasers back at him (unless you want to go for some specific approach that requires a powershielded laser) but getting into the habit of TRYING to powershield, and then immediately reacting and wavedashing out, is an extremely good habit to get into because it prevents falco from locking you into your shield. And the side effect is that you will get better at powershielding in due course, since you're aiming to shield just before a laser hits you.

 

[DerfMidWest]

its more that i'd like to be able to powershield more consistently, but i don't know how to practice this without having a laser happy falco to play against

 

[omgwtfToph]

yes, I know what you're saying, but look: you're not gonna get amazing at powershielding unless you have falcos to practice powershielding against, and even then, it takes a special kind of focus to work up to the level where you can powershield consistently. But on the other hand, having a right mindset towards the matchup and what to do about lasers will go a long way no matter who the Falco is that you fight.

 

[DerfMidWest]

I mean I understand that...
but I'd like to learn how to powershield for the same reason I'd like to learn to moonwalk better; it makes me feel good when I do it well.
Of course I need to learn how to handle lasers and get around them and such.
don't know how to do that very well either.

 

[JPOBS]

I like FoD depending on the Falco. Some hate it cuz it disrupts his general laser game a ton, others love it cuz Dair takes up the whole stage.

 

[omgwtfToph]

I mean I understand that...
but I'd like to learn how to powershield for the same reason I'd like to learn to moonwalk better; it makes me feel good when I do it well.
Of course I need to learn how to handle lasers and get around them and such.
don't know how to do that very well either.

ok then to answer your question in a direct manner, you don't have any falcos to fight so you're ****ed

 

[Dark Hart]

I'm starting to get to the point where I can safely grounded doubleshine about 80% in game

And was wondering if anyone could point out the places and times where it's most useful, and possibly where you shouldn't aswell

quoted since it's been like 4 (20ppp) pages

 

[Bing]

Okay so I was just wondering how to Multishine. I was reading that its like.. You shine, jump out of shine(up on control stick) and then shine again before you actually leave the ground or something like that.

 

[KirbyKaze]

Use a button (the Y button)

It's easier

That way you can just hold down and slide your thumb back and forth from Y and B

You should probably learn l-canceling and dashing out of l-cancels and other actions first though

 

[DerfMidWest]

wait... can you even multishine with the analog stick? whenever i've tried to do that, it just upBs out of shine....

 

[Bing]

Use a button (the Y button)

It's easier

That way you can just hold down and slide your thumb back and forth from Y and B

You should probably learn l-canceling and dashing out of l-cancels and other actions first though

I am working on those things, just after awhile it does get boring so I like having a few "side projects"

Like U-throw double shine and things of that sort.

 

[TSM ZeRo]

yeah man. I'm going to his house later.


But yeah, some little notes:

Power Shielding is starting to get more popular. It'll probably go a long way if you can do it consistently. Especially on close lasers.

Also moving around on platforms is pretty good from what I hear.

B-air oos is really important to cut off falco's laser approach.

Shine oos if he attempts to pressure you and isn't outside of your shine range. Otherwise u-smash oos, or WD back. Sometimes you can get away with doing an aerial oos. Depends on their spacing though.

I honestly don't know how to approach him. I guess just try to tech chase him when you knock him down with a shine. Sometimes if you're close enough, you can catch them with a running shine if they try to laser you at an unsafe distance.

Stages to ban is pretty suggestive. I think it depends on preference. I myself would ban either yoshi's or FD (depends on the opponent). If you don't want to give falco space, then probably BF. DL64 is probably fox's best stage, even if you don't like the level. There's just so much space to maneuver around lasers and his moves. The extra space helps fox's combo game on that level too (it helps falco as well, but not as much as fox IMO).

For CPs. If you like FD and are confident in your ability to grab falco, then CP it against him. If not, then I suggest either BF, DL64, or FoD. Whichever one he doesn't ban.

Thank you very much for your advices.

What is the window for me to punish Falco's pressure game?

So my Oos options are:

Shine
U-Smash
And an aerial attack. What are the best aerials when he's right on your face? N-Air since you can't true combo him from a D-Air like with other chars?

fd is a 100:100 matchup never go there unless you have gigantic nuts (wouldn't ban it either cuz i've never met a falco that CP's it cept zhu like 1 time)


yoshi's and battlefield are totally fine. battlefield has the small disadvantage of not having a wall to ride when you recover but it's not a big deal. yoshi's is a very manly stage where you're gonna have to do lots of tiny outplays and tricks to get the advantage because it's so small and the platforms are practically off-stage. HINT: don't get shined right below a platform on yoshi's cuz u might die lol

dreamland is personal preference, i like the space you have but the huge floor can make it slightly harder to tech chase in some spots.

fod is personal perference some fox's like it, some don't (i hate it so i ban it vs falco and 90% of my matches in general lol)

I will have to face Chile's best Melee player and Falco this weekend. I am practicing very hard for this tournament. And I want to ask you, Lovage in particular, what do you do to prevent pressure from Falco? That's his game. He pressures Fox until he makes a mistake trying to get out of this pressure, and he never misses his combos, you're either dead or off the stage with 80%+. He usually baits reactions, or frame traps you. It's hard to tell because of his FH/SH Laser game.

He usually CP's FD, and bans Rainbow or Brinstar vs me. Yes, I cp those stages against some people when I know they either hate them or don't play them regularly. And I'm very good on both stages. I also feel very comfortable playing in them (Brawl habit lol).

Sometimes I cp him to FD. I don't like to play him on Yoshis, or BF, he's just way too hard there. IMO, those are his best stages. And in DL64 I feel like Fox doesn't kill early enough, I know it's like 10%, but is it that big of a deal in the current metagame? Back in the way it was an issue, dunno about know.

But I'm gonna trust your advices guys and probably cp him to, in order:

Rainbow (His most hated stage).
Brinstar (Not too sure, since the lava kind of helps Falco's recovery).
Yoshis (Killing earlier is very nice to me).
Dreamland 64 and then FD.

It will come down to how is my grab/platform game that day to where I am going to CP him in the end, though.

Also, thanks again for the awesome tips guys .

 

[Lovage]

I will have to face Chile's best Melee player and Falco this weekend. I am practicing very hard for this tournament. And I want to ask you, Lovage in particular, what do you do to prevent pressure from Falco? That's his game. He pressures Fox until he makes a mistake trying to get out of this pressure, and he never misses his combos, you're either dead or off the stage with 80%+. He usually baits reactions, or frame traps you. It's hard to tell because of his FH/SH Laser game.

as for preparing for your match (what's his name btw) you should definitely ban FD and you should pick brinstar if you're good at it (fox destroys falco on brinstar imo, that was my old school counterpick in 2010) or yoshi's if that gets banned out.

BUT

if you're really willing to practice weird stages just to win on your opponent's inexperience, you're gonna be really disappointed if you ever travel to a major tournament in the US. not only will all your crutch stages be banned but we will be a lot better at neutrals than you lol.

so, as a long term strategy, i would suggest shifting your stage priority to battlefield, yoshi's and dreamland. those are the 3 most commonly played stages in the game at tournament level. they deserve the most attention by far.



FALCO

``
first of all, frame traps barely exist in melee. like they do, but i'm almost 100% sure it isn't what you're thinking of. and please, NEVER have a defeatist attitude about certain gay things in this game (falco combos, marth combos, peach bull****.) there is always an answer to tough techniques as long as you have the execution and experience to pull it off.

good offense > good defense

as for dealing with pressure and that stuff. the way i try to play it is with offense over defense. knock him down and make it really really hard for him to get back up without getting *****. be creative with uair, utilt, weak bair and shine to extend your combos. 5% or 50%, just always go for the best damage possible (unless you can get better stage advantage with a spike or drill or something.)

don't **** up edge guards

make your edge guards vicious, never ever allow him to illusion into you without getting utilt -> baired, never let him recover onto the ledge if he firebirds at an angle below you. hint on dealing with firebirds: depending on what position they're in, there's a good chance they will angle their up+b above you and then fastfall down to the ledge. be patient as hell with your bairs, you need to ledgehop as late as possible and DI the correct way to cover as many of his firebird angles as possible. at medium percent you only have to execute one time and he's dead.

the out of shield game

out of shield game: you want to be really really good at shine oos for when he makes small spacing mistakes, as well as shieldgrabbing when he makes BIG mistakes (it happens from time to time, developing a strong reflex for it is smart cuz everyone makes mistakes.) don't really try to do usmnash oos. the timing is very hard, it only works vs. ******* with no tech skill or when they make a big mistake (grab often better.)

aerials out of your shield work but the spacing is ALWAYS very specific. if he crosses up your shield with an early-ish nair/dair, and he lands behind you out of range for shine, you should be able to freely kick him in the back of his head. being able to aerial out of shield but it takes some experience to see when it's applicable. so overall shine oos is the most versatile/useful as long as you can get good at it.

summary

the overall idea is: execute well (big damage combos, big edgeguarding,) **** him as hard as possible for every mistake he makes, don't rush in dumbly (don't have time to write a paragraph about this right now sry) and don't get frustrated if u **** up and die at 30% or sidestep on accident and take 70% from a combo.





i am so fking bored i just want diablo 3 to come out

 

[KirbyKaze]

quoted since it's been like 4 (20ppp) pages

Read this

In a general sense, I find them useful at the edge mostly - either because the second shine can catch an OOS action or because you can push someone off the stage with the first shine and shine them out of the air with the second (people do this with nair shine a lot already, but the second shine increases the range by a bit).

It is useful for catching characters that fall down from the shine for OOS actions if I want the knockdown at low percents. It's good vs people that like to shine OOS in my experience. IMO the knockdown is more valuable than the aerial at lower percents vs other spacies because the tech chase might... lead to something that will kill them. Hitting a nair or bair probably won't. This changes depending on stage positioning and other random things though.

TBH, adding it doesn't drastically improve your chances of converting pressure into combos against most of the important members of the cast because you still need to basically guess you're gonna hit with the shine to make it do substantial damage (or have them at the edge, but that's been covered). Your chance of doing 4-5% increases, because you're covering more of their opportunities, but I think conventional pressure is still probably better against them. The exception to this is when they're shaken up or have bad habits after being shined in the air or something (but those deal more with the limitations of people, not the characters in SSBM).

If you can use it to condition people to holding their shield longer so you can go for shine-grabs and such more freely, I think that would be good. I think that would also generally work better vs people that fall from the shine though.

My thoughts.

 

[unknown522]

It's zein right?

You have a decent window to punish falco's pressure. If he comes in with a low aerial, then punish him after he shines. That's the best chance (assuming he doesn't double shine). If he does an early aerial, then punish that. Since shine oos is the fastest, it's your safest option.

If you can hit a d-air then go for it. You can combo stuff out of it

 

[KirbyKaze]

Pay attention to his spacing. Shine OOS doesn't have good range. It is not hard for him to dip outside its range with his jump (after he shines, especially if he 'tips' his shine - hooray for Falco frame advantage!).

You probably won't have to worry about this much, but you should be aware of it.

Nurgle.

 

[omgwtfToph]

hey, I'm not actually commenting on any of the above posts with content, and this is pretty much just me splitting hairs about fighting game semantics cuz I like doing it, but frame traps are probably more prevalent in melee than any other fighting game cuz of the nature of the combo system and how you get out of combos

like, if you let someone try to double jump out of a combo, then **** their double jump, that is a frame trap by the proper definition of the term - you give them a window to "escape" then punish that instead

e.g. giving someone holes in your pressure in a 2D fighter then ****** them when they try to input something

:V

 

[Warhawk]

wait... can you even multishine with the analog stick? whenever i've tried to do that, it just upBs out of shine....

You can it just seems like you either successfully doubleshine or you up-b out of shield, which sucks. I think to be able to do it you can't press all the way up or all the way down when using the analog stick to multishine.

 

[KirbyKaze]

I've always felt that with characters like Sheik and Marth it might be neat to work on delaying your combos a bit vs some characters to see if you can catch twitch jumps and such. Problem is, since it's by a frame or so, the window of error is really small before you start giving them too many frames to escape the combo. Random SDIs and trajectories also might mess this up, since you're dealing in fairly precise windows & timings.

Nurgle.

My 2 cents.

 

[omgwtfToph]

btw

anyone wanna yell at me for dumb stuff I did vs peach in this set?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pydI8wpxWAA

I always feel generally on top of the vs peach matchup, and then I do something dumb and lose a stock, and then I can't quite put my finger on what the dumb thing is that I did wrong. >_>

yeah.

 

[mers]

quoted since it's been like 4 (20ppp) pages

Fox doubleshine is tricky cuz its so fast its not even that different than single shine in a lot of cases.

I see it working most often in places when the opponent is gonna do something immediately to prevent you getting a real shield pressure thing started. So like, near the ledge, especially at high percents.

 

[Dark Hart]

Read this

In a general sense, I find them useful at the edge mostly - either because the second shine can catch an OOS action or because you can push someone off the stage with the first shine and shine them out of the air with the second (people do this with nair shine a lot already, but the second shine increases the range by a bit).

It is useful for catching characters that fall down from the shine for OOS actions if I want the knockdown at low percents. It's good vs people that like to shine OOS in my experience. IMO the knockdown is more valuable than the aerial at lower percents vs other spacies because the tech chase might... lead to something that will kill them. Hitting a nair or bair probably won't. This changes depending on stage positioning and other random things though.

TBH, adding it doesn't drastically improve your chances of converting pressure into combos against most of the important members of the cast because you still need to basically guess you're gonna hit with the shine to make it do substantial damage (or have them at the edge, but that's been covered). Your chance of doing 4-5% increases, because you're covering more of their opportunities, but I think conventional pressure is still probably better against them. The exception to this is when they're shaken up or have bad habits after being shined in the air or something (but those deal more with the limitations of people, not the characters in SSBM).

If you can use it to condition people to holding their shield longer so you can go for shine-grabs and such more freely, I think that would be good. I think that would also generally work better vs people that fall from the shine though.

My thoughts.

thanks KK

This is all extremely helpful

 

[knightpraetor]

I've always felt that with characters like Sheik and Marth it might be neat to work on delaying your combos a bit vs some characters to see if you can catch twitch jumps and such. Problem is, since it's by a frame or so, the window of error is really small before you start giving them too many frames to escape the combo. Random SDIs and trajectories also might mess this up, since you're dealing in fairly precise windows & timings.

Nurgle.

My 2 cents.

really want to do this but i can't measure 1-2 frames so it seems i'm stuck with trying to antcipate the jump and high aerial above them early at the last second...not too bad but you need to have them close enough to have that as an option

 

[unknown522]

Gonzalo: camilo sowed me some of your sets vs zein. They're from a year ago. It looks like you know what you're doing.

Lovage: the only frame traps I can think of is multi-shine, and peach's FC aerial -> d-smash/grab/jab.

There are probably more, but those to stand out for me.

Toph: all this things you did in your set vs peach!!!

More on that later. In too mad



Edit: ok, so I watched the first stock so far and that shine-platform waveland -> drill -> shine -> u-smash was pretty sex.

Anyways, back to watching

Edit 2: since I'm not on a computer, I'm just gonna keep pausing the vid and write down my thoughts to keep em fresh.

I'm 2 stocks in so far. It looks like you lost your lead because your technical errors started adding up. Also, there was one part where you punished his getup on a platform with b-air at low percent instead of u-air. That one moment could've made a huge difference.

Looks like you need more b-air. He's in the air a lot in general, but I see you trying to either jump over him, or n-air (I think?). He keeps hitting you with n-air or b-air though. Something else you could try though is going underneath him with an empty jump, or just drop through a platform and the u-tilt.

That missed edgeguard at the end of game 1 was pretty costly. The shine-turnaround- b-air that you attempted was a pretty good choice. Just barely too late. The safer option would've been to grab the ledge and either b-air, or punish him for going onstage. Peach's recovery when she's lower kinda sucks. Assuming you don't get hit.

Game 2 was a pretty good start. The only problem was not drilling after you hit that first n-air and he missed that d-smash. You did another n-air and then he CC'd that one too and then punished it.

Anyways, so you took the first stock no problem and then another tech skill error costs you a full stock. Also because you didn't Firefox diagonally for the sweetspot, that made things worse.

The next stock, you did great. Good lasering. Good push and pull. Moving in and out, dealing damage and not getting hit (except for tech skill errors). He then did the worst possible option and tried to camp the left side of the wall. I was thinking about how badly I would've ***** him for that. So anyways, solid edgeguard. It was just really good.

So afterwards, you died to a failed ledge WD. On the next stock, you immediately got hit because you laser'd too close, and then the stock went away pretty quickly. It looks like he knew how you were gonna recover. Watch where your opponent is positioned too. It can help you survive and make better recovery choices (I always do this).

After you spawned on your last stock, the lasering was good. But did you notice how he was double jumping offstage? Also with a turnip I his hand? That may have been a potential shine-spike. The rest of the stock you fought hard. Fought well. But just lost in the end. He did catch you with a couple of n-airs while you were above him.

Game 3: the first thing you hit him with was a full-hop n-air. You are lucky that you didn't get ***** for that. Aside from that, another strong start. Good pressure. Landing a lot of hits. Baiting those dash attacks. But then you got hit by that n-air. The DI was pretty bad.

The next stock was rough. He was getting in some pressure and got you to shield. A combination of technical errors and decent punishes got him that stock without much trouble.

So both of you are on your third stock now and I noticed something very odd. You did a drill -> double-shine and the WD past him. He for some reason dropped his shield and then tried to jab as a punish...

Anyways. It looks like he was hitting a lot of n-airs, but then you took the stock first with that u-smash oos. Pretty good.

You had a good comeback on that last stock. It looked like you refused to drill though. There were a lot of chances where you could've and then done a waveshine combo or something.

A bad start in game 4. In the beginning of your next stock, he was spamming d-smash blindly. I was hoping that you wouldn't b-air or n-air him, but you did eventually and you probably know what happened from there.

As the match went on. Things just got worse and worse. It looks like small levels aren't your thing vs him. Seems like you had a tough time playing close-quarters defense vs him. As much as I hate to say it, I think that letting him take you to FD would've been a better choice for you.

Also, what I mean by close-quarters defense is like spacing up close to your opponent, poking with moves, and using your shield from time to time.

 

[omgwtfToph]

Duly noted @ everything. And yeah, on the match vs FoD after I lost my first stock I was kinda like "lol, **** it."

I did notice some of the stuff you mentioned (that firefox where I went horizontal instead of sweetspotting the ledge was a weird techskill error lol) but reading your post and going back, I'm noticing a lot of careless/brainless recoveries I'm doing and times where I could drill or grab but go for something suboptimal instead. And I'm really seeing how bad I am at fighting peach in close quarters. I really need to work on that aspect of my game. So yeah, thanks for all the advice lol I really appreciate it.

I am reminded that it never actually hits me that Peach loses options when she's carrying a turnip.

Funny story about me and Bladewise on FD; I didn't ban it, he did. Last time I had him in tournament I let him strike to FD, and then let him counterpick FD when he lost and it was a 2-0. I really like FD vs. Peach; your analysis is correct. >_>

 

[unknown522]

Damn son. So did you ban DL64? Or YS?

 

[omgwtfToph]

KJ64 D:

I guess I could leave it unbanned and then try to camp him out there. Guess it didn't occur to me at the time.

 

[unknown522]

Oh god that stage was legal huh?

That wasn't a bad decision IMO

Btw, I was joking when I said that I was mad. I hadn't watched the video yet at that point

 

[omgwtfToph]

LOL aight tight

 

[unknown522]

Oh yeah about that Firefox angle. I hate when that happens so much (trying to go diagonal, but then you go straight in one direction instead).

Down + slight left doesn't exist on my controller....

Edit: oh yeah, there were quite a couple of grab opportunities that came up (like him shielding for an extended period). Watch out of that

 

[Silent Wolf]

heres a money match me and toph did on fc stages last weekend. we did one with filthy stages too but ive been having trouble publishing it lol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxtAKk2Ob7c

 

[unknown522]

Oh god, the FC stage list.

Sadly we may have to live with it

Edit: The vid won't load...

 

[omgwtfToph]

Man the other set was the one with the ****in clutch *** big blue match huh :[ maybe send it to me and I'll try to upload it?

LOL city fox. gg's forest fox you win this time

 

[Silent Wolf]

Oh god, the FC stage list.

Sadly we may have to live with it

Edit: The vid won't load...

its not that bad for fox dittos tho.

lol its prob your phone

 

[omgwtfToph]

Yeah, if you put filthy music on vids on youtube, it doesn't let mobile viewers watch on their phone. Which is dumb, but it's the sacrifice we must make for Benzie Box.

edit: man otto the doublejump bair you ended game 1 with was so good lol

 

[genkaku]

when is drill safe on shield? It always makes me really nervous...

 

[unknown522]

It's not fair. Must get on computer.

Uhh, drill is -6 on shield so if you don't do a frame perfect shine then almost anyone can grab you theoretically.

Spacies can always shine oos if you drill their shield

 

[DerfMidWest]

when you are trying to doubleshine on shield, how long do you have to wait before you can do the second shine?
having shieldstun makes my fox sad and he just sits there and gets shieldgrabbed because he can't JC shines on shield as fast as I tell him too .-.

 

[omgwtfToph]

You can do multishines pretty friggin fast lol, watch pretty much any TAS video to get an idea.

 

[DerfMidWest]

hmm...
whenever i try to doubleshine a shield, Fox won't jump unless i wait longer to do it...
when I do it fast, he just sits there.