• Welcome to Smashboards, the world's largest Super Smash Brothers community! Over 250,000 Smash Bros. fans from around the world have come to discuss these great games in over 19 million posts!

    You are currently viewing our boards as a visitor. Click here to sign up right now and start on your path in the Smash community!

My Falco, Critique please.

8AngeL8

Smash Lord
Joined
Oct 4, 2008
Messages
1,298
Location
Dallas, TX
Overall, very nice Falco. In the early parts of a stock, you spaced well, kept the pressure up, and seemed to know when to use what moves. For this part of your game, I only had 2 comments. First, you seemed a bit eager to move in and fight up close. Stay back and laser as long as your opponent will let you, since you have the better camping game.

Second, when he starts crouching, you can punish it by SHing the side-b over him. You don't want to do it every time, because he'll predict and punish. You want to do the SH dair like you were doing, plus the side b sometimes.

Where you started to have problems was when it came time to get the actual kill. You just started running in trying to get off a big hit and finish it. This won't work, especially against a fortress of a character like Snake. You need to keep your camping up, and wait for him to make a mistake that you can punish. Falco's kill moves are all very punishable, so you have to make sure you can get them in. If you're just going for it, he'll tear you apart.

Like I said, though, you're doing awesome for just a couple weeks.

BTW, do you live in San Antonio? I remember seeing a DSB playing snake at the Gamelot tourney a while back...
 

Daea

Smash Cadet
Joined
Mar 28, 2008
Messages
53
Location
New Jersey
everything angel said I agree with - you're doing very well for just a few weeks in. Just be sure to keep up the camping even when you feel like you can kill, instead of trying to go for an upsmash - because you got punished for that a lot. Also, both you and your opponent rolled a lot. That's probably a bad habit you should break out of - you generally don't really want to roll at all. If you feel the need to respace, sh away, walk away, iap away, do something other than roll.

Also, avoid lingering on the ledge for more time than you have to. You died last stock first match and got punished another time for staying on the ledge and just phantasming into it or firebirding. Falco's options off the ledge aren't that great anyway, so as long as you can get yourself safely back onto the stage, do it. Overall, nice job though.
 

ixdnL

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Apr 7, 2008
Messages
259
Only saw the first one but I will say grab snake out of his slide was nice.
 

J4pu

Smash Champion
Joined
Mar 30, 2008
Messages
2,343
Location
Torrance/Irvine, CA, USA
boost pivot grab, learn it, I saw a kill on snake that you could have had during his last stock of the first game.
well a kill or 80% depending on how good the snake is
 

Mike Hawk

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Jun 14, 2006
Messages
231
Location
TX
thanks a lot for the positive and constructive critique, i'll try to implement all your suggestion and come up with some results later on.

also we are not from San Antonio, we live about 3 hour drive away. yes that is the same DSB from Gamelot. are you attending HOBO 8angel8? maybe i'll see you there.
 

Vlade

Social Outcast
Joined
May 30, 2008
Messages
4,043
Location
Perth, Western Australia
boost pivot grab, learn it, I saw a kill on snake that you could have had during his last stock of the first game.
well a kill or 80% depending on how good the snake is
I second this. At 2:27 in the first video there was an opportunity for a quick kill if you boost pivot grabbed. It's quite handy - believe me. I also recommend doing walking chaingrab, but that's just me. This way I don't randomly trip while I'm CG-ing.

I, like the others, also think you're rolling too much - break the habit or you will learn the hard way (like I did, sometimes I still roll a bit too much). There are plenty of better ways to space that someone mentioned before like short hops, IAPs, etc.
I noticed you got punished for your rolling in the second video 28 secs into the match with snake's ftilt.

Your lasers are your best friend for creating a world of opportunities to use your killing moves. At 4:06 of the first video I noticed you connected with an usmash, and it didn't kill. Remember that snake is quite heavy, so you need create openenings to use your better killing options. As falco you have to be patient to net the kill, otherwise you will be punished.

Additionally, I don't think you used ledge-hopped double lasers in your edge game. If snake spaces himself ready for a phantasm, punish with the lasers, or shorten the phantasm. Remember to be observant of what your opponent is doing while you're recovering (I know this is tricky, especially with falco's recovery since you don't want to mess it up).
 

8AngeL8

Smash Lord
Joined
Oct 4, 2008
Messages
1,298
Location
Dallas, TX
thanks a lot for the positive and constructive critique, i'll try to implement all your suggestion and come up with some results later on.

also we are not from San Antonio, we live about 3 hour drive away. yes that is the same DSB from Gamelot. are you attending HOBO 8angel8? maybe i'll see you there.

Hell yeah I'm attending HOBO. It's a 4/5 hour drive from Dallas and I still wouldn't miss it for anything. I'll keep an eye out for you.
 

superglucose

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Apr 26, 2008
Messages
127
For the first vid:
Please don't forget that your dthrow is amazing. Sethlon is an amazing falco, but he always shffles a dair after his downthrows. SK92 is a better model imo for what to do after your grabs. You did get your gatlings off, but there are other tricks you can use. Downthrow and dash afterwords. Most players will airdodge expecting a hyphen smash/dlx/gatling attempt. Try dashing up and stutterstepping a fsmash.

The down throw is not good because it chains. The down throw is good because it combos into a lot of things. Chaining downthrows is really just icing on a really great cake.

As for the second video:

Learn new tricks for getting on the ledge. I, like you, let go then shorthop up and then illusion. I do it far too often. Don't forget you have the option to attack onto the ledge, jump up (which is risky against snake), and also even to roll onto the ledge. That last one is great because almost no one expects it. I'm not a very good falco (did place top 16 out of a tourney of 70 ish, granted it was a university tourney...) but most of my failure as a falco is my inability to do basic things like shdl (I STILL CANT FIGURE THIS OUT!) and dlx (I can do this with snake, who USED to be my main...) I also mistime a lot of my short hopped arials, and many of them come out as fairs or nairs.

I liked watching your videos. I personally think Falco is the new Marth in terms of how much fun it is to watch them play... I always loved watching Ken's videos in melee more than anyone else's just because the way marth moved was so cool. Falco holds that place for me now, and I really want to learn to play him well which is why I troll these falco boards occasionally.
 
Top Bottom