PPMD's Falco Discussion Thread

[Stevo]

Lol. I called someone at work today who was named Falco Lombardi!

seriously?

lol

 

[unknown522]

I kid you not.

Apparently he's a centennial college graduate. Lol.

Edit: in electrical engineering

 

[Purpletuce]

Hey PP, I have had problems against Falco players in the best, and he has always been a character I didn't really understand. This eventually evolved into a general distaste for the character. Reading some of your posts and discussions, I never expected this. Your support of your character's community with regular involvement and fantastically articulated ideas, advice, etc. is mindblowing.

 

[Xyzz]

I'd say Yoshi is extremely vulnerable to some stuff Falco does, so that might explain why you'd dislike playing against him (lasers are super annoying if you can't jump oos imho :D).

 

[KirbyKaze]

all PP does is explain super complicated stuff in lamen's terms lmao what a nerd

I know. If you're going to post complicated stuff you either do it in such a sophisticated manner with so much detail they'll never find what you're looking for (me) or in such a vulgar manner that what you're posting seems unbelievable but it's true (you). Or you combine the two and add subtle tones of botany and a harsh exterior forged by years of life in the Sahara (Cactuar).

**
KK, Oscar, and Cactus

The Trifecta of Popular Smash Scholars.

 

[Purpletuce]

Kage is the only true smash scholar.

Also, I don't think it is lasers as much as me not understanding how the character works. I know how to decently deal with just about everything I've encountered, but I have trouble consistently putting it to work against Falco.

 

[unknown522]

I know. If you're going to post complicated stuff you either do it in such a sophisticated manner with so much detail they'll never find what you're looking for (me) or in such a vulgar manner that what you're posting seems unbelievable but it's true (you). Or you combine the two and add subtle tones of botany and a harsh exterior forged by years of life in the Sahara (Cactuar).

**
KK, Oscar, and Cactus

The Trifecta of Popular Smash Scholars.

aww man. I disagree with some of that

 

[Divinokage]

Me? What have I done to be worthy for the path of the wizard? I don't read no books!

 

[Twinkles]

But Kage!

The Triforce is Courage, Power, AND Wisdom
...
*barf*

 

[TheLake]

yaay wisdom

 

[stabbedbyanipple]

It seems like there isn't anything pressing on the plate that Falcos are discussing so I'm gonna ask for some critique on my vs peach game

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSu3qPfvTO8
vs MacD

Originally, while playing the set and before watching the set I felt like I was completely in control most of the time, but re-watching it made me realize I made some really mediocre plays that could have been punished if McCain didn't also **** up (He messed up his fairs a few times and each could have been quite costly)

Anyway, I'd like some advice on what I could do better in an overall sense vs peach

And there are 2 situations I'm a bit confused about. The first is when she is at zero and I hit her out of low float with a Short hop Bair or Utilt, it seems like she can always nair me before I can do anything after the hit. Should I only engage her on the ground/shine at percents that low, or should I just shoot her until she is a bit higher?

Also, when she is near the ledge at high percent and you're fishing for a bair to kill her, how should you do it in a way that she can't hit you/trade with her dash attack in between bairs?

 

[Divinokage]

But Kage!

The Triforce is Courage, Power, AND Wisdom
...
*barf*

How do I get all of them?

 

[choknater]

macd's play style is so dumb LOOOOOOOOOL oh my gosh

can't believe it still works

it would work against me for sure

 

[ShroudedOne]

I've never understood how he got away with his stuff tbh, LOL. MacD is just too good (even while rusty).

 

[Landry]

Stab -

You're Falco is pretty ****ing cool, man. Just wanted to say that. Good ****.

 

[Van.]

So whats the general gameplan vs. Puff? I don't get it

 

[Bones0]

So whats the general gameplan vs. Puff? I don't get it

I played a lot of Puff this weekend, and here are the main things I noticed myself keeping in mind:
[collapse=Don't show this to Mahone]- DI all uthrows (preferably behind because she can follow up DIing in front of her with a max length SH uair). Also look for opportunities to slide off to avoid all that missed tech, uair, rest nonsense. I think I literally only got rested from platform shenanigans once the entire tournament despite playing 2-3 hours of Falco vs. Puff.

- Keep lasers out constantly to turn her around. Sometimes you'll want to stop lasering to sort of mix it up like people often do vs. other characters, but vs. Puff it just lets her turn around and whip out her bair. Spacing vs. her bair is so much harder than dealing with fair/nair. I'd even argue it's borderline impossible. You end up having to just outspace her straight up with your own bair and maybe some utilt, but her aerial mobility means she'll win 90% of the time. So yeah, just don't **** around with her bair.

- Watch out for FH pounds over lasers. Pound is good because Puff doesn't have to worry about which way she is facing, and it is excellent for punishing SHLs. If you SHL in her face predictably, she will probably FH pound -> uair or w/e. She'll do random Jiggs stuff that hurts. I am pretty sure if you do get hit you will want to DI the pound behind her, but I don't remember how I DIed that move in particular. I was mostly focused on avoiding it in the first place. Watch PP vs. Hbox from Zenith to see how Hbox utilizes pounds.

- When you get thrown off stage, be careful about getting predictable. If you DI away and DJ back predictably, she'll just jump out and tap you with a fair/bair and your stock's done. Phantasm to the ledge is really safe because she doesn't have very good moves to cover it, especially if you can shorten. I don't think she has anything on stage that will hit even a modestly good shorten. Option select shortens with ledge cancels whenever possible since she's too slow to cover both. Also be wary of Phantasm onto the stage just above the ledge. Puffs love to stay on stay on stage, crouch, and fsmash/rest your Phantasm. If you see them doing this, just shorten. A Puff player even told me specifically that he kept looking for these opportunities but I kept shortening (and this was before I was even aware of the tactic lol).

- Watch out for tomahawks. Puff relies on tomahawks to deal with people shielding all of her aerials. You will notice some patterns in their aerial movement when they aren't actually going for an aerial. Usually when they aerial they try to space as far away as possible to avoid shield grabs or dair/bair OoS. If you see them drifting towards you so that their aerial would land deep on your shield, chances are it's a tomahawk. I did a good job of mostly avoiding these situations by not shielding, so I'm not sure what you should actually do to beat it. Part of me thinks I should just aerial OoS, but it just seems risky, especially at higher %s, because I don't want to get a bad trade if she does happen to aerial. I also thought about spot dodging so I could get a shine/utilt punish after, but I'm worried that will get hit by more jank tomahawk options like fsmash or utilt because they are slower than grab and have hitboxes that linger. I tried to roll a few times, but it was actually just too slow and I still got grabbed. I might just need to work on doing it faster though. She can't punish rolls away from her anyway.

- That's all defensive stuff. Offensively, pillar her pretty much like any other character. If she full DIs a shine you're kinda done with that sequence, but it still leaves her in a bad position, and using utilts can give you more consistent followups.

- If you can keep her grounded with lasers, be wary about your approaches. She has a pretty deadly WD back grab, especially because you will often miss the uthrow DI if you're still holding down to do your shine. Outside of general shield pressure advice like always late aerial in front of her shield, I would say don't be afraid to grab her.

- Grabs will feel like they aren't doing anything sometimes, but if you can get good at uairing/bairing her at the peak of the throw and bairing/utilting/usmashing as she comes down, you will start to like it a lot more. As with most things, PP is a great example of this. I wish I would have experimented more with other throws. I tried a few dthrow gimmicks, but I didn't really know what I was doing. I think dthrow usmash/fsmash could be a solid mixup if they are at a low enough % that they don't simply get knocked too far from the throw. Bthrow also seems like it could lead into a pretty early dair kill if she dies a certain way. I used fthrow a couple times and you can sort of just fthrow -> laser and continue pressuring, but overall it didn't seem to garner much advantage out of the situation.

- Shine her off the top whenever possible. Pretty self explanatory. I'd say know the percents, but I haven't finished testing them. lol I might do that tonight actually. I finished testing all the characters on YS already, and I tested the percents required for each height. Puff dies from a pillared shine at 2% on the top platform of YS. But in general, you should be able to tell when she will die off the top. Just make sure you aren't one of those Falco's that uairs her in the top bubble and lets her live when you could have shined and gotten the kill. Sometimes you won't be able to get up there far/fast enough to shine, so uair still has a use, but even in those situations just going for the shine might be better since she can't really do anything to you as she's floating down if you go for the shine.

- Edgeguarding her seemed pretty easy. Or at least, guarding the ledge vs. her is pretty easy. lol Usually Puffs will be pounding up high to recover, but I would hardly consider that edgeguarding. That just falls under the same sort of category as throws where you just have to practice using your aerials, utilt, and usmash to keep her in the air (I highly recommend shielding and then usmashing OoS when you notice her running out of jumps and she tries to come down with a desperation aerial; just watch out for tomahawks). When she's actually going for the LEDGE, either because she DIed a move low or she thinks she might be able to trick you into a reversal edgeguard, just use the ledge invinc and LH bair/dair like you would for most characters. I prefer dair when I can because getting her even lower after a few jumps is brutal for her options, whereas bairing her sends her higher and she will just recover even easier. If she's at the %s where bair will kill, just take that instead because of it's better range, obviously. As far as actual tricks to expect when you're guarding, watch for pounds to pull you off the ledge, keep track of her jumps so you know when she has to airdodge (her airdodge is amazing for recovering lol), and when in doubt just roll/LH dair back onto the stage because Falco is a lot more likely to die from trades off stage, or even scenarios where you hit her and she can just attack you before you recover. Puffs will often wait outside of your LH bair-regrab range to see what you do and/or waste your invinc. Use Firestalls to refresh your invinc, and if you notice her getting too close to the stage, bair her in the face and regrab the ledge (covers airdodge really well). If you have big balls like me, you can DJ back super far from the stage and dair her, but you have to up-B back so if you miss you're pretty much dead. lol

- I also got a lot of mileage out of jumping out with shine stalls and DJ bairing when they came in to hit me (or just to get back and were too surprised to react fast enough). As long as they are at a high enough % that they will die from the bair and you are confident that you can get at least a trade, then you will be able to up-B back to the stage. The shine stall combined with Falco's great FH lets him make a fine tuned selection as to how high he will want to be in relation to the Puff. This makes it usable at virtually any height Falco can reach with his FH, DJ bair. Again though, I wouldn't use this at any percents other than KO %s because trades can lead to stupid gimps. Letting her back on the ledge isn't even that bad since lasers stop a lot of her LH attacks and she can't ledgedash or anything too fast to react to. I didn't focus on this enough when I was playing, so I can't really elaborate on what else to do besides laser and space bairs like usual. Maybe PP can shed some light on this.[/collapse]
I realized I have a Fox problem this weekend. I just cannot for the life of me move vs. this character without getting pounced on. Once I get knocked down, I just end up shielding, rolling, and spotdodging like a scrub, and it's pissing me off. I tried to WD OoS more, but I just get hit as Fox just steamrolls me. Holding shield just means I get grabbed constantly, which leads to more knockdowns, and more shielding... If anyone has any general spacing advice in this matchup or ways of dealing with Fox pressure, I'd appreciate it. I did notice that if I just FHed out of pressure I sometimes was able to reestablish my movement game, but I somehow suck at getting off of platforms with Falco's broken-*** dair. I also didn't feel like I had many opportunities to laser. Whenever I finally was able to establish movement and fire a laser, the Fox would just head right for the platforms. I think I got a grab every time I hit a Fox/Fox's shield with a laser, but I just couldn't get those lasers out often enough. I am pretty sure none of my matches were recorded, unfortunately, but I am going to watch a bunch of Falco vs. Fox vids, so if anyone can point out anything in particular I should focus on in regards to lasers or movement of me or the Fox would be very helpful. Thanks.

 

[dkuo]

Option select shortens with ledge cancels

do you mean you should start illusions where you can either do one or the other? its a good idea but that's a mixup setup, not option selecting...option select = you do one input and different actions come out automatically depending on the opponent's action

unless im missing something where you can actually option select between the two. in which case ill feel dumb lol

as for vs fox -

I tried to WD OoS more, but I just get hit as Fox just steamrolls me.

i prefer shine oos vs what im assuming is pressure ('steamrolling') wd oos vs pressure is pretty easy for fox to hit you out of but a good retreat if fox is a small distance away

I also didn't feel like I had many opportunities to laser. Whenever I finally was able to establish movement and fire a laser, the Fox would just head right for the platforms.

pp vaguely mentions this in his post about lasers
basically counteracting fox's attempts to approach you via platforms should also be considered. but i guess that doesn't really answer your question <_<

what i've been thinking about on platformed stages when the opponent is about to go to platforms is to hang around the junction between the top/side platform on the opposite side of the stage and do fh lasers there while falling and maneuvering between the platforms so that i land on the main stage again. you can do double high laser or a high-mid laser (to hit the other platform) depending on how you time your first laser/fastfall. might discourage them from using platforms without sacrificing the main stage, esp vs people who need platforms vs falco. sadly i didn't try this yesterday lol

hope this is helpful somehow

 

[Bones0]

Yeah, I know what I described isn't technically an option select, but I only know of like 3 option selects that are any use in Melee, and I feel like a mixup is something you commit to. Like if you are getting dthrown by Sheik, you can tech, or you can miss the tech intentionally as a mixup. You aren't reacting to anything the Sheik is doing though. When you Phantasm for two options, you look at where they are as your side-B is starting up, and then decide if you should shorten or ledge cancel. Idk, just feels like more of an option select since you're selecting an option based on what your opponent is doing. Sure the input is different (by one button press), but the situation itself resembles an option select since your Phantasm is just being manually option selected to deal with whatever your opponent does.


By steamrolling, I mean they would just run to me and seemingly pick the right option every time. If I held shield they would grab, if I jumped/WDed out they would kick me, and if I rolled or spotdodged they would just keep DDing and wait for me to hold shield or jump/WD. That's just what it FELT like. Obviously there's no way that is a valid tactic unless they can read my mind, but idk how else to describe what was happening since I can't go back and rewatch what happened.

 

[SK919]

Does anyone know the amount of stun a laser hit applies to an opponent by the frame?

 

[Strong Badam]

think it was 13 last time i checked (counts hitlag + hitstun because falco doesn't suffer hitlag)

 

[FrootLoop]

By steamrolling, I mean they would just run to me and seemingly pick the right option every time. If I held shield they would grab, if I jumped/WDed out they would kick me, and if I rolled or spotdodged they would just keep DDing and wait for me to hold shield or jump/WD. That's just what it FELT like. Obviously there's no way that is a valid tactic unless they can read my mind, but idk how else to describe what was happening since I can't go back and rewatch what happened.

It sounds like they were at that good spacing. They should still need a read to actually get u, but you can sometimes guess your way back to neutral.

 

[stabbedbyanipple]

Stab -

You're Falco is pretty ****ing cool, man. Just wanted to say that. Good ****.

Thanks man, although I don't think my falco is cool at all (maybe sometimes lol)

@van - dair her into the ground, and then dair tech chase her for like 30-40 more percent cuz her tech roll blows a fat one LOL. That's combo #1 baby. Also Dair to Dair at mid-high percents can be a reliable kill. Or Dair to Uair. Oh boy do I love me some dair to uair

When pressuring her shield, I'm honestly not sure how effective her Usmash out of shield is, but most puffs will either WD away or just roll, both of which you an catch very easily if you're looking out for them. Also 90 percent of puffs suck and are fiends for shield grabbing, so DON'T GIVE THEM THE OPPORTUNITY CUZ THEY WILL TAKE IT LOL

I like to trade with puff with my aerials usually at low percents, so I do non fast falled aerials and kind of move into her, but you run the risk of getting shield grabbed. If you do start getting shield grabbed then switch over to more air tight shield pressure to force her into her not-so-good OoS options. Conditioning her to stay in her shield and getting grabs/shinegrabs is ****

Force her high with lasers and get underneath with utilt because utilt beats her entire existence. Also she has a lot of trouble approaching you in the air facing forward because of how sick utilt/bair are, so keep in mind those moves help wall her out AND kill her. However to maximize how effective those moves are you have to force her into sketchy approach angles and situations through the use of your lasers

That's all I got off the top of my head

 

[Bones0]

Just to add something real quick to what Stab said, I like utilt, but I would be careful about just sitting there trying to wall with it because if you give her enough time to turn around and situate herself for a bair, it beats the **** out of utilt, even when they trade. I found myself using it mostly to punish the lag on the rest of her aerials, and I stuck with a quick AC bair or FH bair to deal with bairs if I'm really trapped and can't start lasering from my position.

 

[unknown522]

think it was 13 last time i checked (counts hitlag + hitstun because falco doesn't suffer hitlag)

it is most likely 13.

put it this way: there is enough stun to legitimately combo up-smash / d-tilt out of a laser. Iirc there is 5 frames of Landin lag from the laser. Those moves are 7 frames. So it is at least 12 frames of stun.

Edit: man doesn't that mean that laser -> d-air / n-air are like 1 frame short of comboing if it's 13 frames?

Also that means that laser combos into almost exactly half his moveset (but I already knew that). Like 8/17 moves

 

[Bones0]

I'm pretty sure autocancels (i.e. SHLs) are 4 frames of landing lag, not 5.



Falco can combo a fully staled dair into dtilt on Fox starting at 3%.

I know that's random, but I want to do more research on exactly what dair combos into, and this is my reminder.

 

[unknown522]

On some chars you can combo a drill into another one. Also drill -> n-air.

Edit: yeah auto cancel lag is 4 frames for most chars. But I heard that the laser is different. Dunno if that is true or not

 

[Bones0]

I almost suggested that we get some matches at Apex...

Inui registered for Melee singles... I think it's time for me to break out my trash talking skills. I used to practice all the time on Xbox Live for Halo/CoD, so you know I'm legit.

 

[unknown522]

Oh wtf, Alex strife said he would be banned too...

Guess not.

But yeah another time we'll get some games in

 

[Bones0]

Also, I think you should have just bit the bullet and went Falco vs. M2K's Marth on FD. If for no reason other than to try and figure out what you could get to work vs. him. Marth can definitely faceroll Falco on that stage, but Falco has some good stuff too. (see: PP last game of Zenith... DEAR GOD...)

 

[stabbedbyanipple]

help with da fox

Alright so, Fox help. Oh man

Aight so I'll first describe the decently common position where you're stuck near the ledge, under a platform, and fox is dash dancing around waiting to **** you up

Now obviously it depends on what you have been doing, and what he is trying to read, but for the purposes of mid-level play, I'd say he is very likely waiting for you to laser so he can get the jump on you. When you're right next to the ledge, you DON'T want to sit in shield. If he engages your shield close to the ledge then you're in a straight up awful position. He can easily cover your rolls, he is directly on top of you so if you get caught out of WD OoS then you're pushed off into an edgeguard, and it's fox's direct shield pressure, so shine out of shield won't work.

Okay, now let's talk about what you CAN do. Off the top of my head, you could fullhop to the top platform, and you can still react to how fox deals with that and comes at you because Falco's full hop is sick. You could move back however much you can and try to laser; with this you lose more stage so it's risky but you also can cut off his movements for a brief moment and try to find and opening in. If you think he's paying too much attention to when he can go in, you could catch him off guard by either shield dashing towards him or dash attacking into him.

As far as getting off platforms is concerned, it depends whether you're on the side ones or the top one. If you're on the top, you don't want to come down directly unless he is way off to the side or he has commit to something already so you can freely come back down. If he comes at you then avoid him if he is going for Uair, and beat all his other aerials with dair or shield them into Shine OoS. If you're on the side platform then it's safer to come down directly, either with an aerial or with a laser if you think he is looking to stay out of range of an aerial and punish the lag. If he comes at you then you can do all the same options as the top platform. There are a few other options in these situations but they all depend on positioning and reactions so I don't want to go into them lol

Now let's talk about when you've got stage control through lasers, and he has to find a way in through them to hit you. The most standard fox options in this situation is to full hop at you or, like you said, go to the platforms. Both these situations are very advantageous to you, but you must play the situation correctly.

If he is full hopping to get around your lasers then you can position yourself for him to come at you with a full hopped aerial and Utilt the **** outta him into an ultra **** destruco combo. The alternative if he is farther away is to see where he is going to land then shoot him as he comes down and engage on dat ***. If you're having troubled doing BOTH of these, then you can try the riskier method of just calling his jump and full hop Dairing him back down lol

Aight, now for when he uses platforms to avoid your lasers. With platforms he has quite a few more options and a good fox will make this very annoying, but one correct read can lead into a monster combo, so keep that in mind. First and foremost, if he is dumb and you are in the center, he will likely jump and nair at you from the platform. Utilt him for that LOL. If he is a bit trickier and you think he'll jump off the platform at you but you're not sure about the timing or spacing, then dash dance and bait him into jumping at you, then get out of the way and laser where he is gonna land and engage or dash attack him.

If he REFUSES to get off the side platform, then you're gonna have to either approach him, or go to the other side of the stage and shoot platform lasers at him until he gets down, and then go and fight him in neutral again, but I don't recommend that second one LOL. Okay, so lets talk about engaging him when he is on a side platform. A lot of the time you can beat this preemptively if they're too obvious about jumping to the platform, and just follow them and hit them with a shine/aerial. If you're underneath the platform, most foxes have the habit of coming down with Bair or running off the side with Bair, so just be aware of that, and if you can then shield it and shine OoS. They might just jump away if they're a huge ***** but you can just establish control again pretty easily at that point. Also if they're on the side platform, there is the super standard poke at them from underneath with Uair or jump at them with shine waveland (uair is safer usually but shine works well if they've shown they won't **** you up for jumping at them).

Okay so I could write some more but this post has dragged on wayyyyyy too long. This looks like a lot because I'm not precise with my words as a writer, but it's really not that much. Most of this is basically what options they can do, a brief description of the spacing they'll do them at normally, and what you can do about it. Hope this helps

Edit: Okay ****, real quick. If you're in neutral and they want to short hop nair at you (cuz that's ****ing fox 101), then you can easily dash dance and beat it with a bair into a tech chase, or wait and punish it with a dash attack into monster combo.

Edit 2: The feeling of getting steamrolled = you are putting yourself into bad positions. In bad positions, it's inherently much easier for them to cover your options, so you have to get a read on what they want to do to you, or they have to **** up. OR AVOID THOSE SITUATIONS IN THE FIRST PLACE

 

[unknown522]

Also, I think you should have just bit the bullet and went Falco vs. M2K's Marth on FD. If for no reason other than to try and figure out what you could get to work vs. him. Marth can definitely faceroll Falco on that stage, but Falco has some good stuff too. (see: PP last game of Zenith... DEAR GOD...)

maybe.

I think I can take his sheik with falcon (not his marth tbh, but he probably won't pick it anyway). I just need a usable controller



edit: I was bored at work

 

[Metal Reeper]

PP, M2K says the only reason you beat him is because of Falco. Can you please MM him with Fox?
<3

 

[Bones0]

M2K should do a Falco ditto vs. PP if he thinks Falco is broken.

 

[Landry]

instead of M2K playing Falco I think PP should just beat M2K in a full set of Marth dittos.

 

[Xyzz]

Yeah, everybody who thinks a character is too good should just go ahead and start learning that one. Easiest solution ever. Sure, your skills don't translate 1:1, so it will take time to reach something close to your mains level.
It's just that complaining about a character will get you nowhere. There almost certainly won't be character bans in melee (after we got rid of metaknight that is, obviously), so in the end it's nothing but Johns to make one feel better about oneself. If somebody thinks a character is too good, he should get off his lazy *** and prove it to the world.
(I do agree that Falco is either the best character or super close to it (that's part of the reason why I started playing him as a secondary. For now, maybe he'll get better than my Peach someday :D). On the other hand it isn't like he won the matchups for you, he is rather even with a mast majority of the relevant cast in my eyes. I think he only has a significant advantage over CF in the top8, everything else feels pretty even to me.)

 

[Metal Reeper]

instead of M2K playing Falco I think PP should just beat M2K in a full set of Marth dittos.

I completely agree I mean it's not like M2K is the best in the world at Marth dit--
OH WAIT!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoob08ssmvs
5:00

 

[Landry]

^^PP's got this. I think he could do it. His Marth beat Mango's Fox, yo.

 

[Warhawk]

Mango's Fox isn't really that great vs Marth, especially compared to his Falco.

 

[Metal Reeper]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Omi9MyweC_I