Kanunuu
Smash Cadet
- Joined
- Jun 4, 2015
- Messages
- 56
I believe this is the most important part of foxes game, and if you can't master this, your punish game will only go so far. There are four main strategies in neutral;
Approaching, dash dancing, defense, and camping.
Dash dancing: Unfortunately fox has a very slow foxtrot cancel, which makes this a very unprecise and borderline unusable option. However this can be remedied by walking, which still gives you all of your movement options, (albeit slow). Walking can be used to space around your opponents approaches and punish. Fox has one of the fastest walks. Another option is to just straight up dash dance in place. This is very unpredictable and allows you to scout what your opponent is doing and formulate a plan in the meantime. I try to get the max distance between the dash dance, although it is small, it makes the time from the retreat and approach points larger, giving you a better timeframe to formulate your plan. This is also easier on the hands. Overall a very underrated tool in foxes moveset.
Conclusion: This is an underused part of foxes neutral and can be argued as a vital part of his game plan in order to scout the skill level and habits of your opponent. Although difficult and unprecise, it definitely has its uses.
Camping: This is generally only useful against slow characters as they have a difficult time punishing you. Also good against people who refuse to approach you. Not recommended against characters with good projectiles as laser has awful cool down times. Perfect pivot laser gives you a psuedo reduced cooldown.
Conclusion: Very situational, but can be effective in certain matchups or against certain playstyles.
Defense: This is useful when your opponent is reckless and punishable with their offense. It's also useful to scout out your opponents habits. (Ie dash attack roll back.) The most difficult offense to deal with is in situations in which you have a frame disadvantage out of sheild. Most disadvantages come out of well spaced aerials, which is why it's important to constantly be moving. My favorite option for defense is a full hop auto cancelled down air. This covers your opponents short hop and most ground moves. Sheild for attacks, and spot dodge for grabs. When you can't sheild grab or up smash oos, rolling is the better option. But always mix it up.
Approaching: This is where **** gets serious. Instead of giving in overview of concepts, I think a better option would be to just list out moves and their uses.
Ground moves:
Jab- Comes out on frame 2, has amazing mixups due to the trajectory it sends the opponent. If used very close, it will send the opponent in a way that down tilt will sweet spot and combo into up air at kill percents. If spaced a bit, you can mix up with a perfect pivot up tilt, which can also kill. This move deserves a thread of its own.
F tilt: This move itself isn't the best move, but it is safe when well spaced and can set up for a tech chase or up smash. The pivot tilt on the other hand is amazing due to the fact that it will usually cross the opponent up, and can lead into some crazy combos. There is already a thread on this move.
Down tilt- Not a very good approach option. Better as a defensive option. (Pp down tilt.) Has its uses against smaller opponents however.
Up tilt- Easily your best tilt. Great out of sheild, safe when spaced, and is one of your best combo starters. Very versatile, and due to its hitbox, pp uptilt becomes a very useful move in neutral. However, it should not be used at low percents, because you are put at a frame disadvantage. If you do hit someone at low percentages, turn around grab is a good mixup if they shield. This is because if they attack, you are going to be hit regardless. If you think they will have enough hitstun after your first up tilt, just uptilt again. If they land in front of you, you can shield and try and shield grab.
Shield: Approaching with sheild is actually incredibly useful. It provides subtle pressure and stage control. It stops a lot of counter attacks. Not as useful as other characters run in shield, because fox has a poor grab game, and out of sheild options. You will see many top level players use this in neutral, but I would only recommend it against reckless aggression. Could be classified as defense, but you are approaching and have stage control, so I'll leave it here.
Dash attack: This thread originally started as a thread dedicated towards this move, but I realized that I was talking more about neutral than this move. This move is pretty controversial amongst fox players. Some seem to believe it is his best move in neutral judging by the way they throw it out. I used to try and avoid this move as much as possible, unless it was guaranteed. But after realizing that fox has so many safe moves in neutral, I came to the conclusion that this move is actually pretty good and useful. Since dash dancing is not nearly as big of a deal as it was in melee, people have a difficult time spacing around this move if you use it at the right time. This leads to shield being the best move against this. Fox punishes people hard who are shield happy, and dash attack punishes impatient people hard. While it is a very good move, using it in moderation is key. It's a very rewarding move, but it's also very unsafe. It should be used for conditioning and punishing.
Grab: Mainly useful for punishing, but can be used as a safer alternative than raw aerials against shield happy players.
Up smash: I find myself using this move in neutral more often then one would think. At kill percents, a raw up smash is surprisingly good, but only use it when you know they won't shield it. Useful for punishes too.
Down smash: Never use this in neutral. The are way better options.
F smash: Has deceptively low endlag for such a mobile move. Would only recommend if you land a back air on someone's shield and expect a shieldgrab.
Aerials: Probably the most important part of foxes moveset, as so many of this will put you in a frame advantaged situation. Unfortunately fox has poor air mobility, so learning his ground game is important as well.
Neutral air- Before using this in neutral, it is important to condition your opponent not to shield grab. This can be done by dair instead of nair, or simply a tomahawk. (Empty hop into their shield.) A very rewarding move but can be punishable if poorly spaced or done early out of a short hop.
Forward air: Don't use this move in neutral. Ever, although it is a decent move and deserves a thread of its own.
Up air: Amazing move, great for catching jumps, and combo'ing. Not too useful in neutral, but is situational. C stick to tilts is almost necessary to get the auto cancel window out of a short hop.
Back air: Your best friend in neutral. Besides actually hitting someone, simply short hopping with it will stop aerial approaches, and assert your threat zone. This thing has an amazing auto cancel window, is always safe on shield and it kills. It is so important that you learn this move inside and out. It will always be safe on shield, and it deals massive shield damage. Knowing when to and how to use this move is vital. I like using rar bair, pp jump bair, and cross up bair. Immediate short hop bair is good in a pinch to catch jumps, and taller opponents.
It can lead to a grab and dash attack at low percents if you auto cancel. I can't stress it enough. Know this move.
Down air: Definitely your third best move in neutral after up tilt. It sets up for a myriad of combos all across the board. The auto cancelled version already has its own thread, and I highly suggest you check it out. The landing version of this can combo into dash attack, grab and up smash, but these all MUST be buffered. Learn to follow up 95 percent of the time when you land this move. It's useful for conditioning your opponent not to shield grab you. Don't start this move high out of a sh. This move largely outclasses weak nair into up smash.
Conclusion: Using aerials is a solid way to assert your threat space, particularly back air and down air, due to how safe they are. Use aerials when you have your opponent in shield, as almost all of them put you in some sort of frame advantage or positional advantage. They also lead into advantageous situations if they land and can lead to further damage.
CONCLUSION CONCLUSION: The neutral is a highly complex situation in which each player has roughly the same 50/50 advantage state, and they are each trying to gain an advantage. It is important to be unpredictable with your approaches, and this is done through spacing instead of mindless aggression, (even though fox has the frame data to pull it off.) There is no one right way to play it, and this guide is simply giving you an outline of the tools fox has in it, and a few situations in which they are useful. The most important thing is to be unpredictable, as a good opponent will punish you hard for being reckless.
Well that's it. Let me know what you think about this and if it was useful.
Approaching, dash dancing, defense, and camping.
Dash dancing: Unfortunately fox has a very slow foxtrot cancel, which makes this a very unprecise and borderline unusable option. However this can be remedied by walking, which still gives you all of your movement options, (albeit slow). Walking can be used to space around your opponents approaches and punish. Fox has one of the fastest walks. Another option is to just straight up dash dance in place. This is very unpredictable and allows you to scout what your opponent is doing and formulate a plan in the meantime. I try to get the max distance between the dash dance, although it is small, it makes the time from the retreat and approach points larger, giving you a better timeframe to formulate your plan. This is also easier on the hands. Overall a very underrated tool in foxes moveset.
Conclusion: This is an underused part of foxes neutral and can be argued as a vital part of his game plan in order to scout the skill level and habits of your opponent. Although difficult and unprecise, it definitely has its uses.
Camping: This is generally only useful against slow characters as they have a difficult time punishing you. Also good against people who refuse to approach you. Not recommended against characters with good projectiles as laser has awful cool down times. Perfect pivot laser gives you a psuedo reduced cooldown.
Conclusion: Very situational, but can be effective in certain matchups or against certain playstyles.
Defense: This is useful when your opponent is reckless and punishable with their offense. It's also useful to scout out your opponents habits. (Ie dash attack roll back.) The most difficult offense to deal with is in situations in which you have a frame disadvantage out of sheild. Most disadvantages come out of well spaced aerials, which is why it's important to constantly be moving. My favorite option for defense is a full hop auto cancelled down air. This covers your opponents short hop and most ground moves. Sheild for attacks, and spot dodge for grabs. When you can't sheild grab or up smash oos, rolling is the better option. But always mix it up.
Approaching: This is where **** gets serious. Instead of giving in overview of concepts, I think a better option would be to just list out moves and their uses.
Ground moves:
Jab- Comes out on frame 2, has amazing mixups due to the trajectory it sends the opponent. If used very close, it will send the opponent in a way that down tilt will sweet spot and combo into up air at kill percents. If spaced a bit, you can mix up with a perfect pivot up tilt, which can also kill. This move deserves a thread of its own.
F tilt: This move itself isn't the best move, but it is safe when well spaced and can set up for a tech chase or up smash. The pivot tilt on the other hand is amazing due to the fact that it will usually cross the opponent up, and can lead into some crazy combos. There is already a thread on this move.
Down tilt- Not a very good approach option. Better as a defensive option. (Pp down tilt.) Has its uses against smaller opponents however.
Up tilt- Easily your best tilt. Great out of sheild, safe when spaced, and is one of your best combo starters. Very versatile, and due to its hitbox, pp uptilt becomes a very useful move in neutral. However, it should not be used at low percents, because you are put at a frame disadvantage. If you do hit someone at low percentages, turn around grab is a good mixup if they shield. This is because if they attack, you are going to be hit regardless. If you think they will have enough hitstun after your first up tilt, just uptilt again. If they land in front of you, you can shield and try and shield grab.
Shield: Approaching with sheild is actually incredibly useful. It provides subtle pressure and stage control. It stops a lot of counter attacks. Not as useful as other characters run in shield, because fox has a poor grab game, and out of sheild options. You will see many top level players use this in neutral, but I would only recommend it against reckless aggression. Could be classified as defense, but you are approaching and have stage control, so I'll leave it here.
Dash attack: This thread originally started as a thread dedicated towards this move, but I realized that I was talking more about neutral than this move. This move is pretty controversial amongst fox players. Some seem to believe it is his best move in neutral judging by the way they throw it out. I used to try and avoid this move as much as possible, unless it was guaranteed. But after realizing that fox has so many safe moves in neutral, I came to the conclusion that this move is actually pretty good and useful. Since dash dancing is not nearly as big of a deal as it was in melee, people have a difficult time spacing around this move if you use it at the right time. This leads to shield being the best move against this. Fox punishes people hard who are shield happy, and dash attack punishes impatient people hard. While it is a very good move, using it in moderation is key. It's a very rewarding move, but it's also very unsafe. It should be used for conditioning and punishing.
Grab: Mainly useful for punishing, but can be used as a safer alternative than raw aerials against shield happy players.
Up smash: I find myself using this move in neutral more often then one would think. At kill percents, a raw up smash is surprisingly good, but only use it when you know they won't shield it. Useful for punishes too.
Down smash: Never use this in neutral. The are way better options.
F smash: Has deceptively low endlag for such a mobile move. Would only recommend if you land a back air on someone's shield and expect a shieldgrab.
Aerials: Probably the most important part of foxes moveset, as so many of this will put you in a frame advantaged situation. Unfortunately fox has poor air mobility, so learning his ground game is important as well.
Neutral air- Before using this in neutral, it is important to condition your opponent not to shield grab. This can be done by dair instead of nair, or simply a tomahawk. (Empty hop into their shield.) A very rewarding move but can be punishable if poorly spaced or done early out of a short hop.
Forward air: Don't use this move in neutral. Ever, although it is a decent move and deserves a thread of its own.
Up air: Amazing move, great for catching jumps, and combo'ing. Not too useful in neutral, but is situational. C stick to tilts is almost necessary to get the auto cancel window out of a short hop.
Back air: Your best friend in neutral. Besides actually hitting someone, simply short hopping with it will stop aerial approaches, and assert your threat zone. This thing has an amazing auto cancel window, is always safe on shield and it kills. It is so important that you learn this move inside and out. It will always be safe on shield, and it deals massive shield damage. Knowing when to and how to use this move is vital. I like using rar bair, pp jump bair, and cross up bair. Immediate short hop bair is good in a pinch to catch jumps, and taller opponents.
It can lead to a grab and dash attack at low percents if you auto cancel. I can't stress it enough. Know this move.
Down air: Definitely your third best move in neutral after up tilt. It sets up for a myriad of combos all across the board. The auto cancelled version already has its own thread, and I highly suggest you check it out. The landing version of this can combo into dash attack, grab and up smash, but these all MUST be buffered. Learn to follow up 95 percent of the time when you land this move. It's useful for conditioning your opponent not to shield grab you. Don't start this move high out of a sh. This move largely outclasses weak nair into up smash.
Conclusion: Using aerials is a solid way to assert your threat space, particularly back air and down air, due to how safe they are. Use aerials when you have your opponent in shield, as almost all of them put you in some sort of frame advantage or positional advantage. They also lead into advantageous situations if they land and can lead to further damage.
CONCLUSION CONCLUSION: The neutral is a highly complex situation in which each player has roughly the same 50/50 advantage state, and they are each trying to gain an advantage. It is important to be unpredictable with your approaches, and this is done through spacing instead of mindless aggression, (even though fox has the frame data to pull it off.) There is no one right way to play it, and this guide is simply giving you an outline of the tools fox has in it, and a few situations in which they are useful. The most important thing is to be unpredictable, as a good opponent will punish you hard for being reckless.
Well that's it. Let me know what you think about this and if it was useful.
Last edited:
