FAQ: Falco

FAQ: Falco

Thus far I’ve all but refused to make matchup guides in short because I think it’s a fool’s errand and resent the format. Because the web of knowledge contained in a MU is complex and often situational, any summary guide is doomed from the start to be insufficient and misleading. Answers without the right context/questions are just exploitable limits. That being said, there are common scenarios that get asked a lot about and it’d be totally appropriate and helpful to expand on them in order to point the questions in a more productive direction.


1) Dealing with lasers

In order to mitigate laser effectiveness you need to identify what their goal is and how he’s setting them up. A FH double laser =/= close range SH laser =/= full screen SH laser etc.
Falco’s lasers are used primarily to
a) momentarily interrupt your movement so that falco can safely assume a better position
b) build damage slowly/incentivize you to approach
c) lock you in place/hit confirm into an approach of his own
Highest SHL http://puu.sh/wife4/cba63758f7.jpg
Lasers are out on frame 13, every laser is at least a 26f commitment including jumpsquat and landing lag.

Some key anti-laser points:
• if you aren’t moving as soon as possible out of hit/shieldstun then you’re making lasers better than they really are. Practice.
• Falco can’t reliably laser the first 20f or so of puff’s crouch. This also makes powershields much easier IF you let go of crouch just before shielding (by raising the center of the shield).
• A high SH laser will hit a jumping puff but not a standing/running/crouching one. A lower laser will hit a standing/running puff but not a jumping one.
• As puff, it’s easier to deal with lasers from the ground by waiting to jump until you have enough frame advantage to get over the laser before it comes out, that way you don’t have to guess if it’s high or low.
• Much like how peach can float above SH lasers to avoid them, Puff can use the side platforms. This is the primary anti-lasers strat and tends to make neutral extremely simple/tedious.
• Lasers do very little damage. It’s much better to take laser damage or get shined than to get uptilted/baired/etc.
• Because their frame data on aerials/laser is similar, generally, if both characters jumped at close range at about the same time then whichever character jumped first wins the exchange.


2) Getting comboed
Usually wank DI away or SDI away is best, but not always. The goal is to make it as hard as possible for him to follow up and that can vary depending on what move he uses. Very labbable, though.


3) Being shieldpressured
means that you’ve already soft-lost the situation. Usually hitting you or hitting your shield is a win for falco. However, there are some outs. Because falco’s shine is relatively small you can use shield DI to make it whiff. A whiffed shine is a free grab for puff. You can also use a lightshield to the same effect, though it will of course has a visual tell. A high aerial on shield (or a rising one) is a rest OoS. You can also often trade aerials with upsmash, WD out of the way, or roll away, but all of these are relatively high risk.
Keep in mind that getting hit by shine is preferable to getting hit with anything else that might happen in the pressure. Likewise, falco dairing Puff is his best case scenario because it easily combos into more dairs/massive damage


4) Getting downthrown
GTO: 50/50 DI up and in (loses to uptilt/upsmash) OR tech behind (loses to preemptive SH dair)
(you can can DI up and in and if you miss tech then that’s what you get)
If falco is late to do his fsmashes then you can exploit by neutral tech shield but that’s a hefty risk.


5) Getting upthrown
Wank DI the lasers up
depending on % falco may still be able to follow up but this makes it the most difficult.


6) Punish game on falco
It’s almost always exactly like vs fox (+1%)
refer to https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WOSYc6yx8cSp7oFrfTYpwZcBZEoGTy1dO5bpaY-O4AY/pubhtml#
You can easily lab out the best followups vs different DI in the most common situations. The biggest distinction is pre/post-36% (bair knockdown)
. The better your punish game the more impact winning neutral has.


7) Edgeguarding Falco
The biggest deal here is Falco’s double jump. Because Falco goes so high so quickly it is not usually possible to cover a double jump side/upB with other options on reaction. For this reason edgeguarding falco is usually a 50/50 in which you either cover the ledge with a fair/dair right away or you jump above the ledge empty and then react should he have done something tricky like a shinestall or an early double jump. That being said, there are some situations (including from a backthrow) that can be labbed to cover everything (except shorten lol) on reaction. Keep in mind that falco’s sideB is too fast (5f faster than fox) to reliably bair on reaction but other aerials are possible.


8) Approaching Falco/Hbox Strats
Hbox’s strat for approaching falco is almost based largely around descending with frame advantage on top of a him to draw out a a) shield b) dash away (and lose stage) or c) uptilt. All of these lose to well-spaced bairs. After poking at about head-height, Hbox will drift away outside of counter-attack range. He then whiff punishes any counter-attacks and re-initiates pressure with a rising FH bair. To avoid being predictable with his timing he will occasionally delay the FH or WD away first. This isn’t foolproof, but it is foundational.


9) Falco AC bair/uptilt/laser/dair
bair is active 4-19 (after 5f jump squat), ACs at 24
uptilt is active 5-11, IASA 23
dair is active 5-24 (after 5f jump squat)
earliest laser/ff is active on 13 (after 5f jump squat), ACs at 19

Falco's bair and uptilt are used similarly (to wall out an approaching puff). Uptilt is easier to punish because it can't be faded back but it has a higher reward (can combo to a kill). Both of these are beaten most reliably by spacing just outside and then whiff punishing with a bair. That is, if you are losing to AC bairs and uptilt that means that you need to space your bairs better.

Falcos will mix up bair/uptilt with retreating lasers or advancing dairs specifically to punish you for zoning to punish bairs. The primary answer to dair/laser is to give up the opportunity to punish a potential bair/uptilt and back a little further away.


10 )Falco on ledge with inv
I don’t like this situation lol. His options are very good and cover each other well. I think that the best practice in lieu of a read is to jump outside of ledgedash nair range and then try to punish whatever he does /after/ his ledge option on reaction. But this gets more flexible if his inv runs out.