Dakpoooooo

IaB15 - Dakpo vs CT|TLOC|Denti - Losers Semifinals

-Many times, you go into what I call "Laser Auto Pilot" where you laser in a predictable pattern with predictable short hop jump distances each time. Although Denti seems unfamiliar with this and does not punish it often, he does punish it occasionally. If you were playing someone who had more knowledge of Falco, such as Sethlon, you would get punished very hard.

-@3:49 You shined his shield and then tried for a dair that got you killed. Recently I've tried to incorporate into my play to always shine grab after hitting a shine rather than any sort of pressure. This is really hard for my mind to do me being so aggresive, but for you I think it won't be too hard. To shine grab, shine and then jump grab quickly. In this case in the video, you had to do a turn around shine grab. Luckily for you, this is less laggy and easier in PM, so with practice, it shouldn't be too hard.

-I have learned that pretty much any tether recovery character is not worth edge guarding as Falco. I recommend staying a little distance from the edge and trying to read their off the ledge approach. Especially against Ivysaur, Falco just has too much of a risk trying to edge guard people. If you hang on the ledge so that he has to jump back on stage, so what? You get at most a weak fair, maybe a nair while giving up stage position and possibly getting gimped.


IaB15 - Dakpo vs Sethlon - Winners Bracket

-Sethlon shows so much more pressure than you. And you are Falco, so this is a no go. Sethlon is a person I love to play in PM because I probably have a better chance beating him than you. His style is pure melee. So in order to beat his style, you need to play a safe but pressure heavy melee style. Sethlon is on top of you the whole time. When I play him, it is me on top of him. You need to assert the pressure, which comes with an improvement in Falco tech skill.

-Some facts on how to play this style I am referring to:
	-Lasers: Use sparingly. Use these to test your opponent, see how he will react to laser pressure. Is he trying to go in regardless? Well then you can punish the aggressive style with your own aggression. You have laser pressure, which gives you the advantage in pressure. Is he sitting there taking the lasers in shield? Well now you can do whatever you want. Also, your lasers are always at like a middle height. Either laser low or laser high, depending on the character. This makes power shielding harder. Against Roy, and really most of the cast, lower lasers are the way to go. Also, low lasers allow for occasional laser resets which can be converted into forward smashes.
	-Pressure: http://pastebin.com/CFj3Ac4v is another pastebin I created for the Falco ditto because I wasn't finding enough help online. Look at the approaches section. Don't worry about the notes I say after the approaches because those are against Falco specific. These still are many viable approaches against anyone. There are more character specific ones, but this is a general list.
	-Shine grab: Always safe if you get the shine. Falco's grabs are not as good in PM, but they are still worth it. Up throw can lead to an aerial and maybe another shine. Forward/Backthrow are used for stage positioning. Down throw is janky. You can use it for a tech chase situation, but if the opponent knows about a trick to not have to tech, it won't always work.
	-Fading dair. If you every find a situation where you accidentally dair'd a shield too close, you can fade the dair back. This, more times than not, baits out a grab, which allows you to punish instead of being punished. This option is just if you made a mistake however.
	-Maximize your combos. On battlefield you should be getting 50% combos against Roy. Also remember, combos aren't necessarily about continuing a pillar or up tilt or whatever. If you can dair someone onto the platform, your jump is fast and high enough to react to techs/rolls. If you react quickly, you can dair again, sending them into the air, and then dair again to put them in the same position.
	-Double shines are completely overrated. If you can do them effectively, great I guess, use them sparingly. But usually this isn't the case. A good alternative is shine quick short hop shine jump wave land onto platform. The first shine is usually on shield. The second shine either hits a shield or hits them if they try to grab you or something. If they get hit, well you just wave landed onto the platform and continue a combo. If he just sits in shield, you can do a cross up dair behind the shield, and then shine grab. It can be reacted to sometimes though, so be careful.
	-Platform movement is crucial. I spend a ton of time making my platform movement crisp. Its how you can create openings, trick opponents, and extend combos better. In PM, this is easier than Melee.

-@4:00 ???????????????????????????

-@4:20 - 4:50 I can see your movement options. Honestly, you aren't tricking anybody with that movement. Sethlon is completely unfazed by such slow movement. Go on final destination and just work on moving quickly with a combination of wave dashes, dashes, and simply runs. Once you master this, you can incorporate it into your mind games. Also, wave dash into a short run allows for a lot of direction mobility, being a great way to trick people. You did mostly dash dances, which are not great with Falco. It is useful and should be used, but not as the main way to trick.

-@5:10 ???????????????????????????


Some non video related notes

-Learn to shorten if you haven't. There is short shorten and middle length shorten. The middle length one is only 1 frame and is kinda hard to do. It took me quite a while before I mastered it, and most Falcos aren't very good at it, but being able to do it just gives you another option of recovery. With Falco's horrid recovery, more options are crucial.

-Another recovery option is to go lower and firebird to the ledge from below. If you feel like going straight or going high might kill you, going low allows you to tech a hit from the stage. This is a bit of a melee kind of thing. I don't see brawl players do it too much, but in melee, any good player can tech to survive.

-Shining people off the top is so good. It's a technique that not a lot of people use enough. People associate it with just floaties, but it can be done on other people at 80% or 90 on lower ceiling stages. Basically, on Yoshi's Story, you can shine them and dair them onto the top platform. Then, you can shine them again...and then jump shine them again! Woo kill.

-Shield dropping is something that you might want to learn. It's good on every character and effective against every character. The best shield dropping controller is a white controller by far. An easy way to shield drop is to shield DI your shield all the way left or right. You can do this really quickly by starting a run in a direction, shielding with your control stick still in that run position, and the shield will be auto DI. Then, at a moderate speed, lower the control stick to about the 45 degree notch. Shield dropping isn't necessary, and 99.9% of people don't do it, but it's a big thing with the top Melee players in Texas right now.

-B-forward gimmick sucks.

-Practicing Falco in Melee for PM or vice versa is really hard for me. The reason for this is simply the 1 frame lag innately in PM. For me, this 1 frame makes me mess up wave dashing in PM constantly. Just keep in mind practicing Falco on Melee is not always the same as practicing him in PM.