Falco help

Firstly, I highly recommend you get 20xx hack pack because it is godsend for any low to intermediate player. The random DI/tech from the computer is extremely useful and things like hitboxs can be analyzed for further understanding of the game.

Basics

Laser- learn everything about this because without knowing how to efficiently laser all the time in every situation, Falco will be at a very big disadvantage. This means practice lasering in almost a frame perfect speed to get maximum amount, high laser, mid laser, low laser, double laser off the ledge (low), etc. Everything laser. For normal lasering, you mostly want to do low lasers unless the opponent is like Captain Falcon where mid to high lasers are better usually.

Pillar- This doesn't neccessarily mean just going to FD and practicing shine dair shine dair shine dair. I would practice pillaring on Fox. Learn to pillar shine and dair, but also be aware of times when instead of trying to shine again or dair again, you can uptilt or upair or nair to continue the combo. You should practice this initially on FD first, and then once your platform movement starts becoming pretty decent (which is actually pretty hard tbh), start practicing it on battlefield or yoshi.

Hitbox- Learn Falco's range. Something that helps him be on par with Fox is the fact that he has more range than him. Good spaced backairs are often very safe. Even learning how to spaced forward smash is good because often people can't punish one on shield.

Tricks/Tips

Don't always straight out nair approach or dair approach. Only do this when you have a good read on them, like they are trying to approach and aren't going to shield or something. Instead, use lasers to bait out an air dodge or a shield or something. Then, use nair/dair to either cross them up as to not get shield grabbed or fade away to do the same affect (apparently called the Mang0).

Uptilt is amazing against Fox, Falco, Falcon, Sheik. Often if you can time it right, uptilt will beat pretty much any aerial approach from all of these characters.

Shine pressure isn't that important. Honestly, it is pretty bad. Every time you see Westballz do it, it looks flashy and stuff but accomplishes almost nothing. Instead, learn early on to just shine grab whenever you know your shine is going to hit a shield. You do this buy pressing jump and grab quickly out of shine. I did not learn how to do this early on and I have the bad habit of just doing needless shine pressure and multi shines and what not. I know it sucks, but my hands won't let me just simply shine grab. Learn to not get into that habit.

Learn to shorten (3 types: short, medium, medium long. Short is easiest, other 2 are 1 frame), get crispy firebird angles...say...on the side of FD, and learn to tech well. One of Falco's biggest flaws is his recovery, so learning to eliminate some of this flaw is crucial.

Falco's dash dance looks awful, and most people believe it is awful. It isn't. It is seriously almost as good as Marth's, it just doesn't look like it. Learn to use it to your advantage because people will often misjudge how effective this dash dance is.

Laser grab and laser downtilt when they are shielding are two pretty much mixup options. One gets them if they continue to shield, the other gets them if they try to do a reversal out of shield. I use this pretty often. You just need to get a good read on what they are doing.

Honestly, platform movement is so important with Falco because of the shine combos he can do with good movement. It is really hard, but I would say to try and improve this movement every time you practice until you get it good. The punish game with Falco should really be maximized. This is what separates the decent Falcos with the great Falcos. My punish game is alright, but not quite where I want it to be, although I do pride myself in having probably the best Falco punish game in Texas because I work on it every time I practice.

When dair spiking say... a Fox when they are recovering, against people who can tech, don't dair in the normal timing unless you think they will sweet spot. Waiting that 1 frame for the Fox to barely go above the ledge will make teching very hard as they will have to smash DI in order to do so. Otherwise, it is actually a walk in the park to tech, you have like 10 frames to press L/R. (By the way to tech, press L/R a couple frames BEFORE you are about to get hit. That's how it works. Sometimes you can't know if you will get hit, so when I'm off the ledge, I just press tech in a moment where I might get hit. There's no harm in it, and if I do get the tech, I look amazing.

If you laser approach and you realize you are about to get punished, just press a jab. People aren't frame perfect so sometimes you can get out of getting punished by just jabbing which is very quick.

What Not To Do

Don't constantly forward smash. This works well with scrubs, but not against actually good people. However, this doesn't mean not to use it at all. It is a very good move and can be used to tech chase, anti air read, edge guard, etc.

Learn to not just shine people off the ground. When a shine gets stale (3 uses from last 10 moves or something like that), people just float into the air, and the combo is done. Learn to uptilt when it is possible. Uptilt > Shine if you can do it.

Don't double laser too much. The only way Mang0 always gets away with it is he pretty much does a frame perfect low double laser. However, I personally still cannot do that, and as a result, I get punished. Do it when they are far or look to try to bait instead of going to the ledge, but don't spam it like I see almost every Falco do (even some good ones in Texas).




I would do more but I gotta get back to studying. Happy training!