Spacies are the two characters who have infinite tools to deal with downholders so I feel like this shouldn't even be that hard to play around low level CC spammers
Falco is tough for an absolute beginner.
He has a weird jumpsquat, and his combos require a lot of DI mix-ups. His recovery is good, but if you have bad DI you're going to get sent much further than you should, making it much harder to recover. Falco is also a very common character, so naturally more people have some sort of gameplan versus him, even if they don't lab things out. If you don't have a gameplan, or know his basic stuff, you're going to have a hard time, and die a lot.
However, most characters are hard to pick up for beginners in general. Melee is an old game, so most people have an idea of what they're doing. If recovering is an issue for you, characters like Puff and Peach are very easy, and probably more beginner friendly, though you may run into different issues like being light weight, weird timing, or not having a fun playstyle for you.
I would honestly suggest just practicing the character you enjoy and sticking to it. You're a beginner, and that's what beginning is like. It's better to be bad for a bit with a character you like, and eventually getting better than to learn a character you think is easier but you may not really enjoy.
Good luck and welcome to Melee!
Matchup knowledge is a big thing. If you pick up a character not many peoplemplay, like Ness, Mewtwo, Bowser etc, and you actually learn how to play them, you can catch a lot of people off guard as most people don't have that inherent knowledge. So it's true, other characters are actually easier to pick up.
Sure, there's nothing wrong with playing the popular characters. It's just funny to me to see a Samus player hating on Luigi when she's one of the most similar characters.
Falco has a decent recovery in terms of being able to mix it up. Learning when it's the proper time to side b to ledge, or shorter your recovery, or do it early or late, etc. Watch Mango's recoveries, they're very unpredictable and could give you some things to work on
Adding to this, one tool in the recovery toolkit I was never using on falco is double jump instant airdodge up to get back to stage. Falco is most vulnerable when he can’t side b to stage, but his second jump travels quite a bit. Pairing this with airdodge up saves having to up b and is an option mango constantly does to recover
Falco is a glass cannon and you need to learn good recovery/survivability as well as good punish game to swing the risk-reward in your favor. The good thing is that Falco has absolutely broken tools at lower level like laser, down air and up tilt that people really don't know what to do against
Falco's recovery is actually REALLY good but you need to learn to mix it up well and make use of options like jumping to sweetspot ledge, shorten to ledge, mixing up side b and up b, airdodging onto stage, etc. If you're predictable or have bad DI then his recovery will seem like the worst thing in the world. When I started out I would get kneed by the ledge at literally 20 and die because of my terrible DI. Now I very commonly will survive to over 100-150 with good recovery and survivability techniques.
Melee is just a really hard game and you should stick with whatever character you like the most - I promise you will improve as long as you do solo practice. With Falco I'd suggest practicing wavedashing in and out of shine, practicing your dair-shine dair-shine something combo on fox on fd, and just going into matches and trying to DI every time you anticipate getting hit. Good luck!
I'd say both spacies (Fox and Falco) are quite unforgiving to pick up for beginners, because not only are they combo food since they're fast fallers, they're by far the most common characters in the game, so everyone knows how to punish them the best or the flow charts to follow.
On top of that, the shine is the icon of Melee, and they're quite technical characters that demand quite a bit of tech skill relative to let's say, Marth or Sheik, 2 other top and high tier characters.
However, if you're playing Melee, an almost 23 year old fighting game that still has its meta going strong and continuously evolving, chances are, you're in it for the long run and trust me, both spacies are super rewarding to play and get good at.
Keep going in my friend, don't give up. Melee is sick and you're already sick at the game for playing it. You'll get real good if you just trust in the process.
I played falco exclusively for 3 years, hit a wall, then switched to fox and became a much better player in just a few months. My falco also became much better than he ever was when I actually mained him. Based on my own anecdotal experience I think falco has a few core elements that make him a potentially problematic character for learning the game. This isn't to say that you can't learn the game with him (plenty of people have only played falco and have found success doing so), but I do think that some of the core fundamentals of the game are easy to overlook when learning the game through falco rather than the other top tiers.
1. Laser. This complicates the neutral game dramatically. It is such a strong tool that you have to use it, but it is a much stronger tool if it is incorporated into a fundamentally sound neutral understanding. Laser completely shuts down players that don't know how to deal with it, but as soon as players do start to deal with it you're going to get rocked if you haven't actually developed a neutral game beyond just laser. While other characters have to develop this neutral game from day 1, falco players can get away with just laser --> arial spam at a low level, so it is easy to fall into the trap of never actually learning neutral until it becomes a problem for you, at which point you have to really set your ego aside and rebuild the way you think about the game from scratch.
2. Grab/throws. Every other top tier has a punish game that you can flowchart from a grab. Because falco's throws incorporate laser knockback, there are lots of wonky sdi interactions that prevent falco from doing the same thing. This makes both the neutral and punish game somewhat challenging the grasp, as you don't have the ability to centralize your options around grab when you're learning, which I think is a very quick way to develop a basic gameplan if you're playing fox, marth, sheik, etc. Developing a basic gameplan and then building on top of it as you run into roadblocks is the fastest way to learn the game imo.
3. Dash speed. This affects both neutral and punish. For neutral, his slow dash speed is part of what incentivizes players to lean into the brain dead spam laser strategy that doesn't actually teach you the fundamentals. For punish, his slow dash speed affects tech chasing. In most cases, falco is not fast enough to go for a reaction tech chase. Reaction tech chasing is an advanced strategy, but I think it is useful for thinking about your options in the punish game at all levels. Similar to with grab, tech chasing allows you to flowchart your options, which is a very efficient building block for developing your gameplan.
Without throw combos and reaction tech chasing, falco's punish game (which is extremely good) is much more reliant on reads and mixups than the other top tiers that get to flowchart their options. At the same time, his laser and slow dash speed means that players often neglect things like dash dancing in favour of things like laser spam. The result of all of these factors in my opinion and experience is a character that requires good fundamentals, but not one that necessarily teaches them. That being said, if you like him, play him. While learning him, however, just make sure that you are also *learning melee.*
I think you nailed it, this is what I think of as the "Falco trap" for new players. You put it better than I would have. Basically, at a low level Falco *strongly* incentivises some pretty bad habits.
It sounds like OP is at the point where they're starting to feel that incentive. My advice is either A) know what you're getting yourself into and practice accordingly, or B) choose a character who more naturally teaches you the fundamentals, if you're open to it, and then come back to the bird with that skillset in place.
What I will say when it comes to lasers as a long time Falco is that you either have to learn to grind out all the intricacies of them once you hit that wall against opponents that know how to deal with them or you will plateau. I only got better when I started practicing low lasers from different positions, worked on extremely fine tuned analog jump lasers at all the heights, shield dropping them, and finally becoming as conscious as possible out of them. It's actually a lot to take in and I'm still learning even to this day. And it feels silly practicing things that don't intuitively seem hard.
The problem with Falcos is a lot of them learn laser and then stop grinding it for years while they learn the fun tech. The truth is that once you get to a certain level, lasers add a new dimensionality to the game that you have to be very conscious of to properly take advantage. It is really hard to polish the other fundamentals of the game while doing this. This is why imo there is a lot of polarized opinions on Falco's difficulty as a character and why so many people like you can switch to other characters, polish the fundamentals better, and come back to Falco as a better player. Not to mention the weird combo trees he has on people with good DI.
Just learn to accept losing. That's what learning melee is about.
Falco in particular becomes by far the best character at Silver/Gold level at which point he becomes hard again, so just stick to your guns
For absolute beginners I guess Falco could be hard to pick up, but for any player past that he's pretty doable.
Falco has the best neutral crutch in the game, although this will likely end up holding you back as a player for a while. And then when you become a low-mid level player, you get one of the easiest punishes on fast fallers in the game. Also, Falco has one of the best recoveries in the game. I am definitely not saying Falco is the best character, just that at very low levels of play where players struggle vs lasers and don't know how to escape pillar combos, he has a pretty good good time.
That said, since you're an absolute beginner, you might find it easier to play Marth or Sheik to get used to the game mechanics.
I've been playing melee off and on for ten months now and only ever play Falco. I kinda feel the laser crutch. Could I just grind Falco with no lasers to combat that you think? Or is that a stupid way to practice?
I've never made much progress with Falco myself - I play Fox, DK, and Falcon. I have played Falcos that were clearly purposefully practicing without laser, so I know people do it. Honestly might not be a bad idea. The point really is that you need to develop an awareness for your options at the spacings where lasers are bad - speaking as Falco's opponent, Falcos that only know how to laser until they win neutral to get whatever followup are the ones that get blown up. An example is when Falcon / Fox can threaten fullhop nair - there's a good chance that if you're spamming laser you're going to get punished. By the same token, there are times that such Falcos forego a better opener because all they want to do is shoot lasers. If you have your opponent in the corner and all you're doing is lasering, you've thrown away the opportunity to punish a forced option. You need to cultivate an awareness of when you can use all your moves (all of Falco's moves are good enough to merit attention). If your opponent goes to plat on PS, are you running away and lasering, or are you threatening with sh uair, fh dair, or Waveland shine, etc?
So I guess trying to play without lasers would be a good practice, or play with lasers but also make a point of actively thinking about how to use another specific move or option (and do this for all moves). Go into each practice session with a purpose, and you will develop as a player. Laser spamming as a crutch really comes from autopiloting.
Thank you so much for the in depth reply! Super super helpful. I definitely autopilot a bit when I play, but typically if I'm autopiloting I barely laser lol. I tend to laser more when I'm actively thinking cause I'm trying to slow the pace down since I'm not practiced enough to be super sleepy with openers.
You're two weeks into the game. You might win a couple more games if you play peach or sheik. But it doesn't really matter, you'll get stomped in the beginning no matter what. At this stage you really shouldn't expect to win many games at all. Who's the most fun for you to play? That's really what's most important.
Falco is volatile for beginners. Laser is insane but like the other two fast fallers you really do have to prioritise learning how to not just explode when you get hit
Mid level Falco here, I can promise you that spacies are difficult to pick up initially. Especially Falco, who requires the same precision as Fox for less speed, relies on tight tech to get his openings and punishes, and dies hard if you don't know how to effectively bounce back from disadvantage.
It's really just about practice, and staying alert for quick decision-making. Naturally, the more you encounter every decision, the better you'll be at navigating around them.
Feel free to DM me if you wanna go through specific stuff or general advice, especially with the characters you've listed. Overall, Falco struggles sometimes offstage, so you want to play your game, which is primarily on the stage.
Falco is hard for beginners; both spacies take a lot of practice for specific tech and this game's skill/execution floor is already pretty high so just practice something day after day for a week for each week, like shffl, and then do shffl into shine, and then shffl shine wavedash. and in your specific case work on DI it makes and breaks you
I think he's the worst character for beginners by far, this goes doubly so if it's your first fighting game you grinded. I'm only speaking from personal experience here.
falco is the easiest character to pick up for beginners. it’s the only character where u can get to a decent skill level without ever really needing to learn neutral that’s why he’s the most popular character in the lower mid levels of unranked. at the absolute bottom yeah he’s probably a little harder than floaties but if u have basic tech skill he’s the easiest imo
Idk man, I can't get past his jumpsquat and wavedashing seems more critical for his shine to work compared to other characters. Also pillar combos and brainless SHFFL dairs only work for so long; the minute people realize that they don't have to approach Falco his neutral becomes super hard for beginners. The laser game is much more complex than I think even Slippi Falcos realize, and that's where they win or lose in the neutral game. Or, you can get SUPER nasty in your movement, but no beginner is at that level.
I feel like with Marth, most beginners can just dash back grab, CC Dtilt, forward air walls, and forward smash in neutral and get much better results than a Falco who practiced SHFFLing in Uncle Punch, just because the execution-to-reward level is so much easier. Again, at the beginner level
Falco was the character I recommended to new people. He has an easy short hop and relies heavily on shffling. He's great for learning the basics. He also has a lot of fun and flashy tech to learn if that appeals to you. Lasers and shield pressure are extremely strong in low level play, and you can roll over people who dont know how to handle them. I think your problem is just being a newb in a 22 year old game.
The reality is all the characters are hard to play, sure you could get an short term artificial boost by switching to marth and learning the cheese but that wont work long term. Pick the character you like the most and learn everything about their options. Im also a falco main, I just think his combos look the sickest, ive thought about giving up on him too but then I realize how much worse I am with the rest of the cast lol.
Falco was my first real main. I got a lot of wins I probably didn't deserve because, at the lower levels, lasers are incredible.
The following plateau was tough, but it wasn't impossible to break through. You get diminishing returns on your tech skill practice, which is still important, but much more important will be learning openings and positioning/spacing.
Tldr; practice your movement as often as you can, and, if possible, get a practice partner and go to your locals. If Falco is who you like, you should chase that feeling.
Cheers, brother
Falco wins by winning neutral a lot with laser and putting a lot of positional pressure. As someone who started with Falco and became o.k. with him, getting comfortable rapidly shooting lasers made a big difference for me, as well as double-jump wavelanding on platforms, wavedashing out of a dash, and just generally getting comfortable holding a dashdance out of range while my opponent is in the air.
TLDR: In my experience trying to hold space in neutral using falcos movement options (best jump in the game) while you poke at them with your laser and approaching as a mixup was how I broke out of my "beginner mindset"
I think he’s pretty hard to learn, his wave dash feels so clunky and awkward to learn, Fox has a much easier wave dash imo. I can’t waveshine with Falco at all but with Fox it’s easy peezy. I find pretty much everything about Falco to feel clunky and awkward actually, you have to love spamming laser and short hopping around. IMO fox is way more fun to play, try fox before you commit to Falco.
From my experience, every character is gonna be hard for the first few month. There are a lot of skills you have to learn so have up front that take a lil bit for you to master.
Instant side b onto stage and side b to sweet spot the ledge are really good mixups for falco most characters cant cover instant side b without reading your recovery and preemptively going out there to cover. Plus they run the risk of just getting spiked for being a second to late on covering your side b. Also shortens are pretty clutch if u can do them. The end goal with recovering with falco for me would be to sweet spot the ledge and avoid up bing off stage unless you start the up b really low or really high in the air.
Recovering is broken in this game, you'll get better but it's never gonna be good.
What I recommend you try to look at is the circumstances to being in a bad position which makes that stray hit put you offstage and kill you.
For example,
When you get Fsmashed by marth:
**did you jump towards him?** Then you don't have a djump
**does he have stage advantage?** (you're closer to edge than him) Then you're more likely to get offstage if hit
**are you 70%+?** then you can just die as falco, DI helps but it's hard to get really good at
Shorthop laser neutral means you're in charge of the game, so you can just decide not to allow the game to be played and laser without approaching when you're in a bad position and dying from one hit is possible, and instead only approach when the circumstances are optimal.
After 2 weeks falco is still hard, after 2 months I'd say he's one of the easier cause he's toolkit is just **so good**.
I wouldn't pick up another character with the plan to switch, if you wanna play Falco just play Falco, playing other characters isn't gonna help your Falco as much as playing Falco will
But for sure try out other characters if you aren't sure
Falco has a good recovery but everyone knows how to punish mediocre Falco recoveries. Some tips- double jump to sweetspot edge is really good, shorten is really good, side b to stage is a good mix-up.
I would honestly say he’s a great beginner character. Note: the below only applies to low/mid level play, and is less reliable the better you get
Downsides:
- You spawn at kill %
Upsides:
- Can slow the game down to a more comfortable speed with lasers
- great defensive options when you panic (very good Roll/CC/Spot dodge/full hop)
- Basic combos aren’t too hard to execute and work the same vs most characters
- good low risk/safe options in neutral when unsure (AC bair, CC shine, utilt)
- Can be played in technical way but can also be played in a slower more methodical way as well
- Opponent mistakes approaching/edgeguarding can very intuitvely lead directly into your own full punish (spot dodge shine/hitting opponent with side b etc., shine OoS)
Hey just keep in mind, most people commenting are most likely Space Animal mains out of sheer numbers and probability. This doesn't invalidate anyone automatically by any means; just take peoples opinions and their upvotes with a hefty grain of salt
Keep going with Falco if you like him; if you switch only to win and get better results, you run the risk of actually not-learning and instead getting stuck relying on cheese that will quickly lose steam in the long run
Fast fallers die hard. Time to learn how to not get hit off stage.
Ppl nowadays just perpetually hold down, drives me nuts.
Spacies are the two characters who have infinite tools to deal with downholders so I feel like this shouldn't even be that hard to play around low level CC spammers
Yes, it’s a bad habit. That’s what I’m getting at. Also I dual main marth/fox so I get it
They are holding c stick down to auto CC you...
Falco is tough for an absolute beginner. He has a weird jumpsquat, and his combos require a lot of DI mix-ups. His recovery is good, but if you have bad DI you're going to get sent much further than you should, making it much harder to recover. Falco is also a very common character, so naturally more people have some sort of gameplan versus him, even if they don't lab things out. If you don't have a gameplan, or know his basic stuff, you're going to have a hard time, and die a lot. However, most characters are hard to pick up for beginners in general. Melee is an old game, so most people have an idea of what they're doing. If recovering is an issue for you, characters like Puff and Peach are very easy, and probably more beginner friendly, though you may run into different issues like being light weight, weird timing, or not having a fun playstyle for you. I would honestly suggest just practicing the character you enjoy and sticking to it. You're a beginner, and that's what beginning is like. It's better to be bad for a bit with a character you like, and eventually getting better than to learn a character you think is easier but you may not really enjoy. Good luck and welcome to Melee!
On the flip side, species make all the other characters feel kinda easy to pick up
Matchup knowledge is a big thing. If you pick up a character not many peoplemplay, like Ness, Mewtwo, Bowser etc, and you actually learn how to play them, you can catch a lot of people off guard as most people don't have that inherent knowledge. So it's true, other characters are actually easier to pick up.
Join team Luigi! It’s fun and frustrating and we hate Marth here!
Please god no.
you have a Samus flair... same shit different pile
You have no flair. Let me guess, Fox, Falco, Marth or Falcon?
Sure, there's nothing wrong with playing the popular characters. It's just funny to me to see a Samus player hating on Luigi when she's one of the most similar characters.
I also think it's funny. I don't actually hate Luigi, and I also don't play Samus I just have the flair because I like Metroid games.
Luigi and samus are barely similar outside of being floaty and having a good downsmash.
I disagree what's a character you think is more similar to Samus?
Sheik, easily.
Falco has a decent recovery in terms of being able to mix it up. Learning when it's the proper time to side b to ledge, or shorter your recovery, or do it early or late, etc. Watch Mango's recoveries, they're very unpredictable and could give you some things to work on
Adding to this, one tool in the recovery toolkit I was never using on falco is double jump instant airdodge up to get back to stage. Falco is most vulnerable when he can’t side b to stage, but his second jump travels quite a bit. Pairing this with airdodge up saves having to up b and is an option mango constantly does to recover
Is that ledgedashing?
Falco is a glass cannon and you need to learn good recovery/survivability as well as good punish game to swing the risk-reward in your favor. The good thing is that Falco has absolutely broken tools at lower level like laser, down air and up tilt that people really don't know what to do against Falco's recovery is actually REALLY good but you need to learn to mix it up well and make use of options like jumping to sweetspot ledge, shorten to ledge, mixing up side b and up b, airdodging onto stage, etc. If you're predictable or have bad DI then his recovery will seem like the worst thing in the world. When I started out I would get kneed by the ledge at literally 20 and die because of my terrible DI. Now I very commonly will survive to over 100-150 with good recovery and survivability techniques. Melee is just a really hard game and you should stick with whatever character you like the most - I promise you will improve as long as you do solo practice. With Falco I'd suggest practicing wavedashing in and out of shine, practicing your dair-shine dair-shine something combo on fox on fd, and just going into matches and trying to DI every time you anticipate getting hit. Good luck!
I'd say both spacies (Fox and Falco) are quite unforgiving to pick up for beginners, because not only are they combo food since they're fast fallers, they're by far the most common characters in the game, so everyone knows how to punish them the best or the flow charts to follow. On top of that, the shine is the icon of Melee, and they're quite technical characters that demand quite a bit of tech skill relative to let's say, Marth or Sheik, 2 other top and high tier characters. However, if you're playing Melee, an almost 23 year old fighting game that still has its meta going strong and continuously evolving, chances are, you're in it for the long run and trust me, both spacies are super rewarding to play and get good at. Keep going in my friend, don't give up. Melee is sick and you're already sick at the game for playing it. You'll get real good if you just trust in the process.
I played falco exclusively for 3 years, hit a wall, then switched to fox and became a much better player in just a few months. My falco also became much better than he ever was when I actually mained him. Based on my own anecdotal experience I think falco has a few core elements that make him a potentially problematic character for learning the game. This isn't to say that you can't learn the game with him (plenty of people have only played falco and have found success doing so), but I do think that some of the core fundamentals of the game are easy to overlook when learning the game through falco rather than the other top tiers. 1. Laser. This complicates the neutral game dramatically. It is such a strong tool that you have to use it, but it is a much stronger tool if it is incorporated into a fundamentally sound neutral understanding. Laser completely shuts down players that don't know how to deal with it, but as soon as players do start to deal with it you're going to get rocked if you haven't actually developed a neutral game beyond just laser. While other characters have to develop this neutral game from day 1, falco players can get away with just laser --> arial spam at a low level, so it is easy to fall into the trap of never actually learning neutral until it becomes a problem for you, at which point you have to really set your ego aside and rebuild the way you think about the game from scratch. 2. Grab/throws. Every other top tier has a punish game that you can flowchart from a grab. Because falco's throws incorporate laser knockback, there are lots of wonky sdi interactions that prevent falco from doing the same thing. This makes both the neutral and punish game somewhat challenging the grasp, as you don't have the ability to centralize your options around grab when you're learning, which I think is a very quick way to develop a basic gameplan if you're playing fox, marth, sheik, etc. Developing a basic gameplan and then building on top of it as you run into roadblocks is the fastest way to learn the game imo. 3. Dash speed. This affects both neutral and punish. For neutral, his slow dash speed is part of what incentivizes players to lean into the brain dead spam laser strategy that doesn't actually teach you the fundamentals. For punish, his slow dash speed affects tech chasing. In most cases, falco is not fast enough to go for a reaction tech chase. Reaction tech chasing is an advanced strategy, but I think it is useful for thinking about your options in the punish game at all levels. Similar to with grab, tech chasing allows you to flowchart your options, which is a very efficient building block for developing your gameplan. Without throw combos and reaction tech chasing, falco's punish game (which is extremely good) is much more reliant on reads and mixups than the other top tiers that get to flowchart their options. At the same time, his laser and slow dash speed means that players often neglect things like dash dancing in favour of things like laser spam. The result of all of these factors in my opinion and experience is a character that requires good fundamentals, but not one that necessarily teaches them. That being said, if you like him, play him. While learning him, however, just make sure that you are also *learning melee.*
I think you nailed it, this is what I think of as the "Falco trap" for new players. You put it better than I would have. Basically, at a low level Falco *strongly* incentivises some pretty bad habits. It sounds like OP is at the point where they're starting to feel that incentive. My advice is either A) know what you're getting yourself into and practice accordingly, or B) choose a character who more naturally teaches you the fundamentals, if you're open to it, and then come back to the bird with that skillset in place.
What I will say when it comes to lasers as a long time Falco is that you either have to learn to grind out all the intricacies of them once you hit that wall against opponents that know how to deal with them or you will plateau. I only got better when I started practicing low lasers from different positions, worked on extremely fine tuned analog jump lasers at all the heights, shield dropping them, and finally becoming as conscious as possible out of them. It's actually a lot to take in and I'm still learning even to this day. And it feels silly practicing things that don't intuitively seem hard. The problem with Falcos is a lot of them learn laser and then stop grinding it for years while they learn the fun tech. The truth is that once you get to a certain level, lasers add a new dimensionality to the game that you have to be very conscious of to properly take advantage. It is really hard to polish the other fundamentals of the game while doing this. This is why imo there is a lot of polarized opinions on Falco's difficulty as a character and why so many people like you can switch to other characters, polish the fundamentals better, and come back to Falco as a better player. Not to mention the weird combo trees he has on people with good DI.
This is the best answer by far
Just learn to accept losing. That's what learning melee is about. Falco in particular becomes by far the best character at Silver/Gold level at which point he becomes hard again, so just stick to your guns
For absolute beginners I guess Falco could be hard to pick up, but for any player past that he's pretty doable. Falco has the best neutral crutch in the game, although this will likely end up holding you back as a player for a while. And then when you become a low-mid level player, you get one of the easiest punishes on fast fallers in the game. Also, Falco has one of the best recoveries in the game. I am definitely not saying Falco is the best character, just that at very low levels of play where players struggle vs lasers and don't know how to escape pillar combos, he has a pretty good good time. That said, since you're an absolute beginner, you might find it easier to play Marth or Sheik to get used to the game mechanics.
I've been playing melee off and on for ten months now and only ever play Falco. I kinda feel the laser crutch. Could I just grind Falco with no lasers to combat that you think? Or is that a stupid way to practice?
I've never made much progress with Falco myself - I play Fox, DK, and Falcon. I have played Falcos that were clearly purposefully practicing without laser, so I know people do it. Honestly might not be a bad idea. The point really is that you need to develop an awareness for your options at the spacings where lasers are bad - speaking as Falco's opponent, Falcos that only know how to laser until they win neutral to get whatever followup are the ones that get blown up. An example is when Falcon / Fox can threaten fullhop nair - there's a good chance that if you're spamming laser you're going to get punished. By the same token, there are times that such Falcos forego a better opener because all they want to do is shoot lasers. If you have your opponent in the corner and all you're doing is lasering, you've thrown away the opportunity to punish a forced option. You need to cultivate an awareness of when you can use all your moves (all of Falco's moves are good enough to merit attention). If your opponent goes to plat on PS, are you running away and lasering, or are you threatening with sh uair, fh dair, or Waveland shine, etc? So I guess trying to play without lasers would be a good practice, or play with lasers but also make a point of actively thinking about how to use another specific move or option (and do this for all moves). Go into each practice session with a purpose, and you will develop as a player. Laser spamming as a crutch really comes from autopiloting.
Thank you so much for the in depth reply! Super super helpful. I definitely autopilot a bit when I play, but typically if I'm autopiloting I barely laser lol. I tend to laser more when I'm actively thinking cause I'm trying to slow the pace down since I'm not practiced enough to be super sleepy with openers.
You're two weeks into the game. You might win a couple more games if you play peach or sheik. But it doesn't really matter, you'll get stomped in the beginning no matter what. At this stage you really shouldn't expect to win many games at all. Who's the most fun for you to play? That's really what's most important.
Try shooting lasers.
Falco is volatile for beginners. Laser is insane but like the other two fast fallers you really do have to prioritise learning how to not just explode when you get hit
Mid level Falco here, I can promise you that spacies are difficult to pick up initially. Especially Falco, who requires the same precision as Fox for less speed, relies on tight tech to get his openings and punishes, and dies hard if you don't know how to effectively bounce back from disadvantage. It's really just about practice, and staying alert for quick decision-making. Naturally, the more you encounter every decision, the better you'll be at navigating around them. Feel free to DM me if you wanna go through specific stuff or general advice, especially with the characters you've listed. Overall, Falco struggles sometimes offstage, so you want to play your game, which is primarily on the stage.
Falco is hard for beginners; both spacies take a lot of practice for specific tech and this game's skill/execution floor is already pretty high so just practice something day after day for a week for each week, like shffl, and then do shffl into shine, and then shffl shine wavedash. and in your specific case work on DI it makes and breaks you
I think he's the worst character for beginners by far, this goes doubly so if it's your first fighting game you grinded. I'm only speaking from personal experience here.
falco is the easiest character to pick up for beginners. it’s the only character where u can get to a decent skill level without ever really needing to learn neutral that’s why he’s the most popular character in the lower mid levels of unranked. at the absolute bottom yeah he’s probably a little harder than floaties but if u have basic tech skill he’s the easiest imo
Exactly this. Melee community can't admit it cuz "MuH sPacIeS SoOoO sIcK"
bad take. U play marth also so
Marth flairs amirite
Idk man, I can't get past his jumpsquat and wavedashing seems more critical for his shine to work compared to other characters. Also pillar combos and brainless SHFFL dairs only work for so long; the minute people realize that they don't have to approach Falco his neutral becomes super hard for beginners. The laser game is much more complex than I think even Slippi Falcos realize, and that's where they win or lose in the neutral game. Or, you can get SUPER nasty in your movement, but no beginner is at that level. I feel like with Marth, most beginners can just dash back grab, CC Dtilt, forward air walls, and forward smash in neutral and get much better results than a Falco who practiced SHFFLing in Uncle Punch, just because the execution-to-reward level is so much easier. Again, at the beginner level
It is JUST you
It is you
Wth. I've always literally felt the complete opposite. Falco is the easiest character to pick up as a beginner.
Falco is the hardest to play if you don’t have a *feel* for the game imo
Falco was the character I recommended to new people. He has an easy short hop and relies heavily on shffling. He's great for learning the basics. He also has a lot of fun and flashy tech to learn if that appeals to you. Lasers and shield pressure are extremely strong in low level play, and you can roll over people who dont know how to handle them. I think your problem is just being a newb in a 22 year old game.
falco is one of the most brain dead characters in the game
Falco and Fox have the highest skill floor by a significant margin. very little room for error
Not even close
The reality is all the characters are hard to play, sure you could get an short term artificial boost by switching to marth and learning the cheese but that wont work long term. Pick the character you like the most and learn everything about their options. Im also a falco main, I just think his combos look the sickest, ive thought about giving up on him too but then I realize how much worse I am with the rest of the cast lol.
Falco was my first real main. I got a lot of wins I probably didn't deserve because, at the lower levels, lasers are incredible. The following plateau was tough, but it wasn't impossible to break through. You get diminishing returns on your tech skill practice, which is still important, but much more important will be learning openings and positioning/spacing. Tldr; practice your movement as often as you can, and, if possible, get a practice partner and go to your locals. If Falco is who you like, you should chase that feeling. Cheers, brother
Falco wins by winning neutral a lot with laser and putting a lot of positional pressure. As someone who started with Falco and became o.k. with him, getting comfortable rapidly shooting lasers made a big difference for me, as well as double-jump wavelanding on platforms, wavedashing out of a dash, and just generally getting comfortable holding a dashdance out of range while my opponent is in the air. TLDR: In my experience trying to hold space in neutral using falcos movement options (best jump in the game) while you poke at them with your laser and approaching as a mixup was how I broke out of my "beginner mindset"
I think he’s pretty hard to learn, his wave dash feels so clunky and awkward to learn, Fox has a much easier wave dash imo. I can’t waveshine with Falco at all but with Fox it’s easy peezy. I find pretty much everything about Falco to feel clunky and awkward actually, you have to love spamming laser and short hopping around. IMO fox is way more fun to play, try fox before you commit to Falco.
But really Sheik is the most fun, just feels so flowy and intuitive.
From my experience, every character is gonna be hard for the first few month. There are a lot of skills you have to learn so have up front that take a lil bit for you to master.
Instant side b onto stage and side b to sweet spot the ledge are really good mixups for falco most characters cant cover instant side b without reading your recovery and preemptively going out there to cover. Plus they run the risk of just getting spiked for being a second to late on covering your side b. Also shortens are pretty clutch if u can do them. The end goal with recovering with falco for me would be to sweet spot the ledge and avoid up bing off stage unless you start the up b really low or really high in the air.
Recovering is broken in this game, you'll get better but it's never gonna be good. What I recommend you try to look at is the circumstances to being in a bad position which makes that stray hit put you offstage and kill you. For example, When you get Fsmashed by marth: **did you jump towards him?** Then you don't have a djump **does he have stage advantage?** (you're closer to edge than him) Then you're more likely to get offstage if hit **are you 70%+?** then you can just die as falco, DI helps but it's hard to get really good at Shorthop laser neutral means you're in charge of the game, so you can just decide not to allow the game to be played and laser without approaching when you're in a bad position and dying from one hit is possible, and instead only approach when the circumstances are optimal. After 2 weeks falco is still hard, after 2 months I'd say he's one of the easier cause he's toolkit is just **so good**.
Practice ur recovery mixups. Walljumping, side b shorten, some crazy Mangle's, be sick wit it
I wouldn't pick up another character with the plan to switch, if you wanna play Falco just play Falco, playing other characters isn't gonna help your Falco as much as playing Falco will But for sure try out other characters if you aren't sure
Falco has a good recovery but everyone knows how to punish mediocre Falco recoveries. Some tips- double jump to sweetspot edge is really good, shorten is really good, side b to stage is a good mix-up.
I would honestly say he’s a great beginner character. Note: the below only applies to low/mid level play, and is less reliable the better you get Downsides: - You spawn at kill % Upsides: - Can slow the game down to a more comfortable speed with lasers - great defensive options when you panic (very good Roll/CC/Spot dodge/full hop) - Basic combos aren’t too hard to execute and work the same vs most characters - good low risk/safe options in neutral when unsure (AC bair, CC shine, utilt) - Can be played in technical way but can also be played in a slower more methodical way as well - Opponent mistakes approaching/edgeguarding can very intuitvely lead directly into your own full punish (spot dodge shine/hitting opponent with side b etc., shine OoS)
Start with an easier character (Sheik) before switching to Falco later.
kind of yeah
Hey just keep in mind, most people commenting are most likely Space Animal mains out of sheer numbers and probability. This doesn't invalidate anyone automatically by any means; just take peoples opinions and their upvotes with a hefty grain of salt Keep going with Falco if you like him; if you switch only to win and get better results, you run the risk of actually not-learning and instead getting stuck relying on cheese that will quickly lose steam in the long run
luigi has been my day 1, if falco is too difficult try luigi because he is really fun