How do you beat a Falco with the following habits?

[FrankDaTank]

1. Always double jumps then Up B's right when you respawn after dying. I feel like this should be relatively easy to punish but I'm finding it difficult.

2. Double jumps in neutral a lot, I'm having trouble catching him when he does that and then he just comes down with a down air. Since he's Falco, his down air more than out ranges my moves. If he misses that, he'll usually spot dodge then throw out an up tilt or a shine.

3. Platform camps a ton

4. Laser camps a ton

5. Spot dodges a ton

6. Throws out smash attacks in neutral and hits me with them when I'm unprepared and I die a lot of the time

7. Gets these seemingly easy combo strings on me despite my best efforts to DI out of them

8. Laser>grabs a lot, and just grabs a lot in general

9. Overall is extremely defensive

I seriously need help, this nonsense is really discouraging me. I keep losing to this Falco player who does all the things I listed and it's annoying me so much that I can't figure out how to counter it. He constantly does everything I've listed and I just can't figure out a reliable way around some of these things. I bait out a ton of his spot dodges, but it's never enough

 

[Jackson]

I feel you dude, it generally seems that he steamrolls Sheik in neutral. I personally just look for grabs to get big tech chases or gimps. It works pretty well if you can punish harder than the Falco player but it's not exactly a comprehensive gameplan. Falco definitely wins neutral most of the time by virtue of lasers.

 

[ChivalRuse]

1. Always double jumps then Up B's right when you respawn after dying. I feel like this should be relatively easy to punish but I'm finding it difficult.

2. Double jumps in neutral a lot, I'm having trouble catching him when he does that and then he just comes down with a down air. Since he's Falco, his down air more than out ranges my moves. If he misses that, he'll usually spot dodge then throw out an up tilt or a shine.

3. Platform camps a ton

4. Laser camps a ton

5. Spot dodges a ton

6. Throws out smash attacks in neutral and hits me with them when I'm unprepared and I die a lot of the time

7. Gets these seemingly easy combo strings on me despite my best efforts to DI out of them

8. Laser>grabs a lot, and just grabs a lot in general

9. Overall is extremely defensive

I seriously need help, this nonsense is really discouraging me. I keep losing to this Falco player who does all the things I listed and it's annoying me so much that I can't figure out how to counter it. He constantly does everything I've listed and I just can't figure out a reliable way around some of these things. I bait out a ton of his spot dodges, but it's never enough

1. Either hit him as he's jumping to the point where he wants to up-b from or wait for him to land back on stage after using he up-b and hit him when he lands.

2. Dash dance grab/ dash attack. If you know that you are too slow you can also charge an up-smash to punish his spotdodge or just shield to stop your momentum and grab him after he spotdodges.

3. SH bair/fair/uair all poke through side platforms nicely. If he camps top platform, just charge needles. You can also try to bait Falco down by jumping as a feint and then react to/read his escape plan for getting off the platform.

4. Power shield. Dash attack goes under middle-height lasers. You can also short hop over lasers or use platforms to stay off the same level with them.

5. See my answers to #2. D-smash lasts longer than Falco's dodge, so you can throw it out if you want to be "safe". Know the amount of frames when Falco is vulnerable and catch him when he's in lag. If he is not in lag, just shield in front of him and after he spotdodges, grab him.

6. Dash dance grab/dash attack around them. If he throws out a lot of smash attacks, then you should adapt your frame of mind to be ready for them and space around them. You can also shield grab f-smash usually. Dsmash you can shield and then wavedash out of shield to grab/f-tilt.

7. Try smash DI also. DI as far away from Falco as possible at all times. Don't miss your techs, or you'll make his life easier.

8. You can shield the laser and roll. Depending on the range, you can also nair out of shield and the rising nair will hit him as he runs in to grab you.

9. Corner him and pressure him. If he likes to roll out of the corner, look for that. If he likes to jump out of the corner, try to read his jump and slap him or predict his aerial drift and space around his own aerials. Don't over commit or he'll whiff punish you/crouch cancel counter you to death.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

I feel you dude, it generally seems that he steamrolls Sheik in neutral. I personally just look for grabs to get big tech chases or gimps. It works pretty well if you can punish harder than the Falco player but it's not exactly a comprehensive gameplan. Falco definitely wins neutral most of the time by virtue of lasers.

Sheik beats Falco slightly IMO. Theres a relatively simple flowchart you can execute in neutral.

1. Get on your side platform.
2. Charge needles ... hold forward here
3. Falco can react in two ways:
   1. Jump to his side platform and shoot you
      • Respond to this by releasing your needles. You will win the camping war this way. If he gets a footing lasering on the platform, drop to the ground and charge needles, which will make him move down, so you can move back up and thus return to the start of the flowchart.
   2. Approach your side of the stage
      • You're holding forward right? Now press shield and rotate 45° down for the shield drop, and do an instant fair. If you do this at the proper spacing/timing, you should be safe against everything falco does. He needs a considerable read on your timing in order to do something like stuff the fair with utilt or bair, and his miss means a free hit for you. If you find your opponent reading you, you can wait in your shield for any amount of time and you can also wavedash to change the spacing.

This video is a great example of this style of flowchart in action.

Forcing Falco to approach you is also beneficial because he has very few safe options to hit your shield. Most sheiks are like marth players, they want to abuse the large shield grab. But nair out of shield is faster (6 frames), larger, and less punishable (mobile + auto cancels) than shield grab. If falco shines your shield, his only option that beats your instant nair is if he does another shine. If he does nair it will tie with your nair, but if he does dair your nair is faster. So basically, you want to abuse this as much as possible and nair OoS when he tries to "shield pressure" you (remember: nair after the shine).

Because of that, good Falcos will do double shines on your shield quite often. The solution to double shine is simply to wait it out, but because you are conditioned to wait for the 2nd shine his other choices become safe again. In particular, shine->grab becomes a powerful choice. A neat option select is to input a roll during the expected shield stun of the 2nd shine, which will do nothing if he double shines but make your roll if he tries to shine->grab you. He can also choose to do shine->wavedash back which is semi-safe because you are conditioned to wait/not grab (can be shield grabbed but stays under nair OoS).

All in all, none of this is favorable for Falco. These are all gambles and mixups that don't have much reward for the effort.

 

[Jackson]

Sheik beats Falco slightly IMO. Theres a relatively simple flowchart you can execute in neutral.

1. Get on your side platform.
2. Charge needles ... hold forward here
3. Falco can react in two ways:
   1. Jump to his side platform and shoot you
      • Respond to this by releasing your needles. You will win the camping war this way. If he gets a footing lasering on the platform, drop to the ground and charge needles, which will make him move down, so you can move back up and thus return to the start of the flowchart.
   2. Approach your side of the stage
      • You're holding forward right? Now press shield and rotate 45° down for the shield drop, and do an instant fair. If you do this at the proper spacing/timing, you should be safe against everything falco does. He needs a considerable read on your timing in order to do something like stuff the fair with utilt or bair, and his miss means a free hit for you. If you find your opponent reading you, you can wait in your shield for any amount of time and you can also wavedash to change the spacing.

This video is a great example of this style of flowchart in action.

Forcing Falco to approach you is also beneficial because he has very few safe options to hit your shield. Most sheiks are like marth players, they want to abuse the large shield grab. But nair out of shield is faster (6 frames), larger, and less punishable (mobile + auto cancels) than shield grab. If falco shines your shield, his only option that beats your instant nair is if he does another shine. If he does nair it will tie with your nair, but if he does dair your nair is faster. So basically, you want to abuse this as much as possible and nair OoS when he tries to "shield pressure" you (remember: nair after the shine).

Because of that, good Falcos will do double shines on your shield quite often. The solution to double shine is simply to wait it out, but because you are conditioned to wait for the 2nd shine his other choices become safe again. In particular, shine->grab becomes a powerful choice. A neat option select is to input a roll during the expected shield stun of the 2nd shine, which will do nothing if he double shines but make your roll if he tries to shine->grab you. He can also choose to do shine->wavedash back which is semi-safe because you are conditioned to wait/not grab (can be shield grabbed but stays under nair OoS).

All in all, none of this is favorable for Falco. These are all gambles and mixups that don't have much reward for the effort.

Good stuff dude thanks. I'll try to keep this in mind.

 

[garotis]

Because of that, good Falcos will do double shines on your shield quite often. The solution to double shine is simply to wait it out, but because you are conditioned to wait for the 2nd shine his other choices become safe again. In particular, shine->grab becomes a powerful choice. A neat option select is to input a roll during the expected shield stun of the 2nd shine, which will do nothing if he double shines but make your roll if he tries to shine->grab you. He can also choose to do shine->wavedash back which is semi-safe because you are conditioned to wait/not grab (can be shield grabbed but stays under nair OoS).

^This is one of the biggest aspects of the Sheik-spacie matchup I noticed when I recently reached somewhat mid-level Sheik play and subsequently played against mid-level spacies.

 

[Scroll]

The good thing about the style of mindset, that Sveet describes, is that you stay in control and dictate the pace of the match.

Falco do have more options to respond though.

He can quickly get to the top platform. And he can camp SHL under his platform. The latter usually happens, in my experience.

Am I supposed to stay patient on my platform and rely on that Shield Drop Fair. What other stuff can I play around with?
Anything including top platform? WL off it and shoot needles towards middle of stage?

And what would the correct answer be if he choose to go to top platform when I charge needles on my platform? Same thing? I actually havent tried to punish Falco's SH Dair on shield with Shield Drop Fair yet. Would that beat Shine?

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

He can quickly get to the top platform. And he can camp SHL under his platform. The latter usually happens, in my experience.

Am I supposed to stay patient on my platform and rely on that Shield Drop Fair. What other stuff can I play around with?
Anything including top platform? WL off it and shoot needles towards middle of stage?

If he doesn't stop you from charging your needles, you are winning. Fall from the platform between lasers and shoot your charge. The needles protect you from lasers already in the air, and he takes up to 18% if he doesn't respond (eg, stop lasering). After releasing your needles, jump back up and start charging another round. You should always gain the lead in projectile wars. Watch the video I posted above (its time-stamped to the place you want to watch).

You don't want to be on the top platform, its a really poor position. Generally speaking, you want to be below your opponent not above him, and sheik doesn't have anything good to fall from the top platform with (compared to Falco's dair).

And what would the correct answer be if he choose to go to top platform when I charge needles on my platform? Same thing? I actually havent tried to punish Falco's SH Dair on shield with Shield Drop Fair yet. Would that beat Shine?

If you shield his dair, you can sometimes shield drop fair before the shine, but not against late dair->shine. You can almost always shield drop fair after the shine due to spacing, but technically his 2nd shine will hit the frame before your fair hits (if he does frame perfect double shines ... not common).

But I recommend abandoning the side platform to the ground if he takes top platform. This is a positional advantage for you. If he comes down from the middle, you can punish his lag. If he goes to your platform, you can punish from below with utilt, fair, bair and uair. His only "good" choice is to go back to his platform, but since you are on the ground you are also in position to punish that choice.

If you play the positional game properly, top platform is very bad for falco.

 

[Sleepy ッ]

Warning: Block of text incoming!

1. Always double jumps then Up B's right when you respawn after dying. I feel like this should be relatively easy to punish but I'm finding it difficult.

Use your invincibility wisely. Don't immediately try to attack after dying, when he does this tactic, stay on the platform then fair him.

2. Double jumps in neutral a lot, I'm having trouble catching him when he does that and then he just comes down with a down air. Since he's Falco, his down air more than out ranges my moves. If he misses that, he'll usually spot dodge then throw out an up tilt or a shine.

Get him offstage whenever he uses his second jump. Up-B isn't that good to recover with. Use your up air to outrange his dairs. If you think he'll spot dodge, or is in a situation where he would spot dodge, then wait and then either kill him or down throw.

3. Platform camps a ton

Try running up while shielding a ton on the bottom platform. If he drops down (dair optional) jump out of shield with a fair, because he'll probably grab you if you don't.

4. Laser camps a ton

This is where I can't really help you. Needles are ****ing terrible compared to Falco's lasers, someone who's better than me could probably help you.

5. Spot dodges a ton

Like I said earlier, kill him or down throw him when you think he'll spot dodge.

6. Throws out smash attacks in neutral and hits me with them when I'm unprepared and I die a lot of the time

Shield when you're close to him or grab before the smash attack. Sheik is on the light side, so these attacks will hurt a lot more to you.

7. Gets these seemingly easy combo strings on me despite my best efforts to DI out of them

Have you tried SDI?

8. Laser>grabs a lot, and just grabs a lot in general

Don't get too close. Falco's grab doesn't go that far, so staying away but close enough for a fair or f-tilt is a good idea.

9. Overall is extremely defensive

Play just as annoying. That's what Sheik does best.


Overall:
- try to stay in f-tilt and fair range, but not too close
- read his spot dodges
- shield to avoid getting into bad situations
- do weird things, that's what he does. Try randomly down smashing and air dodging, it will catch him off guard.
- get him offstage, he probably won't have a jump to save him

Hope this helps.