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This guide is a modern guide, so it should be referenced over the older Falco guides.
By Dabuffalo, Guest Contributor
Extremely Summarized Guide
Your main moves on the ground will be as follows: Up Smash, Down Tilt, Grab, Down Smash, Fsmash, Neutral B.
Optionally, a small up tilt value adds an extra bit of sauce without him succumbing to the up tilt spam getting in the way of up smash. (Framework: If your Falco consistently uses up tilt 3 times in a row, the value is too high.)
Optionally again, Dash Attack can be a solid burst option at 70–80, but this is another move you don’t necessarily need.
You’ll want offensive in the 40–60 range, with air offensive at 100 and feint shooter at 100.
Every aerial should be used; they just have different ranges of viability. Order: Dair/Bair/Fair/Nair/Uair. Land with Dair/Bair.
Offstage is basically a necessity. You want Falco to primarily use Forward air with some down air spikes and ledge drop bairs mixed in (aim for 50–60 meteor smasher). AOC doesn’t have to be at 100 — I recommend 70–80.
Avoid Down B, F tilt, Side B, Up B, and aerial neutral B.
Full In-Depth Guide
Grounded Normals
Forward Smash: Very solid kill option with deceptively high range on the sour spot that provides Falco a lot more value than some may think. This move should be decently high at a value in the high single digits to low 10’s, not enough for it to be one of the main moves but enough for him to use it a solid amount of times a game.
Up Smash: One of Falco’s best moves by far, not just for anti-airing but in general. Think of Captain Falcon’s up smash, but it’s faster and thus can be used up next to Falco. Falco’s whole gameplan is to either have the amiibo above you, or offstage, and for one part of that gameplan, this is a big reason why.
Down Smash: Similar idea to Fsmash, except it has less range and sends at a much better angle. He can be prone to thinking its range is slightly bigger than it is, but it doesn’t actually hinder him too often. Necessary because it sets up edgeguarding very well.
Jab: This move is optional; there isn’t necessarily a downside to giving this move a small value. I would keep it small, but it helps with eliminating any potential F tilt appearances and does okay damage.
Forward Tilt: No. No. No. No. No. Horrible range, the amiibo uses it horribly, it has no kill power and doesn’t have enough hit stun to let Falco string it into much of anything.
Up Tilt: It has an AI issue where the Falco amiibo will use up tilt 3 times in a row and almost always get punished because the third never hits. It can also take away from Up smash. Falco CAN use it effectively at an extremely small value, and I think if the up tilt on a Falco is refined well, it benefits him immensely. Not a requirement, because it can be bad if done wrong, but I think it can be worth it.
Down Tilt: Falco’s bread and butter right here. The move combos into all of his aerials pretty seamlessly at a wide variety of percents, it combos into Up Smash, the move is insanely fast, AND the move KILLS for some reason. At MINIMUM you want 30 value for this move.
Dash Attack: Solid, but optional. Can be a nice burst tool and sometimes Falco will string with it a tiny bit at low percentages. If you do use it, don’t go over 75 dash attacker value.
Grab: This should be at least 90, no questions asked. He has built in throw combos out of down throw and up throw, and honestly just gets a lot of value out of the move. Can nab back throw kills when back throw works and the laser hits as well.
Aerials
Nair: This is a solid move that has a very similar functionality to fair. Very solid; have a value to make sure Falco uses it, but he honestly likes the move a lot with a value around 7–10 so you don’t have to go too crazy with it.
Bair: Peak move. Falco gets so much out of stringing things into bair and can get a very high amount of kills from this move. This should also be one of your main landing aerials with dair. Have this move at around 30 so he chooses to use it alongside fair and dair.
Fair: Such a good move — it being a multihit and lasting as long as it does makes it absolutely LETHAL offstage. The only reason this move is third in priority is because Falco does like this move a lot, and you want to make sure back air still gets used with forward air.
Dair: Spikes offstage can be very nice. Spikes on stage into Up Smash kills are also extremely nice; this move is one of Falco’s 2 landing options. Don’t need anything more than 35 value though.
Up Air: Don’t prioritize this move, but absolutely include it. Falco can mix this into his aerial strings and it honestly is just a solid move to incorporate. Probably the least necessary, but still quite necessary.
Specials
Neutral B (Laser): Part of why Falco can be so polarizing — this move makes Falco’s juggling game even BETTER because it gets the opponent above Falco. Projectiles make amiibo AI want to jump, hence why Falco benefits from this move. I now lean towards the 7–10 range. He doesn’t get punished as often as one would think for shooting this move at this value, and the benefit is too good to pass up.
Important notes about this move:
- The opposing amiibo AI will start jumping after being hit by 2 lasers, which is helpful because Falco tends to shoot 2 per “cycle.” This makes him surprisingly good at reacting quickly to the opponent jumping with either an aerial or an up smash.
- Lasers will not make the amiibo jump if it hits a shield, but the opposing AI will also tend to hold their shield to avoid getting hit quite often, and eventually they drop it and start jumping anyway.
- Max out “Feint Shooter” to ensure Falco only shoots the laser at a distance away. This value tends to go up by just using laser at a distance, but you can also do a quick match with Ray Gun only on high spawn rate to rapidly raise it.
- He will use it hardcoded at ledge, which is a niche reason why an AOC from around 75–80 can be helpful.
- Don’t use the move in the air.
Side B: I have tried this; it’s not really worth it. At best it gets a string into an aerial that Falco can get a lot easier elsewhere, and at worst it gets shielded and he gets punished. He also recovers with it automatically.
Up B: Just recover with it, don’t try anything else. He can’t angle this move to attack other amiibo so if he has a high value with this he will just launch himself up and get punished.
Down B: He will reflect with it on his own; don’t need to touch this move in training.
Other Important Values
Offensive: Middle of the road offensive is good to let him be aggressive when he needs to, but he really does want the opponent to come to him more often than not. 35–55 is a good range to aim for.
Air Offensive: 100 air offensive is a necessity. If he is not attacking constantly while in the air he will not be good.
Grounded: This should be as close to 100 as possible.
Shield and Parry: Absolutely max shield, and I also use parry on my Falcos as well but I don’t max out the value. He will do up smash out of parry sometimes and it can be good, but he can also use f tilt out of parry. Still, I’d use some parry regardless.
Meteor Smasher: Fair is typically the more consistent move compared to Dair offstage, but both have good use cases and both should be used. Have Meteor Smasher around 50–60 value.
AI Issues
Aerial Down B: He can SD with this move offstage if it has a value. Don’t use it.
Up Tilt: He spams up tilt like crazy if it’s a high value. He will also spam it poorly, almost always trying to chain 3 up tilts at once (which does not work.)
Thank you for reading, and good luck training Falco!
