Falcon Is NOT Broken

So I was browsing the Smash Amino featured feed, and came across this VanillaFox person claiming that Captain Falcon was undoubtedly the single most broken character in the entirety of smash 4.

Here is his post

Now wait a minute to let that sink in

I know, crazy right? While reading his blog, I was so disgusted that I started to write a comment complaining about his claims, but realised it would be too long.

So I decided to write a blog myself in response to his.

Here we go.

Forward Tilt

"It leads to edgeguarding opportunities, and can lead to the knee." Are you fucking kidding me, forward tilt has almost no use besides jab locking at low percents. On stage, it has barely any knockback, comes out slower than jab, deals the same amount as jab, not safe on shield like jab. You get the point, ftilt is a worse jab. Also, it sets up edgeguarding opportunities? Really? Only if your enemy is a for glory scrub who jumps immediately when offstage. Plus, it's only for a specific range of percent that it can lead to the knee/stomp. At high percents, it's basically useless.

Up Tilt

"Unlike Melee, it spikes now." Great, no shit. Also it only works in a few scenarios, like if the enemy recovers high near the edge, or if you get a trump and he grabs the ledge again. Huge amount of startup lag and not safe on shield, only good for a few purposes.

Plus down air can punish ledge regrabs too, and it has better knockback.

Down Tilt

"Dtilt is an amazing edgeguarding tool, and is safe on shield." Yeah sure, it has a considerable amount of startup, and is only safe on shield if you hit with the foot. It is almost always punishable if you hit with the leg or near Falcon's crotch area. For the claim that it's a semi-spike, yes I agree, but it can only work well if the opponent has a horrible recovery (Cloud, Ganondorf), if they have bad DI, or if their recovery can't sweetspot the ledge (Shulk, Kirby).

Forward smash

"It has as much lag as Cloud, cannot be SDIed out of, and has lots of range and priority."

Yes, I don't deny any of your points, but it doesn't even come close to being amazing. Fsmash has startup lag + endlag, not safe on shield, and only works well if you either space it nicely, or you bait out a falling aerial. It has great use, but a lot of weaknesses.

Up smash

"Up smash kills way too early." Yes it's strong, but the fucking range man. It has barely any horizontal reach, it's shorter than Bowser's firebreath hitbox in Melee. Plus, it does barely any shield damage or pressure, has huge startup lag and end lag, and doesn't lead to anything. Up smash has barely any use.

Down smash

"Down smash is strong on both hits and is safe on shield." Yes it is safe on shield, but tell me when you're actually going to walk up slowly and dsmash on shield? You ain't Mang0. It can punish spotdodges and rolls, but by the percentages it can kill, a side B can cover all three options while dsmash only covers 2. Overall dsmash doesn't have any real usage in a match.

Up air

"Falcon has had Cloud's up air from the beginning, only with less lag, and better juggling." You're fucking retarded for thinking that. Cloud's up air is so long lasting, it's longer than Marth's melee grab range. Cloud can juggle and frame trap you like no tomorrow, and it kills earlier and deals more damage than Falcon's up air. "You can do like seven up airs into up b, then do another up air." Yes, I know the 7 up airs is an exaggeration, (at least I hope it is, if it's not then I overestimated your IQ). You can at most do 3 up airs that are true combos, if you wanna link more they are easily avoidable, because of Falcon's poor air mobility.   Also, did you really say that you can do up airs into up B, and then another Up air? ARE YOU FRIGGIN KIDDING ME? Honestly I don't know whether to shout at you, or the person that this works on. Up air to up B is already obscene itself, only working if your enemy AFKs, and up B to up air? That's worse than Kim Jong Un saying they landed on the Sun. I hope you people reading don't need an explanation for why, because if you do I pretty much lose faith in humanity.

Moving on to up air setups, yes they kill early, yes they are reliable, but the characters they work on well are dependent on hitbox size and frame data. For example, how reliably can you falling up air a Kirby or Game & Watch compared to Zelda or Peach? Or how many falling up airs a match can you get on a Sheik or Zero Suit Samus compared to Bowser? Falling up air is reliant on the character you're facing, making it have weaknesses, hence making his most reliable move "not broken".

Nair & Dair

Your points on nair and dair are pretty good, I'll give you that.

The Knee

Oh boy, we're in for a ride with this one.

"The soft knee can really edgeguard well, you can do:

Soft knee -> Footstool

Soft knee -> up air -> up b

Soft knee -> hard knee

Soft knee -> nair

Soft knee -> dair spike"

Ok, so not only are all of these not true combos, but they are all DI, weight and percentage dependent, only working at very specific ranges. Secondly, the soft knee hitbox is small AF and has low priority. Also, what is it with you and up B after up air? It's airdodgable and if you miss it offstage you're pretty much dead.

Bair

Your claims here are pretty reasonable, but what the fuck is this?

"The second bair can lead to a side B spike, with or without a wall." First of all, I have no idea what with or without a wall means, if you're reading this please explain to me. And secondly, if you actually go for a side B spike after two bairs, you're either stylish as fuck, or just a complete dumbass for thinking it works.

Up B

"Up B kills at 100% offstage, and can lead to all aerials, even bair." Firstly, even if it does kill at 100% offstage, it can kill YOU at 0% if you miss. Secondly, how the fuck does up B lead to any aerial, never mind ALL aerials. The angle up B send the opponent in is diagonally up with decent knockback, unless they fastfall down to you, there is absolutely no way that you can get any sort of followup.

Down B

"Down B is safe on shield and can kill at 105% onstage." How is Falcon Kick safe on shield? The amount of lag it has is horrendous, the only way it could be safe on shield is if you space it just right so it ledge cancels. Secondly, the strong part of down B is only at the very start of the move, and since it has a lot of startup, it can only be used to punish spotdodges. Btw, if you read a spotdodge, why the hell would you even use this move anyway, just use fsmash.

Side B

Your claims here make sense and all, but you seem to have forgotten one thing. Raptor Boost's startup lag and end lag is horrible, and the priority it has is less than Alpharad's humour in his videos nowadays. Literally anything can beat it, making it useless other than hard ass reads.

Falcon Punch

"Falcon Punch is a quick move and basically a smash attack in midair."

No, just no. Enough said.

Grab Game

I agree on your points about Falcon's amazing grab game, that's one of his most redeemable qualities. However I do not believe it makes him "broken" as you say, since his dthrow doesn't lead to kill confirms, and fthrow/bthrow don't kill until around +130%, making them quite balanced to be fair.

Weaknesses

Now, here's where things get interesting.

Weaknesses for every character, include specific MU disadvantages, weaknesses for a character in general, and how easily those weaknesses are exploited.

Let's take a look at Falcon's most obvious weakness, the extremely linear and predictable recovery.

1. Doesn't go far, horrible reverse up B distance, decent vertical distance.

2. No hitbox, easily gimpable.

3. Slow, puts in freefall after max height has been reached.

4. Has lag when landing on the ground after up B, punishable.

5. Without a jump, Falcon is pretty much dead.

And wtf is this? Do you even know what a dist means? Characters with swords like Marth and Ike, they have dists. Falcon's up B, no dist. Simple as that.

Now, let's take a look at how exploitable of a weakness Falcon's up B is.

1. Lingering hitboxes can easily disrupt Up B, eg. Mario's nair, Yoshi's dair, Sheik's nair

2. If the up B hits, the enemy can just wall tech and punish Falcon with literally anything, which means anyone with a spike move can just tech into a kill at 50%. Plus it's not a multi hit move, making it easy to tech.

Considering the window of teching in smash 4 is rather large, and that a majority of the cast has a spike move, Falcon's most obvious weakness is pretty exploitable, and with such an exploitable weakness, who would say he's broken?

Now here's the second point to take into consideration when deciding whether or not a character is viable or unviable.

Character Matchups

Take a look at this chart for a second. Now look at this one.

See the difference? Notice how in the Falcon chart, he has 10+ matchup disadvantages, but in Diddy's chart, he only has 5, and Diddy isn't even broken.

So tell me, how can a character who has more bad matchups than an unbroken character be broken? Yeah, you can't.

Also, you see that in Diddy's chart, there are no characters in the "Disadvantage" bar, they're at most on the "Slight Disadvantage" bar. When comparing to Falcon, who has characters in the 40:60 (disadvantage) and 35:65 (huge disadvantage) bars, you can see the difference in matchup spread.

I'll give a brief explanation on why Falcon's bad matchups are bad, and how he has little to no hope of overcoming those matchups, if both players are equally skilled.

Bayonetta:

-Falcon is combo food

-Witch time and Bat Within escape strings

-Can nair and dair Falcon's recovery

-Hard to edgeguard Bayonetta

Kirby:

-Short, so hard to grab

-Hard to land falling up airs

-Can nair or dair Falcon's recovery

-Falcon is combo food

Ryu:

-Falcon is combo food (see the pattern yet)

-Can Focus Attack out of strings

-Has more kill confirms than Falcon

Sheik:

-Falcon is combo food

-Can pressure Falcon insanely well

-Can nair or bair Falcon's recovery

-Grenades can also stop Falcon's up B

-Hard to edgeguard Sheik

Pikachu:

-Nightmare of all Falcon's

-Short, hard to grab

-Hard to land falling up airs

-Falcon is combo food

-Can nair, fair, bair, dair Falcon's recovery

-Hard to predict and punish Quick Attack

See how Falcon gets dominated by all these characters? The Captain has amazing tools at his disposal, but against these odds, he has no choice but to lose.

I could continue, but that would make this already long post even longer.

Conclusion

Captain Falcon is not broken. Not in a million years. I sincerely hope everyone that after reading this, will understand why he isn't. Also, VanillaFox, please do your research before claiming certain things, the amount of mistakes you had in your post is almost as much as the shouting done in the Wombo Combo.

If you read the whole thing, thank you. I do not hate Captain Falcon, I am a main of him myself, but I just had to do this, I hope all of you understand.

Have a good day.