Fox (Super Smash Flash 2)

Fox is a playable veteran starter character in Super Smash Flash 2. He was officially confirmed in the final October 2011 Dev Blog, and was officially added to the game in version 0.8. His sprites are completely custom and are based on his appearance in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. In addition, his moveset and voice clips are also lifted directly from said game.

Fox currently ranks 2nd on the current tier list, five spots higher from his 7th-place position last tier list. This puts him at his spot in the first beta tier list. Fox possesses fast attacks, amazing ground mobility including a great dash dance, great combo ability, and powerful finishers in his up smash, up aerial, and back aerial. Fox's special moves are also quite useful. He has a decent projectile in his Blaster which can rack up damage very quickly and force his enemies to approach him. His Reflector is a great all-purpose tool which can be used to extend combos, edgeguard offstage, and reflect projectiles. His Fire Fox and Fox Illusion both cover long distances and have a tendency to punish edgeguards if they are not timed exactly right. Fox also has a string of kill confirm combos on the entire cast from his up throw to up air or his down air into up smash and more.

However, Fox has some absolutely glaring flaws. His gravity is the highest in the game, which gives him problems when trying to recover vertically or could lead him to SD'ing when performing an aerial offstage, most prominently forward air. He has extremely high accelerated falling speed, the highest in the game, which gives him an even greater vulnerability to chain grabs and combos than. He is also a very light character, which allows enemies to force him offstage very early, creating frequent disadvantageous situations or outright killing him in the process. In addition, Fox's recovery moves are slow, linear, and have long startup times, which makes him extremely vulnerable to edgeguards. As a result of these attributes, he has a very limited offstage game. Fox's approach is subpar despite his great speed, as he lacks range on almost all of his attacks and his Blaster is purely defensive due to its nonexistent knockback.

Unlike most characters, Fox has a strong, dedicated player base that is composed of the top players online. Fox does have strong online tournament representation and is generally seen taking many top spots in tournaments.

Attributes
Like, Fox returned to how he is played in Melee with a few exceptions. He is a very mobile ground character with having the third fastest dashing speed and currently the fastest walking speed. He has finishers in his up smash, up and back aerial which are easy to combo into.

He has a projectile in his Blaster which has transcendent priority, covers good horizontal distance, is useful for racking up damage, and can be used effectively in his short hop laser technique and can help refresh some of his attacks. His reflector, like the name implies, is used to reflect projectiles. However, Fox can use it in more ways by using it to aid in his combos while giving him numerous follow ups or using it to gimp his opponent and is a very important element in his metagame. His combo and damage racking ability is one of the best in the game with having a great SHFFL which gives him a good air game and when coupled with his reflector gives him amazing follow ups.

He has a great approach options with his amazing ground mobility and SHFFL aerials. He is a great edge guarder and breaking his guard will be troublesome.

He has a great grab game, possessing the thirteenth longest grab in the current demo, with most of his throws dealing low knockback and can set up combos. Forward throw can set up certain combos. Down throw is a meteor smash which can be used to set up tech-chases or be used on the ledge to start his edge guarding ability. His up throw can lead into some damaging combos at low percents while also can kill characters who posses average accelerated falling speed and above with his up air at death percentages. It can also chain grab himself and Falcon at low percents.

However, due to Fox being a fast faller, he is susceptible to juggling, combos and zero-to-death combos. These can lead to him being knocked off stage fairly easy to begin an edge guard or kill him out right due to his light weight.

His projectile, while good for camping, does not make the opponent flinch which leaves him unable to stop his opponent from approaching.

His recovery options are linear and predictable. Fox Illusion covers only horizontal distance, it stops all of Fox's moment when the move ends and has a small ledge sweet spot. Fire Fox can cover vertical, horizontal and diagonally distances, but its start-up gives Fox's opponents time to set up edge guards or gimp him.

Changes from v0.9a
Fox mainly received nerfs to his attributes and some of his attacks, but these nerfs did not make him a less effective character. Fox benefits from the lower hitstun in the current demo by not being susceptible to certain chain grabs and being one of the few characters who can still combo like last demo.

Tier placement history
When Fox debuted in demo v0.8, he was a strong character and got ranked 6th of B tier on the list for demo v0.8b. His position dropped to 13th of what could be considered B tier in demo v0.9a. His tier position rose up to 7th of A tier where he is seen as a high tier character again. On the second tier list of v0.9b, Fox rose by one spot where he is 6th of A+ tier and is seen as a top tier character.

Trivia

 * Fox's sprites, along with 's and 's old sprite sets, were used in one of ScrewAttack's Death Battles.
 * Fox's current pixel art is based on a victory pose that he makes in Brawl.