How useful are Up and Down Smash?

[Sneak Sneaks]

Down smash has a lot of ending lag and it is just better to use up tilt than up smash

 

[Blade Knight]

Up Smash is still plenty useful in situations where up tilt is not. Up Tilt kills sooner and has a few frames of invuln to help you plow through some attacks, but Up Smash is mostly used to get people off the ground and into the air safely or to attack somebody coming straight down onto you. It's better than Up Tilt for that. It can also be used for sharking platforms, but it's inefficient for that.

Down smash is unfortunately pretty useless though, no real way to combo into it, so you're more or less right about that.

 

[Supercat48]

Down smashing is good for predicting rolls especially with people who roll allot

 

[Red Shirt KRT]

Yup down smash for rolls. Kills floaties off the top pretty well. U smash is really good as well if chars are close on the ground it sucks them up into it. Great against most characters down air ( link, yoshi).

Heavies at low percent
Dthrow > Usmash > Usmash

I get more kills with U and D smash than Fsmash

 

[digiholic]

Dsmash kills stupid early (a sweetspot is as strong as utilt, easy), but it's wicked slow, so it's best used on a hard read roll.

Usmash on the other hand, has its uses over utilt. It hits both sides of you, so you can use it to punish a roll on reaction. It's got a long persistent hitbox, so, if you condition your opponent that you're going to dash-grab, you can dash-smash to punish a spotdodge. It's also amazing on edguard as it catches getup attacks, ledge jumps, and ledgedrop aerials. It out ranges a lot of down-aerials, and stops dead most drop-down dairs like ZSS, Sheik, and Greninja on reaction. Not to mention, it can be jump-canceled out of shield.

Utilt is Mega Man's best kill option, but it does have its flaws. It's absurdly punishable on block or whiff, and it requires the opponent to be grounded and in front of you. There's a lot of time where the opponent isn't in the right spot for an utilt, but you want a good out of shield option.

 

[Greward]

Up smash has a huge hitbox on the first hit and can be used while running or out of shield. Those are the main advantages over up tilt. Up smash is a very good move and it's often used.

Dsmash is very situational. It's our strongest move damage-wise (and knock-back wise when charged) but since it's slow it's hard to land it. Best way to use it is when they get up from the edge with a roll. It also hits opponents in the air so it can be used when you hard read a SH aerial approach (Mega Man crouches so you can avoid an aerial). All in all it's a situational move. It's also our best kill move if we break a shield / jiggly rests.

 

[Anomilus]

DSmash is also a lethal anti-air depending on the opponent and their approach. A lot of times we want to catch them with the faster USmash, but a good read with DSmash will score the KO much sooner.

 

[Sneak Sneaks]

The problem I see in Dsmash is that it is really slow and its horizontal range is really low so it isnt very good to predict rolls since sometimes Ive do that on a read and my opponent still safely rolls without getting hit and Im not sure how long the hitbox stays there since many times my opponents safely grab me while the flames are still there

 

[Nu~]

Dsmash is pretty amazing as an anti air however. SH aerial approaches can be punished hard with a dsmash read.

 

[LZCXR]

I actually find Usmash to be a pretty good move and I tend to use it as an anti-air, since Utilt has horrendous ending lag(though if you don't keep it fresh (Usmash) you will get punished), Dsmash...well...as others have said already is a good roll punish but it's really punishable so I barely use it.

 

[uncaDon]

Up smash traps people, it can suck people in if their hitbox doesn't poke past it. For instance that lets you stop a lot of dairs, some rolls can get stuffed by it, it stops dedede's up B, etc. It kills at like 150% most of the time which is completely okay for megaman, and can get people on platforms. Its also an okay air dodge punish sometimes. Oh and it's hilarious vs Lucario players who like to intentionally overshoot the edge to get back to stage.

Mostly its just an amazing anti air, anti spot dodge, anti roll move when properly placed, very very few things your opponents can do on jump ins or from above will prevent them from being sucked in, and usmash is active throughout its entire duration.

Down smash is mostly for reading people returning to stage, rolling, or jab resets. YOU CAN DO IT OUT OF THE SKID ANIMATION ONCE YOU STOP DASHING. It also stops **** like c falcon back air spacing or jump ins from quite a few characters. Or if you get a shield break somehow, it kills at like 50% fully charged. A lot of people expect Megaman to be very cautious or to retreat when approached so Dsmash can be a very powerful punish for an overly aggressive opponent. Even when uncharged its a nice easy kill at 65-80% for non-heavys.