I'm having an impossible time dealing with Sonic...

[WwwWario]

I know that all attacks and stuff in the game can be punished. If you're a roll spammer - you can easily predict their roll and punish them. If you're a Smash Attack spammer - you can easily predict it and punish it. That's something I've learned at least xD

But Sonic.... He's actually the only character online I haven't defeated yet. I don't see ANY way to punish him :\ For example, today, I met a Sonic that did 1 thing only - run to the edge, charge up Roll, use roll, possible U-air or other attacks - repeat. I couldn't punish it. I couldn't.

His rolling is SO fast, I can't land an attack to punish him as he rolls against me. And if I dodge, he'll just turn around and roll into me again. If I try to punish him if he misses, he just keep rolling, jumps out of roll, or run away, and I have no chance of even getting to him. He has so little ending lag on his rolling attacks, it's impossible for me to punish him before he suddenly starts another one with such great speed. Not to mention that he is so much more powerful now that in Brawl. He charged up a roll, and jumped me into a Bair I think, and it did 26 damage....

Can someone help? I have NO idea how to punish him. He rolls so fast, he is so powerful, so little ending lag on his rolling attacks, can use roll into areals, his Dash attack is also powerful and has little ending lag, he has a good recovery... I mean, I feel there's no way to punish him. With the match I played today, he did the run-to-the-edge-and-charge-roll thing about 10 times without me being able to punish it. After that I just suicidided and quit.

Someone has any advice? I'm really getting frustrated that I simply cannot nearly land a single hit on Sonic -.-

 

[Sonic Orochi]

Shield the roll, then act accordingly.

If he jumps, aerial oos; if he goes past you, turnaround and punish.

Of course those aren't his only options, but this should help you enough for most of FG Sonics.

 

[Camalange]

To elaborate further...

If a spin roll connects with a shield, there's usually only a couple things Sonic can do:

1. Keep rolling - If he connects a shield and does nothing else, he usually slows down to do mutliple hits on shield and will either screech stop in front or behind you. This is probably the least common and used as a mix-up, as it's the easiest to punish. Screech stop has lag, so once you see that, you can strike. When it's going that slow, however, it has multiple hits so you have to continue to shield, and before the screech stop he can do a VSDJ (vertical spin dash jump) so just keep watching his movement.
2. Spin jump - If he goes from roll to jump, like Orochi said, most characters can get a free Bair OoS if you read their trajectory.
3. Spin jump > Spring - If they anticipate your OoS option, they may spring for safety. Just continue to shield to block the spring, then bait their landing options, as Sonic has very bad landing options. He's high up, so you have plenty of time to anticipate and punish where he is going to be.

The point of a good Sonic is to know all these tools and how/when to use them to stay safe, apply pressure, mix-up, etc. It sounds like in this case, you were playing against a Sonic that merely recognized you didn't know what he was doing and just spammed the same thing over and over again (as is the case with a lot of online players with any character).

For further questions or information, please refer to our stickies, such as the Sonic FAQ where we're happy to read and answer all kinds of questions.