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Learn to use your jumps. You don't necessarily have to attack from the get-go. Just jump at your opponent and jump away without attacking to see how he/she reacts. You could even do an aerial toward your opponent while backing away. That's called spacing. And besides, who says you have to approach? Try waiting for your opponent to approach you.
I have it somewhat ingrained in me that spacing doesn't work because my training partner plays Cloud, and Cloud severely outranges all of my potential spacing moves. I try to use them as a mix up but they generally do not always pay off. Along with this, I have it ingrained that I need to approach because against Cloud, if you don't approach he just charges limit. I'll try implementing more things to bait people out with jumps and try to reinforce that not everyone has Cloud's range. Thanks
You didn't mention you were facing Cloud. Anyway, Cloud is going to end up with a charged Limit. It doesn't matter if that's what you want to prevent. It's going to happen, and if Cloud is busy doing that, he's not moving, or at least not moving very far if he performs the ability in the air. Honestly, you could try taking advantage of Limit. What does your opponent do when you approach him? Does he shield? Then grab. Does he dodge? Then use neutral A or Mach Tornado. Cloud has a sword, but so does Meta Knight. Shields work against swords. That's been known since shields have been used. This video is three months old, but try finding something from it. Here's something even more recent.
He usually limit cancels into dsmash, usmash or ftilt based on which angle I approach from. Ive tried to get the timing to punish each of them but generally they are pretty safe and hard to punish, usmash is the only one that has a reasonable amount of time to react to and punish.
Have you ever considered trying to tomahawk? As in go around him rather than directly at him? D-smash shouldn't be hard to punish. U-smash has better range because I think it nearly goes all the way around Cloud's upper body. But you can shield grab him if he's doing that. It's Cloud's aerials that are a big issue. I use Ness and because of that large sword Cloud has, it's hard to get in without being punished. You have to wait for him to throw something out first before going in, or you can make the attempt to space your attacks and hurt him and possibly try to follow up. Of course over-committing will get you punished if your character can't get away with completing a combo. Learn his patterns. It's something you should do against any player, but once you start to see his tactics, then things become easier.
