Practical uses for side-tilt 1?

[OldHickory]

So, I want to make sure I haven't missed anything regarding its uses.
ST1 has invincibility on his arm and most of his body during a part of startup and projectile cancelation properties.
Sounds good.

That's great and all, but I've been finding both of those factors mostly moot in practice.
The speed at which it comes out isn't amazing, hampering its use as a parry of sorts for catching both projectiles and attacks.
Haven't had it actually catch many attack either, as it seems if the "caught" hitbox comes in contact with any of the "unprotected" parts of his body, he eats the hit.
Which this makes logical sense, it also makes it far more finicky to do the Dark Souls parry.

At least it's mostly safe on shield, as it's inadvisable to challenge it due to the followup.

So yeah, am I missing anything particularly important with it?

 

[Wigglerman]

As a projectile deflector, timing it for that use is flashy and cool but you'd be better off just...not moving and letting it clank off the shield like Link does. Or just block in general.

I mean, that's all it has going for it. It can be used sometimes to poke and follow up with the second attack but it's general slow speed, like most of Hero's kit, make it not super good. It's better than trying to smash out of shield but in general his pokes are not the best. Though someone who learns to 'dark soul' parry consistently against projectiles would be a God and fun as heck to watch in tournament...but due to the slowness he'd likely get combo'd for his style.

 

[OldHickory]

Whelp, I've got a mission, then.
It's not like I've ever been out to win at tourney, anyway.
Main goal was to put on a show.

 

[Wigglerman]

What would make it cooler would be if he actually parried it back, acting like a deflect, to benefit from the risk involved with timing it but I know that would make Hero haters freak out a bit.

 

[Ninjaed]

F-tilt 1 is good for contesting attacks. Usually when 2 attacks clash, both characters suffer from recoil. In Hero's case however, his F-tilt 1 negates any recoil he should suffer, allowing him to F-tilt 2 - or if you're feeling bold, a D-smash, dashgrab or something. Likely to get punished though.