Setups for solar beam.

[SuruStorm]

Thought it might be useful to have one of these, plus Solar Beam is the weak link in my Ivy. So go forth smash community; spread your glorious knowledge of the MS paint beam!

 

[redcometchar]

Up air is the best setup IMO. Down air and forward air are your other good, non grab, setups. Forward air works better on floaties. At low percent you can easily get sweet spot dair -> sweet double up air-> solarbeam. Forward air is super non committal, and it sets up for up air or sometimes straight into solarbeam.
Also if you catch your opponent sleeping you can down throw into solarbeam.
The best setup is the one I first mentioned, it works at the lowest percent. My favorite setup, however, is edgecanceled back air into off stage solarbeam.
Other more gimmicky setups are d tilt into up air into solar beam, up tilt to up air to solar beam, or anything else that you can get up air out of. You can also get stun spore hit confirm into solar beam.
Ivy has a lot of setups.

 

[TreK]

^ that plus dash attack and usmash.

It depends a lot on the opponent's DI and falling speed though. If they're a fast faller and DI fair away, it won't set up solar beam.
I used to discard solar beams against fast fallers because it was too hard to land it on them and I wanted to keep the option to wavebounce all around the place, but then I realized how much the fact of having one helps at setting up filthy edgeguards. Because, well, if they DI away... They're offstage sooner.

 

[-Sothe]

Damn @ redcometchar you know your setups. The only one I can think of that you haven't mentioned is bair -> solarbeam without the edge cancel. If you bair into them with your momentum heading toward them, and they DI in (survival DI for bair), you can convert straight to a brawl b-reversed solar beam.

Edit: when the opponent is DI'ing away, and you're looking to end a combo while you're both up in the air, sourspot uair to solar beam is a good setup.

 

[clara]

You can also land solar beam through the stage, which i have done a few times when I was not able to recover.

 

[Machiavelli.CF]

Fair is my favorite set-up for solar beam by far.

 

[The Party]

You can dthrow-Solar Beam on some floaties at mid-percents, but it can be kind of tricky. I think it works well as a DI mixup, but I wouldn't rely on it 100%. dthrow-up B-Solar Beam is also a thing.

 

[Sixonesix]

^ By the same token, dthrow -> sourspot uair -> solar beam is a thing on people who DI in to avoid regular dthrow -> solar beam.

Bthrow -> solar beam is another interesting mixup on certain characters since it catches survival DI on the bthrow.