Just goofed around on Quickplay as Ike. He's always clicked with me the most of all the swordies in Ultimate, but I feel like something really clicked today. I'm in middling GSP with him but there was a number of players who seemed to have an idea what they're doing. Let that be a note that if you aren't in Elite Smash, that doesn't mean you're bad at the game - only a tiny fraction of the player base is able to make it in, after all.
Izaw Smash always likes to say that aerials are safest the closer to the ground you land them in his guides, and I think I've been taking that advice too far. While it's true in terms of raw frame data, waiting until the last second also gives opponents more time to move, shield or throw out an anti-air, and sometimes a well spaced attack is safe enough that you don't need those extra frames. Besides, characters with fairly good drift (Lucina and Ivysaur, for example) can use that extra time in the air to drift away from an opponent after landing an attack on shield.
On that note, I cheesed a lot of last stock scenerios and attempted edgeguards by dragging my opponents down with aether. That's sure to have caused some salt.