Master_Gamer
Smash Cadet
Kudos for those who get the title of this post. For those who don't, I'm simply saying that Sonic has changed a good amount from Smash 4 to Smash Ultimate. Now, to preface, I'm by no means a pro player. I'm not even an expert. I'm just an avid Smash Bros Sonic player who has been playing him since Brawl. So I've been around for all iterations of Sonic through Smash Bros.
I definitely agree, Sonic feels veeeeeery different this time around. Unable to shield cancel his Spin Dash. Both Spin Dash and Spin Charge feeling a bit more sluggish. His dash attack losing it's active frames but still being just as laggy. Still having problems getting down from juggles. Seems like the same negatives are here, but we also lost some positives. Well it's not all doom and gloom! I feel like Sonic is still pretty good, just his play style is very different.
The main reason I'm making this post is to just give my experience so far. To add my two cents if you will. But my finding is a probably not appealing to many.
Anyway to get into it, what I've found to work so far is Homing Attack. It got buffed a lot. Give us a longer charge time to mix up the timing of release. The knockback and damage ramping up quite a bit, even able to KO at higher percents. It's also relatively safe on shield too, from what I've experienced.
Now to get into the gameplay. So the usual aerial game still seems the same. Use short hop N-Airs in close seem pretty good and fast, able to help rack up decent damage. F-Airs still good for combo and good to rack up damage. Now, U-Air seems worse. I've had people constantly getting hit by the first hit of U-Air, then fall away and miss the second hit. It seems you have to position the person directly above Sonic to get both hits consistently. If they are slightly off then sometimes they will just get tapped and pushed away. So be careful when using your U-Air. But still it's good for sharking and juggling as usual. His throw combos still work and his tilts seem fine. Actually his ground game is a bit better since you can use tilt attacks from a full dash! The smash attacks are the same, short range with only F-Smash being fast enough to space with. But to me it seems to be just a bit laggier? Probably not, but it seemed like it to me.
Now onto special moves. This is where it hurts. Your Spin Dash and Spin Charge are....worse. You can't go through people who shield unless you have above a certain amount of charge. Since you can't shield cancel the Spin Dash, the only wait to feint it is to press attack or jump during charge. If you press jump during charge, you go into the vertical spin hop but you can't really act until you land it seems. Not only that but Spin Dash and Spin Charge are just as easy to counter as in Smash 4. I typically have trouble against sword characters because they can just jab in place when I spin and they just stuff it and hit me cause I have a lot of lag when it's stopped this way. Canceling it in place usually gives them time to close the distance and when you spin through their shield it's hard to stop because you have to jump but you fly up a certain distance out of a spin before you can double jump. Spring is the same, no need to go into that. But Homing Attack, seems like the savior here.
Because of the delay with Homing Attack, you can bait out a lot of stuff and get chip damage over and over. One thing to note, however, is if you do a full charge Homing Attack on a shield, you will have a lot of ending lag so if they are shielding a lot you should release early so you can get away with minimal lag. What I've been doing is spacing with dash attack, N-Air, and F-Air then when the opponent goes for an attack I will short hop and do a quick homing attack. It will knock them away and they have to approach you again. If they block then you bounce up and you can jump away. I've found this especially useful against sword characters as they will swing with attack to anticipate you're attack. Unfortunately, this makes you play very passive. You have to watch and read what the opponent is doing then hop and Homing Attack to punish their attack. Again, with the different timings allowed now on Homing Attack and the knockback you can bait out attacks and slowly rack up damage until you can land a finishing blow.
This is by no means the best strategy, just one I've found so far. I'm sure someone with more skill has a different perspective.
I definitely agree, Sonic feels veeeeeery different this time around. Unable to shield cancel his Spin Dash. Both Spin Dash and Spin Charge feeling a bit more sluggish. His dash attack losing it's active frames but still being just as laggy. Still having problems getting down from juggles. Seems like the same negatives are here, but we also lost some positives. Well it's not all doom and gloom! I feel like Sonic is still pretty good, just his play style is very different.
The main reason I'm making this post is to just give my experience so far. To add my two cents if you will. But my finding is a probably not appealing to many.
Anyway to get into it, what I've found to work so far is Homing Attack. It got buffed a lot. Give us a longer charge time to mix up the timing of release. The knockback and damage ramping up quite a bit, even able to KO at higher percents. It's also relatively safe on shield too, from what I've experienced.
Now to get into the gameplay. So the usual aerial game still seems the same. Use short hop N-Airs in close seem pretty good and fast, able to help rack up decent damage. F-Airs still good for combo and good to rack up damage. Now, U-Air seems worse. I've had people constantly getting hit by the first hit of U-Air, then fall away and miss the second hit. It seems you have to position the person directly above Sonic to get both hits consistently. If they are slightly off then sometimes they will just get tapped and pushed away. So be careful when using your U-Air. But still it's good for sharking and juggling as usual. His throw combos still work and his tilts seem fine. Actually his ground game is a bit better since you can use tilt attacks from a full dash! The smash attacks are the same, short range with only F-Smash being fast enough to space with. But to me it seems to be just a bit laggier? Probably not, but it seemed like it to me.
Now onto special moves. This is where it hurts. Your Spin Dash and Spin Charge are....worse. You can't go through people who shield unless you have above a certain amount of charge. Since you can't shield cancel the Spin Dash, the only wait to feint it is to press attack or jump during charge. If you press jump during charge, you go into the vertical spin hop but you can't really act until you land it seems. Not only that but Spin Dash and Spin Charge are just as easy to counter as in Smash 4. I typically have trouble against sword characters because they can just jab in place when I spin and they just stuff it and hit me cause I have a lot of lag when it's stopped this way. Canceling it in place usually gives them time to close the distance and when you spin through their shield it's hard to stop because you have to jump but you fly up a certain distance out of a spin before you can double jump. Spring is the same, no need to go into that. But Homing Attack, seems like the savior here.
Because of the delay with Homing Attack, you can bait out a lot of stuff and get chip damage over and over. One thing to note, however, is if you do a full charge Homing Attack on a shield, you will have a lot of ending lag so if they are shielding a lot you should release early so you can get away with minimal lag. What I've been doing is spacing with dash attack, N-Air, and F-Air then when the opponent goes for an attack I will short hop and do a quick homing attack. It will knock them away and they have to approach you again. If they block then you bounce up and you can jump away. I've found this especially useful against sword characters as they will swing with attack to anticipate you're attack. Unfortunately, this makes you play very passive. You have to watch and read what the opponent is doing then hop and Homing Attack to punish their attack. Again, with the different timings allowed now on Homing Attack and the knockback you can bait out attacks and slowly rack up damage until you can land a finishing blow.
This is by no means the best strategy, just one I've found so far. I'm sure someone with more skill has a different perspective.
