Yay, finally a critique request! Oh hu hu~, this is delicious~!!
*Watches while eating.*
Alright first off, Homing Attack is bad and you should feel bad.
Second, you gotta give me the song that played on Smashville.
Third, you gotta-
...
Alright, I'll be serious.
First thing I have to ask you though: How long have you been playing Sonic? To me, it seems that a lot of it is just that Sonic still feel unorthodox to you. Perfectly understandable; that part I figure will work itself out overtime.
What I do need you to be consciously aware of though...
Kill that Spring > Dair habit. It got you punished, and I saw a lot of instances you could've been punished, but your opponent did not capitalize on.
You also have a tendency to use ASC. It got to the point where you killed yourself; twice I think. It's okay every now and then, but start approaching with Sonic's other stuff. Grabs, dash attacks, aerials, there's a multitude of ways.
Think of it as a means to punish, not
mainly as an approach. I say mainly because even I have to admit I do every now and then to condition my opponents.
That in of it itself gives you different options attacks, like going into a Spin Dash Jump from a Spin Dash Roll, immediately jump-canceling and abort the first approach, or commit into a secondary assault, and things of that nature. I'm going on a rant here, but basically don't forget that you have other ways to get around.
You also like to do Bairs a lot. I mean, even more than normally. Bair is probably up there with one of Sonic's most useful attacks, but even that has a limit. Let me give you some ideas as to how to properly use Bair: Zoning, retreating with, and punishing. At low percents, it will be used to rack up damage, possible lead into other things. At high %, you'll want to use this as your staple kill-move.
Speaking of staple kill moves, you need to greatly reduce your FSmash and DSmash usage here. FSmash is a terrible move for anything but a predicted approach or a punisher. If you want to rack up damage, for for grabs/aerials/pseudo-combos. If you need to get a kill at high %s, use Bair/anything else that will kill in the given situation. FSmash only does 14% uncharged, and is very slow to come out. In that regard, it is outsped and outdone by other attacks that are much quicker and deal almost the same amount of damage; if not more. Yes, I say more because I expect you to pummel inbetween grabs, and while you can use any throw except D-Throw in every case, U-Throw will deal 12% damage unstaled per pop, and F-Throw with 9% unstaled per pop. I think I already went over how Bair is safer for killing at high percents but if not I'll go over that now.
Bair is Sonic's third strongest kill move in terms of knockback. FSmash and First hit DSmash outclass it. Barely. Here's the thing though, it happens to be faster than the first two mentioned in both start-up and cooldown lag, and it has the luxury of being an aerial; it can be done anywhere and you can keep moving while you use the move. You aren't committed to one place with all the lag like you are with the first two. It also happens to autocancel from a certain height, which gives it even more utility. For the most part, using Bair is safe on shields, and even moreso if you used it from a retreat; or from the momentum of a Spinshot.
Now for DSmash. Can't forget.
While better in terms of uses compared to FSmash, it's still best done seldom. It shines mainly as a means to punish an opponent trying to land on the ground and cannot really defend their way down. Best example would be a Marth that missed with Dolphin Slash; they have nowhere to go assuming there's no platform or stage hazard. I'll leave it to you to think of other cases, but I hope you have the idea. Charging it gives you some different things to work with, but that takes time and you have to make sure your opponent will not try to do anything before you get the chance to release. I plan to get frame data for Sonic sometime soon, but it feels as though the more the attack is charged, the greater the shield pushback is, and of course the shieldstun as well. Some characters despite that can still punish afterwards, but it has to be quick and far-reaching. It's also good to punish spotdodges with, and on the edge of a platform where they have little choice but to take the hit. The other parts of the attack come out faster and make this move feel even safer to use on shields thanks to them being stuck in lag and you recovering from it. It's hard to explain, but if the move hits with the later parts of the attack, it kind of leaves them unable to do much.
tl;dr save DSmash for punishes.
And Homing Attack. I really want to go over this since I just thought of a great way to learn when to use it. Generally, everytime you could've used Spring to save yourself, you probably didn't use Homing Attack properly. Now don't get me wrong, using it to stall your recovery is great. You get more distance and more height with it. Just make sure your opponent cannot pursue you offstage and punish you for attempting to stall your recovery. In that case, either just drift back to the stage like you would normally, or go ahead and Spring if recovering high is safer than lower.
It is very risky to use as a normal attack, and I recommend you not use it until you condition your opponents otherwise. Think of it like this:
If you've played a certain why enough times or long enough, you will have conditioned your opponent to acting or reacting in a certain way. It is also due to this move's rare usage that it also throws off many people despite Homing Attack being a terrible move. Terrible however does not mean "useless." Let's say you're trying to get down but an opponent is waiting for your landing with a charged smash attack. Using Dair to stall then fall might not work because it might come down on them too fast. Using the Spring coil to attack them would just have them attack the Spring unharmed, and now you're left with your cypher-fall. Homing Attack takes a while to come out, and then they'll have no choice but to let go of the charged smash attack too early and they'll be stuck in lag while your Homing Attack is coming down on them with nothing to stop you.
That's just an example, but once again I hope you see it as another means to mix-up attacks/landings; while mainly to use as a way to stall recovery mainly. It's still a pretty bad/risky move though, no thanks to the huge telegraph, and the horrendous endlag. If you
have to use ti, make sure it hits them, and not their shield, or the ground, or missing.
I think that's it. You should be good to go afterwards.
