SONIC KNOWLEDGE

-tech distance is terrible, exploit it.

-Sonic upthrow is a pseudo mixup. If he's perfect he can always react to your DI, but no one is perfect. If you mix up hard DI behind him, hard DI infront of him, and slight DI infront of him, he can be hard pressed to react to the angle you are sent at. Sonic maintains a lot of aerial momentum, so it's hard for him to DJ and change his trajectory. At early %s he can react because you aren't sent far, but higher %s where death is a possibility there is interaction imo.

-Sonic dthrow is a pure tech chase and at ledge drop zone throw. mix up DIing away, down, up, in and he can whiff the drop zone putting you in an edgeguard scenario.

-his other throws are mere positioning nothing to talk about.

-Treat sonic fair as Falcon uair, but it's a weak ass meteor. If you DI out and he expects it you will get faired again. If you DI in and he expects it you will get faired again. The move is pretty weak and if you survival DI you should almost never die to it unless deep off stage. Mixing up DI can cause his momentum to put him past you.

-His nair hits hard as fuck with the early hit and can be safe on shield, especially when used as a crossup.

-Sonic uair isn't that strong, it just KOs early because he hits you with it so high in the air after upthrow. it's possible to SDI the first hit just like Fox, but sadly it's much bigger so don't rely on it.

-Sonic dair is divekick and has the most landing lag/is the most unsafe on shield of all of his aerials. That doesn't mean it has Bowser landing lag, but from a close distance you can get a grab or grab it on shield.

-Sonic bair hits EVERYWHERE FOREVER. If you see his back to you do not challenge this move. It hits at the dank angle and at ledge you will be dead. It isn't incredibly fast, but the distance it reaches is jarring and catches people off guard.

-His grounded moves are fairly solid, but are pretty weak and susceptible to cc.

-Dtilt hits behind him. Think of the one Melee mario, it hits at like 45 degrees behind him and is pretty big.

-Jabs are meh. His jab1 doesn't hit low enough to jab reset a lot of characters, but jab2 can hit low enough to do it.

-Utilt is alright, but hard to set up and usually not optimal except in low % strings where you didn't CC or ASDI down.

-ftilt is a god poke. Think Roy ftilt in PM. It has crazy range, but doesn't combo or do much when not at the ledge. If it hits you recovering with no jumps it is hard to make it back beyond mid%s.

-Dash attack is TERRIBLE other than it hitting on frame 1 or 2 iirc. It is very bad on shield and offers weak conversions. There is something to note though. In PM there are 2 characters who have a dash attack that hits early enough so when you boost grab to cancel the dash attack there will be a hitbox that still appeared. These characters are Sonic and GnW. GnW's isn't that good because he's slower. Sonic's is amazing because he has tons of ways to force you into shield where he can then either JC grab you, JC SideB > grab, or Dash Attack > grab. Dash attack cancelled into grab is called "gatling grab." Characters with top tier spot dodges can buffer spot dodge the grab, but other than that it will always work.

-Upsmash is bad. Worse than Marth. Situationally usable with hard reads when you know someone is going to be above you. Can sometimes beat moves you wouldn't expect.

-Fsmash is deceivingly disjointed and lasting. Hits even after the punch when he's pulling his arm back.

-Dsmash is best smash. Sheik dsmash but the behind hit doesn't take as long and the hitboxes are more grounded with more range. At ledge it will destroy you and you cannot spot dodge it. If you don't DI up you will die.

Know the difference between his spin movement options

-Sonic's DownB is his "spindash." This one requires several frames to charge before he starts moving. He has to mash B to charge it to gain speed. If he does it uncharged it will move fairly slow, but fully charged is as fast/faster than his run speed. This is the spin he can jump and still maintain a hitbox with. Brent's goto use for this is at high % to fish for the KO because at %s above CC % it will pull you off of the ground when he jumps and combo directly into the aerial of his choosing. SDI + DI infront or behind him can cause his follow up to whiff no matter what he does. This will force him to require jumping early to clip you or spinning deep into you and then jumping to get the correct combo angle.

-Sonic's SideB is his "somersault." This requires no charge and is in my opinion his best spin. It comes out incredibly fast and it's multihit nature makes it near infallible vs CC. It does not move incredibly fast, but it initiates fast to catch you off guard when playing a close quarters neutral game. This move he can jump cancel out of once he flashes white iirc which is pretty early into the movement option. This means he can JC > grab, WD back > another attack or even SideB again, SH > fair depending on what the situation demands. You can SDI this move into the ground and then tech it. Teching in place can sometimes cause you to get up so fast the move still pulls you back in. Teching behind him nullifies all follow ups. You can escape the grab only by teching in a direction, SDIing up and falling out of it(this is hard to do), or SDIing in front of him which causes you to fly infront of him.

Another use of SideB is that it will snap to ledge. This is very good as you can grab ledge with a moving hitbox. It's possible to run off stage and b turnaround SideB to grab ledge faster than a reverse aerial rush > wavedash.

-Both spins are either not, or negatively disjointed. They are also both nearly safe on shield. As Zelda sometimes I can bair a slow DownB out of shield, but it is VERY hard to get the aerial early enough to connect and is not worth it as most characters.

-Sonic can only DownB and SideB once each per air time. SideB will grab ledge, but not like Luigi missile used to teleport to ledge. Sonic mains SHOULD always use DownB if they have their DJ left. The DJ with DownB is farther than his typical DJ distance because he has differing air mobility while in DownB/SideB. If he's high in the air he can SideB to get closer to the stage, but he can't jump out of the aerial version of this.

-Homing Attack is his neutral B. Until %s greater than 60ish it is negative on hit. He can use it to gimp spacies or other weak recoveries with no hitboxes, but it's risky because if he fails to "lock-on" to a tangible hitbox then he will go into special fall. This means you can air dodge to cause him to also die. This move is terrible risky in neutral and if he fails to collide with a wall or hurtbox then he is in a lot of lag.

Homing attack has another use and that is called the forced, "Blast Attack." This is where Sonic presses A during the startup of the move and it cancels the lock on forcing him to move in a fixed diagonal-downward trajectory. Not only does this move sooner, but it has half the end lag of homing attack on hit allowing it to combo much harder. It will still go into special fall on whiff.