A few of these may have already been recognized during the development of the Vision Sliding video (I haven't been on the Discord since a while), but I've been having a lot of success with some alternative non-platform, non-dair, unbuffered but semi-reliable Vision Sliding setups. If I can find the time I'll upload a video to my channel but basically there are three things I've noticed, and I think I'll order then in terms of importance or usefulness:





1) JUMP ART SH BUFFERED FAIR (FAF FASTFALLED) PSEUDO-BUFFERED VISION SLIDE:





With SH Jump Art airtime being just 1 frame longer than Fair's FAF (43 vs 42), it is actually possible to fastfall with good timing while also psuedo-buffering Vision in order to vision slide fairly reliably, I'd put it on the same difficultly as wavebouncing actually, which means with practice it can become consistent. Effectively, by fastfalling around the FAF of the fair, you are able to compress those last two frames of Jump art SH airtime into less than two frames of airtime, which the game will round down to just 1 frame of airtime, allowing you then to then buffer your Vision on that last compressed airtime frame in order to achieve Vision Sliding. (Edit: it may in fact be three frames compressing into one, since the way dair Vision Slide works is dair has an FAF of 61 and FH has 60 frames of airtime, essentially such that you can buffer Visio N to occur on the landing frame, frame 61...main point is fastfalling in Jump Art especially given it's higher fall speed may be able to compress those remaining airtime (after fair FAF) plus the landing frame such that Vision Sliding is consistently possible to do, I'm not 100 % on the specifics really.





Recalling that Jump Art's Airspeed and sliding distance yield the longest Vision Slides, I think this is actually a super convenient and potentially viable method of Vision Sliding, since you can be weaving back and forth in the air with Jump Art to better position yourself to get hit or even abort the Vision Slide setup if things are not quite lined up right. Coupled with the handy aerial drift freedom I have access to by using the Special Stick down to input Vision (I use Bidou, where the Special Stick down can also double as a means to input fastfall pre fair's FAF as well as "pseudo-buffer" Vision with frame perfect accuracy since it registers as a single frame long directional input, of course it's still possible to achieve this just using regular controls with good coordination as well), it is actually fairly easy to go for a Vision Slide on reaction while maintaining full control of my so-called bait, the whiffed SH Jump Art Fair. Not to mention fair has much less landing lag than dair, and Jump Art's significant landing lag sliding allows Shulk to escape punishment, allowing for potentially multiple retreating or cross up Vision Sliding attempts for as long as Jump Art remains active.





For comparison, an example of a 1 frame offset which can't be used reliably is SH Speed Art buffered airdodge (Speed Art airtime is 35 and airdodge FAF is 34) since you can't fastfall during airdodge, but it is still possible to have an albeit much lower chance (but still better than trying to Vision Slide with no timing strategy at all) of performing a Vision Slide via inputting Vision on the second of the last two frames before landing into the 22 frames of airdodge landing lag (since Speed Art SH airdodge doesn't auto cancel) considering the fact that any Vision input within ten frames of airdodge's FAF will be buffered as a Vision on that second-to-last frame which won't get you the desire Vision Slide (effectively giving you eleven frames to buffer and input an Aerial Vision and only one to input a Vision Slide, but it's still better than nothing, plus it may be worth it to have Speed Arts airspeed and mobility)



2) VANILLA/BUSTER/SMASH FH "APEX" FACILITATED AIRDODGE VISION SLIDE:





While conceptualizing in the past the idea of the Monado Art Beat (1st nine frames of an art cycle where the Kanji behind Shulk will newly materialize and then solidifies) several months ago and different timing applications (for example, Vanilla FH Art Cycle MAB FH-apex airdodge for a visually confirmable near frame perfect Mallc airdodge, where the apex of FH on frame 26 of the 60 frames of FH airtime {such that you would art cycle on frame 17-18 or so in order to align the Kanji solidification either on or a few frames after FH Apex, recalling it takes 45 frames to activate an art} is visually defined by the disappearance of the dust motes that accompany Shulk during his ascent right as he transitions into his descent) which, using the MAB, offer a means of timing near frame perfect Mallc airdodges (since you don't need to worry about hitlag prolonging your airtime)...





Anyways, what's relevant is that this same concept of a Vanilla FH apex airdodge allows you to potentially buffer a Vision on that last frame of airtime since 60 FH airtime frames minus the 26 frames before and including the apex = 34 which happens to be the FAF of airdodge. (EDIT: actually this may be slight less reliable than the Speed Art SH airdodge Vision Sliding Setup I mentioned earlier since in this case you aren't buffering airdodge out of FH apex, you are just delaying your input)





And since airdodge auto cancels on frame 36, if you input airdodge any earlier than the apex of FH (frame 25 and earlier) you won't need to suffer the 22 frame landing lag penalty for messing up the setup by having input airdodge too early; thus, you should be generally aware that if you input airdodge while rising, you will NOT have the opportunity to buffer a Vision Slide.





On the other hand inputting the airdodge too late or after passing the FH apex will cause Shulk to land before the airdodge FAF kicks in, so in this case you won't need to worry about being stuck in a buffered Vision for 75 frames and being punished, as airdodge landing lag is only 22 frames in comparison.





In this way, with some keen vigilance regarding when you input airdodge during your FH with respect to its apex (you want to aim for said apex on frame 26 right when the dust motes disappear) you can choose to forego Vision on reaction if it appears that you accidentally airdodged while rising (too early), and you will be always able to avoid any unwanted and punishable Vision endlag of an attempt to buffer Vision on an airdodge that was input a few frames after FH apex, instead only having to incur 22 frames of airdodge landing lag. In this way, you can very easily avoid whiffing a FH airdodge Vision Slide by knowing not to attempt a buffered Vision after a rising FH airdodge (pre-apex) and also by simply not being able to Vision out of a post-apex airdodge that will land before it's FAF.





3) VANILLA/BUSTER/SMASH FH BUFFERED FAIR/BAIR MONADO SHEATHING ALIGNED UNBUFFERED VISION SLIDE:





Lastly, I haven't extensively tested this but it seems to me that Shulk visually "sheaths" or replaces the Monado onto his back almost exactly a second or 60 frames after inputting his fair, bair, and maybe even his uair (which has an FAF of 60 and will therefore have that same issue of a 1 frame offset as does Jump Art SH Fair, where fastfalling at the right time into a buffered Vision could help make it viable by compressing the last two frames of airtime into one). Since in order to use down special one needs to press down on the L-stick first (which also unavoidably inputs fastfall), this is where again Special Stick (which I use for Bidou already) can make it possible to input a frame perfect Vision while AVOIDING FASTFALL in order to more consistently coincide with this aforementioned Monado sheathing animation on what appears to be the 60th frame (without having actually verified that this is the case in training mode). This is probably as hard as wavebouncing Shulk's Monado Art Activation since the difficulty of the single frame input (3 frame input window for wavebouncing) is offset by the consistent visual indication of the Monado Sheathing animation (whereas, outside of the physical rumble of your controller upon activation, there is no way to know when the art will activate other than muscle memory, good internal timing, godly reaction speed, or the application of the Monado Art Beat as eluded to earlier in 2)





Since fair and bair both provide more spacing than fair, it may be possible to use Vanilla/Buster/Smash FH fair or bair along with this Monado sheathing animation and Special Stick down as a way to semi-reliably Vision Slide, which would allow While to make use of his horizontal hitboxes as a means of baiting opponents into rushing in (with say a telegraphed move like dash attack)and trying to punish your whiffed aerial. This in my mind is more ideal than the dair based Vision Slide setup mainly due to how suspicious it is for Shulk to be randomly dairing while spaced far away from an opponent, since dair has both a lack of horizontal hitboxes and high landing lag, I.e. there is absolutely no good reason to be using it in the neutral, especially at the beginning of a full hop. At least uair has considerably less landing lag despite also lacking horizontal hitboxes.





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Anyways, I can definitely try to upload a video if ppl are confused or want to see footage of these Vision Slide setups in action. But yeah, these are just some setups I developed which could make Vision Sliding more useful at the expense of fully guaranteed buffering of Vision. But hey, Mallc isn't automatic either right? Practice makes perfect, and the more consistent a technique is the more viable it could potentially be (remember, wavebouncing is still a thing that I think is grossly overlooked in the Shulk Meta but that's just my two cents).