Just going to pitch in my two cents, as an almost good Velvet player.



Shat A back-sways and high-crushes to get Velvet away from her opponent, which is the whole point of her character. The only time I hit opponents with it raw is if they're not approaching carefully (and they SHOULD, since I could eruption them at any point and anyone should know to be wary of Velvet lows). Blockstrings into Shat A are true, and yeah, you can frame trap with D, but every character in this game is capable of frame-trapping, and Velvet spends a few of her precious resources in order to max out her damage... which got hit pretty hard last patch.



Yeah, Velvet makes you not want to press buttons on approach. She's a zoner. You want to not press buttons on approach, or you want to be careful about them. The only ways she can instantly punish you are with D, which uses a resource, and with eruption, which is active for one frame and can be pretty easily avoided if you're careful.



Friendly reminder you can't true blockstring into eruption A and can punish it pretty easily. I get punished for it all the time.



The only time I ever hit people with Shat C is if they're turtling midscreen. It has thirty frames of startup (which is an eternity in fighting game time) and literally every character can punish it before it even comes out. No blockstring with Shat C is true and there's actually no reason to get hit by it if you're careful-- or even just learn to react faster. The damage on it is nowhere near as bad as it was and is so strong because it's a high risk, high reward option, similar to, say, Arizona counter-hit? Yes, it can be made safe on block, but that's part of the reason Velvet's non-magic projectiles work the way they do; she has literally no true mixups and limited pressure, so that's her way of going in on an opponent once she's cornered. By making her weak game somewhat safe so she has a chance of escaping reset heck.



I'd also like to point out that shatters a and c are technically projectiles and the way they space and chip the opponent works exactly like projectiles should. But summoning that projectile unsafely leaves Velvet completely shutdown by a savvy player 2, just like I can't summon an icicle when I'm within, say, lasso or cartwheel range. The backspacing can also be a bad thing if you keep advancing your approach-- you can effectively make a weak Velvet corner herself.



I'm sure Velvet could still use some tweaking (*cough*MagicDP*cough*) but her shatters are honestly fine imo. They're not super great but they work well with our glorious smugdeer and I wouldn't change much, if anything, about them.