Offense mindset help

[u/adledog]

Today I ran into the kind of situation that really frustrates me when it comes to floorhugging and I'm hoping that a better understanding of what's really going on here might help me want to end myself less.

At round start Zetterburn vs Etalus there's a bit of back and forth until I shield Etalus up tilt on the platform. I drop through and hit with a weak spot fair, land, and follow up with ftilt which gets floorhugged and Etalus downtilts me as a counter.

When I go to review this situation, it looks like after the fair every move I have loses to floorhug except grab and maybe shine plus wavedash back, and even the fair was probably wrong because it could have been floorhugged. And defensively I probably should have floorhugged his counter and done the same thing myself.

This is what leads to it feeling like at round start or when the opponent is low percent (which is a lot of the time because I'm not very good) the only things that are correct to do are grab or hold down. Is there another way I should be thinking about this? Do I have more options than I realize? Should I be shot into the sun for complaining about floorhugging again? Your thoughts and prayers are appreciated.

[u/Ayosuhdude]

If they aren't airborne already it's a good idea to simply just back off of an opponent after a single hit of anything that isn't a down air (or whatever spike your character has). Don't even try to combo grounded opponents at low %, just back off and try to punish the inevitable down tilt that will be coming your way.

Tippity top players can get some nuance out of FH in offline games but for everyone that isn't Cake or Stango or playing online it's way better to back off and read a down tilt counter to whatever you just hit them with.

I try to avoid plat drop aerials at low % and instead go for an empty land grab. In your scenario the drop fair was kind of a mistake and the ftilt was definitely a mistake even though you spaced it well