What is the advantage of short hop aerials?

Question

I've been reading up on short hops a bit, and I've noticed that in high level play it's quite normal for a short hop to be followed by an aerial in a situation when average players would just use their normal attacks. What advantage do these attacks give over regular attacks? Is it about knockback and spacing, or do they do more damage?

Answer 1

It's a variety of things.

• The most important thing is being able to interrupt the ending lag of the aerial by landing. If the move's landing lag is less than its ending lag (which is common), there is a lot of incentive to land as quickly as possible so the next move can come out sooner.
• Related to the above, it's not uncommon for "hop, attack, fastfall, interrupt rest of attack by landing" to be faster than the entire animation of a ground attack.
• Some aerials are just good, or at least better than the character's ground attacks in the same situation. Maybe they're faster to hit, deal more damage, have a bigger range, or other things.
• You generally can't move while using a ground attack, but you generally can while using an air attack. This lets you space more precisely, or do things like move in and out to try and bait responses.
• In SSBU specifically, aerials using during a shorthop deal 0.85x damage (which affects the knockback). This can alter how a combo goes compared to a full jump aerial.

Answer 2

Toomai's given you a good answer, but I'd like to mention some other points I don't see there.

Before we get into it...

I'd like to start by narrowing your question a little. Short-hop (sh) aerials aren't always advantageous. Think about something slow with a LOT of lag, like Ganon's down aerial (I'm not sure the move will even come out before you land if you tried to do it from a short hop). Or if you're in the middle of a combo and you need a full-hop to extend it.

As such, I'm going to assume that you're actually talking about sh aerials specifically in the neutral game.

C-C-C-Combos

Most characters' combo starters are aerials. There are some exceptions (a few down-tilts or up-tilts)--and characters with those will approach on the ground more often--but for the most part, every crazy combo or kill-confirm starts with an aerial. In fact, I'd say that a character's kill-confirms will dictate the most how they approach later in a stock.

Low commitment

Short-hops in general are relatively low commitment. You can double jump, air dodge, or fast fall back to the ground, all in a few frames. The only time you're stuck in animation is during the 3-frame jump-squat at the beginning. Compare this to...

• A full-hop
  • You lose the fast fall option and give your opponent time to anticipate your landing and anti-air you.
• A dash in
  • In Ultimate you can dash dance back, but the turnaround animation can make you vulnerable. The only way to stop (without skidding) is to shield, which will then take several frames to drop before you can act again.
• Rolling in
  • This is something I see a lot of beginner-level players do. They feel like their only movement option is a roll (and seem to forget dashing, walking or jumps). Needless to say, this leaves you especially vulnerable. It's both predictable and comes with a LOT of lag.

Safe pressure

Short-hop aerials (when spaced correctly) can be completely unpunishable when hitting the opponent's shield. There are some ground attacks that can do this as well, but they are few and far between when compared to how many characters have safe aerials.

Cross-ups

A massive benefit of aerials over grounded attacks that you see used often is that they can cross-up. That is, you can land behind your opponent (even if you hit them from the front).

This is also possible with some dash attacks, but dash attacks tend to be more obvious when they cross-up, while also being more laggy. With aerials, whether you'll cross-up can be a difference of a few pixels, so you can keep your opponent guessing which side you'll land on.

Tomahawks

From the Smash wiki

A tomahawk, also called an empty hop, is a mindgame performed when a player nearby an opponent does a jump, typically a short hop, and simply lands back on the ground without using an attack. The intent is to make the opponent believe an aerial attack is coming and cause them to raise their shield (making the technique a bait). The jumper then has a free move on the shielding opponent, most commonly a grab.

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TL;DR/Conclusion

If you approach me with a short hop, you could...

• Hit my shield with a fully safe move
• Hit my shield and land either behind or in front of me
• Land without any move at all and punish my shield

All told, short-hops give you a whole lot of versatility and options without forcing you to commit to anything. When you're playing the neutral game, that combination is exactly what you want so that you can react to your opponent and punish their overcommitment.