Alright that's fair, but maybe someone can answer a few questions I've had then? I've tried to pick up what I can from videos, as far as tech skills it feels like SHFFLing is critical but her wavedash is too weak to do much with it.
Ivy's wavedash and waveland are actually very good, but maybe I'm just saying that because they were shorter in the previous versions. You should definitely find some uses to it the more you use it. Movement is definitely not her forte I'll give you that.
As far as tech skill goes, Ivysaur has a gatling combo (=DACUS where you hit with the dash attack) which is one of her best answers to crouch cancelling, and can make use of B reversing a lot. Plus everything in Machiavelli's video from a couple weeks back. And everything that comes from melee that you haven't mentionned like pivots, shield drops, perfect shields, edge cancels, etc... can always up your game.
"it needs more dash dances" is pretty much my advice to everybody though. Stick to the fundamentals, Ivysaur is about being smart, not fancy.
I keep seeing players spike with U-air even though I thought D-air was safer for it, not sure about that.
The thing with uair is that the hitbox stays active for a very long time, so it compensates the lack of power by having a very large margin of error. Dair doesn't require as much commitment but the meteor sweetspot is a lot harder to land. both of them have very little disjoint (dair has a large disjoint on the non-meteor hitbox but the metor one is surprisingly small)
I mostly use the dair meteor on stage, because it deals a lot of hitstun and sets up a bunch of things.
I've been using U-til as a starter a lot but the top level players don't seem to do that, I was wondering if its generally inferior to d-tilt.
They're similarly good imo. By that I mean, they're both really reliable killmove setups and combo starters, they're both unsafe on shield and both cause a tech chase on crouch cancel. It's just that dtilt hits from a zone where you're comfortable as Ivysaur, while utilt hits from close quarters. So you'll naturally get more opportunities to dtilt than to utilt, simple as that.
Actually, dtilt can be DIed a bit easier because it doesn't send people straight up, so I'd say utilt is better. Just harder to land. But they pretty much have the same function.
While in an enemy combo trying to escape it what options are best once you are able to move? I was assuming spam U-air or D-air because they alter your momentum, but maybe try to catch them in a n-air?
Yup that's pretty much it. you can sometimes land the very tip of fair, too, assuming they give you enough time to do it. I just try to DI to the nearest ledge, or the nearest platform since Ivysaur's techs are sup-par.
It's definitely one of Ivysaur's strengths though, and smart mixing up of double jumps, dairs and uairs should get you out of trouble a lot of the time.
And the last issue is what are Ivy's best options for going from ledge to stage?
Now that is a tricky question because it's one of Ivysaur's weaknesses. She's brilliant at camping on the ledge, but climbing back up from it is another story. So you need to be very patient, don't hesitate to stall until you find (or rather, create) an opening.
As far as options go, you've got the traditionnal four : ledge attack is meh but has a pretty god disjoint under 100%, ledge getup is never as good as a ledge wavedash, ledge jump is very good as Ivysaur since she's good at getting out of juggles, and ledge roll is a pretty good mixup but you shouldn't try to spam it. Then you've got ledge hop fair which has a lot of range but it extremely telegraphed and punishable by quick moves, dash shields and dash dances, and nair which is very good but can be powered through by superior aerials.
Try to keep yourself from using your dair to recover if possible : if you use it again without having landed on a platform since the last use, you won't get the full bump you could have needed otherwise.
