More consistent launch angle on Absa down strong#941

Due to the absolute mess of hitboxes this move throw out and the suction properties on them, it’s completely unclear what side of the Absa you’ll be launched at regardless of your starting position. considering this is such a good chasing move, having this level of unpredictability makes something you so often get hit by into a tool far better than it has any right to be.

To answer some part of this as an Absa main and having done a couple of her hitbox visualizations for dragdown including Dstrong :
It’s not really a hitbox mess, it just drags you into her with the multihits and all of them can reverse which is why it doesn’t send one way or another. That does have a suction effect, but it’s not like her other 2 strongs which set the opponent’s position to be in the middle of the move.

Absa Down Strong is a really good move, and the theoretical best counterplay is to SDI + DI to the side you want to be launched to on the multihits, then DI up and in on the finisher.
This is not reliable in practice, of course, so the best advice I have is to DI up and accept whichever side you are launched towards. It’s suboptimal, sure, but it already goes a long way to not dying.

Now, for a potential way to address what you are requesting, should Absa’s Dstrong final hit not reverse ? idk. It would be a fairly interesting change, bringing the move even closer to Ultimate Pikachu’s Dsmash. But while adding the counterplay of always being able to DI it perfectly, it would remove the counterplay of influencing which side you are launched to. It’s also just not that easy to properly know which side Absa was facing when she launched the move.

The move can also be Amsah teched especially when it hits a grounded opponent, and while I haven’t labbed the counterplay myself, I have seen people saying it was fairly consistent even at 140-150%.

I think as long as you just accept that you should DI it straight up all the time (which isn’t that far from optimal DI angle, by the way), it’s a fine move. But Im not against changing it in some ways that address the frustration that it can be to get hit by.

Maybe it should be engineered to try really hard to put you in front of her? That would also require the Absa to think about which direction she’s facing when doing the move.