To warn you, the following wall of text is basically in agreement with the things you said. I couldn't be helped in wanting clarification for the vagueness of your initial post, but it's all so clear to me now. It has been for some time, I just couldn't figure out what/why. I kind of hid from it as well. I suppose I needed some experienced players to help. I just don't want you to think that you typed all that for nothing.
For the record, and it's taken me a while, but I've been garnering a general growing hatred for Sonic as a character, though I couldn't specifically articulate why. I felt that each leap in improvement I've had as a player has been magnified by Sonic's aforementioned polarization; that even though my opponents were somewhat impatient with the character, I still didn't deserve winning all the time.
If I understood the wall of text above, then Sonic is broken because he focuses so hard on aspects of the game that polarize him to the point where he completely demolishes many relevant Smash/fighting game concepts (see: spacing, dash dancing, edgeguarding[which I have previously stated as doable, however only within player-player reads/predictions- which I will go over in a bit. You basically can't possibly cover all of his options], etc.). Being Sonic's opponent, one has to perform actions that, regardless of whether or not they are abusable to the point where Sonic loses, detract too far from the overall premise of smash (and moreover, fighting games) and shouldn't have to be used (or at least so frequently). Not to mention the aspects of Sonic's game that are abusable to the point where he completely eliminates features that are supposed to be parts of Smash as a game, some of which were previously mentioned.
Playing against Sonic is like trying to shoot skeet when the clay plates will shatter against your face and kill you if you miss. During a boxing match.
I switched mains to DK recently to prove to myself and others that I'm actually a good player (I've done the same with Fox) and not just winning because of Sonic. It's working very well, and while I'm familliar with Melee to a decent degree, I've come to understand, from Sonic's perspective, why he's broken.
I've seen lesser Sonics lose out of tournaments and I've insisted that all one has to do is play patiently and the MU is more doable, but I now understand that that's not the point. It's not that you can't deal with him, but more so that you
shouldn't have to deal with a character like that in a game identified as a fighter. I've always been drawn to Sonic for his technical prowess, and not the cut-and-dry styles of most Sonics that include spinning and not much else.
The ends don't justify the means, however. I can't tell you how many times I've done serious damage just waiting for my opponent to jump up and fair or do ANYTHING with even a remote amount of lag. You can't even run away because Sonic's down B charge is way too fast for even Captain Falcon. You're forced to play Sonic's game the whole time no matter what (only exception I've seen thus far is Falco whom he can gimp like nobody's business). Sonic is even in charge when he's ****ing recovering; I've gotten so good at recovering aggressively that I've reverse gimped folk plenty of times. Pretending to sweetspot the ledge is my favorite way of opening up for large amounts of damage. I've gone as far as to recommend
never trying to edgegaurd him because of the fact that you can literally never predict what the character (not the player) will do because of all those options. Oh yeah, and I timed out a Luigi on FD once.
I will never make the case that Sonic doesn't take skill to operate, (myself playing a
fairly technical Sonic [I have a GF set with that previously mentioned DDD player which has a lot of delicious movements- yet to be uploaded]) that I've used to win pretty much every M tournament we've had since 2.1. In fact, Sonic's technical game is so vastly underdeveloped (anyone who's experimented with learning Sonic techs should realize this) that the Wizzrobe method, despite being extremely effective and retardedly easy, will lose demand as players begin understand the MU. Heavy technical play is inevitable. I mean, think of how good Wizz would be if he played his Sonic like (Analogy incoming) M2K's Sheik and not Drephen's?
Want to know why it's easy to win with Sonic? It's not the opponent, it's the Sonic. He doesn't have to aim his moves like everyone else, and I'm not just talking about homing attack. Down b is an extremely fast grounded/aerial attack that has a constantly refreshing hitbox and is used to
auto-punish almost every single character. It's fully non-committal, jumps on-frame, and cancels immediately (in the air) into either any aerial, specials, or a WD hitbox that has increased hitstun.
All of his recovery options, if explored properly, create a character whom the opponents thereof can
literally not cover all options. Do they expect you to recover high? Down air immediately below the stage and take it from there. You can kick them in the head if they try to edgehog. Are they crouching above the stage and have you not used HA to recover in a while? Press B. Perfect spinshot->forward b = way too high above the stage for anyone to punish. And those aren't even a quarter of the tricks Sonic can use.
To make things succinct, here is a short list of Sonic things I now know are complete bull****:
-Vastness of recovery options including the distance over which he can travel offstage and the sheer aggressive nature thereof
-Negation of crouch cancel (I don't know if you guys know this but you can't CC sonic's spinning
-Spinning in general
-Ambiguously-timed spacing over which Sonic has full control (see: spin camping)
-Other things that others have mentioned earlier
Honestly, if Sonic's spin wasn't so good I could see him being less broken, but as it's been made clear to me, a single aspect of Sonic's game is enough to ruin the game for others.
