What is the advantage of short hop aerials?

[zymir]

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?

[inna]

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.