Official Art management- Shulk moveset analysis (Current move: D-throw)

[TheHopefulHero]

Skid Up-Smashing? I like it. Time to test it in the lab.

 

[Berserker.]

Okaaay, forgot that this thread existed

Move on to shield art

 

[Masonomace]

There's nothing to say about Monado Shield other than that it's Shulk's greatest Monado art by far. :^ )

 

[Berserker.]

shield tldr: 200%

edit: we livin'

gonna post a fleshed out summary sooner or later

 

[TheHopefulHero]

Move of the Day: Monado Shield (Should be Monado Armor)

Shield Art, as the name implies, is a defensive Art that strengths our defensive options at the cost of everything else. When equipped, Shulk’s mobility is cut drastically, his attacks are slightly weaker, recovering with Shulk just got a lot harder thanks to our cut-down mobility, and in a game where mobility and strength can mean the difference between life and death, it seems as if Shield art has no place in this game. But then you realize that Ness can’t kill you with a B-Throw at 80% in this state, or how Shulk’s Shield is still active even after taking a Shield Breaker from Marth / Lucina, or how you’re still alive even after eating a Smash Attack from Little Mac at 120%, or how Shulk just took a 20 hit combo and only took 20%. Shield Art now gains some recognition and also purpose in Shulk’s move-kit.

Defense and survival becomes our strategy in this Art. Not only does Shulk take reduced % and knockback in this state, but his bubble shield becomes more durable and his weight significantly increases, which makes Shulk the heaviest character in the game when Shield Art is active. The weight increase helps Shulk get out of some combos sooner and the reduced % is an added plus for escaping a would-be touch of death scenario. All of these elements are perfect for securing a stock lead, and that’s exactly what Shield Art is so good at. But Shield Art is not perfect and it can show it’s ugly side in a variety of moments. Shield Art makes Shulk slower than molasses and our attacks are slightly weaker. This is enough for people to either camp with projectiles against Shield Shulk or just run away and wait until Shield wears off before fighting again. Now this obviously bad for us if we’re behind in % or Stocks, but we can also use this to our advantage if we know what to expect from the opponent. If they’re going to run away, we can use that new ground they gave us to position ourselves for offense when Shield runs out. Throwing some projectiles at us? Watch as we just pull out our bubble shield to shrug off that projectile while you make it weaker. Some might see this as an opportunity for a grab and try to go in, but if we call it right, we can stop the approach with attack (preferably jab) or move in to a better position to retaliate since we take very little % in most cases. This strategy might be a bit more defensive than usual, but that Shield Art specializes in, and can potentially make opponents bend to our will.


Decisive and Hyper Arts just go to show how strong our defensive arts are in this state. Take everything mentioned in the paragraph above and amplifies it to an extreme amount. Decisive Arts makes Shield Art immensely useful as the damage Shulk takes in this art is pitiful and he won’t be sent around until 100% range (as Mace keeps showing me in our matches). Hyper Arts takes this even further, but the 6 seconds isn’t enough for me personally. Either way, use caution when using these Arts as it’s not easy to recover with them.


So in short, Shield Art can do the following for Shulk:
+ Increased Weight and damage reduction can make survival most fatal blows with ease.
+ Helps Shulk escape out of combos, and potentially forces fighters to either camp or grab him (especially in Decisive Shield)
+ Oddly enough give Shulk a make-shift approach option since he’ll shrug off most damage done to him.
+ Depending on who you’re facing, you might be able to force the opponent to take an action against Shulk, which means you’ll be able to know what the opponent is going to do.

- Shield does make Shulk prone to camping and makes approaching harder to do.
- The reduced mobility isn’t going to do you any favors off-stage, which can force you to turn off-shield earlier than usual.
- Using it too soon or too late will hurt you more so compared to other Arts (Shield wears out its welcome around 200%)
- If the opponent is leading by stocks, you might want to hold off on Shield Art as they might consider running away from you.

* You can take a KO Punch from Little Mac in Shield Art, but it won't save you once you're in the 60% range.

 

[S.F.L.R_9]

* This doesn’t reduce the power of Mac’s KO Punch though, so you might want to turn it off Shield just for that occasion

It actually does:

Though it still kills pretty early...around ~60-70% on FD

 

[Abaasy]

I feel like I need to add that Hyper Shield Shulk barely takes any knockback at the ledge of FD from a full charged Flare Blade (Roy's Neutral B) and makes Shulk only take 28%, normally being 50%. Shulk even lives Flare Blade at 28%, but he goes offstage into the bubble. Just tested for fun

 

[meleebrawler]

Normal Shield Shulk's utility basically boils down to "I don't wanna die". By using at percents Shulk would normally be susceptible to the enemy's KO moves he can survive that much longer while accumulating more rage to possibly turn the tides. This art shines when both Shulk and the opponent are at high percentages, since as mentioned with Speed the damage debuff doesn't impact knockback that much. It's also all right to use it when you feel things are getting out of hand and need a breather, but be warned that this can sometimes backfire with the weight leading to longer combos at lower percents occasionally.

The low damage and mobility make it difficult to make significant progress without several wrong moves from your opponent (which are admittedly easier to make due to the added strength in Shulk's shield), though, and your moves are less safe on shield (but the low mobility can ironically make it easier to space properly while the lower damage taken mitigates risk).

Decisive is much the same in utility and is a strict upgrade in most respects, but as with most decisive arts a fair amount of consideration must be made.

Hyper Shield on the other hand is very different. It's far too slow and weak to even consider in neutral, along with it's short duration, but when it comes to escaping or mitigating disadvantage? There's almost nothing better. You take laughably low damage from everything, barely get sent anywhere until ludicrous percents and your shield can punish practically anything on landing. It is extremely discouraging to attack Shulk in this state since he often suffers so little hitstun he can punish things on hit. It won't hurt much back, granted (unless it's a vision), but it still gives him breathing room.

/5 It's not exactly an art you WANT to find yourself using (since ideally you'd want to avoid the situations that call for it), but it's still helpful when those do happen.

 

[Berserker.]

Shield art turned out to be the surprising key-factor for Shulk's disadvantage imo

You take less damage, you gain more weight, and you take less hitsun. Once you go into this art, your opponent has several options against you. They can either rush you down and attempt to combo you or run in circles or camp you out. Getting rushed down in shield art sounds bad. Yeah, Shulk is getting bopped hard. Whoop. Buuuut, you're not taking much damage. I mean, damage is damage but it's better than taking the full damage. Best part here is that you have the chance of actually punishing opponents for throwing or hitting you in shield art. At lower to mid percentages (it's really dependent on the knockback of the move that's used on Shulk), Shulk can react quickly out of hitsun due to the decreased (significantly) knockback taken and the increase in defense. HOWEVER, despite this sounding great, opponents can opt to run away from you. There's nothing to fear about this to be honest since you'd want to slow down the pace with shield art. Shield art is NOT an option though if you're behind. You're gonna need damage and shield art is definitely not a solution to that

So yeah, shield art is a defensive art and it succeeds in doing its job. It's an extremely underrated art that takes a lot of flak for whatever reason but it definitely has its issues

 

[Berserker.]

Alright then, Monado buster's next

 

[meleebrawler]

Probably the most straightforward art in Shulk's arsenal. It's the only art apart from the highly situational Smash that doesn't affect Shulk's mobility in any way, so it's general strategy isn't too different from vanilla: using superior range to space. However, it does make that gameplan all the more solid simply by dealing more damage, making for better shield pressure. The supposed drawback of lowered knockback just serves to make Shulk's damage-raising all the more effective by keeping the enemy closer for more hits, and the drawback of killing later is circumvented by simply not using buster on opponents with high percentages when it becomes unnecessary. Increased damage taken isn't too much of a risk but still discourages use against overwhelming neutral.

Decisive ups the ante of course but the risk of running the opponent's percents too high is greater with the inability to exit.

Hyper however is used for one thing only: shield busting. Unlike normal the knockback is decreased so much that things become unsafe on hit (even if the damage dealt is ridiculous), and the damage taken is a real risk.

/5 for normal at least since there's almost no downside when using this art properly, but it won't turn the tides easily against those who already can evade the Monado.

 

[Berserker.]

Ooookay. This art is my personal favorite among all of the Monado arts

The shield pressure, damage output, and the reduced knockback... it makes Shulk an offensive powerhouse. It makes his mid-range so formidable, safe and ultimately rewarding. Landing strings and hits with buster art is so rewarding and your potential damage output is amazing. No other character (other than maybe Luigi) is on par with Buster art's damage potential. The utility of buster art though is rather straightforward, as mentioned. Just ultimately rewarding. The only down side to buster art is that you take more damage in buster but the defense debuff is so negligible (13% added), it's pretty much not a risk at all, if anything. You get so much advantages and boons from buster art, so much to the point that the disadvantages are ultimately overshadowed

But let's move away from why it's good. We get how to use the art. It's for mid-range, strictly and for damage racking when the opportunity rises but what are your options at mid-range with buster art? What's safe on block? Well, the damage increase manages to affect shield safety positively, shield pushback and shield damage. The following attacks will be your main tools for spacing:

1) D-tilt
2) F-tilt
3) Tipper n-air
4) F-air
5) B-air

Buster art has a lot of combos and set-ups due to the low knockback. Buster u-tilt sets up quite well into footstools. Buster d-throw can combo into d-tilt, f-tilt, f-smash or air slash. Buster f-throw can set up into f-smash, d-tilt or f-tilt. Buster n-air combos into f-smash, d-tilt, jab, grab, or f-tilt. Due to the decreased knockback, there are so much potential strings and combos with buster art

Getting bodied in buster art leaves you with two choices. The decision pretty much depends on you. You can either persist with buster and attempt to answer back or deactivate the art and switch to something safer like shield or speed

Buster art has great synergy with other arts. When it comes to dealing with campers, you can use speed to get in and buster to do all the damage. Buster and shield are also great combinations if you're planning on turtling for your life. Buster and smash are self-explanatory. Buster art deals so much damage, it pretty much can potentially set the opponent at a certain percent wherein a jump art combo may kill them

Buster art is amazing for Shulk. I'd rate it a 4.5/5. I would have gave it a 5/5 if the defense debuff weren't there. That and... well, if it were at least a bit more effective against zoners but I can even make a case for it being decent against zoners if MALLC is applied with buster art

 

[Abaasy]

I'm not going to get very detailed on what you can do in Buster art, you guys already pretty much explained it. However, because Buster art has reduced knockback, it gives Shulk an additional 5 jab lock options, making him have 6 jab locking moves, which is the most in the game on one character, with the closest one being Lucas having 5. Without Buster, Shulk's 2nd hit of Dair is the only move that can jab lock. All of Shulk's lock moves only work at low to mid percents, and with buster on, it'll get your opponent straight to a kill percent.

Shulk's jab locking moves are: (I tested them all on Link)

1. 2nd hit of Dair (It can lock in Jump, Speed, and Buster: I'm not too sure about the percents in Jump and Speed, but I'll test how high each lock can go with Buster on) Dair in Buster stops locking past 33%. (You have to Fast Fall it to lock it at higher percents)

2. Fair (Locks in Buster only, stops locking past 26% with non-tippered Fair, and stops locking past 35% with tipper Fair)

3. FTilt (Locks in Buster only, stops locking past 25% with non-tippered FTilt, and stops locking past 32% with tipper Ftilt)

4. Bair (Locks in Buster only, stops locking past 19% with non-tippered Bair, and I have no idea when it locks when it's tippered, it doesn't hit like over half the cast while they are on the ground)

5. Fsmash (Locks in Buster only with the tip of the 2nd hit, stops locking past 18%)

And last but not least, Backslash.... jab locks!!

6. Backslash (Locks in Buster and from the front only, stops locking past 34% with non-tippered Backslash, and I have no idea how to test with tippered Backslash, the spacing isn't a problem, it's just that I have to make him go to a too high of a percent to the point where Link doesn't go into the tumble animation because Buster doesn't hit Link to where he slides off the platform.)

Okay so basically, if you manage to jab lock someone with Shulk, that's a free 50%~ assuming you have Buster on. Shulk's Fair does 10% and makes Link slide off the platform into the tumble animation when Link is at the center of the platform, so that is how I tested it. And if you manage to get a jab lock off in a real match using Hyper arts, well... RIP Opponent.

Shulk really has no easy way to get your opponent into the ground for a jab lock opportunity, besides the sliding platform mechanic. The only other thing that I can get to work consistantly is to Nair your opponent in Speed art into a run up footstool, then a fast fall Dair. You really will not get the best damage output since speed makes your damage output 0.8x.

So yeah those are all of Shulk's jab lock moves that I have tested!

 

[Masonomace]

(Tl;DR - Monado Shield is a great art. . .It is. .!)​

Monado Shield art
Overall rating:
盾(Shield):
Decisive 盾(Shield): 1/2
Hyper 盾(Shield): 1/2

Note: Technically this art should be called Monado Armour, but Monado Shield in smash 4 does help a lot against Final Smashes which I guess could be compared to some terrifying Talent arts so we'll let that one slide Nintendo (You mad Marth / Lucina?).

Monado Art | Increased stats | Decreased stats Shield | Defense, Knockback resistance, Shield health & regeneration | Damage dealt on-hit & on-shield, Jump height, Ground speed, Air speed

Known Pros:
-Defense
-Knockback resistance
-Shield health & shield regeneration
-Insert other pro(s) here

Known Cons:
-Damage dealt on-hit & on-shield
-Jump height
-Ground speed
-Air speed
-Insert other con(s) here
════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
Pros
Defense & Knockback resistance
I would normally have each pro separated & discuss them, but for Monado Shield it's best to be talking about both rather than one then the other. Since damage affects the knockback formula, the increased defense helps reduce knockback yet the knockback resistance is more vital to the knockback formula. As of now I'm not sure if anyone has the knockback multiplier for the Shield arts, but if you want a great example of this art's potential to live then just go test it on Little Mac's KO punch or a Final Smash & be astounded by this art's will to live. By the way, at one point or even now Shulk players say that Monado Shield makes Shulk heavier in terms of weight, but in truth this is incorrect. Replace saying "weight" instead with "knockback received", "knockback defense", or "knockback resistance" are some phrases that I would say. After all Monado Shield does reduce damage taken as well so it makes knockback we receive so petty that we just like to say "more weight". Monado Shield alone makes Shulk take knockback like he's as heavy as a truck having even greater knockback resistance horizontally & vertically than Bowser or King Dedede. Plus with a damage taken multiplier of 0.67x (-33%) for Monado Shield, 0.603x (-39.7%) for Decisive Shield, & 0.536x (-46.4%) for Hyper Shield it's no wonder that the increased defense is so good to have to resist knockback from combos you won't escape out of as Vanilla Shulk anyhow, so why not just use the art for its pros?

A quick damage comparison
A move deals 20% to you. If you had the Jump art active, you'd receive 24.4%. If you had the Shield art active, you'd only take 13.4%.

Another great thing about these two pros in combination: Hitstun advantage. Due to both of these pros, Shulk's flinching animations drastically change. The Shield arts generally cause Shulk to flinch at later percents if the attack is too weak to deal significant knockback with minimal hitstun. Only if the attack is strong enough will it cause a longer frame lasting flinch to Shield Shulk.

So we know that Shulk doesn't the greatest frame data. In fact his overall frame data is pretty bad barring a few moves in his entire kit, but because of the Shield art's hitstun advantage, it can create this hidden pro that leads to helping Shulk's bad frame data by avoid taking more damage that would have lead to more nonsense had you not activated a Shield art sooner. I just didn't mention it because sometimes having hitstun advantage won't mean that much if the string of attacks you're trying to avoid is too quick to interrupt, leading into you getting combo'd much more than you should be. But remember, taking less damage is still a good thing despite taking more hits. It's important to actually watch your damage meter when you're taking damage to decide whether or not it's better to leave it active or deactivate it when you're in a riskier place to be from.

A great example of the art's hitstun advantage is Mario's D-throw at early percent; if you were to be grabbed & D-thrown as Shulk with any art you'll definitely be punished by Mario's D-throw > U-tilt, but if you have a Shield art active you'll have enough hitstun advantage to interrupt the incoming U-tilt with Vision counter. Another great example of not being able to escape a combo at early percent can be Pit or Dark Pit's D-throw > dashing U-smash, in which if you had any art active including Shield you'll be punished regardless. But with having the Shield art active, you reduce the damage taken throughout that combo & getting an opportunity to jump away or think about their next move because you go almost nowhere.

One tactic that I would think is not used as much yet it's quite effective is crouching in order to crouch cancel for even more defensive ground-game. Think about it, you put on an art that already improves your defensive capabilities by so much that you actually gain hitstun advantage, & now you crouch against moves in order to crouch cancel knockback even further?? Yes Please! Crouching saves lives already, but if you want some convincing then have some numbers:

Training Mode without DI
Jigglypuff's Rest KOs Shulk standing at 56%, but the Deadly Blow effect starts at 57%.
Jigglypuff's Rest KOs Shulk crouching at 89%, but the Deadly Blow effect starts at 90%.
Jigglypuff's Rest KOs Shield Shulk standing at 115%, but the Deadly Blow effect starts at 117%.
Jigglypuff's Rest KOs Shield Shulk crouching at 158%, but the Deadly Blow effect starts at 159.


OHKOs = OP Talent Arts waiting to be irrelevant?
Moves that are deemed as OHKOs are usually tested for true confirmation by having a character like Mario stand at the center of Final Destination with 0% & be KO'd by that move in question under standard conditions. Here are the OHKOs for Sm4sh. What's funny is that the Shield arts with a mixture of crouching & vectoring favorably for maximum survival potential is a capable strategy of debunking most of if not every one of Sm4sh's OHKOs including the revered smash item strike from the Home-Run Bat tippered, & Marth's & Lucina's Critical Hit final smash. Decisive Shield Shulk has great potential surviving a good amount of OHKOs, but it is the momentary yet highly revered Hyper Shield art that outclasses any wannabe heavyweight by easily surviving most or every single notable OHKO in Sm4sh, with or without crouching if needed.
So wow. Shield Shulk crouching & immediately vectoring when facing left or holding when facing right can almost survive a OHKO attack like Marth's final smash Critical Hit. Just make sure to stay crouching & then react to the hit once you've noticed Shulk flinch in the hitlag state by holding towards the stage to vector. By just crouching alone, Decisive Shield Shulk can survive Marth's Critical Hit & doublejump towards the stage to safety, which can be improved if you apply vectoring. The kicker of this test is proving that crouch is so helpful that if you chose not to crouch as Decisive Shield Shulk against Marth's Critical Hit, then you wouldn't survive no matter how good your vectoring is. Crouching saves lives people!

BONUS: Effects weakened
Due to the combination of increased defense & knockback resistance from the Shield arts, I've decided to share some helpful information. The Shield arts allow Shulk to resist against effects that attacks possess. Here are those effects that I know the Shield arts resist against:
-Bury
-Electric
-Flower
-Frozen
-Paralyze
-Sleep
-Slip
-Stun
-Wind

Spoiler: Bury effect

Getting hit by an attack such as Donkey Kong's Headbutt, Mii Brawler's Head-On Assault, Villager's D-smash, & Wii Fit Trainer's third jab hit while being grounded will induce the bury effect no matter how low your percentage is. Being hit by these kind of moves while not staying grounded will only apply the regular knockback of that move whether it's normal or a meteor smash like Donkey Kong's Headbutt. And in this state, you're unable to do anything except for wiggling the control stick & button mashing to escape out of the bury effect quicker. Interestingly enough, a player getting buried into the ground gains a short amount of invincibility frames, & the higher your damage rises, the longer you stay buried. Getting hit by an attack won't knock you out of the bury effect, so it can be advantageous to get out quickly, or stay buried to mess up someone's timing of their next attack.

The advantage of using a Shield art for resisting against a move with the Bury effect is a good one, even though you're going to be buried at 0% no matter how much knockback a Shield art resists. It's kinda weird explaining this without video, but essentially, two Shulks (one having a Shield art active & the other staying Vanilla) hit by Donkey Kong's Headbutt simultaneously in slow-mo shows that Shield Shulk gets buried quicker. I'm not entirely sure if getting buried quicker affects the amount of invincibility frames you get, but whatever. The good thing is that the Shield Shulk ends up burying into the ground right before Vanilla Shulk, & Shield Shulk also escapes from the bury effect jumping out before Vanilla Shulk too. Overall, the time you're stuck being buried is reduced with a Shield art active not to mention wiggling the control stick while mashing buttons gets you out before you can say "Monado! Shield us!" as fast as you can. Oh & your jump height while breaking free from the bury effect is reduced when a Shield art is active.

Note: Crouching does not affect the Bury effect much at all. No matter if you crouch or not, you're still grounded so it leads to nothing. Don't think to crouch against this kind of effect.

Spoiler: Electric effect

I'm not too sure how to test Shield arts resisting against the Electric effect, but since Electric attacks multiplies the amount of freeze frames by 1.5x(?), I tested Captain Falcon hitting two Shulks simultaneously with the Knee of Justice. The Shulk with the Shield art active escaped out of the hitlag & started getting launched before the Vanilla Shulk who was still taking hitlag from the Knee of Justice. I brought this up once before, but I feel that the hitstun advantage is just coming into play rather than the Shield arts actually resisting against the electric effect. So yeah.

Spoiler: Flower effect

The flower effect takes place when a certain having the effect hits a player successfully. Lip's Stick is the most notable example I can think of that induces the flower effect, & like this item including other certain attacks, the more consecutive times you hit with an attack or item with the flower effect will make the flower on the player's head grow larger. It also becomes much harder to get rid of the flower once it grows larger & larger to the point you take more damage over time. Thankfully the flower can be manually removed falling off the player's head more quickly if you wiggle the control stick & button mash.

The Shield arts increasing defense plays a good role in resisting against the flower effect. The strong first hit's damage is of course reduced, but the Shield arts also heavily decrease the ticking DoT (Damage over time) from the flower therefore removing the flower more quickly. Let's look at some numbers:

Training Mode
Two Shulks, 1 Shulk using the Lip's Stick & fully charging the smash attack item strike at close range, & the other Shulk using a Shield art without inputting anything.

Vanilla Shulk gets dealt 21% from the initial hit & takes 41% of ticking flower damage, leaving Shulk at 62% in the end.
Shield Shulk gets dealt 14% from the initial hit & takes 27% of ticking flower damage, leaving Shield Shulk at 41% in the end.
DShield Shulk gets dealt 12% from the initial hit & takes 25% of ticking flower damage, leaving DShield Shulk at 37% in the end.
HShield Shulk gets dealt 11% from the initial hit & takes 22% of ticking flower damage, leaving HShield Shulk at 33% in the end.

One thing that worried me was Hyper Shield because the art eventually deactivates before the flower tick damage finishes. Thankfully with the art's damage taken multipler, we just apply the Vanilla tick damage of 41% & multiply it by 0.536x, which gets me 21.976%? Huh. I guess the fully charged smash item strike deals decimal damage? Eh, the point here is that HShield shows to reduce the flower's damage even when the art deactivates early. So, a really good way to get a flower off of you ASAP is to start deactivating your Shield or HShield art first & then mash the B button to cycle arts very quickly, then proceed to wiggle your control stick back n forth inputting a Dash Dance for maximum flower removal. DShield can't be deactivated, but mashing B still helps along with Dash Dancing until it's removed quickly.

Note: Crouching doesn't really help reduce the damage of the flower ticking, but it does reduce the knockback taken from the first initial hit. At best, crouching will reduce the total damage output by 1 - 2% if you were holding crouch the whole time. Even when you crouch at the speed of sound, the damage remains unchanged so make sure to wiggle back n forth.

Spoiler: Frozen / Ice effect

The Freezing effect aka the Ice effect or "frozen" is an effect in which the character becomes frozen in a block of ice when one's damage % meter is high enough for the ice move dealing enough knockback & damage to induce the status. When becoming frozen, you're unable to act with anything until you thaw out breaking from the ice. Thankfully the Shield arts reduce the time you're frozen allowing you to break free thawing quicker. Combine this with button mashing & you're guaranteed to escape much quicker than most of the cast. Being hit by a fire attack's flame effect immediately thaws out the ice dealing minimal knockback, but Shield arts do not need the courtesy. If someone really wanted to help in a 2v2 battle, the partner possessing a flame-based attack could hit the Shield Shulk trapped in ice to help them break free in case it happened at much higher percents.

Note: Crouching heavily affects the percentages freezing will occur, so always think to crouch defensively against the Ice effect!

Training Mode testing
Shulk, whoever, & Freezie. Freezie smash thrown hits the ground dealing ~14%. Vanilla Shulk placed where he was at the start, I have the 2nd player ledge-roll with a Freezie in hand smash thrown toward the 1st player Shulk.
Vanilla Shulk starts getting frozen at 0%. When crouching, freezing starts at 6%.
Shield Shulk starts getting frozen at 27%. When crouching, freezing starts at 63%.
Decisive Shield Shulk starts getting frozen at 50%. When crouching, freezing starts at 91%.
Hyper Shield starts getting frozen at 79%. When crouching, freezing starts at 125%.

Kirby using Ice Breath. Ice Breath deals around ~12 - 13% when all hits connect but it's the outer hit dealing ~6% that induces the freeze effect so I will use just the last hit.
Vanilla Shulk starts getting frozen at 0%. When crouching, freezing starts at 4%.
Shield Shulk starts getting frozen at 26%. When crouching, freezing starts at 69%.
Decisive Shield Shulk starts getting frozen at 54%. When crouching, freezing starts at 101%. (Lives at 999% with crouching. . .)
Hyper Shield Shulk starts getting frozen at 88%. When crouching, freezing starts at 142%. (Lives at 999% without crouching. . .)

Luigi using Ice Ball. Ice Ball deals ~4% at any distance.
Vanilla Shulk starts getting frozen by Ice Ball at 43%. When crouching, freezing starts at 66%.
Shield Shulk starts getting frozen by Ice Ball at 80%. When crouching, freezing starts at 109%.
Decisive Shield Shulk starts getting frozen at 99%. When crouching, freezing starts at 130%. (Lives at 999% with crouching. .)
Hyper Shield Shulk starts getting frozen at 121%. When crouching, freezing starts at 157%. (Lives at 999% without crouching. .)

Mega Man using Ice Slasher. Ice Slasher deals ~4% at any distance.
Vanilla Shulk starts getting frozen by Ice Slasher at 20%. When crouching, freezing starts at 33%.
Shield Shulk starts getting frozen at 42%. When crouching, freezing starts at 58%.
Decisive Shield Shulk starts getting frozen at 52%. When crouching, freezing starts at 71%.
Hyper Shield Shulk starts getting frozen at 66%. When crouching, freezing starts at 86%.

Mr. Game & Watch using Judge 8. Judge 8 deals ~9%.
Vanilla Shulk starts getting frozen at 0%. When crouching, freezing starts at 0%.
Shield Shulk starts getting frozen at 0%. When crouching, Shield Shulk cannot be frozen by Judge 8, not even at 999%!
Decisive Shield Shulk & Hyper Shield Shulk crouching or standing cannot become frozen by Judge 8, not even at 999%!

Ness using PK Freeze. PK Freeze uncharged from above deals ~10% & deals ~19% fully charged.
Uncharged
Vanilla Shulk starts getting frozen at 0%. When crouching, freezing starts at 0%.
Shield Shulk starts getting frozen at 0%. When crouching, Shield Shulk cannot be frozen by PK Freeze, not even at 999%!
Decisive Shield Shulk & Hyper Shield Shulk crouching or standing cannot become frozen by PK Freeze, not even at 999%!

Fullcharged
Vanilla Shulk starts gettign frozen at 0%. When crouching, freezing starts at 0%.
Shield Shulk starts getting frozen at 0%. When crouching, Shield Shulk cannot be frozen by PK Freeze, not even at 999%!
Decisive Shield Shulk & Hyper Shield Shulk crouching or standing cannot become frozen by PK Freeze, not even at 999%!

Spoiler: Paralyze effect

Paralysis is often confused with the electric effect since the paralyze effect uses electrical sound effects. Moves like Zero Suit Samus' D-smash & her full charged Neutral-B paralyzer, Pac-Man's bonus fruit Bell item, & other custom special moves induce the paralysis effect. The player afflicted with this effect will shake back n forth & be unable to act out with anything until the effect expires, followed by that move's knockback.

The good news for Shulk is that Shield arts reduce the amount of time you're paralyzed, allowing you to possibly escape out of a paralyze chain combo from Zero Suit Samus or Pikachu's Thunder Wave custom special perhaps with enough hitstun frame advantage. The even greater news is that crouching helps immensely! Have Vanilla Shulk crouch against Zero Suit Samus' uncharged D-smash & you'll reduce the amount of time you're paralyzed compared to not crouching. So Shield art & crouching in combination can save your stock! Seriously though, that is awesome. Wiggling the control stick barely helps you but it's not noticeable enough or it probably doesn't even help in the slightest, but if you want to crouch a paralyzing hit & proceed to wiggle your control stick during the paralysis then be my guest.

Spoiler: Sleep effect

The sleep status is rarely seen in game-play unless we mention examples like Jigglypuff's Sing, or Peach's Sleepy Toad custom special & her final smash called Peach Blossom. These sleep-inducing moves only cause the effect when the player is grounded, & once you've fallen asleep you cannot do anything until you act out of it by a mixture of wiggling your control stick & button mashing to escape out of the status quicker. The more damage you've received on your damage meter, the longer you stay asleep making it harder to escape the sleep effect at later percents. Sleeping ends early when hit by an attack that causes some amount of flinching or if the ground below disappears for some reason. Notably, the Shield arts reduce the time you're stuck sleeping, but if you ask me I'd use your bubble shield to avoid being asleep since it's either that, staying airborne, staying on the ledge, or if there's ladders somewhere then go climb it to avoid sleeping. Jigglypuff's Sing > Rest is a real pain sometimes, which is why Shield art & mashing is a great thing to do against it.

Note: Like the bury effect, crouching does not help against the sleep effect because it's a ground-only effect just like bury. The moment you're on the ground crouching or not, you've gone into a deep slumber that you may never wake from. . .

Spoiler: Slip effect

Slipping only occurs on the ground from moves or items that cause the slip effect. Attacks with this effect like the banana peel & R.O.B.'s Slip Gyro guarantees tripping grounded opponents regardless of the Shield art's increased defense & knockback resistance. Due to this, it could be more dangerous against moves with a trip chance using Shield or even the Speed art since Shield takes longer for Shulk to flinch enough to be airborne & Speed increasing traction reduces the sideways force of the attack. Notably, Shield art does not reduce the time you're slipping & recovering from the tripping animation but the distance you travel while slipping is reduced.

Note: Crouching does not help resist against the slip effect. Although, crouching does reduce the distance you travel slipping.

Spoiler: Stun effect

The Stun effect is a kind of effect that can be described as being "dazed" occurs in different ways. When dazed, the player cannot perform anything until the stun effect wears off seconds later or when you've flinched by an attack. You're also able to button mash & wiggle your control stick to reduce the daze duration as well. While most effects are prolonged the higher your damage reaches, the stun effect's duration reduces as your damage gets higher.

The good news is that Shield arts naturally reduce the duration of the stun effect. Here's some instances the stun effect happens:
-Shield break
-Mewtwo's Disable
-Deku Nut
-Wario-Man's barely charged Wario Waft
-Wario's 3rd custom move Garlic Breath

+Let's be real, Shulk with a Shield art active never will have a broken shield. If it happens, then I have nothing to say to ya.
+Mewtwo's Disable is briefly short, more short-lived than Wario's Garlic Breath custom but the Shield arts still help.
+Deku Nut has the second longest time of stun, the first being a shield break at 0%. So any Shield art usage is great for it.
+Wario-Man is situational so it's not practical to use Shield arts just for this, but Shield art is anti-final smash anyhow.
+Garlic breath has a moderate amount of stun to it, so just avoid the move as it does have a fairly large amount of startup.

Note: Crouching does not help with reducing the stun's duration. That would of been cool if it did.

Spoiler: Wind effect

Wind is a neat physical element that acts accordingly in two categories: pushing & pulling. This elemental effect takes place in some of the character's moves & in certain stages like Pirate Ship or Wispy Woods on Dreamland. However, Wispy Woods' blowing effect doesn't appear to differ when Vanilla Shulk activates Shield, as Shield Shulk travels the same distance when pushed away. So mostly, the push wind effect in a move such as Mario's F.L.U.D.D., Palutena's F-smash D-smash & her Heavenly Light, Donkey Kong's Storm Punch, & Ike's Tempest all possess a strong windbox that the Shield arts can effectively reduce their push-effect strength airborne & on the ground. The most revered push-effect I think comes from the Gust Bellows, which is also reduced by the Shield arts thankfully.

Note: You cannot be pushed or pulled by a Windbox when hanging on the ledge, & you can easily just use your bubble shield to ignore the push & pull effects.

Shield Health & Shield Regeneration
Like Shulk's first two pros being mentioned together, it's only right that I also discuss these two pros at once. So the Shield arts increase shield health & regeneration does it? YES! A BETTER BUBBLE SHIELD! Why aren't you happy about it as much as I am?! --- Okay, okay, this game is more defensive-based yes, but this is just great news & really takes the usual mind-set of, "ugh shields in sm4sh. . ." to "UGH this shield! <3". Right when a Shield art activates, Shulk players now have this bubble shield that exceeds in performance far better than any other character's shield in Sm4sh. Some things we may or may not know:

• Every character's bubble shield has 50 HP. Character size does not matter since they all break at the same time.
• Every character's depletion & regeneration per second is the same. This is also why shields break simultaneously.
• You can tilt your shield in a direction including the 8 diagonal directions:
• Holding shield over time causes it to shrink, which leaves their hurtbox vulnerable to shield poking.
• Your broken shield resets to 30 HP.
• Your perfect shield aka powershield takes place on Frame 1 - 3. Bubble shields become normal starting from Frame 4 - 11, & you are locked into shielding for 11 frames minimum. And shield drop lag is 7 frames, which is from Frame 12 - 18.
• When you perfect shield a singular attack, you don't take any shield damage & you can drop shield much faster. When reacting out of perfect shield, your opponent is stuck in hitlag.
• Hitting someone's shield puts them in shield stun which cancels out the shield drop lag. Not hitting someone's shield forces them to remain holding shield & the shield drop lag too.

What we can gather from this:

• Shield Shulk's bubble shield doesn't physically look bigger than Vanilla Shulk's bubble shield, but rather the slower depletion per second indicates the bubble shield has much more % HP.
• Because Shield increases the base % HP of Shulk's bubble shield, it also increases Shulk's bubble shield when it resets after being broken. Though. . .Idk how your bubble shield would get broken in the first place, but it's good to know.
• The Shield arts naturally augmenting our bubble shield means that we won't get shield poked much anymore, leading to sitting in shield more comfortably.
• Having more freedom to shield unless worrying about grabs, we can use bubble shield in more disadvantageous spots where normally we wouldn't want to stay at.

Think of those times you play on a stage with platforms like Battlefield, Smashville, Town & City, Kongo Jungle 64, Delfino Plaza, Halberd, Castle Siege, Lylat Cruise, Miiverse, Dreamland 64. Regardless of what stage it is, anytime you're launched vertically & you want to get down to the stage as soon as you can but have to land on a platform, you become afraid of getting hit from under right? Well, you can cycle to Shield & angle / tilt your bubble shield down to protect your hurtbox from getting poked through. When considering that your bubble shield is so much greater, you start noticing that it takes at least four to five attacks until your shield starts to finally wear down low enough that you can't stay in that position any longer. The beauty of this tactic is that characters who have no means of platform canceling up to the platform you're standing on holding shield means you cannot be hard-countered by a grab. Unless of course that character has a command grab that is usable in the air, then this strategy is not as easily favored. Bottom line: When you're stuck in a bad place, you still have options, & this option you have called a shield just so happens to be a great one to use for protection. Just some food for thought.

Just thinking of activating Shield at anytime your bubble shield gets very low on health & on the verge of breaking based on your judgement. A few seconds of Shield or more is more than enough time your bubble shield has gained increased shield regeneration to heal your bubble shield. Other than that, you can also use your better bubble shield to withstand against stronger shield damaging attacks & is reliable against projectiles especially high aura Lucario's Aura Sphere, Samus' Charge Shot, & Mewtwo's Shadow Ball. And remember, the more they use their projectiles on your shield, the more they stale them which is always a plus. I should mention that shield health & shield regeneration gets better & better with the stronger arts: Decisive Shield & Hyper Shield. If your bubble shield is literally on the point of being broken, quickly cycle to HShield & let it activate & keep it active for all six seconds. After just those six seconds, your bubble shield will practically be max % HP!

Cons
Damage dealt on-hit & on-shield
Monado Shield & Monado Speed before patch 1.0.4 had damage multipliers very close to each other & the only major difference between the two was the assistance of, or in Monado Shield's case, lack of movement speed to help make the reduced damage on-everything safer. Because the Shield arts reduce Shulk's everything-speed, it makes this con look much worse in comparison & you can have a hard time dealing damage in a favorable & positive way. If one truly wanted to focus on dealing damage as Shield Shulk, they mustn't primarily focus on dealing damage aggressively & intentionally. With help from the art's pros to level out this con, one can use at least two kinds of strategies in order to deal damage effectively. These two strategies I would think also happen to help utilizing Shield better:

1. "Hold your ground. Maintain the lead"
2. "Revenge by retaliation. Trading. A punish for a punish"

1. "Hold your ground & maintain the lead" is what you'd expect it sounds like. You basically rely on holding center stage & keeping that stage positioning along with patience. This strategy is fairly good to implement if you already have the stock lead especially when you haven't taken enough critical damage of being close to losing your own stock. Depending on the pace & whether you're in the Neutral, Advantage, or in the Disadvantage, Shield art will look fine to keep active or not. When you're in the Neutral as Shield Shulk with the lead, you play a dominant role in being defensive & your strong defense to prevent the opponent from out-playing you in aggression in hopes to get the Advantage on you. Having the Advantage as Shield Shulk isn't that great of an advantage so deactivating Shield is optional but your dominance in defense can make it harder for the opponent to over-throw you nonetheless. Not to mention that anytime they use a move that would usually be safe on-hit in order to shift their position at the Disadvantage to the Advantage can suddenly look unsafe & then we get to the second strategy.

2. "Revenge by retaliation. Trading. A punish for a punish" is another strategy that will eventually happen to the Shield arts due to their cons & pros in combination in every moment, of course depending on your current %. Generally this strategy relies on the hitstun advantage from the increased defense & knockback resistance. WIth this strategy, you seemingly appear to be doing a bad thing taking damage, but the arts reducing damage taken alleviates on that so that the knockback resistance allows Shulk to retaliate back to the attacker thus trading hits will occur. This strategy also happens because you become too slow to be contesting against the opponent & the shift from Advantage to Disadvantage can happen quite easily when you don't play as patient. Since damage on-everything is worsened on top of the other cons bunched with this con, this strategy may end up getting used more often at earlier percents to solidify on the first strategy.

Inputting Short Hop aerials & landing with D-tilt used to be a BnB strategy I would rely on if I wanted to play footsies, but eventually that old forte was for naught when players would simply play more patiently than me & go in when Shulk has an opening. Speaking of jumping. . .


Jump height

Spoiler: Jump height table

Jump Height Table & Rankings (WIP)

DISCLAIMER: This was all done with platforms to measure the very apex height of said option / move.
SH = Short Hop
FH = Full Hop
DJ = Double Jump
LJ = Ledge Jump
SBJ = Shield Break Jump (when your shield breaks)
TFJ = Tapped Footstool Jump (when you only tap the jump button during the footstool)
HFJ = Held Footstool Jump (when you hold down the jump button during the footstool)
AS1 = 1st hit of Air Slash
AS2 = 2nd hit of Air Slash
MAS1 = 1st hit of Mighty Air Slash
MAS2 = 2nd hit of Mighty Air Slash
AAS1 = 1st hit of Advancing Air Slash
AAS2 = 2nd hit of Advancing Air Slash

Move | Vanilla | Shield | DShield | HShield
SH | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2
FH | 7 | 5 | 5 | 4
DJ | 7 | 5 | 5 | 4
LJ | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7
SBJ | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8
TFJ |
HFJ |
AS1 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 9
AS2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2
AAS1 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 9
AAS2 | –5 | –5 | –5 | –5
MAS1 | 11 | 11 | 11 | 11
MAS2 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3

Jump height notes:

• Overall, the Shield arts don't reduce jump height as much as the Speed arts. Recovering vertically with Shield arts is fine
• The vertical height to both hits of AS, AAS, & MAS are exactly the same with Vanilla, Shield, DShield, & HShield
• Shield & Decisive Shield have the exact same jump heights in every instance you're jumping. HShield only shares some of the instances you're jumping but not all of them
• I don't have numbers for Tapped Footstool Jump & Held Footstool Jump, but I think that Shield arts reduce their height
• Shield DShield & HShield have the exact same jump heights for ledgejump & shield break jump including the Air Slashes

When compared to the jump heights of other characters, Shield Shulk & DShield Shulk seem to have a close similarity of jump heights to Dr. Mario & Mega Man in terms of their Short Hops, Full Hops, Doublejumps, & Ledgejumps. There are others who come relatively close to the Shield art's jump heights but as exact as the two I mentioned. The Monado arts don't affect the jumpsquat frame data, but aside from that there's not much to worry for Shield's jump height reduction honestly. Like the Speed arts, Shield arts can also Short Hop aerial with some effectiveness to an extent, but by extent I mean that inputting a Short Hop + N-air & fast falling it for a self-sufficient protection hitbox is "good" but eventually one who uses Shield arts cannot simply just SH N-air all day. The con doesn't look or perform as bad as one would think but alas it gets outweighed by the assistance of Shield's other glaring cons making this con look worse. Overall, the Shield arts actually do fine recovering vertically. . .it's just because the art's heavily reduces air speed that you have no choice but to recover vertically from low.


Ground speed
There's no need to hide it. Monado Shield in a non-custom special meta makes Shulk have thee absolute slowest ground speed in Sm4sh. So yes, he's the most sluggish character, come at me with those "You're too slow!" remarks because I activate this art proudly. But seriously, the large reduction of ground speed makes Shulk run slower than Robin, walk slower than Jigglypuff, & I don't know too much about the other movement speed statistics. But anyways, here are some movement options on the ground:

Basic movement options
X Walking
X? √? Dash
X Running
X Pivot
-Insert other options here

Other movement options
√ Dash Turn
X Slingshot
X Stutter Step
√ Skid
X Foxtrotting
X Dash Dancing
X Slow Run
-Insert other options here

Advanced movement options
X Perfect Pivot
X Turnaround Cancel
X RAR = Reverse Aerial Rush
X Dance Trotting
-Insert other options here

Honorable Mentions
√ Crouching
√ Rolling

Most of these movement options are less effective with the Shield arts unlike the Speed arts which vastly improve them. However, possessing slower ground speed can be surprisingly effective. But first let's cover some things between the movement differences of two Shulks simultaneously tested in comparison with one being Vanilla & the other having the Shield art active:

• Shield Shulk's walk acceleration & max walking speed are drastically decreased. The distance Shulk travels across the floor after he stops walking is also reduced. Shield Shulk is slower than the slowest walking character, Jigglypuff.
• Shield Shulk's dash sequence traveled is reduced without any difference in frame data. This also means that an Instant Dash Attack out of standing position is slightly worsened than Vanilla. And of course, running speed & slow running speed is reduced by so much that Shulk becomes slower than the slowest running character, Robin. This also means that a Hyphen smash used by Shield Shulk travels less distance. Thankfully, Shield Shulk's dash item throw travels the same distance.
• The distance Shield Shulk travels while pivoting his options are reduced. These include pivot grab, pivot F-smash, & pivot F-tilt.
• Out of a dash turn, both Vanilla Shulk & Shield Shulk can input jumping, F-tilt, jump-canceled U-smash, & rolling. The only advantage Shield Shulk has over Vanilla is that Shield Shulk recovers more quickly from dash turning when holding shield.
• Slingshotting with Shield art basically goes nowhere. It's not really that much useful.
• Stutterstepping at the latest you can input F-smash slightly travels less distance with Shield. Otherwise, a very quickly inputted stutterstep at the earliest is about the same distance traveled.
• Skidding as Shield Shulk is love & life. Shield recovers & can act from skid much quicker to the point that Shield Shulk acts out of skid as quickly as a character like Villager or Mega Man.
• Foxtrotting is not much better than running as Shield Shuk. It beats walking though.
• Dash dancing is about the same distance traveled, but Shield probably reduces the distance.
• Shield Shulk slow running is barely faster than another Shield Shulk walking. This is hilarious to watch.
• Shield Shulk's perfect pivot travels so much less distance that he possesses a perfect pivot around Jigglypuff's.
• Dance Trotting as Shield Shulk is funny, but of course it travels less distance.
• Crouching as Shield Shulk is love & life.
• Rolling repeatedly travels faster than Shield Shulk running. Roll a lot if you wanna get to places.

Basically, Shield's best movement options are rolling, dash attack & Instant Dash Attack, dash item throw, dash grab, Roll Canceled Grab, skidding, & crouching. And Advancing Air Slash since you travel the same distance as the other arts do without drifting involved.


Air speed
Much alike ground speed, Monado Shield in a non-custom special meta makes Shulk have the slowest air speed in Sm4sh, slower than King Dedede. The large decrease of air speed turns away the idea of recovering with this art, as it should. Anyone who commits to recovering with the Shield arts without the assistance of Advancing Air Slash is a Monado moron, & with an air speed value as low as Shield / DShield, a player must recover from low. This is ultimately the only decent way Shield arts can recover from. Besides a meteor smash that would ruin a Shield Shulk's day recovering from very low to an extent, Shield Shulk doesn't have that much trouble in the vertical department because the jump height isn't as bad as the Speed arts & Shield's Air Slash vertical recovery isn't reduced at all. However, the heavily reduced air speed will factor in the move when delaying the second hit of any Air Slash variant. While the Shield arts do worsen the air speed in between the first hit & delaying the second hit of an Air Slash variant, it's always important to remember that no matter what you think about the Shield arts, delaying the second hit for a horizontal-focused Air Slash recovery will always be better than not delaying it at all. If you truly couldn't find time deactivating Shield & you're afraid of not making it to the ledge through Air Slash's horizontal drifting, then by all means, deactivate the art & then accordingly recover with Air Slash.

One helpful thing to think about is whenever you're launched from a move hitting you off-stage while you have Shield active, IMMEDIATELY deactivate it right as you're hit so that you can airdodge to remove the air speed debuff & proceed with cycling quickly to Jump or Speed & expend your preserved doublejump if you haven't used it already.

A Helpful Tip
A great way to make Shield arts look great while recovering offstage requires the Shield art to be off cooldown & ready to be used. At anytime you're launched offstage while an art is active, you must keep in mind to deactivate it as quickly as you can with of course first properly DI'ing / Vectoring to ensure you'll survive the attack. As you take hitstun & are getting launched with a favorable knockback angle you've formed thanks to your DI / Vectoring, quickly deactivate your current art & cycle to Shield / DShield / HShield while holding your control stick towards the stage to begin drifting as soon as your hitstun wears off. Make sure that your current art was deactivated & that you're cycling so that it's safe to be holding your joystick towards the stage because if you happen to mistime this process, your effort will result in a Back Slash which can happen quite frequently.

For a TL;DR step-by-step:

1. Upon taking hitstun from a strong attack capable of knocking you far off-stage, DI / Vector it in order to live
2. If you have an art currently active, deactivate it. If you don't have an art currently active, go ahead & cycle to Shield
3. While cycling to Shield, begin holding your joystick towards the stage
4. Congratulations, you've cycled to Shield while drifting towards the stage with Vanilla air speed

Why Do This?
The purpose of this helpful tip is recovering defensively with Shield's strong pros of reduced defense & knockback resistance so that you're not launched away as easily. The advantages to doing this is to obviously negate the horrible air speed that Shield would normally have. What's actually happening during this process is you're deactivating whatever art is currently active in a way that you have Vanilla air speed & are in the tumbling state while drifting towards the stage & cycling to Shield. When you're tumbling (Shulk's tumble state is similar to other characters. He's doing somersaults), the Monado art's activation does not affect Shulk's tumbling animation nor does the Monado art's increased mobility happen until you input airdodge or an aerial. So when you're multi-tasking recovering to the stage while cycling to Shield in this manner, you travel with Vanilla Shulk's air speed so that you easily make it back as long as you don't input anything that would cause Shulk to gain Shield's horrible everything-speed. Of course if you feel the need to airdodge or use an aerial for protection then do so. This done with Hyper Shield becomes by far the greatest use of defensive protection of not losing your stock from being edge-guarded to the point you're gimped because gimping Hyper Shield in this way is just simply not possible.

Oh, and when you deactivate Jump / HJump or Speed / HSpeed, it's possible to drift with that art's air speed if you time the deactivation to drift correctly. It's not easy to do, but when it's done correctly you drift with an air speed value like HJump & have HShield activated? Now HShield is impossible to be edge-guarded.

 

[Berserker.]

Fashionably late yet again Mace, but then again, nice work

Forgot to add about buster but it has potential when it comes to being used for edgeguarding. It's also a good "KO-throw" in a sense that you can follow up to f-air or dash u-smash or air slash to secure a KO near the edge at certain percentages. Buster art is also capable of tumble locking (Just refer to the link to know more about this) and it's much easier to perform this tech with the art due to its lower knockback (so basically, tumble locking can be done at higher percentages than usual because of the decreased knockback)

So yeah. I'm kind of, sort of, not looking forward to talking about Smash art

 

[TheHopefulHero]

Really? I like Smash Art. It might be a little shorter than what the other arts are can do, but it'll be interesting to say the least.
I can't say much to the Buster thread since you guys covered everything about it I will say that it's a very interesting edge guarding tool at times. I think with the right timing, you might be able to do foot-stool combos off of Butser. But as a whole, Buster is simple theory, just sometimes a risk to work with.

 

[Berserker.]

I'm really mixed with Smash art atm but I've been doing WAY better with the art recently since I've restricted it for specific situations and I usually stick to safe options like pivot f-tilt, b/d-throw or u-tilt. Anyway, this discussion can wait until buster has been concluded

 

[Masonomace]

(TL;DR Monado Buster is a great art)​

Monado Buster art
Overall rating:
斬(Buster):
Decisive 斬(Buster):1/2
Hyper 斬(Buster):1/2

Technically this art should be called Monado Enchant, but owell I've never developed a game. Now if only Monado Buster dealt more damage against & . . .

Monado Art | Increased stats | Decreased stats Buster | Damage dealt on-hit & on-shield, Shield Push dealt | Defense, Knockback dealt

Known Pros:
-Damage dealt on-hit & on-shield
-Shield Push dealt
-Insert other options here

Known Cons:
-Defense
-Knockback dealt
-Insert other options here
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
With there being a Buster art guide & all of your inputs, I don't need to go over every potential pro & con for the Buster arts.

 

[Linkmario00]

There's one thing I don't understand about the ratings of arts..In shield and buster (I don't remember jump and Speed) the decisive arts have a better rating than normal and hyper, but I don't know if it counts the fact that we can't deactivate them or not. If it's the latter because the deactivation it's a genera thing of DArts then it's obviously good, but if it's the former I say we should discuss more about it because yeah, not being able to switch art is a serious nerf imo.

 

[Berserker.]

The only issue with decisive arts though is that their "synergy" is hindered by the lack of manual deactivation. What makes default (and hyper arts to a lesser extent) so versatile is that each art meshes really well with the other. Decisive arts basically are good in a sense they effectively make Shulk a better character with a much more unified and focused neutral rather than a versatile adaptive character with a dynamic but difficult-to-manage neutral. If we we're going to rate each art by their own merits and not include their synergy with each other (which decisive arts lacks), then it'd be reasonable to rate each decisive art higher than default arts. But, if we were to factor the synergy and adaptability of each art and how they mesh with each other, decisive art's utility should be on par with default art's or lower by a point or a half

 

[Linkmario00]

Yeah, like I said if we consider the single art it's obvious that decisive are thebest (even though tthe lack of MALLC and MADC could really hurt us) but all together it's a different story. I think we should make a separate analysis on this thread about "Decisive arts" and "Hyper arts" all together even though there's the custom thread for it.

 

[Berserker.]

Okay, let's move on to Smash art. This gonna bgud

Oh and for the ratings...

Jump and shield got a 4/5
Buster gets a 4.5/5
Speed gets a 5/5

Although I think buster is more important than speed, speed art is still better due to the fact that its weaknesses are practically not really that much of a weakness tbh. It's still Shulk's safest art for his neutral and it's very solid. Buster art is great but the defense nerf is a bit of an issue. Like, a near-non issue to be honest but still an issue, nevertheless which can be exploited by attacks with high base damage

But w/e, they're all great arts

 

[Masonomace]

Monado Buster only got 4 days of analysis discussion? That seems a bit short to me, but given that we have a good grasp of knowledge about Buster, then I guess we don't need to further analyze it.

My next post will have the Smash art goods.

 

[Berserker.]

The general range for discussion is usually 4-7 days, so I'd say that 4 days is reasonable for Buster art because the utility of buster art is pretty much straight forward tbh (and because, well like you said, we know enough about the art haha)

 

[TheHopefulHero]

If we have the clear to post for Smash Art, I'll start off by giving my thoughts on it. If we're still on Buster, I'll take it down.

Move of the Day: Monado Smash (Very Similar to Reyn’s Berserk Art if you ask me)

Ah Smash Art… The Art that turns Shulk into a beast and can cause people to confuse him with a certain scientist who can turn into a green hulking giant when he's angry (And Shulk can get pretty angry at times...). As for the Art itself, this is the definition of high-risk, high-reward for Shulk. When activated, all of Shulk’s attacks / specials get a knockback boost, meaning Shulk can take a stock much sooner than expected. This is a very useful tool in a variety situations and give Shulk some new options. Obviously, our kill moves have got stronger, but it also makes Shulk’s edge-guarding / gimping abilities a lot better. N-Air and F-Air can potentially screw people over off-stage, and Up-Air can let Shulk take stocks near the upper blast zone much sooner. Not only is Smash’s Art knockback boost strong as is, but when you combine Rage and MALAC / Art Cancels with Smash Art, some of Shulk’s combos, while few in this state, become very scary to deal with and are capable of taking stocks.

But then we get to the other side of this Art: Shulk suffers from a weakened knockback resistance. So while Shulk can toss foes around as if they were Jigglypuff, he can also be tossed around like Jigglypuff as well. This alone would make Smash Art a risk as is, but Shulk’s attacks also suffer from a % decrease, meaning our attacks aren’t safe on Shield, and if we don’t take a stock with our attacks, you haven’t changed much in the fight other than sending someone pretty far away. And if that wasn’t enough, most people who see Smash equipped will either run away until the Art wears off unless they’re willing to exploit our weakened defenses (Looking at you Fox, Yoshi, Shiek, and ZSS…). Oddly enough, the biggest problem I have with this Art is trying to find a situation where I’m have an advantage over the opponent in state, so you might not really use Smash as often as the others.

The customs for Smash Art make this even more interesting. Decisive Smash powers up the knockback where it can kill reliably at high %’s. The problem is Shulk’s now stuck with lower knockback resistance and odds are the opponent is going to try to take a stock from you in this state, so your defense and spacing need to be on point when that happens. Hyper Arts, while short take the changes to an extreme amount that our power becomes ridiculous, especially if Power Vision is equipped. At that point, I don’t think the opponent’s going to let you attack them though, so you have to make it count.

Needless to say, it’s important to be cautious and strategic when you use Smash Art. Shulk is a glass cannon in this state, so it’s important to not let the opponent have an advantage over us in Smash Art, while we try to make something work out the time we have (Opponent running away or not). I feel with the right strategy and mindset, this can be Shulk’s variant of the KO Punch: a powerful move that can strike fear into any player.


So,in short, Smash Art can do the following for Shulk:
+ Take stocks much sooner than expected. (I can take a stock at 70%? Sign me up!)
+ Escape certain combos thanks to the increased knockback received
+ Turn Shulk into a scary edge-guarder / air-fighter. (Up-Air and N-Air kills are a thing in this Art)
+ Amplifies all the rage Shulk has even further beyond, to the point in which Shulk can kill off of almost anything. (F-tilt, Smashes, Aerials, Specials; Shulk has a lot kill options in this state if the conditions are right)
+Hyper Arts makes this even more ridiculous… Throw in Power Vision and I’ll be amazed if they live through Hyper Smash Shulk.

+ You’ll feel so good when Smash Activates mid-combo and it takes a stock. (Some MALAC / Art Cancels benefit from this actually)
+ It might not be the go to Art in most cases, but it’s great at doing purpose of securing stocks / gimps.

- Attacks aren’t save on block meaning punishes are a thing in this state.
- Decisive Arts kinda screw over Shulk since he can’t cancel the Art after taking a stock. (Hope you weren’t a high % when this happens…)

- People tend to run from Smash Shulk just like with Shield Shulk, so caping and retreats are a thing.
- In the event they don’t run from Smash Shulk, Shulk’s risking an early death if he gets hit with a strong move. (Looking at you Fox, Pikachu, and Rosalina. Stupid Up-Smashes…)

- Some combos might not work anymore due to all the knockback changes.
- Attacks don’t hurt as much as they do. So if it doesn’t take a stock, you haven’t changed much in terms of %.
- Not as easy to integrate into your move kit compared to other Arts, so it might take a while to get used to it. Even then, you might not be using it that much.

Personal rating: 3.5 / 5

 

[meleebrawler]

@ TheHopefulHero said pretty much all there is to say about Smash, though I will add onto it's edgeguarding uses in that it is probably more useful against opponents with near ungimpable recoveries than Jump, especially since those characters tend to be lightweight as well.

 

[Berserker.]

My huge gripe with Smash art is the damage reduction. It's one of the main reasons why flat-out running away from the art is somewhat viable. What made this tactic not viable against buster was that using buster against opponents didn't make you feel that helpless. Like, you can still whack their shield and still feel safe anyway because buster art's damage increase is amazing. Plus, with Shulk's range, you can still catch them off so running away isn't really a big deal at all and I guess this could apply for Smash art which is why I call running away from Smash art "somewhat viable" only. Now with Smash art, you're SO reliant on making a read or waiting for the opponent to make a mistake or commit because pretty much, all your attacks are extremely unsafe. You can't really throw anything out other than d-tilt and jab which both have little ending lag. Let's not forget the weight decrease which makes zoning out smash art much easier since Shulk takes more knockback (therefore a bit more hitsun) from projectiles and attacks. Brilliant. It's much harder to get anywhere with Smash art at the neutral because of this

There are ways on how to "lessen the risk" of KO'ing with smash art though. Meet Shulk's kill throws, and his tilts (sans d-tilt). U-tilt is very good since you can get kills with it for as long as you catch opponents off in mid-air or catch them off their rolls. F-tilt is only good (pivot most notably) against aerial rushes and rolls. Shulk's throws are self-explanatory so fish for those too. I'd say OoS air slash would be a safe KO option and it kind of is. Frame 10 sounds really good but the thing is it's horrendous on whiff. You can also combo into smash art activation for safe and free kills although they're hard to pull off. The best time to use Smash art is to use it when you have the opponent at a disadvantageous position. That way, you don't have to worry about getting hit unless the character your up against has a ridiculously good disadvantaged state. If things don't go well, just switch out of Smash art

So, unlike buster, speed, and jump, you should treat Smash art like Shield art in a way that it's a situational art that's used in specific situations. It's a bad idea to use Smash art at the neutral. It's good to use it once you have the upper hand

3.5/5

 

[Linkmario00]

Like everyone has already said, Smash is an art you want to use at an advantage and it's great for securing kill via edgeguarding those characters who have too good recovery for be gimped by jump. Dealing with Smash at a disadvantage can be really difficult since Shulk can exploit a lot your recovery attempt.
Decisive Smash is bad. Damage reduction+be as light as Peach for 20 seconds is a big no-no. Never gonna use it.
Hyper Smash is imo the best iteration of Smash. Our throw are now more powerful then Ness Bthrow, we can kill ridiculously early by edgeguarding and if you get a PVision...well lol. Plus, I feel like the weight reduction is less influent here paradoxically since you only should use it at an advantage and it's difficult to tip the scales in 6 seconds, so I feel more confident to use it at higher percentage than normal or decisive Smash.
Smash:
DSmash:
HSmash:
P.S. I'm also interested in buffering Smash for true comboing into early KO. Gonna work on that.

 

[Ultinarok]

Been awhile, but I can see that a lot has happened since I've been away.

Monado Smash is a very specific art. I exclusively use it when:

-My damage is either very low (so the reduced weight doesn't get me killed) or very high (so the weight loss hardly makes an impact; I'm dead on a read regardless).
-My opponent is on the defensive and I have control of neutral or even the whole stage (i.e. they're airborne or offstage). Since I am at the advantage, its time to close off the stock.
-My opponent is at 90-130%. This is the range where Smash turns non-kill moves into kill moves. Side tilt, up tilt, down throw, back throw, onstage fair, sourspot dair and jab. All useful, quick moves that normally can't finish the opponent. But they all can under Smash, at these percentages. Any lower percent, and they'll only die to slower, read-heavy moves, making the benefits of Smash negligible since you're much better off vanilla or in a different art. Higher percentages make Jump or Speed sufficient for finishing opponents, whether on or off stage.

Smash is easily the worst art, but I use it more than Shield since I play very offensively. It is highly situational, but under these conditions, it serves a purpose and is an unpredictable way to quickly finish a stock. It also gets the element of fear on your side, because your opponent knows they don't want to eat ANY attack from you while you're in Smash mode.

when you have nothing to lose, your opponent is at the ~100% mark, and you have stage control.

on an opponent at high percentages when you have nothing to lose.

every other time. Another art is a better option.

 

[Masonomace]

(Tl;DR Monado Smash is a great art. "L0L No?")​

Monado Smash art

Overall rating: 1/2
撃(Smash):1/2
Decisive 撃(Smash):
Hyper 撃(Smash):1/2

Monado Art | Increased stats | Decreased stats Smash | Knockback dealt | Damage dealt on-hit & on-shield, Shield Push dealt, Knockback resistance

Known Pros:
-Knockback dealt

Known Cons:
-Damage dealt on-hit & on-shield
-Shield Push dealt
-Knockback resistance
════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
Pros
Knockback dealt
This is currently the only known pro that the Smash arts favorably improve of Shulk's stats. "Knockback dealt" doesn't sound vague, but to understand everything that dealing more knockback means many things. When comparing two Shulks with one having the Smash art active & the other staying Vanilla hitting another Vanilla Shulk, the increased knockback dealt shows that:

• Flinching animations become different. --- Stronger knockback usually causes a longer duration of flinching.
• Hitstun suffered by higher knockback is increased. --- This in theory can mean Smash art can possibly combo better.
• During some instances, the knockback increase causes an early tumble state. --- At this point, flinching is irrelevant.

Some KO test comparisons: In Training Mode, have Mario be the victim who drops from the revival platform to land on the center of Omega Gaur Plains, & Shulk who ledge-rolls toward the right ledge & then rolls twice toward Mario & inputs an uncharged turn around F-smash angled up. Smash Shulk's Deadly Blow effect appears at 84% while Vanilla Shulk's Deadly Blow effect appear at 99%.

In Training Mode, have Shulk roll towards the right ledge to be at the very end & grab > B-throw Mario. These are the KO percentages of when the Deadly Blow effect appears on Omega Gaur Plains:

Character | Without Vectoring | With Vectoring & doublejump
Smash Shulk | (104%) 105% | (124%) 125%
Decisive Smash Shulk | (79%) 80%% | (97%) 98%
Hyper Smash Shulk | (59%) 60% | (76%) 77%
Ness | 87% | 97%

Notes:
-The percents highlighted in parentheses will still show the Deadly Blow effect, They're just special because that percent specifically is you can hear the sound Mario makes when he inputs doublejump but then dies anyway. The percentage after the highlighted parenthesis is when you can't even hear Mario's doublejump sound because he cannot input it because he suffered too much hitstun.
-Ness doesn't have highlighted parentheses because you can't hear Mario make a doublejump sound due to that Ness' B-throw deals too much hitstun at these percentages.

Even without applying Rage effect, the knockback increase is still good on it's own & the Smash arts are relatively safe to use in the Advantage state. This Smash art thread has KO percentages on Mario including Rage effect showing the KO potential is exponentially improved. When rolling a safe Smash art activation you're guaranteed extra knockback power to seal someone's stock, but when rolling a very risky Smash art activation you have an even greater bonus of knockback power high enough to make even heavyweights nervous of their stock.

A special secret to the Smash arts is that they have this unknown hidden potential to end stocks at 0% with the right usage. I've mostly encountered this with Decisive Smash art because the great amount of knockback Shulk gets from the art allows him to string F-airs off-stage perfectly into each other, which I've done on a few occasions at very low percentages after the opponent came off the revival platform to approach me near the ledge.


Cons
Damage dealt on-hit
This con seems bad because Shulk's damage with Smash & Decisive Smash is halved aka the damage multiplier = 0.5x, & Hyper Smash reduces Shulk's damage by –60% aka 0.4x damage multiplier. So other than the numbers, this con is still bad but the knockback increase easily compensates for it. It's just that you have to make sure your attacks connect on-hit is the problem. The KO test comparison I used in favor of the knockback dealt increase uses Shulk's F-smash angled up for the KBG on the second hit. So for a Vanilla F-smash dealing 18.5% & KO'ing at 99% while the Smash F-smash dealing 9.25% KO'ing at 84%, the damage decrease really isn't such a bad thing. It's those rare instances where one would purposefully activate a Smash art just to deal damage that makes us shake our head no to that. Smash arts out of the five Monado arts reduce Shulk's damage the most, so your main focus of using the art should never be about dealing damage anyways, but in the end damage is damage. Although, the damage decrease on top of the increased knockback you deal can actually make it possible to combo at very low percentages albeit is unlikely.


Damage dealt on-shield & Shield Push dealt
Damage dealt on-hit is not good but at least hitting someone increased knockback is guaranteed to be safe on-hit. . .but on-shield it's a completely different story. If there was any reason why Smash arts would be considered terrible & get a low rating from me, it would be these cons. These cons imo are by far Smash's worst & heaviest cons, & there's little to no explanation needed when you try using a Smash art for yourself in-battle & watch how petty the result feels after hitting with an unsafe move on shield. . . They pretty much go together hand-in-hand.

A solution to this lack-of-safety-on-shield is obviously more grabs, but there must be an extent to how much you fish for grabs. If you play a more heavy grab-game with the Smash arts, it's understandable due tothe nature of the arts but you look predictable after a good while of your opponent watching your habits & what not. Always remember that your sweet & sourspots to all of your moves are never safe on-shield so don't bother contesting a bubble shield with your sweetspot up close. So focus on your sourspot spacing & retreating & look for any openings you can capitalize on & exploit the moments you can get a patiently placed move in & then focus on holding the Advantage with your Smash art. Smash arts put terror & makes the opponent feel the pressure when Smash Shulk has the Advantage edge-guarding.


Knockback resistance
Like Monado Shield, only the Shield & Smash arts directly affect Shulk's "knockback resistance" (I think I'll just start saying "knockback received" from now on). Anyway, the Smash arts increasing the knockback Shulk deals & takes naturally makes these arts very risky to rely on because failure can become a heavy loss but with success comes great reward.

Some things that the increased knockback received does to Shulk with a Smash art active:

• You travel more distance when launched away
• Flinching animations may change depending on the move, your current percentage, & their Rage effect
• Hitstun is increased since you're taking more knockback

With this, it's possible to escape out of bread-n-butter combos that characters can perform but not that likely at lower percents unless your DI was on-point & mixed it up enough to keep them guessing. The trade-off to using this con to your advantage is that it can still ruin your day trying to avoid combos due to that Shulk suffers more hitstun & is put in stronger states of flinching enough early on or later on being the death of you. The longer you flinch also means more hitstun you're receiving, so always be careful of using this con to your advantage. If you ever see a throw leading into an aerial attempting to KO you off the ceiling, then be sure to mash the b button to deactivate your Smash art during hitstun so that you live another moment. Unless you're rolling Decisive arts then well, DI accordingly to assure some chance of living.

KO Percentage Stuff
The knockback resistance reduction from the Smash arts especially Hyper Smash is reduced by so much that the very activity of a Smash art is detrimental to Shulk. Here's some KO percentages in Training Mode of Shulk getting U-thrown by King Dedede which happens to have a perfect 90° knockback angle:

King Dedede U-throw​

Character | Without DI
Smash Shulk / Decisive Smash Shulk | 227%
Hyper Smash Shulk | 148%
Jigglypuff | 205%

Note: These percents are when the Deadly Blow starts appearing.

"Yeah but that's King Dedede's U-throw. What about a stronger move?" Fine let's use Rest, having a 88° knockback angle (meh):

Jigglypuff Rest​

Character | Without DI
Smash Shulk / Decisive Smash Shulk | 45%
Hyper Smash Shulk | 16%
Jigglypuff | 40%

Note: These percents are when the Deadly Blow effect starts to appear.

Note: Keep in mind that Jigglypuff is the lightest character in the game & she also has the lowest falling speed value. So she's the most vulnerable one to strong vertical knockback. The fact that Hyper Smash Shulk dies to Rest at 16% without DI is ridiculous to me. . . Shulk's fall speed is mediocre at best so that's not helping either. Now I'll give ya an extreme KO test example of Smash arts vs Jigglypuff.

"Does the .5% damage difference their jabs acitvating the counter affect the outcome at all?" Jigglypuff's Jab1 deals 3% & Shulk's Jab1 deals 3.5%. The .5% damage difference doesn't matter in the end result because I had already tested if the damage decrease affects the KO percentages by using Hyper Speed Shulk's Jab1. Both Vanilla Shulk & Hyper Speed Shulk die at the same percents without DI & Hyper Speed Shulk's Jab1 deals 2.24%. We're good.

Hyper Smash Shulk Forwarded Power Vision countering their Jab1 from the center of Omega Gaur Plains​

Character | Without vectoring | with best vectoring & doublejump
Smash Shulk / Decisive Smash Shulk | 29% | 34%
Hyper Smash Shulk | 13% | 17%
Jigglypuff | 28% | 31%

Note: All of these percents are when the Deadly Blow effect started appearing. They had no chance of living.


BONUS: Effects strengthened
Explained in the post I made for Monado Shield, the Smash arts also affect knockback received & causes Shulk to be more vulnerable from attacks with an effect. It's not on the same scale like the Shield arts since they increase both defense & knockback received, but I think it's worth sharing the knowledge. Here are the effects that the Smash arts strengthen (in our case, make it worse for Shulk):
-Bury
-Paralyze
-Sleep
-Wind

Note: Smash & Decisive Smash have the same knockback received multiplier, meaning there's no difference between them both suffering and / or escaping from the effect simultaneously.

Note: Crouching with a Smash art active actually helps reduce the distance you travel from the wind's push & pull effects. Unfortunately crouching doesn't benefit resisting against Bury or Sleep, but crouching does help against Paralyze.

Spoiler: Bury effect

Using Donkey Kong's Headbutt attack for an example, one Vanilla Shulk & one Smash Shulk simultaneously hit & buried show the Smash Shulk getting buried underground slightly quicker & escaping out of the bury effect later than the Vanilla Shulk. The jump they perform without mashing does not increase in height.

Note: When using Hyper arts, Hyper Smash does become more vulnerable to effects naturally. You're buried underground about the same time but you stay buried for longer. But don't worry about it too much, 'cus comparing Smash Shulk to Hyper Smash Shulk, Hyper Smash Shulk escapes only a bit later.

Spoiler: Paralyze effect

Using Zero Suit Samus' D-smash attack for an example, both a Vanilla Shulk & Smash Shulk are paralyzed on-hit & the Smash Shulk does suffer taking more paralysis time but not by much at low percentages. However, the difference is more clearly shown at higher percents.

Note: Hyper Smash does become more vulnerable to the paralysis effect than Smash. With Hyper Smash, you're paralyzed for a slightly longer time but not by much. It feels like the same comparison to the Bury effect so it's not too big of a change, but this is still bad.

Spoiler: Sleep effect

Trying to test Jigglypuff's Sing was freakin' weird. At first I was witnessing Smash Shulk escape out of sleep much quicker than Vanilla Shulk or Hyper Smash Shulk, & Smash Shulk and Decisive Smash Shulk woke up at the same time at first, but then one started waking up sooner. Like I said, weird. . .

Now for Peach's Sleepy Toad, it was much more consistent. Vanilla Shulk wakes up right before Smash Shulk by a very split moment. When eyeballing it, it looks like the same time in VS Mode format but it's actually not when performed in Training Mode under 1/4x (Hold L) speed. At 999%, it's much more noticeable seeing Vanilla Shulk waking up before Smash Shulk.
Hyper Smash Shulk is much more vulnerable to the sleep effect than Smash Shulk. Although, you will rarely be in a situation where your Smash art is active & then put to sleep so I wouldn't worry about this much. It is something to keep in mind about nonetheless.

Spoiler: Wind effect

Using any example for the wind effect, most of the examples show that Smash arts definitely strengthen the effect. When using Palutena's F-smash for example, I used a custom stage of mine to test a move's range on a small stage. I had Shulk get in range by rolling twice toward Palutena at the very end of the stage & F-smashed Vanilla Shulk & then Smash Shulk, resulting in a clear difference of the push effect. Furthermore, the pull effect from moves such as Link's boomerang upon it's return back to Link is also increased, so Smash Shulk is pulled much closer to Link than Vanilla Shulk.

The push & pull effects from the Wind effect are immensely strengthen even more when used against Hyper Smash Shulk. It's best to shield or evade the effect if you don't want to get blown away or vacuumed into your doom, unless of course you wanted to ride the wind for a reason.

In my honest opinion, this is the effect that should be feared the most when you have a Smash art active. The push or pull effect is strengthened much more compared to the other effects, that a simple Mario F.L.U.D.D. used against Smash Shulk or Hyper Smash Shulk will result in you dying because you get blown away too far to hope on returning back. Take extreme caution or just deactivate your Smash art when dealing with a wind effect.

Note: The following effects are not affected or changed by the Smash arts:

• Electric(?)
• Flower
• Frozen / Ice
• Slipping / Forced Tripping (Not sure if the Smash arts cause Shulk to fly farther back or not)
• Stun

 

[Berserker.]

OH. This thread. I forgot about it

Before we move on to back slash, anyone have any final word on Smash art?

 

[Masonomace]

My only final say atm is this: It's still a common occurrence from players saying that the Smash art reduces Shulk's weight & that's understandable. But truthfully they do not affect Shulk's weight. The Shield & Smash arts only affect the knockback Shulk receives from an attack through a multiplier of some sort.

That, & using the Smash art's knockback received multiplier in order to avoid combos can be essential. Just know that this also causes Shulk to take more hitstun flinching for a longer time. When your opponent can still get an attack string on you & it looks like that move is going to kill you, immediately deactivate Smash art beforehand & then you won't die so early instead of grieving over it. Ofc this can't apply to Decisive Smash so all I can say to the Decisive art players is to better mix-up your DI during throws or whatever move it is & master your DI so that it is on-point.

 

[Berserker.]

Let's move on to back slash. Yeah, new back slash hype whoo

 

[erico9001]

so uhh back scratch is pretty legitimate now. Can punish opponents about as fast as dash attack. I tested it. Probably best if you use it when their back is facing you. Let's see, on several occasions, I've plowed through enemy projectiles with it, then hit them. I think it's technically an aerial, so priority is usually in its favor vs projectiles (except for the really high damage ones). The move is probably too slow to use in reaction to most projectiles, so probably more of a 'see it coming' thing.

Back scratch still has its old uses as well. Use it against a person who is using their Bair, or back-throw unsuspecting opponents off-stage and back slash them when they jump back onto the stage. Can still use it for landing traps, and those would be more improved now with the buff.

I don't think the move is the best, but I think we should be using it more than I think we are.

 

[Abaasy]

I feel that Backslash is a lot more viable now, after the buff. I still think Backslash is more of a read type move though. Backslash when they are RAR'ing, Backslash Fox/Falco/Ike's Side B if they go on the stage, etc. This move is definitely powerful, when used correctly. Testing on Link at the center of FD from the back considering they have no DI because I only tested this on a CPU.


-Backslash kills at 109% without Smash on.
-With Smash art on, it kills at 92%.
-With Decisive Smash art on, it kills at 79%.
-With Hyper Smash art on, it kills at 71%.

Backslash kills early.

Testing this on the ledge of FD against Link, while you're in front of them.

-Backslash kills at 136%.
-With Smash art on, it kills at 110%.
-With Decisive Smash art on, it kills at 94%.
- With Hyper Smash art on, it kills at 83%.

^ Not really sure why this was necessary, I just felt the need to. It's pretty funny when you're on For Glory with a bunch of Link spammers, who roll to the ledge of the stage and start using projectiles then you just run up, jump over their projectile with Backslash and end up killing them, which is why I tested that, though you can't use customs on For Glory.

I'm not going to bother testing how early Backslash kills from the back at the ledge, because chances are, you'll practically never have that happen in a real match. The only situation I can think of is if you're in a 2v1 in teams and your teammate grabs the opponent at the ledge, then you backslash them.

From what I have seen, Backslash has rediculous priority. I've out prioritized a Lucario's full charged Aura Sphere while they were past 100% and still hit them, and cancelling out the Aura Sphere. I'm sure it has something to do with Backslash's disjointed hitboxes and how large Backslash's hitbox is in general. I'm assuming that you can pretty much out prioritze most projectiles in the game with it, if timed correctly. You probably can't out prioritize some of the non energy projectiles though, such as Yoshi's Eggs and Villager's Tree. I'm not entirely sure about the rest. I'll have to do more testing later.

 

[Linkmario00]

One of the best use of BS now is punishing ledge getup situation. If you run offstage and than back slash to the stage I think you can cover all ledge option besides maybe roll and staying on the ledge. It's more of a mixup (it will require perfect timing for the normal getup) but the reward can be amazing since you hit them on the back.
Overall a 3/5

 

[Masonomace]

You probably can't out prioritize some of the non energy projectiles though, such as Yoshi's Eggs and Villager's Tree. I'm not entirely sure about the rest. I'll have to do more testing later.

For Maple's thread about what projectiles N-air beats, I helped test Villager's tree vs a Hyper Smash N-airplane, & the N-airplane went through the tree & hit Villager so yeah. I think Back Scratch can definitely say ""No!" to tree. Idk about Yoshi's Egg toss though 'cus that's two hitboxes, one being the initial hit & then a detonating second hit, or something like that. It could but I dunno.

 

[ZcK]

Well some of the uses I have found with backslash from time to time not mentioned yet:

- Tech chases: this one I think has the most potential because BS covers so much range it hits them most of the time and it can be done on reaction, quite. Usually when I manage to get the opponent to the edge of the stage and they are forced to hit the stage I use Down smash because it covers a wide area and they will get hit no matter what they do, now backslash does the same and the reward is bigger but the risk is higher too.

-Also when I use shield and i get to close to someone that is camping me its obvious they will try to run or jump away to the other side of the stage and again with the coverage BS provides it catch them on the run.

-When the opponent tries to reach the stage I do it from very high so they are forced to grab the ledge, get hit or airdodge and maybe take a hit. It has caused many Self destructions so may not be very useful.

- Sometimes when in speed I just run past the opponent and backslash, its more of a mix up though again not that useful, may work once per match maybe.

-Shield break!

 

[Abaasy]

For Maple's thread about what projectiles N-air beats, I helped test Villager's tree vs a Hyper Smash N-airplane, & the N-airplane went through the tree & hit Villager so yeah. I think Back Scratch can definitely say ""No!" to tree. Idk about Yoshi's Egg toss though 'cus that's two hitboxes, one being the initial hit & then a detonating second hit, or something like that. It could but I dunno.

Did you get hit by the tree? If not, I'm assuming you either did a retreating Nair, the tree only came in contact with the disjointed hitbox, or Nair flat out beats the Tree in terms of priority.

In my case of Backslash beating out a full charged Aura Sphere when the Lucario was past 100%, Backslash cancelled the Aura Sphere while still keeping Backslash's hitbox out. That probably happened because the Aura Sphere only touched Backslash's hitbox alone and not Shulk's hurtbox. I'm pretty sure that if the Aura Sphere touched both Backslash's hitbox and Shulk's hurtbox, it would still hit Shulk. Depends on how far away Lucario was to consider if both hitboxes would trade or not.

 

[Berserker.]

So. Back Slash. What do I think about it....

I think it's still lacking but overall, it has its uses which makes it situational in terms of usage. Arts definitely do not do anything to the utility of back slash except with buster or smash art activated where in the reward for landing it is significantly better. So, when to use back slash?

You use it against projectile campers
You use it for tech chasing and roll punishing
You use it to cover ledge options
You use it to punish landings (it's really good for this purpose)
You use it in aerial skirmishes
You use it against opponents above you
You use it to harass players on platforms (the first hitbox will catch them off-guard)
Buster art b-throw or hell even u-throw allows you to set-up back slash

With buster and smash art, it's a 3/5. Vanilla and jump are 2.5/5. Shield and speed are 2/5