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Keep away, keep away, keep away. Mega Man's advantage in this matchup is his projectiles, Shulk's is his melee range. Ultimately both characters are spacers, but IMHO we have the advantage at short and long range and Shulk had the advantage at mid range. So you want to spend most of the game either just outside of Shulk's Monado range (and at maximum pellet range) or right up in his face.
When he jumps at you, run backwards out of his range, short hop and b-reverse a Metal Blade at him. If it hits, you can combo it into a grab, utilt, or usmash.
If you don't want to retreat, nair him from out of his Monado range, then continue to nair or ftilt while walking or floating behind him.
Leaf Shield also tends to disrupt characters who rely on stringing a lagless approach move into jabs. If you predict an approach, short hopping into a LS can give you the brief hitstun you need to disrupt their combo and grab them.
Definitely in our favor. Our speed gives us more options... just don't go aggro. keep up the projectile pressure and force him to do something, then punish whatever it is (he really doesn't have lagless options)
Zoning Shulk out is probably the best strategy. I generally slap on speed to try and close the gap but good megaman players always give me trouble approaching them.
Zone him out hard. Most Shulks go on jump and speed to gain a lot of mobility and that's when things can get rough, but even if they use jump (green art) or speed (blue art), just zone him out. That's your best strategy against any Shulk. Also, his n-air isn't lagless, and his f-air's landing lag isn't even that much. His n-air, f-air and b-air are what you should worry about because all of them are really good for neutralizing projectiles and outpriortizing anything. Just zone him out and you'll be fine. Like what most have said, Shulk's smash attacks have lag so if a Shulk player randomly smashes for no reason, punish hard. His tilts are somewhat laggy but usually are only used when they're at range but punish them when you can
tl;dr: Zone and keep throwing them projectiles. Don't let them close the gap with jump or speed. Regardless of whose favor it is, just don't treat it like a cake walk
I play this MU quite often against my friend, & I'd say that it could go either way. This is going to disregard Customs btw.
Mainly Shulk likes to keep you in the mid-range because that's where Shulk does best, but your projectile kit out-ranges us keeping us out. Shulk doesn't handle pressure very well, so using a heavy amount of projectiles can overwhelm the Monado Boy. However Shulk alleviates the pressure by using a mobility-increasing Monado Art such as Jump or Speed, so that they can dis-engage & re-collect their thoughts setting it back to Neutral, but during this time you should always pull out a Metal Blade anytime you're able to; Metal Blade naturally being a core tool helps stop us in our tracks unless we pick it up.
Shulk's B-air is his longest-reaching tool in Neutral since the sourspot hit-box aka the tip is long enough to almost hit Mega Man at maximum pellet range, so be careful about it & watch for it, because B-air has landing lag & when he's about to land that's your cue to rush in & grab punish unless he's retreating with B-air. Shulk's N-air & F-air destroys pellets, & using Crash Bomber against Shulk in my experiences helps Shulk give a reason to run up-close to Mega Man while dash+shielding the oncoming pellets or Metal Blade to OoS Vision counter the Crash explosion. This is dangerous because Shulk's Vision has a slowing bubble that could touch you thus slowing you down, & Vision is unblockable. Imo I would never use Crash Bomber unless you've been dealing a lot of shield damage to Shulk's bubble shield & he panics by rolling backward or something.
If you get Shulk in the air, Tornado U-air does a good job keeping him up there or forces him to commit to DoubleJumping or AirDodging so follow-up on that. On the other hand, if you're in the air, & Shulk is on the ground you better respect his U-tilt, because its range is anti-air worthy & will give you a hard time if you try landing near Shulk.
General advice: Anytime you see Shulk put on his Shield Monado Art, just stall it out & play keep away so that his Shield mode goes to waste. You have a hard time KO'ing Shulk in Shield mode, & when you already have a good kit to zone out a character like Shield Shulk who now becomes slower on the ground & in the air, there's little reason to approach him unless you want to out-maneuver him & connect a grab on him to throw him off-stage.
Ugh, I bump into this matchup ALL THE TIME in For Glory. It's like Megaman is a Shulk magnet, lol.
I've gotten some experience fighting him, I'm going to agree with the rest here. Camp him.
If he goes JUMP art on you, prepare to greet him with a fistful of lemons on the air, or better yet, jump and Metal Blade straight ahead.
Speed art, I'd do the same except on the ground. And try to keep away.
Shield is an opportunity to gimp. Sometimes a simple grab and Fair/Bair is enough. (They come out faster than Shulk's Fair/Nair, but due to the range of the Monado, I'd use them as surprise attacks when I know I can gimp him, I.E., he's on Shield).
Try to bait his Back Slash. Not sure if they fall for them, but try pressuring them into one. That's a free Fsmash!
I only use CB when he's standing still/switching arts, or when I anticipate his Air Slash recovery going a bit above the edge before snapping. I usually have no time to place a good CB once Shulk is moving.
Okay, I'm really curious about opinions of Jump or Speed for this MU. From my perspective, Jump would be better as you can jump over Nair; just expect the Metal Face Blade.
You can counter Mega Man's Crash Bomber but only when on the ground I'm pretty sure. Make sure you're close to him to get him with the slow effect, because if the counter does not hit you're wide open. Don't counter the bomb if in the air or far away for this reason.
From experience, you should not go to Monado shield even when at high damage (unless they are playing close range for some reason). It makes it incredibly difficult to face his projectiles and get out of the tornado U-air.
Keep in mind that Shulk can cancel Mega Man's weaker projectiles with aerial attacks. With right timing you can avoid being worn down from a distance, but that doesn't automatically mean you're invincible. Eventually, either the Shulk player will have to get in in order to make progress or the Mega Man player will have to get in.
From experience, you should not go to Monado shield even when at high damage (unless they are playing close range for some reason). It makes it incredibly difficult to face his projectiles and get out of the tornado U-air.
Actually Shield can help in the scenario that you would prefer stalling over approaching against a particularly defensive Mega Man, since your shield is very strong and you receive slightly less damage. The key thing to remember is that you should be at a distance where Mega Man can't use melee options. This can work because Mega Man would be forced to be more offensive since merely spamming projectiles won't create momentum. But again, don't use Shield randomly.
I got no experience at all in this match up so I'll let Chrono again do the talking:
You are aware Megamans pellets only extend into mid range. Where Shulk has little issue being on a general level with due to a) Speed b) Jump. Also in that he can counter the pellets on the ground, and this will launch him forward with Vision and that Megaman cannot block this, and has to hope he has enough distance that he can attempt a spot dodge.
In addition to Shulks N-air being notorious at canceling projectiles at which pellets are not exempt, as well as Metal blade being caught. In the case of customs again, power vision off a stray pellet can literally kill Megaman because Power vision is ********. Outside of that Megaman is again outspaced when it comes to B/F air. Back Slash can Mini hop over F-smash as well if you attempt it as a landing trap (never mind Vision on top of that).
N-air beats out metal blade as well, and F-air definitely stops crash bomb, probably N-air as well. Given N-air is Shulks bread and butter if your move gets stopped by that, it'll certainly struggle given the on-stage spam N-air is capable of. With general spacing Megamans utilt has issues being a probability to begin given what Shulk has to work with
Wait. I did this already. And in response to Chrono, no less. I'll just put this here to continue that conversation.
I mentioned Shulk being an unfavorable matchup for Mega Man, so I'll get that out of the way first. Your priority aerials mess with spacing a ton. (Note: the context of this was that I said Shulk probably gives Mega Man a hard time in the matchup, but it was misinterpreted as Mega Man has the advantage in the matchup. At the time, I thought Shulk had the advantage, but I'm less sure than I was before.)
Very aware of Mega Man's mid-range and limited long-range capability. At the edge of lemon range, I'm pretty sure you can't reach with vision. That said, Megaman can jump upon countering the projectile (mobility with the pellets is the real reason why they're so good). Jump --> utilt. I know you have that sudden lunging counter, so I don't actually know if that works in reality. But counters are generally high risk high reward moves so it's not something you throw out a ton (as much as lemons).
How ******** is power vision? Pellets do 2% with no knockback. This is a real question, as if it's a legitimate kill move on countering that then I'm surprised.
If you catch metal blades, that's usually to your disadvantage. You've eliminated all of your options while leaving me to lemon spam you to death. :/ You no longer have your Nair in that case, so good luck approaching. The fact that metal blades get canceled by lemons allows for that advantage.
Fsmash landing traps can still be used because it has range. Also, if you vision it, that's a high risk high reward because I can keep charging until your active frames are done. Backslash is a risky move with utilt waiting.
Edit: Also, Nair loses to RAR BAir if I meet you in the air because NAir starts so low.
Now that I have a little more experience against Shulk, I've found some exploits that Mega Man can definitely take advantage of. Notably your slow-activating aerials and the amount of commitment your aerials take in conjunction to your airspeed deceleration.
I treat Shulk like a mixture of poor man's Rosalina, Captain Falcon w/sword, Ike, and Ganondorf. Rosalina for jump, Captain Falcon for Speed, Ike for Buster/Smash/vanilla, and Ganondorf for Shield.
Speed is easily my least favorite art to deal with. In speed mode, you have a much easier time getting through the wall of projectiles and can cross up/space your aerials the best because you have great airspeed and your deceleration isn't horrible. I definitely try to make you one-dimensional with your approaches by shutting down the ground approach with pellets. Speed messes that up, since you are fast enough to bully yourself in. Your option coverage requires more commitment than Marth, so hit & run tactics work decently well against you, especially when I can time out your arts. Getting rid of Speed makes me feel tons better, because once you're in you can wreck me hard.
Jump/air approaches -
You love to approach through the air. Nair's (almost) lagless landing and gigantic hitbox is a great approach tool. Also, you'll use it a lot to outprioritize Mega Man's projectiles, which is very very useful. However, your horizontal air speed deceleration is so slow that Dash>Shield>grab is quite a powerful tool against your approaches. Combine that with throwing out Uair tornados to force an air dodge, meeting your aerial with my 4-frame BAir/9-frame FAir, or meeting you with a disjointed usmash, your aerials require commitment and are all 14-frames to come out. Spacing your aerials is difficult when you have such high max horizontal air speed and poor horizontal deceleration (especially in Jump). I think focusing on messing up your spacing is how all opponents should treat Jump Shulk, but Mega Man does this well with a good grab game, low profile, and air-air options. Also you just love going to the air because you can eat all of Mega Man's projectiles with your sword. Rosalina spaces her Nair which is safe on shield, but your stuff is a lot easier to mess with and shield grab (for NAir) or shield utilt (FAir/BAir due to landing lag).
Buster/Smash - Whoever gets the advantage here wins. This is my cue to play even more defensively to try and time the arts out, but if you give me an opening, I'll use the extra damage/knockback against you. Be wary of the utilt in Smash as it probably KO's closer to 60%. (KO's Jigglypuff at 63% on the 3ds, so probably ~60% on Wii U).
Shield - a good way to build rage, as you're gonna get camped out a ton. You'll have probably 1 opportunity to hit me in this mode after trying to approach and forcing me to the ledge. However, if I get a grab, you're back to the start and I'll either camp you out or just keep applying pressure and take advantage of how slow you are. I won't try to KO you unless you're insanely high in %, because Mega Man's kill moves have high end-lag. So at least you have that in your favor.
Off stage thoughts:
Jump (Shulk is edge guarding) - Your FAir is enormous and you have no problem going lower than me if you want. Your double jump is maybe the same height as my up-B with similar speed of vertical ascent. Mega Man's recovery is good, he can mix it up by saving his double jump until after he jumps off of Rush while using aerials to cover his return, but Shulk is in complete control here. I'll up-B early if I see you committing against the low recovery, so make a read and figure out what I like to do. If you're close enough to me, you can hit me with FAir as I try to go over you. You have the tools to cover all of my recovery options, which is very unique, but it's not as straight forward an edge guard as it seems. Rosalina comparison stays because she's a monster off stage as well, but you trade her quick aerials for larger range and a gigantic double jump.
Jump (Mega Man is edge guarding) - Again, great horizontal airspeed, poor deceleration. This can help me line up my DAir spike well. Also, I will try to steal your second jump with a metal blade, so watch out for that. Since your recovery is very vertical & vulnerable from above, you're a prime target for DAir spiking, especially when I can stay safe and shoot my spike down. I'd try to recover high if you could but you also have to be wary of the landing traps. Platforms probably help a lot here. I won't usually go out to meet you low with a BAir if you have your double jump, because your double jump is so good and if I commit to going low, you can air dodge past me and up-B to the ledge. Basically, low edge guard is DAir territory and high edge guard is BAir territory. If you're not in Jump mode... I'm more than happy to meet you since your aerials commit you for a long time.
Some general thoughts: Mega Man loves the impasse. He's not a momentum character and can't build % too quickly anyway (in response to Soul Blazer). He has some dthrow/MB chains and Uair traps, but everything is built off of chip damage. The way I play him is quite defensively with a lot of pressure where I control the pace of the match and shut down options. If you want to try and out prioritize all of the projectiles, that's a commitment that we can bait much like a reflector. You need to be disciplined in your approach, and once you're in, stay in. You will need to respect the grab and the 5 frame dtilt slide, otherwise I'm throwing you out/running away and you're back to square one. At any point that you're not in close range or at a positional advantage, Mega Man is winning because either you need to go through the wall of projectiles to get to him, or the wall is being forced upon you while Mega Man is at a safe distance behind it.
After breaking this down, I feel like Mega Man does really well here. Controlling pace helps a lot against the arts and can use some of them against you. If it was just speed art Shulk vs Mega Man the entire game, I'd feel a lot worse about it, but it's not.
I feel like I'm underselling Shulk a lot in this post as it feels like a general "how to beat Shulk" rather than how Mega Man does... I think my opinion of the character went down after realizing how poor his aerial deceleration was. Someone help me and then I'll edit this again.
Wait. I did this already. And in response to Chrono, no less. I'll just put this here to continue that conversation.
I'll add in more later. Now that I have more experience against Shulk, I've found some exploits that Mega Man can definitely take advantage of. Notably your slow-activating aerials and the amount of commitment your aerials take in conjunction to your airspeed deceleration. I want to do a little more looking into it, but it seems like grabbing and meeting Shulk in the air as Mega Man works very very well. I'll also break down some of the Monado Arts as I feel like each one is a little different in terms of how I approach them.
I definitely learned in our fights that Shield is definitely not a good option against Mega Man. With MM, it's so easy to take advantage of Shulk's speed decrease/weight increase and just continually grab him and continue to rack up damage until the Arte wears off. Buster isn't all that good either, as MM can just keep Shulk at bay with projectiles and punish Nair's/Fair's with Shield and Grab, and Smash can be pretty risky in itself, since MM's Utilt can kill without Smash activated at like 80 or so from what i've seen.
I find the key to this match-up is to play very aggro. I play pretty frequently against StylesX2's Megaman who plays a very good technical/aggro Megaman and Megaman's key flaw is that, like Shulk, he doesn't do well at all when he's pressured in his Shield. Consequently Jump and Speed are key here as they allow or a faster, more flexible approach. Mixing up your approach is key using a mixture of spaced FAirs/NAirs to beat his projectiles, cross-up NAirs for pressure (again, there is nothing he can do if you cross him up), perfect pivots (remember Monado Speed perfect pivot is the longest perfect pivot in the game) and pivot grabs. Once you get in Megaman is also a pretty easy to combo character due to his fast falling speed and only really having Up B to use as an escape method, at which point you follow the landing and punish accordingly. The other strength Shulk has in this match-up is his ability to edgeguard Megaman easily. Megaman's recovery overall is on the lower end of the spectrum so one solid offstage hit should finish him.
If you find yourself being forced to defend and Megaman is approaching you be weary of that grab. Attempt to challenge his projectiles more often than shielding them as it leaves you less vulnerable to getting grabbed. Metal Blade in particular can be caught by either timing an attack or air dodging into it. At which point you can keep hold of it until you feel you can get a punish with it as not throwing it means that Megaman is unable to use Metal Blade again.
Learn to handle metal blade, avoid grabs [megaman has a very good grab], don't get annoyed over pellets interrupting you occasionally and don't be scared to strain your shield at higher percent. His KO moves are unsafe on block except bair and Shulk is heavy enough to survive throws for a while. It's easier for Shulk to kill MM with a random move like DA or ftilt at high percent than for Megaman to find an opening against an opponent who knows how to use his defensive tools. Don't ever get greedy about closing a stock because Megaman can punish unsafe moves brutally with his utilt. If you're patiently keeping Megaman out and just wait for random tilt to kill him you'll definitely end up with the advantage.
Monado Smash is risky because it can get you killed by a random throw at high percent, which eliminates one of Shulk's key advantages in this matchup. I rarely find myself using it against Megaman. Jump is very good though because Megaman isn't that hard to gimp for Shulk and a random offstage nair can already be enough to put Megaman out of reach for the ledge. It also makes it easy for Shulk to just get through Megaman's projectiles, even easier than Monado Speed does.
Probably won't add that much but interchanging between jump and speed is Shulk's best option imo. Mega Man's zoning still proves to be a pain so you might need additional mobility to get around. Mega Man's grab is really good and shield grabbing Shulk's N-air is an efficient strategy so I preferred to use spaced F-airs or cross up N-airs (SDoom mentioned this already)
I don't find this match up as difficult as Yoshi or Ness. Mega Man is gimpable and his projectiles are linier so they are easier to avoid. I usually just chip away at him with Nair and tilts and keep the pressure on to avoid projectile spam. He can get knocked out at pretty low damage compared to most characters. I also avoid using alot of moves with lag as this will lead to repeated grabs.
Also I don't think there is any match up that Speed art is a poor choice (cept maybe Sonic). Can close quickly and it sets up great combos at low damage. I agree that switching between speed and jump are a good strategy.
Yeah speed and jump are the best choices to use against him. Oddly enough I find that Backslash is more successful at hitting Megaman because he is more about projectiles and even Samus at times due to her missiles.
I can say that this is my worst mu for my shulk :/, The short hop pellets works a ton against shulk. But noticed that shield works so much here, you know megaman wants to get mostly a bair kill. Since his bair has so much priority. If done correctly, bair can pass wonders through those pellets. But make a mistake and expect to get grabbed. Megamans tend to edgeguard with bair, come with fairs and when near the edge backslash is good... but don't use it often... they'll see this coming. Thanks for making this matchup thread. I need this so badly.
If I'm not mistaken, you can Nair through the pellets and get a hit on Megaman. It just takes timing/the right angle. I'd try using that primarily due to its low landing lag and ease for setting up follow ups. This is also where the jump art comes in handy b/c the short hop Nair gets some distance.
I was also having a lot of trouble with a Mega Man. Particularly one who grabbed quite a bit and used his neutral A a lot. It was pretty difficult approaching.
If we're to talk customs, dash vision helps against Mega Man. It helps reach him from afar by simply countering one of the projectiles (which are easy to track). You can counter any of his pellets, and like was said earlier in the thread, crash bomber can be countered when you're on the ground. As Reyn would say, it helps Shulk get stuck in. If you get a dash counter, mega man should be hit away, possibly off stage, and suddenly you can be in the correct zone.
To elaborate on what I posted here almost 2 months ago: Dash vision out-ranges Mega Man's pellet. Given Mega Man's likely position is to be near the end of the stage, this will often send him off-stage, and the momentum will turn to Shulk's favor (ie. switch out of speed into buster now!). If it doesn't send him off the stage, you should still have the frame advantage, considering mega man is put into a position where he needs to tech.
Random ramblings:
- You can correctly space (tip or near the tip) b-air or f-air against Mega Man and time the activation. After the MALLC, dash to mega man. Go for a grab. You can try using pivot f-tilt instead but grab will net you more potential damage. Dash grab or boost pivot grab. Oh this is all assuming that speed is the art being used for MALLC
- Shield art does find use here in a sense that you can actually force Mega Man to stale his damage output. It's easy to camp out but you're stalling the match to your pace. Take advantage of that
- Buster art with MALLC is nuts. Once you're somewhat close to the blue bomber, set up for an MALLC into buster art, except you probably need to space b-air or f-air close to Mega Man. You want to go for the grab or the f-tilt or d-tilt or n-air. Anything that can make things start rolling for buster art. OR use f-smash after MALLC if they attempt to punish your landing
Didn't include jump art because it's already good as is against Mega Man. Sans the bad aerial acceleration, but it's still useful
What Mega Mans should do against Shulk anyway...
- Shield grab
- Keep throwing projectiles
- Don't let him hit you (Mega Man is kind of combo meat material. Not Shulk/Link level though)
- Don't get cheesed by jump art combos
- Try not to bite on MALLC
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