Shulk vs. Shulk Match-Up Thread - Way of the homs

[erico9001]

Ok, moving on to Shulk - probably one of the most interesting match ups in the game.
There's some discussion of MArts in the specific Shulk matchup thread.
http://smashboards.com/threads/vs-shulk.372498/

My thoughts and experiences:
Monado Smash vs Monado Shield
Shield is a good counter to Smash. If both are in neutral and one person goes to Smash to try to take you out and you go to Shield, the knockback you take will be less than if you both were in neutral. Furthermore, the person in Monado Smash will only be doing 33.5% damage against you (1/3), while the person in Monado Shield will be doing 70% damage.

Monado Buster vs Monado Shield
The person in Monado Buster will do 93.8% damage while the person in Monado Shield will do 79.1% damage. You might consider it a good idea to go to Monado Buster assuming you're not going to be able to KO the opponent anyways. Especially since the lack of knockback on Buster vs Shield makes it easy for the person to do repeated Dtilts, Dthrow->Dtilt, Dtilt->Ftilt, get multiple hits with a single down smash, and many other things.

Monado Speed vs Monado Shield
Monado Speed is now doing almost half damage against Monado Shield, 53.6%. Shield still does 70%. In terms of damage, Shield wins out, but does Speed's Speed give it an advantage over Monado Shield? Possibly, but probably matters from person to person. I could see this one going either way.

Monado Smash vs Monado Smash
Pretty much sudden death mode. If you're at 115% damage yourself and the opponent goes to Smash, while he's at 80%, going to Smash yourself could put him in KO range for you as well thanks to high lighter weight.

Monado Speed vs Monado Jump
Speed vs Jump does 97.6% damage, so basically the effects counteract. I feel like Speed may hold the advantage, but it's not a strong feeling. Honestly, I would love to see this play out.

Monado Buster vs Monado Jump
Jump takes 170.8% damage. Damn.

Is there anything else worth mentioning?

Anyways, there are some moves that counter others.

F-Smash outspaces D-Smash, so you can use that to punish D-Smash while the move is still going.

Fair and Bair outspace Nair

Dtilt out-speeds and out-spaces Ftilt

UTilt out spaces DAir

 

[Berserker.]

Buster vs shield is a stalemate or slightly on buster's favor. Buster deals significantly less damage than usual on shield but it does have the mobility advantage. Shield's defense will be of great help against buster's damage but the mobility will be a liability for this one. Also, shield's attacks deal more damage on buster's lower defense. The weight also affects the hitsun of buster art attacks which is already bad in general

Smash imo beats shield. It doesn't have to KO shield in an instant. It just needs to put shield Shulk at a bad position which is off stage. Add to that, Smash art is also good for edgeguarding

Speed wrecks buster since its damage output is increased by buster's lower defense. Also, it has the sheer mobility advantage so keeping away with buster will prove to be difficult. Speed's also efficient against most arts except Shield (Only because the damage is severely cut down) since Shulk in general can't handle pressure that well

The best way to approach the match up is with speed or jump. If you really want to exploit Shulk's common weakness in all arts, any art that enhances mobility should be used at the start. Shulk can't handle pressure. Get in with jump art or speed art.

Here's a video of Shulk vs Shulk if anyone wants a picture of the match up

 

[FlareHabanero]

By the way, with Shulk vs. Shulk, beware of Jump. It's actually a very deadly trump card off the stage since Shulk can safely sweep opponents off the stage. In a Shulk vs. Shulk match in particular, Shulk will die pretty badly if swept aside since he can't recover horizontally for beans.

 

[Berserker.]

Buster Shulk counters jump Shulk though. This is one of the few times where you get a lot out of playing defensively with buster because jump's defense is easily exploited by buster's damage. You can go for a shield grab against Jump Shulk's n-air for some easy damage off b-throw or f-throw

Jump in general is really good though against most arts other than buster (and to a lesser extent, speed). Speed is probably the best and safest to use since it doesn't have a weakness that's fatal to Shulk.

 

[Masonomace]

A Shulk can powershield-grab another Shulk's F-smash 1st hit from a good distance no matter what Art is active, because Shulk's F-smash extends his arms out as he's thrusting the Monado thus you get grabbed. That's from my experiences that is.

Also, as hilarious as this might seem, Back Slash can hard counter B-air due to B-air extending all that range out behind him. . .it's quite fitting now that I see it clearly.

In any case, the juicy case that is Art vs Art but more-so the ditto itself, but once Jump has Shield Buster or Smash off-stage, they're basically finished thanks to Jump's ledge-guard potential. You can factor in Vision or aerials for ledge-guard breaking, but Jump's horizontal & vertical recovery drifting alone can zone so hard off-screen you'd honestly be thinking more ways than twice on how you'll get back to the stage, if you do. It's much advised to de-activate that Art & switch to Jump or Speed to recover. That's if Jump gets you right where it wants you though.

In my experiences of versing Speed, I've used Shield to oppose it. Speed can handle Jump Buster & Smash because of their exploitable disadvantages, & I thought I would say the same for Shield, but Shield can laugh at Speed's damage. Anytime Speed got close with SH > N-air I'd shield it or think about timing a Vision, & when they're running towards me in hopes to pivot grab, I'd grab Speed when it runs towards me with that intention, thus conditioning Speed to mix-up his grab-game. The match could go either way, but Shield will just turtle their ground slowly closing the gap while still patient for Speed to approach, which tends to always be the awkward case. I feel Shulk should activate Jump or Speed & just camp letting Shield run the clock while playing keep away, rather than approaching.

No Shulk I've played against used Shield that much (sometimes not even at high %), so, I can't share my experiences / thoughts about it really. Though if I did play against Shield, I'd just camp & keep away by staying barely out of Shield's range & wait for it to go on cooldown. Combat-wise, Shield can SH > N-air without any influence & can do just fine to wall off approaches & such but it's prone to being shield-grabbed when people rush-down. If you approach by air Full Hopping, Shield puts in some use with OoS Air Slash, so it's best to be short hopping.

 

[Masonomace]

It's weird voting for the Shulk ditto, because Vanilla or any Art ditto goes head-to-head & is even ofc. The main factors that decide this MU like all dittos, is how well you handle the ditto MU & if you're outplaying the other Shulk or not. I'll just rate the MU by Arts. . .so weird but meh.

My input, for now:
(My input about these Art MUs may differ in the future)

Jump vs Speed
+1 Speed​

While Jump is a formidable threat off stage, Speed has air speed control & doesn't naturally fall faster, & the jump height reduction doesn't hurt it's off-stage validation too much. Jump can do well on-stage with throwing out F-airs & cross-up B-air from behind, but Speed just dominates on-stage being able to be anywhere Jump will be landing & shield the oncoming hits. Jump's favor rises or resets Speed's favor if Jump gets Speed off-stage, but with the mobility & handling of Speed getting anywhere & dis-engaging from any critical moment they feel pressured on-stage, it can lead mostly to Speed having the edge. Even if Jump utilizes the slide feature of landing with aerials like N-air with all that drifting air speed to space out extremely safe, Speed can just cover the gap pressing shield for the aerials & wait for what Jump will do next. Speed also constantly has stage presence & control anytime Jump is going airborne as well. Mostly it's the moments Speed will read where Jump is drifting & falling to, so that Speed can U-tilt the landing, as U-tilt beats any of Shulk's aerials, as long as the Beam shooting out in the midst of U-tilt happens, then Jump can't rival the anti-air option that is U-tilt.

Jump vs Shield
+3 Jump​

Shield has great tools to turtle the ground & remain hard to KO, but when Shield gets off the ground in any way, Jump has the clear advantage. Jump usually doesn't spend that much time staying grounded because jumping around throwing out B-air or aerial approach F-air is hard for Shield to punish OoS due to it's lack of everything-mobility. Don't get me wrong, Shield can use some options like Dash Attack & Air Slash OoS, but they don't connect or reach Jump when it's landing with that extra portion of sliding across the floor, unless you powershield those hits & are going beast mode, which doesn't consistently happen, yet. It's struggling for Shield to really punish Jump when it's jumping around like a fest & can choose to camp out Shield if it wanted to. And when Shield's off-stage. . . well you know the story. Although Shield can make reads based off where Jump will land, Shield has to be dodge rolling towards that direction at least once or twice to get to the right position to capitalize, but again it's struggling for Shield. Shield will be deactivated most likely when versing Jump, but if you find a way to handle Jump on-stage, kudos. Just don't activate Shield against Jump if you're losing, use Shield if you're ahead of Jump, & deactivate Shield if you're being launched far enough to be off-stage, because that's not a fun time.

 

[kenniky]

I feel like for the matchup discussions, eventually we could have a thread for each character and a sort of pinned hub post that has links to each thread. We could even give them all unique names pertaining to Xenoblade ("The God-Slaying Sword" for Palutena matchup, anyone?)

Anyway, on the topic of matchups, it wouldn't be too bad to talk about customs and their advantages against one another, right? For Shulk dittos, I would think Decisive Monado Arts would be the loser out of the three neutral customs, because once you switch to any Art your opponent can cancel their Art and switch to one that counters yours.

As for specific art matchups (keep in mind I'm not that great at Smash so some of my thoughts might be off):

Spoiler

Jump vs Jump: idk dude this one seems weird. I feel like it would show up most off-stage. If they jump too high you could probably get an easy KO with Air Slash or something
Jump vs Speed: Speed -> Jump deals 97.6% of normal damage: basically the same thing damage wise. Apart from that, it's really hectic: the two movement Arts against each other is interesting. Personally I think it's pretty even. Speed wins this matchup onstage because Shulk's horizontal options far outclass his vertical ones, but off stage Jump can gimp Speed to death pretty easily due to Speed's reduced jump height and general bad vertical mobility
Jump vs Shield: Shield -> Jump deals 85.4% of normal damage: a little more than Speed -> neutral. Once Jump gets Shield offstage it's game over for Jump, but the problem is getting Shield offstage due to Shield's weight. Jump I think still wins though as it can hop in, land a nair or fair and jump away.
Jump vs Buster: Buster -> Jump: 170.8% damage, almost double. Geez. A neutral combo does 20% damage already. Jump, don't get hit.
Jump vs Smash: Smash -> Jump: 61% damage. As long as the Smash attack doesn't outright kill the Jump, it should be able to make it back.
Speed vs Speed: GOTTA GO FAST
Speed vs Shield: Speed -> Shield: 53.6% damage: comparable to Smash. The idea here should be similar to Jump on Shield though: Speed runs in, gets a hit or two and runs away, rinse and repeat. It's going to be a lot slower though
Speed vs Buster: Speed -> Buster: 90.4% damage: almost neutral. Speed's extra mobility I think helps it though.
Speed vs Smash: Not much going for either really. This one seems pretty neutral.
Shield vs Shield: 46.9% of normal damage going either way: comparable to Smash's damage output. No one moves at all because the attacks do so little knockback to each other. You can't even gimp properly, although I don't think you would need to. This one seems like it would be really boring to watch
Shield vs Buster: Buster -> Shield: 93.8% damage, pretty much neutral. Super-reduced knockback seems like Buster could probably pull off a couple of combos.
Shield vs Smash: Smash -> Shield: 33.5% damage. Wow. Neutral combo does 4% damage. Shield definitely wins here as Smash's advantage is mostly neutralized and Smash does basically no damage.
Buster vs Buster: Damage fest! 158.2% damage dealt - similar to Decisive Buster. Reduced knockback also means super-increased damage. Whoever switches out first I think has the advantage lol
Buster vs Smash: Smash -> Buster: 56.5% damage, not very big of a difference. Smash wins I think because its other drawback, increased launch distance, gets nullified by Buster and then it can land a solid hit.
Smash vs Smash: Launch fest! This is basically High-Launch Smash I think. Whoever gets a solid hit off first wins.

 

[Berserker.]

Buster vs Smash: Smash -> Buster: 56.5% damage, not very big of a difference. Smash wins I think because its other drawback, increased launch distance, gets nullified by Buster and then it can land a solid hit.

I agree with everything except this. Buster is slightly favorable against Smash. The light weight of Smash Shulk allows buster to actually apply more hitsun which is very helpful considering how bad its hitsun is already. Also, Smash Shulk's attacks in general are just so unsafe unlike buster attacks which are very safe on shield. Smash art attacks generally deal pitiful damage even on buster's reduced defense so buster's defense nerf is basically something to not worry about that much. Add to the fact that they don't apply a lot of shield stun at all, buster can easily punish anything from Smash (Shield grabbing comes to mind and buster throws deal a LOT of damage). The main problem with buster is when a buster attack is countered by a Smash counter. Damage is multiplied. Add to the fact that it's buster we're talking about, then the damage added is enormous. Damage increases the base knockback of counter. Buster dies. Also, buster's weight is artificially decreased due to the defense decrease it's not as drastic as Smash art's weight decrease. Important to note: The launch power of Smash makes Smash pretty much threatening already but if you're careful enough, if you avoid making too much mistakes, and if you bait Smash Shulk into using laggy attacks, you don't have too worry about it that much. Getting KO's with Smash comes from mostly reads, edgeguards and OoS options that you have to watch out for (Up B mostly)

 

[Masonomace]

I would of continued my MArt MUs like kenniky's spoiler in his post, though I held back from discussing Jump vs Buster or Smash, Speed vs Buster or Smash, & Shield vs Buster, but I don't have quite enough experience with those Art MUs yet (I should be more daring to experiment with these opportunities more often). But some more of my MU input:

Shield vs Smash
+3 Shield​

Shield is basically Smash's hard-counter, & even though Smash augments KO power to seal the stock. . .Shield laughs. Stage-positioning-wise, Shield relies on being near the center-stage & holding its ground while Smash relies on having the stage advantage & control to edge-guard for netting a KO, or just gimping your stock, but that's easier said than done. On top of Shield's increased defensive stats, Shield gains more KO power from Smash's weaker launch resistance & reduced weight, plus Smash's knockback is toned down including its damage reduced even further to the ground. And while both Shulks can crouch-cancel in order to reduce the knockback (unsure of damage being a factor), Shield utilizes CC'ing more making Smash's job to KO Shield more struggling. With Smash's reduced damage on bubble shields also doing petty shield-stun, it feels like nothing to Shield's superior shield strength, heavily hindering Smash even more when hitting Shield on-block with or without powershielding involved. Smash mainly wants to use it's Vanilla mobility & go for grabs from mix-ups or cross-ups because any strong move Smash uses will only launch Shield at most off-stage, but without a mobility advantage, Shield can react more easily to Smash than say, Buster or Jump. Anytime Smash is activated whether the other Shulk is at high %, the opposite Shulk will cycle to Shield & handle it, although Smash Shulk having high % does give it a good bonus of Rage to get Shield off-stage if not KO'ing, still, the lack of shield-stun & all of Shulk's KO moves excluding throws having ending lag, Shield can bait Smash into committing to a risky move, & then Shield could punish OoS & continue making Smash's life hard.

 

[S.F.L.R_9]

I find Buster to be incredibly effective against Shield. Why? Because your opponent becomes wombo combo bait pretty much. Reduced knockback from Buster plus higher knockback resistance from shield = you'll still be able to do combos at the kill percents the other Shulk would be activating Shield at. The extra damage helps to kill with Smash with maybe a throw or something, because even if your opponent is still around long enough for Shield to be used again, they'll be at such a high percent that Smash should be able to kill them with just about anything. Matchup ratio I would say +2 Buster.

Jump vs Shield is amazing if you can get the Shield Shulk off stage, since he basically becomes Little Mac and you become Jigglypuff. I find Smash to work for this as well, but I find Jump more useful in most situations since you can go very low and still recover, if the need arises. Jump can also be used to poke your opponent with bair quite easily, and since Shield makes them so slow they won't be able to punish. I won't give a ratio for either of these since I don't usually use Smash against Shield, and Jump is not what I use most often against Shield, but I'm really feeling that Jump has an advantage against Shield.

 

[Zephil]

Here are my two cents:

Jump vs Jump: Your spacing must be on point.While its very hard to gimp another Jump Shulk, if you get a good hit in the air you have many different followups and can rack up damage really quick.
Jump vs Speed: The horizontal movement of Shulk is better than the vertical movement as Speed can get good strings while doing more damage thanks to the lower defenses of Jump. Also Shulk have good anti-airs like utilt so Jump Shulk have to be very careful in his approaches or he will be punished hard. Gimping is an option for Jump Shulk but even in Speed, Shulk still has a decent recovery.
Jump vs Shield: Mobility beats defense here. Damage and knockback reduction is not a big deal for Jump Shulk as Shield Shulk also has damage and knockback reduction for his hits. The goal for going Jump against Shield should be solely to look for that gimp.
Jump vs Buster: I think this depends a lot of how much % Shulk has. In the beginning of the match I think Buster beats Jump with that 170% but if the Buster Shulk is at mid/high % I think the match is on favor of Jump Shulk as the knockback of each hit in the air has different followups that may end in a lot of damage for Buster or even in a gimp.
Jump vs Smash: At high % Smash wins, one utilt anti-air in a Jump Shulk and he is dead and because this match will probably happens when Jump Shulk is at high % then this is in Smash favor.
Speed vs Speed:
Speed vs Shield: no damage for Speed and still meh damage for Shield. Enjoy your cool Speed combos for 10% but who knows? A good pivot grab close to the edge means the end for Shield Shulk so give it a try.
Speed vs Buster: Buster's lower defense makes more rewarding Speed combos but also Buster makes more damage. Anyways I think Speed wins thanks to the extra mobility.
Speed vs Smash: As I always expect Smash to be used when the opponent is at high %s my vote is to Smash BUT if Speed plays really safe and smart, he can get some serious damage.
Shield vs Shield: oh god please don't
Shield vs Buster: Buster wins. Almost the same damage as normal Shulk while having reduce knockback allows more combos and followups. Shield just gets a little more damage but not enough to make it worth it in this match.
Shield vs Smash: Shield beats Smash easily, the Shield's defense increase is bigger than Smash's knockback increase so it makes Smash ineffective.
Buster vs Buster: dat damage... pray to Arceus before doing this.
Buster vs Smash: I agree with Berserker. Buster wins if Shulk plays safe, most of Smash Shulk attacks are unsafe on block so just wait for that moment and punish hard.
Smash vs Smash: SUDDEN DEATH... GO!

 

[Masonomace]

Okay, another input:

Shield vs Buster
+2 Buster​

One of my favorite MArt MUs. These Arts can go even but can also lead to one hard-countering the other, per-say if Buster gets enough momentum, or if Shield manages to halt all momentum. Shield can barely handle Buster, but if Buster gets enough momentum & combos Shield, Shield may be forced to deactivate the Art if Shield's flinching has too much hit-stun to act out of with a panic option such as Vision or Air Slash for Buster's mess. Shield doesn't really seem to decrease Buster's shield-stun property, although Shield's bubble shield can definitely take all of Buster's shield-damage it dishes out. Unless Shield mode is consistently powershielding Buster's attacks on-block, Shield has little chance of punishing Buster's landing N-air F-air or B-air when zoning out Shield. Sometimes Shield's Dash Attack OoS can't punish Buster's spacing either. Anytime Shield tries trading damage with Buster, it's usually in Buster's favor because of Shield's defensive stats that are exploitable by Buster's ability to combo with multiple tilts. However Shield's true strategy for versing Buster is to not take damage, so Shield doesn't need to combat Buster, while Buster is mainly used to deal damage & requires momentum. Even though Buster has the advantage against Shield, it won't mean a thing if Buster can't deal that much damage to Shield.

TL;DR Basically this MU comes down to whoever succeeds in their objective: Buster dealing damage, or Shield preventing damage.

​

 

[erico9001]

Now that we have this new system I can post this here :

I was doing some Shulk dittos, and oddly it seemed the best MArt for either of us to use was Buster. It doesn't seem like there's any art that counters it. Shield is beaten, Smash is only good at high percents, Jump is ridiculously hurt by Buster, Vanilla would probably be better off in Buster if trying to give damage. Speed was the only thing I could think of being a possible counter, but it didn't actually do that well...
---------------------
important edit:

Oh and there's some important things to be said about counters!
Shulk's counter calculates damage based off of the opponent's damage and then multiplies it. For this reason, a counter used against a move that is being used from Monado Buster will deal much more damage (and therefore knockback) to that Shulk. Furthermore, counters used against a person in Monado Speed, Monado Shield, and Monado Smash are less effective. Also keep in mind that the monado art you are in effects the knockback/damage of your own counter when it hits the opponent. However, the damage taken increase from Monado Jump does not actually effect your counter, interestingly.

So a Monado Smash + counter against a Monado Buster + up close ftilt KOs as early as 58% with no DI or vectoring from the training mode spawn point of FD, heading left. Wow, I don't even want to know how low the kill percent would be with a power vision. The percent killed at is 67% with the person doing the counter being Vanilla Shulk. The KO % is 108% without any Monado art influence from either side. If the person attacking the person using the counter is in Monado Smash, the kill percent is, hilariously, 189%! This kill % is lower than using f-tilt yourself, d-tilt, U-tilt, Dair, Uair, Bair, Smashes, and either Dthrow or Bthrow depending on location relative to the stage.