Meta "This is the Monado's Power" - Metagame Discussion

[Zatchiel]

Vision is still great, if not better in this art because you can use it to break out of follow-ups earlier and it's faster than our aerials so it could have better use as an anti-juggle.

And after this, I'm beginning to think Vision might be one of the reasons for Shield having such a large output damage reduction. Note that I kept Shield on longer than optimal after the first Vision, where I could have deactivated it and switched to another. But I wanted that second Vision too badly.

Let's talk about Shulk's u-tilt and how strange it is. This was brought up in the Shulk hitbox data thread when u-tilt's hitboxes were still not found yet (because it's weird)

Outstanding in every art. Most characters have no real answer to it from above because it reaches so high. The lingering hitbox you mentioned has saved my ass on more than one occasion, most recently when I used up tilt and thought I was going to get punished from behind. (unf)

The IASA frame on up tilt also makes it pretty nifty for baiting reactions as well as punishing them. Works best when you have your opponent near or on the ledge.

 

[Berserker.]

Instead of struggling to escape juggles, it's better to switch to shield. Get hit and receive pitiful hitsun then fast fall back to the stage THEN switch to whatever art. I like using shield art when I'm at a disadvantaged state. Also, shield art is great against CQC fighters at the start of matches if you don't really want to work with buster at neutral. Just let them grab you or come at you and punish them for actually hitting you.

Huh. I feel creative all of a sudden

 

[meleebrawler]

Disagreed. Want to do damage? Grab, throw, buffer deactivation and switch to Buster. Want to get strings going? Do the same thing but switch to Speed or Jump. You can also force them away with up tilt, because if they don't respect that with a jump then they get grabbed or worse.


It's very likely actually. Your opponent basically cannot combo you at low percents as opposed to other arts where you would just take damage for getting down thrown or something. Even if you get hit the difference in damage taken is still considerably large. And you don't stay in hitstun nearly as long either.

Just because it's designed for one purpose doesn't exclude it to that one purpose. Ingenuity is great for this character in particular.


It's not about dealing out heavy damage. It's about aiming to get control of the stage without being the usual combo food at those percents and taking less damage. Use other arts to deal heavy damage and get combos going. Use Shield to become a tank. You still have your incredible range to work with and Vision is still great, if not better in this art because you can use it to break out of follow-ups earlier and it's faster than our aerials so it could have better use as an anti-juggle.

Switching arts right after getting a punish with shield does sound like a real good idea.
It's just that planning for failure doesn't really sound like an appealing strategy.
My point still stands that trying to get advantage with shield hinges on the opponent messing up.
I guess using shield at low percents is kind of a preference if you're a low-risk kind of person.

You guys have definitely changed my opinion of Shield (@ Berserker. also has a good idea using it reactively
against juggles), though I still think it's his most situational art by far. Projectiles still make seriously
consider against using it.

 

[Zatchiel]

It's just that planning for failure doesn't really sound like an appealing strategy.
My point still stands that trying to get advantage with shield hinges on the opponent messing up.
I guess using shield at low percents is kind of a preference if you're a low-risk kind of person.

Understandable. And doesn't Shulk rely on that already? With any of his "better" arts he does best catching the opponent off guard with his brilliant range and his astounding mobility (with Speed or Jump). I see Shield at low percents as more of a precautionary measure. While not for the same reason as its use at later percents, I think getting out of combos and stuff earlier is good enough a reason to at least experiment. Which I intend to continue.

You guys have definitely changed my opinion of Shield (@ Berserker. also has a good idea using it reactively
against juggles), though I still think it's his most situational art by far. Projectiles still make seriously
consider against using it.

Yeah, I'm not attempting to convince anyone that this art is so much better than it actually is. It's still very situational, this is just me trying to explore the character some more and get some feedback. I had never considered Shield at low percents before so when I gave it some testing I was rather elated with the results.

Against projectiles in Shield you can buffer art deactivation while in shield, switch to Jump or Speed right afterwards, and still clear a decent gap with your second jump after it activates. Beat out projectiles with n-air, f-air, or b-air.

 

[SirKibble13]

I have found that the shield Monado is great against a Greninja's up-smash. As Greninja is up-smashing the shield will make the move give out little knockback so then you can drop on the pokemon with a nair (you may have to fast fall nair).

 

[erico9001]

I'm going to experiment around with Shield early on then. For sure it will work much better for some match-ups than others.

 

[meleebrawler]

Understandable. And doesn't Shulk rely on that already? With any of his "better" arts he does best catching the opponent off guard with his brilliant range and his astounding mobility (with Speed or Jump). I see Shield at low percents as more of a precautionary measure. While not for the same reason as its use at later percents, I think getting out of combos and stuff earlier is good enough a reason to at least experiment. Which I intend to continue.


Yeah, I'm not attempting to convince anyone that this art is so much better than it actually is. It's still very situational, this is just me trying to explore the character some more and get some feedback. I had never considered Shield at low percents before so when I gave it some testing I was rather elated with the results.

Against projectiles in Shield you can buffer art deactivation while in shield, switch to Jump or Speed right afterwards, and still clear a decent gap with your second jump after it activates. Beat out projectiles with n-air, f-air, or b-air.

Given how it's highlighted that there's a lot of benefit to quickly switching in and out of Shield,
would you say it gets relatively more benefit than the other arts with Hyper?

 

[Masonomace]

Okay so about Shield atm:

Shield does not decrease the duration of slipping on bananas or forced tripping from other moves, & when Shield runs or walks over a banana he'll fall a very short distance; this distance is shorter than Vanilla (I advise to use Speed so that you can slip across bananas for long distances in order to avoid punishes) . However when testing if Shield reduces freeze frames or not, I took Falcon & sweetspotted his Knee of justice to two Shulks at the same time. The Shield Shulk hit by the Knee was launched first thus the freeze frames was reduced, however that may only be the case because of reduced hit-stun.

Other than that, earlier today I was playing Shield Shulk & was clashing with jabs with my own Jab-1 due to recovering from the opposing jab's knockback quicker. It seemed like a good strategy against landing jab-1.

 

[Zatchiel]

It's the hitstun reduction. Or rather the reduction in damage taken so you get out of hitstun earlier, and your increased weight makes you sink like a rock almost as soon as you're out. Great stuff Mace.

Given how it's highlighted that there's a lot of benefit to quickly switching in and out of Shield,
would you say it gets relatively more benefit than the other arts with Hyper?

I really wouldn't know for sure since I still haven't even played with Shulk's customs yet (too lazy, never unlocked them) so I hardly know anything about those. If I had to guess I'd say so since the increased and decreased stats made by the arts themselves are just increased and decreased more when it comes to Hyper Arts, correct? If so I could see it working just as well if not a little better, and working into percents a bit later than 0-50%. I haven't messed around default Shield much beyond that percent range, besides possible death percents of course.

Death percents like this, holy **** LOL.

 

[Berserker.]

Please read and help IF you can

http://smashboards.com/threads/buster-attacks-and-their-safety-on-hit-open-to-help.392127/

 

[Nammy12]

Does shield mode increase the amount of frames you can perfect shield?
And if so, do you know how many?

 

[Zatchiel]

Does shield mode increase the amount of frames you can perfect shield?
And if so, do you know how many?

It doesn't affect that at all. The window for perfect shielding is still the same. Only thing that changes about our shield is its health, maybe its regeneration rate too but I don't know about that. Everything else seems the same to me.

 

[erico9001]

Theoretically shield mode should help perfect shielding a little bit, even if the amount of frames is the same.

Due to greater more shield strength and faster shield regeneration, on average, your shield in Monado Shield should be larger than your shield in other modes. If there is a larger shield, and an attack is coming towards it, there will be a shorter distance that the attack must travel before reaching it. Therefore, the attack will strike the shield sooner. Since the attack hits sooner, and the shield takes the same amount of time to put up, there is a better chance that the opponent's attack will hit the shield in the first few frames. Therefore, Monado Shield helps perfect shielding.

...The extent to which I can't say.

 

[Berserker.]

Have you guys ever tried turtling with buster Shulk? Like, minimal aerials, more ground tilts and walking? I think I should try this out more often because I only do this against Diddy Kong. What do you guys think?

 

[Masonomace]

Does shield mode increase the amount of frames you can perfect shield?
And if so, do you know how many?

I don't believe Shield increases the window required to perfect shield. Although it does feel easier to perfect shield with Shield's bubble shield, that can be my imagination.

It doesn't affect that at all. The window for perfect shielding is still the same. Only thing that changes about our shield is its health, maybe its regeneration rate too but I don't know about that. Everything else seems the same to me.

Shield definitely increases the bubble shield's regeneration. Today I've confirmed that both Decisive Shield & Hyper Shield have faster shield regeneration as well. (For a reference, I depleted Shulk's bubble shield as low as I could get just before HShield activated. When HShield lasted for 6 seconds & went on cooldown, I put Shulk's bubble shield back up & it was practically full. As a note to that, the average time I stopwatched Vanilla Shulk fully regenerating his bubble shield just before breaking was about 10 - 11 seconds. DShield estimately took about 8 seconds to regen to full.)

Due to greater more shield strength and faster shield regeneration, on average, your shield in Monado Shield should be larger than your shield in other modes. If there is a larger shield, and an attack is coming towards it, there will be a shorter distance that the attack must travel before reaching it. Therefore, the attack will strike the shield sooner. Since the attack hits sooner, and the shield takes the same amount of time to put up, there is a better chance that the opponent's attack will hit the shield in the first few frames. Therefore, Monado Shield helps perfect shielding.

...The extent to which I can't say.

Theoretically, I can kinda see where you're coming from, but Monado Shield wouldn't help perfect shielding because of a larger shield. A bubble shield isn't visually larger when any Shield Art is active, but rather the bubble shield decays / shrinks at a slower rate. That is the indication of their bubble shields having more shield strength / health.

A better reason that Shield DShield or HShield would help perfect shielding would ironically be the decreased ground speed stat. Thinking about options with our bubble shield, I think of techniques like dashing-shield or shield-stop, & despite the ground speed decrease from the Shield Arts, they increase our control of using the bubble shield. The dashing-shield & shield-stop options as a result are improved imo due to the decrease to Shulk's dashing or running distance. The shorter the distance we dash or run to, the more precise we can be with putting up the shield, especially when we hold forward while dashing or running so that the bubble shield is tilted against a spaced move. I feel that is the key.

As an example, take Speed Shulk or a character like Falcon & compare his dashing shield option to Shield Shulk. Speed Shulk & Falcon are forced to dash for a longer distance before they can put up shield whereas Shield Shulk dashes / runs less distance & can shield earlier. So in a close-combat scenario, dashing shield-grab head-on is more advantageous so that you can shield the oncoming hit & punish with grab.

Have you guys ever tried turtling with buster Shulk? Like, minimal aerials, more ground tilts and walking? I think I should try this out more often because I only do this against Diddy Kong. What do you guys think?

Can't say that I've attempted turtling with Buster Shulk. I wouldn't mind trying it either, but the only thing I'm afraid of is the lack of spacing I'll be doing vs very fast characters who'll dashing shield into my tilts / aerials.

 

[erico9001]

Theoretically, I can kinda see where you're coming from, but Monado Shield wouldn't help perfect shielding because of a larger shield. A bubble shield isn't visually larger when any Shield Art is active, but rather the bubble shield decays / shrinks at a slower rate. That is the indication of their bubble shields having more shield strength / health.

That's what I said in a different wording.. "Due to greater more shield strength and faster shield regeneration, on average, your shield in Monado Shield should be larger than your shield in other modes."

 

[Masonomace]

That's what I said in a different wording.. "Due to greater more shield strength and faster shield regeneration, on average, your shield in Monado Shield should be larger than your shield in other modes."

..Apologies--I was too focused on the actual size on the bubble shields in-game, that I derped when replying to ya Eric (I wish Shield Shulk had a visually larger bubble shield, like that lighter & larger shield you put up by pressing & holding Z in Melee). My bad =/

Does anyone else think it's a bit unfair that Shield Shulk doesn't have higher traction during shield-stun, but Speed does?. . .Anyhow, yeah I came across that while noticing it & thought to myself, "Speed's traction increases? Wonder what Hyper Speed's traction is--OHH DAMN!. . .HSpeed blocking a HBuster F-tilt looks like titans clashing but HSpeed handles the shield-stun & proceeds to punishing anyways".

I'm convinced that Speed mode is our greatest Out of Shield punishing Art.

 

[Plain Yogurt]

By definition that makes sense. Faster characters typically have a better time punishing.

 

[LimitCrown]

I don't think that Shulk's weight stat is modified by the Monado Arts. If it was, then it would cause either of the platforms in the Garden of Hope stage to fall faster or slower whenever Shulk steps on them while the Shield or Smash Art is active, respectively. It is most likely a modifier that affects the final knockback value.

 

[Berserker.]

MALLC in action. Discuss

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebpNgfi5d4U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkgBUp-HJMk

I don't think that Shulk's weight stat is modified by the Monado Arts. If it was, then it would cause either of the platforms in the Garden of Hope stage to fall faster or slower whenever Shulk steps on them while the Shield or Smash Art is active, respectively. It is most likely a modifier that affects the final knockback value.

Not sure about this but @KuroganeHammer can probably answer this

 

[Zatchiel]

MALLC in action. Discuss

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebpNgfi5d4U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkgBUp-HJMk

Not sure about this but @KuroganeHammer can probably answer this

I've been applying this to every match I've played today and it feels even better than the last time I practiced it. I played with another Shulk that wasn't using this at all and by the time we finished he was all over the damn place with it.

Before today I only used it with Jump and didn't think to use it for crazy offensive mix-ups. In my opinion this thing BREAKS the offensive potential of Speed and Jump, I've gotten ridiculous strings offstage just because of landing a MALLC attack. You can keep on aerial pressure while your opponent is flying away from you after taking an aerial, almost completely defenseless. And you can pressure shields with very little worry if you time it correctly.

It also gives use to the arts we don't want at that moment. At the beginning of the first game 9B expertly shuffled through his arts disposing of some for the lag cancel only, then finally switched to the one he wanted and proceeded with that.

Happened in a free for all where I was practicing this too. MALLC b-air is stupendous if you hit-confirm into an aerial chase with Speed or Jump.

 

[DrShankums]

Getting the timing down for each arts is really useful. Like others have said, your unsafe options can suddenly become safe, and it opens up a lot of options/combos. With each art only needing about 7 seconds to recharge you can cycle through a couple for constant canceling. I don't like like to use shield art a whole lot, so I will usually "burn" it pretty often. If it's it's the start of a match and I know I won't be needing jump/shield immediately, I'll burn it before switching to speed. Mastering MALLC is going to be pretty much necessary IMO, it's advantages are too big to ignore. If you don't do it now, you should really start.

 

[Opana]

From the edge of FD, perfect pivot back slash under speed art has a range that reaches nearly half the stage. This is done with specials assigned to cstick, to perform a forward backslash as I PPd.

 

[Masonomace]

By definition that makes sense. Faster characters typically have a better time punishing.

Definitely. With the improved traction & greater movement speed, it becomes much easier punishing with Speed Shulk that you could simply walk OoS & F-tilt. And for the really hard hitting moves on shield like Little Mac's smash attacks, options such as Hyphen U-smash OoS or dash grab would be fantastic.

I don't think that Shulk's weight stat is modified by the Monado Arts. If it was, then it would cause either of the platforms in the Garden of Hope stage to fall faster or slower whenever Shulk steps on them while the Shield or Smash Art is active, respectively. It is most likely a modifier that affects the final knockback value.

I wondered about this too. I'm not entirely sure about it either, but a while ago I had a thought involving Shulk's "weight" change in Shield mode with Kirby or DDD's spit attack (Just in case you wondered why, it's because Kirby & DDD's Inhale + spit attack's damage varied based on the character's weight. So Shield Shulk being heavier than Bowser, I thought he'd deal amazing damage as the spitting star attack). However, when I went to test Shield Shulk as the spitting star attack, the damage dealt was the same as Vanilla Shulk. I made sure to test with Smash Shulk as well, & the result was the same. *shrug*

MALLC in action. Discuss

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebpNgfi5d4U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkgBUp-HJMk

Not sure about this but @KuroganeHammer can probably answer this

Ahhh yeaah. So as I'm going to leave to chill with friends atm, I'm going to relay back my results of MALLC'ing Shulk's aerials including his airdodge & B-Reverse, WaveBounce, & pivot the MArt activation as well.

I'm gonna hopefully go ALL in with the possibilities with MALLC'ing tonight. Hope I bring home some bacon on this one!

 

[LimitCrown]

I wondered about this too. I'm not entirely sure about it either, but a while ago I had a thought involving Shulk's "weight" change in Shield mode with Kirby or DDD's spit attack (Just in case you wondered why, it's because Kirby & DDD's Inhale + spit attack's damage varied based on the character's weight. So Shield Shulk being heavier than Bowser, I thought he'd deal amazing damage as the spitting star attack). However, when I went to test Shield Shulk as the spitting star attack, the damage dealt was the same as Vanilla Shulk. I made sure to test with Smash Shulk as well, & the result was the same. *shrug*

Although the damage that the star spit deals and the weight of the inhaled target correlate with each other, I don't think that a function is used in order to determine the amount of damage that the star spit deals. I tested the star spit attack by using Bowser with the Metal Box item equipped, and there wasn't any change in the amount of damage that was dealt. Also, it seems that Mario's forward and backward throws ignore any changes in the weight of the target.

 

[Zatchiel]

I'd call this a blog post but I want to point out that practicing this will help us out way more than it does on the surface.

Whatever. Blog post.

Spoiler

After more practice with MALLC:

- My art management seems to have gotten a lot better. Either that or it's the same and I'm just putting my other arts to better use.

- My mindfulness of the art cooldown timer also seems to have improved some. Ten seconds isn't such a long time so I find myself in Jump or Speed mostly. Other arts mainly for the cancel. It's still okay to use them when it's perfectly reasonable, but even then you can use the cancel to your advantage anyway.

- I found myself being saved by the invincibility frames on activation a few times, so maybe it's not always best to keep on aggression or dodge once it cancels your landing lag. I think it'd be wise to go for Vision if the opponent is aggressive out of shield. Otherwise you can bait some other shield option. Just know that you can do whatever you want after the lag cancel.

- I also learned that we can both switch and deactivate Monado Arts during landing lag. Even the lag incurred by airdodging into the ground. I saw in 9B's play at first but wasn't sure what to make of it.

Here's a quick one stock match showing some of this in effect (would've uploaded the whole game but there are file size limits for the converter I use).

Anyone else been practicing their ass off with this? If not, I'd strongly suggest it since it'll probably become a huge part of playing this character competitively. I'm not exaggerating when I say this is an extremely useful technique for us to get the hang of together.

 

[Berserker.]

I've been practicing this tech A LOT. I definitely can relate very well with our point about the invincibility frames. I don't instantly use an attack, shield or grab off from MALLC because of this. Whenever I'm up close and MALLC happens, I just let the animation happen and make the opponent attack me while I'm invincible. Free punish. Yay

- Managed to get used to MALLC'ing until smash art but you need to mash. Really. Fast. MALLC'ing with d-air is REALLY easy
- The start up invincibility is a great mind game. If they try to punish your landing, their attack/projectile will simply won't damage you so try thinking about your options. You wanna act out immediately or let them bite?
- Best time to use MALLC for me is when opponents are slightly near me, or when I'm approaching the opponent, or when I'm getting juggled. If they're sent off-stage or are at projectile range, there's no point of using MALLC

I probably might have to make another thread about MALLC so that any tactics or findings about the tech won't get lost in this thread

 

[DavemanCozy]

Hmmm, MALC is actually very useful. Essentially makes our air landings much safer, both applicable in creating a defensive wall or in combo'ing opponents. I'll have to keep practicing this for sure, works well in conjuction with RAR B-airs.

Joining late: I'll have to give Shield another chance after reading all this. The reasons why I wasn't using it were:
a) I move too slow to do much of anything
b) I get camped

I usually only used it when I had a lead and I wanted to avoid getting KO'd early. But again, I'll give everything I read here a try.

 

[LimitCrown]

I was able to estimate some of the values of the knockback modifiers that are associated with Shulk's Monado Arts.

The multiplier that is applied to the amount of knockback that Shulk takes from opponents' attacks whenever the regular Smash Art is active is approximately 1.05x; whenever the Hyper Smash Art is active, the multiplier is approximately 1.17x.

The knockback multiplier that is applied to all of Shulk's attacks that deal scaling knockback whenever the regular Buster Art is active is approximately 0.61x.

These are the only ones that I have estimated for now.

 

[Berserker.]

I was able to estimate some of the values of the knockback modifiers that are associated with Shulk's Monado Arts.

The multiplier that is applied to the amount of knockback that Shulk takes from opponents' attacks whenever the regular Smash Art is active is approximately 1.05x; whenever the Hyper Smash Art is active, the multiplier is approximately 1.17x.

The knockback multiplier that is applied to all of Shulk's attacks that deal scaling knockback whenever the regular Buster Art is active is approximately 0.61x.

These are the only ones that I have estimated for now.

No wonder Rosalina's u-tilt kills HSmash Shulk at 36%

~~

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Os7aUXEpBYg

Not sure if this is a thing but jab cancelling into attacks? Discuss

http://youtu.be/Os7aUXEpBYg?t=8m5s

Pay attention to this part

 

[AnotherDerp]

Whenever I try to recover, I usually go below the stage and try to snap to it with AS, but there are those few frames just before grabbing it that leave me open, and end up getting stage spiked by certain characters (such as Mario's b-air).

How would you guys try to give yourselves a bit of defense against stage spikes, especially if you can't tech that well.

What I usually try to do is a backwards AS in order to try to keep my opponent away or at least cancel their attack, but that isn't always reliable. Any ideas/input?

 

[DrShankums]

No wonder Rosalina's u-tilt kills HSmash Shulk at 36%

~~

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Os7aUXEpBYg

Not sure if this is a thing but jab cancelling into attacks? Discuss

http://youtu.be/Os7aUXEpBYg?t=8m5s

Pay attention to this part

I like to use jab to setup for ftilt. If they are running away or rolling a lot I try to catch them with the jab, then the ftilt. I'm not sure if they can FF and shield or not. I usually do it with buster so I can take advantage of the extra hitstun. I wonder if there are % ranges for different followups like fsmash/upsmash.

Whenever I try to recover, I usually go below the stage and try to snap to it with AS, but there are those few frames just before grabbing it that leave me open, and end up getting stage spiked by certain characters (such as Mario's b-air).

How would you guys try to give yourselves a bit of defense against stage spikes, especially if you can't tech that well.

What I usually try to do is a backwards AS in order to try to keep my opponent away or at least cancel their attack, but that isn't always reliable. Any ideas/input?

Well, if you can anticipate the stage spike you should tech off the ledge. Being aware of what your opponent is doing will help you anticipate when they will go for the spike. I know that's not a great answer, but teching off the ledge is pretty important. It'll be easier with more experience.

 

[Zatchiel]

Not sure if this is a thing but jab cancelling into attacks? Discuss

The part of the video you linked was a combat walk, which is way more circumstantial than jab canceling.

Mixing up between all three jabs maximizes the option. First two can condition shield, or if they like to go offensive jab goes well in tandem with Vision. This is most distinguishable against characters with fast aerial options or those that can escape our jab combo before the third hit. After I make my opponent fear jab -> grab I start fishing for other punishes if they don't respond to it uniformly. This is really good in Smash art because you can score an easy kill with proper reads.

Whenever I try to recover, I usually go below the stage and try to snap to it with AS, but there are those few frames just before grabbing it that leave me open, and end up getting stage spiked by certain characters (such as Mario's b-air).

How would you guys try to give yourselves a bit of defense against stage spikes, especially if you can't tech that well.

What I usually try to do is a backwards AS in order to try to keep my opponent away or at least cancel their attack, but that isn't always reliable. Any ideas/input?

I used to have this problem too. Even if you're using Air Slash to recover as low as possible (to snap with either the first or second slash) you're still plenty exposed to assault from behind or above. Just watch how your opponent is behaving while you're offstage and make a calm response to their edgeguard if they go for it. Practice teching too, since it will strongly benefit you to have some level of consistency there.

Otherwise, if you have a fresh Jump art and your second jump you have the option to get back to the stage with far less trouble. If the cost includes ending another art prematurely just know that you'll have it back in ten seconds if you really want to use it.

 

[Masonomace]

Whenever I try to recover, I usually go below the stage and try to snap to it with AS, but there are those few frames just before grabbing it that leave me open, and end up getting stage spiked by certain characters (such as Mario's b-air).

How would you guys try to give yourselves a bit of defense against stage spikes, especially if you can't tech that well.

What I usually try to do is a backwards AS in order to try to keep my opponent away or at least cancel their attack, but that isn't always reliable. Any ideas/input?

First thing to do is definitely improve your tech skill. When you learn the timing to teching the surface wither it's a wall, lip, even the floor or sides of the stage from being Meteor'd down, teching is your lifesaver reward. Wall-tech-jumping can also prove to be a great asset to do against characters with command grabs like & because they're forced into their backwards leap animation, & that's when Shulk can wall-tech-jump & lead into F-air, front-hitting B-air, or Air Slash.

An alternate option you can try albeit riskier is to have Jump already active & use the increase of height to Air Slash to trick your opponent's timing when they edge-guard you. The lowest you can go before needing to Air Slash is right when you see the magnifying glass hoop for most stages I think. If you conserved your doublejump then you can wait for even longer & do the same tactic with waiting until Shulk vanishes past the bottom of the screen & immediately use your doublejump + U-air at the same time so that you do a rising U-air to edge-guard break them before doing an Air Slash.

U-air you ask? Yes! U-air's hit-box takes the entire beam into account, so you're pretty safe challenging someone's option with the 2nd hit of U-air because the vertical range it reaches is pretty good. Combine that with a high doublejump & you got a nice option to edge-guard break someone being near the ledge.

 

[Plain Yogurt]

I think it might be a good idea to mention in the OP that in the states that you can't cycle through arts you also cannot cancel out of your arts. It's kind of a small nitpicky thing, but it's important.

I also only just realized that during those states I could sort of buffer the cancel by holding the button down/mashing 3 times before the state finishes.

Example 1) While in shield, hold the special button. As soon as the shield drop finishes your art will deactivate.
Example 2) Near the end of a smash attack, mash/hold the special button and it will end immediately when the smash attack does.

It's kind of interesting because some buffered cancels are easier with one method over the other. For example, if you hold special while running and then stop, it will take slightly longer to cancel than if you mash during the skid.

This actually makes me think of a while back when people were saying that they didn't have to mash 3 times to cancel, but they also weren't holding the button. They were probably mashing in non-cycle state and it buffered the cancel.

 

[Nammy12]

Can anyone explain the slide at the end of the counter?
Could it be the momentum of the jump carrying over?

Maybe this can replace dash counter.

 

[meleebrawler]

Can anyone explain the slide at the end of the counter?
Could it be the momentum of the jump carrying over?

Maybe this can replace dash counter.

But dash can do that too, only better. :D

 

[Zatchiel]

Can anyone explain the slide at the end of the counter?
Could it be the momentum of the jump carrying over?
*snip*
Maybe this can replace dash counter.

Our counter is strange. When I use it in the air with Jump I get sent flying to the other side of the stage, rarely.

Speaking of counter: I have a few questions about the gif below, but from what I can tell it has less to do with Shulk and more to do with Mario.

The tail of the fireball is what activates my counter (?) but the counterattack targets the opposite direction. This character scares me.

 

[erico9001]

Can anyone explain the slide at the end of the counter?

Could it be the momentum of the jump carrying over?


Maybe this can replace dash counter.

I may be able to explain. Every version of a move has a different animation for when it is used in the air and when it is used on the ground. There is also a different set of coding used for the moves which are used in the air. When you use a move in the air and then end up on the ground, there is a code which directs you to the grounded version of the move. This redirection can sometimes cause glitches if some sort of part of the code is reached right as you hit the ground.

For this instance, I’m going to guess the glitch is that Shulk is sliding so far because he is using the air stopping velocity (friction while in the air) rather than the ground stopping velocity (friction).

Our counter is strange. When I use it in the air with Jump I get sent flying to the other side of the stage, rarely.

Speaking of counter: I have a few questions about the gif below, but from what I can tell it has less to do with Shulk and more to do with Mario.

The tail of the fireball is what activates my counter (?) but the counterattack targets the opposite direction. This character scares me.

My interpretation of this is projectile hitboxes must be programmed with something that tells what direction they are headed so that if it hits a counter the counter knows what way to go. This is to prevent situations like this: Mario is in the air, in front of you, and shoots a fireball down at you. This fireball hits your back side when you counter it. You use your counter backwards, heading away from Mario.

What has happened in this gif is Mario's fireball is reflected by your shield. This directional indicator is therefore reversed. So, when it hits your counter, you go in the reversed direction.

I think it might be a good idea to mention in the OP that in the states that you can't cycle through arts you also cannot cancel out of your arts. It's kind of a small nitpicky thing, but it's important.

I also only just realized that during those states I could sort of buffer the cancel by holding the button down/mashing 3 times before the state finishes.

Example 1) While in shield, hold the special button. As soon as the shield drop finishes your art will deactivate.
Example 2) Near the end of a smash attack, mash/hold the special button and it will end immediately when the smash attack does.

It's kind of interesting because some buffered cancels are easier with one method over the other. For example, if you hold special while running and then stop, it will take slightly longer to cancel than if you mash during the skid.

This actually makes me think of a while back when people were saying that they didn't have to mash 3 times to cancel, but they also weren't holding the button. They were probably mashing in non-cycle state and it buffered the cancel.

Did not know you can buffer by holding. By the way, you can sort of exploit the buffering to let you do this:

I'm still not sure how useful it is

 

[Masonomace]

A little topic I indulged into:

Footstooling + Jump Art + D-air = Guaranteed Punish?
Earlier today I was thinking about Footstools granting a punish for Shulk, & the inspiration was from Captain Falcon footstooling & immediately doing a Falcon Kick which is guaranteed 15% damage (24% if they get hit by his landing 9% hit at early percentages). So here we are. When footstooling an opponent they cannot do anything for a brief moment, & so I wanted to take the same idea I had with Falcon & use footstooling to reward Shulk some damage but didn't have much success with finding a move other than Air Slash or the AS Customs that was was guaranteed on most of the cast. Hopefully that changes.

Edit: F-air & N-air Fast Fallen in some cases after footstooling can hit a character instead of using D-air. If your D-air's 2nd hit gets perfect shielded, F-air or N-air Fast Fallen will get the job done.

For starters, you need to have a Jump Art on in order to get the reward I'm talking about because the Jump Arts reduce your footstool jump's height to be shorter than Vanilla Shulk's or any of his other Arts too (Surprisingly, Speed & Shield don't reduce the footstool jump's height). Secondly, the one move I found to be reliable for rewarding on-stage footstooling is D-air's 2nd hitting sourspot Beam, dealing 10%. Now I present to you the characters that Jump / DJump / HJump Shulk can hit out of a footstool > D-air:

Note: I mainly tested this by footstooling them front the front only, except for Wario since he's an exception.

Footstool > D-air 2nd hit Table​

Character | Jump | Decisive Jump | Hyper Jump
Bowser | No | No | No
Bowser Jr. | Yes | Yes | Yes
Captain Falcon | No | No | No
Charizard | No | No | No
Dark Pit | No | No | No
King Dedede | No | No | No
Diddy Kong | No | No | No
Donkey Kong | No | No | No
Dr. Mario | No | No | No
Duck Hunt | No | No | No
Falco | Yes | Yes | Yes
Fox | Yes | Yes | Yes
Ganondorf | No | No | No
Mr. Game & Watch | No | Yes | Yes
Greninja | No | No | No
Ike | Yes | Yes | Yes
Jigglypuff | No | No | No
Kirby | No | No | No
Little Mac | No | No | No
Link | No | No | No
Lucario | No | No | No
Lucina | Yes | Yes | Yes
Luigi | No | No | No
Mario | No | No | No
Marth | Yes | Yes | Yes
Mega Man | No | No | No
Meta Knight | No | No | No
Ness | No | No | No
Olimar | No | No | No
Palutena | No | No | No
Pac-Man| No | Yes | Yes
Peach | Yes | Yes | Yes
Pikachu | Yes | Yes | Yes
Pit | No | No | No
R.O.B. | No | No | No
Robin | No | No | No
Rosalina & Luma | No | No | No
Samus | No | No | No
Sheik | Yes | Yes | Yes
Shulk | Yes | Yes | Yes
Sonic | No | No | No
Toon Link | No | No | No
Villager | No | No | No
Wario | No | No | Yes
Wii Fit Trainer | No | No | No
Yoshi | No | No | No
Zelda | No | No | No
Zero Suit Samus | Yes | Yes | Yes

• Diddy is too short to be hit by D-air. You don't even hit his shield with the end of the 2nd hitting D-air
• G&W is too short to be hit by D-air, although you have enough frame advantage to footstool & F-air or N-air & FF either aerial
• Pac-Man is too short to be hit by D-air, although you have enough frame advantage to footstool into F-air or N-air & FF either aerial
• Wario when footstooled will bop his head up & down. Hyper Jump can only hit Wario if you're facing toward his back & footstool him from behind. When you do get the backwards footstool, your 1st of D-air will hit & you can FF your D-air to hit Wario with the 2nd hit too. Results will vary
• Shulk's Monado Arts were taken into account as well. None of them make any difference for Shulk

Edit #2: Apparently I was wrong but right at the same time. Speed & Shield don't decrease the height of our footstool jump enough to see a difference, but Hyper Speed can footstool > D-air 2nd hit most of the same characters that Jump Shulk can. Here's the list of characters that Hyper Speed can hit with footstool > D-air 2nd hit:
(You have to D-air as soon as you can. Usually Hyper Speed D-air sourspot deals 6% in Training Mode but you deal 7% to him)
(You enough frame advantage, so it doesn't need to be a tight input)
(You cannot input D-air immediately or else your sourspot D-air will whiff him. You have enough frame advantage that you can wait a bit before using D-air, or, you can quickly doublejump & D-air after footstooling & that works)
(You have a very tight moment that you can hit him with D-air. You can't do it immediately because it'll whiff, but waiting too long & he'll perfect shield it. It's possible but eh, stick with Jump Shulk)
(You have enough frame advantage, so it doesn't need to be a tight input)
(You have enough frame advantage, so it doesn't need to be a tight input)
(You cannot input D-air immediately or else your sourspot D-air will whiff her. You have enough frame advantage that you can wait a bit before using D-air)
(You have to immediately doublejump & D-air after footstooling. This is the only way for Hyper Speed Shulk)
(You have enough frame advantage, so it doesn't need to be a tight input)
(You have to D-air as soon as you can)
(You have to D-air as soon as you can)