Pseudo Ken Combo Shulk style.

[AzureFlame4]

That's right, Shulk can ken combo. I haven't tested it out on the entire cast yet, but so far I can tell you it works with Ganondorf, DK, Bowser, and Shulk himself. There are a couple of huge issues with it though. The most obvious being the fact that the dair is so narrow so it's harder to land than Marth's. The other issue is that sometimes it relies on you having jump/speed on while other times you can do it without either. It's really dependent on the situation and will require a lot of experience to get consistent with. Also, the circle pad makes it a little annoying to be precise with. I would also like to note that the combo also works with uair and even bair instead of dair for mix ups, though dair will almost always be the better option due to the spike. Also, I have not had the chance to play against a human player to see if it can be air dodged out of yet. Even if it can though, it will still be able to catch opponents who are off guard.

I plan to do more extensive testing with it in the next coming days to get an idea of what is needed to pull it off with the entire cast, and also to see which characters it might not work on. Also note that all of this data is based on the training room meaning vectoring wasn't accounted for.

Given that you are also having to go out further when the percents are really high, it might be better to consider the bair in the situation since it will send them to the blast zone most of the time. It will kill if you start the combo at around 90%

Works on (Still testing):
0%-67% No arts needed. 68%-100% jump needed.
0%-64% No arts needed. 65%-110% jump needed. Up until 50% he can up B to you to recover and kill you at the same time.
Around 60-120% with speed or jump.

Hard to land until around 20%



Works amazingly well up until around 50% and then becomes nearly impossible to land.

/Start's working around 20%

Will die extremely early


























Barely works on:
Really hard to land at any percentage

 

[Masonomace]

Hmmm. . .I can't wait to see videos showing all of this. I will keep this in mind AF4. But wouldn't Speed work due to the Art's increased Air speed to easily stay in position for the F-air > D-air input?

I guess the Speed's damage output % decrease affects it, plus Speed's jump height decreased. .

 

[AzureFlame4]

Yeah, once you get to the higher percents you need to be able to jump pretty high to reach the opponent and speed just doesn't cut it. Plus the need to recover just makes jump ideal. Speed does work with a lot of the lower percents though and is probably ideal in those situations so you can adapt to how your opponent reacts better.

 

[Masonomace]

Yeah, once you get to the higher percents you need to be able to jump pretty high to reach the opponent and speed just doesn't cut it. Plus the need to recover just makes jump ideal. Speed does work with a lot of the lower percents though and is probably ideal in those situations so you can adapt to how your opponent reacts better.

Would Speed's version of the Ken combo work on light-weight characters too? If jump height & percentages are a strict factor, perhaps Speed's jump height decrease & damage % dealt makes it ideal to be more consistent with a lighter character ignoring those factors.

Back to Jump though, I can definitely see it being that vital, because "what if I fast-fall on accident when doing the D-air?" would be answered with recovering accordingly with Jump's air speed & jump height to his Air Slash IF that happens etc. etc..

Because Shulk's aerials have a sweet-spot & a sour-spot, which spot do you find easier to use for the Ken combo? Shulk is basically like Roy when it comes to his hit-box properties about the aerials.

 

[AzureFlame4]

From what I've seen, it seems that a lot of the characters are affected by the combo in the same way. The only exception is fast fallers who it is really hard to get the combo on in the low percents, not that the combo does much in low percents anyway. I think speed is only ideal in order to adapt. The percents aren't too terribly strict that it matters that much.

You definitely want to land the hit with the base of the blade first and not the beam. You're looking to get the two hit combo in order to make it work. If you only land the beam they will go to either the left or right. Also, if you decide to go the bair route (Which I recommend since it can kill just about any character if you started the combo in the 90% range) you will want to hit your opponent at the absolute base of the blade.

 

[Masonomace]

From what I've seen, it seems that a lot of the characters are affected by the combo in the same way. The only exception is fast fallers who it is really hard to get the combo on in the low percents, not that the combo does much in low percents anyway. I think speed is only ideal in order to adapt. The percents aren't too terribly strict that it matters that much.

You definitely want to land the hit with the base of the blade first and not the beam. You're looking to get the two hit combo in order to make it work. If you only land the beam they will go to either the left or right. Also, if you decide to go the bair route (Which I recommend since it can kill just about any character if you started the combo in the 90% range) you will want to hit your opponent at the absolute base of the blade.

Hmmm, I dig it. The fast-falling characters that would have high amount of gravity sounds bummer, but that's okay. Their gravity would be the downfall of their stock, no pun intended.

I should of specified when involving Shulk's Blade / Beam portions of just the F-airs, not the D-air (I was aware that D-air needs to hit with the Base, my bad). D-air's 2nd hit with the Beam is definitely a sour-spot move that launches them horizontally, but I wish the first hit of D-air was a soft-meteor hit effect to help follow into the 2nd hit easier (unless it does & I didn't notice).

As a late worthy question, is footstool an alternative follow-up after the lateral movement toward them from a F-air?

Footstool+buffered D-air???

 

[AzureFlame4]

Hmmm, I dig it. The fast-falling characters that would have high amount of gravity sounds bummer, but that's okay. Their gravity would be the downfall of their stock, no pun intended.

I should of specified when involving Shulk's Blade / Beam portions of just the F-airs, not the D-air (I was aware that D-air needs to hit with the Base, my bad). D-air's 2nd hit with the Beam is definitely a sour-spot move that launches them horizontally, but I wish the first hit of D-air was a soft-meteor hit effect to help follow into the 2nd hit easier (unless it does & I didn't notice).

As a late worthy question, is footstool an alternative follow-up after the lateral movement toward them from a F-air?

Footstool+buffered D-air???

I would say the best way to set up the fair is to aim for the middle of the blade as that puts you in the best situation to follow up from my experience. Hitting with the base knocks them down so you have to adapt a bit more and the beam risks you not even going off the stage with them.

You could definitely footstool after the fair and second jump. I want to say footstool+buffered Dair is possible, but I'm not precise enough with the circle pad and can't say for sure.

 

[Masonomace]

I would the best way to set up the fair is to aim for the middle of the blade as that puts you in the best situation to follow up from my experience. Hitting with the base knocks them down so you have to adapt a bit more and the beam risks you not even going off the stage with them.

You could definitely footstool after the fair and second jump. I want to say footstool+buffered Dair is possible, but I'm not precise enough with the circle pad and can't say for sure.

Right on, that assures my curiosity of the pseudo ken combo featuring Azure's Shulk.

Shulk doing F-air > footstool buffered D-air would give me a solid reason to prioritize my game-play needs for Shulk over Marth. Sorry Marth. .

 

[Berserker.]

Is this like 100%? For sure?

 

[Card]

What exactly are the inputs? Without a video or an animated .gif, it's hard to imagine what you mean by a "Pseudo Ken Combo".

EDIT: ... and is this tested on a human opponent or are your values just on a CPU Training Dummy (with no VI or no attempts at Air-dodging/countering the D-Air)? nevermind you answered this... It isn't really worth much if it only works on CPU's...

 

[Berserker.]

Also, I have not had the chance to play against a human player to see if it can be air dodged out of yet

 

[AzureFlame4]

What exactly are the inputs? Without a video or an animated .gif, it's hard to imagine what you mean by a "Pseudo Ken Combo".

EDIT: ... and is this tested on a human opponent or are your values just on a CPU Training Dummy (with no VI or no attempts at Air-dodging/countering the D-Air)? nevermind you answered this... It isn't really worth much if it only works on CPU's...

The inputs are jump, fair, jump, dair.

I can't say for sure because I have yet to get someone to test it with me, but I'm pretty sure it can be dodged out of, especially at the earlier percents. Still, I think it will be useful for setting up the dair meteor or for really sending your opponent away with the bair, it's just going to heavily rely on reads. It's going to be something that requires a lot of experience to work, but could be a very useful tool down the road, especially if the footstool+buffered dair that masonomance mentioned works which I'm waiting until the Wii U version to test out.

 

[Starfall11]

Sounds pretty cool. Another interesting combo involves Dair at mid-high percents on the stage. This will bounce them off the stage and directly upwards. Afterwards, you FF, land and USmash. I actually KOed a Megaman in a close matchup by doing this.

It looks extremely awesome and flashy. And I'm pretty sure it's a true combo as long as they don't tech on the stage or something.

 

[Dicex]

A video would be nice, thanks.

 

[Claxus]

Well, it's very far from a real combo. But jump > F-air > jump does lead to a pretty good spiking position if you read their movements well. I managed to do it two times in some friendlies today.

 

[Berserker.]

This is probably more of a set up if anything