I wanted something concrete for Shulk's various recovery options. This should be pretty useful in general.
The lower the angle in this chart, the better the recovery.
Form of recovery|
Monado Jump's fall angle
|
Monado Speed's angle
|
Vanilla's angle
Just drifting|42°|40°|49.6°
Drift with an air jump|18°|25.4°|35.9°
Drift with Air Slash
|
16.7°
|
16.7°
|34°
Drift with Advancing Air Slash
|21.8°|
16.7°
|
29.9
°
Drift with Mighty Air Slash
|
16.7°
|18°|35°
Drift, air jump, and Air Slash
|
–14°
|
0°
|11.3°
Drift, air jump, and Advancing Air Slash
|–8.5°|
0°
|
5.7
°
Drift, air jump, and Mighty Air Slash
|
–14°
|2.9°|15.4°
Using the platforms on the right in combination with the platforms on the left, I was able to find the absolute minimum height you could be on the right side to end up at a specified platform on the right side. Which one I went for on the left side did not matter, as all I needed was the vertical distance traveled between the constant horizontal distance. The horizontal was actually 41, but since you can grab the edge from afar, I estimated that a more realistic figure was 40. It doesn't change the values much, but is worth bringing up.
So the math behind this is find the difference between the number on the left and the number on the right. That is the total distance of the height. Divide that by 40 to get the slope. Then, take the inverse tangent of that value to get the degree of incline.
If you want to be technical, since Shulk is headed down and to the left rather than up to the right, the angle is actually 180° + whatever is in the table. Eh. Whatever.
Summary of the table:
1) Air Slash and Mighty Air Slash are tied for the lowest angles, each while in monado jump. AAS falls somewhat behind here, but not by very much.
2) Air Slash and Advancing Air Slash are tied for the lowest Monado Speed angles. Mighty Air Slash is now the worst, but not by too much.
3) Advancing Air Slash is the best up B for Vanilla, Buster, and Smash, which do not change air movements.
Notes:
Here's some geometry:
-To put this all into perspective, one square in stage builder is almost exactly equal to 1/4 of Shulk's body.
-The stage weight filled up, so I had to spread out the bottom right of the stage.
-These are the maximum recovery points regardless of stage, due to how the average fall angles will be constant.
-I especially made sure to completely max out the amount of spacing that can be placed between the moves. This always helps. It is especially necessary not to spam up B if using AAS, as it will get rid of a lot of your vertical height when you start the second slash.
-Out of all of these, AAS was the easiest to maximize. Since the air speed is not hurt at all after use. AS and MAS you must make sure to use at the exact right moment for the maximum recovery, an issue AAS does not need to worry about. The only thing AAS needs to worry about is being low enough to hit off any edge defenders.
-In each case, I rolled to the opposite edge of the soft platform and ran off the edge.
- Advancing Air Slash is definitely the best up B for Monado Shield. It is the only custom which could achieve a value using this map, so I decided not to include it. It has an angle of 40.4°, which seems bad at first, but is hugely better than the other two arts, and is decent considering that monado shield will not be sent far at all.
- If you're merely drifting for distance and do not care that Jump goes faster, then speed is for you!
- Using normal AS after drifting without a jump is the same for both Monado Speed and Monado Jump. Have you been gimped and are in monado speed? Don't switch out into Monado Jump. You will get the same height in either one. Actually, the letting go of the joystick to press B to try to get to Jump is what might kill you.
-------------------
How can this be applied to the custom moveset project?
-MAS does not have as good of recovery as we think. It is tied with AS while in monado jump, but then only proceeds to get worse and worse. Given its lesser attack range and being more susceptible to ledge guarding, what really is the use of this custom?
-AS is tied both for the best Jump recovery and the best Speed recovery. It's probably a better option to MAS.
-AAS is tied for Monado Speed. It still has a solid Monado Jump recovery, which is still much better than Speed if there is an air jump available. If purely looking at recovery, the advantage of AAS is it allows you to not have to switch out of Buster, Smash, and especially Shield as often. You are more likely to be able to stay in the art you want, and can save Monado Jump (or Monado Speed) for something else.
