Shulk Moveset Analysis/Speculation/Discussion (Phase 1/PLEASE READ OP)

[Creo]

Thanks for sharing the image, @Enyalb .

Knowing that Air Slash has an optional additional strike is great to hear, as it could leave you less susceptible upon a whiff or whatever. The Vision mechanic decreasing in time with more use is an interesting feature, too. Back Slash, as the name and its origin suggests, is how we had imagined it to be, and with the exclusion of Shulk's 5B, obviously that is where the change of stances is occupied (and I do still believe it is just operated as a cycle-through with the tap of the button). . . Nothing groundbreaking in this image, but it is always nice to have additional information, and it just further prepares and makes me anxiously await my coming time in the lab with Shulk.

Edit # 1: It's more than likely that Gaur Plains will be an auto-banned staged, but I'd be lying to everyone if I had said that I am not eager to play on it. Specifically referring to the Wii U version, it looks gorgeous and fun! Oh, and the potential OST's on it. . . And also Metal Face. ;w;

Edit # 2: An additional (translated) screenshot from Famitsu with some new Shulk information in the spoiler below. It shows off a couple of his alternate skins and confirms that 5B ("Monado Arts") is activated with single button presses:

Spoiler

 

[DaDavid]

I knew the counter couldn't be based on the timing of the hit. Makes no sense to allow people to get a "good enough" hit.

 

[Hokori]

The Up-Special & Down-Special portion of the OP has been updated to reflect the details of the scan.

EDIT:

• Shulk has amazing spacing options because his Monado reaches so damn far
• Shulks standing a is a 3 hit combo
• Shulks up b is a TWO PART combo. You can choose to do the second part by inputting b again, basically he swipes up like dolphin slash [and] f you hit b again he will do a swipe in front of him and send the opponent flying
• His up smash is sort of like palutena, except a much smaller pillar of light coming from his monado
• I think his running dash attack is just a sword swipe: Don't quote me on that I didn't take it to memory (As I quote him anyway lol)
• Shulk lunges forward and swipes down with his forward b in to the ground
• When you press neutral b it changes the insignia, can't change while rolling, unsure attacking
• His bair he shoves his sword behind him without even turning around like under his arm
• Shulk has the underpants alt we all know about, rest are recolors

^
Information gathered for Shulk in Zipzo's AMA thread. We already knew all of this (basically), but I'll still leave this here anyway.

EDIT2: Also, Shulks Monado stance changing is done by pressing B to flip through the different stances, then confirming which one you want to swap to. There's an animation for it, but it's short. He just goes "hiyah" and pumps his sword and he changes color.

 

[Berserker.]

One more quote from Zipzo about Shulk's viability

Good heavens, yes. His sword has incredible range. He plays similarly to Ike in terms of his movements but a wee bit faster. Do not misinterpret this as me saying he's a clone of Ike, he's a completely fresh character, but I have pretty high hopes for Shulk.

His Up Smash is similar to palutena's but a bit smaller, his fsmash has a ridiculous hitbox infront of him. Changing to certain monado stances will make him faster, or stronger. Shulk is such a magnificently deep character it's almost mind-blowing to think what his top players will do with him.

Edit: More from Zipzo

Shulk - figured out his mechanic. You swap through the stances pressing b, and when you see the one you want, you simply just wait like half a second and he will stance dance automatically.

 

[FlareHabanero]

So in order to select your Monado Art, you need to let go of the special button with a half second delay?

That may cause some muscle memory shenanigans., especially for novices.

 

[meleebrawler]

Very happy that a system seems to be in place to force you into using all the modes. Though I hope it won't be too restrictive.

Maybe just to keep people from using one mode constantly until they want to switch.

Where have people learned that Shulk's counter becomes less effective every time it's used?
Does the effectiveness reset upon KO?
A fresh Vision may be the longest active counter in the game.

 

[Hokori]

Maybe just to keep people from using one mode constantly until they want to switch.

Where have people learned that Shulk's counter becomes less effective every time it's used?
Does the effectiveness reset upon KO?
A fresh Vision may be the longest active counter in the game.

The Famitsu scan pointed out Shulk's counter specific details. Don't think anyone is 100% sure if it reflects staleness or the entire match, though.

 

[Heavy C4]

Shulk buffs apperantly last for a while, like 20/30 seconds and there is no delay on using buffs.

here the streams.

http://multitwitch.tv/yushako/hamayama/gema_yue

 

[EddyBearr]

How fast is Shulk in terms of land speed, air speed, and jumping speed/height?

 

[EdreesesPieces]

Love that there is no lag activating them. That really empowers their viability.

 

[Heavy C4]

How fast is Shulk in terms of land speed, air speed, and jumping speed/height?

Check out the yushako archives. He been playing alot of Shulk.

http://www.twitch.tv/yushako/b/567409156

1:25:30 and on ward. Then he plays shulk a few more times.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

He's almost comically bad at the game though.

 

[Vinje]

Check out the yushako archives. He been playing alot of Shulk.

http://www.twitch.tv/yushako/b/567409156

1:25:30 and on ward. Then he plays shulk a few more times.

Man Shulk smashes, air slash and back slash seem to have pretty strong knockback.
Edit: Also his monado buster art made it where he did 24% on falco with his down tilt alone.

 

[Heavy C4]

>TILT
>MONADO BUSTER
>24 HIT



DAT DAMAGE

 

[Unicorn]

Shulk is such a deep and interesting character... idk if I will be able to go back to Marth now. Though switching the Monado arts effectively will probably be extremely difficult with the less precise 3ds controls, he might end up being my Wii U main. Buster art honestly seems like the most OP thing ever. Lower knockback+Higher damage= Wombo Combos.

 

[Heavy C4]

http://www.twitch.tv/yushako/b/567716278

1:18:30 is the moveset showcase for shulk.

EDIT: Will put stuff found out in the video. Will put more later on.

Backslash in the front does 10/9 percent and 16/14 behind.

Shulk Neutral Air A makes him sword the sword 320 degress with the laser

Shulk forward grab does 10 percent

Shulk 3 basic A attacks are punch punch slash which doess 3 percent to 3 percent again and then finally 4 percent for 10 percent combo (Buster arts does 4 per punch and finally 8 with the slash. It seems to Buster Art double your damage unless it odd, then it just double minus one. Please correct me later on if this is incorrect.)

Air slash does 5 percent per hit. (It seems the more damage you have, the more damage you get later on. Before, he was getting 5 per hit but now 6 unless there a sweet spot on the blade.)

It seems that once you use an art, you can't use it until the same art cooldown passed or you use another art.

Side Smash can be tilted upward or downward. Fully charged Side smash does about 7 damage when the blade connects and when the laser blade comes out, it does 17 damage. It a total of 24 damage fully charge.

Speed Monado art makes shulk moves 3 times faster. If he was at normal speed, it takes him 3 seconds to move from one side of the platform to the other. For Speed monado shulk, it only one second. We don't know if it also increase his attack speed or recovery or movement in the air.

Monado Shield cause shulk to suffer 9 percent while Little Mac did his B move barely charge and his side b also did 9 percent. Shulk barely moved with the monado art. Down smash did 8 percent and the second hit of Little mac basic A attack or his side tilt did 6 percent.

Shulk dash attack is him running and then it seems that he slashing at short range. Like Roy dash attack but it got a deceptively long range.

 

[Virum]

I must admit Shulk has probably the weirdest NAir out of all the sword users. It's strange how it hits mostly above him which means apart from his DAir he doesn't have too much to cover underneath him. At least he has his counter to prevent being juggled too hard.

It seems that Shulk's main weakness at the moment is his recovery. Back Slash only serves as adequate horizontal recovery whilst Air Slash covers an arc much like Marth's Up B. The difference is Shulk doesn't have a move that offers him small boosts like Marth's Dancing Blade. He does have Monado Jump to increase the height of his double jumps and Monado Shield to increase his knockback resistance to make him less likely to get knocked off stage, though Monado Jump makes him suffer greater knockback so it may act as a double edged sword if you don't recover well. I honestly see Monado Jump being more useful for allowing better aerial follow-ups, allowing you to chase your opponents after launching them and follow up with an aerial or an Air Slash finisher.

One interesting thing to note about Shulk's Monado Art activation is that despite the fact that he enters an animation after selecting your Monado Art, this animation can be interrupted by any action immediately. In the video above when Shulk activates Monado Speed you see him start the animation and then immediately after start running. As a result we know the following about his Monado Arts:

- Tapping B cycles through them
- In order to select the Monado Art you want to use, you simply stop tapping B and wait for approximately one second (you can still do other actions during this "waiting" period)
- You then enter an animation showing you initiated your Monado Art. This animation can be interrupted instantly.
- Each Monado Art lasts approximately 16 seconds after activation
- Whilst a Monado Art is in effect you must wait until its effect wears off before you can cycle through it again
- After the effect of a Monado Art has worn off you cannot use that Monado Art again straight away but you can use any of the other 4
- You know when a Monado Art has worn off due to a grey kanji appearing by Shulk

 

[Heavy C4]

We need to find out if we can cancel animations with monado arts.

If we can do stance canceling, things are being way more interesting. We also don't know alot about Monado arts used in the air. If used properly, shulk can recover in the air with double the height of his jump and double jump.

We also don't know if you can cancel one monado art into the other. If you can, that means shulk got the best tools for every situation.

Except for shield.

 

[Fistex]

I have seen the stream too and I saw an AI shulk use monado jump in the air to use as a recovery, so that is possible.

EDIT: Another thing I noticed was that the last used art is greyed out when cycling arts again, so you have to select another art before you can use the same one again, or it works like a cooldown time.

 

[Virum]

Oooooo if Shulk can cancel attack animations into his Monado Art activation animation that could lead to some insane stuff. Though I'm not even sure if Shulk can attack at all during the time he's cycling through his Monado Arts. I certainly haven't seen it. However I know you can't activate another Monado Art until the one you're using wears off.

I see Monado Shield being useful at very high percents to increase survivability, particularly if used just as your opponent lost a stock. Essentially just to help you retain your overall momentum a little better. Though it's difficult to say until we start exploring Shulk's meta properly. There will come a player who will optimise Shulk to maximum efficiency, but that won't be for a long time.

 

[Woken up by bacon]

I can't find anything about not being able to switch to an art while in another art, but the Nintendo Treehouse stream said double tapping the special button deactivates the current art. This certainly helps if you can't just switch.

 

[Heavy C4]

http://www.twitch.tv/kokutanlufi/b/567954271

54:30

Here is more gameplay to analysis.

 

[adom4]

Any word on his customs yet?

 

[x-Ace-x]

Unfortunately only a few smash player really dig into Shulk right now because he is very tricky to use.

This is the best Shulk video I could found at the moment. Unfortunately the player using Shulk rarely use his buster and smash art. It could have been an amazing match. But we can see that Shulk can be very fast. I was afraid he might not...

This one is very nice too

I'm not sure but it seems like you can change the art while shielding.

 

[Sonicrida]

I unlocked one of the custom neutral Bs. It makes the buff stronger but the duration is a lot shorter. I determined this because the strength buff did 12% more damage on a fully charged fsmash with the damage buff on compared to the regular damage buff;s charged fsmash doing 32%. I'm gonna assume that the other custom is just the opposite.

 

[Hokori]

I unlocked one of the custom neutral Bs. It makes the buff stronger but the duration is a lot shorter. I determined this because the strength buff did 12% more damage on a fully charged fsmash with the damage buff on compared to the regular damage buff;s charged fsmash doing 32%. I'm gonna assume that the other custom is just the opposite.

That sounds pretty interesting actually. Have you tested with Speed too? Like, is he running at Super Sanic Speed?

Sounds like a 'Burst' mode kinda thing.

 

[Vinje]

Here some more footage of shulk.
I like at 1:25 how he grabs/throw DK, uptilts, and then follows with his up special.

 

[meleebrawler]

Here some more footage of shulk.
I like at 1:25 how he grabs/throw DK, uptilts, and then follows with his up special.

His Fair looks a lot like Dedede's, and his Dair is a spike (albeit not a very strong one).

...His air game seems a bit sluggish though, and unsafe without the Smash art.

 

[relaxedexcorcist]

Unfortunately only a few smash player really dig into Shulk right now because he is very tricky to use.

This is the best Shulk video I could found at the moment. Unfortunately the player using Shulk rarely use his buster and smash art. It could have been an amazing match. But we can see that Shulk can be very fast. I was afraid he might not...

This one is very nice too
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlUmvn_Aod0

I'm not sure but it seems like you can change the art while shielding.

The figuring out Shulk video shows Smash mode fsmash and bair can kill at 80% which seems pretty early in this game.

 

[FlareHabanero]

His Fair looks a lot like Dedede's, and his Dair is a spike (albeit not a very strong one).

...His air game seems a bit sluggish though, and unsafe without the Smash art.

His air game seems to be more ideal for defense then offense. Mainly the incredible range the forward aerial and neutral aerial has. The back, up, and down aerial look somewhat situational due to the narrow hitbox though.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Somebody should try out whether B-Reversing is possible with Shulk's neutral B. It'd be an incredible anti-juggling tool if it works.

 

[Heavy C4]

What is B-Reversing?

 

[relaxedexcorcist]

What is B-Reversing?

It's hitting back then quickly using neutral B in the air. If you do it right you'll turn around and perform the neutral special. I think it can also flip your momentum but that might be something else.

It would be good for Shulk because his Monado arts are instant and he can still do other stuff during it, so he would basically be able to quickly turn around and use fair, nair, or bair depending on what he needed.

 

[Smashoperatingbuddy123]

So what do we have and shulks customs

 

[Berserker.]

So what do we have and shulks customs

I unlocked one of the custom neutral Bs. It makes the buff stronger but the duration is a lot shorter. I determined this because the strength buff did 12% more damage on a fully charged fsmash with the damage buff on compared to the regular damage buff;s charged fsmash doing 32%. I'm gonna assume that the other custom is just the opposite.

Oh and also, the shield so far is MUCH MUCH more useful than what people were saying.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Stronger but shorter buff seems even better tbh.

 

[Fex13]

im afraid that shulk doesnt have any good combos due to the narrow hitboxes of his aerials...

 

[Berserker.]

im afraid that shulk doesnt have any good combos due to the narrow hitboxes of his aerials...

Narrow? Can you define a narrow hitbox? I'm kinda confused

 

[Vinje]

http://www.twitch.tv/vgbootcamp/b/568229367
This stream had some pretty cool fights with shulk, some at 7:50, 11:10, 11:18, 16:05.
That's just some of them, pretty sure there is a lot more.

 

[Berserker.]

it's consistant, the only % I've confirmed though is Shield's 33.05% reduced damage.

I should probably make a topic but I don't have any way to test jump lol

so you do a move that does 10% and you take 12% (for Smash)

Now I've yet to play the game (so what I say may not be gospel), much less Shulk, but some information I've taken notes from from early videos:

- F-Tilt dash-pivots look like they'll be fun / effective for spacing
- D-Tilt possibly is a potential combo starter and is another fast attack with good reach
- Up-Throw looks like the best throw as of right now (Up-Throw > Up-Tilt appears to link)
- F-Air hasn't too much lag and has good reach (spacing game)
- Up+B OoS for whiff / lag punishing
- U-Tilt combo potential, anti-air and platform poke (i.e. Battlefileds lower platforms)

Not taking into consideration the Monado arts (although I'm personally looking at Speed and Buster the most for added combo potential (Buster while opponent is at mid-high % could be promising)), these moves are the ones that seem to appeal to me the most. As we've all noted before, Shulk may take some time to understand and handle, but with a vast amount of options, the potential appears to be there, and rest assured I'll find my own way to express my play-style (along with everyone else) in the lab soon enough.

About an hour of footage from a japanese lifestream - almost every match here includes Shulk and by the movement and control of the players you can tell that they are some of the more advanced players with this character so far. I do not recognize the name tag of the Shulk player.
Here are a couple of things that stood out to me on first watching and should probably be noted:

* Fair has very short endling lag. When Shulk does a full hop fair you can use your midair jump before he touches the ground.
* Nair seems to have autocancel frames during almost its entire animation.
* Usmash kills and hits a tad behind Shulk. With its large hitbox above it, this could be a solid OoS punishing move.
* It seems pretty difficult to implement Backslash effectively. Look out for new options through custom moves here!
* Apparently it's possible to move onto and land on the stage while using nair / fair from the ledge.
* Monado Jump is not only a massive boost to Shulk's recovery but also a useful escape option against ledgetraps.
* Vision can definitely kill but will also whiff if you use it against certain attacks.
* Some of Shulk's throws seem to have kill potential. This needs to be investigated in combination with Monado Slash.
* Uair is the only aerial in Shulk's arsenal that doesn't seem to be very useful. Maybe in combination with Monado Jump.

Uthrow -> Utilt -> Airslash seems to be a thing against DK. Anybody knows how much % it does with and without buster activated?