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

[Masonomace]

Why didn't Smashboards notify me that berserk edited in a quote of me? Anyhow, @ Berserker. that quote was definitely poor choice of words as my opening sentence.

 

[Berserker.]

Why didn't Smashboards notify me that berserk edited in a quote of me? Anyhow, @ Berserker. that quote was definitely poor choice of words as my opening sentence.

No prob

 

[Masonomace]

Btw, what do you guys think about B-reversed momentum overall now?

AlvisCPU's video moment of the Speed mode B-reversed was him running left, then instantly running right without any skid or sign of movement slowing down one bit. Sonic would be so proud & jealous at the same time.

This can definitely apply to aerial momentum too. B-reversed edge-guarding involving going out off-stage initially with jumping forward making our opponent think we'll mainly use F-air, then B-reversing with activating any MArt would fake them out, & retreat with B-air instead for mind boggling.

 

[Pepto]

I think Vanilla Shulk might actually be better than we think. I don't know. I'll try going on a vanilla run and see how I fare. Actually, maybe everyone should try this at the cost of some losses. It's probably worth it

Vanilla Shulk is basically Ike with weaker attacks and better range/recovery. He's not fantastic, but I'd put him as a solid midtier.

 

[SamuraiPanda]

Yay debate! Not counting custom moves, I think Shulk with time will land at the bottom of high tier at best and at worst will be bottom mid tier. I'm talking when he's mastered on the Wii U version by a top player, which may never actually happen because of low returns for high effort (usually only Japanese players will do that) and if it does happen will take a good while. This is assuming his matchups against top tiers (like Shiek and Greninja) aren't completely one sided and that Green makes his recovery less predictable down the line.

If you perfectly space everything and use the full rainbow (or partial rainbow) as necessary, he has tools that can deal with every type of character which reduces the need for secondaries. He can deal with fast characters using nair absurdly long active of the nair. He can use speed + nair to beat campy/projectile characters (projectile priority is much lower in smash 4 so you can clank most projectiles). His utilt has amazing coverage vs aerial approachers like Wario and Jigglypuff. His nair, jab, dtilt, utilt, and fair can deal with small characters.

The reason I say this is because Shulk struggles to win against almost every character, but he still wins. Some matchups are horrible for characters, even those who are top tier contendors. Shulk may not have as many poor matchups as other characters do.

His major issue is consistency of play and the downsides to his colors.

@ Berserker. Thank you. That was exactly what I was hoping for. A little more insight into Shulk I didn't know before (shield buff is new to me and his DACUS sounds decent) that can add a bit more depth to him. If more Shulk ATs are found then he might actually have a fighting chance of getting up there. Oh and upthrow uptilt with purple at high percents comboing is interesting to me but ultimately not useful because why would I go purple when they are at 100%?

One thing I can't find is: How many angles are there to his counter? I know if you hold towards the opponent(?) he will do a slash behind them or something so I've heard. Like Greninja gets different ones based on direction I was wondering if Shulk had more than two directions he can hold.

 

[adom4]

No, Shulk only has regular & forward counter.

 

[Masonomace]

One thing I can't find is: How many angles are there to his counter? I know if you hold towards the opponent(?) he will do a slash behind them or something so I've heard. Like Greninja gets different ones based on direction I was wondering if Shulk had more than two directions he can hold.

V

Shulk only has regular & forward counter.

Shulk so far by what we currently know only has 2 kinds of ways of using Vision. It's different than regular counters & apart from the other unique parries such as Greninja & Lucario, but yeah there's no downward, upward, or backward angling when it comes to Vision.

Also to note on this, Vision & Forward Vision have their regular kind of hit-box while lunging or dashing forward, but they also both have a tipper area near the edge of the blue crescent slash visual effect dealing less KB & % damage.

 

[SamuraiPanda]

Anti-tipper area I think you mean.

Honestly there are 2 things about Shulk that annoy the HELL out of me. 1) Slipping out of the second hit of his F/U smash or U/Dair, 2) That his sweetspot is at the base of his sword.

Its like he's designed to punish you for spacing well with weaker damage/KB and slipping out of the second hit when they are too far. Seriously Sakurai WTF.

If it was't for those two things I might straight up main him despite his issues. I can't imagine how bad Shulk will be if its possible to SDI out of the second hit of his attacks.

 

[Masonomace]

Anti-tipper you say? But I give good tips for my meals.

Joke aside, Shulk's F-smash & U-smash issue is glaring. We distastefully avoid using these smash attacks some, if not most of the time. F-smash angled upward I thought solves the issue of them slipping or "bouncing" away, but then they could already be crouching or vectoring downward. I tried working around this by not aiming to use the 1st hit at all & fairly space my ground by hitting with just the 2nd hit Beam shooting out. . .

"Yeah but you'll get punished for sure. That's a waste of trying it"

Pretty much. Stutterstepping F-smash backwards helps some, but unless I'm using Buster mode to deal additional Shieldstun & Shield-damage, I often won't commit myself to try using both hits of F-smash, & even when you perfectly space F-smash's two hits on shield without MArts involved, they can still punish you. JUST LIKE THEY CAN PUNISH YOUr BACK SLASH OoS EVEN IF YOU PERFECTLY SPACE WITH THE VERY TIP. . .UGH SO DUMB.
U-smash is a different story on its own despite DACUS & OoS+U-Smash & options like that; OoS+U-smash basically is optimal when we powershield & drop shield asap to hope the start-up of the Blade hit connects before they react to it. It sucks too because we compare Ike to Shulk in ways yet Shulk's U-smash doesn't change at all when you Jump+cancel+pivot U-smash to change direction, like Ike's would. .

At least N-air deals more damage when spacing it. Which, makes no sense according to Shulk's hit-box statistics.

EDIT: This is why I also feel Shulk is still going to be a better Doubles character than Singles. His smash attacks, team synergy to allow moves that normally would never be safe to do, like Back Slash & all of his smash attacks including setting up MArts, would be more safe to input from team-play follow-ups & such. A grab holding the opponent & all you do is fullcharge F-smash or U-smash with Smash (red) mode on, & it's a free KO around the ~70% range.

 

[FlareHabanero]

I think the opponent slipping out of the forward smash and up smash may be a hitstun related problem. I've noticed it the most when I use Buster, due to the properties creating weaker hitstun. Meanwhile, it happens less with the other Monado Arts.

Also, you got to mind the hitboxes too. Like say using the forward smash and your opponent is barely above the Monado causing your opponent to get hit by the first hit but not the second. It's extremely specific and would probably not happen in normal play, but it's possible.

 

[Berserker.]

Yay debate! Not counting custom moves, I think Shulk with time will land at the bottom of high tier at best and at worst will be bottom mid tier. I'm talking when he's mastered on the Wii U version by a top player, which may never actually happen because of low returns for high effort (usually only Japanese players will do that) and if it does happen will take a good while. This is assuming his matchups against top tiers (like Shiek and Greninja) aren't completely one sided and that Green makes his recovery less predictable down the line.

If you perfectly space everything and use the full rainbow (or partial rainbow) as necessary, he has tools that can deal with every type of character which reduces the need for secondaries. He can deal with fast characters using nair absurdly long active of the nair. He can use speed + nair to beat campy/projectile characters (projectile priority is much lower in smash 4 so you can clank most projectiles). His utilt has amazing coverage vs aerial approachers like Wario and Jigglypuff. His nair, jab, dtilt, utilt, and fair can deal with small characters.

The reason I say this is because Shulk struggles to win against almost every character, but he still wins. Some matchups are horrible for characters, even those who are top tier contendors. Shulk may not have as many poor matchups as other characters do.

His major issue is consistency of play and the downsides to his colors.

@ Berserker. Thank you. That was exactly what I was hoping for. A little more insight into Shulk I didn't know before (shield buff is new to me and his DACUS sounds decent) that can add a bit more depth to him. If more Shulk ATs are found then he might actually have a fighting chance of getting up there. Oh and upthrow uptilt with purple at high percents comboing is interesting to me but ultimately not useful because why would I go purple when they are at 100%?

One thing I can't find is: How many angles are there to his counter? I know if you hold towards the opponent(?) he will do a slash behind them or something so I've heard. Like Greninja gets different ones based on direction I was wondering if Shulk had more than two directions he can hold.

U-throw to u-tilt is meh imho. It's only used to set a positional advantage but some characters like it when they're above

I don't know about the U-smash though. I haven't whiffed it yet this whole time. The f-smash sucks. I usually just use its second hit and that's it. Actually, I try not to find a reason to use it at all. I have the same feelings for dash attack because it also sucks. I prefer just getting up close pivoting f-tilt backwards. It's 900 times better than normal dash attack plus it deals more damage and it's probably faster and slightly safer. OH RIGHT, I whiffed U-smash once with smash activated when I attempted to use it against Sheik at 0%

Oh and there are only 2 counter angles. One if you don't do anything at all. Two if you tilt forward (Deals more damage and knockback but the hitbox is weird)- Note that this version can only be used on ground. If you count the crappy aerial version, that's 3. If you're wondering why it's crap, it's a 60/40 hit or miss. That's worse than it sounds

I think Shulk's MU range goes from 60/40 to 40/60. Don't think any of them are bull easy or bull hard. The brit does surprisingly alright against the quick characters... imo. Some people have different opinions but this is my opinion. He doesn't do so well against DHD, Rosalina, and Diddy in general. Surprisingly, he fares well against most characters but things can also go south if you screw up how you use your art and waste it on taking damage instead of dealing damage.

I think I'll safely bet that he'll stay at mid tier for the first list. Or bottom of high-mid tier. Depends on how players use him. Most of the techs we've found all come from activating his monado. We gotta tinker around with that more, and I'll agree with you about the awkward design choices, why the hell are Shulk's sweetspots on the base? And buster itself is a design flaw (I firmly believe this)

@ Masonomace That's probably why I dealt 10% damage with buster n-air then.... I must have tipped it. Also, if you tip back slash, it deals more damage but *laughs* back slash sucks. I meant the default one. Back slash charge is legit.

 

[FlareHabanero]

The strength of the Monado being weaker at the tip isn't exactly new. Some characters that use a sword do slightly less damage if they hit with the very tip with certain moves, with the character Roy putting emphasis on that characteristic. Though Shulk does not have the wet noodle we call the Sword of Seals (unless using Buster huehue). Believe me, people complaining about Shulk's hitboxes should use Roy and realize they could of botched it far worse.

 

[Berserker.]

If you want to fully connect both hits of f-smash, you have to be up their face then use it

I'm sure about this

If you try to space the blade part (not the beam part), it has a chance to whiff

 

[Masonomace]

Yeah F-smash at very close range is guaranteed no doubt. It's like SamuraiPanda said earlier: Sakurai wants us to be very close with Shulk, in a game where careful positioning is a huge key to game-play success. Except when using N-air. . .

I haven't really messed around with U-smash to this extent, but I'm hoping that the entire Monado sword is the 1st hit-box.

And finally what I never questioned out loud but kept it to myself was why Shulk retracts his Monado toward himself during F-smash's 2nd hit while the Beam shoots out. I'd rather that he doesn't retract it so it stays out.

 

[Berserker.]

I dunno. To be fair, the range is good enough. The whiffing part is really dumb though

Oh and something I posted in the social

Pivot f-tilt still hits even though you're facing backwards from the player for sweetspotted damage. You have to be up close though

I use this a lot

 

[Masonomace]

I dig it. Once I get my hands on a WiiU compatible controller, You can bet I'll be doing pivoted D-tilts & U-tilts than F-tilt unless I'm using Speed mode. Then I won't really care because of the movement speed that carries over in your slide.

EDIT:

Frame Traps? I say anytime we RAR for any reason, we use B-air as they AirDodge, then N-air which does hit behind us first in the move's start-up. If this is about edge-guarding then N-air will possibly gimp them if their recovery is piss-poor like LM CF or Link.

I guess F-air > F-air after AirDodge works too?

 

[Berserker.]

SMART RUSHDOWN
First of, speed doesn't increase your attack speed however, it does give you a lot of offensive options. Despite the damage decrease, your air mobility, walking and running speed greatly help in sort of "smartly" rushing down. So what exactly is a "Smart rushdown"?

Well, Shulk doesn't have that much rushdown options nor was he even designed to rush down however, with all the buffs given by speed, he can definitely rush down. His grab game is amplified now that he can boost pivot grab with speed activated and due to the jump height nerf, SH N-airs are much easier to execute. SHFF N-airs with speed can be an insanely big deal for Shulk despite the damage. It's great for going in, defending yourself and punishing rolls however, spacing with n-air is the best way to go because it can be shield grabbed. Disclaimer here but unless landing lag is reduced with speed activated, spacing it should be something you should do with it.

Mixing up SHFF N-airs with grabs and pivot f-tilts (and actually f-smash if you feel like it)--- You get all that with speed. Additionally, speed not only expands Shulk's offensive options but it also gives him options in regards to retreating or playing defensively. Speed, despite its damage nerf, is great for punishing since you dash so fast which allows you to punish from certain distances. Additionally, you can easily rush in and rush out thanks to the dash speed increase you receive. Retreating SHFF N-air comes to mind when it comes to retreating. Yes, N-air is still very useful here.

Wait a minute... What's with the "smart" then? Good question, you get too dumb with this, you won't get anywhere. I explicitly stated that Shulk's attack speed does not increase which means the ending lag on his moves and the start up does not increase so you might be under the notion that you can simply blitzkrieg all over the area with speed which is completely false

--------

Whatever. I put this in the speed section. I figured that I should update the post anyway. Maybe remove the initial art usage area since it really depends on the player

Also, With jump activated, not sure if anyone uses this but you can do a FH rising n-air back to the stage to recover if you want

 

[CupofT]

Really late to the party. But if I get knocked off stage in smash stance some of my opponents will sit near ledge and don't expect a second Air Slash hit. So far my opponents have been about 80+% when this happens and the KB gives me enough time to run to the other side and f-air them further off stage or go b-air for a KO.

Will need to try/test using upward tilted f-smash on Toon Link. Or maybe find the spacing to hit with the beam only.... On second thought maybe just not think about ways this is useful as Berserker01 said

 

[Masonomace]

Really late to the party. But if I get knocked off stage in smash stance some of my opponents will sit near ledge and don't expect a second Air Slash hit. So far my opponents have been about 80+% when this happens and the KB gives me enough time to run to the other side and f-air them further off stage or go b-air for a KO.

The slight issue with this is they could choose an defensive option like shielding or spot-dodging your 2nd hit, then they can choose any option OoS or not to bat you away with, possibly ceasing you from recovering back. Or if it's a character who has a parry move, they could just parry your 2nd Air Slash hit, or even the first hit of Air Slash on your way up. It would depend how well you position your Air Slash to avoid this.

 

[NT 3000]

It unfollowed me from the shulk threads wtf <_<

 

[Masonomace]

It unfollowed me from the shulk threads wtf <_<

Perhaps when the whole process of Friending getting removed, the Shulk Metagame Thread didn't consider you as a friend entirely.

 

[CupofT]

The slight issue with this is they could choose an defensive option like shielding or spot-dodging your 2nd hit, then they can choose any option OoS or not to bat you away with, possibly ceasing you from recovering back. Or if it's a character who has a parry move, they could just parry your 2nd Air Slash hit, or even the first hit of Air Slash on your way up. It would depend how well you position your Air Slash to avoid this.

Excellent points. I will be playing more Shulk next few days (hopefully can experience many different situations) and will come back to this Air Slash topic.

 

[Masonomace]

Excellent points. I will be playing more Shulk next few days (hopefully can experience many different situations) and will come back to this Air Slash topic.

I dig it.
For the counter-points against toward what I said before, Buster mode's Air Slash could put a huge damper on their shield bubble to a dangerously small size, & dealing quite a bit of shieldstun, so there's that scenario of complete safety against their shield. Though a parry move used instead really hurts.
The really bad thing about Smash mode when recovering with Air Slash, & they happen to shield the hits, is that Smash mode heavily reduces shield damage & shieldstun it seems, making it very unsafe hitting their shield. So my previous points would come back to bite deeper. Not to mention a parry move may knock us back even further. .

Snap-grabbing the ledge with Air Slash may be the most wise, though the process of attempting this by how we're recovering basically tells the opponent:

Hey, we're coming back from low, don't edge-guard me from down here D;

 

[NT 3000]

Perhaps when the whole process of Friending getting removed, the Shulk Metagame Thread didn't consider you as a friend entirely.

oh ok D: </3

 

[erico9001]

EDIT: This is why I also feel Shulk is still going to be a better Doubles character than Singles. His smash attacks, team synergy to allow moves that normally would never be safe to do, like Back Slash & all of his smash attacks including setting up MArts, would be more safe to input from team-play follow-ups & such. A grab holding the opponent & all you do is fullcharge F-smash or U-smash with Smash (red) mode on, & it's a free KO around the ~70% range.

Actually yeah, he's great for that. When in for glory team battles, I can accommodate for my partner's strengths and weaknesses.

 

[Berserker.]

Just don't use air slash on shield. Even with buster. The pushback and damage isn't enough. Also, b-air and f-air are very underrated because of n-air. You guys should FH F-air because SH will make you suffer landing lag. As for b-air, it's good when you l-cancel it with monado arts

Also, the Mewtwo match up is in our favor (Gonna be wrong once the DLC releases)

 

[Masonomace]

Just don't use air slash on shield. Even with buster. The pushback and damage isn't enough. Also, b-air and f-air are very underrated because of n-air. You guys should FH F-air because SH will make you suffer landing lag. As for b-air, it's good when you l-cancel it with monado arts

Also, the Mewtwo match up is in our favor (Gonna be wrong once the DLC releases)

When people disapprove & would tell me not to use moves simply because they didn't auto-cancel in Brawl, I just say:

Okay. . .I'll just FH with it then.

I will be doing FH > any aerial other than N-air, especially FH > D-air.

If Mewtwo is anything like P:M Mewtwo. . .then I pray he doesn't have a U-tilt that can rival ours in terms of anti-air

EDIT: Btw @ erico9001 I like that signature of the typed out Monado sword to the max.

 

[Berserker.]

He'll probably be Melee Mewtwo

Oh, FH D-air still makes you suffer landing lag. Not sure about FH B-air either

 

[Masonomace]

He'll probably be Melee Mewtwo

Oh, FH D-air still makes you suffer landing lag

A part of me reallllllllly wishes it wasn't Melee Mewtwo, & a part of me realllllly kinda wants P:M Mewtwo but not with that U-tilt realllllly bad.

Anyways I'm okay with it naturally making us suffer landing lag, we can still land with N-air while disengaging away from them, especially if for some reason I'll RAR+FH > D-air, & fall away from them inputting N-air for the behind hit-box to help me have a safer landing if they want to approach me & punish my landing.

 

[Berserker.]

Back slash can literally jump over some melee attacks

So if you're not feeling it with counter then use back slash. I guess

I don't think Robin is that hard... In my mind. I need to fight a Robin though to confirm my thoughts but I got a hunch that it isn't as bad or horrible as most people say. But anyway, what do you guys think about Robin? This is just purely because I also main Robin so I got a good picture of his weaknesses

 

[GlassTop]

I will master this guy. Loved Xenoblade

 

[Masonomace]

Btw @ Berserker. that last post I made looks very incorrect, because I forgot to mention I'd be in Jump mode the entire time.

Jump mode's FH > D-air OoS or U-air work very well for me. Especially Jump FH > D-air since it may possibly hit tall characters who don't crouch for said reasons why, or for characters who SH or FH for whatever reasons. Otherwise, Vanilla Shulk's FH > D-air or U-air are great, when you're nearby the ledge to drift out to be off-stage avoiding to land on-stage with landing lag.

I don't think Robin is that hard... In my mind. I need to fight a Robin though to confirm my thoughts but I got a hunch that it isn't as bad or horrible as most people say. But anyway, what do you guys think about Robin? This is just purely because I also main Robin so I got a good picture of his weaknesses

I think Robin is do-able, but we just need to either optionally respect the Arcfire walling in Neutral Game. That or we use a mobile MArt like Jump to SH over it, or Speed to FH over it, while making decent usage of our improved air speed for careful positioning.

For edge-guarding, Robins by what I've notice like recovering from low, even if their Up-B is above par level of a recovery move being a rising diagonal rather than vertically-inclined or horizontally-inclined only.

 

[Berserker.]

Dude, you can like use jump and use 2 or hell 3 aerials in 2 full hops

with jump

 

[Masonomace]

Dude, you can like use jump and use 2 or hell 3 aerials in 2 full hops

with jump

Definitely, though I don't usually jump twice near my opponent unless it's for a decent reason of any sort. What would we say our fastest-ending aerial be? N-air F-air or B-air?
I wanna say F-air.

Also for two tiny updates when I messed around with Shulk today:
Decisive MArts take a longer time activating than MArts by far, but not sure about Extreme / Hyper MArts. Cycling through & keeping my chosen Art to hover above Shulk's head felt like it lasted for almost 2 seconds rather than a split second like MArts would take.

And two, I was messing around with footstool setups after being curious of Azure's thread, & found Air Slash out of Footstool to be the most effective. I didn't try out N-air though I feel that wouldn't connect but I can be wrong. To go into further detail about Footstool > AS, it seems like I had better consistency if I was footstooling on the ground from behind & use BRAS (awkward. . .) to connect both hits. Smash mode doing this makes it a little easier, but it's very difficult to pull off anything practical off of a footstool setup with Shulk.

 

[meleebrawler]

EDIT: This is why I also feel Shulk is still going to be a better Doubles character than Singles. His smash attacks, team synergy to allow moves that normally would never be safe to do, like Back Slash & all of his smash attacks including setting up MArts, would be more safe to input from team-play follow-ups & such. A grab holding the opponent & all you do is fullcharge F-smash or U-smash with Smash (red) mode on, & it's a free KO around the ~70% range.

It would be oddly appropriate for Shulk to be better on teams, since in his
game, teamwork with your party members in battle is essential.

 

[Berserker.]

Definitely, though I don't usually jump twice near my opponent unless it's for a decent reason of any sort. What would we say our fastest-ending aerial be? N-air F-air or B-air?
I wanna say F-air.

Also for two tiny updates when I messed around with Shulk today:
Decisive MArts take a longer time activating than MArts by far, but not sure about Extreme / Hyper MArts. Cycling through & keeping my chosen Art to hover above Shulk's head felt like it lasted for almost 2 seconds rather than a split second like MArts would take.

And two, I was messing around with footstool setups after being curious of Azure's thread, & found Air Slash out of Footstool to be the most effective. I didn't try out N-air though I feel that wouldn't connect but I can be wrong. To go into further detail about Footstool > AS, it seems like I had better consistency if I was footstooling from behind & use BRAS (awkward. . .) to connect both hits. Smash mode doing this makes it a little easier, but it's very difficult to pull off anything practical off of a footstool setup with Shulk.

I like using my second jump to fool my opponents to thinking that I'm probably gonna do FF N-air but lol nope. I'll do one mid-air jump THEN FF n-air

 

[Masonomace]

I like using my second jump to fool my opponents to thinking that I'm probably gonna do FF N-air but lol nope. I'll do one mid-air jump THEN FF n-air

Ahh, that'll do. The best thing about it is Jump-Shulk falls reallly fast when fast-falling, & the air speed is still fairly smooth even when you fall like a brick downward, so it's not only difficult predicting where Shulk lands, but N-air is the best landing tool Shulk has of making his landings even safer automatically keeping you out. So I see this doin' a number on their mind, a bit.

 

[NT 3000]

He'll probably be Melee Mewtwo

Oh, FH D-air still makes you suffer landing lag. Not sure about FH B-air either

Actually what I've been doing if I full hop bair or dair. To make less landing lag you can mash out a nair before you reach the ground and you will get nairs landing lag instead of bair or dair. It's weird too even if you double jump dair or bair and fully finish the animations. Shulk will still have the same landing lag if he short hopped them.

 

[Berserker.]

Actually what I've been doing if I full hop bair or dair. To make less landing lag you can mash out a nair before you reach the ground and you will get nairs landing lag instead of bair or dair. It's weird too even if you double jump dair or bair and fully finish the animations. Shulk will still have the same landing lag if he short hopped them.

D'oh right. I forgot about that

Thanks for reminding me

 

[Pepto]

It would be oddly appropriate for Shulk to be better on teams, since in his
game, teamwork with your party members in battle is essential.

Team up with a Kirby and let him copy Monado Arts. Jump, Speed, and Buster Kirby is an absolute nightmare.