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

[NT 3000]

D'oh right. I forgot about that

Thanks for reminding me

Lol no problem

 

[Masonomace]

So guys. . . .how do you think Shulk will do in 3v3 & 4v4 Team Battles? Is it a type of game mode Shulk may benefit from, or suffer?

I'm sort of iffy on it for now, because given the stage you play on, it's probably enough space to run around, but too small of a stage with that much chaos going on, I see us spamming Vision counter a lot. . .

 

[NT 3000]

So guys. . . .how do you think Shulk will do in 3v3 & 4v4 Team Battles? Is it a type of game mode Shulk may benefit from, or suffer?

I'm sort of iffy on it for now, because given the stage you play on, it's probably enough space to run around, but too small of a stage with that much chaos going on, I see us spamming Vision counter a lot. . .

For sure vision will be spammed. Although because of these big stages does that mean...people will leave to 200+ normally now? Going to be interesting for sure.

 

[Masonomace]

For sure vision will be spammed. Although because of these big stages does that mean...people will leave to 200+ normally now? Going to be interesting for sure.

I'm not entirely sure, but with that much chaos should Shulk really be hitting just one character who initiated the Vision proc'ing counter? I'd like if his Vision slowed down everybody & hit them all. Like if it at least dealt Battering damage to others nearby or something.

 

[NT 3000]

I'm not entirely sure, but with that much chaos should Shulk really be hitting just one character who initiated the Vision proc'ing counter? I'd like if his Vision slowed down everybody & hit them all. Like if it at least dealt Battering damage to others nearby or something.

As far as I know when doing vision shulk is invincible so people trying to hit him out of it will get caught in the cross fire. I remember doing this in teams with forward vision.

 

[Masonomace]

As far as I know when doing vision shulk is invincible so people trying to hit him out of it will get caught in the cross fire. I remember doing this in teams with forward vision.

I dig it, were you able to roll out of there safely or were you punished in the cross-fire?
Having intangibility for the entire duration of Vision would make it quite the amazing situation-breaker!

 

[NT 3000]

I dig it, were you able to roll out of there safely or were you punished in the cross-fire?
Having intangibility for the entire duration of Vision would make it quite the amazing situation-breaker!

If I recall its basically the whole animation. When he finishes swinging his arm back and the monado closes and he puts it on his back is when he is no longer invincible. Just double checked in training with 1/4th speed lol

edit: the above is only true with regular vision!!
Forward vision is invincible until he finishes the dash and the opponent goes flying.

 

[Berserker.]

Speed Shulk is best for being a massive pest. Just run around interrupting attacks

 

[erico9001]

Something Shulk would have going for him is his range - being able to hit multiple enemies at the same time. Going against him would be attack lag - not being able to react very quickly to surprise attacks from people.

Umm Monado Jump and Monado Speed will be nice for getting around the gigantic stages. I see myself really using Monado Jump in Paulutena's stage. You could track down and get to people with high damage very quickly. I see speed being more useful in The Great Cave Offensive stage.

I suppose Monado Shield would be good for more crowded, chaotic matches. You take less damage overall and rely on others to dish out most of the damage while you take compariiely less. You have barely any knockback reduction in Monado Shield though, so you're still just as viable to take out enemies... especially with a sweeping down smash.

-

I've been curious about the amount of knockback reduction monado shield actually gives you for a while, so I finally did a test. It's very minuscule.

I went into training mode with Shulk facing a bowser. I looked to see what damage percentage is needed to knock bowser all the way from his position on the right side of the stage. To remain a constant distance from bowser, I jumped over him making suren o to jump him and side dodged into the edge of the stage.

With vanilla Shulk, Bowser is KO'd with a full charged F Smash at 108%. With Shield he is KO'd at 111%. I repeated the test a few times to make sure it was indeed the exact percents.

Then I did another test again with Bowser. I looked to see what percent he would die at if launching him forward from that position. I made sure to always stop at the same position where the end of my Shulk's foot touched the end of foot. With Vanilla Shulk, Bowser was KO'd at 71% with fully charge FSmash. With Monado Shield, he was KO'd at 78%.

I did this again with Bowser at the middle of Final Destination (feet touching again). With Vanilla, Bowser was KO'd at 90% wheras with Shield he was KO'd at 97%.

It's important to note there is a third variable here - when I am adjusting the damage in training I am also adjusting my own damage. However, what can be gathered is the difference in knockback is rather insignificant.

For one last try - I switched to Pikachu and redid the first test. Pikachu is KO'd at 96% in Vanilla and 101% in Shield. This was just to make sure that bowser was not very much of a special case.

Another interesting finding from my study - Pikachu was KO'd with Vanilla Shulk at only 75% if you tilt Forward Smash upwards. This is huge - a whole 20% difference between the normal forward smash and the up tilted one. Due to my surprise at this, I decided to test the up tilted forward smash against bowser. In the same scenario as the very first test, Bowser is KO'd at 93% if tilted upwards instead of 108%. This is a 15% difference.

FSmash tilted downwards appears to have the same knockback as not tilted at all... 108% to 108%.

I'm definitely using FSmash tilted upwards from now on.

I have to go right now, but if I had more time I would check how some of the other arts effect knockback.

 

[Berserker.]

Good job @ erico9001

I also noticed this back in SSBB with Mario. Upward tilted f-smash has more knockback with Mario

 

[Masonomace]

@ erico9001 I like that.

About the point of F-smash angled upwards, that sounds great. Though F-smash angled upwards seems to only be helping us KO bigger and / or taller characters, because characters who can crouch under our range like Jigglypuff. . . . . .who btw can probably crouch then Rest punish us, IF we're doing upward angled F-smash (but why would we anyways? Just angle it downward). So these kind of characters from a fair distance given we still wanna be safe about our F-smash being a bad move if whiffed or unspaced from stutterstepping / pivoted:


Unlss they're a character who's relatively small, can crouch below the attack, or crawls lower to the ground than crouching, angled F-smash sounds good to go on the remainder of fighters.

 

[Berserker.]

I have a feeling that the difference might be much more noticeable if you use an uncharged f-smash. I don't know. Someone test this?

And I might have asked this too much so forgive me but, does speed reduce landing lag of aerial moves?

 

[NT 3000]

I have a feeling that the difference might be much more noticeable if you use an uncharged f-smash. I don't know. Someone test this?

And I might have asked this too much so forgive me but, does speed reduce landing lag of aerial moves?

Definitely does not reduce landing lag.
Small thing that I noticed while testing some stuff today. SHFF nair into fair comboed without any MA active and I could keep doing it up to about 80ish % which is really cool.

 

[erico9001]

I have a feeling that the difference might be much more noticeable if you use an uncharged f-smash. I don't know. Someone test this?

And I might have asked this too much so forgive me but, does speed reduce landing lag of aerial moves?

I would think it would not due to how the coding worked in Brawl. Although, I guess it could be different this time around.

Using the same technique I first used on Bowser, but this time on Mario, I found it does not matter that it's being charged. I used F-tilt - 192% Vanilla 194% Shield. (it hit with the tip of the beam)

I think now I will test the other arts out.

Alright so with the first Bowser test (hitting him left)
Plain Shulk: 108%
Jump: 108%
Speed: 115%
Shield: 111%
Buster: 178%
Smash: 94%

With the second test (hitting him right)
Plain Shulk: 71%
Jump: 71%
Speed: 77%
Shield: 78%
Buster: 123%
Smash: 63%

Seems Shield and Speed have about the same knockback, but for some reason Speed has better knockback at low percentages and worse knockback at high percentages. Smash is a little surprising to me because I thought it increased the knockback more than that.

Another thought to get a quantitative measure is to use home run contest. For each time, I hit the sandbag with two jabs and then an additional one jab and push it fully to the wall by walking. The sandbag is at 9% damage. Then I fully charge a down smash. The distance from where the platform stops appears to be about 25 feet, so I added that to each distance.

Plain: 45.9 ->70.9
Jump: 45.9 ->70.9
Speed: 37.7 -> 62.7
Shield: 36.7 ->61.7
Buster: 27.5 ->52.5
Smash: 50.1 ->75.1

Same trend. Again, Speed sends the opponent a little farther at low percentages. The difference between Plain and Speed (or Shield) seems more significant at lower percentages. It looks like the opponent being easier to send farther away (either because of being a lighter character or higher damage) levels out the differences between modes to an extent.

 

[Berserker.]

I would think it would not due to how the coding worked in Brawl. Although, I guess it could be different this time around.

Using the same technique I first used on Bowser, but this time on Mario, I found it does not matter that it's being charged. I used F-tilt - 192% Vanilla 194% Shield. (it hit with the tip of the beam)

I think now I will test the other arts out.

Alright so with the first Bowser test (hitting him left)
Plain Shulk: 108%
Jump: 108%
Speed: 115%
Shield: 111%
Buster: 178%
Smash: 94%

With the second test (hitting him right)
Plain Shulk: 71%
Jump: 71%
Speed: 77%
Shield: 78%
Buster: 123%
Smash: 63%

Seems Shield and Speed have about the same knockback, but for some reason Speed has better knockback at low percentages and worse knockback at high percentages. Smash is a little surprising to me because I thought it increased the knockback more than that.

Another thought to get a quantitative measure is to use home run contest. For each time, I hit the sandbag with two jabs and then an additional one jab and push it fully to the wall by walking. The sandbag is at 9% damage. Then I fully charge a down smash. The distance from where the platform stops appears to be about 25 feet, so I added that to each distance.

Plain: 45.9 ->70.9
Jump: 45.9 ->70.9
Speed: 37.7 -> 62.7
Shield: 36.7 ->61.7
Buster: 27.5 ->52.5
Smash: 50.1 ->75.1

Same trend. Again, Speed sends the opponent a little farther at low percentages. The difference between Plain and Speed (or Shield) seems more significant at lower percentages. It looks like the opponent being easier to send farther away (either because of being a lighter character or higher damage) levels out the differences between modes to an extent.

The knockback on Smash seems impressive regardless. KO'ing at 63% is no joke. Actually, KO'ing at sub 100% is very impressive. Then again, all interesting to know. Thanks for testing yet again. Your effort is appreciated

I was fiddling around with back slash. I noticed that some characters when using their attacks while facing forward sometimes face backward. Peach's d-smash, Link's d-smash---- Anyone's d-smash. What I'm suggesting here is that we find moves that make characters face backwards so that we can punish 'em with back slash

Well, I'm not entirely sure what you're saying lol, sorry. But I threw together a replay here to show what I meant.

It's done just by starting up the arts, then pressing a direction and attack at the same moment that the art activates. He'll instantly shift in that direction doing the aerial. Sometimes he does F-air in his new direction, and sometimes he'll do the aerial from his original direction, but reversed. The first two instances of the tech in the video, respectively.

I messed up for a while in the video, but eventually show it somewhat works with his down-b. And technically his other specials, but those are even more pointless.

Discovered Shulk techs so far

DACUS *no video yet but confirmed*

Monado arts L-cancel

Reverse and dash dancing cancel art

B-reverse Monado arts

 

[NT 3000]

The knockback on Smash seems impressive regardless. KO'ing at 63% is no joke. Actually, KO'ing at sub 100% is very impressive. Then again, all interesting to know. Thanks for testing yet again. Your effort is appreciated

I was fiddling around with back slash. I noticed that some characters when using their attacks while facing forward sometimes face backward. Peach's d-smash, Link's d-smash---- Anyone's d-smash. What I'm suggesting here is that we find moves that make characters face backwards so that we can punish 'em with back slash



Discovered Shulk techs so far

DACUS *no video yet but confirmed*

Monado arts L-cancel

Reverse and dash dancing cancel art

B-reverse Monado arts

That dair setup with MA canceling....I'm stealing that sh**!! Lol also b reversed MAs with nair will work wonders for mind games. Good stuff!

 

[Berserker.]

That dair setup with MA canceling....I'm stealing that sh**!! Lol also b reversed MAs with nair will work wonders for mind games. Good stuff!

Credit doesn't go to me. It goes to Opana, PizzaWenisaur, DanGR (For the video), Claxus (For video), AlvisCPU

 

[Berserker.]

With hyper buster

Neutral jab
5-5-7 (17)

Ftilt
20/17

Utilt
11/10

Dtilt
13/10

F-smash
8-21 (29)

D-smash
11-18 (30 for some reason)

U-smash
7-21 (28)

Nair
11/10

Fair
10/8

Bair
18/11

Uair
6-21 (27)

Dair
10-15 (25)

All throws deal 2% more damage or something

 

[Masonomace]

I may make a new table for DMarts & HMarts.
But. . .all that testing. . .
I feel lame for not buying Sm4sh to help with this. .but WiiU makes me glad I actually didn't.

 

[Berserker.]

It's fine. But that post in the 4v4 quartet kinda made it obvious that you didn't have the game (You didn't know about score display).

Don't stress yourself that much. Let us handle the bisecting


Also, hyper smash u-tilt can KO puff at around ~70%

Also, I finally got the mystery of back slash

The truth is. It doesn't have a cape effect. Rather, it has a similar case to f-tilt. For a short window, backslash has a hitbox slightly behind and above Shulk (Diagonal upper behind). So if you cross up back slash, you'll land the sweep spot.

 

[Masonomace]

With hyper buster

Neutral jab
5-5-7 (17)

Ftilt
20/17

Utilt
11/10

Dtilt
13/10

F-smash
8-21 (29)

D-smash
11-18 (30 for some reason)

U-smash
7-21 (28)

Nair
11/10

Fair
10/8

Bair
18/11

Uair
6-21 (27)

Dair
10-15 (25)

All throws deal 2% more damage or something

Questions about these specific numbers:
F-smash = 8-21 (29) Is this Uncharged or Fullcharged? And for the clarification whether the Tip of the F-smash Beam was involved or not.

D-smash = 11-18 (30 for some reason) So these numbers are based off the 2 back hits from D-smash? Was this Uncharged or Fullcharged, & how close were you when dealing these numbers? Blade, Beam, Tip?

U-smash = 7-21 (28) Uncharged or Fullcharged?

Rest looks great berserk, thanks again to the max.

It's fine. But that post in the 4v4 quartet kinda made it obvious that you didn't have the game (You didn't know about score display).

Don't stress yourself that much. Let us handle the bisecting


Also, hyper smash u-tilt can KO puff at around ~70%

Also, I finally got the mystery of back slash

The truth is. It doesn't have a cape effect. Rather, it has a similar case to f-tilt. For a short window, backslash has a hitbox slightly behind and above Shulk (Diagonal upper behind). So if you cross up back slash, you'll land the sweep spot.

Sorry but thank you. .

F-tilt has a similar case to Back Slash? Oh? Could you please eggsplain the whole F-tilt thing then? First time I've heard about this.

But then, wait, now that makes no sense for me because of all that studying up about EBS literally changing Mario's direction mirroring backwards before even hitting Mario & dealing damage in NinjaLink's video. Now Idk.

 

[Berserker.]

Questions about these specific numbers:
F-smash = 8-21 (29) Is this Uncharged or Fullcharged? And for the clarification whether the Tip of the F-smash Beam was involved or not.

D-smash = 11-18 (30 for some reason) So these numbers are based off the 2 back hits from D-smash? Was this Uncharged or Fullcharged, & how close were you when dealing these numbers? Blade, Beam, Tip?

U-smash = 7-21 (28) Uncharged or Fullcharged?

Rest looks great berserk, thanks again to the max.

It's uncharged. Blade hit. For all

Sorry but thank you. .

F-tilt has a similar case to Back Slash? Oh? Could you please eggsplain the whole F-tilt thing then? First time I've heard about this.

But then, wait, now that makes no sense for me because of all that studying up about EBS literally changing Mario's direction mirroring backwards before even hitting Mario & dealing damage in NinjaLink's video. Now Idk.

Dash pivot f-tilt hits if you land it close enough.

You pivot your f-tilt up close, you'll slide a bit. This sweet spots regardless. This is very useful as a psuedo dash attack

Same thing happened to me. It reversed his direction when I tried this out with back slash and EBS. Strange but the hit comes in first before the strange change in direction

Back slash sweet spot also works grounded but it requires ULTRA short hopping


Also, guys. I think I can help you all with consistently landing back slash sweetspot against air borne opponents facing forward. For a split second, you can see that back slash has a sword blur slightly behind him. Make sure that lands on the back of the target

Grounded back slash sweet spotting only works against big characters

 

[meleebrawler]

I may make a new table for DMarts & HMarts.
But. . .all that testing. . .
I feel lame for not buying Sm4sh to help with this. .but WiiU makes me glad I actually didn't.

I don't think you'd have to make a table for DMarts. The buffs are exactly the same, just
that they last longer and can't be cancelled.

Wouldn't Decisive Shield Art be great for stock tanking purposes in 2v2?

 

[Berserker.]

I don't think you'd have to make a table for DMarts. The buffs are exactly the same, just
that they last longer and can't be cancelled.

Wouldn't Decisive Shield Art be great for stock tanking purposes in 2v2?

DMarts has a slight buff increase (no debuff increase).

Like, decisive buster (54%) deals 14% more damage than default buster (40%)

@ Masonomace Power vision has an AoE time slow btw

 

[NT 3000]

DMarts has a slight buff increase (no debuff increase).

Like, decisive buster (54%) deals 14% more damage than default buster (40%)

@ Masonomace Power vision has an AoE time slow btw

I talked about a vision in an earlier post forgot to add in the AOE part.

Side note: I love activating jump when coming back to the stage and then jumping at the right angle where the opponent is right at the edge of the stage waiting to punish and I perfectly cross them up with nair. If they shield Im still out of range and I ftilt to punish whatever OOS option they try. Feels so good. If ftilt lands I can chase them off stage and gimp because jump is still active.

 

[Berserker.]

I talked about a vision in an earlier post forgot to add in the AOE part.

Side note: I love activating jump when coming back to the stage and then jumping at the right angle where the opponent is right at the edge of the stage waiting to punish and I perfectly cross them up with nair. If they shield Im still out of range and I ftilt to punish whatever OOS option they try. Feels so good. If ftilt lands I can chase them off stage and gimp because jump is still active.

I usually use M/HJump + Rising FH + N-air/F-air to recover instead of air slash. Legit stuff

 

[NT 3000]

I usually use M/HJump + Rising FH + N-air/F-air to recover instead of air slash. Legit stuff

Rising jumps with nair or fair are legit when recovering. Air slash ....it's awful lol

 

[Berserker.]

Rising jumps with nair or fair are legit when recovering. Air slash ....it's awful lol

Air slash is really good. Srs

Especially with jump

Just ledge snap with it

 

[NT 3000]

Air slash is really good. Srs

Especially with jump

Just ledge snap with it

Honestly haven't found the ledge snap sweet spot yet for it. Granted I haven't been trying to look for it much.

 

[Berserker.]

Honestly haven't found the ledge snap sweet spot yet for it. Granted I haven't been trying to look for it much.

Advancing air slash

Or just time the snap. There's a sweet spot

 

[Masonomace]

@ Berserker.
Right right. Isn't the Slowing Zone much smaller for the Powerful Vision Custom than the other 2 Visions if I'm not mistaken. Makes Powerful Vision exclusive for very close range hard reads, which I'm definitely okay with.
And @ NT 3000 too, there's a quirky moment where inputting AS around it's exact start-up right beside a ledge will snap-grab it miraculously. I've done this with Snake in Brawl before, where I inputted Cypher right beside it & Snake would make the noise of bringing out the Cypher even showing the Cypher in mid-animation of coming out, but he would snap-grab the ledge.

Same logic applies here. We can snap-ledge that early, plus using AS mid-way while we're recovering from low. And like berserker said, AAS2 snap-grabs the ledge. MAS is the only Air Slash variation I didn't mess with that much.

 

[Berserker.]

@ Berserker.
Right right. Isn't the Slowing Zone much smaller for the Powerful Vision Custom than the other 2 Visions if I'm not mistaken. Makes Powerful Vision exclusive for very close range hard reads, which I'm definitely okay with.

No. It's still the same. I didn't see any sort of difference imo

 

[Masonomace]

No. It's still the same. I didn't see any sort of difference imo

I wanna agree, but I recall a DDD using a F-smash, & I Power Vision proc'd his approach & hammer & he didn't even slow down enough for me to punish him laggy smash attack. Given I was quite a bit of distance away that only half of the hammer's head made contact with my PV stance, but it should still slow him down. It needs to be Thursday already so I can re-confirm myself on this. .

I don't think you'd have to make a table for DMarts. The buffs are exactly the same, just
that they last longer and can't be cancelled. Would Decisive Shield Art be great for stock tanking purposes in 2v2?

Forgot to reply to ya, my bad.
Berserk already has you covered about the slight buffs that are there, but as for the DShield comment, absolutely. I remember posting back in September how I thought DMArts will be amazing for a Defensive setup in Doubles, starring, Support Shulk! lol, but seriously, 20 seconds of slightly better Shield mode boosts, & the same drawbacks unchanged? Yes Please!

 

[NT 3000]

@ Berserker.
Right right. Isn't the Slowing Zone much smaller for the Powerful Vision Custom than the other 2 Visions if I'm not mistaken. Makes Powerful Vision exclusive for very close range hard reads, which I'm definitely okay with.
And @ NT 3000 too, there's a quirky moment where inputting AS around it's exact start-up right beside a ledge will snap-grab it miraculously. I've done this with Snake in Brawl before, where I inputted Cypher right beside it & Snake would make the noise of bringing out the Cypher even showing the Cypher in mid-animation of coming out, but he would snap-grab the ledge.

Same logic applies here. We can snap-ledge that early, plus using AS mid-way while we're recovering from low. And like berserker said, AAS2 snap-grabs the ledge. MAS is the only Air Slash variation I didn't mess with that much.

Tbh haven't touched custom moves much lol...not really a supporter of them. As far as the snake thing goes I know exactly what your talking about. I'm going to get it down later today...after good ole work -_-... Also I need to start playing other shulks! Later tonight I wanna fight against some of you guys!!

 

[ChronoPenguin]

I don't believe drawbacks are unchanged. Shorthop differs between reg speed and decisive speed. I also believe the damage debuff is slightly greater.
If I'm not mistaken the drawbacks increase less than the benefits so its possibly a more favorable ratio.

 

[Berserker.]

I tested everything already. The drawbacks are unchanged. It's also in the Monado data thread

I wanna agree, but I recall a DDD using a F-smash, & I Power Vision proc'd his approach & hammer & he didn't even slow down enough for me to punish him laggy smash attack. Given I was quite a bit of distance away that only half of the hammer's head made contact with my PV stance, but it should still slow him down. It needs to be Thursday already so I can re-confirm myself on this. .

Same thing happened to me except it still went through. Maybe it's purely because of how slow Power vision attack is. Not the AoE effect

I had to test this but I was up against a CPU because I'm not nearby anyone atm. While I was waiting for an F-smash, I was increasing my efficiency with power shielding lol. Anyway, I redid the scenario and it still went through..... So what happened

You guys do realize that you can actually back slash Luma on the back right? Just saying
You can also back slash Pac Man's hydrant's... back...

 

[XenoEmblems]

It could be me but I find competitive Shulk matches like in Tourney Locator. How is Shulk doing so far competitively or is it too early?

 

[Berserker.]

It could be me but I find competitive Shulk matches like in Tourney Locator. How is Shulk doing so far competitively or is it too early?

He won 1st place in a texas tourney

Top 5 or 4 in Shofu's wifi tourney

3rd place in some place I forgot :|

 

[KiraFlax]

does anyone know why shulks forward b randomly does more damage sometimes. Also does anyone know why sulks down b sometimes does a super fast counter like if hes in an anime.

 

[Berserker.]

does anyone know why shulks forward b randomly does more damage sometimes. Also does anyone know why sulks down b sometimes does a super fast counter like if hes in an anime.

If you input it forward, it's much faster

Shulk's forward B is called back slash so if you land it on the back, it does more damage