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

[Berserker.]

There are a lot of comments so sorry if this had already been said, but the character/art matchup said to go Shield against Ganondorf, and that's absolutely wrong. Ganon is a surprisingly hard matchup if you're not careful, and he's so strong that he completely ignores Shield Art anyway (one killed me with a forward smash sending me to the opposite side of the stage when I had shield art and only 70%, yes, I vectored), and it only makes it easier for him to kill you. You have to pull a Brawl Sonic, Speed Art, hit and run, rack up some damage, and gimp if you can. Buster Art is the only other viable art, but it's mostly useful for really painful counters (powerful vision with Buster Art did 69% against Warlock Punch and killed Ganon at 32%). But other than Jump only when you need help recovering, Speed is the only truly useful Art, and I spend a good amount of time Vanilla Shulk as well.

Honest opinion, don't go shield at the start. Lol. I really have to change the parts where it suggests to start in shield.

Bowser (Buster)
CF (Buster)
Charizard (Buster)
Dorf (Speed/Jump)
Dedede (Speed/Jump)
Ike (Buster)

Jump and speed are great against Dorf. Don't touch buster. Glad I'm not alone in this

 

[FlareHabanero]

Oh yeah, and don't use the forward smash or Back Slash while Ganon is charging the Warlock Punch. The super armor properties means that instead of knocking him away, you're going going to eat ten tons of raw power. Especially if you have Jump or Smash active.

 

[Oracle_Summon]

Hmm. . .I'd like to see that.
*Insert Missourian quote here*

It was weird. The Vision did not hurt Dr. Mario, but gave him a push in the direction Dr. Mario was headed.

 

[Masonomace]

@ Starfall11 I mostly had issues with my DI'ing movement airborne due to the circle pad, but yeah I don't like the 3DS controls either.

(Charizard (Buster)

The Buster against Charizard is actually a big mistake imo. Zard lives to trade damage with Flare Blitz having fairly good mid-range game like Shulk does, & Buster only helps Zard with his mission to rack up % on us. I'd go with any Art but Buster.

It was weird. The Vision did not hurt Dr. Mario, but gave him a push in the direction Dr. Mario was headed.

Too strange. Shulk's "Zone" slows down the character parried. .Now you really have me in confusion. Video is definitely required now

 

[stingers]

I've also seen vision miss against falcon and Ganons kicks

Shulk tbh doesn't feel top tier to me but he's fun enough I'll main him anyway. He's got the GaW problem of not having a consistent kill option but having lots of ways to get early kills with good reads...which can be harmful competitively when people have him figured out. I feel like his movement formes (speed and jump) will be his saving grace competitively. jump being slightly stronger IMO, the things you can do with it are just ridiculous

 

[Oracle_Summon]

Too strange. Shulk's "Zone" slows down the character parried. .Now you really have me in confusion. Video is definitely required now

I meant that Dr. Mario was pushed. Sorry if there was any confusion.

 

[Masonomace]

I meant that Dr. Mario was pushed. Sorry if there was any confusion.

Then Shulk's Vision parry has a wind-box or something? O_o

 

[erico9001]

Personally, I don't see why people are having such a difficulty playing on the 3DS. Granted I do have the XL version, so that may have something to do with it. SH Nairs into FF is extremely easy for me, I abuse it all the time. I occasionally get Backslash instead of OoS Air Slash, but that's me inputting it wrong.

As long as you're precise and careful, you can minimize the amount of errors made on the 3DS. I have no idea how people have broken their circle pads.

The hardest thing for me is tracking characters' movements on stages where the background dynamically changes, it makes my head spin. But when I focus a lot, I don't have as many issues. I'll be getting the WiiU version too if I manage to buy a WiiU soon, but I think the 3DS version is a brilliant adaptation of smash, especially for handheld.

I was having small issue with putting SH Nair into FF. I could do it, but the ff would usually come out too late. I realized the issue was I was trying to do the FF too soon. Afterwards, I can get it out very quickly.

I don't have issues with controls on the 3ds. The only issue I have is telling what is going on every once in a while, sine I use a small 3ds. Mostly with little mac though, since his attacks don't have too much movement in their charge ups and he's pretty small.

Thanks for bringing up oos air slash! I didn't know you could do that lol. If the opponent is behind you, you can turn it around right before you use it, just like bask slash (I forget what the term for doing that is).

 

[Masonomace]

Thanks for bringing up oos air slash! I didn't know you could do that lol. If the opponent is behind you, you can turn it around right before you use it, just like bask slash (I forget what the term for doing that is).

I believe it's still a B-reversal input, just different animation visual-wise for Shulk. Speaking of Air Slash, did you guys know Air Slash's hit-box can scoop up characters recovering from low if they haven't grabbed the ledge yet?

Saw it in SilentDoom's match on Twitch, was very educational!

 

[Oracle_Summon]

Then Shulk's Vision parry has a wind-box or something? O_o

I guess it does, but for some reason it does not get a hit on Dr. Mario while Dr. Mario is sliding.

 

[Masonomace]

Shulk's Hitbubbles data is going to be extremely interesting now.

I think I can speak for all of us when I say this.

 

[sakuraZaKi]

So what's a good edgeguarding game/setups you guys have played around with? I honestly haven't done anything else but jump off -> bair.

That said, I'm still getting used to Shulks hitboxes, so I'm really bad at aiming of stage and I don't try anything else lol.

 

[Masonomace]

So what's a good edgeguarding game/setups you guys have played around with? I honestly haven't done anything else but jump off -> bair.

That said, I'm still getting used to Shulks hitboxes, so I'm really bad at aiming of stage and I don't try anything else lol.

Jump is the ideal Art ofc, or Smash when Shulk's recovery is fully mastered that you don't need Jump for the sky-high edge-guarding.

So good setups from Bthrow or Fthrowing them & following it up with chasing off-stage include RARBair off-stage, FHDair regardless of connecting with the Meteor Smash or the horizontal hitting launch (both serve the purpose), Fair, & RARNair (unsafe but effective).

Last-minute edge-guarding involves FF'ing off the ledge & Bair'ing toward their recovery to stage-spike.

Does anyone know if the walk-off Dair tactic is still intact? And I mean the walk-off that doesn't kill yourself when falling down.

 

[erico9001]

Jump is the ideal Art ofc, or Smash when Shulk's recovery is fully mastered that you don't need Jump for the sky-high edge-guarding.

So good setups from Bthrow or Fthrowing them & following it up with chasing off-stage include RARBair off-stage, FHDair regardless of connecting with the Meteor Smash or the horizontal hitting launch (both serve the purpose), Fair, & RARNair (unsafe but effective).

Last-minute edge-guarding involves FF'ing off the ledge & Bair'ing toward their recovery to stage-spike.

Does anyone know if the walk-off Dair tactic is still intact? And I mean the walk-off that doesn't kill yourself when falling down.

I'm curious about what the advantage is to doing RAR for the Nair when edgeguarding. It takes longer to swing around to the back, so..

 

[Masonomace]

I'm curious about what the advantage is to doing RAR for the Nair when edgeguarding. It takes longer to swing around to the back, so..

I threw it out there as a possible option. It's sort of like a preference for aerials from where the start-up begins & where the move ends. RARNair's start-up begins behind Shulk & that's more quicker than to do a facing directional Nair toward somebody. Ofc timing & placement of the facing Nair's ending hitting in front of Shulk can be used to, but it's slower.

By no means is RARNair good, but it's a surprisingly decent gimping tactic & if it's one extra option we can use, it's going on Batman's Utility Belt of Options.

 

[NT 3000]

All the discussion loving it soaking up every bit of info!! Guys should we do like a weekly or bi weekly tourney or round robin? Back in the brawl days us ike mains had these all the time.

 

[Starfall11]

I've also seen vision miss against falcon and Ganons kicks

Shulk tbh doesn't feel top tier to me but he's fun enough I'll main him anyway. He's got the GaW problem of not having a consistent kill option but having lots of ways to get early kills with good reads...which can be harmful competitively when people have him figured out. I feel like his movement formes (speed and jump) will be his saving grace competitively. jump being slightly stronger IMO, the things you can do with it are just ridiculous

This is golden right here. I agree that Shulk has an extreme difficulty securing KOs. I've been playing more defensively in For Glory, and I find myself going into Sudden Death far more often than I'd like. Mainly with campy opponents. However, I have yet to lose a sudden death. And I've had 100+ matches. I just activate Speed or Jump, and search for that well timed Nair. Boom... death.

Anyways, this thread has been a huge help. The gimping mechanics of Jump Monado and FF strategies have improved my Shulk tenfold. Won my last twenty matches in For Glory, and brought my overall rating to 60% now. From under 50.

I'm still searching for knowledge and believe Shulk will have competitive viability. Primarily because Speed and Jump offer such great mobility in matchups against some of the top tier characters that he'll have a place in competitive tourneys.

Anyways, what do you guys use to secure KOs? Outside of following them up off stage or edge-guarding? I use Vision a lot, but it's high risk-high reward. I can never seem to land his Fsmash unless I make a great read or punish. It is just so painstakingly slow..... (Previous Falco main, so it feels terribly slow, but SH Nair comes so natural to me it's my bread n' butter). I find it really hard to land a Ftilt too. But I've been using Speed into pivot Ftilt which works sometimes.

Lastly, I found a great technique with speed that increases it's utility if you guys want to try it out. Dash towards the opponent then roll backwards, then dash again, roll again, etc. This makes it extremely difficult to predict when Shulk is going to come in. And you can fake out an opponent, dodge backwards, then dash in for a punish as they miss their attack. I'm not kidding, you can punish almost any move full-screen with speed and a grab. It's that fast.

Another tricky mixup is using the new Shield slide mechanic. Dash in and hold shield and forward on the circle pad. This slides you right in front of your opponent. You block their attack and shield grab them for combos and mixups. Or off stage shenanigans if you throw them off stage. Just be careful not to get grabbed. But that's where SH Nair comes in. Speed has some pretty nasty ambiguous mixups that more than makeup for Shulk's low damage output in SpMonado. Jump is godly too. I see those two and Buster carrying him to high level tournaments.

 

[Banjodorf]

Anybody got solid advice for how to approach? Especially against characters like ZSS and Duck Hunt that make things complicated. SH Nair works some of the time, but doesn't seem like the best option. Is there something I'm missing?

 

[Starfall11]

Anybody got solid advice for how to approach? Especially against characters like ZSS and Duck Hunt that make things complicated. SH Nair works some of the time, but doesn't seem like the best option. Is there something I'm missing?

Monado Jump with Full Hop Nair works wonders. Jump is really necessary for duck hunt dog in my opinion. You can evade a lot of his attacks and FF to gain momentum with aerials. Shield grabbing can help against both of them too. And knowing your OoS options like Ftilit, Air Slash, and well timed Vision counters. Still working on my OoS game though. Speed can be used, but wait for good opportunities when ZSS is grounded.

 

[MASTERLINKX]

Randomly did this online.
Thought it was cool.

 

[Berserker.]

Use jump art. Drop from the ledge

Jump forward and WHILE jumping, use f-air or u-air or d-air

You'll slide upward while jumping forward and doing an attack. You're likely to land on the stage again

Your range will reach the player. Also, n-air with this is amazing

Oh yeah, and don't use the forward smash or Back Slash while Ganon is charging the Warlock Punch. The super armor properties means that instead of knocking him away, you're going going to eat ten tons of raw power. Especially if you have Jump or Smash active.

I nearly got warlock'ed 5 times. Lol.

All 5 were countered. 3 of which was a close call because I almost forgot about the super armor

Dorf is scary

Randomly did this online.
Thought it was cool.

Holy ****. Nice one

The Buster against Charizard is actually a big mistake imo. Zard lives to trade damage with Flare Blitz having fairly good mid-range game like Shulk does, & Buster only helps Zard with his mission to rack up % on us. I'd go with any Art but Buster

Buster is fine. Reasons are similar with using buster against Bowser

but you can use any arts if you want to. Anything works against him

I just prefer buster because I like damaging

I'm 200% on never using buster on Dorf or DDD. Seriously. Never use it.

Anyone try to see how early they can KO with Smash offstage? Nair seems to be a great edgeguard,
though I've only done it to CPUs. Jump could be great for super low or high edgeguards maybe?

Using n-air off stage is death unless you have jump

However, it's great for edgeguarding if you do it near the edge. Just don't be very far from the ledge. The animation is long if you don't land

Anybody got solid advice for how to approach? Especially against characters like ZSS and Duck Hunt that make things complicated. SH Nair works some of the time, but doesn't seem like the best option. Is there something I'm missing?

Well, using jump or speed with n-air is your best option for rushdown against both DHD and ZSS. With ZSS, it's a lot more preferable to play defensively, take advantage of your range and use buster. If she uses paralyzer, nair or shield. Watch out for her long ranged attacks (Forward B and Zair)

As for DHD, nair is working for me so far so I don't know :| (The match up is pretty annoying though so even I need some help with this one)

Anyways, what do you guys use to secure KOs? Outside of following them up off stage or edge-guarding? I use Vision a lot, but it's high risk-high reward. I can never seem to land his Fsmash unless I make a great read or punish. It is just so painstakingly slow..... (Previous Falco main, so it feels terribly slow, but SH Nair comes so natural to me it's my bread n' butter). I find it really hard to land a Ftilt too. But I've been using Speed into pivot Ftilt which works sometimes.

Edgeguarding with f-air or b-air with jump or smash activated

Vision counter is risky but it's a good KO move, regardless

U-smash is actually surprisingly useful for KO'ing if you use it right. Especially against ledge jumpers if you time it right. Incredibly huge vertical range

 

[NT 3000]

This is golden right here. I agree that Shulk has an extreme difficulty securing KOs. I've been playing more defensively in For Glory, and I find myself going into Sudden Death far more often than I'd like. Mainly with campy opponents. However, I have yet to lose a sudden death. And I've had 100+ matches. I just activate Speed or Jump, and search for that well timed Nair. Boom... death.

Anyways, this thread has been a huge help. The gimping mechanics of Jump Monado and FF strategies have improved my Shulk tenfold. Won my last twenty matches in For Glory, and brought my overall rating to 60% now. From under 50.

I'm still searching for knowledge and believe Shulk will have competitive viability. Primarily because Speed and Jump offer such great mobility in matchups against some of the top tier characters that he'll have a place in competitive tourneys.

Anyways, what do you guys use to secure KOs? Outside of following them up off stage or edge-guarding? I use Vision a lot, but it's high risk-high reward. I can never seem to land his Fsmash unless I make a great read or punish. It is just so painstakingly slow..... (Previous Falco main, so it feels terribly slow, but SH Nair comes so natural to me it's my bread n' butter). I find it really hard to land a Ftilt too. But I've been using Speed into pivot Ftilt which works sometimes.

Lastly, I found a great technique with speed that increases it's utility if you guys want to try it out. Dash towards the opponent then roll backwards, then dash again, roll again, etc. This makes it extremely difficult to predict when Shulk is going to come in. And you can fake out an opponent, dodge backwards, then dash in for a punish as they miss their attack. I'm not kidding, you can punish almost any move full-screen with speed and a grab. It's that fast.

Another tricky mixup is using the new Shield slide mechanic. Dash in and hold shield and forward on the circle pad. This slides you right in front of your opponent. You block their attack and shield grab them for combos and mixups. Or off stage shenanigans if you throw them off stage. Just be careful not to get grabbed. But that's where SH Nair comes in. Speed has some pretty nasty ambiguous mixups that more than makeup for Shulk's low damage output in SpMonado. Jump is godly too. I see those two and Buster carrying him to high level tournaments.

For securing kills I switch to smash and if I have them off stage already it's usually easy. Ledge hop I'll usmash. Get up attack pivot fsmash. Roll fsmash. Ledge hop fair or nair etc I'll actually nair to get them back off stage. On stage I try to get a grab and after the throw Rush down and wait for my opponent to air dodge or attack. I actually use well spaced forward smashes to get kills a lot. It is risky as well on account of its recovery frames.

Randomly did this online.
Thought it was cool.

I'm totally stealing this tactic nice!! I perfect shield a lot and am quite good at it. Not sure why I never thought of this good find!!!

 

[DraginHikari]

I'm always impressed with your guys creativity in regards to some of this kind of thing. Though I have not been able to apply the more advance stuff that you guys can do, even some the art trade offs have helped to some degree... still I haven't been able to properly make use of jump. When trying to knock someone off do most of you still try to use Smash to perform the knockback then switch to jump to try to edge guard or do you have a tenacity to switch to jump then try to knock them off and hope Jump lasts long enough to do what you need to do?

 

[Pepto]

Anybody got solid advice for how to approach? Especially against characters like ZSS and Duck Hunt that make things complicated. SH Nair works some of the time, but doesn't seem like the best option. Is there something I'm missing?

Don't know too much about ZSS, but speed works well against Duck Hunt. Backslash is also surprisingly useful when he's setting up the can. I can usually knock it right back at him and get it to explode once it hits him.

 

[Pepto]

Honest opinion, don't go shield at the start. Lol. I really have to change the parts where it suggests to start in shield.

Bowser (Buster)
CF (Buster)
Charizard (Buster)
Dorf (Speed/Jump)
Dedede (Speed/Jump)
Ike (Buster)

Jump and speed are great against Dorf. Don't touch buster. Glad I'm not alone in this

I agree Buster is dumb for trying to rack up damage, but it's still good for a punish game when Ganon is at high percents, especially if you can force a desperate fsmash or Warlock Punch. Buster Visions on those do nasty damage.

 

[Pepto]

Oh yeah, and don't use the forward smash or Back Slash while Ganon is charging the Warlock Punch. The super armor properties means that instead of knocking him away, you're going going to eat ten tons of raw power. Especially if you have Jump or Smash active.

Honestly, any character with a counter shouldn't bother using anything else against Warlock Punch. That's completely free and does a lot of damage. But speaking of fsmash, I've noticed Ganon is too heavy for it, so if you hit him with the blade, instead of knocking him into the beam, you'll move him just out of its range. So he'll be standing right next to you while you're finishing your super laggy attack and he gets a free punish (and Ganon punishes hurt, a lot). So I'd just avoid fsmash in general, but if you do use it, make sure to tilt it upward. You'll land it much more often.

Also, any tips against Pikachu? I've tried speed and jump, but he's so fast, and his combo game is ridiculous.

 

[Pepto]

I'm always impressed with your guys creativity in regards to some of this kind of thing. Though I have not been able to apply the more advance stuff that you guys can do, even some the art trade offs have helped to some degree... still I haven't been able to properly make use of jump. When trying to knock someone off do most of you still try to use Smash to perform the knockback then switch to jump to try to edge guard or do you have a tenacity to switch to jump then try to knock them off and hope Jump lasts long enough to do what you need to do?

I honestly don't even bother with Smash. Too much risk, not enough reward. For edge guarding, I'd suggest you stick to jump. Smash's extra knockback isn't needed if you can jump all the way to the blast zone and comfortably make it back.

 

[Jade_Rock55]

Anyone have tips for f-smash?I use it and the blade hits which makes them right out of reach for the laser...

 

[Masonomace]

So yeah @ P Pepto you gotta edit your messages so that you reply to 4 different posts in one of your posts.
I suggest editing your first post to have your other 3 posts worth of text then report your last 3 posts. Keeps the Shulk Metagame thread looking clean & nice.

Anyone have tips for f-smash?I use it and the blade hits which makes them right out of reach for the laser...

When you're against small characters that dip low, tilt the Fsmash downward. Tip the Fsmash upward most of the time. Another tip for Fsmash is you don't have to hit with the Blade portion first to make it effective. The Beam rarely in this case is the stronger hit of Fsmash. Finally you can use it to punish landings if you're grounded already.

EDIT:

Randomly did this online.
Thought it was cool.

What baffles me the most, is Pikachu's Dash Attack having a linger hit even when the first initial hit on your Perfect Shield. That's educational.

Buster is fine. Reasons are similar with using buster against Bowser

but you can use any arts if you want to. Anything works against him

I just prefer buster because I like damaging

I'm 200% on never using buster on Dorf or DDD. Seriously. Never use it.

I can agree that Buster is fine when we have the grab > Uthrow setup advantage, which btw Zard doesn't favor being juggled / combo'd relentlessly like that so Zard may use UpB Fly as a panic GTFO move. So we cannot string more than one Utilt after Uthrow when Buster is on. Grab > Uthrow > shielding is the likely choice to do in that situation. Zard's Flamethrower pushes him back thus creating space that Zard couldn't do before in Brawl along with his Rock Smash Flare Blitz & Fly all having Super Armor that would easily trade with Buster at close range when Zard wants to be aggressive.

I'm in favor with not using Buster versus Dorf or DDD, but I may go against the odds & try it out mixing up options. The rule of thumb is to obviously not get grabbed by either of them definitely. So all-in-all, I'm still against Buster used against Zard Dorf & DDD. Thanks for the feedback.

When trying to knock someone off do most of you still try to use Smash to perform the knockback then switch to jump to try to edge guard or do you have a tenacity to switch to jump then try to knock them off and hope Jump lasts long enough to do what you need to do?

Either or works. Arts averagely lasting for 15 - 16 seconds seems like all the time you need to have Jump on to be edge-guarding & connecting with aerials RAR'd or not to seal the stock. Smash to Jump transition seems to work just as well & for the one who micro's Arts well enough would opt to use the former decision.

Me personally will choose to go with the former when I've mastered Art microing learning to multi-task Arts.

 

[erico9001]

... I'm annoyed by online lag. Almost half of my opponents in the past couple hours have been laggy.

Lag online stops inputs, so it's really offputting when trying to switch monado arts. I was doing great against an opponent earlier until lag caused me to go to Monado Shield instead of Buster. Another issue with online lag is Shulk requires timing with his Nair, Fair, BAir, Smash attacks, etc. If you're going to attack the enemy, you really need to know when exactly to begin the attack. Otherwise you get BAirs that hit hte ground before the beam comes out, NAirs without the right timing of FF, Up Airs that come out too slow, Forward Smashes that don't hit the opponent on the right spot, etc. After all, good timing is what makes up for the lag on most of Shulk's attacks. The sad thing is this means it is advantageous to be lagging a Shulk player. They actually benefit because of their bad internet ...

 

[kenniky]

... I'm annoyed by online lag. Almost half of my opponents in the past couple hours have been laggy.

Lag online stops inputs, so it's really offputting when trying to switch monado arts. I was doing great against an opponent earlier until lag caused me to go to Monado Shield instead of Buster. Another issue with online lag is Shulk requires timing with his Nair, Fair, BAir, Smash attacks, etc. If you're going to attack the enemy, you really need to know when exactly to begin the attack. Otherwise you get BAirs that hit hte ground before the beam comes out, NAirs without the right timing of FF, Up Airs that come out too slow, Forward Smashes that don't hit the opponent on the right spot, etc. After all, good timing is what makes up for the lag on most of Shulk's attacks. The sad thing is this means it is advantageous to be lagging a Shulk player. They actually benefit because of their bad internet ...

Yeah, online lag is kinda sucky. I had a match where my inputs were off by like half a second, so I got destroyed. (although tbh I get destroyed a lot anyway :/ )

Any tips on reliably sending out utilt? 95% of the time I try it it outputs usmash

 

[Opana]

Yeah, online lag is kinda sucky. I had a match where my inputs were off by like half a second, so I got destroyed. (although tbh I get destroyed a lot anyway :/ )

Any tips on reliably sending out utilt? 95% of the time I try it it outputs usmash

I learned to dtilt without crouching in Brawl for Ganon, and I've been doing that ever since. The same method lets you bring out an utilt, I mean chances are you won't smash slightly in that direction on the circle pad lol. What I'm saying is, I think learning to use tilts with minimal stick movement may be useful.

I'm not sure if this is known, but after Mason pointed out how I b reversed the Arts I went to test and it didn't work.

What this means is, I think that reversing the activation may be possible? I'll try it out some more and make a vid by tomorrow if there's anything to come of it.

 

[Masonomace]

I've actually wondered if there's great usage with B-reversing any of Shulk's specials. I felt answered with Air Slash & Back Slash, but I've yet to see a B-reversed Vision, & I can't exactly recall the B-reversed MArts I saw due to memory not serving me well, but I'll take Opana's word for it.

Also for a shared swordsman tactic, what's everyone think about Shulk's ledge-jump canceled Vision? Marth & Ike players know what I mean.

Any tips on reliably sending out utilt? 95% of the time I try it it outputs usmash

Try this out:

Jump in the air, input an aerial preferably Nair, after that hold up on the circle pad before you're landing on the ground & when you do land, press A to input the perfect Utilt. So either buffer a landing Utilt after an aerial landing regardless how it's done, or if you're on the ground already press upward on the circle pad not too fast or hard, pretend that circle pad is your baby.

 

[Opana]

Pretty sure you said that, but either way it's happened to me once or twice aside from that instance(If it did happen there lol.)

Thanks for taking my word though, I'll give a definitive answer when I can.

 

[Berserker.]

My personal rule is, when I feel like it, I use buster against characters that shouldn't be dealt with buster

For some reason. I only use it once I feel like I have the upper hand in the match up

 

[Masonomace]

I like using Buster / Smash when I'm extremely ahead of the match & rely on good reads with Vision in Buster mode to really deal % damage to heavies. Even then, Buster against their shields is a win-win situation too with how much shieldstun Buster does.

 

[Shulkasaurus]

Hey fellow Shulkers! I have been lurking here for a few hours and have learned some cool stuff for my Shulk thanks to you guys. I Just made an account purely to post something I found on Sunday and have been playing around with. Not too sure if anyone has found this out yet but here it goes.

After performing a fast fall neutral air (sorry for not abbreviating) Shulk can immediately do a short dash dance. What I mean is that after landing, you can go left right left then continue running left or vice versa, right left right then continue right. This technique can best be shown through the video. I apologize for the poor video quality, all I have is my phone.

Use:

I think there will be quite a few uses for this. As shown in the second video you can quickly grab your opponent after landing or even get off a dash attack. Mainly I will be using this to re-position myself. However I have yet to use this consistently in online play since it seems to be frame perfect and the slightest bit of lag can cause you to skid and not do this mini dash dance. Also I tried doing this with a few other characters and it did not work. I have yet to experiment and try with ALL the characters so there may be others who can do this.

 

[Masonomace]

Hey fellow Shulkers! I have been lurking here for a few hours and have learned some cool stuff for my Shulk thanks to you guys. I Just made an account purely to post something I found on Sunday and have been playing around with. Not too sure if anyone has found this out yet but here it goes.

After performing a fast fall neutral air (sorry for not abbreviating) Shulk can immediately do a short dash dance. What I mean is that after landing, you can go left right left then continue running left or vice versa, right left right then continue right. This technique can best be shown through the video. I apologize for the poor video quality, all I have is my phone.

Use:

I think there will be quite a few uses for this. As shown in the second video you can quickly grab your opponent after landing or even get off a dash attack. Mainly I will be using this to re-position myself. However I have yet to use this consistently in online play since it seems to be frame perfect and the slightest bit of lag can cause you to skid and not do this mini dash dance. Also I tried doing this with a few other characters and it did not work. I have yet to experiment and try with ALL the characters so there may be others who can do this.

Yo Welcome to Smashboards, Happy 1st post.
As for the videos, I dig the extra mix-up landing we can do out of Nair, I appreciate the video contribution. The lack of abbreviation is np too, that's on you if you don't want to. But like I said earlier, this tactic / option is yet another landing option we have & can make uses of it, but not as much as I'd like it to. The grab mix-ups is what I'd mainly use this for especially if we space the Nair so well that we're not in range of their shield+grab. I can imagine the MArts can augment this landing option & make something out of it like Jump or Speed, even Shield just because you'd go nowhere when dash-dancing & that alone can be something. Lastly I wouldn't say this is a Shulk-exclusive technique but it is a shared technique I'm sure many characters can do.

 

[Shulkasaurus]

Tried your idea of using speed with this and it works magically! With speed on you can slide much further on the last part of the dash! When in shield the dash distance seems to remain the same as when in vanilla which is weird. Also you can only do this out of Nair which makes sense I guess since it's the only one of his aerials that auto-L cancel.

Also; anyone know exactly how long each art last? Hopefully no one has posted this and I wasn't just too oblivious and over looked it

 

[Masonomace]

Tried your idea of using speed with this and it works magically! With speed on you can slide much further on the last part of the dash! When in shield the dash distance seems to remain the same as when in vanilla which is weird. Also you can only do this out of Nair which makes sense I guess since it's the only one of his aerials that auto-L cancel.

Also; anyone know exactly how long each art last? Hopefully no one has posted this and I wasn't just too oblivious and over looked it

Wonderful, another reason for this tactic to use Speed.

As for your question you could of went to the Q&A Shulk thread, but I'll answer it here:

MArts averagely last for 15, 16, sometimes 17 seconds.