Q&A U WOT M8 - Shulk Q&A (READ THIS MESSAGE: PLEASE READ BEFORE MAKING A THREAD)

[Zatchiel]

Is anybody familiar with the sweet spot on shulks sword? I'm guessing it provides extra safety on shield since more damage and knock back, but IoI find it difficult to tell when I've hit with it/to space.
Does anybody have the sweet spot spacing down pretty well, similar to how Marth's know their tipper range?

Refer to the OP in this thread if you haven't already. If you have, you should know what I mean when I talk about beam and blade.

Space your attacks for maximum range with the beam, and aim to combo/deal damage/kill with the blade. The beam part has the same abilities I described for the blade, but with most of your attacks it's just slightly worse for any of those in comparison.

Sadly you cannot buffer an Art deactivation out of shield while being grabbed. That would of been cool & vital

Edit: @ Zatchiel However, if you're fast enough, you could buffer the Art deactivation oos faster if you jump during that moment just before getting grabbed.

Funny thing I just realized. If you airdodge, as soon as the airdodge ends (in the air or on the ground), you can have the art deactivate following a buffer. If you end up taking landing lag the art will switch off on the first frame you touch the ground. However if you're still in the air after your airdodge then the deactivation you buffered will take a split second longer.

Hell, if you've got the clearance you can switch to another art right then and there. Airdodging into the ground we can deactivate an art and switch to Shield possibly before getting grabbed and thrown. Otherwise we can just have an art ready to go if there's no threat of punishment near.

 

[Qispichiq]

If you are attacked from the back and you vision, to you press the direction your facing or the direction or the opponent's attack for the quicker counter?

 

[Nammy12]

If you are attacked from the back and you vision, to you press the direction your facing or the direction or the opponent's attack for the quicker counter?

The direction of the attack.

 

[Masonomace]

If you are attacked from the back and you vision, to you press the direction your facing or the direction or the opponent's attack for the quicker counter?

@ Nammy12 already answered, but I'm gonna give a weird example of what happens that's very different.

Normally it is the direction of the attack it comes from, but some moves that hit your counter window from above will make you counterattack in the opposite direction like Zero Suit Samus' Flip Jump hit-box burying you. It makes you counterattack the other way, but if you hold backwards then you'll do a forwarded vision & still be able to hit her before she escapes. There's more examples of this as well.

...& I just remembered I was gonna make a list of moves countered by vision / dash vision / power vision in mind.

 

[BaPr]

How long is Shulk invincible when he activates an art?

 

[TheHopefulHero]

How long is Shulk invincible when he activates an art?

Roughly for the duration of the pose as long as you don't move. For example, when Shield is activated, Shulk's invincible as soon as he starts crossing his arms. It wears off when the pose ends.

 

[Nammy12]

So, how do you guys pronounce MALLC?
Do you say it by the letters or do you say it as a single word (Malk)?

 

[Masonomace]

So, how do you guys pronounce MALLC?
Do you say it by the letters or do you say it as a single word (Malk)?

XD. . . .lemme guess. Malk as in this Malk? (I noticed this same kind of thing was talked about in the Shulk Skype Group earlier today)

I don't really try to pronounce it as a single word. I just spell it out by letters so that it's easier for someone who wouldn't know what I'm talking about ask what it stands for, & then I tell 'em.

If I was to say it like a word, I'd say Malk as well, but not because of Julian Smith.

 

[erico9001]

So, how do you guys pronounce MALLC?
Do you say it by the letters or do you say it as a single word (Malk)?

I call it Mall - "C" in my head. Mall -> "C." Mall see?

 

[MarioFireRed]

Sometimes I wish we had a much easier acronym for MALLC.

Perhaps Monado Lag Cancel since you can do the same kind of technique to stop your dashing animation.

 

[erico9001]

Sometimes I wish we had a much easier acronym for MALLC.

Perhaps Monado Lag Cancel since you can do the same kind of technique to stop your dashing animation.

The dash isn't lag though. That name would cause confusion, possible leading people to believe it cancels ending lag. MALLC is just an abbreviation of Monado Art Landing Lag Cancel because that's a lot to type out repeatedly.

 

[Asian_Charizard]

Is MALLC necessary to master for shulk mains? I'm able to perform it, but only with jump. I can't figure out the right timing for the other arts.

 

[MarioFireRed]

Is MALLC necessary to master for shulk mains? I'm able to perform it, but only with jump. I can't figure out the right timing for the other arts.

It's not really necessary but you'd have to work a lot more on spacing out your aerials so you don't catch yourself dealing with the landing lag too much. What I find necessary for Shulk mains to know is implementing the Arts in their playstyle and learn to abuse Nair's minimal landing lag and Fair's range as their first steps.

 

[Galaxian]

I want to get better with Shulk, as he seems like a fun character and maybe he'll help me in tricky MUs. However, I feel like I don't go far with him. I feel like I'm too aggro with aerials, that I rush in with Speed Fairs and Nairs and that leaves me in a tricky spot. How should I rack up damage as Shulk? Is he based on spacing with the Monado's ridiculous range? Why are all of his alts good?

What's the best Shulk custom set right now? I've heard good things about Hyper Arts, Power Air Slash (has a bit more vertical range it seems) and Power Counter. Is that about right?

Is there anything major I should know in terms of tech? I know about MALLC, granted I can't do it yet.

 

[Masonomace]

How should I rack up damage as Shulk?

This depends on your play-style. If you prefer to use a Buster Art, then by all means, deal tons of damage. Vanilla Shulk & Jump Shulk deal the same damage so you have no worries there. Although the Speed Shield & Smash Arts reduce your damage output, Speed deals the most of the 3 I just listed so there's still damage potential for Speed Shulk. So anyways, Vanilla Jump & Buster are your best means of racking up damage. As to how, you want to focus on dealing safe damage with your Jab combo after a landing N-air you connect with, tilts, & spaced aerials not to mention a smash attack here & there does great given that you place it well & know you'll be able to punish with it. Using one of Shulk's smash attacks can leave you very wide open so be careful of that.

Is he based on spacing with the Monado's ridiculous range? Why are all of his alts good?

He can be based on spacing his moves with the Monado's range, since Shulk does have fairly bad landing lag on his aerials except for N-air being 12 frames, while the other 4 are 17 - 21 frames of landing lag. Most of all, I would say that Shulk requires a good amount of patience with placing your attacks.

What's the best Shulk custom set right now? I've heard good things about Hyper Arts, Power Air Slash (has a bit more vertical range it seems) and Power Counter. Is that about right?

As I'm sure you know, Custom Specials can be preference-based, so everything I'm typing is to be taken with a grain of salt:

Spoiler: Hyper Monado Arts

Hyper Monado Arts get mentioned greatly because of the level-breaking potential they possess. Hyper Buster Shulk's Jab combo will deal +20%, his Back Throw deals +20% (just one throw. . .), his F-tilt fresh will deal ~22%, the praise of HBuster's damage could go on. On top of that, Hyper Smash Shulk's knockback factor is so high that a D-throw or B-throw near the ledge could seal someone's stock when they're at least 70-ish% or higher, given that Hyper Smash Shulk is activated when he's at early percent so that Rage is not applied. Practically every one of Hyper Smash Shulk's moves including Jab combo has KO potential, making the Hyper Smash Art a formidable threat. Aside from those Hyper Arts, HJump HSpeed & HShield are all notable for their mobility-altering stats as well. Hyper Arts to me encourage you to use at least 3 Hyper Arts before you wish to return to using a Hyper Art you previously activated or is on cooldown since their cooldown instead of regularly being 10 seconds is 15 seconds, & 6 seconds is a short time so you have to make it count or make multiple Arts count. It also doesn't help that their drawbacks are almost if not as drastic as their strengths.

Spoiler: Mighty Air Slash

MAS by far has the greatest means of vertical range & height, making it a prime choice for going deep off-stage with Shulk edge-guarding especially with a Jump Art augmenting the height even further. However, the range of the move itself is poor thus leaving Shulk more prone of getting hit after the move finishes. You also have no drifting ability & the delaying the 2nd hit of MAS in order to recover more horizontally at the same time is almost non-existent unless a Jump or Speed Art is active. Out of the 3 Air Slash moves, MAS deals the most & can KO from anywhere on-stage because it's knockback angle is much more vertical than AS or AAS. Once you get past this move's poor range, you can truly shine with it by scooping up already airborne opponents or from the ground. Another thing to note about this move is that when Shulk usually recovers, he tends to recover from low. However, Shulk forcefully has to recover from a very low position with MAS because of the drawbacks I mentioned about earlier, not to mention that if you don't snap to the ledge with the startup of the 2nd hit, you'll rise up even higher & be very open to being hit & very likely dying because your doublejump did not refresh.

Spoiler: Power Vision

PV speaks for itself. Many say that this Custom Vision move is objectively Shulk's best Down-B between the 3 Visions with good reasons. Despite that PV counters an attack more slowly of the 3, the power of the counterattack is so strong that proc'ing this counterattack by a measly Jab or any weak attack can result in death. And whether this seems obvious or not, PV deals the most base damage & has the strongest damage multiplier (1.5x) of the 3 Visions along with having the longest counter frame window of the 3 when it's fresh. The other drawback to PV is that your counter window drastically shortens each time you input the move whether it's successful or not. The solution to this is just not using it as much & conserving it to be a guaranteed KO option, especially when Hyper Smash Shulk influences the PV to be Forwarded, which becomes Shulk's if not thee most absolute strongest KO option in the game. Oh, & I hear that this Custom Vision's counter frames regenerate the slowest.

Regardless of the Customs, I feel that all of his Custom Specials are fun & great to use once you learn their potential & their secrets. What's the best custom right now? I wouldn't say there's a best set but rather the safest to use would be 1113 for the PV emphasis.

Is there anything major I should know in terms of tech? I know about MALLC, granted I can't do it yet.

The only other major tech to be aware of besides MALLC I suppose would be anything the Monado Art activation would cancel, such as the apparent "Monado Dash Cancel" which is only Shulk walking dashing or running & is canceled immediately by the MArt activation.

While it's not major in a technical sense, delaying the 2nd hit of Air Slash is vital to Shulk in order to survive for longer since you extend the horizontal distance you travel. There are other helpful techniques Shulk can perform to step up your game but for now, worry about the small things, & MALLC too. But honestly, the Monado Arts by themselves & what they do affecting Shulk can be pretty technical. So imo, knowing their quirks & stat changes & then mastering them by utilizing their strengths or weaknesses can go a long way.

I hoped any of this helped. Sorry if it didn't

 

[Zatchiel]

I feel like I'm too aggro with aerials, that I rush in with Speed Fairs and Nairs and that leaves me in a tricky spot.

You'll need quite a bit of patience with the character since regardless of the arts he is very sluggish in terms of overall attack speed. That, combined with lessened safety on shield under the effects of Speed means offensive plays have to be more calculated than usual. Otherwise you're just hurling yourself at the opponent, relieving them of the need to approach.

How should I rack up damage as Shulk?

Vanilla - Preferably look for an opportunity to MALLC, once you have it down. If you don't, then just look for grab opportunities and try to get them in the air or offstage so you can harass them with your range. Your damage output in vanilla is fair, same with your follow up capability.

Jump - Throws, juggles, tech chases, and edgeguards. Combined with MALLC all of these can get pretty absurd. Jump is by far the best art for comboing.

Speed - Same purposes as I mentioned for Jump, to a lesser degree. Damage racking in this art is best at low percents, to mid percents; Jump or Buster would be preferable later than that. Speed transitions well into Jump and vice versa.

Shield - A little tricky to use properly for damage racking, but if the opponent is at very low percents you can still pull off some of the "default" combos to get some damage on before switching to another art. Best thing to do is just get a grab, throw them to secure the stage and switch to something else to take full advantage. Tilts are also pretty good. Smashes are debatable since it's actually relatively safe to use them in this art.

Buster - Best damage will come from throws, neutral air, back air, tilts, and smashes. Everything else is fine but the ones listed will give the greatest reward. Air Slash is a decent follow up to up tilt after early percents (>40% or so) since any percents before then it is unsafe on hit.

Smash - Not ideal for damage racking under any circumstances. It's sort of like Shield in the fact that it's best for paving the way for using other arts, when the opponent is at low percents. Smash transitions into Jump for ledgeguarding very well, for example.

Is he based on spacing with the Monado's ridiculous range? Why are all of his alts good?

For defensive play, yes. You're going to want to maximize your spacing by aiming to hit with the Monado's beam. For aggressive play you'll mostly be hitting with the Monado's blade portion since it does more damage and knockback, in most cases (only exception I can think of is n-air). Because when you're really feeling it the alt hardly matters.

Your sig is mesmerizing by the way.

 

[Galaxian]

I wont reply to these because they're all super long, but thanks. I'll hold onto this and read them a little.

 

[Codaption]

Hey there, player from the Jigglypuff boards here. Our guy Gr4pefru1t is working on a formula for figuring out when rest kills based on various stages of the rage effect. I think he already has the weights of the various arts, but we still need the fall speeds of the different arts so that we can get an accurate measure of the kill percents. If you could get us that info, that'd be a good result fantastic.

 

[Masonomace]

Hey there, player from the Jigglypuff boards here. Our guy Gr4pefru1t is working on a formula for figuring out when rest kills based on various stages of the rage effect. I think he already has the weights of the various arts, but we still need the fall speeds of the different arts so that we can get an accurate measure of the kill percents. If you could get us that info, that'd be a good result fantastic.

The only Monado Arts that alter Shulk's falling speed are Jump, Decisive Jump, & Hyper Jump. However, I haven't seen the fall speeds accurately listed for those Arts.

 

[Codaption]

Hmm...if somebody could find that info, it would help loads.

 

[erico9001]

Hmm...if somebody could find that info, it would help loads.

Here's a thread with fall speeds, but Decisive Jump/Hyper Jump are not tested in it.
http://smashboards.com/threads/smash-4-aerial-speed-list-horizontal-fall-and-fastfall.382495/

I can tag @Trifroze to see if he can add them to the list :3. I am personally also interested in how big of a change there is between the three different Monado Jumps. Decisive Jump could be a midpoint between Jump and Hyper Jump, if fall speed was considered a positive thing by the developers. If the fall speed is the same as regular Jump, then I guess the developers thought of more fall speed as a bad thing (as decisive arts only increase the 'good' things and not the 'bad' things, while hyper arts increase both).

 

[Codaption]

Considering that very few things in smash are straight-up good or bad, it could go either way.

Not sure how much these help (it'd be much better to have concrete stats rather than times >.>, but I'll check with the boards and make sure.

 

[Shabanaz]

Hi
I really need help to improve my Pivot Grabs with Shulk (with/without Speed) .
My problem with pivot grabs, using the Z-Button on GC controller, is that Shulk sometimes just does NOTHING or a simple FTilt. I rly dont know how to fix this or why this happens. As far as it goes i have no problem with perfect pivoting and using a FTilt(normally) or a Smash Attack afterwards but these grabs rarely happen

Do you guys know any answers how to fix my problem?

 

[Rawbinator]

How are you inputting it? Grab should be pressed at the same time as moving the control stick in the opposite direction. If Ftilt comes out I think that means you're doing the grab slightly after the turnaround. If nothing comes out that probably means the grab is a lot later then the turnaround

 

[Shabanaz]

hmm okay ill try thx

 

[Masonomace]

I am personally also interested in how big of a change there is between the three different Monado Jumps. Decisive Jump could be a midpoint between Jump and Hyper Jump, if fall speed was considered a positive thing by the developers. If the fall speed is the same as regular Jump, then I guess the developers thought of more fall speed as a bad thing (as decisive arts only increase the 'good' things and not the 'bad' things, while hyper arts increase both).

I'm here to relay that Decisive Jump indeed has a higher falling speed stat, both regularly falling & fastfalling. Side-by-side comparison of two shulks, one with DJump & the other with Jump, they're simultaneously falling through a platform & DJump Shulk touches the spring first. Falling Speed is a good stat to have.

 

[busken]

I am trying to learn Shulk, so I am starting with his spacing/approach options. As far as I know, you can L-Cancel forward air and back air with monado arts. Both of which can cover good horizontal and vertical space respectively. I've heard that his neutral air is legendary since it auto-cancels and has immense range but is it safe on shield? If so I think if you cancel it into Jab you can probably beat the opponent's retaliation which will probably be a grab. I know you can space with f-tilt and d-tilt but they both seem to have no niche over L-canceled back air, aside from turnaround f-tilt to catch rolls. Is their any spacing or approach options I'm missing? If so please let me know!

 

[KittyKyat]

I am trying to learn Shulk, so I am starting with his spacing/approach options. As far as I know, you can L-Cancel forward air and back air with monado arts. Both of which can cover good horizontal and vertical space respectively. I've heard that his neutral air is legendary since it auto-cancels and has immense range but is it safe on shield? If so I think if you cancel it into Jab you can probably beat the opponent's retaliation which will probably be a grab. I know you can space with f-tilt and d-tilt but they both seem to have no niche over L-canceled back air, aside from turnaround f-tilt to catch rolls. Is their any spacing or approach options I'm missing? If so please let me know!

Nair safe on shield depending on spacing, speed, grab range, etc. Lots of things. I also recommend RAR-ing it, as the hitbox starts at the back. And jabbing out of it will help, but it depends if on how the opponent reacts, just gotta hope they're going for a grab.

MALLC Bair is a great spacing tool, but the thing is, you lose an art doing so. Ftilt is a kill option primarily, but dtilt is a nice option for punishing grab attempts.

 

[Maple42]

Speed and Jump art are great for approaching; you can empty hop towards your opponent after you've conditioned them to shield your FAir / MALLC BAir / NAir, and grab them. This can also work with Buster, since grabs do devastating damage in that mode, but of course, it is a bit more risky. I find people are more prone to shielding when in Jump, since your air speed is so high, they won't be able to shield on reaction, and thus do it prematurely.
With Speed, pivot Ftilt and grab are great options as well.

For me, approaching with Shulk is about making my opponent feel the choice is a 50/50 - either shield the short hop FAir / NAir, or retaliate with a jab to counter my grab. When you are certain the opponent is not ready, Buster becomes a valuable approach tool, drastically widening the damage, and, eventually, the stock gap.

Speaking of which, approach options vary with the game state; if you are ahead of your opponent, Buster becomes a more appropriate approach art than say, Speed or Jump.

 

[busken]

Nair safe on shield depending on spacing, speed, grab range, etc. Lots of things. I also recommend RAR-ing it, as the hitbox starts at the back. And jabbing out of it will help, but it depends if on how the opponent reacts, just gotta hope they're going for a grab.

MALLC Bair is a great spacing tool, but the thing is, you lose an art doing so. Ftilt is a kill option primarily, but dtilt is a nice option for punishing grab attempts.

Yeah, I pretty much knew this already. Shulk's nair and neutral combo is pretty much like Brawl Ike but with more range and start up, and down tilt is horrible for punishing a grab attempt it comes out in 10 frames which is way slower then jab 1 which is only 5 and even does more damage. Also, I just said grab because that is the most common OOS. Character Specific stuff, like Dolphin Slash can easily be baited out.

Speed and Jump art are great for approaching; you can empty hop towards your opponent after you've conditioned them to shield your FAir / MALLC BAir / NAir, and grab them. This can also work with Buster, since grabs do devastating damage in that mode, but of course, it is a bit more risky. I find people are more prone to shielding when in Jump, since your air speed is so high, they won't be able to shield on reaction, and thus do it prematurely.
With Speed, pivot Ftilt and grab are great options as well.

For me, approaching with Shulk is about making my opponent feel the choice is a 50/50 - either shield the short hop FAir / NAir, or retaliate with a jab to counter my grab. When you are certain the opponent is not ready, Buster becomes a valuable approach tool, drastically widening the damage, and, eventually, the stock gap.

Speaking of which, approach options vary with the game state; if you are ahead of your opponent, Buster becomes a more appropriate approach art than say, Speed or Jump.

What you explained was a tomahawk in which you bait out shield by evoking aerial pressure via jump. It's usually only viable when you conditioned your opponent into shielding, which is what you said, however that's not really character specific. Shiek, Falcon, Sonic, can do the same thing. Also the 50-50 thing you said doesn't make sense. If they are patient in shield and shield the follow-up option they only have something to lose because they can't punish f-tilt on shield anyway which is a common option after l-canceled back air. If you meant to shield and then jab that won't work since you can jab OOS which means you have to drop shield(7 frames) and then jab(4 frames on average) meaning their move would connect to late. Approaching should never be a 50-50 especially when their are so many factors to consider. How does buster become a more appropiate option... you can take more damage and knockback only allowing them to make a comeback....

After re-reading this i sound kinda stuck up sorry for sounding rude :[ and also what does the nair depend on to make it safe? can u please specify?

 

[Maple42]

Nah, it's okay; disagreeing is fine, I get you u w u
My logic on why Buster becomes more appropriate is because as the opponent's first stock expires, your stock is most likely about to reach its limit as well; by using Buster, I'd be maximizing the amount of damage output that last stock gives me.

NAir depends on spacing for it to be safe; by hitting with the very tip of its hitbox, they can't do much to punish a whiffed one, since you're so far away, and it has minuscule landing lag.

 

[Codaption]

I'm gonna have to agree with @ Maple42 here. I don't really play Shulk, but something like Buster just makes sense to use when you're already within kill percent. Same goes for Smash, kinda, but it's a little risky there due to you then dying if they so much as poke you.

 

[Masonomace]

I am trying to learn Shulk, so I am starting with his spacing/approach options. As far as I know, you can L-Cancel forward air and back air with monado arts. Both of which can cover good horizontal and vertical space respectively. I've heard that his neutral air is legendary since it auto-cancels and has immense range but is it safe on shield? If so I think if you cancel it into Jab you can probably beat the opponent's retaliation which will probably be a grab. I know you can space with f-tilt and d-tilt but they both seem to have no niche over L-canceled back air, aside from turnaround f-tilt to catch rolls. Is their any spacing or approach options I'm missing? If so please let me know!

I'm gonna clarify real quick that NAir does not actually autocancel. NAir autocanceling gets mentioned & passed around frequently but we secretly are saying we love that it only has 12 frames of landing lag.

That aside, NAir can be safe on shield if you decide to maximize the spacing of NAir by hitting with the outer portion aka Beam to deal the sweetspot 8% while drifting backwards & Fastfalling to the ground. @ KittyKyat brought up good points about NAir, so if you were to NAir from behind hitting their shield, you can expect to continue the pressure of keeping them out with a pivoted FTilt, pivot grab regardless of the Art you have on, or (lol) even more SH NAirs because the move starts being active behind Shulk. The amount of spacing & your judgement of NAir's safety on shield go hand-in-hand, because inputting Jab1 after MALLC'ing NAir may not even be in range to hit their bubble shield unless you commited to drift closer to their shield, which can be a bad idea if they decide to hold shield. MALLC'ing NAir into Buster in order to Jab Combo isn't the best idea but it would pay off greatly if they dropped shield to attempt grabbing since we'd have frame advantage? Not entirely sure but it is MALLC we're talking about.

Spacing / Approaching options that are missing I guess I would bring up are Perfect Pivots, notably with the Speed, DSpeed, & HSpeed Arts. Speed Arts promote greater usage of PP'ing all tilts especially UTilt since you'll slide some distance despite that the Speed Arts increases traction. Speed Shulk can be very close & PP towards an opponent sitting in shield & end up behind them, but this could vary with larger characters.

I can't recall any other spacing / approaching options, but I can think of one for Shield Shulk. Basically, characters go through a skid animation that can either be good to use or not, but Shield Shulk can surely utilize his. When the opponent is reatively nearby, you can dash & run towards them & halt your running with a skid so that you can act out of your skid much faster than any other Art including Vanilla Shulk. This is kind of reminiscent to Melee maybe but eh I'm probably wrong on that Melee mentioning. And sure, Shield Arts are obviously slow on the ground, but this isn't that useless considering you can act out of skid with a tilt much faster at a closer yet safe enough distance to be. Shield Arts like to be close enough to the danger yet far enough to maintain the spacing. Hopefully this helped, sorry to the max if it didn't.

EDIT: Oh yeah, this thread talking about Shulk's moving spot dodge while dashing / running can result in sliding past them & going behind them, which feels smooth when doing it combined with a Monado Art activation. Still can't think of any other spacing / approaching stuff.

 

[EyexSore]

So I've been Fair-ing over and over on people in the air, and it seems to work, but I wanna know if there's a better option for aerial combo-ing. I'm not sure if there is though cuz Shulk's not a combo-er. Is this a good tactic, or am I being stupid?

 

[notyourparadigm]

So I've been Fair-ing over and over on people in the air, and it seems to work, but I wanna know if there's a better option for aerial combo-ing. I'm not sure if there is though cuz Shulk's not a combo-er. Is this a good tactic, or am I being stupid?

Of course everything is dependent on your stage location, opponent's percentage, active Monado, and rage effects, but generally fair is a good default aerial follow-up. However your opponent will quickly begin to anticipate your attack, so one thing you really should be doing is paying attention to how your opponent reacts. Do they airdodge the attack? Do they (for whatever silly reason) try to challenge your attack? Do they jump away? Reading these habits can be helpful in securing a stock later.

Someone expecting a fair who airdodges to the ground should eat a forward smash instead. If they are airdodging before the ground, jump at them without attacking to bait the airdodge first, then attack. Someone trying to jump away from your follow up loses their second jump and can be more easily gimped, or can be chased with jumps of your own, or juggled on the ground with u-tilts to give them a really bad day. Pretend to be predictable to condition your opponent into acting a certain way.

I also personally recommend following up with nair, especially at lower percents, or on heavier characters or fast-fallers, since its arc can punish those who airdodge to the ground (or just fall there faster than you can react), can be followed up with dtilt, and still has considerable aerial pressure, with slightly less landing lag if it is spaced incorrectly. God bless Shulk's nair.

 

[EyexSore]

His Nair is amazing, I agree. Thanks for the tip. I mustn't be careless after all.

 

[gilligan156]

Hi
I really need help to improve my Pivot Grabs with Shulk (with/without Speed) .
My problem with pivot grabs, using the Z-Button on GC controller, is that Shulk sometimes just does NOTHING or a simple FTilt. I rly dont know how to fix this or why this happens. As far as it goes i have no problem with perfect pivoting and using a FTilt(normally) or a Smash Attack afterwards but these grabs rarely happen

Do you guys know any answers how to fix my problem?

I'm having *exactly* the same problem. I can't grasp why tfilt is coming out. I'm flicking the stick and he's turning around, but then he does ftilt instead of grab. I'm not even touching the A button, only the grab button, and the stick is going full-lock in the other direction. I can't grasp why this is happening. I've tried it on the 3DS as well as the WiiU and I get the same results in both places.

I'll try hitting grab simultaneously with flicking the stick and see if that helps. Thanks guys.

 

[Maple42]

Mmmm.... When I pivot grab (note, I'm using the 3DS version), I dash one way (fully extending the circle pad in that direction), and when I want to pivot grab, I slam the circle pad the other way, and simutaneously press the grab button.

When I try doing shield+A, sometimes FTilt comes out. It seems like you guys are doing the thing I described in the first part, so I apologize if it doesn't help.

 

[gilligan156]

After playing around with it, that's what the problem was. If you don't hit grab and flick the stick the opposite direction simultaneously you'll spin and ftilt, instead of spin and grab. That's actually useful to know either way. If you condition them that in speed you're going to pivot grab you can surprise them with a pivot ftilt mixup. Not sure it even happens but it could be useful.

 

[Linkmario00]

So, I have a HUGE amount of trouble with spamming using Shulk. That's strange considering that I can face well spamming with my other mains (Link, which isn't that strange because I can spamming back, and Ike, which is way more unusual 'due to him having a similar playstyle to Shulk's).
I mean, I win against quite skilled players who know what they're doing but I can't beat some For glory scrubs!
I have problems mainly with PKF and Gordos spam.I know I can win, but for some reasons against this type of player I use Vision waaaaaaay too often and don't know how to space well.
Any tips?