Back on to Shulk have we had any players do one of those viability MU spreads that were popular about 4-5 pages ago? That'd explain a lot about what type of issues are actually holding him back.
I'm no Shulk main and just play him fairly often for **** and giggles but I'd say something like this, take it with a grain (Or rather, a full bucket.) of salt, of course :
-2 :
> Shulk really struggles against the Big 3, they can all keep up with Speed Monado thanks to their natural speed and Quick Attack/Bouncing Fish/Flip Jump allowing them to remain mobile, their framedata allow them to overwhelm Shulk, making him very had for him to retaliate, besides, they all got fairly good projectiles (And even a disjoing in ZSS' case.) so they will never be forced to approach and challenge his Monado range. Their originally weak-ish moves become more powerful if he dares to Buster, which isnt a really good idea since he can't trade well with them at all. Defense makes him even more combo food and he struggles even more with their projectiles because he becomes soooo slow. Smash Monado allows Shulk to kill them crazy early, the problem remains that their mobility allow them to stall during the entire Art duration and, additionally, makes killing Shulk a breeze if he is at high-ish percentage, something they should struggle with. Jump remains ok but their fast and versatile recovery
makes it reaaaaally hard to edgeguard properly. All in all these matchups are terrible for him : His range gets neutered by their projectiles, his Arts all have big drawbacks, he can't trade well with them nor catch them that easily, he can't edgeguard them. However, he still got a long sword and he might be able to defend himself with very careful positionning, but man these 3 MUs are friggin hard.
-1 :
> Falcon is a pain for Shulk : He is fast, he can trade better, his Utilt/Dair forces Shulk to be very careful with his recovery, he can't keep up without Speed Monado and Buster is reaaaaally risky against the Cap, while Defense is just asking to get grabbed and kneed/uaired for days. He has trouble getting past Diddy as well, who controls the stage very well and can bait Shulk into making a wrong move really easily, I really dunno the words to put it. Fox is just so hit & runny, Shulk absolutely needs his Speed Monado to be able to approach and punish reliably. Without Speed Monado, he really has a ****ing hard time getting through the Toon Link/Pacman/Villager/Megaman club, who can just abuse his otherwise mediocre speed/light weight provided by Jump Monado to keep him away with their vast array of projectiles.
0 :
> He does not seem to have an overwhelming advantage or disadvantage against them, he can trade with most of them in an ok way or space correctly against them, and can use most of his Monado Arts against them without giving his opponent any major advantage. (Greninja is debatable, he might be a -1.)
+1 :
> Can abuse his range, or his Arts against them fairly well, giving him an edge.
+2 :
> Overwhelmed by most of Shulk's toolkit, be it his range, the burst mobility provided by Speed, they have a hard(er for DDD/Ganon/Mewtwo) time killing him thanks to Defense and Jump, and since they cannot abuse Defense's drawbacks as easily as the speedier characters, it makes this Art a real pain for most of them. They can't trade well with him, either because their frame data is even worse than Shulk's, or because their range/speed isnt enough to put him in a hard position.
Just an attempt, as I said at the beginning of my post, take everything with a grain of salt.
