Official Viability Ratings v2 | Competitive Impressions

[Cereal Bawks]

There is nothing ike can do that shulk cant

Yeah, except for combos, earlier kills, an amazing edge guarding game, recovering, racking up more damage, a good grab game, and faster moves.

 

[wedl!!]

I don't think that you understand that many have tried and failed with Shulk, and those many are high-level players. Melee Jiggly and Brawl Olimar didn't have high-level players doing anything with them until later into the games' lifespans.

 

[TurboLink]

Well you guys can put him in bottom 2 for all i care, im not going to have a useless discussion over the internet. Tier list mean so little in the big scheme of things, players have proven that multiple times before (melee jiggly, brawl olimar and so on).

Viability is such a strong word and yet means so little. If melee jiggs is viable only because one guy can use it well then the same could be said for shulk.

I'm pretty sure Melee Jigglypuff didn't have the worst frame data in the game.

And there is such a thing as "sleeping on a character."

 

[Mario766]

Because the character is not for everyone just like melee jiggly is that simple.

Just look up ike and shulks frame data and compare each move on paper and in game. There is nothing ike can do that shulk cant, even grab combos but are monado art and % dependant.

Shulk needs tons of practice, a lot, i ve been using him since 3ds release and each day i see progress in my gameplay because he isnt obvious in any way. He is for character loyalist, not bandawogers or newcomers.

Time will show that he is as powerful as ike but more adaptable. He comes with the price of being a lot more technical.

Shulk isn't as powerful as Ike. Does Shulk haveeee


1) Tilts that kill at 90.
2) Aerials that chain into each other easily and lead into 20-30 damage strings
3) Grab combos that work till 90 on most of the cast?
4) A move that edgeguards basically the entire cast? That also kills at 60+?
5) Does he also have sub-frame 10 moves besides jab? Wai-

The only thing that Shulk has over Ike is a N-Air that auto cancels, and slightly better range.

 

[UberMadman]

The only thing that Shulk has over Ike is a N-Air that auto cancels, and slightly better range.

I'm not going to defend Shulk or anything, but how could you forget the Monado Arts, basically the only reason you'd use Shulk competitively?

 

[LancerStaff]

Combining dair into itself? Why does that work better with L as jump rather than say, Y?

I've never had issue with Y-jump -> d-air myself, for what it's worth.

It's easier to throw them out faster and thus to combo with. MKs use tap jump with their Uair in a similar way... For Pit you hold L and down and then hit A as soon as you see Pit jump.

Please stop comparing Pit to Marth and his clones! They are in no way, shape, form, playstyle, anything similar to Pit so you cannot compare them.

Honestly I don't know what is with you and doing that. You either hate the FE group, are threatened by them, finding every opportunity possible to talk about Pit, or likely all three.

I don't see how the comparison is inaccurate, when we both had a minor influx of Marcinas when we figured out Lucina was a fraud when it came to her speed and I believe Shaya compared the characters on multiple occasions.

They're both middleweight characters with virtually the same range and an emphasis on disjointed footsies. Marth's more risky then Pit is but can close out stocks much more effectively.

Only reason I compare Pit to Marth so much is that Marth is a character most people understand, if only from previous games anyway. Actually, most of the time I have to compare Pit to other characters because people don't know **** about him. Often when I say stuff people don't believe me, and this is basic stuff like fullhop arrows or his Dspecial having a windbox. Sometimes it's like talking to a brick wall.

 

[HeavyLobster]

The thing about Shulk is that thanks to Monado Arts and his massive disjoints he would be very easy to overtune and the dev team has been very conservative about this. Shulk does need frame data buffs to be able to contend with the better characters in the game, but actually good frame data would make him pretty ridiculous and polarizing very quickly. His core design does merit subpar frame data as a weakness, but it can't be this bad for him to be able to hold up against the better characters in the game. Getting the full Ike treatment would make him dumb, but he does need slight frame data buffs on most of his moves to function in the meta.

 

[KiskeQ]

Well you guys can put him in bottom 2 for all i care, im not going to have a useless discussion over the internet. Tier list mean so little in the big scheme of things, players have proven that multiple times before (melee jiggly, brawl olimar and so on).

Viability is such a strong word and yet means so little. If melee jiggs is viable only because one guy can use it well then the same could be said for shulk.

Then do a favor for all Shulk mains: Go out there and make results.
Don't use just online cred or winning against your group of friends.
Go win some big tourneys for all Shulk players.

 

[teddystalin]

Well you guys can put him in bottom 2 for all i care, im not going to have a useless discussion over the internet. Tier list mean so little in the big scheme of things, players have proven that multiple times before (melee jiggly, brawl olimar and so on).

Viability is such a strong word and yet means so little. If melee jiggs is viable only because one guy can use it well then the same could be said for shulk.

Within a year of release, the tier lists for Melee and Brawl already had Jiggly and Olimar as top 10 characters... It's not nearly the rags to riches story you're making it seem like. Besides, impressions of them only improved after release - impressions of Shulk have only gotten worse and worse.

 

[StraightUpSquared]

Shulk isn't as powerful as Ike. Does Shulk haveeee


1) Tilts that kill at 90.
2) Aerials that chain into each other easily and lead into 20-30 damage strings
3) Grab combos that work till 90 on most of the cast?
4) A move that edgeguards basically the entire cast? That also kills at 60+?
5) Does he also have sub-frame 10 moves besides jab? Wai-

The only thing that Shulk has over Ike is a N-Air that auto cancels, and slightly better range.

Actually*, Shulk's Nair doesn't autocancel, not even after a double jump, so you can add that to the list of things Shulk ain't got on Ike

 

[Xuan Wu]

Shulk isn't as powerful as Ike. Does Shulk haveeee


1) Tilts that kill at 90.
2) Aerials that chain into each other easily and lead into 20-30 damage strings
3) Grab combos that work till 90 on most of the cast?
4) A move that edgeguards basically the entire cast? That also kills at 60+?
5) Does he also have sub-frame 10 moves besides jab? Wai-

The only thing that Shulk has over Ike is a N-Air that auto cancels, and slightly better range.

Does Shulk's N-air really auto-cancel? I thought it was similar to Ike's in a way that it had very low landing lag. Shulk's landing animation from N-air does not match that of him landing from full-hop height. I was able to shield immediately upon landing with Ike's rising SH F-airs and B-airs, but not with Shulk's N-air.

Do correct me if I'm wrong.

^-^

 

[Nabbitnator]

Because the character is not for everyone just like melee jiggly is that simple.

Just look up ike and shulks frame data and compare each move on paper and in game. There is nothing ike can do that shulk cant, even grab combos but are monado art and % dependant.

Shulk needs tons of practice, a lot, i ve been using him since 3ds release and each day i see progress in my gameplay because he isnt obvious in any way. He is for character loyalist, not bandawogers or newcomers.

Time will show that he is as powerful as ike but more adaptable. He comes with the price of being a lot more technical.

Well shulk can't do everything ike can do because its monado art dependent. The thing is he doesnt have all those tools available from the get go except his default moves. Shulk does take a lot of practice but does the reward he achieve compared to ike's enough? On paper and in the game ike does get more out of what he does then shulk as he doesn't have to rely on gimmicks for most of his work.

 

[san.]

Does Shulk's N-air really auto-cancel? I thought it was similar to Ike's in a way that it had very low landing lag. Shulk's landing animation from N-air does not match that of him landing from full-hop height. I was able to shield immediately upon landing with Ike's rising SH F-airs and B-airs, but not with Shulk's N-air.

Do correct me if I'm wrong.

^-^

No, because you're correct.

 

[PK Gaming]

The anecdotes around Shulk.... so so so so so many top level players using him and completely and utterly disregarding them, followed up by using other characters sometimes (at least at that stage) considered average and do significantly better...

Trela: Brawl Lucario hero who slayed king of the mews and was unbeatable in the anubis strategy. Used Shulk early, lost a lot, switched to CHARIZARD (way way way before buffs), default Mii swordfighter (also way before buffs and everyone considered him the single worst character in the game), Mewtwo etc etc and was able to WIN

Gnes: One of the greatest smash players of all time, Brawl MLG champion. It's this guy's fault Meta Knight learned to play "gay". Anything lame Meta Knight was known for in Brawl, gnes was the guy who had to deal with it first (planking time outs, scrooging time outs, so on and so forth). Has used Shulk since early on in the game despite having very strong top tiers under his belt. From what I gather he's almost completely given up on Shulk at this stage in lieu of Mario, Roy and others. In times of Shulk, he would sometimes not be seen in top 6/8 of locals.

Ally: Another one of the greatest smash (PM, Brawl, S4) players of all time. Could not beat other players at a [assumed] lower level using terrible characters (at the time). Actually did more with Marth and Falco.

9B: The reason Ice Climbers killed Brawl, one of [if not] the greatest competing smash scientists of ALL TIME. Could not pull any results whatsoever with Shulk despite all knowing and respecting how good he is, could not ever breach top 20 at tournaments. Switches to Ryu and within a month or so is getting top 8 at major international events.

Shulk sucks.
Straight up.
On wifi the pacing of the game (and the stupidity of sh/fh air dodge) stacks up a lot more in Shulk's favour, allowing him to freely set up monado cancels or play passively when pressured and get out for "free".
But otherwise, he is undoubtedly trash. And I really don't know how one would fix him either, all his mechanics are gimmicky/unique (or at least non-standard), and in theory if they were more applicable he could be "broken"... that and considering his wifi strengths I'd rather think he shouldn't be getting mechanical buffs (which he would need to actually be good), and buffing the normals significantly ala Ike would either not be healthy for the game (i.e. Shulk reaches: "very good character without ever needing to use monado arts!") or they are of little consequence when fast, disjointed attackers are out there who can do better in just about everything he wants to do.

Like Jigglypuff, who has taken time for players to get why she's bottom tier (because she doesn't really have any notable deficiencies and she's very solid on wifi), people need to wise up on Shulk. Unlike Jiggs, Shulk has had numerous amazing players give it their all and failed significantly.
I'm more scared of a Samus or Zelda in just about every single match up.
Shulk is not viable. Possibly the furthest away from viability than anyone else in this game.

It's about time someone succintly explained why this character sucks booty, because Shulk has been riding that theorycraft train for a while now. His neutral game is barely functional and he can't close out stocks. Seriously, how does Shulk kill? Smash art to down throw is like his best kill set up, and that's just plain sad.

 

[Mario766]

I'm not going to defend Shulk or anything, but how could you forget the Monado Arts, basically the only reason you'd use Shulk competitively?

Because they don't matter on a character who has 10+ frames on all his moves besides jab.

 

[san.]

I knew it from the beginning and people called me crazy.

Anyways, Shulk just needs a faster jab (frame 3-4 or at least FAF) and adjusted tilts (speed? damage? endlag?) and that's it. Even a faster jab by itself would work wonders. He's not unfixable and already received numerous hitbox adjustments. I don't think Shulk is terrible, just mediocre. You can do a lot with his range and monado arts, even though the damage/knockback is generally subpar.

 

[⑨ball]

I knew it from the beginning and people called me crazy/

Remember that thread way back before the Wii U version dropped where people were suggesting there was no reason to use Ike over Shulk or even Bowser and then Ryuga took 2nd at Youmacon like a day or two after?

Good times~

Just to stay on topic, I don't think Shulk is horrible either, but he's certainly in the unviable list and I wouldn't be surprised if he was one of the few characters that gets hard countered by someone like ZSS.

 

[Plain Yogurt]

adjusted tilts (speed? damage? endlag?)

Dtilt is fine and probably one of our best moves. Giving Ftilt lower cooldown would be nice. You COULD give lower cooldown on UTilt as well but I think it's solid as is. Maybe slightly better startup speed.

Shulk as worst in the game though? I dunno about that...I mean I can't really argue much for him because y'all are right; LOTS of players have tried and dropped him. But if he's the worst character then he's one heck of a worst character. I definitely agree that he's nearly strictly inferior to Ike at this point though, and if Lucina has taught us anything that's pretty damning.

EDIT:

Just to stay on topic, I don't think Shulk is horrible either, but he's certainly in the unviable list and I wouldn't be surprised if he was one of the few characters that gets hard countered by someone like ZSS.

Before his jab got nerfed I would've said Fox falls in this category. Heck he still might. My (intermediate level: grains of salt, etc) experience with ZSS implies that the matchup isn't anything that bad though. Switching to shield can apparently screw up her Boost Kick setup mid-combo but I haven't had the chance to test that in an actual match.

 

[Shaya]

You know, I remember @AlMoStLeGeNdArY putting Shulk in the bottom 5 for various reasons starting from while back and being chewed out for it pretty badly by the people in this thread. I guess he's been vindicated.

To be fair all he articulated on the issue was that his frame data was terrible and rarely analyzed or explained the stance; people were already non-opposed to Shulk being a low tier just he often came across vitriolic about it.

They're both middleweight characters with virtually the same range and an emphasis on disjointed footsies. Marth's more risky then Pit is but can close out stocks much more effectively.

Pit's dair is pretty solid, I would just tap jump and c-stick down and be fine without anything overly complicated in controls.

than*; I would say most definitely prior to buff sprees but now.... I wouldn't necessarily say so. Our ftilt, up tilt and dtilt are safer (dtilt noticeably so...), our jabs and dash attack are similar, Pit's safer on smash attacks.

And with aerials...

Attack | AC/Landing | Landing (some ACs)
Neutral Air | [-9,-9] / -26 | -8~11
Forward Air | [-14,-15] / -24 | -12
Back Air | [-13,-15] / -16 | -11~13 / [-16, -22]
Up Air | [-16,-17] / -27 | -8~10 / [-19, -30]
Down Air | [-21,-23] -20 | -17~19

Auto cancels aren't completely 1:1 comparatively with landings, they both function differently but Marth is universally safer on his landing aerials over Pit's ACs. Marth gets to use his floatyness and fast fall to mix up usages whilst Pit is relegated to SH rising auto cancels (but he does have multi jumps, yada yada). However they're close enough to each other in literal numbers, Marth's up air being the only odd one out here as a lot safer, and he can be close to Pit's ACs on both up air and back air.

Marth players across games are too used to the idea of being entitled to be safe on rising aerials (full hop retreating fair is still genuinely difficult for a lot of characters to do much about but the same motion is still worse than Brawl) and it just isn't meant to be with our current stuff; I had somewhat come to this realisation before working on gathering all this data, I just found it funny/ironic how similar Marth/ZSS are in game play executions, he can hit people on the rise, but it is hilariously unsafe for the most part (though sh rising ff nair is between -21 and -13; not horrendous).

So yeah... please no "pit is safer" anymore
Pit has a significantly more solid throw game over Marth (and the fthrow change I want wouldn't change this), for the most part a better recovery, a projectile, a reflector, a super armor move, a more consistently solid mid range game (dash attack, dash grab, sh rising AC aerials) and a neutral-usable down air (one of very very few).
Marth has single striking arcs moves, safer reactive pokes, counter, invincible dragon punch, stronger "skillful" rewards (kill power) and better out of shield options.

Just going by numbers here a bit, you can say that the two characters are near parity in so many areas (which wasn't the case at game release) as "precision / sword wielding" characters that they are fair to compare. But the insight I'm feeling here is just how there's a purposeful limiting of swordsmen power levels in this game and none of them despite buffs have really been able to muster a stronger claim than the Pits, Ike maybe getting there but I'd still be skeptical of calling Ike a better character than Pit still.
Perhaps not forever though, Ike gets auto cancels and alright landings on some things.

 

[UberMadman]

Because they don't matter on a character who has 10+ frames on all his moves besides jab.

OK, forgive me, but that's really ignorant. Of course they matter, just because they don't fix his frame problems doesn't mean they aren't immensely helpful for other reasons. Even just comparing Shulk to Ike like you were, Ike can't go deep for kills, but Jump Monado allows Shulk to go ridiculously deep, Speed gives Shulk mobility Ike would dream of, and Smash gives him kill throws and overall dramatically strong knockback on everything, moreso than even Ike.

Shulk sucks and Ike is actually a good character, but saying that Shulk's Monado Arts "don't matter" to the character makes me question if you've ever fought a Shulk.

 

[LancerStaff]

To be fair all he articulated on the issue was that his frame data was terrible and rarely analyzed or explained the stance; people were already non-opposed to Shulk being a low tier just he often came across vitriolic about it.



Pit's dair is pretty solid, I would just tap jump and c-stick down and be fine without anything overly complicated in controls.

than*; I would say most definitely prior to buff sprees but now.... I wouldn't necessarily say so. Our ftilt, up tilt and dtilt are safer (dtilt noticeably so...), our jabs and dash attack are similar, Pit's safer on smash attacks.

And with aerials...

Attack | AC/Landing | Landing (some ACs)
Neutral Air | [-9,-9] / -26 | -8~11
Forward Air | [-14,-15] / -24 | -12
Back Air | [-13,-15] / -16 | -11~13 / [-16, -22]
Up Air | [-16,-17] / -27 | -8~10 / [-19, -30]
Down Air | [-21,-23] -20 | -17~19

Auto cancels aren't completely 1:1 comparatively with landings, they both function differently but Marth is universally safer on his landing aerials over Pit's ACs. Marth gets to use his floatyness and fast fall to mix up usages whilst Pit is relegated to SH rising auto cancels (but he does have multi jumps, yada yada). However they're close enough to each other in literal numbers, Marth's up air being the only odd one out here as a lot safer, and he can be close to Pit's ACs on both up air and back air.

Marth players across games are too used to the idea of being entitled to be safe on rising aerials (full hop retreating fair is still genuinely difficult for a lot of characters to do much about but the same motion is still worse than Brawl) and it just isn't meant to be with our current stuff; I had somewhat come to this realisation before working on gathering all this data, I just found it funny/ironic how similar Marth/ZSS are in game play executions, he can hit people on the rise, but it is hilariously unsafe for the most part (though sh rising ff nair is between -21 and -13; not horrendous).

So yeah... please no "pit is safer" anymore
Pit has a significantly more solid throw game over Marth (and the fthrow change I want wouldn't change this), for the most part a better recovery, a projectile, a reflector, a super armor move, a more consistently solid mid range game (dash attack, dash grab, sh rising AC aerials) and a neutral-usable down air (one of very very few).
Marth has single striking arcs moves, safer reactive pokes, counter, invincible dragon punch, stronger "skillful" rewards (kill power) and better out of shield options.

Just going by numbers here a bit, you can say that the two characters are near parity in so many areas (which wasn't the case at game release) as "precision / sword wielding" characters that they are fair to compare. But the insight I'm feeling here is just how there's a purposeful limiting of swordsmen power levels in this game and none of them despite buffs have really been able to muster a stronger claim than the Pits, Ike maybe getting there but I'd still be skeptical of calling Ike a better character than Pit still.
Perhaps not forever though, Ike gets auto cancels and alright landings on some things.

Hm. Not so sure about that.

And like I've said before, Pit's Fair is a tricky thing to deal with. Marth's is one and done, Pit's is multihit. So either you need to be Rainman and count those hits on shield mid-match (assuming they even all hit the shield) or you have to hesitate like a normal person. Uair and Nair too, but approaching with those moves have obvious problems.

Not sure how safe Marth's dash attack is, but Pit's can hit a shield and end up a decent ways past them on top of moving his hurtbox around in a weird way.

Pit can end up in front, behind, or above you after an attack, Marth can only be up front properly, I believe. Take that and the much better dash grab into account, and I don't think his safety in practice is much worse if at all then Marth's.

 

[Project Quarantine]

OK, forgive me, but that's really ignorant. Of course they matter, just because they don't fix his frame problems doesn't mean they aren't immensely helpful for other reasons. Even just comparing Shulk to Ike like you were, Ike can't go deep for kills, but Jump Monado allows Shulk to go ridiculously deep, Speed gives Shulk mobility Ike would dream of, and Smash gives him kill throws and overall dramatically strong knockback on everything, moreso than even Ike.

Shulk sucks and Ike is actually a good character, but saying that Shulk's Monado Arts "don't matter" to the character makes me question if you've ever fought a Shulk.

Ike does not have to go deep. His fair kills 25-30 % earlier than Shulk's. Ike's bair in roughly 8 frames faster than shulks, and it kills as early/slightly earlier.

While I agree with your points on the monando, Ike's brute strength outweighs Shulk's ability to go deep. Not to mention, he lacks kill effectivity in jump, but lacks edgeguarding prowess in smash art.

 

[Shaya]

Hm. Not so sure about that.

And like I've said before, Pit's Fair is a tricky thing to deal with. Marth's is one and done, Pit's is multihit. So either you need to be Rainman and count those hits on shield mid-match (assuming they even all hit the shield) or you have to hesitate like a normal person. Uair and Nair too, but approaching with those moves have obvious problems.

Not sure how safe Marth's dash attack is, but Pit's can hit a shield and end up a decent ways past them on top of moving his hurtbox around in a weird way.

Pit can end up in front, behind, or above you after an attack, Marth can only be up front properly, I believe. Take that and the much better dash grab into account, and I don't think his safety in practice is much worse if at all then Marth's.

Whoops, your dash attack is solidly more safe than ours, I misread your disadvantage as your up tilts. -32ish Marth, -27 Pit; plus the distance/cross over ability stuff.
And I know exactly what you're referring to with forward air being a bit tricky (hello Marth's nair), but it's still not technically safe on shield and fast fall mix ups are manageable on reaction,

Well your assertion was that Pit was safer, so I'd say they're around the same at this stage; although FF aerials are a big part of Marth/a lot of characters (well at least ZSS as well ), and he has his down tilt; both of which are safer than Pit's stuff.

 

[LancerStaff]

Whoops, your dash attack is solidly more safe than ours, I misread your disadvantage as your up tilts. -32ish Marth, -27 Pit; plus the distance/cross over ability stuff.
And I know exactly what you're referring to with forward air being a bit tricky (hello Marth's nair), but it's still not technically safe on shield and fast fall mix ups are manageable on reaction,

Well your assertion was that Pit was safer, so I'd say they're around the same at this stage; although FF aerials are a big part of Marth/a lot of characters (well at least ZSS as well ), and he has his down tilt; both of which are safer than Pit's stuff.

Marth's Nair is two or three hits right? The move's hits are much more distinct then Pit's are, anyway. It's hard to say what the effective safety of Pit's Fair is, but it has more range then Marth's Nair for certain. Meh... I can't think numbers right now.

Dair has similar cross up abilities as well, and can be used when rising. I think Dairing away from the opponent is pretty safe due to the distance, and since Pit can either SH or FH away and still have jumps left it's pretty hard to chase. The move ends like a frame after the autocancel window begins too, so it's just as safe no matter how it's used.

I don't know though... Pit has the constant threat of getting a dash grab in. I'd take a move that beats shield hard over one that's merely safe any day. Grabs are safe on shield, right?

 

[PK Gaming]

Hm. Not so sure about that.

And like I've said before, Pit's Fair is a tricky thing to deal with. Marth's is one and done, Pit's is multihit. So either you need to be Rainman and count those hits on shield mid-match (assuming they even all hit the shield) or you have to hesitate like a normal person. Uair and Nair too, but approaching with those moves have obvious problems.

Marth can actually use his aerials against grounded opponents. Pit's aerials are strictly air to air.

I think that's what Shaya was trying to get at.

 

[Nobie]

Not defending OR playing down Shulk, but isn't f-tilt on Smash Shulk a pretty reliable kill move?

Also, the thing about Zelda that's really hard to balance is that she has some legitimately super good moves. Nayru's love is a reflector that also multihits and is invincible (intangible?) on startup. What? An easy thing to do to make her way better would be to just reduce the recovery on that move, but then it goes from being really good to broken city.

 

[Steelballray]

Zelda strikes me to be a lot like Yoshi. Both have several good moves but without much connecting them. They're just thrown around in such a way that leaves you with no sort of a game plan. Yoshi at least has that mobility and framedata that enables him to be oppressive and fish for kills as needed while Zelda can't accomplish much.

I think she is redeemable tho. Her moves can be repurposed same way as Falco.


Does any of you main Palutena tho? I think she is the actual worst character.

 

[TriTails]

Marth can actually use his aerials against grounded opponents. Pit's aerials are strictly air to air.

I think that's what Shaya was trying to get at.

N-air and D-air. SHAC N-air is what I use a lot when playing Pit. You can also double jump out of D-air just before he touches the ground for another aerial.

But then again, Pit has a better dash attack and dash grab on the ground, so he doesn't neccesarily have to attack from the air to approach (If Marth does so. I don't know if I'm playing him right but approaching from the ground doesn't seem to mesh with the Falchion. Walk F-tilt, maybe?). Marth's DA kinda sucks and the same goes for his dashgrab.

But wait.

Why the heck are we comparing an angel to a human swordsman? They DO NOT play alike at all.

 

[Nobie]

Also, Nintendo might be well aware that Shulk is relatively weak. The very first patch gave him a ton of buffs, so it could be something that they're keeping an eye on.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Shulk can't do anything against rushdown characters with good close range game but he can handle just about everybody else. He's not terrible but very unimpressive overall.

In customless, that is.

 

[apparently fuz]

What I'd want from Shulk is a neutral that doesn't revolve around SHFF n-airs and the occasional Monado Art Cancel. A patch for Shulk should give me a reason to use some of his other moves to initiate attacks, or to space with.

 

[Green L]

I guess the reason why shulk has laggy attacks so that it offsets his range. Imagine Sheik's fair but double range and damage. That would be shulk if he had better frame data

 

[Deleted member]

I guess the reason why shulk has laggy attacks so that it offsets his range. Imagine Sheik's fair but double range and damage. That would be shulk if he had better frame data

That would be Shulk with Sheik's frame data. It's possible to make Shulk slightly faster without making him that fast. The problem is that his attacks are so laggy that the faster characters don't even care about the range of them.

 

[Fatmanonice]

I don't think that you understand that many have tried and failed with Shulk, and those many are high-level players. Melee Jiggly and Brawl Olimar didn't have high-level players doing anything with them until later into the games' lifespans.

Which is something that people need to remember. The games haven't even been out for a year for most of the world and we can still reasonably expect several more major patches thanks to DLC. Shulk may have done bad in the past but things could improve for him as things develop and we could be having an entirely different conversation about him this time next year. What we do know right now is that Shulk's likely not going to get much better unless 1. he's patched or 2. someone discovers something with him that's completely game changing. With how patches have been done with this game, it's hardly impossible and we've already seen a good number of characters go from low tier to arguably viable thanks to them. For all we know, Shulk could very well end up as a sleeping giant but it's a revelation that probably won't surface anytime soon without some major changes.

 

[Wintropy]

I guess the reason why shulk has laggy attacks so that it offsets his range. Imagine Sheik's fair but double range and damage. That would be shulk if he had better frame data

Sheik's f-air in a vacuum is silly, but it isn't what makes her great. It's just that on top of everything else that makes Sheik so safe and versatile that makes it a distinct threat.

Plus everything Motorcycle said.

I can see why his frame data is so bad, in that he's got incredible disjoints and can switch his stats with a button input, but it doesn't really create the cohesive set it was probably designed to. He can throw out disjoints for days and he's got this nigh-impenetrable bubble of hitboxes if he so desires, which is solid in theory, but the fact is that he doesn't have good options on shield and he doesn't really do well in the face of rushdown pressure.

I think Shulk's in that shadowed region where I'm sure he's got decent matchups against mid-tiers, maybe even high-tiers, and he's got a veritable infinity of theory to demonstrate that he's got potential, but he doesn't do anything to make the top-tiers take notes and there's nobody vindicating the theory with good results.

I think he's equatable to Pac-Man in that sense, with the exception that Pac has good players doing things with him. Theory is fine and healthy to a certain degree, but when your meta is more theory than evidence, something's wrong.

EDIT: Fatmanonice makes a good point. We don't know that Shulk is totally unviable forever and that's that, just that, right here and now, he has nothing to say that he's a tourney threat. It isn't impossible that that can change, and indeed it's very possible that Shulk will be fleshed out in future (via patches or otherwise), but in the current state of the meta, he doesn't have the kit. Maybe it's there and we need to discover it, but for what we do know, this is where we stand and this is what we will consider.

No offense to Shulk mains, I love the character and I think he's got potential (in theory, however blasé that may be), but I just don't see him doing work short of a big overhaul or a massive tech discovery.

 

[TMNTSSB4]

Whoops, your dash attack is solidly more safe than ours, I misread your disadvantage as your up tilts. -32ish Marth, -27 Pit; plus the distance/cross over ability stuff.
And I know exactly what you're referring to with forward air being a bit tricky (hello Marth's nair), but it's still not technically safe on shield and fast fall mix ups are manageable on reaction,

Well your assertion was that Pit was safer, so I'd say they're around the same at this stage; although FF aerials are a big part of Marth/a lot of characters (well at least ZSS as well ), and he has his down tilt; both of which are safer than Pit's stuff.

Pit/Dark Pit's Airials/Arms=High Risk and Reward
Marth's Tipper/Shield Breaker=High Risk and Reward
Let's face it, they both have great tilts, and a weirdly angled dair spike.

 

[Pazzo.]

I pretty much agree with what's already been said with Shulk.

Thankfully, we do have patches, or else we'd still be dealing with the age of Diddy Kong D-throw -> Up air.

 

[Deathcarter]

Design wise, my problem with Shulk is that his kit is deliberately underpowered to compensate for Monado Arts but the Arts themselves weren't effectively balanced with Shulks own natural flaws in mind.

The drawbacks on Shield, Buster, and Smash makes them either too risky or kills their potency with Buster and especially Smash being too punishing for Shulk considering his awful kit compared to everyone else while Shield just outright cripples Shulk with worse than Ganondorf mobility and an unneeded hit on damage output on top of that. While Speed and Jump have reasonable drawbacks for a well appreciated buff in mobility they don't really fix his main issues: his terrible frame data, barely functional neutral, and non-existent approach options. The mobility just doesn't help that much when he has no ability to approach with his kit, his Ryu-esque aerial inertia hurts his ability to space his aerials, and he still gets bodied in close quarters thanks to his slow ground moves.

Imagine if Speed improved his frame data, Jump improved his ability to weave in the air, Smash didn't make him as light as Jigglypuff, and Shield was reasonably balanced instead of effectively being a joke character mode. Monado Arts rather than forming a proper cornerstone on his moveset is pretty much the purest example of a gimmick in Smash 4.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Shulk is in a very awkward place.

Any type of frame data buff on him is potentially very dangerous when you think about it. Its frame data that keeps him in check. Faster start up or faster cool down with him in Buster or possibly Speed mode could give him absolutely insane combos. Really the only safe frame data you can tweak is his Jab and maybe his specials. Side B already got a speed boost though, I don't think they want it starting any faster.

Changing a throw's knockback/growth rate/angle to make it more combo friendly is standard but again, if you think about Buster or Speed with that Shulk gets a bit too crazy. Make a throw more powerful just means that it gets stupid in Smash mode.

Can't exactly improve his range, he already has the best in the game.

With all of that in mind, if I were to try to buff Shulk in a way that keeps his wifi status in mind while trying to make sure he doesn't get bonkers good I'd probably be looking at the following:

Spoiler: Shulk changes

1) Increase Jab 1 speed to 3 Frames. (Active 5-6 -> 3-4) Improve Jab 1's FAF to match (26 -> 25)

2) Improve Jab 2's FAF (34 -> 29)

3) Change the late hitbox on Jab 3 to match the early hitbox's damage (4.2 -> 5.3)

4) Slight increase in Jab 3's hitbox

5) Improve Jab 3's FAF (45 -> 40)

Most of these changes wouldn't matter much at all on wifi beyond Jab 1. The idea is basically to make his one sub-fame 10 option better. The Jab 2 improvement is to try to kinda give him a weaker version of Ike's Jab 2 which has great range and can be canceled out of fairly quickly. (Ike's Jab 2 FAF is 28 while having more range than Shulk's Jab 2. Shulk's deals .5 more damage). The Jab 3 tweaks are more QoL.

Even with all of these changes, Shulk's jab would be overall lessor than Ike's by a thin margin. It would hit 1 frame sooner and deal marginally more damage, but isn't quite as safe at all stages and has less range. In Buster mode at low percents he could probably follow up a full jab combo with something, but I don't think that range would last very long and would be overall lessor of an option compared to what he can already do. Of course I don't have the ability to actually test this so I could be wrong. If his Jab combo turned into too much of a comboing machine in Buster mode I'd scrap the Jab 3 FAF improvement.

Wouldn't touch any of his normals, aerials, tilts, or throws. However the next change would be this:

6) Increase Pummel damage (3%? -> 3.5%?).

7) Slightly increase Pummel speed (no frame data I can find)

I can't touch the throws at all for reasons stated above. What I can improve is his pummel. According to the one source I could find Shulk's pummel is 3% but I don't know what the fractional % damgae is. Either way I'd buff it so the first one deals 4% damage, and then due to staling it would drop to 3%. Going by the Pummel Damage Data chart's numbers, against a 300% damage Mario Shulk's pummel deals 34 damage before he breaks out. Ideally the pummel rate would be improved so that it deals up to about 44ish damage roughly (including the damage buff). This is still fairly low in the pummel range, but for comparison's sake Mario in the same situation deals 42% with his pummel. Ike deals 69%.

The idea is that Shulk can tack on a little bit more safe damage if he lands a grab outside of Buster or Speed mode. Would probably be pretty good in Buster mode where its already dealing 48% damage before these buffs but he's still going to get more out of throw combos so might as well stick with those in that mode.

After that would be looking at the specials.

8) Monado Arts cooldown (11 seconds -> 9.5 seconds)

Its his main selling point, so very carefully improving it would be one of the better ideals imo. Gotta balance it out still, but I don't see a 1.5 second improvement breaking Shulk. Don't think I'd want to mess with extending how long the arts last, just let him use them a tad more frequently.

9) Backslash FAF improved (74 -> 70)

Last patch it got some tweaks. I don't think you can buff its endlag too much without running into potential wifi issues, but I feel a small shave off of a bit of a gambling move would be a safe bet.

 

[DunnoBro]

Yea, characters like him obviously have to have inherently bad frame data

Also, frame data isn't really the issue. He does need better frame data but only slightly, like on jab or air slash. Overall they just need to give him some sort of neutral and CONSISTENT pressure game to play.

He's decent at edgeguarding but a lot of characters (top tiers) just don't care.