VS Shulk

[Neo Zero]

For Discussion of the Shulk Match-up, the most dynamic ditto in the game.

 

[Masonomace]

Ohhhhh yes. . .Now it's Shulk time!

Broken Record: I feel it's going to come down to MArts vs MArts. To understand that, we have to counterpick the opposing Shulk's current MArt, so assuming that Custom Specials aren't involved, it's going to be a lot of Art switching to combat the other Shulk's Art. I'll make a quick list of what Arts I think we could CP theirs:

• They go MAJ, we go MAB or MASm
• They gp MASp, we go MAJ or Vanilla
• They go MASh, we go MAJ or MASp = Mobility outclassing Shield's lack of mobility
• They go MAB, we go MASh = A good but not perfect counter
• They go MASm, we go MASh = The Perfect Counter

Now of course there's Vanilla portions of the fight, so in case it's a double Vanilla Shulk ditto, the next Art or no Art at all until one chooses an MArt is fine too.

 

[ChronoPenguin]

Monado smash sucks.
You go Monado Smash. If I counter vision takes on the properties of your attacks damage and knockback. You will die.
I however could be in monado shield or vanilla, and signiicantly more safe, unless theres like an 80% damge gap between us screw monado Smash.

Now Speed and Buster are where its at.
Avoid D-smash unless they telegraph a roll, it has huge lag, and the person in Monado Speed *will* catch you, they will grab you or U-smash and you will feel it in your butt.

If they go Shield, go for the grab, if you take them off stage, they're in a dicey situation. This can sometimes be a *very* easy gimp. SH, B, f-air,nair or dair and jump back to safety easily. A well positioned D-air should meteor through air slash.
Imo Vanilla is great because you dont have a weakness to capitalize on. You go shield, then I control the pace of the fight through Speed. If you go Speed, I can stick in vanilla, or speed as well.

I really think Shulk vs Shulk breaks down to a grab game from 0-110% and continues as such if they are in shield.

 

[Jade_Rock55]

Man a ditto match where the characters can have differences...Interesting.

I'm Really Feeling It!

 

[Berserker.]

Whenever I'm against Shulk and he uses buster, I'm like, "Screw that. I'm using shield >_>"

 

[Masonomace]

Monado smash sucks.
You go Monado Smash. If I counter vision takes on the properties of your attacks damage and knockback. You will die.
I however could be in monado shield or vanilla, and signiicantly more safe, unless theres like an 80% damge gap between us screw monado Smash.

Now Speed and Buster are where its at.
Avoid D-smash unless they telegraph a roll, it has huge lag, and the person in Monado Speed *will* catch you, they will grab you or U-smash and you will feel it in your butt.

If they go Shield, go for the grab, if you take them off stage, they're in a dicey situation. This can sometimes be a *very* easy gimp. SH, B, f-air,nair or dair and jump back to safety easily. A well positioned D-air should meteor through air slash.
Imo Vanilla is great because you dont have a weakness to capitalize on. You go shield, then I control the pace of the fight through Speed. If you go Speed, I can stick in vanilla, or speed as well.

I really think Shulk vs Shulk breaks down to a grab game from 0-110% and continues as such if they are in shield.

I agree. I feel MASm in the Ditto MU will be the least used Art, while Speed or Vanilla for ground game will be the most used Arts. Buster imo will be countered too easily by Shield as far as Neutral Game grounded is concerned, & that we should be careful when fishing for a grab against the Shulk who has Shield mode on because the most defensive Art with a smaller SH height will wall out with Nairs & spaced Pivot Grabs; this pertains mostly to Buster vs Shield though. Speed vs Shield will be interesting because both Shulk's that are fully aware of their Art's boosts & decreases will play a lot of footsies, Speed lightly rushing down Shield passive-aggressively while Shield plays more careful & patient. Though once Speed Shulk pushes Shield Shulk toward an end of the stage, the mind-gaming grab > Bthrow is the first step to winning against Shield.

Whenever I'm against Shulk and he uses buster, I'm like, "Screw that. I'm using shield >_>"

Indeed, the Art counterpick is almost perfect. I'd think that Shield Shulk's bubble strength may ignore Buster's shieldstun as well. If that were true then Shield in my eyes would be a perfect counter.

 

[Berserker.]

Indeed, the Art counterpick is almost perfect. I'd think that Shield Shulk's bubble strength may ignore Buster's shieldstun as well. If that were true then Shield in my eyes would be a perfect counter.

Or you can risk it, go buster and deal a butcher load of damage because buster on buster (-20% def) rocks. It just sucks if your the one getting hit

 

[Claxus]

Even though I have only ever seen one Shulk in my For Glory adventures, I really love this matchup. It's constantly on-edge and extremely adaptive, to the point that it's almost a battle of wits. You can both employ your own strategies with Monado Arts, you can challenge and duel them with their own Art, or you can counterplay what they're going for.

Shulk is a lot about spacing, but the arts keep the flow of both players very variable. And it's go big or go home when both Shulks go with Buster or Smash.

Also, can't Shield be considered to counter Speed? It probably depends on how they're using it, but with Speed, they'll essentially be coming to you and you can play it slow and concentrate on locking them out, and if they do get to you, the damage done to you will probably be hilariously low.

 

[ChronoPenguin]

I think Shulks RCG is equivalent to his Speed Dash/Pivot grab. So Speeds grab advantage doesn't exist until the other Monado user uses something to lag them...from what I can tell.

 

[Masonomace]

I think Shulks RCG is equivalent to his Speed Dash/Pivot grab. So Speeds grab advantage doesn't exist until the other Monado user uses something to lag them...from what I can tell.

I would like clarification of what RCG's abbreviation stands for. I'm ready to feel derp & slurp when seeing the reply too.

 

[ChronoPenguin]

Roll Canceled Grab.
http://smashboards.com/threads/roll-cancel-grabs.371874/

 

[Masonomace]

Roll Canceled Grab.
http://smashboards.com/threads/roll-cancel-grabs.371874/

Spoiler: Thank you

Vanilla Shulk's RCG from the front or behind in my mind just got sweeter. It's going to be technically difficult to input to my play-style in 5 minutes but I'll manage.

 

[ChronoPenguin]

Well from what I can tell the RCG of Vanilla isn't much different from Dash if only slightly longer, thing is Speeds grab isn't really long (from what I can tell) in truth, it's just the speed at which you traverse making it the best grab option.
However Monado shield is actually well crappy at grabs because he is so slow excluding his Shield properties but when you RCG Shield Monado it competes with all his other forms.
Might be a bit of a slip of the tongue on my part to say Vanilla RCG = Speed Pivot, but more that Shield RCG is comparable to Speed/Vanilla in terms of Regular grab game and becomes a reasonable approach option.

 

[Masonomace]

While reading that link you provided, I read it all & noticed you posted about Monado Shield Shulk's RCG being on par, so it's a my-bad on my part too. Which I now find another fair reason of using Monado Shield for the RCG at close quarters, thanks to learning from your posts. Very educational.

 

[Masonomace]

• They go MAB, we go MASh = A good but not perfect counter
• They go MASm, we go MASh = The Perfect Counter

It's been a while of this MU thread getting any new posts so I'll update this portion of my quote & clarify that based on my FG & offline experience. Shield mode literally ruins the other Shulk's Buster or Smash mode, more-so Smash than Buster imo.

Buster vs Shield is interesting & it's my favorite MArt MU for the reasons that their stats clashing against each other's setbacks is interesting. Basically Buster's damage when hitting Shield's defense. . .neutralize. Buster Shulk's damage is moot when hitting a Shield Shulk. This includes that the extra shield damage seems even due to Shield's increased shield health. It's even, but at the same time it's barely in Shield's favor head-to-head. Except that the increased weight & decrease of hit-stun & knockback makes Buster's job even more difficult in super-spacing, yet Shield's lack-of mobility makes it slightly even against any hits on Shield's bubble shield.

EDIT: Shield trading damage with Buster is in Buster's favor iirc.

Smash vs Shield is just pouring the whole salt shaker on Smash's gaping wounds. Smash's damage cut in half gets reduced even more by Shield's defense so Smash basically deals peanut damage, & Smash Shulk hitting Shield Shulk's bubble shield is hilarious. The heavy addition of weight makes the job of KO'ing so difficult it forces the Shulk to turn off their Smash Art because they that I know I love Shield mode & they won't be KO'ing even when grabbing & D-throwing mein attempts to getting me off-stage.

so imo, I still believe in the matters of MArt MUs, Shield > Smash, & Shield can go even with Buster give-or-take, but Shield is barely in favor over Buster (it's close).

 

[Berserker.]

Shield doesn't do that much damage so if you land shield f-tilt on buster Shulk, you're only going to deal ~10.3% damage. Now, if you land buster f-tilt on shield Shulk, you're going to deal ~12.2% damage

Some other factors to consider is that Buster/Vanilla Shulk is more mobile than Shield by a significant margin

 

[Masonomace]

True & we're not even going as far as DMArts or HMArts. That's going to stay out even though I bring it up momentarily. I gotta play more Buster vs Shield to grasp that MArt MU more clear, but yeah Shield trading against Buster isn't favorable for Shield. At first a primary reason for Buster to be MArt countered by Shield is for neutralizing the damage increase Buster gets, thus Buster gets no advantage over Shield from its one & only increased stat, shut down by Shield's defenses & can answer back with a quick move Shield can do, like OoS > DA. Other than that atm I got nothing for now. Shield's mobility does shoot it down, but rolling & RCG can help this out. Even spot-dodging Buster's spaced aerials & tilts can lead to things. A last note, PowerShielding helps both Arts, but it would bode more for Shield because no shield-stun or the shield-push distance that Buster deals to be safe

Regardless though if both Arts are playing defensive & safe, I think Buster may perform better. Yet Shield wouldn't have any of that grab > throw business from Buster.

 

[ChronoPenguin]

You should look at it more then just Monado art vs Monado art.
Our core is the same.

N-airs can be beaten out by Fair/Bair spacing, on the ground a tilted F-smash should take out low angle N-air approaches as well. Shulk has modest lag on quite a lot of moves, this also means Speed can take advantage with a grab.

D-smash is rarely ever safe and given the presence of Vision, especially Power Vision, grab is an extremely tool.
Shulks options out of a standard dash aren't that great either.

 

[Masonomace]

A little update:
Shulk can shield-grab the other Shulk's 1st hit of U-smash before the 2nd hit occurs. I didn't try doing AS OoS but I'm sure it works just as well. He also was Vanilla & not in Buster, which probably would of made shield-grabbing ineffective but we might be able to dash-grab after Buster's U-smash 1st hit on-shield.