Smash 4, Character Discussion Thread. #21 Metaknight

[Shin]

Shield definitely has uses, like when both you and your opponent in KO range, the damage decrease doesn't really hurt the killing potential of his finishers. Backslash is pretty meh, it has a few select uses.

I agree, Shulk's one of those characters who would be like super amazing if he were to be buffed. His frame data isn't quite there and without speed a lot of moves are really punishable. Still, playing smart as Shulk is pretty rewarding.

[Elieson]

Fighting Good shulks to me, is really boring. Just like v. Falcons. Just grabs and FAirs for days

I tend to fight them on FG when i'm dicking around as Mac, and Mac's frame data just outright slaughters Shulk's 10 ways to Sunday. Samus has a hard time with her though, because once again, frame data.

I don't know jack shit about how to play as shulk; it took me weeks to figure out how to get AIRSLASH to do both swings because I always thought it just would naturally do both

[Jedi]

Fighting Good shulks to me, is really boring. Just like v. Falcons. Just grabs and FAirs for days

You haven't faced one that does perfect pivot tilts or Monado Art canceling?

Edited August 18, 2015 by Jedi

[Elieson]

You haven't faced one that does perfect pivot tilts or Monado Art canceling?

Those are the great shulks.

[Jedi]

Those are the great shulks.

I'm working on becoming one! :p

Also reminds me at job corps when I said Shulk was in smash, a number of people who hadn't seen me playing Xenoblade at the Rec, asked me She-Hulk? And I was basically like lolno.

[Draco]

Shulk and Lucas are my mains. Mario is a secondary.

Shulk is a really versatile fighter and fun to play.
I'll rank how I feel about his arts from 1-5.

Jump - 4/5 (heightened jump height and air speed; more damage taken)
Boosts your recovery and allows for ridiculous speed in the air. Approaching isn't much of a problem for me. Makes off-stage kills a breeze.

Speed - 3/5 (heightened ground speed; lowered air speed, less damage dealt)
I like that the jump range is lowered so you can combo in the air faster, and that it makes you super sanic fast, but I think this is the one I use the least. Still nice though.

Shield - 1/5 (Heavier; decreased damage, ground speed, and air speed)
While it is nice that it makes you harder to KO (particularly nice in Sudden Death), it gives you more debuffs than any other art iirc, at greatly lowered damage, ground, and air speed. Not very good. Even if you avoid being killed by being launched, it's still doubtful you'll be able to recover with it. This makes Shulk the heaviest character in the game, but also makes him vulnerable to spammy moves like Mario/Kirby uTilt.

Buster - 4/5 (Increased damage output; poor launching, increased damage taken)
Great for damage building, and the lowered launching output makes it easier to build combos. Can't launch, but Smash does the job better. Better at low percents.

Smash - 2/5 (Increased knockback given; Less damage dealt, decreased shield damage given, more knockback taken)
Not very handy unless you want to be able to KO at lower percents than you should be able to. For most characters, Shulk can KO with his Smash attacks at around 80% or so. He also does almost no damage though.

He's really fun to play though.

[Elieson]

so no 5/5 @Draco?

[Draco]

I shoulda done /10 because I probably would've given Buster a 9/10.

Usually when asked to grade something from 1-10, I don't do 1-3 often and I almost never do 10, so.

[Phantom037]

Shulk reminds me of Mewtwo from melee, not a ton of people use him, but he's really fun to play and it'd be a shame if he were taken out.

As many people have pointed out, one of his biggest flaws is his atrocious frame data, and there's also the fact that he can't really attack on shield safely. But aside from those flaws, one of Shulk's biggest draws are the arts, with my personal list of usefulness going speed>smash>buster>jump>shield, although all of them do have one use or another. Also, his gigantic range with the monado means he can space nair and fair really well, and his smash attacks punish rolls really well.

[Knife]

Shulk reminds me of Mewtwo from melee, not a ton of people use him, but he's really fun to play and it'd be a shame if he were taken out.

As many people have pointed out, one of his biggest flaws is his atrocious frame data, and there's also the fact that he can't really attack on shield safely. But aside from those flaws, one of Shulk's biggest draws are the arts, with my personal list of usefulness going speed>smash>buster>jump>shield, although all of them do have one use or another. Also, his gigantic range with the monado means he can space nair and fair really well, and his smash attacks punish rolls really well.

This is one the biggest problems with Smash 4 in general. Not just a Shulk thing.

[Zera]

There are two kinds of characters. Those who have endlag, and those who do not.

[Jedi]

There are two kinds of characters. Those who have endlag, and those who do not.

Well there are quite a number of characters who have both soooooo.

[Tamarsamar]

I don't see a problem with shields beating attacks, because grabs beat shields. The problem is that attacks need to beat grabs more easily (when I bring out my rock on Charizard I don't care how early you input your grab you *should* get interrupted).

[Elieson]

Yea, grabs completely beat shields and mostly beat ground based and even aerial attacks at low height so :(

[Knife]

Its not really a fair triangle. There are 12 normals (aka jab+tilts+smashes+aerials) that get beaten by shield. Shield only gets beaten by grab, while grab gets beaten by jab and spotdodge. Roll is weird and somewhat beats all of the above (yet too telegraphed to do consistently like shield).

If you want an example of a game that did shields right, look at Melee or Brawl. Brawl slightly more than Melee, shield was actually kinda bad in Melee.

If you guys want to discuss character, would be helpful to look at their MUs with the supposed top 10. I'll use Esams list for this with a brief, but MU defining comment. Shulks MUs with the top tiers:

Sheik -2 (Gimps Shulk easily and overwhelms with much better frame data)

Pikachu -1 (Gimps easily and very fast, though Pikachu doesn't like disjoints)

Luigi -0 (Shulk can abuse his range and wall him out, but Luigi combos him hard)

Fox -1 (At least the jab lock is gone but he is still overwhelmed by his much better frame data)

Rosalina +1 (Gets rid of Luma very easily and fair hits both if spaced right)

Ness -0 (Nothing notably bad in this MU)

Yoshi -1 (Another character with much better frame data. Disjoint helps, but Yosho can get in your face very fast)

ZSS -1 (Up air up air up b works too easily on Shulk)

Sonic -0 (Sonic is very fast, but he has average frame data and below average range. You can fight him kinda fair with speed Monado)

Mario -0 (Frame data, but hates disjoints. Evens out.)

[Zera]

Let me rephrase that. There are characters that can do this -

http://gfycat.com/Re...ntFrilledlizard

http://gfycat.com/La...roundedCapybara

- and characters that will never do that, no matter how skilled the player.

The concept of endlag is that if I shield or dodge an attack, I can use the endlag of that attack for an advantage, even a small one. If the move has no endlag, it should have more startup lag to compensate. Problems arise when characters like Sheik have low startup AND low endlag, enabling barrage attacks and combos with no real openings. The only way to counter a fast character without resorting to even greater speed is range, but most ranged characters like Shulk and Dedede are slower to compensate, canceling that advantage. And that's why Sheik is top tier.

Of course, the fact that Rosalina successfully dodged bouncing fish and got hit by fair is pretty broken in itself.

[Knife]

Sheik's fair has some surprising range

[euklyd]

ALRIGHT LET'S JUMPSTART THIS SHIT

I've linked this video once or twice before, but it's still a good vid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfwMI284pyw

0:36 is Monado Arts.

One of the things he mentions is that Buster only makes you take 13% more damage, while you both deal 40% more (for those of you doing the math at home, that's 3x more additional damage dealt than additional damage taken), as well as less knockback = better strings and/or combos. Some of you guys were talking about Buster as if it's too risky to use most of the time; I really don't think that's the case.

2:03 is Shulk's potential as SilentDoom sees it.

3:40 is about Shulk's flaws (mostly frame data).

[Jedi]

Really damn good video, I'm gonna start taking notes.

[~Silver]

Alright, I'll try to best to make an analysis with the characters I main!

Marth - Marth and Shulk basically battle for priority. A good Shulk will want to keep his space, using his extended range to his favor. Marth has a hard time killing before tippers, and his up-throw kill can be nullified by Shulk's shield form. I feel that Marth needs to constantly keep his distance for the sole purpose of tips, although things might be arguably easier with being simply aggressive. (This gives Lucina a slightly more favorable matchup) While Marth has faster aerials to reduce Shulk's approaches, Shulk can easily punish Marth if these aerials are spammed or become predictable.

This matchup is a tie.

Falco - Falco has a projectile, so this match already tips in his favor. (No Marth pun intended) Falco is painfully slow, and relies on reads and grabs to get his combos started. Falco has a difficult time approaching, because Shulk can stay at a distance using large ariels. However, Falco can indeed gimp Shulk if he doesn't have Jump form active, or fails to pop it in time. This is due to Falco being able to go safely offstage, Shulk having a moderately punishable recovery, and Falco has two projectiles: his blaster, which can cancel Shulk's jump if neatly placed, and his Reflector, which can - at most - launch Shulk further back. Shulk can seriously struggle in this matchup.

Falco has the advantage of this matchup, by a decent amount.

Pit - Pit heavily relies on his juggling his foes, with grabs necessary for setting up combos. Pit can gimp Shulk just as, if not more, good as Falco. Shulk can kill Pit sooner since he is a somewhat light character, and it doesn't hurt that Pit has a difficult time killing. Pit has his projectile that can keep things difficult for Shulk, so he should close up any distance between them when possible. Shulk can punish Pit's laggy smash attacks, which he relies on from time to time, so Shulk merely needs to wait for openings. (It should be noted that Pit has a kill-throw) And although difficult, Pit can use his Orbitors to prevent Shulk from grabbing the ledge.

This matchup only slightly weighs in Pit's favor, but I feel that a good Shulk can turn to the tides.

Edited August 19, 2015 by ~Silver

[Jedi]

Also in Pit's favor is that he, like Diddy and Mario are fundamentals characters, which basically reward a player for knowing just how to play the game.

Shulk has a steep learning curve in comparison.

[Zera]

Can someone tell me about the Shulk vs Meta Knight matchup?

[euklyd]

Can someone tell me about the Shulk vs Meta Knight matchup?

I'd imagine it's probably in MK's favor, since Shulk, despite his superior disjoint, likely doesn't control the neutral enough to prevent MK from getting in (and the neutral is MK's weak spot). Meanwhile if MK gets in, Shulk is combo food, and is also likely quite susceptible to the uair ad nauseam -> upb kill combo.

[Jedi]

I'd imagine it's probably in MK's favor, since Shulk, despite his superior disjoint, likely doesn't control the neutral enough to prevent MK from getting in (and the neutral is MK's weak spot). Meanwhile if MK gets in, Shulk is combo food, and is also likely quite susceptible to the uair ad nauseam -> upb kill combo.

Shulk does have the minor advantage of being able to outspeed Meta in speed art and koing Meta rather early due to him being light.

I think Meta has an edge overall, but I'd give neutral to Shulk just because of speed, but Shulk has to actively go out of his comfort zone in said instance... I've never actually done the matchup though.

[Jedi]

Small bump here. Is everyone done discussing Shulk or...

I'd kinda like to know if I can start the next vote.