How Shulk Was Saved By Buffs, How He Was Fixed

when Smash 4 first released there was a brand new character that was very unconventional from any other newcomer in the cast that character was xenoblade's very own shulk who was an underrated pick at the time because Xenoblade as a series was not very well known I know this because shulk's own game didn't have a wide release in the West for the longest time because Nintendo didn't think the game would sell in fact I remember buying a used copy I saw at GameStop for full price because of this exact reason shulk is what you would classify as a stance character in Smash this archetype entails that the character can change their attributes mid-match usually these characters have high learning curves but when using the right hands they can be extremely deadly other examples could be Street Fighters again Phoenix Wright from Ultimate Mall vs Capcom 3 Zappa from Guilty Gear and many more shulk's unique stands mechanic and smash is called is monado Arts this is a quirky little mechanic that allows shulk to change his stats when he presses neutral B and then in Smash 4 specifically there will be a order for each monado are first being jump which Buffs his jump height but making it so shulk takes more damage second being speed again buffing his speed obviously but lowering his damage output third being Shield buffing his ability to take knockback in turn making him much slower fourth being Buster which Buffs his damage but Nerfs KO power and the last one being smash buffing his KO ability and decreasing his damage the interesting thing about shulk especially in Smash 4 is he's actually rather mediocre and this is a big part of the stance archetype if shulk didn't have the monado Arts there wouldn't be a lot to his character he's slow pretty average heavyweight character and when you utilize his monado arts in the correct situations you can use these Buffs and Nerfs to try to make him better this is what makes him stand out there is some obvious limitations like the monado Arts only lasting for a short period of time before shulk reverts back to his normal self and Shoal can't use the same monado art over and over again as there's a clear recharge period he is one of the best counters in the game being his vision which has a high amount of ko power and range it has one of the longest counter-attack windows in the game his range is actually decent too because of his large amounts of destroying on his Aerials or even his smash attacks however he suffers from being pretty sluggish and lackluster Frame data wise now obviously you can use the speed of monado art to improve the speed of his attacks but the stock version of the character is known for not being that fast and a misplaced attack can lead to shulk being easily punished he has plenty of Advanced Techniques as there's clearly a lot of positives to using the character some people even stated during Smash 4 that shulk was one of the most underrated characters in the cast where if he was used optimally all the time he could be really good however he ended up being in the D tier which is rather mediocre many people thought that shulk had failed to live up to the potential of what people projected he could possibly be in Smash 4. he's even been stated to be heavily outclassed by other sword characters like Cloud more specifically who has a more unique mechanic being Cloud's limit and also Cloud having the superior Frame data and speed and you know Cloud being one of the best characters in the game helps too because shulk's lackluster speed he has poor out of Shield options his smash attacks are super easy to Shield punish and a lot of shulk's Advanced Techniques are hard to perform plenty of visit moves in general just don't hit before frame nine that's how depressing it is for shulk and smash 4. can't even Auto cancel any of his Aerials which is really sad shulk is also a heavyweight character as I mentioned before which benefits his ability to live for a long period of time especially in combination with his shield monado art however this can be another problem as well as it makes him easy to combo and Edge guard because shulk has low traction and makes him difficult to escape out of situations also his recovery of special more specifically doesn't Auto snap to the ledge which doesn't help his recovery that much don't get me wrong there's positives here for sure shulk's pivot grab is very good he has some simple bread and butter combos he's the king of ranged but his moveset being overall very committal is clearly holding him back not only that but without any active monado art shulk is definitely hindering himself which it makes it really strange to see this character who people said was very underrated in Smash 4. just couldn't get the correct Buffs in that game makes it really funny to see that shulk actually became an S minus tier character in Smash ultimate being heavily buffed between the Smash 4 version it's almost as if they were listing the fans this time around because they really did give this character a lot of Buffs first off one of the biggest changes was fixing the monado art mechanics some of you might be thinking wait what was wrong with it in Smash 4. well smash 4's modado Arts when it came to choosing which Minato art you're gonna use it was just way too slow and took too much time you might have not noticed but it took multiple B presses to scroll through the monado Arts and if you wanted to choose the right one it could take a while and if you were to ask accidentally choose the wrong monado Art In the Heat of battle let's be real that's going to be challenging as shulk really relies on his Minato Arts so they streamline the system in Smash ultimate making it so the menu will pop up and it doesn't make you follow a strict order of which monado art is coming next you can simply just choose it by holding B and then flicking the control stick very quickly and then bam this is way better than the Smash 4 version because now you're less likely to choose the wrong monado art and the system allows you to choose it much quicker no more spamming the B button to go to the Jumpman Auto all the way to the smashford auto fun fact you can tell the devs took influence from the hyper monado Arts custom move from Smash 4 that was very similar to these changes as the smash ultimate version is kind of pulling from this custom a little bit this generally boosted their ability like for example Buster now Grand schulk true throw combos alleviating his loss of speed due to the new knockback and physics mechanics Shield was also buffed allowing shulk to stay grounded even after smash attacks hit him at low percents and smash now buff shulk's KO potential to such the extent that he is capable of koing very early with his tilts and Aerials and smash attacks special shulkin even utilized The Shield Buster in hitstand and this is something that on paper people wish Shoal could do as this would greatly improve his survivability and surprise surprise the change definitely helped him they also decided to make it so shulk is no longer a heavyweight character which is a Nerf to his survivability but possibly a buff for allowing shulk to escape out of combos maybe a little bit easier his weight went from 102 to 97 in Smash ultimate although most people will probably see it as a Nerf as he'll probably die early more likely other Nerfs could be his back air has lost a lot of the early hitboxes and now they're a little bit smaller his throws do less damage and less knockback except for up throw down throw no longer being the strongest in the game thank you Vision has had its knockback scaling slightly reduced and it's no longer unblockable they did significantly buff the monado Arts but they made their cooldown last longer with a higher amounts of drawbacks too this makes it easier for opponents to simply try and Camp shulk to try to weigh out the monado Arts just so they can run out some flaws of shulk from Smash 4 are still intact in the smash ultimate version like the poor approach options poor Frame data Port out of Shield options and his poor disadvantage State especially when he's in cooldown shulk has lost a lot of his Advanced attacks that also existed for the character in Smash 4 as a majority of them were patched out unfortunately however despite all the Nerfs they still managed to optimize his moveset in the correct way and this led to him being much stronger than that mediocre Smash 4 version of the character shulk's a jump squat animation takes three frames to complete which is actually very good as it was five previously shulk's Walk and Run speed and AirSpeed were all buffed they buffed his traction into air Dodge forward roll and spot Dodge have less end lag his Aerials that were previously not that good in Smash 4 all of his Aerials have less Landing lag easier to Auto cancel now which is something the Smash 4 version would have really wanted the Buffs to the monado Arts did benefit them a lot and they no longer take their damage multiplier into account for the opponent's final percentage they generally were trying to optimize the move and make it so it activates faster which is also a huge buff you can actually adjust backslash's distance slightly by telling the control stick this did not exist in Smash 4 and it can grab Ledges from frame 49 onward they made his up specialist say for recovery tool with less startup and N lag and they did buff Vision by giving it larger hitboxes and a longer duration in fact during smash ultimate's balance patches shulk only received one single Nerf and a slew of Buffs where they Nerf Shield monado by giving it a higher multiplier for knockback taken they gave him so much so many so many so many Buffs they improved his Frame data range on his Aerials and grounded attacks and even granting shulk a buff that was not mentioned in the official patch notes aerial Vision counter-attack now Grand shulk and tangibility on frame one so they definitely buffed him compared to the very first version of the character even from Smash 4 and even smash ultimate as the balance patches benefited him too he's still super technical and definitely not an easy character to just pick up and play but he remains similar to the Smash 4 version where a really skilled player can take him to the next level except in Smash ultimate he's actually an S minus to your character being ranked 19 on Smash ultimates tearless which is a huge buff compared to him being a d tier previously in Smash 4 at 34th players often cite his large disjoints his monado Arts to escape Combos and to set up kills and confirms for the Character Are shulk's greatest strengths he has a very good matchup spread and he has a lot of positive matchups against plenty top Level Threats so he definitely has a place in Smash ultimate's meta it's interesting to see how he has changed from the Smash 4 version where I feel like that version of the character was a little bit more Bare Bones but they finally figured him out in a way so that's really good I like to see things like this thank you guys for watching the video there's always content available on patreon for patreon members and channel members go hit the link down below if you guys want the next honest content video appreciate you guys take care

Channel: HONEST CONTENT

Views: 5,970

Keywords: Project, Super, Smash, Bros, Wolf, Ness, Fox, Falco, Captain, Falcon, Mario, Luigi, Peach, Bowser, Link, Toon, Zelda, Sheik, Wavedash, Snake, Lucas, Dr.Mario, Wario, Yoshi, Pikachu, Squirtle, Marth, Ike, Roy, Charizard, Mewtwo, Lucario, Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, Ice Climbers, Toon Link, Ganondorf, Jigglypuff, Samus, Zero Suit, Pit, Kirby, Meta Knight, King Dedede, Olimar, Sonic, Project M, Project Plus, P +, Breakdown, Honest Content, Video, Games, Brawl, Melee, Ultimate, Shulk, Smash 4, Smash Ultimate, Smash Wii U and 3DS

Id: rPtkfiv-pjc

Length: 10min 24sec (624 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 26 2023