Sword characters are a subject you’ll hear a lot about when the topic is Super Smash Bros. Due to the quantity of sword characters increasing greatly as the franchise evolved, conversations and opinions surrounding these characters are often held in negativity. That being said, the pool of sword characters has grown to the point that many of them stray quite far from the original archetype. One of those sword characters happen to be Shulk, the original protagonist from the Xenoblade Chronicles series.
Shulk is a very interesting sword fighter. His tools can make him very difficult to deal with, especially in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate where he’s stronger than he was in his previous iteration. Here’s what you need to know about him and how you can beat him.
Shulk’s Strengths
Shulk’s primary strength is his amazing range. His Monado sword reaches farther than most disjoints of its kind. Some of his moves also cover wide spaces around and in front of him, making him hard to approach from many different angles. His Up-Tilt, NAir, and FAir are all great examples of this. It’s because of this range that his edgeguarding and ledgetrapping can be scary. His moves tend to cover various ledge options. When properly positioned, the previously mentioned Up-Tilt can cover just about every defensive choice.
You can’t mention Shulk without talking about his Monado Arts, which is where his most notable strength comes in: his adaptability. Shulk has the ability to temporarily change his stats on the fly in five different ways: speed (which is blue) increases his ground speed; Jump (which is green) increases his jump height and air speed, and the height of his Up-B; Buster (which is purple) increases his damage output; Shield (which is yellow) increases his attack resistance and shield durability; and Smash (which is red) increases his attacks’ knockback. This ability gives him great versatility when dealing with most of the cast, and also the state of the battle.
Shulk’s Weaknesses
Shulk’s primary weakness is his sluggish and unsafe moves. Unlike other sword characters, he holds his sword on his back, so his attacks usually have him reach for his sword before swinging with it, then returning it onto his back. Because of this, some of his attacks start and end with a pause; this is especially noticeable when he’s landing with aerials, since all of them are incapable of auto-canceling out of a single jump. This sluggishness also hinders his out-of-shield options outside of his Up-B, making him very susceptible to up-close pressure.
Shulk also lacks combo potential. His moves don’t combo well into each other beyond low percentages. This is because of the lagginess of his moveset. His grabs also aren’t reliable combo starters beyond low percents either; paired with his laggy moves, they often send too far or at angles that don’t let him capitalize off of them. Because of this, he has to rack up damage with spacing out his attacks and edgeguarding attempts.
Shulk’s weakness can be covered with his adaptability, but that also comes with a weakness of relying on the Monado Arts. Since the buffs are temporary and each modifier takes a while to charge, Shulk is often a sitting duck until then, making it even easier to pressure him when he doesn’t have certain arts at his disposal. There’s also the fact that each modifier is balanced by a downside to it. Speed lowers his jump height and damage output, Jump lowers his attack resistance, Buster lowers his attack resistance and attack knockback, Shield lowers his mobility and damage significantly, and Smash lowers his damage output and knockback resistance. While Shulk can adapt to any situation, it’s possible that his opponent can use his downsides to adapt to him as well.
Strategy & Counterplay
Shulk will almost always have a Monado Art activated to get the most out of battling against any character. The most important thing for his opponent is understanding and playing around his Monado Arts. Take note of how he uses certain buffs against you, as well as how he’s affected by the debuffs. Essentially, you need to be able to change your play style to counter whatever game plan he’ll adopt. This is much easier said than done for most characters though.
Shulk will often wall you out with his far-reaching attacks. This can be hard to approach, especially if he does it while feigning back. But, Shulk has many laggy options at his disposal. Any offensive or defensive strategy will work against this, as long as you watch carefully for his mistakes. He’ll eventually space a move improperly or use a laggy option, which you can force out of him. Once you get inside though, make the most of the closed distance. Getting him offstage or comboing him plenty for damage are both solid options.
Good & Bad Matchups
Shulk has many winning matchups thanks to his adaptability. He is particularly great against people that have low mobility. This makes it easy for him to abuse his range, even with his unsafe aerial options. Robin, Kirby, Jigglypuff, Steve, Isabelle, and Hero aren’t great against him. He’s also good against characters that are easy to edgeguard, since they can’t contest his range offstage. Little Mac, Dr. Mario, Incineroar, Duck Hunt, and Fox are easy fights for him.
There are very few matchups that Shulk outright loses. He’s particularly bad against fighters that can keep him out. This tends to be characters with an assortment of projectiles and disjoints that he can’t use his mobility buffs to get around thanks to other attributes of the fighter, such as great aerials. Snake, R.O.B., and Min Min are examples of this. He also does badly against fighters that are great at applying pressure, which can abuse his lack of safe options. Joker, Roy, Pikachu, and Palutena are such characters.
