Shulk

Shulk (シュルク, Shulk) is a playable character in Super Smash Bros. All Stars. Initially leaked alongside Bowser Jr. and Ganondorf via footage used by the ESRB, Shulk was officially confirmed on August 23rd, 2018, the same day that Xenoblade Chronicles 3D was announced. Adam Howden and Shintarō Asanuma reprise their roles as Shulk's voice actors in the English and Japanese versions of SSB All Stars, respectively.

Shulk is currently ranked 38th out of 58 on the SSB4 tier list, placing him in the D tier. Thanks to the Monado, Shulk possesses the longest overall disjointed range of any character in the entire series. As a result, he has one of the most effective movesets for spacing relative to the rest of the cast, which is most evident with his wide-ranged aerials, as well as long-ranged smash attacks that possess respectable overall damage outputs and KO potentials.

The Monado also grants Shulk wide versatility thanks to its Monado Arts, which, in addition to their general benefits, allow him to adapt his attributes and open up opportunities that he would not have without them. This includes outstanding recovery along with excellent edgeguarding and aerial combo potentials with Jump, one of the best grounded and aerial approach speeds with Speed and Jump respectively, camping potential through the use of Jump and Shield's maneuverability/endurance, potent burst-damage potential through the use of Speed or Buster, and an entire moveset of strong KO options with Smash, with his down throw notably becoming the strongest in the game during its effect. The mobility changes granted by different Monado Arts also allow him to mess up enemy combos when activated correctly. Shulk also has one of the most effective counterattacks in Vision, which boasts high range and power along with one of the longest counterattack windows of its kind.

However, Shulk has exploitable drawbacks, the most problematic being his sluggish frame data: none of his attacks start before frame 5 or end before frame 26 (barring his neutral attack), making his ground game laggy and risky, especially in the case of his smash attacks. Though long-ranged, his aerials share his lag issues and other faults: while they can be interrupted during their ending frames, all of his aerial attacks have extremely high ending lag and cannot autocancel in any way. This, along with his heavy reliance on aerials, makes Shulk highly prone to punishment and out of shield retaliation. When combined with his tall stature, this also makes it difficult for him to avoid juggling due to his lack of fast combo breakers (excluding Vision).

Shulk also has a very high learning curve due to his Arts giving him new weaknesses, such as high vulnerability to damage, lower damage outputs, or different mobility speeds and/or different amounts of knockback to consider. Additionally, the Monado Arts are also involved with his most advanced techniques, such as Monado Art Landing Lag Canceling (MALLC), all which involve the precise activation and cancellation of his Monado Arts.

Due to his demanding techniques, along with his sluggish frame data and inability to autocancel causing him to rely heavily on spacing, Shulk is a rarity in tournaments, with low representation and below average results at high-level play. Despite this, Shulk's playerbase has gradually discovered set-ups and technical combos that are unique to him due to his Monado Arts. Thanks to his metagame expansion, Shulk has achieved more consistent placings at regional tournaments, and even several noteworthy results at national tournaments, such as Nicko and Kome both managing to place 17th at Frame Perfect Series 2 and 33th at 2GGC: Civil War.