I am a newb. Lets get that out of the way. I have no delusions of thinking my shago is optimized, far from it.
But to me shago has some glaring weaknesses that need to addressed.
From what i can tell one of his design choices was to give him bad frames because he has really good mixup tools. He doesn’t. All you need to do is crouchblock and youve more or less taken most of his tools off the table.
And his mixups arent true mixups like tj combo where you could potentially go ermac on someone n perfect ko them. Shagos mixups are about getting in, thats it.
My suggestion is simple. Give him a flipout. And give him a safe option in neutral. It can be as generic as the shouto bnb, cr,mk into fireball. His design is about having mixup tools then give him mixup tools. Give him a vortex.
I can offer you a few tips, using experience I’ve earned getting bodied by Shagos in this game
When someone crouch blocks, it does mean that Shago becomes a little baby at a distance. Tele-divekick, rollerskates and shendo-pea-shooter no longer do anything. However:
You can cross-up tele-divekick from mid screen. That can sometimes break open someone who knows to crouch block. If you surge it, it’s safe.
Surge rollerskates crosses up instantaneously. Even if your opponent is crouch blocking, reacting to that is tough. And if you’re a Shago who uses surge skates and regular skates at a close to 1:1 ratio, blocking becomes a very nerve-wracking experience for your opponent.
At close range, use Shago’s dash move liberally. Shagos who love to dash through you and back and then pick corkscrew, divekick, rollerskates or throw are absolutely kings of salt.
I feel dirty for giving you these tips. Shago just buries me in salt every time I see him on the vs screen. But I suppose every character deserves a fanbase
Shago as a dash that crosses up, can be canceled into throw and can be canceled into DP/surged DP.
Shago has a fullscreen crossup slide.
Shago has an ambiguous crossup/front teleport divekick that can be made moderately safe by surging.
Only thing shago doesn’t really have to open ppl up is + frames. He’s not a frametrap character. He’s a risky unsafe-but-damn-hard-to-read-mixups character, who can also zone and play safe quite efficiently.
He doesn’t need to be changed, he’s perfectly balanced as is. IMHO he’s not even on the lower end of the tier list.
I play Aganos. Now you know how I feel.
With the golem, once you crouch block, I can only hit you with 3 things (other than jumping attacks): close standing MP, standing HP with peacemaker, and the jumping natural disaster.
I don’t think this is true, but I’ll double-check just to be sure.
I am willing to agree that Shago is on the lower end of the spectrum of characters, but does he need to be buffed?
No. Not at all.
He’s got a slew of amazing tools, great footsies and great mobility. Sure, you gotta land them a ton of times to win, but that character design doesn’t make him terrible.
Yeah, Shago’s overhead is -3. It’s not your turn after someone blocks it, but unless they’ve got a three frame punish on deck (which more or less means DP’s), then axe kick is safe.
Shago has a variety of methods to open up crouch blocking once he gets to mid-range or so. Dash through throws, cross-up divekicks, surged roller skates. He’s certainly risky with most of his options, but he has them, and they’re definitely not terrible or anything.
Actually he does have good mix up tools when done properly. He also can use his back heavy kick for a recapture but that’s a small amount.
Personally Shago is a strong character.
Perhaps you’ve battled a few folks who actually know how to circumvent his attacks in this case don’t just use your ninja slide if people are couch blocking. Attack from the air, or don’t just do those moves alone to attack. Mix up your game some more if you’re not doing that already.
As storm said, it’s safe, negative but safe, against anything but 3f DP’s or RAAM’s shadow command grab.
And for a char with A true DP himself and a BD as amazing as his, being slightly negative isn’t a horrible issue either. Not only is his overhead’s reach pretty good, he can reversal you out of buttons you press afterwards and get a combo if he surges his DP. He can also just backdash to very far away and be safe, unless you OS your buttons with something like a shadow move with good reach.
More-or-less true. He inherited a few of Jago’s plus buttons (close MK, crMK, etc) so he can string together a few frame traps and confirm some counter hits up close. (clMK counterhit into clMK xx reaction slide is very doable.) You can press clMK a few times and then go for an ambiguous jump forward crossup like Jago can. He also zones pretty well, and his divekick makes him difficult to anti-air so feel free to just do jump-ins on occasion.
Also, not plus frames per se, and not a safe frame trap unless you spend meter, but push kick (fwd+HK) cancels into dash, off which you have something like a 5-way mixup (DP in front or behind, throw, dive kicks on either side which can be surged to make safe, maybe even just end the dash into a low button?).
Finally, surge divekick may be -3, but your opponent probably isn’t pressing a button on frame 1 after it.
You know you can cancel any normal into axe kick (back+HK), right? -3 on block, staggers on hit, some normals combo into it.
Given his mix-up potential and mobility, I wouldn’t even necessarily say he’s on the lower end as, in the right hands, those two things are devastating.
But regardless, he doesn’t need buffs. He ain’t broke by a mile, but he doesn’t need buffs either.
I respectively disagree with your opinion. I think he seems good only against bad players because you haven’t had that much experience yet. You said it yourself, you’re really new and you don’t think he’s optimized.
When I first started, I felt that way about some of my characters because I didn’t know them better. And even though I realized this, it’s very demoralizing when you get stomped by everyone except weak players because that’s just where you’re at. You just need to keep your head down, keep pushing forward and the game’s characters will begin feeling right as rain, for the most part.
Faster walk speed than Jago; retains Jago’s best normal pokes: MP, crMK, HP; picks up push kick (fwd+HK) which is a solid poke that dash-cancels into the mixups I listed in my previous post. Granted, Shago’s overhead command normal has less range on it, he loses double roundhouse so he can’t put himself at +3 from two character-lengths away, and he loses far and away Jago’s best poke: medium wind kick. Shago’s slide should make up for that somewhat: not as stably oppressive as wind kick – being unsafe skews the risk-reward back towards even and means you should throw it out less often – but it forces a pre-emptive crouch block, which anchors opponents in place in a way that wind kick doesn’t.
Anyway, I wouldn’t argue that Shago has better footsies than Jago. The tendency in KI is for dominant midrange specials like wind kick to drown out a lot of the walking back and forth vying for position, normal-driven poking/whiff-punishing, etc, that you’d find in something like a Street Fighter, which makes grounded normals more something you press while you’re already in position and makes dash-based repositioning pretty important.
You admit you’re new, and you’ve been given a bunch of advice (and at least one link to more!) for how to shore up Shago’s gameplan in this thread already, including advice directing you to tools that you think Shago doesn’t have. It seems premature to claim that Shago isn’t a competitive character before trying to incorporate some of this advice into your gameplan.
Or, maybe the strategic lines which make Shago strong aren’t your cup of tea. That’s fine, but it probably means you’re not going to like the character in the long run. Maybe pick someone with a lot of good frames, like Jago or Wulf or Thunder or Fulgore or Riptor or…
Ive considered switching mains and joining the jago army.
Yes i know im not that good but pointing out something ive already explained adds less to the discussion than just saying, hey hes actually like this, like the first chunk of your post. Its kinda condescending tbh.
A lot of my views come from watching rico suave and whatever is on youtube that isnt over a year old. The vast majority if shagos ive seen usually get beaten up the first round consistently.
He does not need buffs. He and Omen both whoop my a** all day everyday and I know that’s my fault because I am not that great but let’s not make the grind that much harder
