Yea shadow tether is OD lol. I only use Annihilation if I have an obvious whiff punish. I’ve also used it to beat out the start up of some specials (I ■■■■■■ up the clip haha). http://xboxdvr.com/gamer/SHIN0BILI/video/16564442
I honestly think this thread is a waste of time in large part because neither side can admit to almost anything.
“Shago has no weaknesses”… are you serious? You can just glance at his frame data to know that he has some weaknesses. If that’s not enough, check the average damage when he hits you… pretty ■■■■ low.
“People just jealous of my Shago”… are you serious? People aren’t jealous because Shago is this top tier god that makes every match completely impossible. Even were he balanced or low-tier, he’d be an object of hate. Losing to Shago doesn’t feel fair. Hell, winning vs him doesn’t either. You just feel like you got the worse or better side of the guesses required in every Shago MU. He’s a character that just doesn’t require the same level of footsies, game knowledge, or fundamentals because he, at his core, isn’t playing KI with the rest of the cast. Now add a dope player on top of that (one with footsies, game knowledge, and fundamentals), and you have a character almost single-handedly designed to make you throw the controller. People at all levels are overwhelming complaining about him… it is disingenuous to imply (or just plain state) that they are all baddies who need to learn to play.
On the plus side, due to whatever, Shago now seems to represent like 50% of all online matches, so… at least we are all going to learn him, right?
tl;dr If you guys actually want to do more than complain at each other, then you need to start being a lot more honest about this conversation.
I appreciate the sentiment, but I don’t think this is just a question of “it takes two to fight.” I don’t play Shago as my main, but I have played him enough to know that he isn’t just random. No one is jealous of my Shago.
But I think the complaining is essentially unfounded. And “nerfing” him won’t end the complaints. Because people refuse to attack the problem with the mindset of “how do I need to play to win” and instead lose and immediately resort to “that’s not fair!”
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I have only seen real concerted complaints against two characters here… Shago and Rash.
So why is it that people are willing to put up with some of the craziness of things like TJ’s flipout resets or three of the four new characters while trying to figure out what to do to win, but they aren’t willing to do that for Shago? That he is essentially the exception and not the rule I think proves something.
I’m not saying he is OP, and I definitely think the people who come in here refusing to admit to any of his faults are just as guilty. To digress, if you were to only read their posts, you’d think he’s the safest, most damaging, best resets, best specials, best everything which we all know isn’t true. But there likely is something to all of the complaining. Maybe it stems from his design (I’ve argued elsewhere that his design is just terrible regardless of his balance). Maybe it stems from a certain feeling of “not fair” when fighting him. Who knows… but people aren’t complaining in a vacuum.
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Shadow Jago definitely feels unfair, even if he might be balanced. I’ve had to learn to fight him as I returned to KI with the start of Season 3 and learned that 60% of my ranked matches are against teabagging Shagos. Seriously, Shago and Rash are the only characters that teabag and taunt constantly for me.
So I had to buy Shago so I could take him into dojo and learn his moves and frame data, which is fine because I main the whole cast so I was going to get to him eventually. But the thing that really stands out when fighting against him is how unfair he feels to play against. You’re kind of just standing there waiting for his next unreactable mix-up. At least with a character like Sabrewulf you know his mix-up only occurs if you let him get close enough to run at you or dash through you. A lot of characters can back-dash, long range poke, or jump away from Wulf to make him really have to work for the proper spacing to do his mix-ups. But Shago can just move all over the arena as he sees fit, and the 50/50 can come from pretty much anywhere, anytime.
Another thing is that it’s not very transparent to me that Shago does very poor damage. Now that I look back at things, I can remember a very gruelling game I had against a Shago player in ranked who was just throwing fireballs like crazy, and then going into mix-ups. I kept getting caught up in his combos and juggles that lasted like 40 seconds. It was SO aggravating to get thrown around like a ragdoll for getting hit by an unreactable cross-up divekick or something (which I didn’t know for the longest time hit mid and not overhead). But now that I think back to that match, I demolished him. It’s just that I hit him about 500 times less than he hit me. I think that might be the core issue: It feels like you are losing to Shago even if you beat him. I was playing Kim Wu and she looks like she should hit softer than Shago. I think the reason most people hate Shago is because of how visually unintuitive it is for him to be the weakest character in the game next to Omen. Then you also have characters like Kim and Orchid who have absolutely ludicrous damage output. The feeling of getting combo’d so much unavoidably by Shago as part of his game style definitely contributes to why he’s so ill-received in my opinion.
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Well, I think Shago aggravates a lot of people. But I’ve been on the KI forums in their various forms since season 1, and we have had nerf wulf, nerf TJ, nerf Kan-Ra, nerf Maya, nerf Glacius. It’s true that some threads gain more traction than others, and it demonstrates something, but mostly it demonstrates how annoyed people are - not how accurate they are.
I don’t want to be an armchair psychologist and nitpick things with you. I’m not trying to suggest that you don’t have a basis for what you are saying. I fully agree that Shago is a hot button character. He has a lot of mixups, and it can feel much more random than it really is. People don’t like that. But you can’t “nerf” that - it’s his entire style of play. You would have to completely redesign the character. And I think plenty of people are just fine with Shago the way he is. But when you are okay with something you don’t run to the boards and post about it.
You have to play the matchup with Shago - and this is aggravating for lots of people. But KI is filled with characters that you can’t play “normal.” Aganos, Kan-Ra, Spinal, Fulgore, Glacius, Tusk, Rash… All of these characters you have to approach differently than every one else in the game. This is a game where matchup knowledge really matters - and Shago may just be the most obvious about being different.
I agree. But, as you suggest, I think a lot of this is actually an illusion.
I think this describes people’s frustration with Shago to a T. I think they are so conditioned by their other experiences to play with the attitude “don’t get hit” that getting caught in Shago’s mixups - even for trivial damage, drives people crazy. And the weaknesses to Shago’s moves and approaches is not intuitive. People think they need to block his divekick high, so they leave themselves open to the low slides. But you are better off blocking low 90% of the time, and then when Shago starts to try to hit you with his overhead - that IS reactable and punishable. But you really have to keep a cool head in this matchup and that can be really hard.
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The thing is, it is “fixable” in the sense that you can always change frame data and animation speeds without fundamentally changing a character. For example, they could make his dive kicks reactable and compensate that by making them safe or do more damage.
That’s not to say that they should do that, but rather that you can keep most of his core while still removing the frustration.
I also thinks this reflects badly on the game as it is essentially a massive dose of “unfun” that was injected directly into the game. Shago just isn’t fun to play against. There are other frustrating characters, but I can still find enjoyment in learning about them and learning to counter them. The more I learn about Shago the less fun his MU actually becomes.
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Shago needs recovery on his whiffed Dive Kick. Shago doesnt need an instant invincible cross-up. Shago’s dive kick doesnt need to Cross-Up.
Otherwise he’s fine. If you want safe uber attacks then Surge more Often. You dont need ridiculous crap when you can surge yourself into ridiculousness.
Well, his dive kicks ARE reactable. They could make them MORE EASILY reactable, but if my sad old self can block these then others should be able to. It can sometimes be difficult to block these if you are playing on a monitor or TV with serious input lag, or over an internet connection that steals a frame or two. But in the strictest sense these are reactable.
As far as the argument “he’s not fun to play against” I think this is pretty poor reasoning. I hate Sadira. I HATE her. I don’t enjoy the character design, I don’t enjoy her playstyle and I find her frustrating to play against. But that’s not a reason to remove her from the game, and pointing to the forums to say “a bunch of people feel this way” is not a good reason to change her either. In a game with 20+ characters there are going to be some that annoy you.
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Yeah. Nothing about Shago seems overpowered since he lost plus on block dive kick. He is really annoying but so was Seth and El Fuerte and ST Claw and every version of Blanka ever.
50-50 characters aren’t fun but so long as they aren’t unfair they’re kind of an archetypical design for fighters. Heck even Guilty Gear has Millia and Chipp.
Be happy Killer Instinct has combo breakers. Getting hit by most of those other characters meant guaranteed damage back into the vortex. Or spending a very scarce resource. (burst)
The flip side is that combo breakers also minimize punishes. What happens when Chip ■■■■■ up? He loses half his life. What happens when Shago ■■■■■ up? You probably do your least breakable combo for tiny damage or risk something bigger that he might escape from. I’d argue that given Shago’s pathetic damage, this is actually an exchange that favors him. He gets ■■■■■■ damage anyway, but he gets to take big risks and potentially walk away from them barely scratched. Also, I absolutely hold Elf against SFIV (and Mika against SFV). And I say that as a big, big fan of Elf… but he had zero reason to be in SFIV.
What are the frames on divekick? I’m away from my computer, but I can check later if you are unable. If they are reactable, I’d guess they are on the cusp of reactable. Just to make sure we aren’t talking past each other, I’m saying they aren’t reactable in the sense that you positively id that he is going to dive kick and then properly block the correct direction. Remember there is that fun little edge case where he perfectly positions and does that invisible cross-up that I’d argue no one could block without a guess.
And yes, the fun argument is hardly a reason to remove him (I hate Sadira too), but it is absolutely a blemish on the design of KI. I’m also not saying “I hate him and so everyone hates him”… I’m saying he seems almost universally despised. Even people defending him admit that he’s designed around annoying the opponent. In other words, he is intentionally unfun as a design decision.
My old strategy against Shago: turtle up, attempt to block his mixup, and punish if possible.
New strategy: Move around crazy fast and keep Shago off guard. I usually use Maya or Cinder for this tactic.
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Sorry, I didn’t see this. I will try to take a look at the frame data tomorrow. It may be a bit complicated to decipher because he disappears, then reappears and attacks and you have to know where he is coming from AFTER he reappears.
Cross ups are obviously more challenging, but Jago is not the only character with cross ups.
Combo breaks do work both ways- but I wouldn’t say that helps Shago. If anything I think his low damage means you don’t need to worry much about breaking him.
Yes, he is designed to be annoying - but not so much to wreck the game as to frustrate the opponent and disrupt their game plan. Any teleporting character does this, though. Spinal for sure, but people don’t (well, not any more) generally drop salty requests for Spinal nerfs.
Haha, funny seeing you here. I’m new to the community (with the PC release), and so I was poking around youtube looking for KI channels. Found yours and had time to watch just one video. The one in which your Glacius gets beat by Shago. You were not a happy camper!
Also related, that’s kind of what I do now too. I can’t react to his divekicks, so I’m just a sitting 50/50 hoping I guess right. So now I just play moron vs moron. Jump around like an idiot and throw out unsafe ■■■■. It works surprisingly well if for no other reason than Shago doesn’t have the damage to really make you sorry you did that -17 move.
I now enter every Shago match-up hoping to make them feel that the game is as much ■■■■■■■■ as they make me feel 
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Hey man, if it works. You can actually justify this strategy pretty easily with some math and good game theory. If you fight essentially randomly in neutral, then you and Shago should each be opened up the same number of times. So, if you perform similarly in the combo game you are nearly guaranteed to produce more damage than Shago.
Anyway, I’m on the train with no access to the game but here’s a big excerpt from Infil’s excellent guide that I think indicates that his dive kick is reactable for block. The passage is referring to the faster surge version:
Go here for the rest: Shadow Jago: The Complete KI Guide
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+1
Hisako does this surprisingly well.
I think that thinking about the game this way is a mistake.
Firstly, I think it’s definitely an error to do a tiny, “least breakable” combo if you get a punish opportunity (let’s say Shago getting a DP or a dive kick blocked). This is where you can really make things hurt. You start with a heavy normal and a shadow opener, and you’re at around 15-18% with most characters right here (even Shago!), and you get a free 1 in 3 unreactable manual with your ender level already at 2 and your KV almost at 0. If they combo break immediately here, they’ve lost 20% at minimum; probably not too far away from an expected unsafe move punish in SF5 (crush counter DPs are more, punishing Nash medium Scythe will be less).
But if they are wrong on the guess break, it hurts a LOT, and very fast, because you have tons of KV to work with, and your ender level is already high, so your combo can be very long and filled with heavies and more shadows. He has to make one more mistake (getting locked out), but he takes WAY more damage from this mistake than if he had made 2 “average” mistakes in SFV.
Basically, I think people are too scared of being broken in KI. The damage is too high, especially in punish situations, for you to be worried about it. It’s encouraged to mix in short combos here and there, but generally only because you want to force guess breaks on opponents so that you can make wrong guesses really, really hurt later. If you always do short combos, guess breaking has very little punishment, because lockouts mean nothing.
IMO I find it interesting that you mention Guilty Gear here, which is an extremely high damage game that punishes people for wrong guesses. I think KI is actually also like that, except it’s a combination of the neutral and the combo system that encourages this. If you just look at getting hit in neutral → being correct on a combo break guess as the whole picture, I think you are missing an important element of the game.
I don’t see how. If he’s wrong on a guess break even a single time, he will lose 30-50%. Meanwhile, he has to hit you numerous times (probably 4 or 5 times, given his dirtiest combo starters a.k.a. throw and dark catastrophe) to make up for that damage. It means you can undo all his work of opening you up 4 times if you win the combo game just once, and that’s actually probably being a bit generous to Shago, I bet the real numbers are more against him. I don’t think this favors him.
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Uggghhh, don’t remind me.
Thanks for watching my videos though 
If that’s how you choose to “punish” Shago for being -lol from having a divekick blocked, then that’s on you. He’s negative enough on all non-surge divekicks that you can easily walk up and start a combo with heavy->shadow, or even just raw heavy opener if you don’t react fast enough. All slides are combo punishable as well.
Infil covered this already, but it is manifestly not in your interest to consistently punish Shadow Jago with low damage one-chancers - your character is almost guaranteed to hit harder than Shago, and it is far wiser to capitalize on that as much as possible. Front-load your damage with heavy normals and shadow openers, and make Shago pay for it if he messes up a break opportunity. One chances are only useful if the setup is valued more than the damage you are giving up; Shago is a highly mobile character with a DP - the setup isn’t how you’ll tend to open him up anyway. Shago dies from having his shenanigans blocked and punished, not (primarily) from getting abused on wakeup.
Once you steal the life lead from him, he has to come to you, and the only way Shago can come in is to do something wildly unsafe. Don’t waste your punish opportunities doing trivial damage.
Also - input shortcut DP’s do a fantastic job of blowing up teleport divekick shenanigans if you have the execution for it. Hit a Shago with 2 or 3 of those as Jago and you’ll have him reevaluating his life choices…
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I’ll take all of that into consideration the next time I play him. I have recently picked up Wulf and save almost all of my meter for his reversal.
I’m also new to the game. I play other fighters so I like to think my basics are there, but the things unique to KI are definitely not there. Most notably my combo theory, etc. Also… not the place, buy my ■■■■ execution is crappy here. I like to think of myself as having pretty decent execution, but I keep accidentally mashing out my wall-splat ender instead of launcher… Oh well, it all just takes time.
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