I’ve been maining this character for a few months and I’m wondering what people think of her. She’s rarely seen or discussed as far as I can tell online.
IMO She’s got really good strengths on offense. She has ridiculously good footsie normals that even include her sweep, her mixups and setplay give her one of the craziest vortexes in the game, and her backdash is hands-down the best in the game. Her rekka is also very good at covering ground and catching backdashes.
That said, I can’t help but feel like she’s lower-tier, even potentially Bottom 5. Her damage is average at best, her mixup specials are all very unsafe on block, her defense is kinda bad sans her amazing backdash, and without a traditional forward dash or teleport she’s got some really rough match-ups against zoners. She’s got some things that help these weaknesses, but they tend to be very situational and difficult to find opportunities for against competent opponents.
There’s also some weird trade-offs and inconsistencies she has to deal with concerning her spirit orb. Like, why can’t her shadow overhead reach full-screen with it when the heavy version can? Why does her teleport switch sides with an orbed opponent in knockdown only when she’s on the left side of the screen? Why does it make her sometimes switch directions for her attacks when she hasn’t actually switched sides?
I mean I have been having a lot of fun with her, but she’s pretty frustrating at times too in ways I don’t experience with other characters. What do you think on this?
I really don’t understand that character because I played few Shinsakos. Similar to Hisako she’s hard to break. Her normals and dp thread makes the fight against my main (Sabrewulf) quite annoying. The fact that most of the ones I faced backdash like crazy when having the minimal life lead just makes it worst. Since I found her awful to fight with my main and I’m not willing to study the whole Matchup (just the basics of what she does in training mode) I pick either Glacius or Gargos and that works just fine. If I found a very hard Shinsako I might go with my main and study her for real.
SHe is amazing! I love her and her set up with spirit orbs are just dirty! SHe is quickly becoming one of my go to characters. I use 3 characters…My main and my 2 side characters…SHinksako and Kilgore are my side charaacters and I love using her. HTere are just a few set ups I need to learn how to do to be deadly!
I’m gonna have to disagree with this one. Her defense is amazing. On top of the backdash she has a fully invincible dp to get people off her, her non invincible dp starts combos and is fast enough to punish all those safe -3 moves that offensive characters like to use, her anti-air game is on point with her directly upward down hp, her medium dp covering in front of her and starting combos, and her heavy dp catches people in the air half the screen away from her. You can actually catch people jumping away with that thing. The only times I’ve ever felt helpless on defense with her is when cornered by rash and sadira. Their approach angles covered by projectiles makes them really hard to get off you.
I’ll probably give her another shot, but my initially impressions were disappointing. Nothing against the character, mind you, just because my playstyle.
I tried to force the shoto out of her which is just silly on my end, but wanted to play her outside of the vortex game and usual playstyle found from players. That isn’t to say she can’t be played with my mentality, but it felt far to awkward for footsies without a traditional forward dash.
Still, I’ll give her another shot, I still need to get her to 50 along a few other characters.
Her reversal works well in an arc in front of her, but there’s a huge blind spot around and above her head that makes her very vulnerable to jump-ins in common knockdown and corner situations. Characters like Sadira and Rash are particularly good at exploiting this, like you mention.
Her AA is good at covering some of that space but it’s one of the slower ones in the game at an 11-frame startup, and isn’t consistently reliable when she’s disadvantaged.
She’s a solid mid- high mid character. can struggle pretty hard vs the game’s more mobile zoners. She has a good DP since it hits hard and covers alot of space but it’s also easily safe jumpable so it’s better used to interrupt rather than on wake up.
Her strength relies in strong footsies, powerful set play and an annoying runaway game.
If I see one more person say Shin has bad defense…
She a solid mid-tier in my opinion. Would rank higher, but has legitimate issues dealing with zoners or chars who can reliably resolve neutral on their terms.
What about her wakeup and corner options, specifically? I suppose that’s what I meant all along. In my experience it’s pretty difficult to find opportunities for her reversal, AA, and (in the corner) her backdash against jump-ins there.
On wakeup Shin Hisako has the following non-block/throw tech options:
One of the best backdashes in the game
A 3 frame invincible reversal
Unreactable cross-up option
It doesn’t matter that Shin’s DP loses to cross-ups or isn’t great in the corner, because what matters is that she has a fully invincible reversal that must be respected. Respect doesn’t just mean the opponent sits and lets you get up for free - it means the opponent is forced to try to go for options that cover the DP option. If I’m trying to make her DP whiff then I am going for a specific option that a Shin player should be aware of, and if you are aware of it then you can build quick contingencies and look for specific things that you know your opponent wants to bait out.
Glacius’ puddle punch can be neutral jumped. That doesn’t mean Glacius has bad defense. Shin’s options on wakeup have gaps, but exploiting those gaps leads to predictable oki, if the Shin player is patient enough to evaluate the situation. She doesn’t have the best defense in the game, but she’s easily in the upper tier of the cast.
Even with her amazing footsies, as a final verdict I think shin hisako is trash. Like her weaknesses are just to heavy.
Unsafe on everything except shadow rekka
Bad hitbox and bad vertical range on shadow air overhead
Large hurtboxes on her moves and buggy too
High startup on her teleport (30+ frames is too much)
High recovery on whiff on standard reward special moves
High recovery on orb summon
Low priority shadow moves (e.g her shadow dp loses to aganos armor yet fulgore medium dp takes away all armor in one action etc)
Also that shadow dp loses to certain cmd grabs even after instinct freeze and the grab animation isnt even out like wtf
She is alot like kan ra and kim wu for low priorty shadow moves
Among all the rush down chars she is the weakest against turtling and zoning
I think she’s a pretty middle of the road character, mostly due to her weaknesses to keep away and the amount of characters capable of playing decent keep away. But I do believe she beats any other character (except Kim Wu and Rash which I believe are 5-5’s and maybe TJ, but I digress).
Her vortex is possibly the best in the game and her normals have the range to dominate the space she wants to occupy along with spirit orb.
Sure her specials are unsafe and aren’t something to just throw out, but there are MANY better ways to open someone up in neutral with her great buttons. I think she’s a character that can be played very defensive in neutral, using pokes and great walk speed waiting for your opponent to make a mistake then flipping a switch into oppressive oki, generally not allowing your opponent to get back up.
Her runaway is viable in certain matchups as well with her ridiculous backdash and somewhat unpredictability of when and where you are going to place your orb.
This evaluation of her toolset seems half baked. Some stuff that you say here is incorrect and even the “true” things you said don’t add up to her being trash.
All versions of rekka 1st hits are safe with some character exceptions. Light rekka first hit is extremely safe, being -2 on block and outside of shadow dominance range. It is hard for certain characters to contest shin at the range l rekka puts the two (and people would generally be wary of contesting after a rekka since there is a threat of a 2nd one to catch the mash)
I am going to assume you are talking about the extended hurtboxes on f+MP, far MK and crouch MK (I don’t know of what bugs you are talking about). Cr.MK and far MK are tools more suited for pressure than neutral. And f+MP 's has too good range and speed to not use it.
There are options in teleport that are faster that 30 frames. Dash LK will beat a lot of normal AA attempts. Dash MK will hit all crouchers and that’s 27 frames and leaves Shin advantaged on block. Dash HP is 32 frames but its also +15 so saying Shin Hisako needs the highly plus option to also be impossible to reaction anti air is silly.
The counter to turtling is doing fake stuff and Shin can run over someone if he or she lets Shin get away with fake stuff. If someone wont mash then Shin can take advantage of that by using far MK or dash or light slice.
Shin is strong enough. Her toolset to get past zoning is enough for her to manage against most/possibly all zoners. It requires a lot of composure, patience ,character knowledge ,reactions and strong play on the offense side as well but I think it can be done. Also I do agree that there are janky things about the orb and that her non m/h dp or rekka specials and almost all of her shadow require “finesse”/ Kinda suck. The worst thing about Shin is that she is a grower in a game where growers in a game where growers all kinda initially get a bad rap (Mira unviable, Kim doodoo, Eagle looks like too much work) at a inopportune time for growing. Emo stuff aside, the only other thing I have to say is towards shin players “DO THE CHEAP TECHY STUFF”
Growers means that the strengths of the character take more than intuition to uncover. Shin hisako is pretty unintuitive. When/if shin hisakos playerbase learn to use all of her stuff, then will people understand she isnt a wasted character slot.
Every char looks top tier or good when thier tools are described on paper or on ki.infil.net. Its how their moves are compared to the rest of cast that matters.
E.g her 1st rekka is safe not because its -2 but because of the pushback. Its just gives her safe space but its not an advantage situation for her. Its neutral for both chars.
Like char cant be judged only based on her vortex. It needs to be based all round.
She has the same design problem as kan ra. High risk and startup for standard reward moves and low priority specials,buggy hurtboxes ,very bad MU’s.
Chars like Orchid, Wulf, hisako, gargos, eyedol, Aria, glacuis, jago, rash, Aganos etc have Opposite of most flaws i listed above and thats why they just "Work"and get the wins
Actually the blocked light rekka puts her in her optimal range. She’s at the sweep/st hp/light slash sweet spot and even at -2 most of the cast can’t reach her to take their turn back without doing something risky.
