What's the verdict on Shin Hisako?

Abstracting the usability of a character from how well a person does playing said character is far from an ironclad indicator of the characters actual strength. Especially for shin because since so few play her or know about how she works. Maybe b/c she sucks (which I don’t believe to be true, but she does have pretty tough matchups so lets say that’s what they think) or maybe because she came out in a post KIWC world and people kinda stopped caring due to no 4th EVO and other games coming out like Injustice 2 and Marvel. Anyway almost anytime when shin is on screen there is an information discrepancy and what plays out is likely not a complete representation of what the matchup should be in theory instinct .

there are two aspects to this. One is the thing EDP was talking about where light rekka puts shin at a certain range that is usually difficult for opponents to contest. So even though its -2 (which is not neutral) shins buttons are so good she can often make the disadvantage difficult to check.

Two. The thing about shins 1st rekka is that its likely the most advantaged rekka. It can catch mashes like hisako orz without the abysmal frame data of hisako orz.1st and 2nd SORZ has a gap if you delay the 2nd. If Shin Hisako counter hitting opponents pressing buttons after light rekka, then (hopefully) they will stop pressing buttons. And if there not pressing buttons you can take your turn back. This is something that works on 28/29 parts of the cast (curse you chunked aganos Shakes fist at sky)

I kinda don’t get the last part since I dont play kan ra but shin seems to have pretty normal startup and recovery for normals except for cr.HP having a lot of recovery. Spirit slice and the greed sever (spirit sever? PogChamp ) have low recovery but they really aren’t made for use in neutral. I don’t understand low priority specials or buggy hitboxes. Her bad matchups suck but she has tools to throw wrenches in zoning. You just have to be better than the opponent at the matchup, which cant be too hard since 80% of the playerbase doesn’t realize that she is on the character select screen (“where did the random select button go?”).

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Shin is quite good IMO, but takes work to unlock. Maybe if you played her in tournament, you would need a counter pick for strong zoners, but tbh I’m not even that convinced she gets 8-2’d by those characters – there’s stuff Shin can do in the matchup and people are quick to give up, so they’re probably actually manageable if the work was put in.

The character is almost completely uncontestable in the mid range and has a top 3 vortex in the game. She has way better defense than people think; the fact that her insanely beefy 3 frame heavy DP that hurts as much as Jago’s has a weak spot above her head doesn’t change this. She is so squirrely on defense because of backdash and L slice that neutral jump just lets her try something else, and if Shin is expecting neutral jump from the offense, she can easily punish with a different option. Her damage is perfectly fine, especially considering it is easy for her to reset you with a fierce attack (dash -> H) and she has very good fierce buttons in footsies, which adds up super fast in the damage department despite not being shown on any combo counter.

Like, if I were to buff Shin I would probably just make horizontal orb go a little faster across the screen to give her options against runaway zoners. Touching anything else about her is terrifying.

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I wish her projectile-invincible shadow overhead would reach the orb full-screen like the heavy version can, too. It’s weird how it doesn’t.

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I’d call Shin a pretty mid-ish character. She could be as cheap as Eagle/Omen but her dirt takes time and work to get to. For instance, I played a Shin Hisako recently that kept throw resetting me. In my mind, there’s a handful of characters i really want to watch for a throw for because of what they can get afterwards. Eagle, Arbiter, Sadira, and the like. It wasn’t until we’d played a good few matches that it dawned on me that they were using the throw more for the hard knockdown and opportunity for up close set play. And Shin can be frustratingly dirty when trying to defend multiple left/right, high/low options.

I have a really hard time seeing her as a lower half member of the cast. Once she lost her obvious dirty setups after her post-release tweaking, the exploration kinda ground to a halt. She’s far too tricky on offense, whilst being effectively slippery on defense to be ‘lower tier,’ in my opinion.

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@SneerfulWater57 Shin can get hkds in odd places. Sweep and throws are pretty normal except for shadow overhead being a stagger but since medium dp is a 3 frame special that causes hkd so shin can link it after a Heavy AD, Medium AD, heavy linkers, medium influence linker, manual cr.mp, and manual cl.hk

I use her a lot, I do pretty well in ranked. I’ve been training her for a couple of months and still think I’m just scratching the surface.

You guys think she’s weak defense because of the spot above her head on wake up?

Nope. Her quick cross up dash moves her out of the way and anti airs into a combo.

A One med dp follow up after she pops them into the air and you get a free orb double cross up/double mix up opportunity.

I’ve made the best players out there absolutely respect me on wake up bc of how many reversals she has.

She can combo her grab in the corner after wall splat OR mid stage after a air onryo manual linker (yup), which now gives her the ability to Shadow cross through someone who is trying to harass her overhead, and the reversal juggles into a combo. End the juggle combo with a med dp, free orb set up again. Cash out that sweet pH from the juggle (which I think of her true damage output, not single combo into damage ender, but a string of oki resets into ender)

She absolutely struggles against zoners, particularly gargos and kan ra, but she has some tricks. Her shadow on ryo goes through projectiles, covers 1/3 screen, and if you have a orb on them 1/2-3/4 screen. And it recaptures. If you get in just once you can Oki an above average gargos and kan ra into Oblivion. Against a good zoner you’ll just have to work to stay in. At first these characters destroyed me (and aganos) but with a little study, I think I was able to find enough weaknesses and ways in to have (and win) a competent fght.

And im finding new stuff with her all the time. I think she’s a sleeping giant in regards to tech and probably high mid tier.

(When I first started her, my immediate thought was that she was “anti shoto” as her cross through move wins against any DP motion dp’s and I didn’t have to respect them on wake up anymore but they still had to respect me. Now I think it was just a small part of her bigger picture which is “queen of Oki” as in “get down and stay down”)

She is my new bae, but I also main aganos.

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My matchup chart for shin

it goes from 6.5-3.5 to 3.5-6.5 in half point increments

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I’m seeing a pattern in your matchup chart. You lean toward characters that have seemingly high mobility or evasiveness as being particularly good against Shin Hisako, whilst those that wanna sit and play grounded she is particularly weak against. That makes me wonder about Eagle. In my mind, it kinda plays out as both characters looking for that first knockdown and just setplaying the other to death. He’s arguably the worst in the game on his back, so i wonder how you figure she has such a tough time in that MU (granted that she struggles against zoners). And you’d have to convince me on how she beats Thunder. He’s just a character that paper just doesn’t matter, he just beats almost everybody.

Shin’s got great buttons and good walkspeed, so she can play neutral quite well against him. And has a DP, so in theory should be difficult to reset. She’d suffer on knockdown, but no moreso than any other character in the game.

So I have to preface this with saying that most of my experience playing eagle was gained by playing people better than me.(Namely a canadian Sadira main named Monsieur Derp and The CB2018 champ/“Master of Satsui no Height” Amenty.) So a lot of my losing is based on the player and not matchup but I think the matchup is super tough. Eagle zoning shuts down a lagre part of shin hisakos kinda weak anti zoning suite.

  • He is too mobile for a spirit orb being in front of him to impede him greatly. He can get out of dodge with sammamish or do Shadow Slide,screech.
  • Half charged arrows/ scatter shot goes through spirit shots so shin cant hide behind them
  • Eagle can almost always avoid shadow slice while holding HP
  • Bird screech stuffs dash ins (L arrow rain also does to a lesser extent)
  • Divebomb is tough to deal with as a reversal option
    • It sends shin fullscreen on hit, halfscreen on block
    • Shins best option is to L slice in pressure as a way to counter divebomb
  • Shadow Greed Sever works as usual,But it’s usual is bad(slower than shadow dragon dance)

It also difficult to say that shin has a significant enough advantage in footsies to make up for her hardship breaking zoning while eagle can call screech after any poke and gain very strong offense from it. Shin can manage eagle even with bird nonsense but she her advantage inj that area is only slight or not there.

As for knockdown they are both insanely good at it. But eagle can coast on neutral if his knockdown is successfully blocked/teched while shin needs her knockdowns maximized.

On Thunder, I think Shin has a bunch of stuff against him. Thunder is kinda hobbled in neutral and shin is a toungh cookie there. Runaway is as much an issue for thunder as it can be for any character since he has poor options to punish orb summon from outside of st.HP (except Shadow CotE.Shadow CotE is fast and long range but shin has pokes that outrange it so even that isnt enough).When a orb is out, things are tough for thunder as he needs the space that is occupied/threatened by a projectile/spirit orb so that means blocking a lot of orbs.Thunder is super tough to defend against but I believe there’s a way to stanch the bleeding so that he only gets 30%-50% damage on instinct vs 80% and if you can hold thunder to that on a semi consistent then Shin should be fine.