MK11 SHANG TSUNG Discussion

[Agilaz]

Ok, so outside of training mode you REALLY feel the nerf.

The damage loss is incredibly noticeable in some games...

 

[GoaThief]

Think the ground skull nerf is too much, didn't think it would make much difference at first but it almost feels like it's not worth spending the bar now considering the utility and damage of corpse drop. Use the G skulls to push back and bar for making their life difficult to get back in.

Strange how this was nerfed IMO but I am a ST newb who only started playing him the other day. Never felt it was OP when I was against him though.

Time for a switch again.

 

[Marinjuana]

they nerf shang dmg but not Geras and they buff liu.. haha fuck nrs

They did nerf Geras. Made his D1 slightly worse, two of his KB's aren't nearly as good and his overhead on the 111 is slower which makes the 111/11~sand trap mixup fuzzy blockable or at least easier to react to. And they nerfed Liu's good variation slightly and made his bad variation better.

But fuck NRS right

 

[deathstroke187]

They did nerf Geras. Made his D1 slightly worse, two of his KB's aren't nearly as good and his overhead on the 111 is slower which makes the 111/11~sand trap mixup fuzzy blockable or at least easier to react to. And they nerfed Liu's good variation slightly and made his bad variation better.

But fuck NRS right

Geras d1 is untouched still 6 frame nothing changed at all

his 111 string only has 4 more frame startup yeah you can maybe fuzzy it a bit more but wont change shit online since we have 6f lag.

shang is now low tier imo , the mu that he was losing he lose them even more now cause he had his dmg to comeback with now he doesnt. 5% is huge.
im ok with the d3 nerf cause it was dumb but his dmg is overnerf. his groundskulls are punishable full combo from half the cast.

 

[MK Paul Rudd]

I’m kinda shocked that spellmaster didn’t get any changes.

It’s definitely not worth amplifying ground eruption twice now to get decent damage but I guess on the bright side i’ll always have a bar for corpse drop.

 

[SaSSolino]

I have to say, Amp Ground Skulls into Ground Skull only doing 16% now kinda hurts..

3U2 ex ground skulls, 4, ground skulls does like 285 now

I didn't expect the nerf to be this heavy. Damn.

 

[dribirut]

Shang barely got touched. I fully expect him to be top 5 in this build

 

[MagicMan357]

Im glad he got nerfed, he got way too much easy damage. I bet he still has crazy combos.

 

[Marinjuana]

Being a Soultaker player who thinks the Warlock matchup kind of sucks in this thread

 

[SaSSolino]

Shang barely got touched. I fully expect him to be top 5 in this build

Not breaking even 30% is pretty big mate.

 

[kcd117]

Day patch 1 hot take: His nerfs were harder than I thought they would be at first. He really can't compete in some matchups now. BnBs went from 31% to 24%, that was the biggest dmg nerf out of all the characters in the patch.

The only bad matchup that I think got more manageable now is Erron.

Geras, Liu, Jacqui, Sub, Cetrion, Cassie and Sonya were already bad and only got worse.

Jade, Noob, Frost and potentially both Kahns probably went from winning matchups to even with the good buffs they all got.

So far he seems to have taken a very significant hit matchup-wise in this patch.

 

[LawAbidingCitizen]

I don't think nerfing his damage was the right move, personally I would have gone for some hit regions instead, but yeah the nerf seems absolutely reasonable.

yeah, his nerfs were pretty insignificant imo. He used to get 30% from a jik now he gets 25%, I don't think it is that big of a deal tbh.
He'll be fine!

I consider the nerfs unreasonable, but at the same time they're not super impactful. Feels more like they nerfed him for the sake of it? Oh well.

Shang Tsung Lives.

So they leave Spellmaster the same WTF, it is unplayable! Should have taken that variation out completely and gone with ninja moves.

5% less on combos will be a very big deal at a high level, but damage reduction is preferable over nerfing frames as someone else already mentioned.



That combo used to do 34% if I remember correctly.

Nonetheless, Shang Tsung should definitely remain one of the better characters in the game.

@PreNerf_

I'm curious as to what Shang mains think about the damage nerf. How much do you think the 4-6% damage reduction hurts his matchups. It seems he needs to land a projectile to make up the difference on every combo?

 

[kcd117]

@PreNerf_

I'm curious as to what Shang mains think about the damage nerf. How much do you think the 4-6% damage reduction hurts his matchups. It seems he needs to land a projectile to make up the difference on every combo?

He is still good it seems. It just feels like he'll be a character like Captain Cold... has some really lopsided matchups and can be a huge counterpick to some characters, but at the same time has some matchups so bad that trying to play him is pointless.

As I already stated, I thought he lost pretty bad to Geras, Cetrion and Sub pre-patch. He still does, but a little bit worse.

Liu Kang, Jacqui simply destroy him now. He can't compete in neutral against Sonya anymore as trades are not in his favor at all, and getting the life lead now is basically impossible. Cassie was bad but she had to be careful in neutral, now that she can get hit by 5 ground skulls and survive she'll eventually get close and be the oppressive bitch we saw at EVO grand finals with auto shimmies and staggers everywhere. Erron and Scorpion are a bit easier now. Raiden, Kitana and Frost actually win neutral now that the risk of getting hit by ground skulls is a mere shadow of what it was before, and their reward is better. Noob's first variant always did pretty decent against Shang, but now it also out damages him lol, Jade's buffs were godlike and her second variation can definitely compete against him now that their dmg output is pretty much the same, the Kahns neutral game is waaaay better now, especially Kotal, that got a 100% safe way in now that his amplified panther is safe against Shang. Jax still struggles, Kabal also seems to struggle a bit but I can see him and Baraka having an easier time against Shang now.

Shang's thing was that he punished bad movement so hard that it made you respect him afraid of losing half of your health in a bad dash in and a poorly spaced jump in. He is still pretty good at checking bad movement in neutral, but now the opponent needs to fuck up like 7 times instead of 4.

 

[Agilaz]

I was a little hasty on proclaiming Shang lives.

The damage nerf is extremely severe and not at all warranted.

I'll still play Shang, but from season 3 onward I will no longer be competing with him until ge gets his damage back.

The nerf is entirely unreasonable and its starting to literally cost me matches. When I see my opponent with about 200 health left it's hard no to think that hey, pre patch I would have won this match if it had gone the exact same way.

The only reason I can think for the nerf is to make people more reliant on morph, but considering you get punished for using morph im really not sure whay they were thinking

 

[OmyMk]

• Shang Tsung - Fixed a rare issue that could allow the damage buff from Soul Steal to persist into the next round

This is bull. Ending a round with soul steal and get 5 sec of dmg boost at the start of next round is part of Shang's gameplay since MK9. This wasn't an issue. The guy who designed MK11 Shang knew exactly what he was doing but the guy who worked on this patch is a scrub.

 

[SaSSolino]

I don't have the patch yet on PC, does b3u4 still crossup people at random?

 

[Agilaz]

I don't have the patch yet on PC, does b3u4 still crossup people at random?

Oh yes.

 

[SaSSolino]

Oh yes.

Trash patch.

 

[t3kwytch3r]

@PreNerf_

I'm curious as to what Shang mains think about the damage nerf. How much do you think the 4-6% damage reduction hurts his matchups. It seems he needs to land a projectile to make up the difference on every combo?

The damage nerf definitely hurts, but i don't think it's unfair. Someone with zoning as strong as Shang's shouldn't get 350 damage on a wu attack punish OR an AA projectile amp into another projectile.

Corpse drop is still amazing and safer to use in blockstrings up close than hellsparks. He also has some good footsie strings, use those to whiff punish jump in attacks until they feel the risk is low, then start hitting with hellsparks.

I feel his b1d2 KB should have gotten a damage buff though.

 

[PreNerf_]

@PreNerf_

I'm curious as to what Shang mains think about the damage nerf. How much do you think the 4-6% damage reduction hurts his matchups. It seems he needs to land a projectile to make up the difference on every combo?

I'm absolutely sick to my stomach over it. I just spent the last two months honing my shang tsung and he really wasn't broken in the first place he was maybe high a their and that's being generous. I used to play poker for a living once upon a time anf it's a numbers game. You just don't play hands that have more losses than wins and if you outread your opponent then you could get away with playing even odds if you found your rivals weaknesses. 4-6% is a gigantic deal in matchups instead of getting three touches at 34% or four touches at 26-28% now he needs five to six touches to get a win he had some good matchups vs mu like Johnny and Jade and was mostly even with almost all of the cast. I am almost positive that he went from mid to high a their down to low or mid b in the best mu's. I had to make perfect decisions and reads, outplaying my opponents against characters like Jax, sub, Sonya, skarlet, Jade, geras, cetrion, scorpion ECT because he already was on the short end of the stick on alot of matchups. Having to have 1-2 more touches and having kb combos only doing the damage that his regular combos did has ruined him. I'm heartbroken and going to drop him now. I could have handled it if they only took about half the damage that they did from his GS, but instead they ran him into the dirt. Netherrealm has a track record for over nerfing and over buffing characters in their games. Sonya didn't need to be ran into the dirt like they did. Instead of taking away her combos, they should have done to her what they did to shang. Bringing her damage down, or nerfing her rings a bit as well. But instead they took away her personality. Shang is low their now and I'm pissed.

 

[Agilaz]

The damage nerf definitely hurts, but i don't think it's unfair. Someone with zoning as strong as Shang's shouldn't get 350 damage on a wu attack punish OR an AA projectile amp into another projectile.

Corpse drop is still amazing and safer to use in blockstrings up close than hellsparks. He also has some good footsie strings, use those to whiff punish jump in attacks until they feel the risk is low, then start hitting with hellsparks.

Dunno man. I can't really argue that Shang's zoning isn't strong, but then you realize that het gets outzoned by a bunch of characters.

Granted, their zoning didn't have so much damage attached to as pre-patch Shang, but they all have a better up close game which I think Shang lacks. No, 11 staggers dont constitute "strong up close" in my opinion.

People have no reason to be scared of hellsparks anymore. You have to play more yolo now and take risks to get damage.

Anyway, maybe its time to give Soultaker a try. Warlock was hands down better thanks to ground skulls, but now that those only tickle instead of bite, perhaps Soultaker might be a more solid approach. Certainly less risky for the reward involved

 

[SaSSolino]

The damage nerf definitely hurts, but i don't think it's unfair. Someone with zoning as strong as Shang's shouldn't get 350 damage on a wu attack punish OR an AA projectile amp into another projectile.

Corpse drop is still amazing and safer to use in blockstrings up close than hellsparks. He also has some good footsie strings, use those to whiff punish jump in attacks until they feel the risk is low, then start hitting with hellsparks.

I feel his b1d2 KB should have gotten a damage buff though.

I'd agree if not for the fact that the meta was already terrible for him.

His zoning is useless against every single top tier, they should have nerfed him a little while the top tiers were nerfed heavily. Instead Sonya and Scorpion got barely touched and Geras got straight up buffed. Besides Cetrion already did Shang's job better than him and she got buffs mostly.

 

[deathstroke187]

they did a silent nerf too , 21 u2d2 on pc was +6 on block now is - but safe.

shang was already losing at high level to

Geras,Sonya,Sub(thin ice),Liu,Raiden,Cassie,Scorpion,Cetrion now he loses even harder that character was mid tier now his low tier. he has to take risk to open people up b3u4 has a gap and reactible. his kb are trash , nobody get hits by b1d2 his throw kb isnt great and does low dmg and you can break away from it lol

even before the patch he wasnt even top 10

 

[Agilaz]

they did a silent nerf too , 21 u2d2 on pc was +6 on block now is - but safe.

shang was already losing at high level to

Geras,Sonya,Sub(thin ice),Liu,Raiden,Cassie,Scorpion,Cetrion now he loses even harder that character was mid tier now his low tier. he has to take risk to open people up b3u4 has a gap and reactible. his kb are trash , nobody get hits by b1d2 his throw kb isnt great and does low dmg and you can break away from it lol

even before the patch he wasnt even top 10

That wasn't a nerf, the frame data was wrong before the patch

 

[M2Dave]

I'm curious as to what Shang mains think about the damage nerf. How much do you think the 4-6% damage reduction hurts his matchups. It seems he needs to land a projectile to make up the difference on every combo?

The damage reduction on ground eruption is definitely noticeable and will impact match ups, but people are exaggerating the effects in my humble opinion. Instead of complaining, please realize that the current damage output has been normalized to be consistent with other zoning characters (i.e., Cetrion and Skarlet). More importantly, however, nothing that makes Shang Tsung a very good character has been changed thankfully.

- one of the best special move to control the mid range game

- one of the best zoning games with skull and corpse drop

- arguably the best jab string to beat throw techs

- one of the best jumping kicks with the easiest and most consistent conversion

I have my own theories on which match ups became easier and harder, but I want to play before I speculate.