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MK11 SHANG TSUNG Discussion

1man3letters

Alpha Tarkatan - Moderator
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I'm stuck on 17/18 finishers in customize menu tab for shang, tried doing the towers to try get whatever it is (guessing taunt) to unlock but it won't last 2 patches

Anyone have 18/18??
 

ABACABB

End Of Humanity
Can someone help me explain how this is possible ?

So ive watched latest foxy grandpa stream where he plays shang in KL . He often does walk up or dash up 114 and it so often open ppl up . And he confirms into ground eruption combo . I swear like it almost always work for him . Now when I do it online in ranked of whatever ppl almost always block whole string or worse i get d2 kb bc they mashed or they just poke me . I dont understand it , like hes not doing anything special I do same thing but for him it works , for me not so much :(
 

Zviko

Noob
Can someone help me explain how this is possible ?

So ive watched latest foxy grandpa stream where he plays shang in KL . He often does walk up or dash up 114 and it so often open ppl up . And he confirms into ground eruption combo . I swear like it almost always work for him . Now when I do it online in ranked of whatever ppl almost always block whole string or worse i get d2 kb bc they mashed or they just poke me . I dont understand it , like hes not doing anything special I do same thing but for him it works , for me not so much :(
The difference is probably your opponents. They don't know what shimmy is so they don't fall for it. They do know how to mash though.
 
Can someone help me explain how this is possible ?

So ive watched latest foxy grandpa stream where he plays shang in KL . He often does walk up or dash up 114 and it so often open ppl up . And he confirms into ground eruption combo . I swear like it almost always work for him . Now when I do it online in ranked of whatever ppl almost always block whole string or worse i get d2 kb bc they mashed or they just poke me . I dont understand it , like hes not doing anything special I do same thing but for him it works , for me not so much :(
Get use to dissapointment and inconsistency playing shang. He has 0 scary preasure, everything is unsafe, with almost all his needed strings having flawless block gaps. Iyou have to get lucky and hope someone doesnt really know the matchup. Its a factor of luck in a sea of slot machine guesses since all the good characters have staggers that make you guess in a fraction of a second if you can press a button. Get use to just fighting with the block button and hope they have a heart attack during the match.
 

Marinjuana

Up rock incoming, ETA 5 minutes
Can someone help me explain how this is possible ?

So ive watched latest foxy grandpa stream where he plays shang in KL . He often does walk up or dash up 114 and it so often open ppl up . And he confirms into ground eruption combo . I swear like it almost always work for him . Now when I do it online in ranked of whatever ppl almost always block whole string or worse i get d2 kb bc they mashed or they just poke me . I dont understand it , like hes not doing anything special I do same thing but for him it works , for me not so much :(
It's all conditioning, he tends to be very aggressive with throws(which makes people get hit by 11) and has the neutral control to make people respect his offense enough that he doesn't often get blown up for doing too many throws/highs. It's been a while since I've watched him though
 

Marinjuana

Up rock incoming, ETA 5 minutes
I landed a fully charged Soul Scatter in match! Generally people think of this as kind of a bad move and think of the charging aspect as utterly useless but if you recreate the conditions seen in the video, you'll find that it's possible for you to land this move too!

 

Marinjuana

Up rock incoming, ETA 5 minutes
I'm sure there's plenty of Jacqui players out there who would cook me but I feel good about the Spellmaster/1RKO Jacqui matchup. She obviously has some good pressure and she can reversal punish Soul Steal at all but max range but other then that, I think Spellmaster has most of the upside. Spellmaster can control pace with his BF1 without concern for trades which opens up more fun with BF1 Amp, BF1 Cancel, F4, Soul Steal checks, and just using Crashing Flames in neutral. Shang gets full advantage of Soul Jar healing in the matchup, every time Amp Flames lands midscreen, you can bring out a soul jar or heal with it without any risk. So while Jacqui will outdamage you, you can get some healing in and control of the pace allows you to keep breakaway ready.

Stuff like 3U3~Crashing Flames Amp can leave Jacqui at a range where she can check you(not punish) with reversal dash punch which isn't ideal for Shang but then she's risking getting D2'd so the situation is heavily in your favor. And unlike some other characters, her U2/U3 reversals have pitiful range which prevents her from being able to punish the gap in Crashing Flames like some other characters can.
 

Nevan_PTF

All your mains belong to me!
Fellas, any particular reason for Shang Tsung players not using Soul Steal? I can see that knowing most of the cast moves can be a challenge but wouldn't the KB on back throw be something worth or not really?

I watch ArnKratos and he rarely uses it.
 

Zviko

Noob
Fellas, any particular reason for Shang Tsung players not using Soul Steal? I can see that knowing most of the cast moves can be a challenge but wouldn't the KB on back throw be something worth or not really?

I watch ArnKratos and he rarely uses it.
Maybe because it's punishable when he comes out of it. Like if you knock him down he wakes up transforming back and you get a free punish. It says "kounter" though for some reason.
 

Marinjuana

Up rock incoming, ETA 5 minutes
Fellas, any particular reason for Shang Tsung players not using Soul Steal? I can see that knowing most of the cast moves can be a challenge but wouldn't the KB on back throw be something worth or not really?

I watch ArnKratos and he rarely uses it.
As said before, it's risky because of the morph back and it's a punishable move in general. One of the other problems is that as Warlock, there's a lot of situations where a Soul Steal neutral check would be good, but ground inferno is just better if the range is right. Playing as Spellmaster, I find it to be a key move for his neutral.

Some characters are better to morph in then others and some characters can't punish actual soul steal well. I think people over exageratte the risk, you don't have to push your oki you can play lame, with the morph, all of your risk is compounded. But you have some control in neutral with block and walk back preventing morph, it's not like they can just wait and throw a projectile to catch you everytime morphing back.
 

Marinjuana

Up rock incoming, ETA 5 minutes
@Marinjuana do you have any footage of your Spellmaster games? You seem to swear by it so I'd like to see it in action, maybe I can give it another try
Nothing right now man but I'll try to get something up soon, been meaning to get some footage to maybe get some discussion going about the variation. No claims of greatness though!
 

Marinjuana

Up rock incoming, ETA 5 minutes
@Agilaz

Got some Spellmaster matches for anyone's enjoyment or if they want to see how the character plays, and feel free to hit me with any constructive criticism. First up I had a Marauder Baraka in a KL set, then a one and done against Spins Kabal, and then I cherry picked a couple matches from a player match set against a 52 Kard Erron and an Outtake Johnny. I don't win all the matches!

I usually feel good against Baraka as Spellmaster, I feel confident Soul Stealing into him(you can just spam spark) and Baraka gets harassed in the mid ranges. Still trying to figure out the Kabal matchup, can't really zone him out if he's gonna heal himself though. Erron's Scud Shot is very powerful against Spellmaster so you have to play more rushdown and it feels really cheap when he has fatal blow available. But I also need to iron out some stuff against him, I was defending against F4 like it was pre patch. Outtake is actually getting easier for me, biggest key for has been to get in that magic range where you can duck his fireball but still be outside of footsies.
 
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Agilaz

It has begun
@Agilaz

Got some Spellmaster matches for anyone's enjoyment or if they want to see how the character plays, and feel free to hit me with any constructive criticism. First up I had a Marauder Baraka in a KL set, then a one and done against Spins Kabal, and then I cherry picked a couple matches from a player match set against a 52 Kard Erron and an Outtake Johnny. I don't win all the matches!

I usually feel good against Baraka as Spellmaster, I feel confident Soul Stealing into him(you can just spam spark) and Baraka gets harassed in the mid ranges. Still trying to figure out the Kabal matchup, can't really zone him out if he's gonna heal himself though. Erron's Scud Shot is very powerful against Spellmaster so you have to play more rushdown and it feels really cheap when he has fatal blow available. But I also need to iron out some stuff against him, I was defending against F4 like it was pre patch. Outtake is actually getting easier for me, biggest key for has been to get in that magic range where you can duck his fireball but still be outside of footsies.
I'll view them later today, thanks man!
 

Agilaz

It has begun
@Marinjuana

So I watched the vid and tried to think how some of those situation would play out differently in v1 and v3. So far the only real advantage it has over those variations is that Spellmaster seems to have decent unbreakable damage - 25% for a bar, guaranteed.

Screaming Soul seems alright for trades in some cases, not to mention the amp'd version is actually pretty damn good in terms of damage, range, trade potential since it can low profile and even AA capabilities.

For these reasons I could probably live with not having ground sparks, but ALSO not having corpse drop is what hurts this IMO. While it may not be entirely useless , it sure seems like a very niche pick

Might give it a whirl in competitive casual until Spawn drops

(Also, massive bonus points for Yu Yu Hakusho music)
 
Spellmaster is my favorite Shang variation, but the main problem is 2 moves are very difficult to be worth, the DB2 and DT3 (can't remember the name)...
 

Marinjuana

Up rock incoming, ETA 5 minutes
@Marinjuana

So I watched the vid and tried to think how some of those situation would play out differently in v1 and v3. So far the only real advantage it has over those variations is that Spellmaster seems to have decent unbreakable damage - 25% for a bar, guaranteed.

Screaming Soul seems alright for trades in some cases, not to mention the amp'd version is actually pretty damn good in terms of damage, range, trade potential since it can low profile and even AA capabilities.

For these reasons I could probably live with not having ground sparks, but ALSO not having corpse drop is what hurts this IMO. While it may not be entirely useless , it sure seems like a very niche pick

Might give it a whirl in competitive casual until Spawn drops

(Also, massive bonus points for Yu Yu Hakusho music)
It's a tough sell against the other variations who have more immediate perks with damage and neutral control. There may be matchups of merit for Spellmaster but I haven't played the other variations like that to comment on that outside of theory fighting. I just think it's more fun than Warlock and I didn't jump around the cast for months just to not have Soul Steal!

Maybe I should do a longer write up on what he can do compared to the other two, there's a lot of little aspects that add up. But the biggest perk you didn't mention is his safety from Crashing Flames and Soul Scatter. Crashing Flames is weird in that some characters have great U3's that make it tough to use on block(in theory, no one knows the MU). Like when you play against Johnny, you can just do F24~Flames Amp or 3U3~Flames Amp and it's completely safe. You get like 7% chip, your 23-25% damage on hit and you don't have to even hit confirm. But some characters can punish it if they have the right U3 or some other kind of special, like Scorpion just teleports right out of it... But for the most part, Warlock doesn't get that safety with ground flames and fireball and Soultaker doesn't get as much safety with the short range on Rain kick. Soul Scatter creates a gap but it is safe and Crashing Flames can get you that respect on block.

Another nice thing is his safety on single normal special cancels or semi-safety. He can do F2~Flames or F2~Soul Scatter, there's B1~Soul Scatter which is actually pretty good in the corner. D4~Flames and 4~Flames are basically safe block strings on some characters.
 
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i think shang fb need a bit less start up so he can actually combo off strings and juggle. character is very good but so restricted.
His ninja moves need a buff , more than his FB . Ermac hits like a rain drop and its KB is useless (way to hard to proc) . Rain needs to be amped EVEN ON KB to be a launcher on top of it not working as a extender . Reptile is way too slow and its KB in a combo is way to inconsistant. Not to mention that currently noone of his ninjas are even remotely good as finisher and he even loses a grab KB cuz he loses soul steal.
 
Word. Ninja Shang is one meter-hungry boy, so not getting a free extend on KBs that do no dmg on their own feels pretty spiteful. That said, I think the Reptile slide KB is alright.
 
Word. Ninja Shang is one meter-hungry boy, so not getting a free extend on KBs that do no dmg on their own feels pretty spiteful. That said, I think the Reptile slide KB is alright.
KB itself is alright , the problem i have is that in a certain combos u can proc reptile kb as a finisher (opener xx super kick 4 reptile slide for example) . Problem is , its way to inconsistant . Sometimes u will , but more offten then not u wont. I think that lowering starting frames on reptile slide might address both the problem of this combo kb and it beeing used as finisher.