General/Other - Shinnok Shinnok General Discussion Thread

[regulas]

................ -___________-
God dammit man.... SMH
Well... At least you're not crying for buffs without thinking if he needs it or if it would make him too strong.
Go be considered to be a Kotal upplayer in his forums by all the people who main him

Shin needs bug fixes more then anything.

As for Kotal, I mostly find the people uplaying most just see War God doing well in tournies so assuming everything else about him and his other variants are perfectly fine, even though the only reason War God works is because his unique specials compensate for most of his flaws.

Imagine if only Imposter got a safe Hell Sparks and it became a dominant mode, and then we complained Necro and Bone were still weak (because theyd be the same as now) and everyone rushes into the forums going NO WAY HES SUPER STRONG

 

[Braindead]

Well I didn't know that you can hitconfirm b3/f31d2 into shoulder charge midscreen... Now if I can just sneak an EX scoop instead of the shoulder charge in there...

 

[Braindead]

So I actually connected this midscreen: b31d2 run xx d1....

But fuck me it's tight... I tried like 50 times and got it only once.

 

[regulas]

Well I didn't know that you can hitconfirm b3/f31d2 into shoulder charge midscreen... Now if I can just sneak an EX scoop instead of the shoulder charge in there...

those strings as well as none bone F22 can all be hitconfirmed fairly easily into any combo move or otherwise which makes them the best practical footsie combo starters.

 

[Braindead]

those strings as well as none bone F22 can all be hitconfirmed fairly easily into any combo move or otherwise which makes them the best practical footsie combo starters.

Hmm I'm trying to hitconfirm after the juggle because we would have a safe combo starter then.

 

[regulas]

Hmm I'm trying to hitconfirm after the juggle because we would have a safe combo starter then.

F22 is a little easier to confirm on the second 2 though it's tricky. B31d2 however can only be confirmed as of the second hit I find, usually doesn't want to come out if you input it later.

You may be able to option select it though. It's still relatively safe way, especially for Necro which can use Flick instead which is super safe.

 

[Braindead]

F22 is a little easier to confirm on the second 2 though it's tricky. B31d2 however can only be confirmed as of the second hit I find, usually doesn't want to come out if you input it later.

You may be able to option select it though. It's still relatively safe way, especially for Necro which can use Flick instead which is super safe.

I'm talking about hitconfirming after the 3rd hit of B31d2, and not cancelling the string into the shoulder. I'm talking about a full juggle.

 

[Ojpaxton]

B3 isant a gimmick and if they keep blocking low hit them with 1123 scepter that's like 20% dmg unblockable and has them shook, like I've been saying hell sparks needs to be neutral and this shoulder bug is out of fucking control and needs to be hot fixed

 

[Ninequads93]

Impostor mb shoulder conversion

yo Ian!:

 

[Osirun]

I have greatly enjoyed my time with Shinnok so far, and have compiled some early thoughts into part one of what I am calling The Bonesickle Chronicles. The main article can be found on my blog, but I will also include the full post in a spoiler for those interested in reading.

Spoiler: The Bonesickle Chronicles - Part One

Let's get the elephant out of the room. I do not believe that Shinnok is a very good character in MKX. Currently, I believe he is middle of the road. I do not want to downplay him, though, because I feel like he can be strong with the right amount of effort and smart play. Autopilot is not an option with Shinnok. Perhaps my opinion will change as I go on this journey known as The Bonesickle Chronicles, or maybe it will not. We will find out together!

So, what are Shinnok's problems? At this time I have put the most effort into the Boneshaper variation. The biggest problems are a lack of any safe special moves, meter dependence while not building it very quickly, and general lack of pressure options. I have played some with the Impostor variation, and what little research I have done makes me feel that it is as good, if not a bit better, than Boneshaper. Impostor Shinnok does not have the meter building problem that Boneshaper does, but I feel like the teleport shenanigans will get old with time, and players will adapt. I have yet to put any time into the Necromancer variation, but word on the street is that it is horrible. From what I have seen of Necromancer, it seems like an anti-zoning variation. It is the only Shinnok variation that has a safe, non-enhanced special move, however, so it is notable for that.

Shinnok does have significant strengths. First and foremost, he has good unbreakable damage capabilities thanks to his Hell Sparks special move. That can be very important late in a match because you may not want your opponent to break and put you on the defensive. Shank's defense is not great, even with enhanced Charging Shoulder in your pocket. Next, it seems as if Shinnok has a very good J.1. It has consistently frustrated the opponents I have player against, and it can be easily converted into good damage and Mimicry (Impostor only) or Deity (Boneshaper only) kombo resets. Given that Hell Sparks is very inconsistent as an anti-air at close range, having a good J.1 is an invaluable tool for Shinnok. I have seen Hell Sparks whiff on an opponent who jumps in on me from about 1.5 character spaces away. Also, I have seen Kung Lao dive kick right through Hell Sparks, and it did not even seem that hard to time!

But I digress. I was supposed to be talking about Shinnok's positive aspects, right? Let's keep moving. Shinnok's damage buff after Mimicry is a powerful effect, and the throw / kombo vortex after Mimicry is strong. A similar, but slightly more risky, vortex exists after the Deity kombo. At the end of the day, Shinnok has good tools, but not great tools. The best characters in the game currently get in your face and mix you up far more effectively than Shinnok.

I play Shinnok despite his flaws because I really enjoy his slower pace. When I play fighting games I love slow and steady with bursts of action, and I do what I can to control the pace of the match and frustrate my opponent. Oh, and having a 7 frame low starter for punishing, also known as the Shin Kick, is a great thing. I can punish things that my opponent may consider to be safe, and I greatly enjoy that. So you see, Shinnok is not all bad. In fact, he has a lot of things going for him! He takes more work than average, but I like that. After seeing him on the NetherRealm Studios Kombat Kast, I knew I wanted to try him out. I have been slightly disappointed by him, but overall I am very happy to be sticking with Shinnok. By the time the next characters I am interested in get released, I will probably be well on my way to completing my Shinnok video guide.

This is my current research / training template:

• Safe Strings
• Mixup Strings
• Safe Pokes
• Hit-Confirmable Pokes / Strings
• General Playstyle
• Combos
  • Midscreen
    • 1-3 meter max damage
    • Resets
    • Punishes
    • J.1 conversions
    • NJP (neutral jump punch) conversions
  • Corner
    • 1-3 meter max damage
    • Resets
    • Punishes
    • J.1 conversions
    • NJP conversions
• Matchups
  • Per Character Tips & Tricks
• Interactable Strategies
  • Per Stage

My training template helps me organize my thoughts and create the gameplan for my character. At this time, I am happy with my Boneshaper research all the way until Matchups and Interactable Strategies. Of course there is still room to expand on previous research. For Impostor, I am only up to General Playstyle, with Combos coming next. The Combo section for Impostor is going to be insane, because I will not only have to do combos for the regular moveset, but also combos and setups for every character in the game thanks to Mimicry's move stealing effect. The thought of all that work is both exciting and terrifying!

One thing that has become super important to me while playing Shinnok is whiff punishing. He has great whiff punishing kombos such as Deity and Divine Power (Impostor and Necromancer only). I have had to learn on the fly while playing against human opponents, and I have found myself performing better than expected. I started playing fighting games competitively in 2009, and it seems like my maturity as a player is continuing. That reinforces my belief in myself. I may not be EVO champion material (yet!), but I am proud of my process of continual growth.

I firmly believe that choosing the correct variation will, in the future, become the key to victory with Shinnok. This is due to the fact that Impostor and Necromancer do not seem like variations that would be beneficial in all matchups. Impostor is good against a great deal of the cast, due to Mimicry, but it does not have the same level of safety and footsies as Boneshaper. Boneshaper has a meter building problem that I hope to overcome, and it has good, but not great, damage output. Necromancer seems like the answer to zoning characters that Impostor's Air Tricky Portal and Boneshaper's Scepter Slam are incapable of punishing properly.

I look forward to more time with Shinnok, and I hope you look forward to more of The Bonesickle Chronicles! I will include match videos in the future, with commentary, and down the road my Shinnok video guide will be released!

I would also love to hear your training tales! If you have something interesting to say about your fighting game journey, please email me at: powerupfighters"at"gmail"dot"com

If I like your article enough, you may be offered a PowerUp Freelance contract, so that you can earn a little extra cash for your writing! You can learn more about PowerUp Freelance at this link: http://www.powerupfighters.org/p/powerup-freelance-get-paid-for-your-fgc.html

Good luck on your personal journey to power up!

#Bonesickle

Link to main article: http://www.powerupfighters.org/2015/05/the-bonesickle-chronicles-part-1.html

 

[Helter Skelter]

So after listening and reading some of your thoughts on what would be a good improvement to the character without going overboard I think we all mostly agree that:

-That Hell Sparks would be a lot more useful if the third hit was safer on block (maybe -8).

-2,2 could benefit the character by becoming overhead.

-Krushing Shoulder becoming a launcher) especially considering that if you hit this move raw in the corner, you won't get much more than around 26% without using an additional meter.

I don't think we should view any potential fixes to Necromancer's tracking or hitboxes as buffs because it's obviously broken and surely can't be working as intended.

So that's three things, really.

---

However, I think I've got an idea of how to make a useless move more viable and at the same time help Shinnok immensely.

If Hell Blast, the one meter version of Hell Sparks worked like Shang Tsung's Ground Eruption it would first and most importantly give Hell Blast an actually use.

I'm sure most people don't currently use Hell Blasts, because while it's an amazing 7f anti-air and does decent damage. It cost one bar which could be better spent meter burning the normal version for more options including damage, screen control and hard knockdowns.

If Shinnok could spend a bar to have something similar to Shang's Ground Eruption. He would be able to possibly combo off normal Hell Sparks if all three projectiles hit and pull them in for more damage. It would kinda complete his zoning game as he could effectively push people into the range of the normal Hell Sparks.

Thirdly this ties in with damage and rewards off landing a hit. Right now, one of the dilemmas Shinnok faces is that while he does terrible meterless damage already this damage can still be broken which makes his meter management considerably harder than the majority of the cast. A change like this could potentially alleviate this.

Bare in mind I think an improved Hell Blasts should do the damage of the regular Hell Sparks.

Anyway, that's me. Regardless, of some of you being for or against an idea like this. Let's discuss it and talk about it in depth.

Thanks.

 

[Osirun]

Nice post! Those are powerful changes, and I feel the only ones that might make Shinnok too powerful are Hell Sparks being safe or barely punishable, and Charging Shoulder being a launcher. I assume you mean that Charging Shoulder would then lead to damage on its own mid screen?

Hell Sparks being mostly safe would be ripe for block string abuse. They would have to nerf the amount of meter it builds on block in order to keep it from being too strong. Now, making Hell Blast safe on block would be great! Or, another change I saw mentioned, allowing us to burn a meter during a blocked Hell Blast to cause the explosion and give us either safety or plus frames, even though it would not be a combo. Using a meter to make a special move safe is good in my opinion, and it would make the Hell Sparks / Blast similar to his enhanced Amulet Strike in Impostor variation.

Charging Shoulder on its own giving a combo seems too strong, given that it can be timed as an escape, and sometimes as an anti-air. I think that may give Shinnok, strangely enough, too many good options off of a raw shoulder. However, I would love to see a change to enhanced Charging Shoulder that would give us a combo mid screen, since we can already get damage from it in the corner. Currently it pushes too far away mid screen, and I am always one for using meter if it makes a special move safe or gives it other properties besides armor. Perhaps enhanced shoulder charge could be meter burned again to explode earlier, thus giving us that combo in mid screen. Similar to the way Scorpion can enhance his spear to get that burn.

In Impostor and Boneshaper, the reset potential we have from Mimicry and the Deity string, respectively, is very powerful. To give Shinnok more options to get those resets off of his special moves may make him too strong. I would like to see the Deity string be neutral on block and possibly plus 1 on hit. This would help us maintain pressure and fish for frame traps with Shin Kick while still following Shinnok's general gameplan of resets.

That said, I love the idea of Nexus (2,2) being overhead on the first hit, and yes, of course, Necromancer needs another look from the devs. If only to make the special moves work as intended.

@Helter Skelter

 

[regulas]

In gen most of what he needs are bugfixes for the random misses.

Only changes I would see are:

1: for Bone/Mim to have a safe on block special option can be anything like charge only has to be just safe like -6.

2: For Necro's other two hands to be made useful. The unblockable is just a touch too slow (and not by much) but its a bit to easy to avoid even after a knockdown, and the ground hand has no particular usage at all. The EX version is a bit easier to combo off of but it wouldn't change anything mechanically to remove the move entirely as you can use sparks more reliably despite being a touch harder to follow through with.

 

[D_Matt_Ma]

Fixing bad hitboxes would probably be asking for too much, haha. Best way to fix the shoulder whiff is to speed up the animation as a whole, thus making it safe(r).

Like I said, just make the Necro hand faster to by 4-6 frames, and now you have a reason to use it over the flick. I which I could tell you how to fix the flick hitbox, but again, asking for too much.

I don't think anything short of stupid buffs can save this character. I doubt they're redesigning hitboxes and adding moves, so anything short of uber buffs won't cut it. Sadly...

 

[Phantasmagore]

Screw it. I'm going to use Shinnok. He was one of the main reasons I anticipated this game, since the final cutscene of MK9. He won't be a main but he'll be a perennial secondary I use when I simply want to have fun and not play to win, however if both can be accomplished that would be great.
What tips or advice do you have for him? Other than not playing him because I'm tired of that shit.

 

[Osirun]

Tips for playing Shinnok:

• Do not bother with Necromancer at the start.
• Whiff punishment is your best friend. Learn it well.
• Wrap your mind around resets where the mixup is only: throw or don't throw. This is Shinnok's main mixup tool, and you must use it well.
• Learn to hit confirm the 2,2 string into Hell Sparks. It is easier if you do the cancel motion late, and then react with the button press on hit.
• Get used to confirming off of neutral jump punches and jump forward 1.
• You almost always want to end in a Deity (f.2,2,1+3) reset while playing Boneshaper, or a Mimicry reset while playing Impostor.
• Do not spam or cancel into his special moves. The only safe ones (I'm fairly certain) are EX Amulet Strike in Impostor and the Devil's Flick in Necromancer. You may get lucky with people not properly punishing Hell Sparks, but sometimes not all 3 hits will land on block.
• Speaking of that, do not cancel into Hell Sparks at point blank after a crossover punch. The third hit will whiff on block, leaving you open for an easy punish.
• Unless you want to spend a lot of time learning proper Impostor setups, combos, and punishes with the Mimicry move steal, you might want to start playing the Boneshaper variation. That's how I did it, but to each their own.

There's more to him, but those are some good general tips to get you started!

@Phantasmagore

 

[Phantasmagore]

Tips for playing Shinnok:

• Do not bother with Necromancer at the start.
• Whiff punishment is your best friend. Learn it well.
• Wrap your mind around resets where the mixup is only: throw or don't throw. This is Shinnok's main mixup tool, and you must use it well.
• Learn to hit confirm the 2,2 string into Hell Sparks. It is easier if you do the cancel motion late, and then react with the button press on hit.
• Get used to confirming off of neutral jump punches and jump forward 1.
• You almost always want to end in a Deity (f.2,2,1+3) reset while playing Boneshaper, or a Mimicry reset while playing Impostor.
• Do not spam or cancel into his special moves. The only safe ones (I'm fairly certain) are EX Amulet Strike in Impostor and the Devil's Flick in Necromancer. You may get lucky with people not properly punishing Hell Sparks, but sometimes not all 3 hits will land on block.
• Speaking of that, do not cancel into Hell Sparks at point blank after a crossover punch. The third hit will whiff on block, leaving you open for an easy punish.
• Unless you want to spend a lot of time learning proper Impostor setups, combos, and punishes with the Mimicry move steal, you might want to start playing the Boneshaper variation. That's how I did it, but to each their own.

There's more to him, but those are some good general tips to get you started!

@Phantasmagore

Thanks for the elaborate tips! Unfortunately, I'm new to fighting games so I don't understand the jargon associated with it. Could you summarize it in a layman manner? Or just define what whiff punishment and hit confirm are with examples.

 

[regulas]

Thanks for the elaborate tips! Unfortunately, I'm new to fighting games so I don't understand the jargon associated with it. Could you summarize it in a layman manner? Or just define what whiff punishment and hit confirm are with examples.

Whiff= Complete miss. An attack that punches air, generally leaving them exposed for a brief period while they recover from the animation. Therefore to Punish a whiff is to attack them while they are missing.

Hit Confirm = Inputing a special cancel only after confirming your first hit was not blocked. SO instead of just inputting F2,2,DB2, you would input F2,2, and only input DB2 if you see the first punch hits and isn't blocked. Theres enough time on some strings that inputting the special late like that will still be accepted. Hell Sparks is not safe if they block the move (yoou won't be able to block for a short bit after they block it) but gives you a combo if they don't, and this allows you to use it only when they are hit.

 

[Osirun]

Thx @regulas

 

[Kinetic Balding1]

I just figured this out a couple days ago. Shinnok's bf1 absorbs all mid projectiles while the Ex version absorbs all projectiles, even low ones.

 

[Kinetic Balding1]

I think in necromancer, his db1 should only be used after a Ex bone flick and up close after 1123 and df4. Someone who knows the mu will react to a raw db1 fullscreen but if done with those knockdowns, it can be really effective.

 

[BigMilk]

So how does bf1 work? I was messing around w shinnok and I think I nullified a projectile. Is that practical for shinnok to use this vs zoning?

 

[Ninequads93]

So how does bf1 work? I was messing around w shinnok and I think I nullified a projectile. Is that practical for shinnok to use this vs zoning?

If you're talking about amulet

It is a big risk you have to be on point with the timing and reads against projectiles doesn't grant you much of anything , you can also use it for mind games and to build meter in some matchups , sometimes opp sit there waiting for a teleport this is when you can use it full screen as it's farely good on whiff to bait something

I also use it to stop runs and in footsies but be very careful is the hitbox is not so good

It is a little safer than trance don't know the numbers by head but cancel blockstrings into amulet is safer if you use to end in a special

P.s I think it would be sick if they buffed it to reflect projectiles, if they don't do all that I'd like better hitbox on it and frames tweaked a bit. Also needs to give you at least some meter if you catch a projectile

 

[Helter Skelter]

So I was saying I think Krushing Shoulder should be a launcher and I still kinda think it should be but with this find he definitely doesn't need it and most importantly gives this move interesting properties.

You can combo off Krushing Shoulder in Necromancer and Bone Shaper by doing Summoned Fiend or Scepter Slam. It's only 19% without using an extra bar but it's still good.

 

[Ninequads93]

Shinnok fixes I'd like -amulet hitbox slightly improved for better anti-airing, startup increased by 2 frames, gain 3.75 bar when absorb projectile, hit advantage improved by 3 frames,

Shoulder - mb hit does not whiff at any situations startup increased by 1 frame

F2(2)mid

3(1)2 mid

1123 -1

Standing 4 mid