Where does Shang place in tiers after the patch?

[LawAbidingCitizen]

I am very curious about what TYM thinks of Shang post 8-7-2019 patch. I'm hearing everything from he is dead, solid mid tier to still top ten.
In case no one realized it yet he received a damage nerf on Ground Skulls. He was getting 34% off s3 combos and now its 28% depending on characters HP.
His F24 starter gets 24% now so about 4-6% dmg nerf on his combos. Fullscreen ground skulls did 23% when ended with a second GS but now it does 16% for a bar.

His chip used to do 3.5% from GS but now it does 3.1% not a big deal but the other damage needs force him to combo 1 or two extra times. So a 3-4 to 4-5 conversion character.
His buttons are the same, he has a 10f low profiling low starter that has mix between B3xxGS and B3D4 and B3U4, an auto Shimmy with disjointed hitbox 11 and it goes into plus frames and gapless ender that launches using GS 112/114. He has good pokes and good midrange with s3, F242/F243 KB and B1D4 KB and built in staggers to both. Very good zoning just not as much damage this nerf definitely hurt his game but what do you think
Top tier?
Mid tier?
Bottom tier?

 

[dribirut]

I think he’s definitely top 10. More then likely top 5-7 possibly top 3

Ant this is coming from a Shang main

 

[EMPRESS_SunFire]

He's still top 10 or JUST outside imo. He still has the same tools, he just gotta hit you more times now which is not hard with him tbh.

 

[kcd117]

His nerfs didn't change the way he plays, but we have to look at 3 things:

His bad matchups: All the characters that he used to struggle against survived the patch, and some are even better than before. Only matchups I'd consider better now than they were pre-patch are Erron and Scorpion. The rest is all worse and he got some new ones.

His even matchups: Before the patch, Shang didn't really have a lot of those. He was a very polarizing character. Now he has a lot of 5-5, and many former 5-5s got promoted to the bad matchup status (Kitana, Frost, Skarlet...) so he took a big hit here.

His good matchups: Before the patch, this was what defined the character as a huge threat. Going up against Baraka, Kabal, Jade was pretty much a walk in the park. He really had a lot of matchups where he fundamentally beat the other character with his tools and how punishing they were. Most of the character here were buffed. Jade, Kotal, Kano and Noob got tools that really help a lot in this matchup and I can't look at these matchups as different than a 5-5 now. Kollector and Dvorah both got a lot of love, but I don't think it is enough to make them not lose to Shang.

Shang, imo, has always been read-based, life lead-based and relied a lot on his ground skulls dmg to win trades and effectively play his game. He only outzones the characters that have a reason to chase him, and in most cases getting hit with a ground skull and losing the life lead was that reason. He doesn't outzone Sonya, Skarlet, Cassie, Cetrion, Geras, Kitana, Liu Kang, Noob, Raiden, Sub-Zero, Frost, Kitana etc if he doesn't have the life lead. If he can't make you come to him he is at a huge disadvantage. Doing dmg was key to make that happen. Realistically, you could only get hit with 4 ground skulls before the match was over. Now that room for mistakes has grown to 7 ground skulls you can play a lot less careful and still give him trouble.

If all of the characters above him were hit as hard as he was in fundamental areas for them like dmg for him I don't think a lot would have changed. Imagine Sonya not being the best zoner in the game anymore, or Geras losing one of his throw loops, Jacqui not having a semi-block-infinite on him, Liu Kang not having 20+ ways mixups out of all his godlike mids or Sub not being able to flip coin you into losers bracket with overheads and lows as effectively. He'd still work just as good as he worked pre-patch, only in a bit more fair way.

That was not the case. All of the pre-patch top 10 characters retained their strongest aspects but Shang's was severely hurt. Add that to the fact that NRS gave 2 shits about the fact that his second variation is probably a bottom 2 character and completely ignored it.

I think he is a low mid tier now and won't be seen in competitive play unless he is used as a counterpick.

 

[M2Dave]

He doesn't outzone Sonya, Skarlet, Cassie, Cetrion, Geras, Kitana, Liu Kang, Noob, Raiden, Sub-Zero, Frost, Kitana etc if he doesn't have the life lead.

When he is the one who has the life lead, or even when the life lead is even, he outzones most of those characters because corpse drop, a mid-hitting projectile with an amplified follow up, does more damage at 9% than the average projectile that does 6%. If he could outzone all of those characters with a life deficit, he would likely present severe imbalances in certain match ups.

If he can't make you come to him he is at a huge disadvantage.

I disagree. As I have mentioned before verbatim, Shang Tsung's strings are superior to characters of similar archetype such as Cetrion and Skarlet. Unlike them, he has access to an exceptional jab string, a 10 frame mid (well, technically low) attack, and a couple of advantageous normal attacks as well as strings.

All of the pre-patch top 10 characters retained their strongest aspects but Shang's was severely hurt.

Erron Black and Scorpion were normalized to a much greater extent because they lost frames on key moves. I am not going to analyze every pre-patch top tier character, but Cassie was also changed much more drastically than Shang Tsung in my opinion. She lost frames on f+4 and more importantly amplified up glow kick can now be flawless blocked and punished with a full combo. This change is more significant than Shang Tsung's reduced damage on ground eruption. Speaking of reduced damage, Sonya does 10%+ less damage in the corner.

I think he is a low mid tier now and won't be seen in competitive play unless he is used as a counterpick.

From what I am hearing, Foxy is still primarily using him with Kung Lao on the side.

 

[kcd117]

When he is the one who has the life lead, or even when the life lead is even, he outzones most of those characters because corpse drop, a mid-hitting projectile with an amplified follow up, does more damage at 9% than the average projectile that does 6%. If he could outzone all of those characters with a life deficit, he would likely present severe imbalances in certain match ups.



I disagree. As I have mentioned before verbatim, Shang Tsung's strings are superior to characters of similar archetype such as Cetrion and Skarlet. Unlike them, he has access to an exceptional jab string, a 10 frame mid (well, technically low) attack, and a couple of advantageous normal attacks as well as strings.



Erron Black and Scorpion were normalized to a much greater extent because they lost frames on key moves. I am not going to analyze every pre-patch top tier character, but Cassie was also changed much more drastically than Shang Tsung in my opinion. She lost frames on f+4 and more importantly amplified up glow kick can now be flawless blocked and punished with a full combo. This change is more significant than Shang Tsung's reduced damage on ground eruption. Speaking of reduced damage, Sonya does 10%+ less damage in the corner.



From what I am hearing, Foxy is still primarily using him with Kung Lao on the side.

1 - I agree he does outzone lots of characters, just not those that I specifically mentioned in my post.

2 - I also agree that he has amazing normals, his jab string is a top 5 auto shimmy string in this game, F2 and B1 are huge normals, B3 is such a powerful mindgame tool and his corpse drop makes his neutral game really good, but chasing people and making a comeback against opponents outlaming you when they have the lead was never his strong side.

3 - I disagree that there were characters that got hit harder in their matchups by the nerf hammer. Stupid-tool-wise, yeah, you can say that Scorpion, Erron and Cassie don't have the same bs they had pre patch. But matchup-wise, I can't think of a character that got hurt as much and gained as little as Shang did with the patch.

4 - I really hope he sticks with him, but things aren't looking too good. I don't Shang is doomed and has no place in the game, I just think that if you are playing to win you can't rely on him as a main and expect good results in his current state. King's words didn't sound very optimistic, Waz is back to Jade... F0xy seems to be the only consistent tournament player left in the Shang train.

 

[RoboCop]

I only play against @Hellbringer Shang, but I play against him a lot. I still believe Shang is top 10, if not higher. The damage nerf to db1 is helpful, but doesn’t fundamentally change what’s so strong about the move: its fucking safety. I believe it’s a contender for best move in the game, especially online where flawless blocks aren’t always reliable.

If your character doesn’t have a way to punish or get around that single move, the matchup almost automatically drops to around a 7/3. D’Vorah and Baraka are two characters I play who I don’t believe have an answer. Even if you flawless the 2nd hit, some characters still cannot punish, and it’s safe enough that you have to respect Shang just throwing out another one, or doing b3 into another one, which seems to beat out most other normals and specials.

If Shang gets the life lead, it can be almost impossible for non-teleporting characters to catch up. Even Sonya, who I believe beats Shang due to her insane zoning, has trouble getting through once a life discrepancy makes a win through zoning impossible.