Yes, this is basically the problem at the end of the day and what we’ve been grappling with recently. As you said, at least Modok’s high execution leads to very damaging 9 cube hyper combos and great high/low mix-ups and set-ups to achieve that. Shuma on the other hand is high execution in a different way - the combos aren’t exceptionally hard to pull off, they’re just hard to pull off consistently, because everything about shuma and his interactions with other characters is wonky. He struggles mightily to do any kind of damage, while much of the rest of the cast can do twice as much damage with no execution whatsoever (hello wolverine).
Nope, I’d say we still don’t have one of those. The BNB I am currently doing is:
blah blah into launcher, j. M, H smash, st. M. st. H (2 hits), S, j. up H, H smash, (chaos dimension) or (st. M, S, air combo of choice with some j. M’s ending with L smash or M smash).
The reason to keep playing shuma is very simple, his assist. You can ake some very dangerous combos with it. I think if your really interested in learning shuma focus on his assist helped BnB’s as they do more damage. I can think of some simply combos with assist to easily insert mystic stares or whatever to do a decent 450-500k pre super. For example in my video above look at the combo that has Dorm assist him with dark void, you can do this same combo with alot of the roster and its pretty simple.
So I’ve put in my last bit of training mode time with my shuma team for a bit, going to focus on a more traditional team for awhile then a hsien-ko team. I have come to a few ideas I plan to use next game session I have, usually play for like 9 hours on the weekend live.
The first one is my new BnB combo, it can be adjusted based on assists and location and can be started with aerials. It works from fruther that middle of screen but not corner to corner, as long as they end in the corner it will work, and honestly the only character I have trouble doing this combo with is Zero. Note I use akuma assist but alot of assists work. You can also simplify this combo or use your own ground loop. You can also end this combo into a lvl 3 instead of reset, I’ve also gotten it to combo into a Heavy+assist into second level one mystic ray super at the end but the timing is dumb. The combo does around 600-640k damage depending on how you start the combo, the reset does about 520k. here is a link to a video of the combo. Its pretty reliable and I can already do it about 80% offline in match.
The second big thing I’ve started working on is approachs and honestly I noticed something. You can basically use his light mystic stare as a shield since shuma can bascially catch up to the eyeballs before they disappear. I worked on doing stuff like normal jump dash forward land into light mystic stare into f. dash, you also can charge backwards for another while dashing forward so you have very little downtime between them. Curious to see how this does to diversify my approach game. Also to get someone out of the corner since shuma can’t mixup as strong as some in corner use c.m into light mystic smash and stuff like that, c.M pulls them out of the corner. If you hate advance gaurd use c.H alot and forward jump cancel it to negate the advance gaurd.
Finally last couple of hints, Hyper mystic smash in most cases lets you get a free hard tag on block or hit. On block you can also DHc into a powerup super and go for a mixup while they are still blocking, ya 50/50 wolvie mixups. The invis frames on hyper mystic smash is also useful since the stage two of the super is invis means that a DHC has shuma come in invulnerable and able to beat out most lvl 3’s and other invulnerable moves like bionic arm etc. Also don’t forget his lvl 3 has invicinility start up so you can use it to reversal obvious aerials or anything like that. Thats all i got for now hope you guys figure something out, especially if you can find a way to use his super fast isntant overhead j.S.
^^^
Great combo video, Snadmonkey. Question…why does it look like I’m viewing it through foggy glasses and through my grandmother’s screen door? :razzy:
…on another note, I did have some success with Shuma last night online. I think the biggest thing in his favor at this point is that a lot of online players don’t see Shuma a lot. It’s like they don’t really know what to anticipate or something. One thing that I enjoy doing (which really annoys opposing players) is team Shuma up with Dorm. Shuma’s standing H has so many active frames that you can easily call in Dorm’s Dark Hole assist. While that is going off, you then air dash above the opponent in hitstun/blockstun for a jumping M cross-up.This process is easy to repeat when the opponent is blocking to keep consistent pressure.
But I’m well aware that you guys already know this. I was just excited to write about something worthwhile with this frustrating character.
I’m still thinking(hoping) that Shuma is so unique he could be very strong without damaging combos or super-precise execution, but nobody’s discovered the correct playstyle yet because it’s counter intuitive or something. There are so many unique things about him, and there have certainly been other situations where characters initially considered weak have risen to top tier…
But it’s probably just me wishing he was good.
Ammy is such a horrible match up for shuma. Her throw range is so freakin huge that it effectively shuts down all of shuma’s modes of attack. Normally you want to try to get an airborne cross up M on an opponent, but ammy can just hold up on the joystick and throw you whenever you get anywhere near her. She can also do this if you come in with a mystic smash, she will just throw you out of it. So therefore you’re always trying to get in with H, which is very difficult to land on a small character like ammy, who can easily run under it and start fucking you up.
Really, I can’t think of any plan of attack on her.
Does anybody else use instant air-dashes into attacks?
I mean, when you do it the same way like Tron’s, it reduces his jump height, and M attack looks like it has the potential to instant overhead certain characters. Couple with the right low-hitting assist, I guess an unblockable setup is possible as well.
For a mid-screen bnb, I use:
cr.L cr.M cr.H, Mystic Stare M, cr.M cr.H, jump cancel, M M H, Mystic Smash M, eyeballs explode, S, superjump, M M H S
For this combo to connect properly though, you have to walk back a bit after the eyeballs explode. Also, you could replace S and onward with Chaos Dimension, if you want more damage.
That’s all I’ve got to say. It’s a shame Shuma’s not getting much love like he should, he’s got an awesome unique playstyle in this game!
i dont think you are annotating that correctly…you are jump cancelling standing H? standing H into mystic stare into standing M? How much damage does it do? You know you’re never going to hit someone with standing L out of the blue right?
Also why are people still ending combos with air S instead of one of the smashes?
Ugh, that’s supposed to be crouching attacks! I’ll change them.
I tend to use S at the end because this combo, like of Shuma’s, covers a lot of distance and I’m in the corner most of the time. Then I can use Hyper Mystic Ray for more damage! Without the hyper, this combo does about 400k, which I thought is good for mid-screen.
I actually have been having the same problem vs Ammy. The airdash H approach backed by as assist is just so dumb. She outthrows Haggar command grabs with her air throw :(. A couple times I actually baited the H by jumping towards her then airdashing backward. A few times I just dashed under it and used Cr.:h:. I’m not sure how effective either would be offline, but they’ve worked a few times for me. Ammy players who use the counter annoy me too.
I’ve actually played one of the best sword ammy’s around and thats not a problem for my shuma and beads don’t seem like trouble so I guess we are talking shield ammy. First off if the ammy is good i approach her on the ground since she can’t projectile shuma after that I’m looking for either advance gaurd bait or to buy time for akuma assist by doing combinations like : c.l, c.m, c.l, c.m, c.m or c.l, c.m, s.h, c.m etc the idea is so stagger attacks around the crouching medium since they need to advance gaurd or be stuck in a shuma’s far greater c.m block stun forever. The key then is whenever you see her jump and she is close to you immediatly do c.H, if they go for a forward heavy to try and either overhead or grab shuma’s attack wins and you can go into S into combo. If they block its no big deal because block stun is to long for her to do much or you can try jump cancelling etc. Once you get ammy scared of trying to shorthop forward heavy she really isn’t that difficult, now if you gotta deal with an assist that forces you into the air I recommend having your own assist lol. Personally akuma assist gives me all that I could ask for in matchups like that.
Btw the combo’s I posted above do more damage bigfool and can work off any starter if its j.m or j.smash etc. Also if you have an assist its pretty easy to insert an assist during a standing heavy and then do a hyper mystic smash super to connect, very nice for killing off an assist if you got a BOGO.
Do you mind giving me some advice/suggestions on my team?
Spiderman(webball),Shuma-Gorath(mystic ray),Wesker(OTG shot)
This is the combo i’ve been using lately.
[media=youtube]Q3xHRdWlSxM[/media]
Thats a really nice combo. That being said my first piece of advice is to change your team order, assuming you are set on that team. Now obviously this order might be best for spiderman on point, but you need to consider when spiderman is dead. Shuma is not the strongest point character meaning if he is not your anchor, you need a decent assist with him. Wesker assist provides 0 assistance to shuma, heck it doesn’t provide shuma combo extender even since shuma can :a2: :u: :s: to extend a combo and doens’t need an otg assist. Yes you can set up a very easy unblockable but shuma’s problem is getting in, if you are close enough to use an air medium shuma has plenty of tools to mixup by himself without a low assist (look at cancelling j.m into heavy or medium mystic smashes for crossups and bait). He really wants an assist to help get in or keep applying pressure which wesker does not help with at all.
Now i think the reason you have this team order is for Dark wesker. That being said shuma is actually pretty decent as a lvl 3 x-factor anchor since he can 1 shot anyone and his air mystic smashes become really good. Now he may not be as strong as wesker, but wesker gains so much from shuma assist. You can actually run decent keep away between gun and mystic ray assist (watch out for random supers). you can also easily setup teleport shenanigans with shuma assist, like not sure on timing but i think :a2: :u: :df: :h: :h: light teleport and the mystic ray will mix up, basica idea is to teleport just as ray comes out. You can also extended wesker combo with mystic ray assist, i think you can even connect otg gun into mystic ray into lvl 3 pretty easily. Also if wesker is on point you can run baits with shuma assist, i’m not sure on these exactly but I think you could do things like call shuma assist and then jaguar dash when they block and try to punish shuma ray assist hits them and you get a free combo etc. Also an extra tid bit is that if you are afraid wesker is about to die and want to save him for later you can go into maximum wesker dhc’d into hyper mystic smash for a pretty safe way to switch them out, while as shuma’s supers take so long to start up its much harder to safely DHC under pressure or even keep away. P.S. thought of another cool setup, just can shuma assist dash up try and command grab, if they jump or anything like that shuma ray will protect you, seems very effective.
I’m not sure what else your looking for.but keep up the spidey work i think he can be top 10 in the long run.
But then if I switch my team up to spidey,wesker,shuma-gorath my 100% combo doesnt work, Instead it does wesker’s Rhino Charge. Nonetheless, Those are some really cool setups you mentioned though.
i really wish they would add some frames of invincibility to mystic smash or something or make it cancellable… it’s really frustrating to have no approach vs certain characters.
So… Umvc3 has been announced. Now they got a demo running at Comic con with those 3 new characters. One thing I notice is that jill/shuma are not on the roster. Now do we think this is a good thing because they are treating them as new characters and might actually improve them? Or do we think this is bad because they are DLC and aren’t going to change anything or put any time into them? Cause looking at strider and others shuma seems to have no chance against them…
Thinking of picking up Shuma for an X-23/Shuma/Taskmaster team. What do you think makes Shuma better with an assist? Is he actually “good” good, or just… better than before good?
just better because you can control the ground/horizontal space with an assist while you are in the air trying to get in. Get them in block stun with beam assist and then go for mystic smash cross up.
I think i’m going to drop shuma in ultimate, just because im tired of dealing with all the dlc crap and stations not having dlc etc. i mean he isnt even in the comic con build.
Nope, I’d say we still don’t have one of those. The BNB I am currently doing is: