It seems pretty hard to find any good threads that talk about shuma’s capabilities, so for people trying to learn the character it can be rather challenging.
I have had my go around with shuma for a while now. I’m not an amazing player, but we need more shuma players representing out there.
Mobility:
Shuma may be considered one of the least mobile characters in the game. His ground dash is nothing amazing, his air dash is hardly useful in any condition, but that doesn’t stop him from closing in.
Air Mystic Smash is probably one of Shuma’s best attacks. The light one drops nearly straight down, the heavy arcs up leaving you in the air for a while, and the medium crosses the entire screen. I will cover more about this move in a minute
Attacks:
Shuma is said to be very bad in priority, but using some of his attacks in the right situations can help.
standing light is a generic poke and hardly has any use unless you have some tricky reset
crouching light is a great poke that can be spammed multiple times to confirm a combo
standing medium is not recommended to be used outside of combos. It works as a great hitconfirm for airborn opponents that are already being juggled.
crouching medium is the attack you will be going to the most with it’s great range and ability to hitconfirm
Standing H causes a lot of damage scaling, but it is a great extended hitconfirm if you are unsure about your previous hit
crouching H is an essential part of most combos working as a great way to extend it with a jump loop or two
forward h has no place outside of a combo, it can be used to pull your opponent in just enough to land an S though (at least most of the time).
air light is useless, don’t even bother
air medium is great, it covers a lot of range and is your most recommended normal
air h has a load of hitstun making it pretty useful in the middle of a combo
up air h is pretty useless unless in a combo. It does put a grounded opponent in the air though
air S is reminiscent of kirby’s down b in ssb. Except this one now puts your opponent in a hard knockdown allowing for some great extensions. You generally want to delay this move after an H in a magic series
Specials:
As I said earlier, mystic smash is the best move to close in on an opponent. It hits overhead, has the ability to get an ambiguous cross up, and you can combo after it. The only problem is that there is no invincibility on this move, meaning you have to be cautious against throwing this out at any point. You can also be thrown out of it so watch out for that.
Mystic Ray hits OTG allowing for you to extend a combo if used early enough. The heavy version covers the entire screen in front of shuma, nullifying some low priority projectiles and keeping your opponents on their toes. However the charge factor may make some wary of using this move
Mystic stare is an essential combo extender for shuma. The heavier versions may cover more distance, but they’re pretty useless as you want to stick to the light version in the middle of a combo. Once the eyeballs explode, they guarantee an OTGable soft knockdown. this can be used in at least three maybe four fashions for combo extension. It may be a little tricky but most of shuma’s high damage combos involve using this move at some point.
devitalization is one of the most forgotten specials in the game. It can absorb fireballs, and can surprise your opponent by grabbing them for a full combo. Don’t try using this as a central strategy though.
Supers:
Hyper mystic smash is not that amazing of a super due to the random angle it fires the shuma balls at, but it can be used as a good extension as a DHC (like say a midscreen captain america charging star). It hits otg and can be mashed. It also does some of the most chip damage for a super, if used at full screen it can be pretty safe, but don’t just chuck it out.
Hyper mystic ray is the best super for shuma in the corner. It hits off the ground and can easily dhc into other supers that hit at any angle. It also works as a good dhc from supers that leave the opponent grounded (like say taskmaster’s downward arrow super). It also ends in a hard knockdown for the opponent
Chaos dimension is somewhat reminiscent of x-23’s dirtnap. It puts shuma in a state and gives him an unblockable 350k damage super. This can work extremely well on an incoming opponent due to how difficult it can be to dodge.Add in xfactor for more unscaled damage. The ground version can be mashed for extra damage so if it is being comboed into it’s prefered to pull it off on the ground if possible. Another interesting property about it is that it can cancel shuma’s specials. Say you’re already in chaos dimension form, get a hard knockdown on the opponent, then mystic ray quickly canceled into H.
Gameplan:
If you can’t already tell, your goal is to get close ranged and apply pressure to your opponent.
Assist:
Mystic ray is the only assist you should be looking to use with shuma since it covers the whole front screen.
Making a team:
There are a few things you want in team mates for shuma:
- An ability to combo off of mystic ray
- good zoning that is improved my mystic ray
- Characters with assists that cover shuma’s approach
- supers that can be comboed into from a midscreen mystic ray or can at least fully connect off of a corner mystic ray.
- Characters that can extend shuma combos or have him extend theirs
The character I think truly works best with shuma is taskmaster. Adding a mystic ray behind him improves his keepaway, makes his approach safe (no need to cancel into stinger anymore), starts his combos (shield skills after), continues them (magic series, ground opponent, land, call assist, air H arrows, assist hits, shield skills, and so forth), finishes his combos (arrow super into one of shuma’s supers will connect a lot of the time, and can be comboed into from shuma (hyper mystic ray DHCd into forward arrow super.
Many other characters work well with shuma behind/in front of them. Wolverine for example can use it for a cross up hit confirm. Deadpool is another character that gets a limited but great use out of shuma. He can throw out guns and mystic ray for extremely annoying keepaway. His gun super can follow shuma’s supers. Also, his katama rama assist is EXTREMELY useful for making a beginner’s combo extremely deadly (Katama rama into mystic stare).
There are many more combinations out there, but that’s something for you to discover
How can I use mystic stare effectively?
Mystic stare can be hard to pull out in the middle of a combo due to it’s charge nature, but if used early in a combo with a crouching h, it will hit and guarantee a combo extension. Now that you have the balls on what do you do? A few approaches work really well. - go into a magic series in the air. Once your opponent hits the ground, they will be blown up by the eyes quick enough to OTG and continue the combo from there.
- Get a ton of hits on them in the air, end with an air mystic smash after a sj’d mmh. This will cause a soft knockdown which can be useful for certain combos.
- The real tech, after getting a juggled mystic stare, delay a launcher by a pinch, then once in the air, do an h, pinch delayed S. Start charging a mystic ray m. Once you do it, start charging back. It will raisethe opponent into the air, eyes blow up. right away do another mystic stare L and go into hyper mystic ray. Now once the super is finished it will blow them up with just enough time for you to quickly jump up and land an air S. And boom, go into hyper mystic ray again.
These take a lot of effort, but it becomes easier the more time you practice it in the lab. If you’re having real problems, try using deadpool’s katama rama to link into mystic stare.
Combos
It will always seem like shuma doesn’t have any combos at first glance, but he has some of the most creative combos in the game.
I recommend watching these videos to get a general idea of what mr. gorath can do
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and this one shows you just what shuma can do with the right extensions
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Hope this helped for any shuma newbies, I may update this down the line if I see something I forgot or feel I must add
"this is your friend shuma gorath SIGNING OFF!"