Editing Shulk (SSBU)

Shulk also boasts a very strong aerial game as his powerful aerials have a great combination of large hitbox size, long hitbox duration, and low landing lag, which plays a key role in his approach and spacing games. Both his neutral and forward aerials possess wide-arced ranges with low landing lag, making them Shulk's best approach options. The former is useful for anything from starting combos to covering landing options thanks to its long-lasting hitbox and low landing lag, while the latter's wide range and dependable speed make it a very good [[edge-guarding]] and spacing option. His back aerial is a capable KOing option due to it being Shulk's most powerful aerial, with its high horizontal range also allowing it to space or poke from a distance. Lastly, his up and down aerials are, like his back aerial, thrusts instead of slashes. As such, they have minimal horizontal ranges, but can KO surprisingly early should they hit, with the former being potent near the upper blast line, whereas the latter is capable of [[meteor smash]]ing.

Much like in his home game, {{uv|Xenoblade Chronicles}}, Shulk is a character who revolves around adapting to different situations with his attribute-enhancing [[Monado Arts]]. Each Art tweaks his attributes considerably for a certain amount of time (10 seconds for Buster, 8 seconds for Speed and Smash, and 6 seconds for Jump and Shield) and can be manually canceled at any time, even immediately after hitstun ends or during landing lag. With this freedom, Shulk can activate an Art to open up options for virtually any situation while still being able to switch or cancel them if he is in a challenging position. Jump grants him significant aerial mobility by making his jumps the highest in the game while improving both his air speed and Air Slash's height. This grants him an incredible [[recovery]], allowing him to recover from almost anywhere off-stage, edge-guard more aggressively, and even perform several KO combos, such as a [[wall of pain]] leading to a [[sacrificial KO|sacrificial]] Air Slash at medium percentages.

Shield bolsters Shulk's defensive game by reducing both damage and knockback received, which allows him to survive for a much longer period of time and resist getting trapped in combos. His shield also becomes much more durable, making it harder to break with shield-breaking attacks such as [[Bowser Bomb]]. Buster reduces his overall knockback but increases his overall damage output, allowing him to rack up damage extremely quickly. Buster also makes up and down throws effective and damaging combo starters at 0%, while the increased damage and shieldstun make Shulk's moves both safer on shield and capable of pressuring shields. Lastly, Smash boosts his entire moveset's knockback, making almost all of Shulk's attacks into viable KOing options (especially with [[rage]]), and his down throw becomes the strongest in the game while it is active. Despite his fastest aerial coming out on frame 13 and starting behind him, Shulk has a particular strength in combo breaking. The Shield Art is among the best combo breakers in the game, since it makes him fall out of all combos. He can also switch to the Smash Art at low percentages as another way to escape combos, thanks to it noticeably heightening the knockback he receives.

Thanks to the Monado Arts, Shulk is highly adaptive and usually has an easier time mixing up his playstyle compared to other characters, so long as his Arts are used effectively and in tandem with his powerful air game. Such an example would be constantly switching from Jump and Shield to stall a losing match, or activating different arts while being juggled to affect Shulk's falling speed, and hence mess up an opponent's combo. It also allows him to use [[rage]] effectively, especially when combined with Shield to survive and accumulate rage, or with Smash for a risky, yet powerful boost in knockback.

Due to the technical aspects of activating Monado Arts, Shulk also has access to multiple unique [[advanced technique]]s, the most notable of which is known as {{h2|Monado Arts|Monado Art landing lag cancel}}ing. By jumping and timing the activation of an Art just before landing, Shulk can reduce the landing lag of his aerials to 5 frames while gaining [[intangibility]] for 14 frames (1 frame less than the length granted by his [[sidestep]]). While difficult to perform, it allows Shulk to avoid punishment before immediately responding with a punishment of his own, or start [[shield break combo]]s, such as an Art canceled back aerial to forward smash. It can even let him retreat by pivoting in midair, or extend the invincibility of [[air dodging]] via an aerial Art activation. This technique is the only viable way to make some of Shulk's moves (such as back aerial) safe on shield against faster characters.

Several other techniques include the Monado Purge, a 50/50 KO set-up consisting of an up throw to up aerial at high percentages, and {{h2|Monado Arts|Monado Art ledge snap}}, which bypasses edge get-up animations while protecting the user with brief intangibility. When mastered, Shulk's Monado Art techniques can be a very effective and unpredictable mix-up option that is inaccessible to any other character.

Excluding his Arts, Shulk's special moveset shares his overall high range, and all have their own forms of utility. [[Back Slash]] is very powerful when striking the opponent's back and has long range regardless, making it a great surprise attack as well as a decent spacing tool. [[Air Slash]] grants a good amount of vertical distance, comes out quickly, and has strong knockback growth, making it a good recovery move and an even better [[out of shield]] option. The distance and knockback of Air Slash can additionally be affected by the Jump and Smash Arts, respectively, allowing the move to gain even more vertical distance, or be used as a combo finisher in the air or a KO option out of shield. Lastly, [[Vision]] is tied with [[Double Team]] for having the longest-lasting [[counterattack]] window in the game when fresh, while also having the longest range, both of which give Shulk one of the most effective counters of any character. Its alternate counterattack, which is performed when Shulk inputs the direction from which the triggered attack came, also rivals [[Counter Surge]] as the strongest counterattack in the game.

However, Shulk has some exploitable weaknesses. Despite being [[buff]]ed in ''Ultimate'', his moveset is still mostly sluggish. Aside from his neutral attack, standing grab, and Vision, all his other attacks do not hit before frame 10, and the majority of his moveset has more than 25 frames of ending lag. Like the aforementioned heavyweights, this means he has to rely on careful reads to land a hit, as a missed attack can easily be capitalized upon. This is made worse by the low shieldstun of his attacks (unless Buster is active), making his attacks inherently unsafe up close and on shield, while still unsafe if spaced against faster characters prevalent in the metagame. Additionally, despite his excellent range, most of Shulk's moves deal more damage with the Monado's blade rather than its beam blade, while several of his strongest combos (such as a landing neutral aerial to a grab or a forward aerial wall of pain) rely on him being extremely close to his opponent/affected by rage to be inescapable, due to his beam blade's lower hitstun. As a result, Shulk is required to take risks before he can start performing any significant combos.

His sluggish frame data also extends to his aerials. Shulk is the only character who cannot [[auto-cancel]] any of his aerials before their entire duration is over, forcing him to endure landing lag every time he starts an aerial attack, even from a double jump (except forward aerial). While Monado Art landing lag canceling can negate this, it is considerably more complicated to perform compared to auto-canceling, making it very difficult and unwieldy to perform consistently. Essentially, this makes every attack very committal, and makes it important for Shulk to space his attacks carefully, as he can easily be punished for missing. Additionally, moves such as back aerial or up aerial are unsafe to use upon landing; unlike many other characters' aerials, their hitboxes only appear after a pause, making it possible to land before an attack even comes out, while causing Shulk to suffer from landing lag.

His lack of a [[projectile]] and anti-projectile options also makes it difficult to pressure his opponent from a distance, while making it hard for him to approach against projectile users as well. Even pressure on the ground can be hard to escape from, as Shulk has the fifth lowest [[traction]] in the game. This gives him a poor out-of-shield game without Air Slash, which is punishable when missed. Shulk's special attacks are also flawed in some ways. Back Slash's knockback is exceptionally weak if hitting the opponent's front, being unsafe on hit at low percentages, has considerable ending lag, and is notorious for its inability to [[edge sweetspot]]. Air Slash provides very minimal horizontal momentum and does not sweetspot edges immediately unless the second slash is input right beside an edge, thus making his recovery predictable, even with Jump. Lastly, Vision's counter window decays upon consecutive use, which discourages frequent usage.

The Monado Arts also have debuffs to compensate for their buffs: if an Art is active, it causes some of its other attributes to drop, weakening some of its abilities. A careful opponent can potentially take advantage of them to gain the upper hand, making his Arts a double-edged sword due to his reliance on them to approach and/or perform combos. Jump makes him take very serious damage, and when combined with his slow moveset, makes it even riskier to whiff a move. Speed lowers his damage output, requiring him to deal more hits for the same amount of damage, and reduces his jump force to the point of hindering his vertical mobility.

Shield drastically reduces his mobility and damage output to the point of making his recovery and offensive potential among the worst in the game. When coupled with his worsened mobility, Shield's increased knockback defense also leaves Shulk heavily susceptible to combos and juggling. Buster increases his vulnerability to damage to the same degree as Jump, while its lower knockback drastically lowers Shulk's KO potential to the point that his smash attacks will not KO until past 150%. Finally, Smash drastically increases the knockback taken, hinders his combo game, and makes his attacks the least damaging in the game.

Even having no Arts active is disadvantageous, as Shulk's balanced attributes do not allow him to easily approach or catch up with opponents. Having no Arts active also hinders him offensively: very few of Shulk's moves possess combo potential past low percentages, and all his smash attacks are punishable because of their high ending lag. This forces Shulk to be reliant on edge-guarding and spacing while waiting for an Art to refresh, and requires him to capitalize on the duration of a needed Art to the fullest to perform certain techniques (such as combo strings or approaching), compared to other characters who may have the ability to do so at any time.

Overall, Shulk's optimal playstyle consists of warding off pressure and having extensive knowledge of his opponent. His range, unique toolkit, and versatile tech grant him powerful abilities when mastered, with some being inaccessible to any other character in the roster; however, players must have reliable spacing skills as whiffing one of his moves can leave him wide open and vulnerable to heavy damage. While his weaknesses are exploitable when fighting head-on, his adaptability allows him to excel when played patiently and while exploiting openings. Regardless, Shulk has an extremely high learning curve because of a combination of sluggish attacks and very demanding techniques, as extensive knowledge of Monado Arts, proper spacing, reads, and patient play are each required for him to thrive.