Shiki Tohno (MBAC)

From SuperCombo Wiki

Shiki.gif

Character Bio

Shiki is the 'scrub' character of choice, and a little time with him will quickly show you why. He does everything adequately. His damage output is above average in all situtations, he has quite a bit of health, and has reversal and punishment supers that can quickly decide a round. The only problem is every character in the game has an infinite against him, due to his hugeass and glitchy hitbox.

Shiki is considered to be top tier.

Flat Life 13146 Air Chains Yes
Air Influence Yes Dash Type Dash
Double Superjump Yes Heat Burst Wallslam

Normal Attacks

Motion Y. Damage R. Damage Meter Gained Startup Proration Blocked Shielded
5A 360 120 4% 5 70% Ground Any
2A 300 100 3.5% 4 68% Ground Any
j.A 300 100 3% 5 78% Any Any
5BB 700
1000
400
700
7%
10%
8
21
90%
63%
Ground
Ground
High
High
5B[B] 700
1700
400
1200
7%
13%
8
36
78% Ground
Ground
High
High
2B 600+500 400+350 6+6% 8,14 85% Low Low
j.B 500 300 6% 6 79% Upper High
5C 1500 800 15% 9 80% Ground High
5[C] 2200 2000 18% 33 50% Unblockable High
2C 1100 650 12% 7 55% Low Low
j.C 1000 600 13% 8 90% Upper High
j.[C] 1600 1200 13% 22 60% Upper High
214D 1700 700 10% 36 100% Ground High

(raw data)

  • Shiki's [5C] is only unblockable on the first frame of impact. If he has to move for it to make contact with a character, they will be able to block it.

Ground throw: 1461/781 (really is 500+1000/500+300, but the game counts it as two hits so damage scaling kicks in one the second part). No special properties.

Air throw: 1200/600. Knocks them back about one character width (from normal jump peak), but he dashes back once he hits the ground.

Heat burst: Wallslams. 100/0 damage.

Special Attacks

Motion Y. Damage R. Damage Meter Gained Startup Proration Blocked Shielded
Dash Cut (Trump card No.1)
236A 1400 1000 13% 14 100% Ground High
236B 600*3 300*3 6%*3 20 100% Ground High
236C 2000+1200 1600+1000 -100% 15, 36 100% Ground High
Slide (Trump card No.2)
214A 1000 800 8% 8 100% Low Low
214B 1000 800 8% 18 100% Low Low
214C 1000+1000 800+700 -100% 8, 36 100%, 70% Low, Ground Low, High
Uppercut Kick (A kick that even I can't understand)
623A 800+800 600+500 10% 5 100% Ground High
623B 1000+1000 800+700 12% 8 100% Ground High
623C 1600+1000 1100+1000 -100% 7 100% Ground High
Death Eyes (The Eyes of Death Beholder) [Requires Heat or Max Mode]
41236C 3200 3100 -300% 59 100% Any Unshieldable
Death Eyes (17 Dissection) [Requires Blood Heat Mode]
41236C 500*17 400*17 -300% 31 100% Unblockable Unshieldable
? (The Eyes of Death Beholder: Fatal Draw) [Requires Blood Heat Mode]
D (grd) 1800 10000 -300% 18 100% Unblockable Unshieldable

(raw data)

  • 236C is effectively worth 3.67*4 magic circut.
  • 214C is effectively worth 3.67*2 magic circut.
  • 623C is effectively worth 3.67*2 magic circut.
  • 623C is effectively worth 3.67 magic circut.
  • The second hit of 214C only comes out if the first part hits or is blocked.
  • The second hit of any 623 only comes out if the first part hits.

Techniques, Strings, and Combos

<@Sp00ky> god, fuck this character. he has so much dumb shit.
<@Sp00ky> shiki = ken.
<@Sp00ky> 2A = ken crouch strong
<@Sp00ky> 214C = shippu :P

Combos

Standard Shiki BnB of Doom: 2A 5C 2C 5BB 5A (whiffs), j.CB dj.BC air throw. Does ~4100 damage in normal situtations, ~4700 in punishment situtations (where you start with the 5C instead of 2A). If you do this off of an IAD j.C, ~5300 damage. If you can do IAD j.C into dash 2B5C (fairly difficult), the damage goes all the way up to ~5700.

For this combo to work properly, 5BB must be delayed after 2C so that it hits them fairly late. Futhermore, to get the j.B to connect after the j.C, the j.C must be done as late as possible (but the window is fairly small -- hesitate for more than a split-second and your opponent will recover). The j.B is not required, (making the end j.C dj.BC air throw), but you lose about 500 damage.

Easy-money Shiki BnB: 2AC5C j.BC dj.BC airthrow. Standard combo for standard damage leading into a stnadard knockdown (~3100).

You have two followups after a successful 214C in the corner. The first one is 5B (right after the knife hits) j.BC dj.BC air throw for ~4700 damage. Do not even try to time any of the hits, just do things as fast as possible. The only thing that needs any finesse is the double jump, which requires you to tap the direction (not hold) so that Shiki gets high enough to land the air throw at the end. The alternative corner combo is j.C land j.CB dj.BC airthrow for ~5000 damage. The inital j.C must be done as late as possible so that you land quickly enough to re-jump. Landing j.C j.BC is slightly easier to do, at the cost of slightly less damage. You can also do the combo with an initial j.B, but you lose ~500 damage off of the combo.

In the rare instance you land his Last Arc, follow it up with this combo: 5C 5B j.BC dj.BC airthrow, which does ~6000 damage (plus wiping out any recoverable life they had to begin with).

Points of Interest

The Silliness of 236A and 236B

His 236A and B specials are very good. You can do block strings into 236A and the only real risk is if they shield bunker cancel the last hit; otherwise Shiki is at a very minor disadvantage. However, if you hit them on the ground with either move, you can super cancel into 214C for lots of damage. In the odd instance that you catch them jumping out of your blockstrings with a 236 (usually B, due to the delay) you can still hitconfirm into 623C for damage and a fat wakeup situtation. You can also extend the range of these moves by buffering them out of a dash, giving them nearly full-screen range. This is typically done by entering 236A+B~A|B or 2366A|B.

Shield Bunker Cancels

Shield bunker cancelling into 214C is insanely good; one of the best bunker cancels in the game. Easy to do, with huge damage potentinal in the corner. Even if you blow the bunker cancel, you can cancel his actual bunker into 236A and effectively reset the match.

Proper Dash Usage

Both of his dashes (forward and backward) are very very good, covering space in a short amount of time with very little recovery. However, when you combine the two some of the tricks get borderline insane. Due to the way momentum works, his backdash cancelled out of a forwrad dash is shorter and faster than it would be normally. This results in a absurdly sick fakeout on people. You can bait random pokes with it all day, and generally make people afraid of comitting to anything against Shiki. Once this technique gets enough respect from your opponent (and they start trying to chase down your backdashes), you can just not backdash and stick out a 2C to sweep your opponent and ruin them. There are a couple of other estoric options out of his dash, like wakeup backdashing in the corner (risky but beats a lot of crazier attacks, like a lot of meaty Cs), or dash into backdash into airdash B (which can double as an option select into an air throw).

Dealing With Air Attacks (via air A spam)

When people go to the air, one of Shiki's best all-around options is to just superjump forward and start spamming As. This is also good to do if you think they are going to jump. If you are correct, you can hitconfirm into a standard air combo for some damage, and if you whiff completely you can just jump back or air dash late out of the way or another random air normal, lots of things.

Fun With His Unblockable [5C]

5[C] is another normal worth noting. It is unblockable (unless you hit with it at absolute max range, for reasons unknown to man), and fairly fast for an unblockable (at 33 frames). You can get away with it in blockstrings since people are afraid to jump out in general, and you can always let it go early if you think they are going to hit you or jump out. The move effectively gives him a delayable 5C, which has lots of upside on hit and very little downside on block (just be wary of shield bunker cancels if you get predictable).

Abusing His Sweep

His sweep (2C) is retarded. Coming out fairly quickly for a sweep (7 frames) and a low hitbox, allowing it to beat out a lot of random moves. Once you start training people for the sweep in zoning and poking situtations and they start jumping out of the way, you can superjump at them and throw them back to the ground.

Gimmicks and Errata

Fun with 2As

Do a 2A, wait, and then do another 2A. And another. And another. Laugh as you stuff someone's poke.

Or do one, and then air dash into a throw if they jump.

Or do one into a 5C if your opponent likes to low shield spammed 2As.

Or just be like all of the cool kids and do it into a 2C.

Empty j.Cs

If you jump/airdash in and hold the C, you will see the move start up but it will not come out (as you will land before the C comes out if you start it early enough). You can do this to get people expecting a jump-in attack to hesitate enough so that you can throw them. Mainly useful when people turtle up near the end of a match.

Airthrow -> 2A Lockdown

If you airthrow someone into the corner, Shiki can dash up and do 2A and this will beat anything the opponent does on wakeup, short of a wakeup shield or reversal special/super with startup invinciblity. This will stuff any other attack and any jump/dash attempt. However, this does not always work due to variance in Shiki's jump height and exactly how far you were from the corner when the combo started.

Airthrow -> Your Judgement

The silly knockback on his airthrow is better than people would initially think. While it gives people the space to try to do something, but there are a lot of things people think is safe to do from a distance that really are not, due to his movement speed. You have time to see if they will jump, backdash, or various other risks they like to take. Then you can adjust by trying to stuff their jump outs or just throwing their backdash. If they like to turtle up on wakeup thats jsut as good, you can dash/meaty 5C or 2C or 2A or 664AB to try to bait their ex or whatever your typical blockstrings are.

In Case of Super, Dial 41236C

Shiki's Arc Drive is completely invincble, but is fairly slow to hit. However, whenever you see your opponent use an EX move or Arc Drive and you have no idea what to do, buffer his Arc Drive. Once it starts up, he is never ever getting hit out of the move and the only hope your opponent has is that they recover before you hit them -- and even in instances where that happens (or if the opponent is using an invincible move, like Akiha's Arc Drive of Ciel's EX Runpast), you will at least recover before they do.