A Very Helpful (I Hope,) Shang-Chi Guide
Saquongoat
Member Posts: 133 ★★
What's up fellow goatians. 'Tis I, Saquon. And I'd like to help some of y'all learn about Shang-Chi. Whether you are fresh to the game and your first 5/6* is Shangers, or you're a vet who just pulled their first Shang. So sit back, get some popcorn, and get ready to read more here than you did in one lane of 7.4 (I know, right? That's a lot of writing!) All stats are based on a r3 6*.
Critical Hits:
Awakening:
Wushu Strikes:
Disarming strike:
Cleansing strike:
Breaking strike:
Pin-point strike:
Perfect timing:
Heavy attacks:
Sp1:
Sp2:
Sp3:
Saquon's Summary: Shang-Chi is a freaking amazing champ, both with and without the dupe. His purify abilities allow him to remove suicide debuffs immediately, and allow him to deal with a ton of debuffs, similar to Kingpin. The only difference is that Shang doesn't receive a humongous attack boost from purifying debuffs, unlike his chubby counterpart. Shang also has a great slow, great damage, and while he isn't tanky, he's not quite a glass cannon either. Shang's abilities to stun the opponent through their block allows him to grant himself a lot of openings, and his wushu strikes are incredibly easy to repeat, allowing for days of utility. He's incredibly suicide friendly, with his debuff shrugging, and his sp3 to ramp a devastating, fight-finishing sp2. If you guys got through this all, thanks for sticking around. My final departing word is this: Although Bruce Lee tells you to empty your mind, I don't quite suggest doing that with Shang Chi. Or else you'll be very dead. And potentially left in a vegetative state.
Critical Hits:
Critical hits grant 34.96 critical damage rating effect for the rest of the fight, up to 300 critical hits. This usually isn't noticeable, since rol opponents can be finished after 1 sp3, 1 sp2, and some change if running suicides. But in longer fights, it's certainly noticeable. His max 300 crits grant him +10,488 extra critical damage rating. Wowee!
Awakening:
If awakened, Shang can crit through block, and "personal abilities that trigger on critical hits can trigger through block". This means that every critical hit through block grants the critical damage rating landing a critical hit gives, and counts towards the maximum. The other half of the awakening is the better part. It allows Shang's critical hits to deal 10.02-20% of the damage the critical hit *would have* dealt as a burst of physical damage. The burst damage is "based on hit damage before checking block proficiency, armor, and resistances". I don't know what this means, to be completely honest. The wording makes it seem as though the burst damage ignores block proficiency, armor, and resistances, but the burst damage through block does less damage than when the defender is getting hit by Shang. The burst damage, however, ignores safeguard even though Shang's crits don't. This leads me to believe that overall the burst damage ignores everything except blocked hits. This is a solid awakening, but not necessary. The awakening is solely a damage boost roughly equivalent to the percent of hit damage dealt as a burst. I would not advise awakening Shang unless you're flooded with skill ags, and I would also say rank him even unduped.
Wushu Strikes:
Wushu strikes are abilities of Shang where doing a combo in a specific order allows him to gain effects or give the opponent specific debuffs. These can be utilized very well by players, and seems to allow the situational awareness of a player to elevate Shang's potential to a new level, depending on how quickly they can adjust and adapt to certain scenarios of a fight. Wushu strikes, when used, go away indefinitely unless reset (through either a heavy attack or after a sp2), and can trigger through block. The last hit of any readied wushu strike is a guaranteed crit and grants one chi charge, which is where your damage comes from. Wushu strikes triggering through block is a HUGE thing for Shang, making him one of my favorite unblockable counters. The strikes applying through block allows Shang to give himself openings even through the opponent's block. So if a defender is unblockable, you can stun them through their block. You then have plenty of time to perform an additional wushu strike, and reset with a heavy, which would then allow you to rinse and repeat.
Disarming strike:
Doing a medium medium combo inflicts a slow debuff on the opponent, removing any unstoppable effects they have (buffs or passives), and inflicts a 5 second slow debuff for each readied strike. This means that the slow is either 5, 10, 15, or 20 seconds long. That's a solid amount of time. Also, the second medium in this wushu strike can't be interrupted, which allows Shang to slow the opponent through block and then have enough time to recover and only take one hit to the face after performing the slow combo.
Cleansing strike:
A medium light medium combo allows Shang to purify 3 random debuffs on him, and giving him 1 indefinite cleanse passive for each strike readied, up to 4. This cleanse passive lasts until this wushu strike is readied again. This strike right here is freaking awesome for Shang. It allows Shang to purify suicides debuffs as soon as you can perform this strike. It also allows Shang to purify every kind of debuff. Biohazard, encroaching stun, void, even non-damaging debuffs such as weaknesses can be avoided. And since the cleansing strike lets Shang purify 3 debuffs, and this combo costs three hits to perform, it means any debuffs Shang receives through contact with the opponent while performing this combo gets shrugged immediately. The cleanse passives right after the strike also means Shang can perform a heavy attack to reset his strikes, and purify a debuff given on contact by the heavy. So Shang can receive a debuff every time he hits the opponent, and still get out of the fight just fine since no hits will be unaccounted for by the cleanse or purifies. Powerful, right? Cleanse also bypasses purify aar (take that, Apoc), too.
Breaking strike:
A medium light light medium combo allows Shang to gain an unblockable buff that lasts 1.5 seconds per readied wushu strike, meaning he can go unblockable from 1.5-6 seconds. This unblockable stays even if Shang's strikes are reset, and is paused during Shang's special attacks. I don't use this unblockable much, but it's great to have against passive opponents, or to punish opponents even more if not given an opening.
Pin-point strike:
A medium light light light medium combo allows Shang to inflict a stun debuff on the opponent, lasting .65-2.6 seconds depending on readied strikes, similar to the other three strikes. This is an amazing ability of Shang. As earlier mentioned, it allows Shang to give himself more openings to smack the opponent, and is great for controlling the pace of the fight. This stun, if performed as the first strike of a "Shang sequence" (I'm coining that), grants enough time to pull off both a cleansing strike and a disarming strike while the opponent is stunned. It also gives Shang enough time to do any other wushu strike, and reset with a heavy. If the pin-point strike is performed as the second strike in a Shang sequence, it allows Shang to immediately do the disarming strike and reset with a heavy. The power an opponent receives from a pin-point strike, disarming strike, and a heavy is at least one full bar of power from a r3 opponent and up, meaning if an opponent has easy to dex specials you can just keep specials and the opponent spends most of the fight stunned, giving you less opportunities for a smack to the face. Or nuts, depending on where the opponent's animations land on Shang's body. I don't think Shang likes taking nunchucks to the nuts from a monkey any more than you do.
Perfect timing:
Shang has an odd mechanic where he can use ""perfect timing" on a parry or dex to grant him 1 chi charge. I haven't figured out a good way to consistently do this yet, but dexing is a lot easier to give this perfect timing bonus than parrying.
Heavy attacks:
Heavies reset Shang's wushu strikes, readying them all again, and grant a precision buff increasing critical rating by 113.16 for 15 seconds, per wushu strike. The maximum amount of heavy-generated precision buffs Shang can have at any time is 4. A Shang heavy attack also removes all of his personal stun effects on the opponent (like from his pin-point strike, but not from a parry).
Sp1:
If this attack is either landed or used through a block, Shang will perform the last wushu strike at equal potency, excluding the pin-point strike (As many of us know, that was a touch overpowered). If no wushu strike has been used, Shang will default to the cleansing strike. The sp1 is very useless, especially if running suicides. It's so easy to continuously apply wushu effects that there's hardly ever a reason to use a sp1.
Sp2:
This is the chunky damage dealer. Every one of these 5 hits are guaranteed crits, and the sp2 consumes all chi charges, with each charge consumed granting +889.5 attack during this special. Lots of charges means lots, and I mean LOTS of damage. Friendly tip: Chi charges cap at 99 from each source, meaning Shang can have upwards of 297 chi charges. 99 from sp3s, 99 from wushu strikes, and 99 from perfectly timed parries and dexes. Guarenteed crits also mean Shang's sp2 will crit no matter how high a champs crit resistance is, such as against Doom, but does not mean it will crit vs Warlock if he has an armor up.
Sp3:
This is the ramp attack. The sp3 grants +186.96 critical damage rating for the rest of the fight, and grants 4 chi charges. This means the sp3 is great for ramping and building to a ginormous sp2.
Saquon's Summary: Shang-Chi is a freaking amazing champ, both with and without the dupe. His purify abilities allow him to remove suicide debuffs immediately, and allow him to deal with a ton of debuffs, similar to Kingpin. The only difference is that Shang doesn't receive a humongous attack boost from purifying debuffs, unlike his chubby counterpart. Shang also has a great slow, great damage, and while he isn't tanky, he's not quite a glass cannon either. Shang's abilities to stun the opponent through their block allows him to grant himself a lot of openings, and his wushu strikes are incredibly easy to repeat, allowing for days of utility. He's incredibly suicide friendly, with his debuff shrugging, and his sp3 to ramp a devastating, fight-finishing sp2. If you guys got through this all, thanks for sticking around. My final departing word is this: Although Bruce Lee tells you to empty your mind, I don't quite suggest doing that with Shang Chi. Or else you'll be very dead. And potentially left in a vegetative state.
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