Them's Fightin' Herds/Shanty/Strategy
Neutral
Important Normals
- 6A: Shanty 6A Anti-Air has head invulnerability
- 2A: Shanty 2A is the longest in the cast, which makes this tied for her best poke option alongside 2B.
- 2B: Shanty 2B low profiles. Another excellent poke and can even anti-air in some jank situations.
- 5C: Massive first-hit damage best use for conuter situations.
- 2C: 2C can cancel into 5C and vice-versa. 2C on block while stanceling is +2 allowing pressure reset.
- 4/6C: 4/6C can be used to go over certain normals, projectiles, and specials while in blockstrings and in neutral
Shanty's neutral can be extremely difficult. With few pokes and fewer disjoints, you are forced to play defensively from roundstart until you get a hit in.
During roundstart, your goal is mostly to get close to the opponent without getting hit. Often times this can take the form of willingly taking a blockstring to try and poke your way out of that. Other options you have are Backdash > Parley. While this doesn't gain you a hit or blockstring, it gains you magic, which can otherwise be difficult to get before you run offense. It's not entirely safe, as the opponent can dashblock into it and punish, but it beats many common layer 1 roundstart options that people use.
When further away, you're best way of approaching is unequivocally dashblocking. Cutlass C can be a tempting option, however it's very high risk and I PROMISE you it doesn't go as far as you think it does. Keelhaul can be a quick way to close distance, but is fairly risky vs someone who knows how to stuff it, while also being a bit tricky to space correctly. Broadside is another option, however, like Keelhaul it's easily stuffed. Unlike Keelhaul, it's fairly easy to space to be plus, but due to slow movement speed, it can be accidentally backdashed.
Closer up you start to develop more options. Dashblocking is still the safest, however, a well-spaced 2A or 2B can also provide a nice opening. Letting you start your pressure.
Movement
Shanty's movement is her calling card. Run Stance gives her access to some of the most hail-mary burst options in the game, with a sliding low, high-damage mid, and a projectile invuln overhead. Ontop of that, she sports a pretty decent forward and back dash, a super low-profile crouch (suck it, tianhuo), and Wallcling, easily the cheesiest and weirdest movement option in the entire game. Throw all of these options into the melting pot and what comes out is a character that's essentially a wildcard in neutral, with a ton of options that the opponent has to either react to or play around in order to avoid.
Offense
This is where the fun begins. Shanty's like a mosquito, in the sense that once she's on, even if you manage to swat her off, her options are almost always faster than yours and she'll manage to find her way back on with relative ease. 2B is the move that immediately comes to mind, as it quickly and seamlessly closes and small gaps between Shanty and her opponent, and from there she can continue pressure very easily with stance cancel 2C, leaving her +2, continuing the blender. An option that was not mentioned under movement was shorthop, and for good reason. Shanty's shorthop is an absolute beast of an option on a character like her. Shorthop j.A being a lightning fast instand overhead that can beat into j.B in the SAME shorthop and leaves her +8 on block is ridiculous. and EVEN IF they pushblock, 2B is always waiting, dying to continue that sweet sweet pressure. Truly nothing is sacred from Shanty.
Pressure Structure
Stancels
Whenever Shanty has magic, she has the ability to cancel her normals into her 5D Run Stance, with a selection of followups. One followup is to simply hold 2, cancelling the stance as soon as possible, allowing Shanty to reset her pressure. This action leaves her +2 if done from 2C, +1 if done from 6A, and at a slight disadvantage from other normals.
This gives her the opportunity to reset her pressure, but it is often not safe to do so, as these normals may leave her out of range of her A normals. Additionally, only 2C and 6A are plus-on-block, meaning that the opponent is able to challenge Stancels done from other normals.
One way to circumvent this problem is to use Broadside (5D~B). Broadside is a mid-hitting special that is only -2, and can be made advantageous on block if spaced. Shanty can cancel into 5D stance, and use Broadside to frametrap opponents who may try to challenge her pressure resets. This is especially dangerous in the corner, where Broadside leads to a wallstick, allowing Shanty to combo afterwards. Forcing respect with Broadside opens up the potential for Shanty to capitalize on her Stancel pressure and Run Stance's other followups.
Okizeme
Hard Knockdown
When done well, Shanty's hard knockdown oki is incredibly strong. With several fast options, you can easily overcome the opponents mental stack. You also have the option of safely gaining magic and running your normal pressure afterwards. 236B gives the best oki by far, due to location and plus frames, however it does add a hefty amount of JD so other options can be more advisable. Some common okizeme options include:
- 2C/236B > Meaty 22[A]
- - By timing 22[A] correctly, you can be up to +13, allowing you to easily continue pressure with a good amount of magic to use. Timing it after 236B can be tricky, as it only works on certain spacings and is a link.
- 236B > Crossup 236B
- - While technically able to be accomplished from any HKD ender, it's fairly difficult to space correctly even with stancels, and thus is mostly used after 236B hkd. This is a very strong option due to it being a 19 frame crossup and it often leading to a full combo, but has the caveat of being -11 and only being cancellable into supers on block. That being said, it's good to show occasionally to try and make your other options less predictable.
- TK 236B > Microdash 2A/shjC
- - While the opponent is falling after TK Cutlass B, you are able to microdash under to crossup and meaty. This can be further expanded on by shorthopping over them after the initial crossup, forcing your opponent to stay on their toes and giving nice 4 way mix.
- 2C > shjC
- - A very plus, 19 frame overhead which then can setup a fuzzy guard break. This is a very strong, safe option as it can also be timed for a safejump. You can also slightly delay the jC after the shorthop so it whiffs, granting a nice high/low.
- 2C > 236C xx dl.236XX
- - If you time this well, the second hit of your super can crossup. This is an extremely high risk option, due to super being -71, and having a long superflash to react to, meaning you should rarely ever, if not never, do this. However it is a funny knowledge check!
Soft Knockdown
Soft Knockdown oki is usually fairly weak due to how much variance there is. However this is not the case for Shanty, as she has several great SKD options, although they are generally very hard due to requiring quick reaction times. Having a quick dash and shorthop available, with practice you can react to any roll and then fuzzy guard break them for trying. This is because after a roll, there are a few frames where you can't input any move other than block, and are forced into a standing hurtbox. You can also get good magic by doing 2C > whiffed 22[A], giving you plus frames even if they instant neutral getup, which is the fastest SKD wakeup option. You are also able to safejump shjC on reaction to their wakeup, although this can be tricky as it's a tight reaction.
Defense
Matchups
 [Character Page] |
|---|
 [Character Page] |
|---|
 [Character Page] |
|---|
 [Character Page] |
|---|
 [Character Page] |
|---|
 [Character Page] |
|---|
 [Character Page] |
|---|
