PowerSenpai's Shinobi Guide
Hello everyone! Today I bring you a guide of my own creation about the Shinobi. I have been playing this character quite a bit since new characters released and have been wanting to help new players learn the Shinobi. Special thanks to Cynath and P0werCrAzY for helping me with quality control.
Introduction to the Shinobi Shinobi is the second assassin to be added to the Samurai roster and was introduced at the start of season 2. This hero has a lot of range and flexibility due to the use of the Kusarigama and ninjutsu, so while they may not be very well protected, they are still definitely to be feared as mighty warriors.
Shinobi Pros
Shinobi is flexible, and hard to straight up punish for any of his actions. This is further aided by the fact that he has a very quick recovery time, both when he falls to the ground and when he executes a move. This gives Shinobi the opportunity to open people up with the kick, but not risk getting destroyed from trying to do so, as he can still block or counter guard break after the kick completes.
Shinobi Cons
Shinobi has the lowest health pool in the game with only 90 health. This means that if you let yourself become easy to read or make a bad mistake, it could cost you quite a bit. This also means that you, as a Shinobi, have to be very careful of high damage characters, as they will shred your health down given the opportunity.
Basic moveset/combos:
Shadow Dancer:
Light - Light
The second light is guaranteed if the first hits, but you must do it in the same attack direction as the first hit.
Ghoul’s Rage:
Heavy - Light
Light is guaranteed off of any heavy, but just like the light, you have to do it in the same attack direction as the first hit.
Sickle Rain:
Heavy - Heavy - Light - Light - Light
If you can land the second heavy then you can get a Peacekeeper-like combo where you have to time your light attacks that adds bleed damage. This combo can take a lot of your enemy’s health, but can be hard to pull off. I will mention an easier way of getting into this combo by skipping the first heavy later in the guide.
Unique abilities
Deflect:
Much like every other assassin in the game, Shinobi too has a deflect. Deflect is executed by dodging in the direction of an incoming attack in a similar time window as a parry is done. This will teleport the Shinobi behind the enemy and cause bleed damage. From there Shinobi can either perform another bleed attack by pressing light attack, or perform a kick that pushes his victim.
A nice tidbit about the deflect of the Shinobi is the fact that he can deflect with his first and second dash in his double dash (more is written about double dash further down the text).
Deflect kick
Deflect attack
Charge:
Charge is likely the ability that differentiates Shinobi the most from the other heroes in the game. Charge is performed by holding the heavy attack button, and can lead into several long range options. The first thing to know though is that charge has two different charging levels, and the higher level has the furthest range.
You can tell which charging level you are using by looking at the Shinobi’s chain spinning. If it’s shorter range then it will be simply a blue effect on it. If it is longer range then it will change into a much brighter blue (note: the color will be red instead of bright blue if the opponent you are locked onto is out of range). The higher charge is achieved through holding the charge for a period of time, or can be immediately executed as a follow up on certain moves.
Charging the heavy
From the charge you can choose to either perform an attack or a guard break.
The attack is performed by releasing the heavy attack button, and can be in any of your attack directions, and you can follow up with a second hit by just pressing the heavy button again. This is a combo called “Spider Silk Whip”.
Spider Silk Whip
It is possible to roll to your opponent after having done a ranged attack, and it’s executed by pressing the dodge button after the hit is finished. Using the roll, you can perform “Front roll kick” which means you roll and then pressing guard break. This pushes the opponent and can be used to get them off a ledge. From the dodge you can also perform “Crushing Front Roll” which is performed by rolling and then pressing heavy. This gives you the second heavy in the “Sickle Rain” combo, and gives you three bleed hits.
Roll into kick

Roll into Sickle Rain
If you miss the initial ranged attack, you will also be able to dodge forwards but only the direction of the initial hit. Another thing to keep in mind is that you cannot roll if your opponent blocks you. In addition, you should be wary of mindlessly charge attacking, as your opponent can parry it, thereby pulling the chain and making you fall forwards, leaving you vulnerable on the ground.
Ranged Parry/Counter Guard Break
To perform the ranged guard break, all you have to do is hold the charge and press the guard break button. This pulls your opponent towards you and leads into a guaranteed heavy attack, that also leads into the “Sickle Rain” combo, just as it did for the “Crushing Front Roll”.
If your opponent counter guard breaks, you will be pulled to the ground exactly as what happens when you get parried with the ranged attack.
Ranged Guard Break into Sickle Rain
Double Dodge and Kick Mix up:
(First thing i want to mention here is that there is a nerf incoming to the kick, so the information provided here might need to be changed in the near future.)
Shinobi has a special type of dodge called “Double Dodge”, where the Shinobi get’s shrouded in smoke and get’s an extra dodge in. This is performed by double tapping the dodge button. By doing this, you can go into an attack much faster than you could with a regular dodge. The double dodge also gives you access to a move that is the bread and butter of most Shinobi players out there. The “Kick Mix up”. By performing a double dash and pressing the guard break button, you will perform a kick. If you dash backwards or forwards, the kick will be stunning the opponent backwards (from their perspective) and often catch them in a backwards dash. If you perform the kick while dashing sideways, it will push them to the side of that you dodge towards, making this move very deadly when close to ledges and often catches opponents when they are dodging towards the same side as you.
Forwards Kick
Sideways Kick
The kick has incredibly good tracking, incredible speed, hyper armor, fast recovery (making it hard to punish) and guarantees a ranged heavy if you land it on an opponent. All of this combined makes it very good as an opener as it is very hard to punish with its fast recovery. It works superb reactively too as it can be used as a counter attack very efficiently. When you land the heavy after the kick, it is worth keeping in mind all that is mentioned about the charged attacks in the text about the charge above.
If you want to take a risk after landing the kick, you can also press the guard break button again, performing the ranged guard break, but this is not guaranteed hit and can thus be countered. If someone dodges your kick, you can also perform a backflip to get out (more details about the backflip is below).
Tackle:
Tackle is performed by pressing the guard break button while your character is sprinting. This will make you slide, and knockdown anyone you slide into, including allies. After knocking someone down, you can get the “Shadow Dancer” combo off on them. This move can be good for saving a teammate, to put someone on the ground when ganking, or to simply surprise your opponent and to get some free damage.
Tackle
Super Sprint:
Often referred to as the “Naruto run”, “Super Sprint” gives you extra movement speed at the cost of stamina. To activate “Super Sprint”, you simply have to press the sprint button while sprinting, and you can deactivate the ability by pressing sprint again.
This ability is very useful in a game mode like Dominion for getting around the map and taking over objectives. It is also very useful when needing to escape a situation or to get to a teammate in time to save them from a gank.
Super Sprint
Backflip:
“Backflip” is a defensive ability of Shinobi. What it does is quite similar to the move called “Swift Recoil” that Nobushi has, in that it moves you backwards and into a situation of control. They are not exactly the same though. Nobushi does hers off of successful blocks and cannot really follow it up with any offense, while Shinobi’s “Backflip” can only be activated after performing an attack or kick, and can be followed up with some ranged offense (the ranged attacks/guard breaks).
This is perfect for Shinobi as he can annoy his enemies with “Shadow Dancer”, backflip out, see you try to attack, guard break you in the recovery and get his “Sickle Rain” combo.
Backflip
Parry and Guard Break follow ups
Guard break:
I recommend following up a guard break with the “Ghoul’s Rage” combo. Aside from this, he does not really have many interesting or particularly effective guard break follow ups nor needed elaboration on his guard break. This is all in regards to his close range guard break of course, as his long range guard break should always be followed up with “Sickle Rain”.
Guard Break follow up
Parry:
The parry on the other hand is a bit more interesting. Shinobi has a special parry follow up that will bleed the opponent called “Shadow Strike”, and is performed by pressing light attack after a successful parry, and I recommend doing this follow up or a guard break follow up if you parried a heavy attack.
Parry into bleed
Light attacks are quite different though. Due to the longer recovery time the parried opponent has after a light attack, you can actually get off a ranged guard break, if fast enough. This is a LOT of damage to get off a good parry, and can be a good way to punish people attacking recklessly with their light attacks. Get used to this follow up and it will lead you to great success, but never forget that it is only guaranteed off of light attacks.
Parry into ranged Guard Break
Playstyle:
This is all just tips and directions based on personal experience and playstyle. Not all that I mention here might be useful to your way of play nor what you might find the most effective personally.
Aggressive:
If you want to play the Shinobi in a more offensively focused manner, then your playstyle will mainly rely on feints and double dodge to open people up. Make sure to harass with light attacks when close to the enemy and backflip out, thereby regaining your advantage. Use the double dodge a lot and vary when you kick and guard break to the point where it is not predictable to ensure the maximum punish potential you can have off of your opponent's reaction to the smoke. Don’t be afraid to use the kick as it is quite difficult to punish.
When fighting another assassin, it is good to double dodge with a heavy feint to get them to try to counter you with a dashing attack. This is basically a free parry for you, and might deter them from doing a lot of dashing attacks, maybe landing you a few guard breaks after a double dash or a kick.
Keep your pressure up and don’t give them room to breath, but be careful about how you use your dodge as they CAN guard break you out of it! Try to use it more from a distance instead of doing it when up in their face.
Reactive:
The reactive playstyle (or boring playstyle as I would say) is quite simple. You simply respond to most attempts of offense by doing the double dodge into kick for a free heavy. Your focus will be on playing very safe and slow, only going for punishes. This is likely the more efficient way of playing the character, but will make fights drag on and will likely not be very fun for either of the people playing.
Another thing you can do in this style of play is to keep your distance, and wait for them to dash or whiff an attack so that they open themselves to a ranged guard break, and all that you get from that.
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