Been a long time since i've made a hero update thread, but I feel motivated to make another one due to seeing the TG roster. Seeing both Zhanhu and JJ be featured makes me feel like the devs are going to stop ignoring their dlc faction finally. Shaolin is a hero who's very dear to me as next to having a brawler style hero who uses his body as his only weapon i've REALLY wanted a staff wielding monk. Shaolin was already not particularly great outside meme strats with his feats (Qi trap in enemy spawn, teleporting with breach flag, etc.) But I think Shaolin's shortcomings have become worse in a CCU world. So today i'm going to outline in detail what issues Shaolin has and how to fix them with what I believe to be doable given the lack of mocap and smaller funding.


Shaolin's problems:

Shaolin in my opinion has 3 issues with his kit, 2 of them being major and one of them being debatable. The first one being his neutral play. Shaolin lacks a way to start what he's supposed to be doing which in my opinion is getting to and using Qi stance. Qi stance is where Shaolin takes his mediocre chains and turns them into tools that are meant to tackle a variety of situations. Think of it like Aramusha's blade blockade but with extra steps.

Shaolin's second problem is the effectiveness of Qi stance itself. Shaolin really only has a handful of options that are usable. Sweep is pointless for him and detrimental to an ally. Kick into unblockable heavy isn't a mix up due to it's broken feint window, Side lights are too slow to be used at all and it's a big ask to potentially external crushing counter with them. One of his better tools of the side undodgable heavy is basically not a threat to standard guard heros because they can dodge and block at the same time. When you combine the shaky capabilities of his Qi stance on top of Qi having zero answers to deal with bashes or unblockables one begins to wonder how you're even supposed to use Qi in any situation outside of single engagements. Nevermind that frame advantage and recoveries are generally not in favor of Shaolin with these moves.

Finally the final issue I would say is the use of his chains in general. Yes he does have 400ms lights. But those seem to hold little to no value in this day and age. The way his combo structure is setup he's incredibly predictable if he wants to use Qi. And you've no reason to not use qi because using same side attacks of the same attack nets you basically nothing. I should also mention that he like a few other heros suffers from decent animations. Meaning the more you fight against a Shaolin the easier it will be able to be for you to know what he's using. And thus you shut him out even harder.


Neutral play: Shaolin lacks any sort of neutral game. This would be fine some what if his chains were good and/or we didn't already have heros in the game that go against the grain of one trick design. The devs know this doesn't work anymore. So how do we improve his neutral? Some suggest an input that lets him go straight into Qi without having to whiff an attack. I disagree with this personally because the whole goal is to get into Qi. He is not highlander where you're meant to use both stances equally. Another suggestion is giving him enhanced lights. The problem with blanket enhanced lights is a balance and a mechanical one. Give him enhanced lights and now you have 400ms enhanced combo lights. That's oppressive for an infinite chain. So limit them to openers? Mechanically this would not work with his death point strike triple light combo. When someone is out of stamina and blocking you can still hold input on a light and flow into Qi but it won't let you death point strike and instead gives you a light finisher.

So what do I propose? Two simple changes really, Conditional enhanced lights, and a buff to his neutral side dodge heavies. Or to be more specific shaolin gains an enhanced light attack after a feint. For his neutral dodge attack he should be able to input it 100-300ms into his dodge instead of the fixed 300ms, and it should chain into his infinite. Both buffs means he has a way to enter his Qi from neutral without having conflicting mechanics and you're given an obvious tell when it's enhanced via his feint. Or to make it even easier to understand these buffs now allow Shaolin to enter Qi stance from neutral regardless of being blocked. And on defense via dodge attack he can now either chain or enter Qi to start his offense.


Qi stance: For brevity sake i'm going to not repeat myself on the issues of the stance in detail Summarized it has a lot of dead or too situational moves. It's not up to code in regards to CCU regarding recoveries and frame advantage. And finally Shaolin's flow just stops if he uses his moves at all. Thanks to the new feint buff he'll at least be able to semi reliably re-enter. And that might be enough, but I think more needs to be done. So i'm going to bullet point the buffs.

  • Qi side lights sped up to 500ms
  • All Qi lights now count as chain starters
  • Sweep is removed
  • Qi side heavies now count as chain starters
  • Unblockable heavy after kick now has a regular feint window
  • Light after kick now leaves Shaolin frame advantaged
  • Recoveries on whiffed attacks shortened for CGBing.
  • Stamina is no longer paused when sitting in Qi.


The goal of the above changes is to allow Qi stance to properly enhance his basic limited chains via allowing him to either remain advantaged to start his offense again or continue his offense by continuing to chain. Buffing his whiffed recovery specifically for CGB only allows him to more liberally use his pretty obvious Qi moves in outnumbered situations. Plus it retains the spirit of Qi stance in that he suffers against unblockables of any kind. So he won't be able to reliably dodge or parry if he messes up and whiffs.


General chain play: You never want to follow up with an additional attack with his chains in most situations. This is because you need to alternate between light and heavy to continue the chain. Making it incredibly obvious what move you're going to use next. And using the same side isn't very realistic either because his heavies are incredibly obvious after a light, and going for a 400ms light is unlikely to work either because if they're a static guard hero they will more than likely be able to block after the initial heavy lands. Now, one can argue with my above improvements Qi kind of fills the gaps for his poor chains. And this is correct, however I don't really enjoy kits having dead aspects to them. I think it's appalling to have a hero with infinite chain not want to use his chains.

So what do I propose? Again two simple changes, if you do a light from the same side you just did a heavy said light is now enhanced. If you put a bot out of stamina and set them to block you can see the game already allows this interaction to exist so mechanically it is sound. This isn't a balance issue imo because of the low damage it does on block. It already only does 9 if it lands. 3 if it's blocked. That and the animation is incredibly obvious. Shaolin will spin if you do a same side light from a heavy everytime. Where as top he alternates the fall from one side to the other of his staff.

The other change is to allow same side heavy finishers (so heavy into heavy,) to be held to enter Qi stance. Again from an animation point it makes sense because he spins so it's obvious to see. This gives shaolin a reason to use same side attacks in two seperate instances. These two changes make his normal chain capabilities flow better which Shaolin as a whole has a terrible time with. (kit flow.)


Experimental ideas: I have two potential suggestions that I wanted to run by people who read this. I did not slot them into my suggestions because I feel like they might be asking too much of the team to do. However both have potential to make Shaolin's kit even better, just in different ways. The first suggestion is actually not of my own creation but rather someone else I was recently talking to about Shaolin.

They proposed Shaolin's Qi heavies have their move properties swapped. Meaning his side heavies would become unblockable and his top would become undodgable. The goal of the suggestion is to give shaolin a better chance at team play since side heavies typically have better trajectories and are more friendly for target swapping purposes. The top heavy being undodgable would instead more serve as a way to catch people who try to back dodge/roll the kick.

My own suggestion comes from Shaolin's taunt. Currently Shaolin's taunt can be interrupted by inputting an attack or feinting out. Like Highlander's taunt I believe it's mainly a style move that allows you to bait an opponent into action. However I think both can be used for mechanical reasons. HL's is already kind of used to hide guard switching. Well what if you could cancel his taunt with a dodge as well? This would give Shaolin much better single pick capability with my proposed suggestions. As now he'd have a way to avoid and punish bashes. You'd also be able to use deflect potentially. This would only partially make Qi stance safer against the strongest offense in the game.


Summary of changes:

  • Shaolin gets a single enhanced light after a feint
  • Neutral dodge attack now chains/can enter Qi stance on held input
  • Neutral dodge attack input window changed from fixed 300ms to 100-300ms
  • Qi side lights are now 500ms from 600ms
  • Qi lights are chain starters
  • Sweep is removed
  • Qi side heavies are now chain starters
  • Unblockable heavy after kick now has a proper feint window
  • Light after kick now leaves Shaolin frame advantaged
  • CGB recovery for whiffed Qi moves are shortened
  • Light after heavy if in same direction of previous heavy is now enhanced
  • Chain finisher heavy can now be held to enter Qi stance
  • Fixed feint window for same side and chain heavies



Summary: Shaolin is a chain based hero with poor chains. He has no reliable way from neutral to enter into Qi which is his whole game plan and his overall kit flow starts and stops too much instead of flowing like it should. These changes aim to let shaolin be a relentless chain based hero that has a variety of tools to handle different situations/mix up his opponent.

Thank you for taking the time to read and please do let me know which expiremental suggestion you'd rather have (if you want either at all) when you reply.