Shadow Fight Arena - Beginner’s Guide to Shang
Like most other fighting games in the market, there is a variety of characters to choose from when playing Shadow Fight Arena, each with their own unique sets of skills, attacks, and passive properties. This variety gives the game tons of replayability as you can not only focus on learning and mastering one character, which frankly should be your priority as a beginner, but you can also swap to a completely different champion and start learning them instead whenever you get bored of your first choice.
Unlocking and recruiting new characters is an important component of Shadow Fight Arena. However, mastering one of them and kicking everyone’s butt with superior techniques and combat prowess is arguably one of the most rewarding aspects of this game. And on this occasion, we’re going to talk about one of these characters. Namely, in the following paragraphs, we’re going to dive deep into everything related to Shang, and will give you all the info and tips needed to dominate the battlefield with this powerful character.
Introduction to Shang
Shang is a monk that uses a long glaive as his main weapon, which makes him a character with slow, sweeping strikes that have long startup times. And while most of his blows have a lot of range to them, they leave Shang wide open to counterattacks if he misses. This makes one of his biggest weaknesses being characters who can keep their distance and retaliate with ranged attacks, or those who can bait and kite his slow, sweeping attacks.
His basic moves are the following:
- Neutral Attack: A quick stab with decent range that can be chained twice more for a total of 3 hits.
- Forward Attack: A spinning sweeping attack towards the enemy that closes the gap before striking. Can be chained up to three times, for a total of 5 hits.
- Back Attack: Shang does an evasive backwards spin before sweeping his glaive forward to strike advancing enemies. Can be chained up to three times for a total of 4 hits.
- Down Attack: Shang sweeps underfoot with a combination of kicks and glaive swipes. This attack travels forward considerably, being able to close the distance to the enemy from the opposite end of the screen.
- Up Attack: A fast upward strike with the glaive. This attack can’t be chained and has a relatively short range, but it’s the fastest move Shang has, which makes it ideal for countering or interrupting opponents.
- Ranged Attack: Shang quickly pulls out a bow and shoots it straight ahead, dealing moderate damage.
Most of Shang’s regular attacks are wide, but slow. And though they can inflict tons of damage if the enemy doesn’t avoid them, they’re very difficult to land against players who know what they’re doing. If this is the case, then you’ll probably want to rely more on Shang’s kicks which, while not offering the same range, are much faster. Luckily, Shang’s kicking moveset is very similar to his regular attacks, except with faster startup animations and speed, so there’s not much to discuss in this area.
Shang’s Specialty: Shadow Energy
Shang’s main strength aside from his range, however, is his dominion over shadow energy, especially since his main passive trait is the speed at which he can accumulate said energy with every attack. In other words, Shang can quickly build up his shadow energy, and then spend it on his shadow form attacks, which he has four of:
- Whirlwind (Forward Special): Shang mounts his spinning weapon and rushes towards the enemy, dealing multiple hits.
- Soul Grip (Back Special): Shang launches a projectile at the enemy that ensnares and pulls them towards him, opening them up for further attacks.
- Eruption (Down Special): Shang detonates energy underfoot at very close range, knocking down the enemy with minor damage while also teleporting back a long distance. Useful for retreating or avoiding attacks.
- Arrow Rain (Up Special): Shang fires his bow upward, making several projectiles fall on the enemy for medium damage.
Shang’s shadow form skills should be used proactively since he can gather shadow energy at a much faster rate than the other characters. Moreover, his second passive trait lets him absorb damage when he enters shadow form. This can potentially give you the sustenance necessary for defeating the entire enemy team using only Shang.
Shang’s Talents
Now that you know what Shang can do in the field, let’s take a look at his talents, which are passive abilities that every character in Shadow Fight Arena can acquire. These traits come in sets of twos and can be learned every two levels, up to level 10. This means that you can learn a total of 10 talents. However, you can only equip one talent per row, so you must choose wisely, and preferably something suited to your playstyle:
Level 2
- Shadow Consumption: Restores some HP when entering shadow form.
- Scourge Arrow: Shang’s ranged attack deals shadow damage and briefly paralyzes the enemy.
Level 4
- Shadow Genesis: At the beginning of every round, Shang enters an overloaded state in which he generates shadow energy very quickly.
- Shadow Finale: Whenever Shang takes lethal damage, he instead gets back up with 1 HP and instantly enters shadow form.
Level 6
- Weak Points: Shang’s shadow power increases every time he deals damage while in Shadow Form. The effect persists through rounds.
- Gloom Explosion: Shang emits an explosion when knocked out of his shadow form, dealing heavy damage.
Level 8
- Shadow Suppression: Shang generates more energy when attacking a blocking enemy.
- Trance: Extends the duration of Shadow Form and the amount of damage blocked by Shadow Protection.
Level 10
- Style of the Dragon: Shang’s shadow attacks are empowered and have larger areas of effect.
- Style of the Viper: Shang’s shadow attacks are faster and with shorter startup times.
The first talent in every tier favors an aggressive playstyle, while the other are more situational and can vary according to your needs. Make sure to always consider the enemy you’re going up against before choosing. However, as a general rule of thumb, you really can’t go wrong with the offensive approach, particularly thanks to Shang’s powerful moveset.
Hopefully, after reading these pointers and tips, you’re now ready to get out there and start dominating all your enemies with Shang. Let us know if you have other useful information about this Shadow Fight Arena character in the comments below!
