Shu, Thou Art Cony

From now until June 30, select boss stages will let you bonus roll on a new ranger: Shu. Shu is long-range splash ranger whose power is close to Opera James and Songster Cony. But before we get into the nitty gritty details, has anyone noticed that his attack animation is exactly like Cony's? The legs together, legs apart, jumping up awkwardly to fire a projectile at the enemy, the speedy footies dashing forward... It's Cony. Maybe it's been him inside of a Cony costume all along.

Until June 30 18:00 Japan Standard Time

By the way, along with Shu one more ranger was downloaded into the game but he has not yet made his appearance. Maybe he is going to be released after June 30, when Ola Brown's limited obtainable period has ended.

Susu

LOL Susu is a very silly name. I think it means some funky things in some languages, too. But anyway, Susu looks like an ancient China dynastic warrior, and I would be disappointed if he is not melee. Either he's a fake-out to keep us wondering or he will make his appearance in the game very soon.

Update: A reader pointed out that the demon king (who, by the way, is throwing an exploding lunchbox at you, how cool is that?!), Susu and Shu are characters out of a Taiwanese live action puppetry show whose title is roughly like, super awesome fantasy martial arts heroes (it doesn't sound awesome at all in English. Some things are really lost in translation)... They popularly call Pili. If you want to know why a puppet show is such a big deal, read about the tradition of the show here. Since it's a joint promo, I think we can safely expect Susu will be coming soon.

Here is a look at Su's character on Pili. Su is a swordsman, so he should be a melee ranger. Here is Shu's character on Pili. I assume that something happens to him and becomes a monk over the course of the story. The puppets are stunningly gorgeous. I have to say, I like Shu and Susu about a hundred times more now that I have seen what they were modeled after. When I first saw the demon king, I was already blown away by how cool he looked for a villain. I mean... put him next to the onigiri boss and really, what comparison is there? Now I know he was modeled after this spectacular fellow.

Now on to the ranger!

Level 70 max master Shu

Level 50 Shu

Shu's range compared to Songster, Opera and Clara

Versus Songster Cony
Attack-wise, Shu out-performs SongCo by a big enough margin for it to matter.

• At level 50, Shu wins 11229 vs. 10322 DPS. 
• At level 70, Shu wins 26992 vs. 24813 DPS. 

He has a bit more health, too, and that's basically what I would say the added cost of deployment is compensating for. Cony costs 320 at lv 50, and 360 at lv 70, which is quite a bit less. So they're not exactly the same, but similar enough. By the way, they're also extremely close in attack range, with Shu winning by a narrow margin.

Versus Opera James
Comparing Shu with Opera James gets a bit more interesting. They're very close in attack:

• At level 50 Opera James wins just barely at 11453 vs. 11229 DPS
• At level 70, Opera James wins at 27528 vs. 26992 DPS.

The gain here is the health. Opera James only has 96k health while Shu has nearly double at level 70. Opera James costs the same as SongCo, 360 at lv 70. So if you don't have SongCo but you do have Opera James, the decision is a bit harder. 

If you are considering Shu vs. Opera for Team Battle Mode, I would definitely go with Shu for no reason other than the added range for survivability.

Versus Clara
A reader brought to my attention that Clara got a 9000 DPS buff sometime between last week and today. This makes her almost a perfect comparison with Shu, too.

• At level 70, Shu wins in attack of 26992 vs. Clara's 25303
• At level 70, Shu costs 460 while Clara costs 470
• At level 70, Shu has 184k HP while Clara only has 66k
• Shu's attack and move speed are faster than Clara's. His range is longer, too.

Well, looks like Shu is better than Clara in every way possible, no contest! Poor Clara.

Versus Abdula

• At level 70, Abdula does 69668 for 760 mineral and Shu does 26992 for 460 mineral
• At level 70, Abdula has 381790 health and Shu has 184312 health.

Abdula costs a lot of money and a lot of people diminish his value because of it. But think about it this way:

• Abdula does 91.7 damage per mineral cost while Shu does 58.7 damage per mineral cost
• Abdula is 501.4 health per mineral cost while Shu is only 400.7 health per mineral cost

If you look at it cost-to-cost, Abdula is still the better choice for your money. There are, of course, other considerations. Abdula's standard cooldown longer than Shu's. Abdula's range is shorter (it's right between Clara and Opera James'). Shu's move speed is faster than Abdula's. It really depends on what you want on your team. Purely on cost efficiency, Abdula wins. But if you want someone who moves faster, and can be deployed more often, then maybe Shu is a better choice.

While on the topic of cooldowns: Shu's standard cooldown is the same as Clara, Opera and SongCo: 8 seconds. Mastered, his CD will be 4 seconds. 

All in all, Shu performs exactly where I would expect for a 4 star ranger coming on the scene today. Get him while you can! Soon we won't know if we can get him again or if he'll be in Gacha or what!

P.S. Totally unrelated to Shu, there is a lot of buzz going around about certain ill-gotten ranks in the game. I'm not going to talk about it or refer to it or give it any sort of recognition/acknowledgement because I think the game should be played the way the developers intended. Please respect the rules of the game and my wishes for the blog - no comments about these people! Let's hope that this will blow over soon and be done with it.