Shoichi/Playstyle Tips

In-Game Tips

 * Shoichi excels in taking advantage of an enemy's weaknesses. He can deal a fatal blow with every 7th hit being a crit.
 * Phony Deal is an effective tool to widen the weapon mastery gap between you and the enemy in a one-on-one engagement.

General
Shoichi is one of the strongest early-game characters in the game. His high base atk stat and Phony Deal skill allow him to harrass other players and take control of desired areas. Other players find Phony Deal very frustrating, since the effect prevents them from gaining mastery.

Phony Deal make enemies either leave the fight, or give Shoichi free mastery and take damage without getting mastery in return. In the end enemy that got hit by Phony Deal is at big disadvantage, Shoichi is excellent at contesting early-game.

As for No Mercy, critical attacks are guaranteed every 6 hits, but they are less powerful because his critical damage is reduced with No Mercy by 20%. Tips for increasing Shoichi damage output is crafting Pirate Flag or Battle Boots to further increase Shoichi's Critical Damage.

However with all the advantage Shoichi has, he still falls behind pretty bad due to weaker late-game stats. Shoichi's gameplay relies on taking advantage of an easier early-game lead to maintain momentum throughout the game by being ahead of other and keeping them down with Phony Deal.

Counter
Shoichi might be very hard to deal with at early game due to his strong active skill and constant critical hit and high base stat, but even so he's still vulnerable with Counterpick.

Shoichi gets hard-countered by Helm of Banneret and Amazoness Armor pairing. Banneret reduce damage taken from stab weapon by 10% while Amazoness Armor reduce critical dmg taken from enemy by 20%. These two armors can reduce overall shoichi damage output severely and he needs to get higher mastery lead to top off the counterpick. Shoichi is most likely rendered powerless with these two equipments and would have a hard time to keep up against you if he isn't already very far ahead.