I've been picking up Sheik and so far been having a lot of fun. I'd like to improve a little bit and start posting videos to be critiqued but I'd like to get down a DACUS 100% first so I don't embarrass myself.
Does tap jump being on/off make it easier/harder to pull it off?
Most people say it is, I personally don't have a problem with it. I keep it on mainly because of preference, and the occasional vanish out of shield mindgame.
I can do it decently well with Z, but I'm having trouble doing it with L/R. Someone who has tried both methods, is the timing slightly different or something? x:
Probably. The springs in the shoulder buttons do a lot of janky stuff to timing. Of course, this is assuming you already know to set one of these buttons to "attack" for customized controls, because the timing's impossible to do DACUS regularly besides "clawing".
What's Sheik's Moment Cancelling move?
Depends on the situation, but most of the time, technically, if you're sent horizontally, you'll want to airdodge initially since that's your fastest move on cooldown, although aerials usually do the trick, and the ability to be able to fast fall easily often works to your advantage. For vertical, I'm not too sure since I haven't looked at sheik's frame data for her aerials much, but usually dairs are the best idea to use since they automatically make an input to fast fall.
I already use side B to recover, sometimes cancel it and re-tether to either gimp someone or just a mind game. Any useful things I could do with my chain on stage?
Onstage, if you SH chain, adding "ticks" to the chain w/ analog and cstick will often make it hard to get past. This is absolutely amazing against people who are stuck on the ledge trying to get back onstage, especially olimar. Grounded chain can work too if you're really good at the inputs, but otherwise the uses for it are pretty limited since the people that are most prone to it often are the ones you benefit more from ftilt locking.
Sliding off stage>vanish(is there a proper name for this?) usually guarentee's a kill if my opponent doesn't know about that option, but is it a safe kill option or just a fun gimmick?
Most of the time it's a gimmick, I've seen people do it too often and get punished when the other character grabs the ledge and edge hops -> aerial sheik while she's falling onto the stage. It's actually sorta useful as a mixup, especially to moves that don't let you air dodge or make you commit (ex. ROB's upB if he for some odd reason is recovering from lower, or glides like Pit's/MK's, as seen with Cross v. Earth/Masashi). Usually against players it'll catch them by surprise though if you do it occasionally because they aren't aware of her invincibility during the end of the attack.
I tend to do a lot of empty SH's to keep pressure on my opponents who hold down shield a lot and punish with spaced bairs the moment they try anything. Is there any particular match ups where that type of pressure should be encouraged/discouraged?
90% of the time pressure is really good if you can do it properly. Characters that counter you with death CGs (ICs/Pika) make this really risky to do often, or chars like Snake/D3 who have terrific punishes for getting too close to their shield all the time. These characters, you want to do a lot of low commitment, high speed moves right out of range, and bait them to throw out a grab/attack that you can punish. If you can perfect the falling autocanceled fair, rising nair, crossups, and true pivots, you can make it really hard for someone to properly punish you (except chars like Marth/MK with an upB out of shield)
Can I always use full-needles>one-needle>whatever whenever someone failed to tech the ground? Or is there specific situations where this is viable?
Yes, but you have to get the timing right, and they can't be too close to a drop-off on a plat or the stage, or they can DI and cancel the forced getup.
How good/bad is her glide toss?
What glide-toss?
Is there any situations where transforming to Zelda be considered a good option?
Usually the MUs where Zelda doesn't get punished too hard for trying to kill like D3, or MUs where it helps you avoid getting CG'd to death like Pika/ICs. Some people say she's also decent for killing against people with really bad shield sizes for their body like ROB or DK, because one smash on their shield makes it so you can shieldpoke them with another one for the kill. And of course, bad people always make for a fun match to finish with zelda lol
When is nair a better option over using fair/bair?
Nair is a sex kick, and being one automatically gives you some unique uses over most other aerials. Try it out and see what you like with it. I find it great against someone I know is about to throw out an aerial, because it preemptively interrupts them often before they throw it out. Being your fastest aerial also makes for great gtfo material, if someone's juggling you, you should try nair sometimes to make them back off. weak hit nair also combos into a lot of stuff that normally doesn't work at high percents. Fresh nair is also a decent high percent kill move. Lastly, nair is really good in the Olimar MU because it can save you occasionally from getting usmashed, and if you mix it in with your other approaches he'll have a really hard time grabbing or punishing your aerial pressure because the landing cooldown's non-existent when you do it rising. Oh yeah, and doing a split-second nair just before you land is a great surprise and can make landing SH feint grabs and whatnot easier.
wheew, that was a lot. As you can see, I love this move a lot, it's one of my favorites in sheik's arsenal.
What frame does ftilt come out on?
Frame 5
Any match ups I should be careful of? Why?
ICs/Pika are you worst. One grab (even from Sopo) can mean taking at least 80%, if not dying, and sheik has a hard time avoiding it usually because she doesn't have amazing disjoints/spacers to keep them away. MK is also pretty tricky imo. Marth and Kirby can be problematic too, although not to the degree the first two mentioned are.
So far I've strictly played Sheik on three neutrals (FD, SV, BF), is there any counterpicks that are great for her? Which ones should I usually ban?
Usually neutrals are a good way to go because most top tiers have better exploits on CPs, but a couple you should try out are:
-Halberd (low ceiling makes uair and usmash kills work, lots of space on some transformations for camping/dashing around, platform is usually perfect spacing for tipper usmash)
-Delphino (I personally like this when I'm not against a sharking character, I like how it makes my recovery a little harder to punish, and I get some great pressure near walkoffs and I find myself winning there more often)
-Pokemon Stadium 1 (once again, big layout is conducive to good sheik movement, and the stage can allow for some good chokepoints if you avoid them yourself. Also disrupts Chaingrabs if you're caught in one when the stage transforms, a small plus
Avoid Frigate against characters with good edgeguarding, Brinstar/Rainbow if they're MK/Wario/G&W, and I personally despise Lylat, I only take Fox/Falco there sometimes because it messes with their laser game and recovery.
When is using sheik's dair, or fsmash a good option? I feel like I always get punished for both of them and sheik's other moves prove to be more useful...
Dair is okay every once and a while in response to getting juggled, but doing it more than sparingly can be very easy to predict. One thing that's cool is because it stalls a little first, you can do a dair right above an opponent shielding, if they're expecting you to come down with something, and sometimes you can hit them with dair in surprise because of the initial pause she does before it happens. fsmash... I almost never use it, only to catch the occasional air dodge. It almost never kills, the punish for it is always unreliable, and it's sooo laggy.
Any tips I should keep in mind while learning Sheik would also be greatly appreciated.
Neo,a good sheik, taught me that when playing as sheik, you should try to be moving as much as possible. Being in shield for punishes should only be to ensure an already certain punish, because pinning yourself in shield is numerically a disadvantage. If you can learn all the ways to keep mobility, you can make the opponent whiff a lot of moves trying to punish you, and then it's all on your turf, and whiffs are almost always easier to punish with sheik than spaced stuff on block. Also, always mix it up, Lots of sheik's moves are fairly interchangeable, but different enough so that the opponent can't usually punish each the same way. Being predictable is the worst thing you can do as a player, but especially with sheik, because a good opponent that can read you can do practically ANYTHING they want to you, and with sheik's poor survivability, you have to make every decision count.
