I really think Sheik is too good/operpowered. Can you help prove me wrong?

[J0A0B]

I hope I'm asking this at the right board section. Please let me know if I should move it somewhere else.

Please don't label me as a scrub. I don't want any harsh treatment despite the title topic sounding like it's whiny. But I really fail to see how this game is properly balanced. And I want honest opinions or facts as to why Sheik can be considered fair in terms of balance.

I'll admit I was disappointed when I saw ZeRo easily win his with Sheik in several tournaments, including one where he switched from Diddy after losing to a Luigi. I'm sure he's very skilled with the way he performs so many perfect shields and effective reads. It's commendable, but I just can't justify his wins with Sheik seeing how many people consider her the S tier and even ZeRo himself mentioned her being better than Diddy pre-patch.

What I basically want as a response is what COULD have been done in certain scenarios where Sheik had the upper hand. Was there any hindsight on what an opponent could have done to counter whatever strategy Sheik pulled?

For instance, in this event: http://www.twitch.tv/smashstudios/v/4594608
A really good Luigi bested ZeRo's Diddy in the grand finals, so ZeRo switched to Sheik. In pretty much all fights, Sheik was spamming the short hop F.air and it seemed like Luigi had no possible way to gain priority over it. I guess he could counteract with a B.air, but does that leave him vulnerable to landing lag if it whiffs? And even then, it would take a lot of patience to strike at the right moment, leaving Sheik plenty of time to mix-up with some other trick like running grab or needles, especially since the F.air seems so safe when landing.
At some point, Luigi will shield against the F.air, but she'll then have the time to properly back away before landing and avoid any chance of being grabbed, making the idea of shield-grabbing kind of pointless. What exactly can be done to approach her if even defending can't leave any bit of her vulnerable?
During the second fight, Luigi is hanging on a ledge and decides to climb up the normal way, only to be quickly grabbed by Sheik in front of her. I always thought that you gained a slight few frames of invincibility during the climb and you could then do a spot dodge to avoid any incoming attacks. If Luigi was able to spot dodge, would he have avoided the grab?
All-in-all, it seemed like Luigi is just a bad match-up for her even we all guarantee how good Luigi is now in the tier placement.

There is also the matches between ZeRo and Nairo in CEO, and while Nairo's ZSS managed to get a few wins out of it, the whole situation still seemed pretty one-sided in ZeRo's favor. I know ZSS threw out a lot of attempted grabs only to whiff and leave her punished, but that alone couldn't possibly be the only reason he didn't perform so well. The last match was especially horrendous to watch as Sheik just juggling ZSS several directions in the air, leaving the poor bounty hunter no hope of survival. To me, Sheik's multiple aerial attacks, (N, F, and B.air) seemed like an aerial/mobile version of a camping MetaKnight in Brawl. I don't know what Nairo could have done to get himself back on the stage without the threat of being further juggled or gimped.

Overall, despite the nerfs Sheik got over the months, I feel they were unnecessary since the main way for Sheik to win is to pressure the foe and send him/her to the edge so she can gimp in several ways such as throwing the grenade, bouncing fish, vanish, or stake-spiking regardless of how much damage the foe already has. I always thought the point of using Sheik was to rack up damage to high percentages and then kill with an attempted smash, U.air, or special. And that still seems to apply very well, but with the way her frames work and give her the advantage to also gimp in several unique ways over most other characters seems like overkill. Some say her justifiable weaknesses are that she's extremely light and has to rely on hard reads to kill, but I don't think they're really weaknesses since she's only light enough to get blown away by a heavyweight, (she literally survived a forward smash from Pikachu near the edge with both of them over 100% damage), and pretty much anyone can win by making a hard read with aerial attacks, throw setups and gimping.

It's so hard for me to believe Sheik is considered balanced when I see her being used so much and placing around the finals or semis in so many tournaments regardless of who uses her. I'm not even sure who is considerably a good match-up against her. Not to mention the many times she's been consider the very top from peoples' tier lists.

But I basically want to hear about what could have been done for those who lost to ZeRo's Sheik in hindsight. Do any of you think there was any way they could have bested her by making the right reads? If so, what would those reads be? Can Luigi and ZSS still be viable against her, or would it have been better to switch to another character? I want to know how a good player can overcome Sheik, including when ZeRo uses her. Otherwise, I'll just keep thinking she's OP and be discouraged from believing there's any balance in the competitive aspect of this game. Please prove me wrong.

 

[_Tree]

Well, you've hit the nail on the head. There actually isn't much that Mr.ConCon (Luigi) could have done. It's a terrible match-up for Luigi, not least of all because of Sheik's F-air. I'm not really an advocate for nerfing, but Sheik's F-air (and possibly needles) are a little too powerful at the moment. The fact that it auto-cancels is fine, but it's range is just so crazy that you can safely poke the opponent with no risk at all, as well as being to confirm off of it into other stuff.

But you're right. Sheik does tend to have an advantage against most (if not all) of the cast. Let's break down why this is then:

Framedata: Sheik's frame data, for both aerials and jab/tilts, is fantastic. Everything is fast, autocancels and doesn't launch too far, allowing for many different strings between moves. Her grabs are also fantastic for comboing. This ability to maximize punishes when she does get the opponent in a disadvantageous situation allows for tons of 'free' damage, as the opponent simply can't do anything while being comboed. I often start my matches by doing two jabs on my opponent. If they hit, I can lead those into three or four F-tilts, which I can then lead into a F-throw, which then leads into a Bouncing Fish to finish the combo. This amounts to roughly around 40%, and the opponent couldn't do anything (disregarding frame perfect, near impossible escapes). What can Marth get off a jab? Nothing. What can Little Mac get off a jab? Perhaps he'll put you in a disadvantages situation, but it's not like he can go directly into aerial. Simply put, everything about Sheik's moveset 'slots together' well.

Specials: Every one of Sheik's special moves serves it's purpose well. Needles are a crazy good projectile, Vanish provides a free recovery, Burst Grenade helps with edge-guarding and Bouncing Fish is ssimply great all-round. On top of that though, each special has a variety of other uses. Needles can be used in the air to allow for another edge-guarding component, while also offering a whole new useful tech in the form of needle fidgeting. Vanish doubles as a reliable kill move. Burst-grenade can be used on the ledge as a situation reversal. Bouncing fish has so many applications that there's too many to simply outline here. Sheik's entire moveset could be described as dynamic, as there is simply so much on offer to you to use. This brings me to my final point:

Options: Simply put, the amount of options available to Sheik in any situation outclasses every other character in the game by a country mile. The fact that all her moves are so fast allows her to try a variety of things in one situation, as well as having numerous amounts of tech that allow for options any other character would never be able to do. Bouncing fish off the stage (powerful, flexible edgeguarding option), F-throw into Bouncing Fish (free 19%), Instant needle cancels (Dash directly into a normal), Vanish gliding (risk free edgeguarding option that kills), the list goes on.

So looking at all this, Sheik seems pretty unbalanced right? No, that's not the case. This game is unbalanced.

Sheik, I personally believe, embodies everything every character in this game should be. A fast, capable character with a whole menagerie of options at their disposal at a higher, competitive level, but still able to be played at a more casual one. In reality though, most of the cast suffers from a lack of options. What options does Marth have? His aerials don't autocancel, his specials serve one (2 at most) purposes and barely has any approach options. He's downright pathetic in the face of everything Sheik has. Let's look at Charizard then. No autocancelling aerials, terrible recovery, specials downright suck...Noticing a trend here?

Personally I feel you understate the difficulty it takes to play Sheik. Making a 'hard read' is not so simple, and being able to apply all of her options takes a lot of practice. This helps stop her from becoming the monster that Metaknight was. However she is still on top.

The way to fix this? I propose buffing every other character tremendously. Should we nerf Sheik, removing all the fun and creative options that she holds and make her as basic and rudimentary as the rest of the cast? No. Give all those fun and creative options to everyone else. Let every character autocancel their aerials (of course exceptions will apply). Let everyone's specials interact with the battlefield in cool and interesting ways.

So in the end it seems I've tried to justify Sheik's overpowered-ness rather than convince you that she isn't. I feel your first mistake here, however, was seeking balance in the competitive aspect of this game. Smash 4 is a game under the control of a man who doesn't believe in game balance for fairly arbitrary reasons. If you want complete competitive game balance, I'd suggest you look elsewhere.

 

[J0A0B]

Very well written. I can definitely agree that the "man who doesn't believe in game balance" has a biased mindset and doesn't completely treat this game as something that should be competitive. Although I can agree that it is important to keep it casual so that newer players can easily adapt without having to struggle through so much difficult to comprehend tech.

I'm sorry if I have to make a retort, but I don't think everyone should be in Sheik's level. To me, a change like that would be similar to making Project M, where everyone seemed similar to Fox for a time. (At least that's what I heard.) I've seen footage of professional Charizard play from Project M and in comparison to the Sm4sh version, the PM Charizard seemed more stale relying more on pokes and basic attacks with barely any specials being performed. When it comes to Sm4sh, at least it seems more unique in terms of differentiating styles. Charizard is meant to use defensive and spacing tactics and adding similar safety in landing lag to Sheik would defeat the purpose of him being a power-based character for spacing. He'd be more of a pressure builder then, like many others.

I don't think Sheik deserves the harshest of nerfs, but when Diddy Kong got axed, I honestly saw professional play of him to be more impressive now that it takes more effort and timing to gain advantage against his opponents. I actually wanted him to win when I saw MVD work the monkey out.

Thank you for clarifying further what makes Sheik good though. I hope others will include their opinions of what can be done to properly match with her at the most advance of play.

Edit: BTW, as a Charizard player, I will say he does have one useful auto-cancel aerial and the recovery is not that awful with his third jump and horizontal flare blitz. These should not be underestimated from my experience.

 

[T0MMY]

Smash 4 is a game under the control of a man who doesn't believe in game balance for fairly arbitrary reasons. If you want complete competitive game balance, I'd suggest you look elsewhere.

I could agree with everything in the post except the ending where, if I remember correctly, Sakurai said making every character exactly the same would not be fun (every character is Mario with a differing "skin"). I agree with Sakurai much more in this regard that dynamic interactions are a leading point of enjoyment both on a competitive level (Rock/Paper/Scissors vs Rock/Rock/Rock) and a casual level (just not "fun" having one choice).
Can't remember where I read this, but I believe many other game designers for fighting games hold similar concepts regarding balance, even if it is on a small level. In Street Fighter we see characters like Dan and Akuma at times when the game had already developed a competitive scene.
Remember that "arbitrary" isn't a reason to think something is wrong, arbitration is necessary when designing anything - it's a judgement call on a piece of art. Arbitrary decisions are everything.

Does Sheik deserve a nerf? I like your response about buffing the characters up to her level. But I am sure I'll be fine with whatever Sakura et al do with the future game patches; I have been strangely accepting of what has been patched already despite thinking I wouldn't be ok with a team messing with game balance (based on other games *cough*streetfighterIV*cough*).

 

[Sir_Zedd]

I could agree with everything in the post except the ending where, if I remember correctly, Sakurai said making every character exactly the same would not be fun (every character is Mario with a differing "skin"). I agree with Sakurai much more in this regard that dynamic interactions are a leading point of enjoyment both on a competitive level (Rock/Paper/Scissors vs Rock/Rock/Rock) and a casual level (just not "fun" having one choice).
Can't remember where I read this, but I believe many other game designers for fighting games hold similar concepts regarding balance, even if it is on a small level. In Street Fighter we see characters like Dan and Akuma at times when the game had already developed a competitive scene.
Remember that "arbitrary" isn't a reason to think something is wrong, arbitration is necessary when designing anything - it's a judgement call on a piece of art. Arbitrary decisions are everything.

Does Sheik deserve a nerf? I like your response about buffing the characters up to her level. But I am sure I'll be fine with whatever Sakura et al do with the future game patches; I have been strangely accepting of what has been patched already despite thinking I wouldn't be ok with a team messing with game balance (based on other games *cough*streetfighterIV*cough*).

What Sakurai actually said was that he balances the game around free for all with items on and disregards the competitive scene in general when patching the game. He doesn't like moves being so fast/strong that new players would be beaten easily by them too.

Regarding Sheik being too good though, I think it comes down to who is using him. Zero is going to dominate because he is the best sm4sh player, thats not 100% because he's playing sheik. Sheik does have some of the best tools in the game but without reliable early kill options it takes alot more skill to win with him.

 

[T0MMY]

What Sakurai actually said was that he balances the game around free for all with items on and disregards the competitive scene in general when patching the game.

I didn't see that in the article we were referencing. Where did you get this?
If that's the case, somehow the balance patches are working out for our competitive scene - things like Diddy's U-Air are not dependent on items/free-for-all. I think there might be more to it than just the "Sakurai image" competitors usually think of. Maybe we can call this image the "Hand of Sakurai". Haha

 

[J0A0B]

Regarding Sheik being too good though, I think it comes down to who is using him. Zero is going to dominate because he is the best sm4sh player, thats not 100% because he's playing sheik. Sheik does have some of the best tools in the game but without reliable early kill options it takes alot more skill to win with him.

It is true that ZeRo can dominate regardless of who he uses. But I don't believe all his victories in major tournaments can excuse pre-patch Diddy and Sheik as being balanced without there being proof of others reaching his level with those same characters. After all, who are we to say that Sheik is or is not overpowered because only ZeRo utilizes her highest potential? But if he could win easily with his other choices more often like Captain Falcon or Shulk, at least then he's further proving how Sheik is not his only reason for being on top. Of course that would never happen when it comes to playing for the grand prize.

It basically does some out to the scaling of matchups or difference between each others' options for controlling the stage. I would agree that Sheik does take more skill to win with if it weren't for her additional strengths in dominance via continuous combos beyond an opponents' current damage and multiple gimping tools that force to the blast zones more easily than others' early kill options.

Sorry for my counter post. I have to state what I can to get further insight and research of Sheik's balance from others upon debate.