Q&A Sheik Strategy & QnA

[stelzig]

I used to have the timing, but I just find it the hardest to consistent with because sliding is too fast, but tapping is hard to do fast enough (X>A).

 

[bubbaking]

Yes, all of those work, and you should be doing those if you hit someone's shield with an aerial, but that's not exactly what I was talking about. After landing an aerial on a shield, you're safe but you can't really put up offensive pressure outside of jabs and bombs.

Jabs I mentioned (only form of tight pressure on shields because of CC jabs). Ftilt is a one-time deal. That move is -18 on block. It will stuff an opponent who tried to punish your aerial on his shield, but that's it. Utilt can be stuffed kinda easily, so it's more of a mix-up. If you manage to land it, it's also a one-time deal against smart opponents. It's -10 on block. If they chase it badly though, you can stuff them with something else, but most probably not another utilt. Rising dairs are really unsafe unless you hit the opponent or you have a platform to land on immediately after, tbh. Bombs are actually really good, and I almost forgot about those. Bombs into missiles sound riskier, though, because of the startup and the fact that pretty much every attack in the universe can easily hit through a missile and stuff Samus. Grabs............18 frame startup, man. It's a rewarding mix-up but.......18 frames. Human reaction time is 10-12 frames.

You just won't really see us resorting to aerials to create pressure against most opponents, and most definitely not against Sheik. They stuff things, they punish things, but for pressure, grounded options are best, those and specials, lots and lots of specials. Heck, many times, I see high-level Sami perform aerial > upB, often after a dair, which seems almost like a 'true blockstring'. It's risky, especially if the opponent keeps shielding it, but they do it more than a little, so there's got to be a reason they're doing that and not a bunch of other options, I figure. Oh, something else I forgot is dair > bomb > dair off the bomb jump. That's always fun.

Yeah, I find quick nairs to be pretty tricky, but I think I've got them down. You just have to consciously be aware that you want to nair really fast.

Edit: Now that I think about it, nairing OoS so many times with Samus has probably improved my ability to do that with Sheik, since Samus probably uses it more, lacking a good shieldgrab and all that.

 

[KirbyKaze]

Sheik's ultimate goal is to hit grab

Stop trying to do longer block strings

 

[BSeeD]

How do you guyz manage to bait grabs out of fakin foxeeeeesss ?

I'm loosing my mind tryin to grab'em -__-

Seriously






I suck.

 

[silentSWAG]

if the fox dosent grab then find out what it does and then u can work ur tools around that flaw

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Sheik's ultimate goal is to hit grab

Stop trying to do longer block strings

I think I'm starting to realize this. Lol.

Smooth Criminal

 

[BSeeD]

Nono, I meant, how do you position yourself so you'll be able to bait Fox into your grabs ?

What are you waiting for generally, when you know you have to grab Fox ?
For instance, I can pretty consistently DD grab a Fox coming above me with FJ > any aerial, but when he's like relying on low aerials and running everywhere, shffling and shining whatever he can, I have hard time finding a situation where I can grab.

 

[bubbaking]

That's generally how it works, I feel. If Fox is playing it safe, this MU sucks. You have to trick him, which I think is basically what SWAG is saying. Try to catch aerial Foxes with ftilt. Lay needle frame-traps on the ground. There are a bunch of little tricks, but I hate this MU because I don't actually know what works against a Fox who has no 'quirks'. I watch tons of high-level Sheik vids, but what I see are really good reads on good Foxes who got read.

Edit: I mean, once Sheik gets a hit/grab in, she can do some nasty things to him, but in meantime, I just feel like Fox doesn't have to be hit/grabbed if he doesn't want to be. Sheik kinda preys on mistakes that you make, but Fox has to make a mistake for that to happen.

/4cents

 

[BSeeD]

Yeah, that's kinda the point.

I spent the two last weeks watching vids of KK vs Foxes, as he says you have to get grabs outta Fox (which seems logical), and I don't see any pattern.

He just grabs whenever Fox runs into him, or goes down a platform

Which means I have to read the opponent more and try a lot.

This is the annoying point of this MU indeed, if you wanna have fun against Fox, you first have to catch him -_- And THAT is no fun.

But once he is in your hands, or out of the stage... U know what I mean XD

======================================================================

KK, I was watching your set against Chillin @TBH2 and something hit me.
I've already seen it in other videos of you, I guess it's an habit and I'm not sure if you're aware of it.
Everytime a Fox recovers with his UpB vertically and he goes above the edge, 99% of the time you wait and then run in > Fair while he's falling down from UpB.
In all the videos of you against Fox I've seen, you miss the Fair like 2 outta 3 times.

Here are my questions :

Did you notice that already ?
Do you think it's the best thing you can try ?
If no, what would be the optimal solution ?

 

[Sweet™]

Yo, I hate Samus.

Played my first ever tourney match against one and lost. (Been playing about two years)

I feel so dumb. What do.

 

[bubbaking]

Grab her. If you keep just attacking us with dash attack, ftilt, etc., we're going to CC dsmash everything you do and then edgeguard you and then laugh at you. Your needles stop our paper mache missiles, your needles pop our charge shot ballons, and your needles obliterate our glass bombs. This is Samus' worst MU by far. A funny thing to me is that another Sheik player, with I'd say about as much experience you, lost to my Samus in tourney a little while ago.

Edit: http://www.twitch.tv/baconator25/b/344518723?t=1h19m20s
This is pretty much everything you SHOULDN'T be doing in that MU (outside of the grab combos), as I am probably a fairly mediocre Samus. Go watch, like, any vid of a high-level Sheik vs Samus to see what you should be doing (I think KK vs Plup was posted somewhere in here). If you don't know to grab often, this MU goes from 7:3 to, like, 6:4 or something.

It would also help if you posted a vid.

 

[Sweet™]

Yeah. I got gimped because I went in for a grab, they spotdodge, and dsmashed, then jumped and shot their fully charged shot at me. It was bad. Everything took me by surprise.

I just didn't know what to do about them doing WD Back > Missile, uptilt, fsmash and ****. lol.

I just played really dumb, and didn't know if there was anything special I can/should do.

I wasn't on a recording setup, so yeah, it sucks. Thank though. :3

 

[unknown522]

Yeah, that's kinda the point.

I spent the two last weeks watching vids of KK vs Foxes, as he says you have to get grabs outta Fox (which seems logical), and I don't see any pattern.

He just grabs whenever Fox runs into him, or goes down a platform

Which means I have to read the opponent more and try a lot.

This is the annoying point of this MU indeed, if you wanna have fun against Fox, you first have to catch him -_- And THAT is no fun.

But once he is in your hands, or out of the stage... U know what I mean XD

======================================================================

KK, I was watching your set against Chillin @TBH2 and something hit me.
I've already seen it in other videos of you, I guess it's an habit and I'm not sure if you're aware of it.
Everytime a Fox recovers with his UpB vertically and he goes above the edge, 99% of the time you wait and then run in > Fair while he's falling down from UpB.
In all the videos of you against Fox I've seen, you miss the Fair like 2 outta 3 times.

Here are my questions :

Did you notice that already ?
Do you think it's the best thing you can try ?
If no, what would be the optimal solution ?

Greed

 

[bubbaking]

Yeah. I got gimped because I went in for a grab, they spotdodge, and dsmashed, then jumped and shot their fully charged shot at me. It was bad. Everything took me by surprise.

Oh yeah, lolz! This is classic. Spotdodge > dsmash whenever you get close. Charge shot to punish any big hit or knock-down and cause a huge shift in momentum. Samus' spotdodge is pretty broken.

I just didn't know what to do about them doing WD Back > Missile, uptilt, fsmash and ****. lol.

I just played really dumb, and didn't know if there was anything special I can/should do.

I wasn't on a recording setup, so yeah, it sucks. Thank though. :3

If Samus is just doing WD back > standing missile, you go get her. Those missiles can be stuffed by literally anything. Your needles also break through them completely (as long as you shoot more than one) and rack damage up on Samus. The crouch animation you go into while throwing them also lets you duck under a lot of missiles, which can also be said of your DA. Utilt, all I can really tell you is to not run into it. We usually use that move as a mix-up to stuff bad approaches. If you pay attention to your spacing, you won't be hit by it.

Fsmash, yes, the thing is: I've gone over hits-on-shield situations somewhat extensively with Sypher (pretty good Fox main down in VA). Samus' fsmash is one of the fastest fsmashes in the game. Samus' ftilt is safe on your shield when spaced (it's -18 on your shield but it takes you 13 frames to WD OoS; check out my earlier post on frame data). If you try to chase Samus without abandon, she can ftilt you again or even fsmash you. Even her fsmash is somewhat safe when it's fully-spaced (the range always surprises people too, so make sure to watch out for that). However, if you WD forwards OoS and shield again, you can force Samus to potentially mis-space her next move on your shield. This is why Sami tend to WD back after tilting your shield, to anticipate your WD forwards OoS and maintain the defensive spacing. You can kind of 'push' them back with this kind of 'pressure'. Above almost all else, Samus is trying to avoid being in a specific, small triangular area relative to your position, 'cause being inside it usually means we're getting grabbed, needled, or faired (which is safe when spaced). Use this knowledge to your advantage to corner us.

Now, I just told you that ftilt is mostly safe on your shield when spaced, so don't even think about trying to punish a utilt. It's only -10 on your shield, so you really have no chance of catching Samus after that. However, you can punish its startup if you predict it. If you can get in really close and avoid being tricked by Samus' spotdodge, you should win. Sheik's grab is just too good. Her grab + needles literally invalidate Samus.

 

[Kaffei]

just watch a billion videos of m2k's marth or sheik vs fox and it will become easier to understand how he grabs them

at least that's how I've learned it lol

 

[soap]

Yeah. I got gimped because I went in for a grab, they spotdodge, and dsmashed, then jumped and shot their fully charged shot at me. It was bad. Everything took me by surprise.

I just didn't know what to do about them doing WD Back > Missile, uptilt, fsmash and ****. lol.

I just played really dumb, and didn't know if there was anything special I can/should do.

I wasn't on a recording setup, so yeah, it sucks. Thank though. :3

I started this game playing everyday against a Samus main ha


Samus has a good sidestep, and her grab sucks. Run up shield kind of ***** to counter sidestep.


You also do not have to approach. Needle camp to get her in the air if need be. watch out for headshots/ just duck those.

I prefer to just get in her face with aerials tho. When she wavedashes back don't flail, just calmly empty land, waveland back, or double jump needle her.

 

[bubbaking]

Yep, that's the problem with tether grabbers. We can poke at shields, and Samus is exceptionally good at doing so safely, but we can't actually force you to do anything. At the end of the day, you can dodge our grabs on reaction (18 frame grab vs 10-12 frame human reaction time) and we can't really do much against your shield game. If you just WD up and shove a shield in our face, we can jab at it, but most of us will probably back off to a nice tilt distance.

 

[virtuososteve]

How do you guys practice tech skill by yourself with Sheik? people all have their ways of warming up with said "shadowboxing" and stuff so what do you guys do?

 

[soap]

Yep, that's the problem with tether grabbers. We can poke at shields, and Samus is exceptionally good at doing so safely, but we can't actually force you to do anything. At the end of the day, you can dodge our grabs on reaction (18 frame grab vs 10-12 frame human reaction time) and we can't really do much against your shield game. If you just WD up and shove a shield in our face, we can jab at it, but most of us will probably back off to a nice tilt distance.

cross up and mix up dash grabs and dash attack is pretty good

 

[bubbaking]

Dash attack is the greatest. That attack can be spaced in so many ways.

inb4 KK screams at me for bringing Samus into this thread.

 

[soap]

na it's cool I play Samy too


anyway we are getting into Samus's head over here. That helps the matchup.

 

[Sweet™]

I think it's great! Thanks for all the advice! :3

 

[KirbyKaze]

Against Samus you just d-throw uair and never let her come down.



Okay, now the fluff on the Samus matchup. Since you guys like fluff. Samus's game on defense mostly revolves around WD back into normals, shield, and crouch counterattacks. Suffice to say, Samus obviously likes the ground. Fortunately, her ground game sucks vs Sheik. In terms of ground vs. air, Sheik's SH goes over a lot of her stuff when used properly (basically up angle f-tilt / f-smash and u-tilt hit you). And those three options can sometimes be beaten by the sheer priority, speed, and range advantage of Sheik's fair and bair so her efforts often fizzle just because Sheik's moves are literally better. In ground vs. ground, Sheik's ground game is obviously fine vs Samus's ground game if only because Sheik can out-camp her and has an enormous grab that does enormous amounts of damage. Sheik's shield is also very good against Samus's ground stuff, since Samus defends mainly with normals and they can all be grab-punished if not spaced meticulously (and even if it is spaced well, some of it is still punishable). Samus will try to counter this with grabs. However, Samus's grab is bad so you mostly just roll or jump on it if you think she's doing it or knee-jerk react to it. From there, enjoy your free throw.

Because of all these slants in design, Samus is largely a conditioning character and depends on making you tunnel vision on certain options in order to win exchanges in losing matchups. In this one, she's going to try to condition you to jump at certain times so she can out-time you and start combos off her fair and other garbage. This will require grabs on her part since jump is the obvious counter to her grab. If possible, try to find the tell for her grab attempt or recognize when she's in 'grab' mode. If you can discern that, you can avoid getting hit by her for stupid amounts of time simply because shield and proper movement out of it is too good.

 

[Sweet™]

You're very good at explaining things.

 

[red stone]

I've got a question. What is a safe poke beneath the stage to get foxes and falcos goin for the edge with their sweet spotted phantasms and firebirds/firefoxes?

like what if i down tilt at the very edge? will that extend past and below the stage? or how about down smash? what about a fast fall bair? I really don't want to risk going off the stage with a guessing aerial. I lose too much stage control should i guess wrong

Is there anything that can be done on reaction? perhaps, prepare for a forward tilt when falco is a certain height above the stage and then once he passes a certain height falling down, prepare another move such as rising back air to put a hitbox at the edge?

 

[Sweet™]

Jump and throw needles at an angle towards the ledge to hit them out of their recovery, then it's (usually) a free forward air for you.
Sometimes it takes more than one needle throwing for them to be set up to get edgeguarded. You just gotta be smart about it.

Of course that USUALLY only covers if they are going to sweetspot the ledge, and assuming they are coming from below the stage, or at the height of the ledge.

Then you get into advanced edgeguards when they try sweetspotting with up b from above, where you can do a run off fair (SilentSwag does this often).
KirbyKaze will be able to explain better, and more thoroughly than I, though.

 

[Kaffei]

How do you guys practice tech skill by yourself with Sheik? people all have their ways of warming up with said "shadowboxing" and stuff so what do you guys do?

Just watch M2K/KirbyKaze and do whatever they do vs a Lv. 1 / 4 CPU

 

[virtuososteve]

I've got a question. What is a safe poke beneath the stage to get foxes and falcos goin for the edge with their sweet spotted phantasms and firebirds/firefoxes?

like what if i down tilt at the very edge? will that extend past and below the stage? or how about down smash? what about a fast fall bair? I really don't want to risk going off the stage with a guessing aerial. I lose too much stage control should i guess wrong

Is there anything that can be done on reaction? perhaps, prepare for a forward tilt when falco is a certain height above the stage and then once he passes a certain height falling down, prepare another move such as rising back air to put a hitbox at the edge?

What I do is go off the stage, fast fall, the immediately jump and do an nair. That's what I do to fox and falco. Once you do the nair though make sure that momentum you go from the jump is used to go back to the stage without and up-b.

 

[Metal Reeper]

Vs spacies recovery towards the ledge I think Dsmash can work but it's really hard, not sure.

KK please help me
Alright some questions.
1. Advice vs Doc? I see this MU as very easy. What are my best options out of Dthrow? I know at low % you can Dthrow>Utilt>fair. However I was wondering if there are better punishes. Usmash? When should I be using Dsmash? I feel that is DESTROYS Doc but I really don't know when I could get off a clean Dsmash. If Doc CC's what can he do? If Doc is trying to sweetspot recovery should I even try to SH>needle or just wait?
It's really tempting to ftilt, I know I should just grab. Any advice on landing ftilt? If I have a chanxce of hitting Doc above me, or throwing him off stage what would you suggest?

When I am dthrow techchasing I should be boost grabbing?

 

[KirbyKaze]

Keep Doc above you with uair. I would almost always d-throw > u-tilt > uair if the opportunity presented itself. After like 20, switch to uairs. Eventually fair him to get him offstage. Treat DI away like you would on Peach and fair / f-tilt mixup, sometimes illegitimate dash attack, and the chain grab at low percents (0-30? not sure). When he's descending, bair or dash dance grab. His dair has high priority below so go from the side (hence why bair is good).

In general the Doc matchup is just showing him how much longer your pokes are than his (f-tilt, fair, bair, grab). DI up on jabs and DJ the grab or d-smash follow. From there everything is gravy. Shield > WD back is reasonable, but his d-smash isn't WD OOS punishable at full power since it does ridiculous damage so just be patient vs it or get into a spot where you can outrange him more. Or jump it preemptively, or after the jab on your shield if your timing is good (since Doc's jab has terrible cancel frames).

 

[Metal Reeper]

Ty so much kk. Im bobby deak btw. Requested you on fb. Ill try and get sone matches of me. What would you sayare sheiks main strengths and weaknesses? Just so I can focus on strengths and work around tgese weaknesses.

What does doc have on me? Dthrow chaingrab? Dthrow fsmash?

 

[darkatma]

Dthrow dsmash, dthrow chaingrab, jab->dsmash, uthrow juggles with uair, and doc's ftilt outranges sheiks.

Also doc has one of the stronger crouch cancel punishes.

 

[Metal Reeper]

Ty so much kk. Im bobby deak btw. Requested you on fb. Ill try and get sone matches of me. What would you sayare sheiks main strengths and weaknesses? Just so I can focus on strengths and work around tgese weaknesses.

What does doc have on me? Dthrow chaingrab? Dthrow fsmash?

 

[Metal Reeper]

Oops. Phone

 

[Jolteon]

Sheik's low aerial mobility and lack of a move that threatens opponents below you means that she struggles to get down from the air while being juggled. Couple this with the fact that you can cover all of her non wall-jump recoveries by grabbing the edge (recovering with Sheik is really not the most exciting thing in this game), juggle traps -> edgeguard loops are effective against Sheik.

Sheik has a lot of strengths, kind of difficult to pinpoint her main ones imo. She has great mobility with quick, low-lag ranged pokes, along with her needles and good crouch this gives her a great zoning game. She's effective at cornering pretty much the whole cast. Other significant strengths are being able to get huge punishes off of a grab, having strong options vs aerial opponents (uair vs most characters, spaced bair, dd grab, tilts), covering a lot of recovery options at once, being able to convert combos into easy edgeguards and being able to react to a significant amount of approaches and defensive options.

Sheik is pretty good.

 

[bubbaking]

Another of Sheik's major strength is her tech-chase ability, thanks to 'tailor-made' traits like her dash speed, DA, and boost grab, and the combos she can set up using it. I feel a major weakness of hers is that she seems to be the perfect combination of weight and falling speed to be combo'd pretty hard by the likes of pretty much every good character (spacees, Jiggs, other Sheiks, Marth, Peach, and Falcon).

 

[virtuososteve]

Another of Sheik's major strength is her tech-chase ability, thanks to 'tailor-made' traits like her dash speed, DA, and boost grab, and the combos she can set up using it. I feel a major weakness of hers is that she seems to be the perfect combination of weight and falling speed to be combo'd pretty hard by the likes of pretty much every good character (spacees, Jiggs, other Sheiks, Marth, Peach, and Falcon).

VERY TRUE when playing a good falco one combo and you're already at 60%. It seems to me that with Sheik its about who punishes harder. Correct me if I'm wrong but when the opponent is at 0% your best option is to rack up percent with pokes or go for a grab and take advantage of it. If you think about it sheik is pretty weak, she doesn't have any killer moves such as Marth's tipper, Fox's upsmash etc. Yeah her Fair is good but not compared to those other characters.
Sheik is also known to be "easy" to use, but in reality for Sheik to be competitive it takes quite a bit of work, or for me that is. You need to be smart enough to analyze your opponent and know how to react accordingly.

 

[BTmoney]

I can't agree with sheik being weak at all lol when she has so many good kill setups, fair/uair, and fantastic edeguaring.
Now Marth, Marth is weak. His best kill move is laggy and has no setups. I agree with your low % strat though.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Recovery is about her weakest point, as Jolteon pointed out.

Beyond that? She's a strong character.

Smooth Criminal

 

[ShroudedOne]

lol at Marth being "weak"

Sheik doesn't really have aerial mobility. I'd put that and her recovery as the two major exploitable flaws.