3.5 Sheik

[NotSym]

With the general recovery nerf how do you feel sheik will perform this update?

 

[foxygrandpa]

She's probably around 3rd or 4th best in the game now, with fox and falco being slightly better and may tie with wolf.

Might not be true once things develop but I don't see her dropping from the top 6 or 7 characters.

 

[KingsGambit27]

I see her in top 10, probably around #7 or 8 once the game develops a bit more. Once people know how to juggle her and punish her recovery properly (Like the NYC players do to me >_>), she won't seem quite as dominant.

However she has most definitely jumped from mid tier in 3.02 to high/top in 3.5

I agree with Foxy that Spacies will occupy the top. I also think lucas will be there, and ZSS...but I digress.

 

[Baky]

In 3.0 Shiek was a huge threat that somehow managed to remain underrated. Now in 3.5 I can't think of non-melee matchups that shiek is going to have trouble with (maybe wolf).

 

[foxygrandpa]

The kirby matchup is kind of awkward and so is the roy one but I don't know if either are disadvantageous.

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

"Welcome back, ma'am. We kept your old tier spot warm for you. The chocolates and remote are where you've always kept them, next to the skulls of your enemies, of course."

 

[jtm94]

Sheik is good now. She was good before. She hasn't changed. Gained DACUS. Have at you.

 

[KingsGambit27]

DACUS allows for some insane (almost evil) DI follow ups on throws. I can almost taste the salt it will generate.

 

[ThreeSided]

So what exactly changed about her dash attack? There's all kinds of lingo used in the change log, and I don't know if fewer frames of "animation" is the same as fewer frames of "end lag".

 

[Boomhound]

Sheik's always had great tools, the new patch simply encourages her traditional passive-aggressive style.
I think she's somewhere top 10, but the players' fundamentals play a huge part in her success in neutral.

 

[Deleted member]

The kirby matchup is kind of awkward and so is the roy one but I don't know if either are disadvantageous.

they're not

 

[Citricide]

I've been playing a lot of Sheik both in 3.02 and a few tournaments in 3.5 already. She seems a lot more powerful despite receiving no changes. Seems like the changes to everyone else and their recoveries allowed her to become a little stronger

 

[Heero Yuy]

I know it's too early in the meta but just for the sake of asking, does Sheik appear to have any struggling matchups? Link-Sheik was roughly even in 3.0 but now Sheik abominates him hard. I have pocket spacies but would rather be more creative in the cast.

 

[jtm94]

Sheik never lost to Link. It was free before and now he's a potato.
Her only bad MUs are like... Fox... Roy, and Falco is annoying. Roy has been underrated for a while and received no changes now.

 

[Heero Yuy]

I would argue that it wasn't free in 3.0 but that's a story that's not worthwhile due to 3.0 being long dead.

I'm curious to why you say Roy is bad for Sheik. Couldn't she just throw him offstage and boom free edgeguard?

 

[InfinityCollision]

Sheik has to respect Roy's pokes and she's at a good weight/fallspeed for his combos. Not sure how that one falls out tbh.

Sheik probably 6-4's or at least 55-45's Falco right now.

 

[Boomhound]

Sheik probably 6-4's or at least 55-45's Falco right now.

Just wondering why you think that- the match-up should effectively be identical to Melee's (equal or in Falco's favour) except for a few minor differences.
I don't think the changes to Sheik's throws and Falco's Dair hit-box would change the MU much.

 

[jtm94]

Roy can CC into better options. The character is incredibly good right now. His down tilt is better than ours and so is his grab range. Factually a better Marth.

His recovery also isn't interactive if they are good. Sheik is amazing against bad Roy, but against good Roy it is much more difficult.

 

[ThreeSided]

Roy can CC into better options. The character is incredibly good right now. His down tilt is better than ours and so is his grab range. Factually a better Marth.

His recovery also isn't interactive if they are good. Sheik is amazing against bad Roy, but against good Roy it is much more difficult.

A good analysis, and also a good explanation for his seemingly misguided buffs.

When Roy first came out he was pretty bad from a metagame perspective. It wasn't until a little while before the patch that his meta evolved to the point where people realized he was actually a really good character. Unfortunately whatever plans the PMBR had in store were probably already in development so he ended up being buffed despite taking a high spot in the last 3.02 tier list. There's a damn decent chance he's going to be a monster in 3.5.

 

[Deleted member]

sheik is fine vs roy

our character is in a weird spot where she doesn't really lose to anything, but she doesn't have a lot of good MUs either. she's still excellent though.

 

[Taytertot]

A good analysis, and also a good explanation for his seemingly misguided buffs.

When Roy first came out he was pretty bad from a metagame perspective. It wasn't until a little while before the patch that his meta evolved to the point where people realized he was actually a really good character. Unfortunately whatever plans the PMBR had in store were probably already in development so he ended up being buffed despite taking a high spot in the last 3.02 tier list. There's a damn decent chance he's going to be a monster in 3.5.

Dont know that Id agree with that. roy wasnt exactly buffed or nerfed. He got both some slight buffs and some slight nerfs. The buffs, while useful were minor while the nerfs were attacks that were a big part of his game. his dair is not a buff to everyone. while being a spike now, it has a very small hitbox for it and he didnt have any guaranteed options into dair to begin with nor does he now so being able to spike is not that big. dair was a much better combo tool in 3.02 due to being able to easily hit a grounded opponent with the meteor which set up quite prefectly for uair chains (which was also slightly nerfed) but the hitbox for the spike is too small for that to be as consistent as it was before. So all and all I feel that roy is about the same as he was.
In terms of him being good in 3.02, Id say he was well balanced actually. While he did have a great combo game and powerful finishers, his only safe option of shield was uair (dtilt wasnt too bad either but I dont believe it was entirely safe). So his approach wasn't exactly safe if the other player plays it right.

 

[jtm94]

Sheik loses to Luigi hard. He's too buttery.

 

[foxygrandpa]

After playing it a bit more, I don't think sheik loses to roy. The matchup is very stage dependent though, and if you don't constantly respect his dtilit, you're going to easily lose stocks. I would say it's probably her worst matchup besides fox, but I don't think its necessarily disadvantageous.

sheik is fine vs roy

our character is in a weird spot where she doesn't really lose to anything, but she doesn't have a lot of good MUs either. she's still excellent though.

She beats a good portion of the cast imo. The marth and peach matchups seem easier than melee's. Her and CF got amazing matchup spreads, especially since people are actually using more than 9 broken characters now.

Sheik loses to Luigi hard. He's too buttery.

Sheik vs luigi was an odd matchup in melee. It's not bad for sheik, it's just super annoying. It's easy for sheik to shut down his approaches, but whatever you do don't try long combo strings against him or you'll eat nairs and free combos. It's boring, not bad.

 

[Kaysick]

I kinda got rocked by Scythe's Roy at my local weekly (Wavedash Wednesday). How should I go about facing Roy? Was my first time playing Sheik in tourney and I got 7th so I know if I get her kinks down I'll place even better and consistently.

 

[Captain Faceroll]

I approach the matchup similarly to how I would when playing against marth. The main thing you want to do is get a grab and abuse your punish as hard as possible. Roy outranges you in neutral (swords op), but you have a couple of advantages. Your main advantage is the fact that you have a projectile whilst he doesn't. Don't be afraid to force roy to approach you, and then punish him for it. Roy doesn't have a ton of approaches that are safe on shield, and it's likely he'll misspace something eventually and you can grab him or nair oos.

Roy's tech roll is egregiously awful, I'm talking literal garbage tier here. If you get a grab, you can definitely d throw tech chase for upwards of 60% if you can do it properly. I'm not even exaggerating. If they di away, you tech chase him for free. If he di's in, then you can regrab depending on percent, or just f tilt -> other option as you see fit.

If roy spams d tilt in neutral, jump over it and slap him. If he spams fair, see if you can get under him (this is a bit tricky), or just shield and nair oos.

Like I said earlier, don't be afraid to spam needles, he doesn't like that one bit. |

Roy suffers the same problems marth does where he has no priority under him. If you get him in the air, you can juggle him for days (especially with his faster falling speed), and really do a number on him. His recovery is also piss-poor, so you can just throw him off, and invincible nair him. You can also refresh invincibility and simply hold ledge.

This post wasn't very well organized, so I apologize for that. But honestly, I think this matchup is definitely in sheik's favor, at least it was in 3.02. I haven't gone over roy's changelog at all, but I assume the matchup will play out pretty much the same way.

Last time I played scythe's roy in friendlies I destroyed it, just saying


Tl;dr: Tech chase to infinity, punish harder, edge guard, needle.

 

[cisyphus]

Marth is free in melee and Roy is even more free, for real. Faster fall speed and bad roll = grab city. Worse recovery = gimp city. Smaller reach with worse hitboxes at the tip = needle city. Out-lame Roy and you win every time. Patient play is all you need.

Luigi isn't hard either tf. His movement option is completely shut down by needles and f-tilt/d-tilt. Stop trying to combo him and juggle him instead. His dair is the worse he can do and you just need to bair him if he spams dair. Mix up your throws so that you can actually get one (1) follow up aerial. He has a super linear recovery, just pay attention to whether he has a double jump and keep your invincibility fresh to avoid coin gimps.

All that said the floaty matchups (including Peach and Marth) are harder than in melee because of PAL downthrow (like seriously). That takes away the most consistent KO set-up of down-throw -> u-air/f-air which is the only way Sheik can KO Peach. You're not gimping her and you're not gonna fair KO until stupidly high percents.

The Falco matchup is also heavily affected by the dair and d-throw changes are you kidding? Sheik was able to tech chase Falco hard in Melee because of down throw. Now Falco just has to DI away and tech away and Sheik get's no follow-up. That's a huge blow to Sheik's gameplan. The only solace is the DI mixup available from back throw. Meanwhile Falco's dair can be beaten out by UAir during its final frames because of the shrunken hitbox. That forces Falco to be so much more careful with his aerials. Sheik can probably challenge it with u-tilt now too honestly.

 

[Deleted member]

you have no idea what you're talking about. literally 100% of your objective statements are wrong.

 

[cisyphus]

Might wanna check out the European melee meta there bud. Everything down-throw wise that I said is consistent with PAL results. The rest is what I've experienced first hand, so if it's wrong I guess I'm playing a bunch of garbage players. MI's not the strongest region, but I've taken down PR Marths with Sheik, so I don't know about that one.

 

[Deleted member]

but PM sheik doesnt have melee pal downthrow for starters.

 

[cisyphus]

PM Sheik's down throw is designed with the PAL down throw in mind, though. PMBR hasn't been shy about that fact in the slightest. It's essentially the same thing where it's not possible to follow it up with an up air with proper DI, and a proper DI + tech option from a Falco definitely puts him out of range of anything besides _maybe_ a dash attack, which can be compensated for as soon as the Falco realizes that's Sheik's only option.

 

[foxygrandpa]

Marth is free in melee and Roy is even more free, for real. Faster fall speed and bad roll = grab city. Worse recovery = gimp city. Smaller reach with worse hitboxes at the tip = needle city. Out-lame Roy and you win every time. Patient play is all you need.

Luigi isn't hard either tf. His movement option is completely shut down by needles and f-tilt/d-tilt. Stop trying to combo him and juggle him instead. His dair is the worse he can do and you just need to bair him if he spams dair. Mix up your throws so that you can actually get one (1) follow up aerial. He has a super linear recovery, just pay attention to whether he has a double jump and keep your invincibility fresh to avoid coin gimps.

All that said the floaty matchups (including Peach and Marth) are harder than in melee because of PAL downthrow (like seriously). That takes away the most consistent KO set-up of down-throw -> u-air/f-air which is the only way Sheik can KO Peach. You're not gimping her and you're not gonna fair KO until stupidly high percents.

The Falco matchup is also heavily affected by the dair and d-throw changes are you kidding? Sheik was able to tech chase Falco hard in Melee because of down throw. Now Falco just has to DI away and tech away and Sheik get's no follow-up. That's a huge blow to Sheik's gameplan. The only solace is the DI mixup available from back throw. Meanwhile Falco's dair can be beaten out by UAir during its final frames because of the shrunken hitbox. That forces Falco to be so much more careful with his aerials. Sheik can probably challenge it with u-tilt now too honestly.

Sheik's dthrow has way less cool down than PAL. Like, by an extreme amount.
Marth was never exactly free if the marth knew how to deal with needles in the neutral. Sheik won for sure, but I wouldn't consider it a hard counter.
Peach and Marth aren't harder than melee. Marth feels about the same, and peach is more in sheiks favor imo. Sheik can still dthrow to upair on bad DI off a throw. If peach DI's upwards in order to escape a regrab, DACUS will kill her at like 80 percent. If she DI's away off dthrow, then boost grab will regrab her. If she DI's down and away, then you can move forward and try to cut off her tech options. That all works with bthrow as well, so even without the guaranteed follow up, sheik gets more stage positioning off grabs and can pretty much always get a regrab or follow up afterwards.
Sheik's tech chases on spacies are actually better now if you know her new grabs. Whether or not the actual window for follow ups is less or more is beyond me, but the bthrow and dthrow mixups allow sheik to always be able to throw an opponent to the edge to cut off tech options. Its still very reactable, and much easier to push spacies offstage.