The Sheik triangle is the triangular space where your air needles are thrown, especially when you're descending in the air or about to land on a platform.
The way it works is that when you FJ to go above a side platform, because of the needle's AC and angle, you create a temporary zone where any approach the opponent makes that puts them in that triangular space can be attacked with little commitment. Sheik can "follow" needles that connect in this position with run off FF fair and on occasion other goodies, which deters opponents from messing with that part of the stage for a moment, unless they're close enough to slid through the needle spray and get the jump on you.
I'm on a roll with my writing & thinking right now so I'm gonna continue this train of thought. So just be aware that this next bit isn't directly aimed at you but deals more with flailing in general. This will likely wind up in some kind of guide or a SSBM lesson. Other people reading, consider this a preview of sorts.
UNDERSTANDING FLAILING
An introspective study in why Marth players spam f-smash
By Kirbykaze
I'm gonna begin by defining flailing. Flailing can be defined as, "A player's prolonged use of specific attacks (generally strong ones) at most if not all available opportunities in high frequency, usually with the intention of dislodging some level of control from their opponent or bridging a perceived deficit."
If that makes sense right away, that's excellent. If not, here are some examples: Peaches that d-smash or nair at every opportunity when being comboed on the ground or air respectively, a Fox just throwing his u-smash at his opponent despite how much they're shielding, a Marth spamming f-smash to try and kill a high percent floaty who's catching up with him in the damage race, or a Sheik that's spamming dash attack vs a Falco because after she comboed him to 60% she got gimped and now she's down a stock...
Any of those examples sound familiar? I've no doubt that most of you encountered these at some point. But flailing is interesting to me for a number of reasons, namely that it's amazing to me that so many people react the same way to certain stimuli. And all with the same driving goal behind it: "I need to stop my opponent before I fall further behind. I need to do something." This, to me, is cool. Let me explain below...
First, I don't want you to get the wrong idea. Spamming f-smash is still terrible as Marth and so is everything else I listed above. In principle flailing is a desperation tactic. You want to avoid those or use them as a last resort if that. But what's curious about flailing is twofold. First, it's crazy how common it is. Second, what's interesting to me is that what it represents isn't strictly terrible. Though it's a desperation tactic, at its core it's meant as an adaptation. This means a player is at some level trying to adjust to a situation. The issue is it just happens to be a maladaptive one. But the driving force at its core (I need to do something different) is not bad and can be a good learning tool & way to understand yourself as a player. Furthermore, I think flailing can be actually turned into a way to implement new things into our game because flailing is usually detectable as a shift from our normal gameplay. By understanding why the habit is there, we can then build an understanding of what we're trying to accomplish with it and how we can introduce new habits to replace it.
To expand on this idea of using flailing as a conduit to integrate or circulate new strategies into your game, it comes from the nature of flailing. We feel vulnerable therefore we try to fix it. And as I stated earlier I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting to get back into the game when you feel you're falling behind. It makes sense to change up what you're doing if you know that fundamentally you can't catch up by continuing to do your basics because you need to get something started, whether it's a combo, some proper footing, or some breathing room. That's generally why people start to flail and lose their composure. But where flailing falls short is how it goes about trying to fix this. It has three major flaws: 1) it's repetitive, 2) it lacks finesse, and 3) it tends to be punishable and committal. Which means that it's not a good response to the needs outlined above because you're ultimately playing sloppier and despite the initial change you're now doing more of the same thing -- look at how many whiffed our non-sweet spot dash attacks some Sheiks toss out vs spacies when they feel lost. But the interesting thing about flailing is that once a player hits that move they "needed" enough to spam it and connecting with it culminates in the accomplishment of the goal that created that desperation, they tend to be able to revert back to more controlled, elegant gameplay. This is huge.
To be continued.
