Got a question! Sheik Q&A & FAQ

[#HBC | Scary]

I use Zelda alot! She comes out if I can get a nice lead because even though she's bad, she has a defensive game and I deal with camping well. It allows me to usually wrack up some nice damage or surprise kills if they aren't careful.

 

[sheikamaru]

i was asking because i was thinking about fighting a diddy and how hard they are to kill... i was watching lights match against gnes and he had a good early stock but was brought down hard

would you guys say only when you "feel" the time is right to switch to her? like if you have your opponent sent flying and you know they'll survive?

 

[da K.I.D.]

down smash at like 130 is my go to transform moment, since most characters wont recover to punish it, and since its transform they think they can easily recover on stage and dont need to go for the ledge, which can easily lead into them airdodging into up smash for the kill.

 

[Judo777]

Switch in MU's where the following are true. 1 Zelda doesn't get ***** by said character. 2 she doesn't have trouble killing that character in the MU. If those are both the case switch. I always say the only chars this is true for is Rob, D3, IC's and sometimes Peach.

I use her for pika but thats to avoid cgs.

 

[<π]

double switch refresh your kill moves and kill with fair at 150.

real talk though zelda is way better than people give her credit for. play her exclusively for a few fests. Note your problems and instead of running into the same walls over and over again find ways over or around them.

zelda has pretty decent kill moves. but her lack of mobility will make it difficult to get those moves off more often that not. kind of the opposite of sheik in that regard she can close the dictance and get in hits but the don't really kill well. I wouldn't really suggest switching to her just for a kill.

 

[sheikamaru]

rob d3 icys and peach huh... that sounds really legit.... all other chars sheik should be able to handle by herself...

 

[Judo777]

rob d3 icys and peach huh... that sounds really legit.... all other chars sheik should be able to handle by herself...

No its just switching doesn't help lol see lucario.

 

[sheikamaru]

gonna head to the lucaca boards now to see what they say about sheik or zelda...and what does iirc mean and oos the other term not out of shield?

 

[da K.I.D.]

iirc
if i recall/rememeber correctly

oos
out of state.

 

[sheikamaru]

so da kid do you play sheik normally or what? i'm asking b/c i go by the chars below everyones avatar lol

 

[da K.I.D.]

no, i just play shiek for fun.

as my icon suggests, i main sonic. and I second falco and third fox for tourneys, but i love using shiek as a nub stomper and shes actually pretty fun to play. not to mention that I like learning about the game so seeing perspectives of other character mains is really nice.

 

[sheikamaru]

3 mains huh? :x do u generally use all three at tourneys or how does that work out?

 

[*CT*]

I main Fox>Marth>TL since they are fun characters, I'm thinking about picking up Shiek for friendlies, I mainly use Fox in tourneys and Marth is only used for ICs, Pika and ironically Shiek.

How hard is the learning curve for Shiek? I can already do the DACUS like 75% of the time.

 

[da K.I.D.]

well... when i went to pound I played fox in one pool match, and falco in like 4/5, and went all sonic the entire rest of the tournament. that included 2 pools, 2 bracket matches and like 10 money matches

i was serious when i said i main sonic, second falco and third fox.

 

[sheikamaru]

I main Fox>Marth>TL since they are fun characters, I'm thinking about picking up Shiek for friendlies, I mainly use Fox in tourneys and Marth is only used for ICs, Pika and ironically Shiek.

How hard is the learning curve for Shiek? I can already do the DACUS like 75% of the time.

well if you have the dacus down your a shoe in for the position of sheik user LOLOL that's my opinion, dunno what the other guys have to say though

well... when i went to pound I played fox in one pool match, and falco in like 4/5, and went all sonic the entire rest of the tournament. that included 2 pools, 2 bracket matches and like 10 money matches

i was serious when i said i main sonic, second falco and third fox.

i believe you lol it's just my "mentor" advised me that it'd be better to just stick w/ two chars but then again you have people who main random so it's no big deal. but i main sheik/zelda and use fox in doubles.. well i picked up fox not too long ago so i haven't had the chance to use him in a tourney.

 

[Zankoku]

You use as many characters as you can visibly handle. Most can't get past two without starting to have trouble remembering the specifics of each one, but having good fundamentals lets you use a lot of characters without problems.

 

[sheikamaru]

You use as many characters as you can visibly handle. Most can't get past two without starting to have trouble remembering the specifics of each one, but having good fundamentals lets you use a lot of characters without problems.

i most definitely agree. you can't get anywhere in smash without at least having the basics down in the game.

and... not sure if i'm the only one that realized this but... did u guys know there's a timing for the f-tilt lock? and not just spamming the a btn really fast? i just found that out like.. right now lol

 

[Zankoku]

Next you'll tell me something like "Did you know that Sheik's Vanish sound effect happens at different timings depending on whether you do it in the air or on the ground? I DIDN'T KNOW THAT!!!"

 

[sheikamaru]

Next you'll tell me something like "Did you know that Sheik's Vanish sound effect happens at different timings depending on whether you do it in the air or on the ground? I DIDN'T KNOW THAT!!!"

i can't tell if your being sarcastic or not!!! :C

and i'll have to try that out... not that it helps or anything i'm sure.. but.... it's something worth checking out for interest :D

 

[JUDGE]

could someone tell me the exactly button inputs for a naritake step => ftilt?
thx^^

 

[sheikamaru]

a what?????????

can you guys could sum up the olimar match up for me? that's be awesome

 

[phi1ny3]

It's great when your within his shield space and not directly above him, because his oos is a little slow (his grab is only 10 frames compared to the usual 6).

The trick is getting in in the first place, and avoiding usmash out of shield

Oh yeah, and if you've backed him up against a ledge from him trying to pivot grab you, your options become much better, because it makes it harder to allow access to his pivot grabs and you can push your offense, the only thing you really need to watch out for is his roll in that position, which is very baitable.

fair is your standard swatter for pikmin, to stop them from getting on you, and nair is if they're on you and you want to kill them off. Nair is also a decent approach option on shield, but you'll want to mix it up because he can just shield grab it.

oh yeah, imo avoid killing yellows if you can because they make the weakest smash attacks, try to concentrate on stray purples because those things hit haaaaard. btw I once tried to play keep away with an olimar, and it was really doable until I realized I wasn't killing any of his purples, and all of a sudden, he had like 4 lol.

 

[sheikamaru]

Thx phil
So fair pkmen away and nair if they're on me. stay away from above him. I realize he can like attack through some stages too

 

[Sailor Princess Twenty-Two.]

I just jab pikmin before they land on me. Putting myself in the air vs olimar isn't something I really want to do to myself.

also if we needle reset someone, do we have enough time to tipper u-smash them? or should I be going for something else.

 

[Dnyce]

How useful / relevant are the multiple guides you guys have for learning to play Sheik?

EDIT: Who are the top few Sheik mains?

 

[Zankoku]

I had no idea we had multiple useful guides.

Judo, Scary, Tutu, and Mars are probably the only Sheik mains that matter. The rest either don't attend tournaments with any sort of regularity or suck. Or both.

 

[Dnyce]

I had no idea we had multiple useful guides.

Judo, Scary, Tutu, and Mars are probably the only Sheik mains that matter. The rest either don't attend tournaments with any sort of regularity or suck. Or both.

Lol, I guess that answers my question. Also, thanks... I'll take a look

 

[phi1ny3]

I had no idea we had multiple useful guides.

Judo, Scary, Tutu, and Mars are probably the only Sheik mains that matter. The rest either don't attend tournaments with any sort of regularity or suck. Or both.

wuuuuuuut?

no foreign acknowledgement?

I am disappoint

 

[Zankoku]

I also don't follow any scenes outside of the US so I'm not about to speak for them in any capacity.

 

[#HBC | Scary]

Foreign players = Edu, Biggad, Light, Earth, Daiki.

All I know for now.

 

[Judo777]

It's great when your within his shield space and not directly above him, because his oos is a little slow (his grab is only 10 frames compared to the usual 6).

The trick is getting in in the first place, and avoiding usmash out of shield

Oh yeah, and if you've backed him up against a ledge from him trying to pivot grab you, your options become much better, because it makes it harder to allow access to his pivot grabs and you can push your offense, the only thing you really need to watch out for is his roll in that position, which is very baitable.

fair is your standard swatter for pikmin, to stop them from getting on you, and nair is if they're on you and you want to kill them off. Nair is also a decent approach option on shield, but you'll want to mix it up because he can just shield grab it.

oh yeah, imo avoid killing yellows if you can because they make the weakest smash attacks, try to concentrate on stray purples because those things hit haaaaard. btw I once tried to play keep away with an olimar, and it was really doable until I realized I wasn't killing any of his purples, and all of a sudden, he had like 4 lol.

Certainly some good insight phil, although if you don't mind i have a few critiques.

All of this is fairly accurate IMO with a few exceptions. I wouldn't recommend staling ur fair and nair on pikmin if you don't have to especially not fair in the MU. using jabs and ftilts to get rid of the pikmin are the best (obv ftilt is what we want to stale but sometimes we just need em off fast so jab is better). If you absolutely can't get a pikmin off with those move then you might need to nair since nair is an airdodge punisher in this MU mostly.

But you want to keep fair for hitting olimar cause that move just puts him in the worst spot all the time. Like if you can fair olimar relatively fresh at 100ish you have a decent shot at gimping him.

Lastly DO NOT let then yellows live!!! yellow are almost as bad as purples in this MU. Yellows have the weakest smashes (except whites obv) but they also extend his hitboxes and actually make it easier to combat sheik in those bad spots. Yellows are THE EASIEST pikmin to stop juggles because he can throw out longer range aerials now, not to mention his smashes get a buff on range now which can be just enough to deter our approach. If you have the time to kill always kills purples first (if only because purple pikmin toss is insanely good and messes us up so bad, followed by the kill power grab unavoidability) then yellows.

Also to go off of what i just said. Be very careful of purple pikmin grab. It has the shortest reach of any color but as a result it actually makes olimar grab at close range un-spotdodgable (or at least almost). Because pikmin have a grab box while returning also and it returns much sooner than normal it beats out our spotdoge almost everytime. And then ofc the worst part being purple uthrow kills at like 120.

 

[phi1ny3]

Oh haha, shows how much I do this MU as lucario. Nair and fair are very staleable for Lucario, and yellows are bad because the only pikmin that really stay on par with Lucario's hitboxes are purples, since yellows it's useless to have that priority when lucario's is that much better.

 

[ccst]

Hello Sheik boards; just a question. What do you think about the R.O.B. MU and why? Thanks in advance!

 

[Dnyce]

Judo,

How would you go about pressuring Olimar to the edge? I'm probably just bad, but I can't seem to maintain stage control against him... much less slowly take advantage of it. =/

 

[phi1ny3]

He generally does it himself, just make him use more pivot grabs more to try to counter your approaches, because unless he's going for the kill, his shield options aren't very good at directly handling your approaches since his grab comes out on frame 10. And when you back him to the ledge, he gets tons more pressure to roll towards the center, because he doesn't want to be sent offstage most of the time

I feel honestly nair is going to be stale in this MU, merely because nair will be the most reliable at killing/knocking off any pikmin that have already latched onto you because the entire hurtbox becomes a hitbox (whereas other aerials will only kill off pikmin that are on certain parts of her, like fair on her front, etc.), but yeah, I agree that ftilt would be Sheik's best swatter for preventing pikmin getting on her in this MU because it covers a high amount of range. btw on longer ranged grabs, sometimes if you're really good at mashing, you can break out of the grab before you get to Olimar, something to look out for to avoid getting those 0-40 grab strings from Olimar at low percents.

Sheik imo has some of the best approaching aerials against Olimar tbh, because fair and SH buffered nair all are really hard to punish oos for most characters in general.

ftilt also really puts Olimar in a bad spot if he gets caught up in it, imo he seems easier for me to juggle as sheik than snake is as Sheik. The only thing you have to really worry about are the occasional whistles (which needles and grab beat) and nair/gtfo aerials (FF nair can lead to usmash though so be cautious with that).


Now a question from me:

I also need some DK MU advice, I'm gonna run into one in the near future, so I need to know some basic nuances of the MU as well as what stages I need to ban/cp.

 

[phi1ny3]

ugh double post.

 

[Dnyce]

He generally does it himself, just make him use more pivot grabs more to try to counter your approaches, because unless he's going for the kill, his shield options aren't very good at directly handling your approaches since his grab comes out on frame 10. And when you back him to the ledge, he gets tons more pressure to roll towards the center, because he doesn't want to be sent offstage most of the time

I feel honestly nair is going to be stale in this MU, merely because nair will be the most reliable at killing/knocking off any pikmin that have already latched onto you because the entire hurtbox becomes a hitbox (whereas other aerials will only kill off pikmin that are on certain parts of her, like fair on her front, etc.), but yeah, I agree that ftilt would be Sheik's best swatter for preventing pikmin getting on her in this MU because it covers a high amount of range. btw on longer ranged grabs, sometimes if you're really good at mashing, you can break out of the grab before you get to Olimar, something to look out for to avoid getting those 0-40 grab strings from Olimar at low percents.

Sheik imo has some of the best approaching aerials against Olimar tbh, because fair and SH buffered nair all are really hard to punish oos for most characters in general.

ftilt also really puts Olimar in a bad spot if he gets caught up in it, imo he seems easier for me to juggle as sheik than snake is as Sheik. The only thing you have to really worry about are the occasional whistles (which needles and grab beat) and nair/gtfo aerials (FF nair can lead to usmash though so be cautious with that).

Actually, Olimar's catch collisions aren't active until frame 11. I guess I need to learn approach options then, lol - just stating I need to approach doesn't really help.

I seem to stale nair a lot when in KO% against usmash happy Olimars. I would generally think to kill Sheik with an usmash oos or pivot grabbing her landing, but when I played against an Olimar as Sheik I seemed to be getting killed mostly by Fsmash and then getting railed while trying to recover, lol. I think that's more of me not knowing how to play Sheik yet though, idk... right now I rely mostly on tethering the ledge lol.

tl;dr too early to think I know anything about playing Sheik, hahaha

 

[phi1ny3]

Oh yeah, forgot to add the extra frame when reading from the pac to the attack's actual frames.

fsmash usually happens when you are whiffing too much and aren't pressuring olimar close enough, Olimar basically has to just walk away and fsmash your lag/landing, which means you have to switch it up with some SH AD or making your landings a little less predictable. This MU is all about making the right approaches and mixing them up imo.

 

[Zankoku]

I also need some DK MU advice, I'm gonna run into one in the near future, so I need to know some basic nuances of the MU as well as what stages I need to ban/cp.

I personally think the matchup is relatively simple as long as you avoid stages with tiny maneuvering space like Brinstar, since DK kinda covers the entire area with his fists and legs on stages like that. The better DKs will likely punish you for being you rather than for you being Sheik.

DK can't really out-speed you, nor should he be able to force any approach since you have a decently useful projectile to stop overly campy players. His attacks tend to win out in case-by-case basis, though, so you obviously need to avoid just throwing out attacks and trying to win in trades (especially since he hits twice as hard). Ftilt doesn't really lock, but DK's options against it are limited. Up+B can "escape"... but I don't think it's a very beneficial one by the time he can actually use it. DIing into Sheik gives you a utilt or usmash ender, or a setup with a uair at higher percents. DIing away from Sheik lets you do this neat little reset where you shorthop a fair and follow up with ftilts all over again, repeat as necessary until he catches on and end with a nair when that happens.

DK's fsmash and giant punch hit ridiculously hard but aren't the fastest in startup and when they'd see use are somewhat easy to predict. His usmash can also kill early but it should really just be a warning not to do uncovered approaches from directly above, which his uair does a better job of, frankly. The real killer is dsmash, which is definitely punishable if shielded or dodged, but comes out really quickly and KOs Sheik pretty early since it sends upward. If you're in like... the 70s, start watching for points when DK is going for it. It's also got somewhat deceptive coverage in areas that aren't directly to his side.

In the neutral game, DK pretty much zones with his long-reaching aerials and tilts. If he never shows the intent of going in, though, you can let him know that jumping backward all day won't help at all against needles. Or, if he gets predictable with his zoning options, you can just run in and grab or dash attack him. Implied threats (approaching into a shield, empty shorthops) are good, but if you become too reliant on them then he'll just force you back out through dtilts and down+B. It kind of becomes a game of committing as little as possible, but still taking risks every once in a while so your play doesn't stale out.

I'm not sure if it's that easy to edgeguard DK when he's near the stage, due to his priority storm of an Up+B, but he's kind of in a bad position when farther out. Try to take advantage of this by at least getting in some more damage, if not completing the KO. On the flip side, watch out for DK going off-stage to edgeguard you - you kind of have to preempt any aerials sent your way when off-stage, since your aerials will only trade at best and Vanish's invulnerability doesn't happen until well into the hop.

Utilt tends to shieldpoke when used from under a side Battlefield platform that DK is standing on. Use if you're at a loss for trying anything else.

 

[Dnyce]

Oh yeah, forgot to add the extra frame when reading from the pac to the attack's actual frames.

This statement confuses the hell out of me... you mind telling me what Subaction/routine Olimar's grab is? After looking at FitPikmin.pac for several weeks now, I was under the impression that his grab was broken.