Help versus Fox?

[Eonn]

I really struggle to make Fox respect my space; most of the moves I seem to throw out get punished and I can't seem to react to whatever "approach cues" the other player has. A lot of the time I feel like I don't have enough room to try and make Fox whiff with evasive maneuvers, so I'm constantly getting run over and never really have stage control.

Here's a video of me getting absolutely bodied on stream last night, what should I be doing differently?
http://www.twitch.tv/hax0rm4n/v/23871467?t=41m08s

 

[necroTaxonomist]

There is no solution.
Fox will consume us all.
20XX is upon us.
The only way to win is not to play.

Okay, real talk now. Fox is pretty much good at everything, so the only thing you can take advantage of against him is that he's comparatively easy to combo. Sheik can ground-wobble him pretty hard with dthrows, for example, so essentially you just need to play it safe and have good DI until he makes a mistake and you can capitalize on it.

Unless of course he's being played to TAS perfection, in which case you're screwed.

 

[controlpop]

Playing against Fox is just rough no matter how you put it. Here's what I saw from watching your match.

You full hop a lot. Sheik is in the air for a while when she jumps, and when you full hop in the neutral like that Fox has a lot of time to react and punish you. Don't be afraid to stay on the ground. It's easy to build a bad habit of jumping a lot in the neutral because of Sheik's somewhat poor movement, but you have tools to help you. Charge needles to bait him in and then shield and punish as best you can. Wavedash OOS Ftilt or Dsmash is really good, just make sure you don't get shined. Also, Dsmash is really unsafe on shield so be cautious of that as well. If you really want to jump, charge needles while you're in the air and either throw them to keep him away, or cancel them and Fair or Nair and then go in for a grab. I saw you do that a few times, but you have to get that grab. Also, don't shield grab unless you download gaps in your opponents pressure. Getting shined while trying to shield grab is the worst feeling ever.

Try utilizing Sheik's ledge game more. You would almost always Fair from ledge and that's a really easy thing for your opponent to pick up on a punish. Shino stall more and focus on getting back onto stage when your on ledge, rather than trying to hit him.

Try to slow it down a little bit. I noticed that you would start to go a little crazy with dash attacks at certain times, especially in game two. The neutral game is the key to beating Fox (and the key to the game in general). Fox can put you in some pretty rough spots, but if you can get that grab and start tech chasing, it can be really rough for him too. Once you get that tech chase and get him off stage, you take the stock.

 

[controlpop]

I'm just a rookie and that's just my opinion

let me know if any of that helped

 

[Eonn]

Playing against Fox is just rough no matter how you put it. Here's what I saw from watching your match.

You full hop a lot. Sheik is in the air for a while when she jumps, and when you full hop in the neutral like that Fox has a lot of time to react and punish you. Don't be afraid to stay on the ground. It's easy to build a bad habit of jumping a lot in the neutral because of Sheik's somewhat poor movement, but you have tools to help you. Charge needles to bait him in and then shield and punish as best you can. Wavedash OOS Ftilt or Dsmash is really good, just make sure you don't get shined. Also, Dsmash is really unsafe on shield so be cautious of that as well. If you really want to jump, charge needles while you're in the air and either throw them to keep him away, or cancel them and Fair or Nair and then go in for a grab. I saw you do that a few times, but you have to get that grab. Also, don't shield grab unless you download gaps in your opponents pressure. Getting shined while trying to shield grab is the worst feeling ever.

Try utilizing Sheik's ledge game more. You would almost always Fair from ledge and that's a really easy thing for your opponent to pick up on a punish. Shino stall more and focus on getting back onto stage when your on ledge, rather than trying to hit him.

Try to slow it down a little bit. I noticed that you would start to go a little crazy with dash attacks at certain times, especially in game two. The neutral game is the key to beating Fox (and the key to the game in general). Fox can put you in some pretty rough spots, but if you can get that grab and start tech chasing, it can be really rough for him too. Once you get that tech chase and get him off stage, you take the stock.

Thanks! I never even notice I'm full hopping until I watch the replays, not a good thing to be doing.

My biggest issue is that I don't know how he will approach and how I can cover as many approach options as possible since I get CCed so hard.

 

[Twinkles]

This seems a lot less like Fox being a really good character and more just this Fox player is currently a better player than you. Which is not a problem, everyone starts out like that. Keep up the practice on general movement (wavedashes, wavelands, short-hops), needle turnarounds, SH L-cancel AND autocancel aerials (super duper important on sheik in particular). Be focused on being able to link one action into another action ASAP when you practice.

As for your in-game decisions, there some noobier habits I can point out.

You got punished quite a bit for when you get sent off-stage and then tried to DJ immediately back to stage. Don't burn your double-jump early by jumping onto stage, wait until you are at a height where you can sweet-spot the edge with your double-jump or jump back and sweet-spot with your up-B. These are way safer options and should be your go-to instead of jumping into an upsmash on-stage, or worse, a fsmash. You get sent back offstage except with no doublejump, and that pretty much means you're already dead.

For shield pressure, I saw you try fair->ftilt. In fact, lots of times, I see you throwin' ftilts here are there. Contrary to what many scrubs think, ftilt is not THAT good. Misspaced, its gets shield-grabbed very easily, and sometimes loses to other OOS options if the char has a longer-reaching OOS option. On top of that, easily crouch-cancelled. Lots of better Sheiks say you "unlock" ftilt around after 40% or something (character dependent) when CC'ing gets less relevant. For hardcore shield pressure, space SH-AC fairs and just watch for the OOS options as they come (rolling, spot-dodging, grab, jumping, etc.). You can also do AC fair/nair into utilt to bait and punish people for grabbing. Utilt can be shield grabbed in between the two hits, but that is a very hard timing and if the 2nd hit of utilt hits, utilt ends so fast you can immediately jab or dash away before a person in shield can really do anything about it.

Something you should learn to incorporate in your game is wave-dash back into grab. If Fox/any character tries to approach you willy-nilly with aerials, WD back to dodge their aerial and just grab -> 0-to-death kill them off it.

 

[Eonn]

This seems a lot less like Fox being a really good character and more just this Fox player is currently a better player than you. Which is not a problem, everyone starts out like that. Keep up the practice on general movement (wavedashes, wavelands, short-hops), needle turnarounds, SH L-cancel AND autocancel aerials (super duper important on sheik in particular). Be focused on being able to link one action into another action ASAP when you practice.

As for your in-game decisions, there some noobier habits I can point out.

You got punished quite a bit for when you get sent off-stage and then tried to DJ immediately back to stage. Don't burn your double-jump early by jumping onto stage, wait until you are at a height where you can sweet-spot the edge with your double-jump or jump back and sweet-spot with your up-B. These are way safer options and should be your go-to instead of jumping into an upsmash on-stage, or worse, a fsmash. You get sent back offstage except with no doublejump, and that pretty much means you're already dead.

For shield pressure, I saw you try fair->ftilt. In fact, lots of times, I see you throwin' ftilts here are there. Contrary to what many scrubs think, ftilt is not THAT good. Misspaced, its gets shield-grabbed very easily, and sometimes loses to other OOS options if the char has a longer-reaching OOS option. On top of that, easily crouch-cancelled. Lots of better Sheiks say you "unlock" ftilt around after 40% or something (character dependent) when CC'ing gets less relevant. For hardcore shield pressure, space SH-AC fairs and just watch for the OOS options as they come (rolling, spot-dodging, grab, jumping, etc.). You can also do AC fair/nair into utilt to bait and punish people for grabbing. Utilt can be shield grabbed in between the two hits, but that is a very hard timing and if the 2nd hit of utilt hits, utilt ends so fast you can immediately jab or dash away before a person in shield can really do anything about it.

Something you should learn to incorporate in your game is wave-dash back into grab. If Fox/any character tries to approach you willy-nilly with aerials, WD back to dodge their aerial and just grab -> 0-to-death kill them off it.

Thanks a lot! He's definitely a better player than me although I struggle even against much worse foxes.

Do you know if jab to grab is safe on hit at low percents? I get running shined and grabbed a lot, and ftilt as you said gets punished hard on CC or if he dash dances back.

 

[Twinkles]

Thanks a lot! He's definitely a better player than me although I struggle even against much worse foxes.

Do you know if jab to grab is safe on hit at low percents? I get running shined and grabbed a lot, and ftilt as you said gets punished hard on CC or if he dash dances back.

Jab can also be CC'd, so it doesn't always confirm into grab, but it's faster than ftilt so it's harder to punish. Also, you can do more mixups after jab, like jab -> sh fair/dash-away instead of grab.

 

[DreadPirateRoberts]

A good resource to look at is DruggedFox's blog:

http://portraitinsmash.blogspot.com/

This has helped me a lot in understanding certain aspects of sheiks neutral game that I never knew or utilized. Hope that helps. I'd have to agree with everyone so far, that practicing movement is a key element for any character. Sheik isn't the best at approaching as fox is... obviously... so practice spacing. To understand proper spacing I looked at Fox guides or whatever MU i was having trouble with and understood the options they had. I learned the range of a SHFL'd nair and other approaching options. You can CC fox's nair, dair, jab, ftilt at low percents. So using this information you can get CC grabs. Understanding the character can really help understand what to do in certain situations.