Is Sheik impossible to beat?

[Tumultus]

Sheik arguably has no bad match ups (Luigi gets close) but I feel like she has a terrific MU advantage against us. I consider myself a very competent Samus. Yesterday at a tournament I played a very good Sheik and was absolutely manhandled. I know Sheik's gameplay enough and I felt there was little I could do to put a stop to it.

Her needles out camped me and frustrated me. He would crouch under many approaches, even zair or missiles, and getting away from the frame trap stuff was insanely hard. Samus just isn't quick enough to cope, and to top it off she can't really spam too much to really put a dent on a smart Sheik.

Up-b out of shield is invaluable to us, but it doesn't work on Sheik's spaced fairs on shield. It works on nair just fine, but other than that a Sheik is not going to overcommit just so you can hit them with the screw attack. Good luck grabbing her, too. You're gonna need a read because it's very difficult to catch her on a shield grab.

I'm so frustrated by Sheik, honestly. I know there's a MU thread but I feel we need to organize it better and talk about each character on a weekly basis. I needed my own thread to vent as much as I could.

 

[KayJay]

Against sheik you have to abuse that Sheik has no brainless killsetup. One of sheiks best killoption is to bait an airdodge after sheiks throw and up.B
As long as you jump after been thrown, sheik will have a hard time killing you.
Perfect framed RAR is very effective against sheik in the neutral, it outprioritizes sheiks fair. Use Bombs to make the neutral yours. Dont charge your Beam in the neutral, it will get needled.

 

[Afro Smash]

Most Likely, nair oos can help, but her frame data and inability to be punished off stage make this match up hella difficult if not impossible against a good sheik.

If customs become standard relentless missiles might be able to save us, as it stands we're better off picking a secondary

 

[GdspdUblkprzdnt]

Against sheik you have to abuse that Sheik has no brainless killsetup. One of sheiks best killoption is to bait an airdodge after sheiks throw and up.B
As long as you jump after been thrown, sheik will have a hard time killing you.
Perfect framed RAR is very effective against sheik in the neutral, it outprioritizes sheiks fair. Use Bombs to make the neutral yours. Dont charge your Beam in the neutral, it will get needled.

I feel finding moments to charge your CS in the neutral is important. Needles have a bit of start up lag and you can react to it as far as I can remember.

I've gone up against some pretty tough Sheiks on FG and Up B and U airs were the most important tools for keeping them at bay. If they're honorless they'll needle camp the **** out of you though and that's a toughie.

 

[ChoZoX]

I'm guessing you played Wizzrobe?

Yeah. Charge your beam in neutral. You want to bait the needles and punish it with beam every time and make use of short hop air dodge to uair to keep them off. Never screw around with Sheik off stage. Respect her.

 

[Tumultus]

It wasn't Wizzrobe, but I've seen him play a few times and it's not something I'm looking forward to. I played ?. He's pretty good, but what probably didn't help is that his main sparring partner is Mattopia, a Megaman. So he's probably used to dealing with projectiles that attempt to interrupt the flow of his neutral. Coming into our match it's likely he knew what tools would frustrate me.

The charge beam in neutral yields some success, I find. You'll probably be needled but as long as you time your shield well, you should be okay charging it little by little. ChozoX is right, we should try to punish the needles every time with a charged shot, fully charged or otherwise.

ChozoX, I saw an old set of yours back in some thanksgiving tourny against a Sheik and you did very well with the bombs. So yeah, KayJay does have a point that bombs help the neutral shift in our favor. I did get one shield break on ? during my set with bomb + charge shot.

 

[Tumultus]

Also, the short hopped air dodge into u-air is something that's still lacking in my gameplay.

Are you finding that it's better to RAR and then go for the short hop? That way if you cross their shields you're facing the right way to go for the jab when you land. That's probably the best way?

Has anyone found if the up-b is guaranteed out of a hit confirm from a SH up-air? It seems that way

 

[-_ellipsis_-]

How much of an advantage would a PP uptilt give on a fair approach? I'm doing the math in my head because I'm at work. I'm wondering if it would create the space necessary for sheik to whiff while still hitting?

 

[Tumultus]

If that doesn't work out, what about a PP charge shot? The charged shot sending you back by itself might provide enough pushback (in addition to the PP) that you should be safe from the f-air approach (and still shoot Sheik)

 

[DungeonMaster]

Has anyone found if the up-b is guaranteed out of a hit confirm from a SH up-air? It seems that way

It actually isn't a true combo, the hitstun on the weak hits of the up-air are insufficient to cause a tumble animation. I tried and tried and tried, I could never get it to register more than 12 damage.
That being said, and as RoachCake pointed out in the combo thread, it's very very close to being a true combo. It's likely only 1 frame off. As well as d-tilt, if your opponent does not have a correct reaction buffered these are very solid strings.
Hell when I get stuck in a multi-jab because Samus has essentially nil hitstun tumble, I will DI into them during the jab and up-air. If they are mashing "a" they get popped up, which buffers a neutral air and you can hit them with pretty much anything, including up-tilt.

 

[Strider755]

Sheik arguably has no bad match ups (Luigi gets close) but I feel like she has a terrific MU advantage against us. I consider myself a very competent Samus. Yesterday at a tournament I played a very good Sheik and was absolutely manhandled. I know Sheik's gameplay enough and I felt there was little I could do to put a stop to it.

Her needles out camped me and frustrated me. He would crouch under many approaches, even zair or missiles, and getting away from the frame trap stuff was insanely hard. Samus just isn't quick enough to cope, and to top it off she can't really spam too much to really put a dent on a smart Sheik.

Up-b out of shield is invaluable to us, but it doesn't work on Sheik's spaced fairs on shield. It works on nair just fine, but other than that a Sheik is not going to overcommit just so you can hit them with the screw attack. Good luck grabbing her, too. You're gonna need a read because it's very difficult to catch her on a shield grab.

I'm so frustrated by Sheik, honestly. I know there's a MU thread but I feel we need to organize it better and talk about each character on a weekly basis. I needed my own thread to vent as much as I could.

I'm having trouble as well. I can't even handle CPU Sheiks with Samus anymore, even with the Slip bomb. Sakurai, what were you thinking? It makes no sense for ZSS to be better than with her power suit.

 

[leiraD]

Against sheik you have to abuse that Sheik has no brainless killsetup. One of sheiks best killoption is to bait an airdodge after sheiks throw and up.B
As long as you jump after been thrown, sheik will have a hard time killing you.
Perfect framed RAR is very effective against sheik in the neutral, it outprioritizes sheiks fair. Use Bombs to make the neutral yours. Dont charge your Beam in the neutral, it will get needled.

KayJay, can you post your games against Mr.R? I watched them last week, but can't find them now.

 

[The_Woebegone_Jackal]

I disagree with the idea of respecting her off stage. She has the uncanny ability to escape most of our kill setups on stage unfortunately. What I've noticed, so long as you can get her off stage, you have more options. The obvious being that if they use bouncing fish as a recovery a lot you just charge shot it. However their up-b has that slight lag to it befor it actually grasps the stage and that is hella easy to take advantage of. If you're good you can time the bair, but i honestly find that uair catches easier but even better a raising fair can drag them down slightly for a stage spike. Disrespect them, they would do the same to you.

 

[kxiong92]

I disagree with the idea of respecting her off stage. She has the uncanny ability to escape most of our kill setups on stage unfortunately. What I've noticed, so long as you can get her off stage, you have more options. The obvious being that if they use bouncing fish as a recovery a lot you just charge shot it. However their up-b has that slight lag to it befor it actually grasps the stage and that is hella easy to take advantage of. If you're good you can time the bair, but i honestly find that uair catches easier but even better a raising fair can drag them down slightly for a stage spike. Disrespect them, they would do the same to you.

You can actually hit Sheik before she grabs the ledge with Samus' utilt if you timed it perfectly.