JoeJoe's No Nonsense Thread.

[joejoe22802]

Shifting the Discussion to applied theory, let's talk about neutral position, specifically peach.

I really like the idea of mapping out what can be done to you and what can be done to your opponent with the constraint of being as close to the opponent as possibly given you are faster than your opponent(character and specific player).

First I'd like to list the things peach can do and the punishes for those things.
Then I'd move onto what sheik can do.

Peach has dash attack and grab if grounded.
In the air she can aerial that will potentially go into jabs or down smash. She can also just float.

In addition grounded and aerial options are changed by the existence of pulled turnips.

How do you guys deal with each of these things.

This seems like I'm pulling teeth but I believe explicitly understanding these things translates to better in game choices.

Please help me list out options that way we can learn optimally punishments as well as possibly multiple option covers.

As a side note I'd like to start with defense rather than offense since I believe it yields quicker short term improvement.

 

[SUNG666]

Just my thoughts and for discussion any kind of comment is welcome

I feel like working on offense would give you a quicker short term improvement

Super delayed nair / fair or AC fair into dash away on her shield, if she CCs D tilt/D smash will whiff and you can get a grab

Gotta punish hard with your grabs (I feel that it's very marthish when grab comboing peach, early % re grab DI away, no DI U smash, SH Fair early % into another regrab or F tilt depending on whether she'll want to shield or not. Also gotta get as many grabs as possible no point jabbing her everytime you shield pressure her if you aren't making use of that conditioning and grabbing right after your aerial or no aerial. If you're pressuring her by the ledge with multiple Fairs don't fair on one of them and waveland towards her grab or anything like that.

I think if the peach is fast enough she should be able to float cancel fair into jab before your boost grab will get her but sometimes I get it and sometimes I get hit by the jab so I'm not sure anymore. But it's a mixup though if she ever jabs you go for the CC grab so boost grab into her whiffed Fair and hold down anyway and if she jabs then grab. She could do D smash but I don't think peaches would do that if their fair whiffed until they realize what you're doing.

I try not to let her pull turnips and stay relatively close in case she does and I can boost grab but if she does have one I try and nair through it (I think your head part is pretty vulnerable so I try to nair at around the peak or coming down). Not entirely sure how well catching turnips work but my testing for it is in progress.

I see a lot of sheiks dash attacking at %s lower than they would be knocked down which spells doom. Just like how space animals or falcon overshoot their aerials, I use an overshot boost grab to catch her if she's trying to space grounded or if she thinks she's safe pulling a turnip (which is a pretty good bait against lower level players since they'll try and punish with a dash attack but gets CC hit instead).

Needles. I really like needles but I think most of her picking up turnips is caused by defensive needling. I think it's good if you have her frustrated and she just really wants to approach you (Peach's mobility isn't that good so it should be easy). I don't think I throw a lot of needles in the neutral game maybe sometimes to bait her into thinking she's safe and picking a turnip then I boost grab her..

 

[soap]

I use my offense as my defense most of the time

I played a peach alot last nite. I'll try to break my options down later tonite.

 

[Sweet™]

So, does a reverse uptilt lead to any true or specific combos on anyone?

 

[soap]

rev. utilt to ftilt/grab is a true combo on everyone

rev. utilt to dash back tipper usmash is a true combo on floaties at mid percents, fast fallers at high

it combos into literally anything you want tho (provided they don't crouch cancel)



I decided tho it's more trouble than it's worth trying to get in on them and set this up. It's good to know for when you happen to be in that situation, but as with most things it's better unforced.

spacing the second hit of the utilt facing forward combos nearly just as well. Makes sense considering it is the same move. The reverse utilt's utility lies more as a shield pressure mixup imo.






I'll do some peach stuff now too:


first off, in regards to her FC Fair, her distance and height play a critical role in how I go about countering it.

If she comes in fairly high, with say a turnip, just run directly under and fair/uair or bair behind her. Good peaches won't let this happen to them very often tho.

medium heights I will dash in and try to stuff it with a rising sh fair. I use the A button for this, and it's important that you get it out as soon as possible and that she is slightly above you. Your hitbox starts above you, and peach's fair goes top to bottom as well. So yours will beat it out almost every time. Her fair hits on frame 16-20, that is even slower than Ganondorf (14-19).

If she comes in low, has it timed and spaced to come out earlier, you just short hop over her landing and fair. She doesn't have many ground options to counter your fair.

dash dance grabs aren't very good against her float cancelled aerials because she can stuff them with dsmash and jabs. But you can just short hop over her landings and she has little options to counter your fair/bair/nair.

I get my grabs by mixing in empty short hop grabs off of aerial mixups, and chasing her rolls. Many peaches will start to roll away after missing with aerials if you consistently pressure their landings with short hops. Just empty hop and boost grab the rolls. This is also a good situation to fastfall into ground needles if you have a full charge.

Against her ground approaches, if you have the space, reverse short hop counters both dash attack and grab. I think it's important to short hop backwards because the animation gets your legs out of the way, which can be clipped by dash attack.

If she gets in and you don't have time to jump, I would just hold shield. Dsmash gives you a grab, dash attack gives you a grab or usmash out of shield. If she starts to grab, just roll away. Sidestep is countered by her dsmash and dash attack so I don't like those odds, but I will occasionally sidestep anyway when I am pretty sure the grab is coming. You can kind of tell with the spacing. Dash attacks will be maxed out in distance to try to catch your jumps, once they pass a certain point they usually will grab.

I much prefer to not be shielding, but you need to know your options out of there as well. You do not want her wailing on your shield with Low Float cancelled aerials that is for sure.

I happen to base this matchup around fair interception, and fair shffl traps. You can actually apply these fundamental spacing skills to every matchup.

Spacing skills are actually fairly universal against all characters. It usually comes down to, what character takes which options away.

 

[bubbaking]

I hate Peach. Dsmash is stupid.

 

[soap]

I hate Peach. Dsmash is stupid.

it really isn't that bad

 

[soap]

Past couple weeks been trying to get real real comfortable with dash cancel ftilts and utilts. Like doing them as quickly and smoothly as possible. So many combo and approach applications.

Trying to get comfortable with stuff like, fox trot back, dash back in with an utilt

Also, practicing in training mode with fox on evade, running up to him and catching his crossover jump with an ftilt

fundamental stuff like that. Never really trusted my ftilt intercept timing

 

[bubbaking]

What is the benefit of fox trot back > dash back in over DDing?

 

[soap]

Dash dancing and fox trotting are essentially the same thing in the situation I am talking about.

I just call it fox trot cuz I want the longer dash back so I have space to dash forward into a run which can be dashcancelled into tilts/jabs/dsmashes

 

[KirbyKaze]

What is the benefit of fox trot back > dash back in over DDing?

wooooooooooooooooooooooooow

 

[bubbaking]

KK, I thought you ignored me so that this wouldn't happen.

 

[soap]

messing around with running fsmashes mid-combo

working my way down the usefulness gradient


help me out Tafo I hear you are good at these

 

[KirbyKaze]

Tafo I gave you a huge shoutout vs IB in our 5th match. Like, whatever I did vs Eggm will pale in comparison to this coming shoutout <3

Toph I did a SH fair nair in pools but it wasn't recorded - I will procure you that footage. It was even at a point where SH fair nair might be really practical (and, wouldn't you know it, it was during a combo - why is everything usable in combos?). That said, I am determined to make this happen and even find a use for it in regular matches just for funsies. I'm wondering if it has potential vs ICs like a ghetto version of Luigi's dual aerial pressure. If they can't punish with uair or u-smash OOS there's probably potential. Hmm... time to steal Hammertime for a while...

Okay so bad news first. I lost to Unknown today 3-2 on all BF in a really tight, fun set. Canadians love their BF. Sadly, GFs weren't played out 'cuz we ran out of time and I remain salty about that. I really wanted my rematch. And if all goes well, one more after that. Sigh. I don't even care that we split 1st and 2nd... I actually just wanted to play it. I /hate/ losing.

In bittersweet news, I also beat IB today 3-2 on all BF in a really tight, fun set. That might not sound impressive but don't sleep on IB - he's working hard to get back into shape with Marth and his Falco has improved a hell of a lot (especially vs Sheik). He played like crap in LFs - I 3-0ed him and I think I did have him better figured out but he was clearly... lacking his unique brand of janky finesse and elegant spacing. And I death combo, so missteps are not allowed. I look forward to his improvement. I feel aspects of his Falco's Sheik game are really anti-KirbyKaze (I mean, they're good vs other things too but they're really effective vs how I do the Falco MU IMO) and that forces me to really step outside my comfort zone or else I might seriously lose in an ultra embarrassing fashion. And that's really good 'cuz I /hate/ losing.

Weon-X was our 4th place finish... I think he played below his level but I guess it was one of those days. Kind of sad he got 3-0ed by Unknown but Unknown looked really good in games 2 & 3. Pretty scary lol.

Pools was lol. Could get into more detail but it's regional nonsense. That said, I might start using Peach more in pools. She's really fun lately.

But yeah... this tournament is real eye opener. I can't be so complacent about my rank - as far as I can tell, there is a huge amount of contention by Unknown for my 1st place on the regional PR. And I'm not as foolproof vs Falco as I though. After another super close set with IB in a MU I normally **** (excluding PP and Mango) I clearly need new technology to counter the anti-counterfighting styles that are emerging here. And Unknown rocked me in some of the matches. Weon-X has been really tough in our casual matches. Evidently I need to step it up. Especially vs spacies. And APEX isn't far.

Fortunately, nobody lives far either. Man, sometimes I freaking love my region. It's so good for improvement.

I hope I can **** at APEX.

Uhh random thing... been experimenting with Sheik's FJ. It's surprisingly usable... lots of random tricks with it. Like... it's really bizarre but really good sometimes to maneuver certain things that you can't move around with WD back or SH and vs Falco at bizarre moments

/fired up for improvement

 

[TaFoKiNtS]

soap- it ultimately depends on character. What character do you want me to explain?

KK - are vids up? =)

 

[soap]

I've always liked IB's style


I've been experimenting with buffer full hop backwards out of shield. It's a pretty easy versatile out.


Anyways, I like the spirit



Tafo, lets start with fox and marth

 

[KirbyKaze]

F-smash combos into dash attack on some DIs vs a lot of low weight, medium gravity characters like Pikachu. Odd, huh? Kind of cool.

I still dislike it but gimmicks sometimes catch people off guard. And it sometimes awkwardly covers a lot of tech options in edge trap situations... I still dislike that the 1st hit cripples its utility so much though. Seriously, if they take it even if they don't crouch it you can be punished by a ton of characters. How dumb.

I wish the hits had a damage distribution of 8 and 6.

It's okay after u-tilt on spacies if they wind up in front of you and kind of far, but too close to dash attack and when you don't want to f-tilt because the f-smash 'tracks' better by moving forward...

I still dislike it because you could just grab but I'm noticing more spots where it's not terrible.

 

[TaFoKiNtS]

Marth at mid % 20-40 is the ideal spot I use fsmash

Basically if I"m behind their shield, I do one of two things

1.) Grab
2.) F-smash

in fact i probably grab 80% of the time.

HOWEVER, if you are conditioning them to spot dodge at this point, then f-smash will get you an amazing punish of 2 hits (usually) --> dash attack --> fair. You have to ultimately just react to how they respond to your fsmash based on DI. sometimes they tech roll on the ground, giving you a regrab or a tech chase. Or they plop up, giving you a dash attack or a fair.

If the Marth catches on, then their natural response is only to roll. They can't really counter the fsmash behind their shield with OOS stuff. Marth's Dair oos is too slow because of sheik's deceptively low lag after the f-smash. So what you can after a while is cross up and go behind their shield, wait, and bait their roll.

 

[KirbyKaze]

I used to f-smash Marth after d-throw when he DIed away because it linked to dash attack.

M2K then showed me how dumb the CG is on him. And I felt silly.

 

[soap]

Marth at mid % 20-40 is the ideal spot I use fsmash

Basically if I"m behind their shield, I do one of two things

1.) Grab
2.) F-smash

in fact i probably grab 80% of the time.

HOWEVER, if you are conditioning them to spot dodge at this point, then f-smash will get you an amazing punish of 2 hits (usually) --> dash attack --> fair. You have to ultimately just react to how they respond to your fsmash based on DI. sometimes they tech roll on the ground, giving you a regrab or a tech chase. Or they plop up, giving you a dash attack or a fair.

If the Marth catches on, then their natural response is only to roll. They can't really counter the fsmash behind their shield with OOS stuff. Marth's Dair oos is too slow because of sheik's deceptively low lag after the f-smash. So what you can after a while is cross up and go behind their shield, wait, and bait their roll.

How do you generally cross up shields?

If you just run thru it, it's really easy to dash cancel a fsmash the other way, but I generally use a wavedash thru them if I want to turn around and grab cuz dash cancel turn arounds feel slow to me

I used to f-smash Marth after d-throw when he DIed away because it linked to dash attack.

M2K then showed me how dumb the CG is on him. And I felt silly.

o wow I tried this out, it's so fun. Maybe I'm just sick of chaingrabbing into usmashes.


This can be really useful in teams tho. You never really have too much time to chaingrab anybody. Some quick damage and possibly get them offstage, so you can possibly go help your team-mate

 

[J.Shadows]

Sheik sucks

 

[KirbyKaze]

Probably

But so does every other character

 

[kellyk1035]

shiek is the shi* and goes hard if not the hardest in the game!

 

[Jartravious]

what are the thoughts on autocancel aerials these days?

 

[bubbaking]

My fingers L-cancel every time but I feel like more than half of my fairs are autocancels.....

 

[soap]

If I'm gonna auto-cancel I don't press the button so my shield doesn't accidentally come up, even tho you can release it quick enough where it won't, I'm confident enough in my autocancel timings


sheik has the most relevant auto-cancels in the game I think. I don't do em just to do em but there are plenty of scenarios where they are just very natural to do

sh fairs, sh rising up air, sh rising bair, sh rising nair, full hop falling nairs, full hop fastfall fairs

there are a few different ways to autocancel your sh fairs alone. Rising sh fairs always autocancel. Peak of the short hop and fastfall at same time. Slight delay, no fastfall. Most platforms you can fall thru no fastfall fair and they autocancel.


As far as the benefits of autocancelling, I think they are great. Really helps to punish people that sidestep aerials, and to cover rolls better. Anything that makes you faster is good.

 

[Gea]

Yeah, the fact that you can do fairs from platforms and have them autocancel makes them extremely relevant and useful. I pretty much agree with your post, Soap.

Bubba, you just need to sit down and lab it out. I was the same way until I noticed things like Soap posted. Once you get the feeling for it, it's just like learning anything else.

 

[KirbyKaze]

what are the thoughts on autocancel aerials these days?

It's misunderstood.

ACing your aerials often requires not fast falling and/or starting the attack relatively early into the jump (character dependent).

There are some advantages to each. Not fast falling has the advantage of gaining you more time to exert air control over your character and drift/fade (whichever term you like more) away or towards your foe. This can have some super useful effects like making an attack placed early in the jump (like Falco dair) safe from shield grabs (see: mostly Mango, but not every Falco ever). I'm admittedly a fan of not fast falling on a lot of things for a whole bunch of reasons, but I don't feel like getting into it.

Okay, so I'm gonna talk about rising AC aerials because I want to debunk some noob opinions. I feel people think the difference between l-cancel time on a Sheik aerial (8-11 is her l-cancel time for a given aerial vs. 4 frames of autocancel). Yes, 8-11 are bigger numbers than 4. However, despite this, ACing a move can be just as dangerous as l-canceling if not moreso because you're hitting their shield relatively early into your jump and then still have all that hang time before you can follow up with an action aside from drifting - this often makes you a target for a whole manner of nonsense. Sheik's fair is kind of an exception to this rule because of its specs - its hitbox vanishes on frame 8 (last frame of 'hit' property is 7) and then it ACs frame 11. This means her SH FF AC fair has 8 frames inactivity between hang time and AC time - the same amount of time as its l-cancel. So it allows you to attack earlier than a lowest-point aerial, but retain the same degree of safety. Which is simply splendid.

With combat stuff I could go on forever so I'm just not going to bother going through all of them. In general I think players with good reaction times / timing will be able to abuse you for trying to use FJ nairs, SH nairs, or SH bairs work since these all require you to do them immediately into the jump and so forth, which is awful vs the three good dash dancers, Peach (dash attack, anyone?), smart Puffs, other Sheiks, etc. AC fair is monstrous and has a million ways of being used. That said, goofy things work a lot in this game so don't be afraid to try it. I've gotten success with them and also failed with them so it's really a case-by-case.

 

[bubbaking]

In general I think players with good reaction times / timing will be able to abuse you for trying to use FJ nairs, SH nairs, or SH bairs work since these all require you to do them immediately into the jump and so forth, which is awful vs the three good dash dancers, Peach (dash attack, anyone?), smart Puffs, other Sheiks, etc.

Excuse my ignorance, but who exactly are the "three good dash dancers"? I'm guessing two of them are obviously Fox and Falcon, but is the third one Falco?

Edit: Oh wait, it's probably Marth...

 

[soap]

everyone is a good dash dancer vs. sheik's aerial mobility

you should not be aiming to land something like a full hop nair on an active mobile opponent. You use the nair to stuff something like a predicted jump, and if they did not jump and hopefully are still below you in shield, you still have the nair hitbox out to offer protection on the way down

autocancels are not for approaching (cept for fair). They just add a degree of safety to certain zoning/interception tactics.


Since the fair is the most versatile, lets talk about that some more.

 

[joejoe22802]

I love autocanceled aerials in a defensive way, I don't really do it on shield. I usually do SHnoFF Nairs to wall people off or SHnoFF Bairs for the same reason. Placing the hitbox out for that long is an awkward timing for a lot of people plus not having to l cancel gives me power to focus on whether or not im gonna tilt/dash away/grab after the aerial. i love it

 

[KirbyKaze]

The three good dash dancers are Fox, Falcon, and Marth. But yeah like honestly if we're just going for usable vs Sheik's aerials then completely unordered and probably incomplete I'd say Doc, DK, Mario, Pikachu, another Sheik, Ice Climbers, Falco, and Peach all have the right mix of dash movement and options out of dash to make stuff happen vs Sheik with some amount of regularity or effectiveness. Basically you just need a decent range-speed ratio and to have some kind of grab (that can feasibly hit), dash attack, or aerial (often uair but not always) that can sneak underneath Sheik's numerous threats, punish the lag, etc.

Sheik's low aerial mobility actually introduces a lot of problems to her in a few very subtle regards but I'm not talking about them because the other characters may be watching.

 

[bubbaking]

Wise decision. So I've really got to make it a point to stay grounded...

 

[KirbyKaze]

I think for beginners the ground with Sheik should probably be abused unless you're fighting Falcos, ICs and Puffs. In which case you kind of have to learn the air because there's literally no choice - a mix of being ungrabbable (for the last two) for a good chunk of the MU, the first two having a bizarre variety of ground control, and all three being vulnerable in convenient spots for your fair and bair make the air a necessity. However, vs anyone else, ground is definitely more beginner friendly because it affords more 'get out of jail free' cards. Namely crouch, sidestep, roll, longer movements (all dash related things & WD), your FJ & SH, and shield.

However, air becomes a lot better as you get better. Air is really good with her because the traps you make from the air afford more elaborate transitions because you can action throughout the entire sequence until you commit to an action (attack or otherwise). You can tweak her FF to adjust air time, to produce different paces when appropriate. You also will realize her ground has some limitations - her options out of dash dance are not as good as Fox, Marth's, or Falcons; WD back commits her for 14 frames so its role is mainly defensive and it can't transition to other stuff immediately, limiting its utility. Her aerials are also really huge priority, remove the chance for clinking (which can be a problem vs Sheik-savvy opponents who clink a weak move like Mario's dash attack or jab into her f-tilt or something and then use the fact that they cancel at the same time or more quickly [read the rules of clinking if you don't understand, I'm not typing them out] to attempt to engage her), are generally stronger than her non-grab ground moves vs crouches and shields, and so forth. This makes the air a very interesting option that compliments her existing strengths.

 

[soap]

I started as an aerial sheik, then I learned ground

I got by with an aerial based style against everybody, but her ground game is much more direct and confrontational.

But like you said you will run into problems against certain characters by sticking to ground moves. That is why Drephen always struggled against those stupid characters (ic's, puff). Being forced into heavy aerial spacing was totally out of his element. He did not even use the c-stick to space out fairs, which he did not really need to against spacies.


Ftilt/grab/dsmash/dash attack is an amazing array of ground approaches, you just gotta pick your spots to jump over marth dtilts, and samus dsmashes and the like (IC's everything)

 

[KirbyKaze]

If I had to summarize how I feel Sheik should first be learned (without getting into advanced techs since I'm assuming everyone should know those) it would be

Beginner:
1 - Make your f-tilt as scary as possible
2 - Make your grab as scary as possible
3 - Learn where to dash attack, d-smash, and use her other tilts
4 - Learn how to shield and work out of it

Somewhere you want to learn some basics to gimping too

Intermediate:
5 - Learn how to use your options out of SH
6 - Learn how to WL
7 - Air needles
8 - Ground needles
9 - Comboing with aerials and controlling trajectories

Advanced
10 - I'll let you know when I've figured it out

 

[bubbaking]

Wow, I tried to integrate needles as a huge part of my gameplan all too soon, I guess. So many other things to work on...

 

[soap]

Wow, I tried to integrate needles as a huge part of my gameplan all too soon, I guess. So many other things to work on...

don't worry, I did the same thing


but what good are limiting mobility with needles if you don't have fundamental approaches to follow up with

 

[KirbyKaze]

That's just how I'd teach it from scratch. Obviously other training orders exist. I only like that way as much as I do because I feel ultimately Sheik wins because of her attack vs. attack / attack vs. evasion / attack vs. shield interactions (she's the action on the right btw if that's unclear). She's great at combat. Needles are often used as a way to avoid combat, especially when learned first. I also feel the point of needles (pulling them towards you, breaking down movement camps) is way easier to learn and digest once you've gained some serious combat competence first. All of a sudden when they stop trying to bait you and close distance, it's not so scary if you've got tons of practical experience & built up your strengths there.

But honestly you can play her a ton of different ways. Don't feel bad or like your method was suboptimal or whatever. Sheik's deep enough to support a lot of playstyles.


edit: I transferred from ICs so I was obsessed with her grab and made it my focal point. Shield was also a big deal, and moving out of it. Lucky me

 

[weon - X]

david i dont even remember the last time we played lol